HK-47
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| HK-47 | |
|---|---|
| Droid type | Protocol / Assassin Droid (Programmed to have the functions of both) |
| Manufacturer | Darth Revan |
| Gender | Masculine programming |
| Height | 1.8 m |
| Sensor color | Red |
| Home planet | Malachor V |
| Master (owner) | Darth Revan, Jedi Exile |
| Affiliation | His current master |
HK-47 is a Hunter-Killer assassin droid from the 2003 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, its sequel, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion pack to the popular massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: Galaxies.
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[edit] Bio
- NB: In the game, Revan may be either male or female. He is canonically considered male, so will be referred to as such.
HK-47 was originally created by Darth Revan to be the quintessential assassin. While he is completely loyal - friendly, even - to those he identifies as "master," he has virtually no regard for any form of life, and is driven by an unquenchable thirst for blood. He characteristically uses the term "meatbag" when speaking of organic lifeforms, especially humans. This insult was originally used in passing by HK when insulting Revan's apprentice, Darth Malak. Revan found the insult (as well as Malak's annoyance) amusing enough to order HK to consider all organics as "meatbags."
He is a high-performance assassin droid who excels and delights in all manner of violence. Despite his inherently menacing appearance, he is often mistaken for a protocol droid by a number of characters in the game, and has used this to his advantage on more than one occasion, hiding his true nature. He actually has a number of protocol functions in addition to his lethal ones, and is fluent in Galactic Basic, a Tusken dialect, the beeps and whistles of astromech droids, and approximately 6000 other forms of communication.
[edit] Knights of the Old Republic
HK-47 is first encountered in a droid shop on the planet Tatooine, where he is available for sale as a protocol droid in Yuka Laka's droid shop, and advertised for his skills in the language of the Tusken Raiders. If the player chooses to purchase him, his true purpose and intentions shortly become clear, though he is unable to recall much of his past due to a problem with his memory core. However, if the player has the proper skills, repairs can be conducted to reconstruct HK-47's memory. The resulting stories detail HK's exploits concerning former owners. In all cases, he directly or indirectly kills his employer, still doing exactly what is asked of him, and shuts down until he is obtained by another unfortunate person (his programming prevents him from killing his master except by accident; if his master is killed, he shuts down automatically until manually restarted). The final narrative — the revelation that HK-47 is, in fact, the work of Darth Revan himself — is relayed only after the player realizes his own true identity as the former Dark Lord.
[edit] Knights of the Old Republic II
HK-47 is found in a compartment on the Ebon Hawk in a state of disrepair. With the addition of four missing vital parts, HK can come back to life and serve the party once more. Also in the sequel game there are droids that the Jedi Exile encounters that resemble HK-47 that call themselves the "HK series droids" or the HK-50s that seem to have been hired to hunt Jedi (including the Jedi Exile). The game files indicate that there was an HK factory that manufactured them, but that was cut from the game, and thus is considered non-canon, like the droid planet M4-78. Gamesave modders found the incomplete factory modules in KotOR II's game code and made it available for download to gamesave devices.[1]
In The Sith Lords, a great deal of information is learned about HK-47, if the player is willing to gain influence with the droid. HK-47 explains that his creation was inspired, however indirectly, from the actions of the Jedi Exile. The Exile's experiences using the mass shadow generator caused Revan to believe that, instead of mass slaughter, isolated and specific assassinations would be more effective for his goals.
According to the cut content, HK-47 was supposed to have died ensuring the Bao-Dur's remote succeeded in activating the Mass Shadow generators along with the remote, G0-T0 and a few HK-50s.
It is also learned that those Revan ordered HK-47 to kill were not killed out of hatred: every being Revan used HK-47 to kill was a destabilizer, a sentient whose actions would weaken the galaxy as a whole and the collapse of the Galactic Republic.
[edit] Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan
[2]Sometime between Knights of the Old Republic 2 and the Galactic Civil War, HK-47's AI was transfered into a computer on a Galactic Republic cruiser. Later the ship crashed on Mustafar and HK-47 contacted a group of spacers. He made them complete several quests such as invading a research facility and transfering his AI back into his own body which is very similar to his old one. HK-47 then declared that all humans on Mustafar were to be destroyed and he summoned an army of droids. The spacers eventually defeated HK-47 and his droids, or so it seemed. HK-47 had survived and gave the spacers a hologram of himself as a present. Engraved on the hologram was the word "meatbag".
[edit] Comic relief
While HK is an insatiably violent and bloodthirsty killer, especially by droid standards, he stands out as one of the biggest sources of comic relief in the game. He often makes sadistic or insulting remarks while perpetually retaining a cheerful, almost-aristocratic tone in his voice. At one point, HK informs the main character that the most optimal way of defeating a group of enemies is to simply toss grenades in every direction. The droid does not even care that the fight is taking place in a crowded bar. Other examples include, "Shall we find something to kill to cheer ourselves up?" and "It is suggested that you run while my blasters warm up, meatbag." Some also assume that his usage of the word "meatbag" and disregard to human life was inspired by Bender from Futurama, who is also a major provider of comic relief.
