8. Continued Production Of Dark Troopers
In contradiction to number 9, sometimes a top secret expensive weapon can give you an advantage in war. One that the enemy will never see coming and not have the slightest hope in the universe of stopping. Enter the Imperial Dark Trooper, a seven-foot tall robot who fights better than any human being, has a jetpack, is faster than Speedy Gonzales on crack, fires a supercharged weapon that shoots both high concentrated plasma and rockets, and is considerably scary looking. A simply platoon's worth of these guys is enough to wipe out entire outposts and bases of their enemy. They work fast and leave nothing, but death in their wake. After a few minutes whatever was their target is gone, reduced to smoldering ruins. Sometimes their victims don't even have time to make a distress call. Needless to say, they're bad news, though they remain pretty much unheard of. Fortunately for the good guys, the Empire never got around to truly deploying the Dark Troopers in great numbers like the Trade Federation did with their goofy battle droids. You may already know the history from playing the classic first-person shooter Dark Forces, of course: the mercenary Kyle Katarn was able to locate the secret production facility for Dark Troopers in space. Once aboard the Arc Hammer, he destroyed the ship and the Dark Trooper menace was put out of commission to almost never be seen again. The question is why did the Imperials stop making them? Perhaps they were prejudiced from the start against having mechanised warriors when they were so easily defeated in the clone wars, but come on we're talking about a warrior that can level mountains here. Why didn't they build more than one production facility and use Dark Troopers solely in their battles and invasions, keeping the regular storm troopers in reserve? It's not like they were running out of money.