B1 Battle Droid: Does it scare anyone?

Came to mind as I caught part of Episode 1 last night.

Is there any source anywhere that has ever looked at B1 Battle Droids as threatening? Even their introduction in TPM doesn't paint them as particularly menacing, and the saga proceeds to go out of it's way to make them more and more of a joke in terms of their purpose for existence.

Short of seeing a wall of thousands of them marching at you...and then only if you are a primitive tribal people with energy balls, does it concern you.

Are B1s a total failure? Or perhaps a generic droid not originally intended to be a 'battle droid'?

 

They were just intended to be lightsaber fodder as far as I can tell.

 

I think the much more accurate term for them (from Cloak Of Deception) is security droids. Think less crack soldiers and more construction-site security guards.

 

That might be true OOU, but IU I'd point out that Filoni now sees them more like security droids (I'm not sure if he uses a specific term for it; it was in one of the behind the scenes videos). Essentially they can operate ships in basic manners, and a squad of them can provide adequate security for rich individuals (unless they need to stop two Jedi Knights). Those droids weren't meant for interstellar warfare, but they are fine for subjugation of a mostly peaceful planet. The Naboo apparently didn't have enough armed and trained security staff to stop the droids themselves, they could barely pull off the insertion operation, and apparently even the Gungan warriors weren't enough to stop an organized army.

So, is the droid there to scare anyone? Maybe it scares Neimoidians who find it morbid that ir looks like a skeleton. Other than that, I think unarmed/defenseless individuals anywhere might find an armed droid of an opposing army very much a threat.

But thinking about it, after seeing the beating that the Stormies got by a bunch of teddies on Endor, should we think that the stromtrooper helmet is the symbol of penultimate terror (right behind Vader) in the galaxy? Would Owen and Beru live if they just had had some stones to throw?

 

The scene in Cloak of Deception when the droids assassinate the Federation directorate was pretty impressive.

TC

 

I caught TPM last night too. I was wondering what those droids are that stack the dead gungans in a pile at the end of the fight are? They're jawa sized and have a flashlight for a head.

 

I found them scary in the clone wars cartoon when they vent the clones.

 

PK droids?

 

but I mean seriously, watching them "escort" prisoners around and such...one can't help but think anyone could escape them...security capabilities seems a stretch. The only thing that might stop you from making a run for it is the knowledge that a thousand other B1s are in the city around you, and one could get lucky shot in.

They've never been shown to be strong.

Never shown to be clever.

Never shown to have a particularly sophisticated sensory suite.

Is it a bargain basement army? The cheapest of the cheap? Is that what we are to assume about the TF, and what they assumed of the threat from Naboo...with subsequent "serious" conflicts earning the need of more battle-ready models?

Honestly, a squad of R2s with shock prods is more intimidating.

 

They're scary enough for regular troops I imagine.

 

TIE-Fighters weren't exactly the most advanced space-craft either. When you aim for superiority in numbers you don't go with the most expensive material or units, you go for what can accomplish the goal while being cheap and easy to mass-produce.

They were good enough to take care of any opponent who didn't have heavily armed forces, and their numbers were large enough to easily outnumber any army the Republic could put against them. Even elite-soldiers will run into trouble if they have to battle an endless stream of these droids.

 

How about an army of larger droids carrying these things:
[image=http://www.xiii.dk/ccccd/Weapons/_E-Web.jpg]

Oops, that's the Terminator universe. But it would still work in SW...

 

Terminator-type things is kind of how I picture the YVHs. Certainly, YVHs look a bit different, as they're not exactly totally human skeletons... but they're big, they're bulky, and they look like they could rip your head off.

Hmm... I suddenly really wish Legacy would involve a YVH droid army.

 

R2 droids are 2.5 times as expensive as B1s.

 

So exactly my point...the B1, even from an In-universe perspective, is cannon fodder...a set of eyes...that basically tell you where the enemy is when they stop responding to you.

Which leads to the next question...how ignominious must it be to die at the hands of droid given no regard?

 

I wish the B1 battle droids had been closer to the KotOR Battle Droids in design. And I wish, like the KotOR battle droids, they'd been voiced by Simon Templeman.

Alas.

 

How can they possibly scare anyone? They're comically voiced, something I think was deliberately intented for young audiences at the time, no?

 

Sure, they're dinky in the context of other droids. I'm sure a if a B1 walked up to one of us non droid habituated beings it'd be pretty freaky.

 

Wouldn't mess around with an army of very unsteady machines with guns.

 

The B1's weren't bad in Republic Commando, what with the red glowy eyes and oil bleeding.

And I want to contest their lack of intimidation value based on lackbuster performance, as I would for the Stormtroopers. These troops are only as dangerous as the scene they are in dictates, or the "Mook vs Hero" defence. While they act like buffoons around the heroes and select mooks (Ewoks in this case), there are also situations where they kick ass, and have their intimidation value skyrocket as a result.

Remember the lead-in TCW episode to the movie? The one on Christophsis, with the Ventress duel. Can't be arsed to look it up for a name. At the beginning you see B1's fighting clones with frightening capability. I got chills, because I had never seen a B1 that lethal before. Same for the AHN Stormies slaughtering rebels and Jawas (being the only ones precise enough to make those blast marks).

I find the lack of appreciation for the lethality of these mooks are unfairly coloured by their struggle against heroes who can defy the laws of probability and physics in their universe, where these mooks cannot. Both movies and EU are full of characters who, when compared with others of their species or facing the same opponent clearly have plot shields and insta-hit, insta-kill attacks. TCW frequently displays this beyond shadow of a doubt.

 

Not everyone thinks like the makers of the Kill-O-Zap, hey? At least the Mandalorians tried purposefully to use non-threatening protocol-like droid design in their BL droid army. Now whoever makes the Droideka destroyers & Zim's War droids, were thinking like the Kill-O-Zap makers, those droids are scary.

 

The Collicoids, who eat whoever shows up on their planet and happily cannibalize eachother, make droidekas.

 

One should remember that the B1 Battle Droids weren't the army of a nation, but the army of a large corporation with delusions of grandeur. No, they weren't horribly effective, they were just cheap. Despite being pretty unintelligent and useless, history has proven that if you can assemble a large enough army, regardless of how terrible they are in quality, you can win be sheer number.

The Trade Federation Droid Army seems to be built on exactly that principle: Attrition. Sure, it's easy to kill ten or twenty B1 Battle Droids, but hey, they are cheap, are likely easy to repair or cannibalize parts for, and if you have 21 Battle Droids for every one guy they've got, you win. A Blaster is always potentially deadly, no matter how inept the wielder.

 

I remember thinking the "oh, wait, umm...you're under arrest!" line was actually kinda funny.