HK's mannerisms are also unusual; his voice is almost monotone, but at the beginning of a sentence he announces the context of his statement (e.g: "Warning: Touch the master's sword and lose an arm, meatbag." "Statement: HK-47 is ready to serve, Master."), (this is nearly identical to the speech patterns of the semi-sentient Daktaklakpak droids in Star Control 3), as in the "Definition: Love is..." speech. This has led to many parodies of HK-47 appearing in internet webcomics. However, HK does have human-like interjections, such as "Ehhhh" and "Shhh!"
It is unknown if Revan programmed some of HK's "morals and ethics," or if they simply formed on their own. One example of HK's quotes has that similar moral ambiguity prevalent in his programming: when the Exile asks HK-47 if he knows what love is, he responds: "Definition: Love is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope...Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds." Whether this is a metaphor with wisdom or merely more of the droid's bloodlust is arguable.
On multiple occasions in The Sith Lords, players can gain influence with HK-47 by committing acts of senseless brutality, such as blowing up a stranded scout (like the Mandalorian on Dxun), or inciting a riot. In fact, when the Exile informs HK that there will be no painful interrogation, the droid tells him: "Master, I'm no behavior droid, but it is obvious to me that you have some serious ethical problems that will need to be addressed."
On an interesting note, MK-09 from the Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance game exhibited similar trigger-happy behavior, and it is possible that MK inspired HK-47's behavior during the development of the first Knights of the Old Republic game.
One of the longest "comic relief" scenes in KotOR II involves this character. Completing some quests for a trader on the planet Nar Shaddaa unlocks several items for purchase, including the "HK Protocol Pacifist Package". If the player installs this item in HK-47, the normally bloodthirsty droid changes his language significantly:
- Answer: Oh, master, I could not allow myself to harm another. What if they have families? Or children? (Wistful) We must always think of the children. The littlest ones always suffer in war.
The player is forced to remove this module to restore HK-47's full functionality. HK-47 berates the player for installing this package. However, HK-47 does gain an in-game Wisdom bonus from this incident. The droid explains this Wisdom bonus in this manner:
- Conclusion: Still there was a brief moment where I felt like I almost understood why some meatbags choose peace and friendship over a high-powered blaster carbine.
[edit] Name
The developers of KotOR, BioWare, revealed where HK-47's name came from on their forums.[3] "HK-47 was the name of the drop ship that put you down on the planet surface in Shattered Steel." Shattered Steel is a 1996 action game developed by BioWare. Regardless, the name's resemblance to the popular name for the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947 assault rifle (AK-47) is still widely noted. The HK designation can also be interpreted as a reference to Heckler and Koch, the popular German arms manufacturer. In the original Knights of the Old Republic, the "HK" designation is said to stand for "Hunter-Killer."[4]
Drew Karpyshyn, lead writer of KOTOR, on his personal website said of HK-47's name: "My billiard team is the original source of the name for a popular character in the Knights of the Old Republic game. My team was made up of 4 players with the last name Harrison, and 1 player (me) with the name Karpyshyn. So with 4 H’s and 1 K we were going to call ourselves the HK-41’s. But we decided HK-47 sounded more intimidating because of the well known AK-47 rifle, so we became the HK-47’s. Several years later, when I went to work for BioWare, I tacked the name onto the homicidal Hunter-Killer robot assassin who joined the player on his quest."[5]
There can also be a connection drawn with Agent 47 of the Hitman series, who shares the same model number as HK-47. Both characters were created and engineered by their masters to become ideal assassins. In addition, the original title for Hitman: Codename 47 was Hired Killer 47, further adding credence to this theory. In Hitman, the game revolved around eliminating 4 of the 5 original creators, and in Knights of the Old Republic, HK-47 tells stories of the demise of 4 of 5 original owners. The revelation of the true origins of both are only revealed upon meeting this 5th "mystery" owner/creator. Also, in Hitman, the final mission has the hitman destroying the lab he was created in along with all his other clones. In Knights of the Old Republic II, HK-47's personal quest is to find the lab churning out the "cheap copies of himself" and destroy it (though this was later cut).
The 1984 action movie The Terminator describes "Hunter-Killer" cyborgs, another possible source.
[edit] Awards
At the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards, the HK-47 character won the category of "Original Game Character of the Year". This award "recognizes excellence in creating an original (non-licensed) character for games. The worldwide game development community nominates and votes on this award." [6]
This character also won the "NPC of the Year" category in Computer Gaming World's "Game of the Year Awards" for the year 2003. [7]
[edit] See also
- HK-50
- T3-M4
- Darth Revan
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
[edit] References
- ^ http://home.alltel.net/jls31/index.html
- ^ http://swg.allakhazam.com/db/quests.html?swgquest=1002
- ^ http://swforums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=219963&forum=91&sp=30
- ^ While the Ebon Hawk is being captured by the Leviathan, the player must chose who will affect a rescue. After choosing HK-47, the ship is boarded and there is a cut-scene where a Sith soldier is reporting to his commander on what they found. The soldier says they found a "deactivated hunter-killer droid."
- ^ http://www.drewkarpyshyn.com/hobbies.htm
- ^ http://www.gamedev.net/columns/events/gdc2004/view.asp?SectionID=40
- ^ http://www.ziffdavis.com/press/releases/040203.0.html
[edit] External links
- HK-47 at the Star Wars Databank
- HK-47 on Wookieepedia: The Star Wars Wiki
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