T1-LB

"He's one of the new kind of droids that doesn't like to move."

- Gryph

T1-LB, nicknamed "Elbee" by Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick, was a one of the LB-series bulk-loading droids in service for the Jedi Academy on the planet Taris in the year 3962 BBY. However, the droid's routine service took a drastic turn when the five Jedi Masters stationed at the academy orchestrated the murder their own Jedi Padawans and T1-LB became a witness to their plot. The Jedi Masters were members of the Jedi Covenant, a clandestine organization within the Jedi Order, and decided to attack their five Padawans in order to fulfill the Covenant’s commitment to prevent to rise of the Sith. However, by a stroke of luck, Zayne Carrick, one of the five Padawans, escaped the attack. Thus the Jedi Masters pinned blame for the crime on him and organized a hunt-down for the fugitive to finish what they started. In search for the cause of his situation, Carrick recovered T1-LB and discovered the motive behind the attack from the droid’s recordings. Afterwards, T1-LB accompanied Zayne Carrick on his journey, along with his other companions, Jarael, Camper, and Marn Hierogryph, to successfully clear his name.

Origin
Years before the Great Sith War, Kellenech Technologies constructed the T1 series droid model, classified as a fifth-degree droid. T1-LB belonged to the T1 subtype, the LB droid series, an acronym for "loader, bulk." The droid's large build, durability, and lack of a vocabulator emphasized the aim of function for heavy, menial tasks. Due to the model's hardy nature, T1-LB carried out his duties for decades until he employed his programmed function for the Academy located on the planet Taris.

Witness to a Crime
In the year 3,964 BBY, the five Jedi Masters stationed at the Jedi Academy selected T1-LB to accompany them to Taris's moon in order the set up a portable magnetic shield to safeguard against the constant meteor strikes on the moon's surface while the Masters waited for their Jedi Padawans to navigate through the hailstorm of meteor strikes in order to complete their final test before becoming Jedi Knights. In reality, the five Masters were also members of a secret cabal within the Jedi Order known as the Jedi Covenant, dedicated to a proactive stance against preventing the reappearance of the Jedi nemesis known as the Sith. Four of the Masters formed the First WatchCircle, acting as the foremost seers of the Covenant. On the moon, the four of them experienced a vision of their deaths and saw the galaxy in flames, along with a figure dressed in a red environment suit. At the time of the vision each of their Padawans wore a red suit while navigating by the Force to the camp. Thus the Masters concluded that one of them would bring about the return of the Sith and endanger the galaxy. Lucien Draay, the relay between the First WatchCircle and the Covenant, decided that they would strike down all five of their students in response to the vision when he discovered that T1-LB had just witnessed their entire discussion concerning the prophecy and the Padawans. Draay ordered the droid to walk off a cliff on the moon and used the Force to accelerate it down to the surface, breaking T1-LB apart on impact.

For days the droid’s remains lay on the surface until the arrival of Zayne Carrick, one of the Padawans stationed on Taris. By a stroke of luck he had escaped his Masters after they killed his four classmates and attempted to do the same to him. Since Carrick's escape was not planned, the Jedi Masters placed blame for the other Padawan's deaths on him, and now Carrick was a fugitive. While on the run Carrick also tried to piece together the motive for his Masters' actions and he traced his steps back to the moon where he came upon T1-LB. Carrick deduced that T1-LB could not have foolishly fallen off the cliff as his Masters had claimed and brought the droid remains onto the Last Resort, Carrick’s temporary haven. Gorman Vandrayk, a fellow fugitive and inventor called Camper, repaired T1-LB and added an upgrade, including a vocabulator and holographic projector. Then Carrick watched T1-LB’s recording and audio of his Masters' plot to murder their students in order to head off their vision of the future. However, the droid's demise at the hands of Lucien Draay extended beyond the comprehension of T1-LB's logic and corrupted the motivation center. Therefore, once the hologram recording concluded, the droid deleted the entire stretch of holographic memory. Camper suggested shutting the droid down, but Carrick requested otherwise since the droid have given him what he wanted and he now knew why he was a fugitive, although he was unsure how to use the knowledge. Shortly thereafter, the bounty hunter Valius Ying captured Carrick, T1-LB, and their temporary companions Camper, the Arkanian fugitive Jarael, and the Tarisian crimelord, Marn Hierogryph. In order to protect the others, Carrick offered to come with the bounty hunter without a struggle. In response to Carrick's sacrifice, Camper, Jarael, and Hierogryph devised a rescue plan for Carrick using T1-LB's schematics of the Jedi Tower. After the successful rescue, T1-LB departed from Taris aboard the Last Resort with Carrick.

