First Order TIE Fighter Elite Squad
SPOILER ALERT: This article includes potential spoilers for the film Star Wars The Force Awakens!
The image you're seeing here is an official graphic provided by Lucasfilm and Disney to product designers who obtain rights to produce official Star Wars items of all sorts. The image comes with the pack provided with the first wave of graphics for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Above you'll see The First Order, in the center you'll find the words ELITE SQUAD, and below you'll find TIE FIGHTERS, as well as the phrase Crush the Resistance. The flower symbol at the bottom represents The First Order, sort of an extra-blooming version of the original Empire logo.
To the left and to the right you'll find words written in the "basic" language in Star Wars. Translated using the Aurebesh (the basic alphabet), we see that the words are as follows:
• stealth
• villain
• effective
• precise
• vicious
• merciless
Pretty harsh and rudimentary.
Based on images from the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures game (via XWMG), we can see several squadrons of TIE-Fighters that'll be active in The First Order:
• Epsilon Squadron
• Zeta Squadron
• Omega Squadron
The Greek roots of these words are represented in the Star Wars universe in the Tionese alphabet. This alphabet comes from the planet Tion, from the Outer Rim (S-5), as described in the Star Wars Wikia, citing sources that are no longer consider canon.
ON the other hand, you'll find the character named Tion, otherwise known as Lord Tion, a member of the Empire and his ship the Devastator in the novel The Rebellion Begins by Michael Kogge. He originates from the 1981 expanded radio adaptation of the original Star Wars film.
Do all of these things have to do with one another directly? Nah. Probably not. But it's fun to consider how deep the roots of this legend go.
Each of the three squadrons listed above will be in all-black or mostly-black ships, while the Elite Squadron will be in red - and they have a bit more compact look to them, as well.
Above you’ll see an Elite Squadron TIE. Notice the additional wing reinforcement and the red paint job. Below you’ll see another Elite Squadron TIE.
VIA StarWars.com’s Databank Entry on FIRST ORDER SPECIAL FORCES TIE FIGHTER: “The elite of the First Order starfighter pilots have access to specialized craft, such as two-seater TIE craft outfitted with enhanced weapons and sensor systems.”
The site includes the image you see here - straight from the trailer for the film, from a scene in which Finn and Poe Dameron steal a TIE (an Elite TIE) to escape the Star Destroyer they’re in, flying just above Jakku.
The GIF you’re seeing above shows the same TIE falling towards Jakku after having exited the Star Destroyer. They don’t get away without damage, but considering the state they’d have been in if they’d been using an original TIE from the Empire days, they’ve done pretty good. Both Finn and Poe survive this fall - as evidenced by the trailer showing them passing by one another later in the film.
Below you’ll see a couple of images from the TOPPS Star Wars Journey to Star Wars The Force Awakens collection - also in the Star Wars Card Trader app. Here you’ll see how different the Elite Squad TIE is from the Black Squad. We might just see the three squads above be called Black Squad in the movie, or we might not see any TIEs referred to as anything at all, it might not be important to the story.
As for the future of the expanded universe - that’s another story entirely.
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