The release of Star Wars introduced moviegoers and the world to wonderful robots named droids. Since the first film, A New Hope in 1977, the number of droids and their different designs and personalities has created a rich gallery of both heroic and villainous mechanical characters that drive stories in a galaxy far, far away.
There are a vast number of droids generally categorized depending on their functionality and designed purpose. Some are copilots on starships, assassins in the Outer Rim, personal assistants, and many more fulfill other roles throughout galactic society.
Often, those roles were considered too dangerous or menial for a variety of species. Cheaper and more common models typically lacked independent thought and all droids were considered expendable, durable, mathematically precise, capable of incredible memory recall, and totally subservient. Designers had to grapple with the choice of whether to make the droids smarter and thus less obedient or make them more obedient but far less helpful.
A droid was officially considered, “a mechanical being with a self-aware consciousness, as distinguished from a computer by having a self-contained method of locomotion.” Droids were categorized by five distinct classes.
Below are the different classes and the type of droids that fall under each of the five classes. The classes encompass virtually every environment in which a droid would be needed and include all facets of galactic civilization.
Class One: The Intelligent Calculators
The droids found in class one worked in the specialized fields of medicine, physical sciences, mathematics, and physics. They were rarely used for everyday situations and typically acted as advanced computers that performed complex equations.
These droids were generally much more expensive than the droids in any other category because of their incredible abilities. The droids in class one included: mathematics droids, physical science droids, medical droids, and biological science droids.
Class Two: Applied Science
Class two droids were designed and programmed for technical sciences such as engineering. They applied their advanced technical knowledge to everyday, real-world situations unlike the droids in class one.
This was the class that the much-beloved R2-D2 belonged to for his ability to interface with starships, repair the ship, and calculate difficult hyperspace calculations in seconds. The helpful droids of class two included: engineering droids, environmental droids, astromech droids, and exploration droids.
Class Three: Human Interactors
The droids of class three included droids who were specifically programmed and designed to interact with humans. The droid C-3P0 was a member of this class and class three encompassed child care droids, servant droids, and tutor droids.
Class Four: The Fighters
Class four droids were designed with comprehensive knowledge of combat and warfare. This category of droids is one of the earliest and class four droids were always armed with weapons.
These droids included: battle droids, security droids, gladiator droids used to entertain the masses, and the feared assassination droids.
Class Five: The Laborers
The mechanical members of class five were the most encountered category of droids in galactic society. They were programmed to perform menial labor that organics simply did not want to do.
There were three types of class five droids and they included: hazardous-service droids, labor-specialist droids, and general labor droids.
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