Why the RED GUARDS are so Terrifying- Star Wars Explained

standard attention initiate and welcome to the academy when it comes to militaries one of the most natural questions that arises is who is the best of the best in our recent datacrons we've been going over the most elite classes of Stormtroopers in the Empire as well as plan to make a video on the most deadly classes of Clone Troopers in the Republic well now we have decided to move up in the food chain and go about as high as we can go in the Imperial chain of command without hitting Vader or the emperor himself today

we wanted to talk all about the different variants and types of The Emperor's Royal Guard we did a holocron some time ago about the Royal Guards themselves but we wanted to go through and specifically detail the different kinds of guards that were available to the emperor most of these that we find come from the Force Unleash game as Galen Merrick encountered quite a few of these variants on his quest against the empire so for this holocron we are going to go over each of the five Royal Guard types detailing their class strengths skills equipment and

overall effectiveness and then by the end maybe we'll have an idea of who was truly the greatest Royal Guard to begin we are going to do a quick review of the standard Royal Guards themselves the emperor's Royal Guard also known as the Red Guard are selected from the finest specimens in the Stormtrooper core and from other fine Warriors around 43 of these troopers at a time are whisked away to a tough training camp on the planet of yinchor here they are drilled day and night while being indoctrinated with complete and total loyalty to their Emperor

at the end of their training the finest from among them would be chosen by process of elimination until there were but two candidates left these trainees would be forced to fight each other in front of the emperor and execute the loser from 43 candidates at a time only one would ever be chosen from among them to ensure that the emperor had nothing but the absolute best each of these trainees are honed in the ways of achani and teres Kaze both of which are unique martial arts that are specifically designed to combat force sensitives in fact

practitioners of these fighting styles get so Adept at that they actually demonstrate the physical Feats of those who are forced sensitive despite them not being able to touch the force in open combat there were a couple of times where a single Red Guard turned the entire tide of a battle and sent the whole Army running the emperor's Royal Guard had a very specific kit that served them well whilst protecting their Emperor their armor in itself is no accidental design and it was directly derivative of the armor worn by the sun guards specifically of the thyrist

system this was meant to invoke fear and train combatants as the sun guards themselves had a legendary reputation and a reputation as Fierce Warriors who rivaled even the mandalorians their armor was far more durable than typical Imperial Armor and though they were a ceremonial cloak over it this did not hamper their movement and was mostly used to conceal the rest of their kit and armor beneath it the primary weapon that many will see being carried around by the royal guard would be the force Pike for those who don't know a force Pike is a meter

long pole attached to a hilt the tip of the pike was a vibro edged head with a stun function that could knock a full-grown Wookie unconscious doing so by using a concentrated nerve impulse similar to that feature in the stun setting of a blaster rifle at its lowest setting this spear would deliver excruciating electrical shots higher settings could result in paralysis and even death and at maximum setting it could slice through everything from flesh and bone to thin durastil plating beneath their robes They Carried a heavy Blaster pistol a light repeating Blaster and a vibro

sword along with a couple of grenades in certain scenarios some red guards also include Arc casters and micro homing launchers to their kits red guards also had with them a set of armor similar to that of a stormtrooper though colored red this was in case they were sent out into open combat along with other Stormtroopers for whatever reason as you can tell Royal Guards were absolutely no joke and their effectiveness is proven by the very fact that they are the ones protecting the emperor himself now that we got that out of the way let's dive

into their variants starting with the Imperial Senate guard The Originals these men wear armor similar to that of the royal guard but colored blue in instead of red these cards are different from the blue Senate guards as seen in the Clone Wars as they are much more finely trained they were trained solely in melee combat and equipped with cortosis staffs additionally these guards also carried personal energy Shields that were powerful enough to deflect lightsabers publicly the Senate guard's duties were just that to protect the Senate building as well as provide personal safety for high-ranking Imperial

officers however they did have many secret duties which included assassination and even hunting Jedi on Coruscant at some point we see this in the Force Unleashed as many Senate guards were on Cloud City hunting for Jedi General Ron Coda however they were put down by Starkiller shortly afterwards I would like to point out that we don't see a whole lot of these synaguards mostly because they were in Legends continuity and in the current Canon death Troopers are the ones that usually escort high-ranking Imperial officers and Senators their effectiveness was somewhat underwhelming as it isn't clear

