T5-G3 was a labor management droid who worked in the New Republic's Ministry of Science, modified by Imperial technicians to operate as an espionage droid. Around 7 ABY, the droid was twice detected by the New Republic sending short transmissions from its supply convoys. While the short nature of the transmissions allowed T5-G3 to avoid detection, a bounty of eight thousand credits was issued for the droid's capture. This information was noted in General Airen Cracken's datafile of persons of interest to the New Republic, Wanted by Cracken.

Biography[]

T5-G3 was a labor management droid working for the New Republic's Ministry of Science in a role that allowed it to coordinate the tasks of other droids. The droid was modified by technicians of the Galactic Empire to spy on the New Republic and provide information and data to the rival government. These modifications—including subversive programming and a concealed subspace tight-beam transmission core with which to communicate with the Empire—resulted in a short in T5-G3's logic dispenser. This short adjusted the personality and behavior of T5-G3, who would occasionally act in a quirky manner.^[1]

On two separate occasions^[1] around 7 ABY,^[2] T5-G3, by then an espionage droid, was detected by the New Republic sending tight beam transmissions from vessels in the government's supply convoys. These transmissions were short, which allowed T5-G3 to avoid and escape detection as the convoy's communications specialists could not identify the source of the transmissions. In preparation for additional transmissions, engineers installed special sensor packages onto ships within the convoys that would allow them to pinpoint T5-G3's location seconds after a transmission was detected.^[1]

In 7 ABY,^[2] New Republic General and Supreme Commander of Intelligence Airen Cracken released a datafile of persons of interest to the New Republic. Titled Wanted by Cracken, it included the limited known information of T5-G3—the detected transmissions made by an unknown droid—and a general caution to the New Republic's agents regarding espionage droids in a section titled "Special Cases." T5-G3's detected activities resulted in a bounty of eight thousand credits to be issued for its capture. As T5-G3's exact droid model was not known, an image of a standard 3PO-series protocol droid accompanied the entry within Wanted by Cracken to demonstrate the generic and innocuous nature of espionage droids.^[1]

A group of New Republic agents were tasked with finding and capturing T5-G3 after the release of Wanted by Cracken. They successfully located the espionage droid due to a combination of the droid's increasingly unusual behavior and the installed sensor packages in the convoys.^[1]

Characteristics[]

T5-G3 had a humanoid body with a single head, two arms, and two legs. The modifications to T5-G3 meant the droid had dual-mode programming—the droid would complete its normal functions as a labor management droid, unaware of actions completed as part of the espionage droid's programming. The droid's role allowed it to order other droids to retrieve data or perform a set of tasks, passing the correlated data to its programmers. T5-G3 could even memory wipe and reprogram those droids that questioned these orders. While average labor management droids could be described as quirky, the changes to T5-G3 meant the droid was especially quirky. These behavioral eccentricities would increase in severity: the droid's performance would be hindered after six to eight months, before the droid would cease functioning completely.^[1]

Equipment[]

T5-G3 had a AA-1 VerboBrain, a broadband antenna receiver, a TranLang III communication module loaded with over seven million languages, and a vocabulator. It also had two audio sensors and two visual sensors, all attuned to the Human range of vision and hearing.^[1]

Behind the scenes[]

T5-G3 was mentioned in the West End Games' 1993 sourcebook Wanted by Cracken, written by Louis J. Prosperi for the company's Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The book uses a separate page with notes identifying T5-G3 for the gamemaster, keeping the identity and nature of the espionage droid secret to player characters. Illustrator Rob Caswell provided an image of a 3PO-series protocol droid to depict T5-G3.^[1]

Caswell felt that the image of the droid was iconic but boring given it required no original design in its creation. Despite this, Caswell felt the image was "clean" and was impressed by the technical aspect of the image to a degree that they were surprised this was one of their own artworks. Caswell also likened the droid to the character Bender,^[3] a foul-mouthed robot from the animated television series Futurama.^[4]

Sources[]

• Wanted by Cracken (First mentioned)

Notes and references[]