Mandalorian Wars


In order to escape beyond the reach of the law the Last Resort departed for the war front where Mandalorian and Republic forces were in a standoff. As supplies began to run low, the fugitives could no longer keep out of sight and they raided a mining colony on the planet Vanquo. Hierogryph instructed T1-LB to create sound effects for a mock Mandalorian attack in order to send the miners fleeing from their outpost. The setup was a success. However, moments later, the Mandalorians staged an actual attack and captured Jarael. Carrick told T1-LB that Draay would find the droid if he did not carry Camper and retreat with them to the Last Resort in order to escape. However, the Mandalorian, Rohlan Dyre, arrived at the landing spot before them and stole their starship. T1-LB and the others managed to climb inside before the ship left the planet, but the landing ramp closed on the droid's hand. During the struggle on board, Zayne told T1-LB that Dyre was responsible for the loss of his hand and the droid ended the skirmish, pining the Mandalorian down with his weight. Due to Jarael's homing beacon, Camper was able to plot a route to her location, the former stellar research station called Flashpoint Station, recently captured by the Mandalorians. Carrick learned from Dyre that the location was also the research facility of the Mandalorian scientist Demagol where all captured Jedi were taken. Together they formulated a plan to free Jarael and the captive Jedi.

Upon landing at the station, T1-LB remained stationary inside while the Mandalorians swept the vessel. Afterwards, the droid dropped a bag of mining charges unnoticed just outside the starship, which Carrick subsequently placed in key spots around the camp. When the mining charges began to blow up the station the Mandalorians fled, believing that the Republic had planted the charges and were now initiating a counterattack. After releasing the Jedi, T1-LB departed with Carrick, Hierogryph, Jarael, and Camper for the planet Telerath. Hierogryph hoped to access one of his accounts on the planet and use the money to give Jarael and Camper a chance to find a new place to settle down on their own.

Arkoh Adasca's Scheme
When Carrick and Hierogryph parted ways with Jarael and Camper on the planet Ralltiir, T1-LB remained to provide assistance for the latter two fugitives in ways such as loading the new hyperdrive parts for the Last Resort. Shortly after departing, a HK-24 droid unit emerged from a container in the cargo hold on a mission for Camper’s former employer Adascorp to kidnap the brilliant former scientist and bring him back to the company to finish his last project. Both T1-LB and Jarael attempted to stop the assassin droid, but the bulk loader droid suffered blaster shots from HK-24. Jarael almost faced termination as well until Rohlan Dyre emerged from his hiding spot to blast the droid from behind.

After the attack, Camper’s already poor health began to deteriorate even further. Jarael felt she had no choice but to seek help on the planet Arkania, despite the presence of Adascorp. However, the company cornered Jarael when she attempted to find a diagnosis for Camper’s illness in a hospital and Adascorp’s mobile corporate base, the Arkanian Legacy, captured the Last Resort in space along with T1-LB. Arkoh Adasca, owner of Adascorp, organized a meeting of Republic, Jedi, and Mandalorian forces on board the Arkanian Legacy in order for the parties to barter over enormous creatures known as exogorths. Adasca hoped that, as soon as Camper finally completed his work on the creatures, the buyers could harness the creatures as weapons while he exerted galactic influence. However, Zayne Carrick, who had arrived with the Republic delegation, helped organize and carry out a plan to halt Adasca's plot. When Camper escaped his guards he guided the Last Resort by remote control to his location outside the Arkanian Legacy and T1-LB was left behind. While Jarael tried to find a starship in the hangar she found the droid, at which point Camper sent her a holographic message through T1-LB. He told her that he needed to leave her for a time in order to lead the exogorths deep into space. T1-LB asked Camper not to go, but Camper insisted that the droid stay and that he would be in good hands. As the transmission ended Jarael expressed her overwhelmed emotions at Camper's departure by tearfully embracing the droid. As the Arkanian Legacy began to break apart from attack by the exogorths, the Ithorian bounty hunter Dob Moomo and Trandoshan starship thief Slyssk rescued T1-LB, Jarael, Carrick, Dyre, and the Jedi representative Alek Squinquargesimus.