to us if they actually came from the same trainees as the red Royal Guards did although I would hypothesize that they they did not these guards didn't seem to see much use as there were already several other Imperial divisions that are devoting to hunted Force sensitives there is also a subsect of the Senate guards that were known as Senate Sentinels I find their name to be cruel irony as their sole purpose was protecting the Jedi Temple from looters during the days of the empire in 2 BBY they wore robes and helmets similar to that of

the Senate guards but colored a slate gray and had a different looking face plate they wielded Force Pikes that could effectively block a Jedi's lightsaber which was essential for this task for a long time Senate Sentinels were thought to be cyborgs due to their robotic nature of their voices but this hasn't been confirmed or denied one of the finest Royal Guard variants on this entire list would be the Imperial Sovereign protector these Elite Guardsmen were distinguished by black accents to their typical all-red uniforms their cloaks didn't cover their bodies but they wore black capes instead

sometimes they were completely covered in Black cloaks and used scythe-like Force Pikes as their weapon these intimidating guard variant were LED mostly by a champion picked by the emperor and they directly answered to the emperor alone only the best of the elite Emperor's Royal Guard was specifically chosen to become a sovereign protector they endured years of selection procedures and training aimed at achieving perfection in soldiering extreme standards were set for their condition far beyond that of even a typical Royal Guard which was Peak human form already their combat training included the use of heavy Blaster

pistols and the deadly double vibroblade in fact what made them so deadly is the fact that they each had some Force sensitivity with them and which to work with and some were actually so well trained in the ways of the dark side that they could have potentially qualified for a dark Jedi position Sovereign protectors were sent out on vital missions by the emperor himself although some would stay behind to protect him on this subject of force sensitivity we will certainly talk about the emperor's Shadow guards clad in an all-black version of the royal guard uniform

the shadow guard was selected from the Red Guard if they proved to be strong in the force these men will saber Pikes which were long spear-like weapons tipped with a lightsaber blade each of them were trained specifically by Darth Vader with the primary mission of hunting Jedi they were silent and enigmatic Warriors that received orders directly from Palpatine the shadow guards commanded a great level of respect within the Empire's ranks and often LED squads of Stormtroopers into battle against the emperor's most hated foes they also demonstrated a great deal of Competency in the dark side

able to use Advanced Force techniques such as even Force lightning a while back we did a video all about the comparison between the shadow guards and the inquisitors and the shadow guard actually won by a landslide although they are legends and the inquisitors are Canon I liken my own headcanon to think that they were assembled after the inquisitors ultimately failed what if hypothetically after all of the inquisitors died out Palpatine acknowledged how disappointing they were and reorganized the Inquisition into the shadow guard so they were loyal powerful and above all competent the final guard type

we are going to talk about is one that I find to be incredibly fascinating and this is the saber guard these guys were not trained on ginchor like the others but rather were cloned and trained at a top secret facility on kamino they were known to have some degree of force potential and as the name suggests utilize two red lightsabers their armor is the most different from all of the other Royal Guard types and one that is the most stylish they sport a black tunic overlaid with gold colored armor pieces these pieces were resistant to

lightsabers their helmet resembled that of irregular guards but is t-shaped and glowing white unlike the others they don't sport any sort of Cape or cloak with their uniform although saber guards were much less skilled in the force than Galen Merrick they were able to erect a force barrier around themselves to Shield against his Force attacks saber guards were highly effective in how they executed their Maneuvers and were able to easily overwhelm a rebel ship and gain control of it however they proved to be almost ineffective against Galen unfortunately our only point of reference for judging

many of the Imperial Royal Guard variants is Starkiller himself since we only see several of them in the Force Unleashed games having said that their abilities are undeniably impressive and we hope that you think so as well but now my friends and acolytes what do you think of the Royal Guards and all of the different variants that we discussed today which one is your favorite and who of them is the most powerful if you like this type of series of us going over Elite classes be sure to like the video as well as let us

know down below and as always my friends May the force be with you and I hope that you're having a wonderful day