TIE Phantom
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The V-38 TIE Phantom is a fictional prototype TIE fighter, from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. It makes its first appearance as a critical plot point in the game Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire, and can now be controlled en masse in the RTS Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption expansion pack.
The V-38 was produced by Admiral Sarn, and is equipped with a dangerous technology unseen in decades: a Stygian cloaking device. This cloaking technology was first used on the Sith Infiltrator used by Darth Maul during his search for Queen Padmé Amidala. The cloaking device utilized stygium crystals and could be used to attack other ships unseen until the moment of firing, thus getting the jump on their enemy. It was armed with three laser cannons mounted on its three wings, and two body mounted laser cannons. It required two pilots for operation.
What also made this craft unusual (in addition to cloaking technology) was the apparent addition of Life Support Systems, as Rookie One and Ru Murleen pilot one wearing standard stormtrooper armor (minus helmets), rather than the customary flight suit and helmet seen on all other TIE Fighter pilots.
[edit] Operational History
The TIE Phantom was the brainchild of Grand Admiral Martio Batch. Wanting to recreate the successful stygian cloaking screen used in the Sith Infiltrator, he ordered the superlaser platform Tarkin to the planet Aeten II, whose mines, the only known source of the rare stygium crystal, had dried up long before. Batch used the Tarkin to shatter the planet, releasing thousands of the crystals to be used in Batch's new project.
Prototypes were tested near Dreighton. When preliminary tests were completed, Lord Vader took control of the project and ordered the full scale production of the Phantom. Only the first wave of those, Sigma Squadron, was completed before the construction facility on Imdaar Alpha was destroyed. Admiral Sarn's command ship, the Super Star Destroyer Terror was also eliminated along with the base by a strike team consisting of 'Rookie One' and Ru Murleen.
The TIE Phantom has slightly above normal firepower for a starfighter of its class. This Stealth Fighter could move through space neither spotted on radar nor by any pilot until they were ready to strike. The greatest advantage of that craft was that they had a built in mechanism that allowed the pilot to fire its lasers at any time, and have the device automatically shut off and turn back on after every volley, which is similar to what World War I craft had when it came to being able to shoot their forward guns with a propeller in the way. This in effect allowed the TIE Phantoms to be virtually invisible 99 percent of the time.
The TIE Phantom was first deployed after the Rebel Alliance deployed the B-wing, and destroyed three X-wings in a demonstration. The YT-1300 freighter Corellia Star was able to find out about the TIE Phantom, but was captured trying to return to the Rebel Fleet. Two B-wings were then sent to investigate, but only one pilot (callsign "Rookie One") survived. He found the Corellia Star and piloted it out of Imperial hands. The TIE Phantom was deployed again when an Imperial mining facility was destroyed. It destroyed two out of three X-wings, but Rookie One again survived. The X-wing's flight recorder showed the capabilities of the TIE Phantom, and prompted Admiral Ackbar to launch an operation to destroy the Super Star Destroyer Terror (under the command of Admiral Sarn), the production facility for the TIE Phantoms. Rookie One and Ru Murleen were able to steal a TIE Phantom and destroy the Terror.
The TIE Phantom was taken back to the Rebel Fleet, but the designers had already predicted this: Each fighter had a self-destruct mechanism disabled by some imperial code, so that should one fall in the hands of the Rebels, they wouldn't be able to replicate its technology. After the defunction of this short lived fighter, its technology was thought to have been lost forever, but the blue prints for the phantom fighter were still on Coruscant and are available for members of the Emperor Palpatine's Inner Circle.
Following the failure of the TIE Phantom project, Batch fled into hiding, where he was later executed by his first officer.
[edit] Sources
| Vehicles of the Galactic Empire | |
|---|---|
| Entries in italics denote vehicles from the Expanded Universe | |
| Ground vehicles | |
| AT-ST | AT-AT | AT-TE | 74-Z Speeder Bike | Juggernaut | AT-PT | TIE crawler | |
| Starfighters | |
| TIE Fighter | TIE Interceptor | TIE Bomber | TIE Advanced x1 | TIE Avenger | TIE Defender | TIE/D fighter
TIE Hunter | TIE Phantom | Assault Gunboat | Missile Boat | Skipray Blastboat | A-9 Vigilance |
|
| Capital ships | |
| Star Destroyer | Super Star Destroyer | Executor | Nebulon-B Frigate | Corellian Corvette
Lancer-Class Frigate | Interdictor Cruiser | Carrack-Class Light Cruiser |
|
| Other | |
| Lambda-class shuttle | Death Star | Walker Dropship | World Devastator | Sun Crusher | |
| See also | |
| Star Wars air vehicles | Star Wars aquatic vehicles | Star Wars ground vehicles | Star Wars starfighters | Star Wars support craft |
|