A New Beginning
Soon afterwards Zayne Carrick successfully confronted the Covenant and cleared his name of all charges. However, ever since the events on the Arkanian Legacy, T1-LB remained incapacitated. Carrick hoped that news of its former master's death would spark some life in the droid, but T1-LB lay motionless aboard Carrick's new ship, the Hot Prospect. However, Carrick insisted on continuing to care for the droid while embarking on new adventures with Jarael, Rohlan, Slyssk, and Hierogryph. Carrick decided to leave the Jedi Order and help carry out Hierogryph's cons as long as they were aimed towards those who needed justice dealt to them.

Their journey led them to the abandoned luxury starship Chancellor Fillorean adrift in space. Upon entering, Carrick and his companions discovered several deceased beings, a lone Bimm named Toki Tollivar, and his droid, K-OB7. This droid was in fact of the same manufacturer as T1-LB, and when the two droids encountered one another T1-LB emerged from its stupor and began to help sort out the dead bodies. Upon further interaction between the two droids, K-OB7 calmed T1-LB when the droid expressed its confusion of morality ever since Lucien Draay, his own master, attempted to destroy him. In the meantime, Rohlan and Carrick discovered that the dead humans and aliens had been strangled. Furthermore, Slyssk nearly died after his throat was crushed and Carrick confronted K-OB7. In protest T1-LB protected his fellow droid, which gave K-OB7 a chance to explain that he and his master had been surrounded by mysterious deaths for years. Carrick now realized who the real killer was and that Jarael was alone with him. He and Rohlan rushed to find Tollivar, revealed as a former Sith adept, crushing Jarael's throat with the Force. A brief lightsaber duel between the two Force users commenced, ending with Tollivar and K-OB7's deaths at the hands of Rohlan's killing blaster.

The events left Carrick troubled and shortly afterwards he met with T1-LB aboard the Hot Prospect. Alone with the droid, Carrick expressed all of the thoughts heavy on his mind, Rohlan's bewildering behavior, Jarael's unknown past, Slyssk's loss of confidence, and his own secrets he kept from the rest of his companions, even Hierogryph. Carrick did not like his committed silence, but he knew that he could talk to T1-LB and that the droid would understand. Carrick offered his friendship to T1-LB and promised that he would also listen to anything the droid had to say.

When the crew of the Hot Prospect got tangled up with the dealings of the Franchise on Jervo's World, T1-LB took his place in the waste disposal section, forcing his way into his post and threw a newer generation loader droid into a garbage bin. T1-LB pushed his bin to prepare to smuggle Goethar Kleej and his son off the station.

Personality and programming
"All right Elbee&hellip; show us your last hour on the Rogue Moon." "I&hellip; would&hellip; prefer&hellip; not&hellip; to."

- Zayne Carrick and T1-LB

Before T1-LB’s involvement in the Padawan Massacre of Taris the droid had little to no personality and obeyed the orders of the Jedi Masters methodically. However, after repair and the addition of the brain upgrade and speech processor the droid revealed an stubborn and sometimes irritable personality. The droid would often refuse to move in fear of repeating its near destruction. Carrick and Jarael discovered the T1-LB was best motivated for action by reverse psychology and references to Lucien Draay. For example, when Carrick and his companions raided the mining outpost on Vanquo, Hierogryph needed to tell T1-LB that Draay was inside the outpost in order for the droid to create the sounds effects for a mock Mandalorian attack.

Behind the scenes
T1-LB was created by John Jackson Miller, and made a first confirmed appearance in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 3: Commencement, Part 3, although an unspecified LB droid stationed at the Jedi Tower did make an earlier appearance in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 0: Crossroads.

On his website, John Jackson Miller has stated that T1-LB is loosely based on Herman Melville's character Bartleby the Scrivener.

Since the LB designation indicates the primary function of this particular subtype of the T1 model, the entire droid line is called T1-LB.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 0: Crossroads
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 3: Commencement, Part 3
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 4: Commencement, Part 4
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 5: Commencement, Part 5
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 6: Commencement, Part 6
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: Flashpoint
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 12: Reunion, Part 2
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 13: Days of Fear, Part 1
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 14: Days of Fear, Part 2
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 21: Daze of Hate, Part 3
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 23: Knights of Suffering, Part 2
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 31: Turnabout
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 38: Faithful Execution
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 40: Dueling Ambitions, Part 2
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 41: Dueling Ambitions, Part 3
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 42: Masks
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 46: Destroyer, Part 2
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 47: Demon, Part 1
 * Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 50: Demon, Part 4

Notes and references
T1-LB