HK-47

HK-47 was a Hunter-Killer assassin droid and Jedi hunter built by Revan to kill those who, as he believed, would destabilize the Galaxy. He was later used as the model for the HK droid series. He made a habit out of branding any organic lifeforms, especially Humans, as "meatbags."

Revan's assassin
"I am like a veritable fable, warning against the karma caused by murdering others, a morality tale if you will. What utter irony."

- HK-47 to Revan

HK-47 was originally constructed by Revan, shortly after the Battle of Malachor V, to be the quintessential assassin. While he was completely loyal&mdash; friendly, even&mdash; to those he identified as "master," he had virtually no regard for any form of life, and was driven by an unquenchable thirst for violence and carnage. He characteristically used the term "meatbag" when speaking of organic life forms, especially Humans. This insult was originally used in passing by the droid when insulting Revan's friend and apprentice, Darth Malak, who had asked what the droid thought of him. Revan found the insult (as well as Malak's annoyance) amusing enough to reprogram HK to consider all organics "meatbags."

The droid remained in Revan's possession, helping him locate the ancient space factory known as the Star Forge, assassinating beings who could potentially destabilize the Galaxy, until his master sent him on an unknown assassination into Mandalorian space. Though HK-47 succeeded, his motor functions were damaged, and he ended up in the possession of a Mandalorian soldier who claimed him as his "booty." The Mandalorian repaired HK-47 (rather poorly, the droid thought) to the extent he was capable of and began using him to raise his rank.

From master to master
"You're a piece of bad luck, aren't you?"

- Revan to HK-47, about his dead masters

Eventually, the Mandalorian ordered HK to assassinate an unidentified Mandalore who ruled between Mandalore the Ultimate and Canderous Ordo. He failed and was captured by Mandalore, who reprogrammed him and sent him after his former master, who was successfully obliterated. Since HK-47 was programmed to shut down whenever his current master died, he deactivated himself after killing the Mandalorian, and was sold to Bochaba the Hutt, a crime lord on the planet Sleheyron.

HK-47 helped Bochaba maintain his reputation of the most feared gangster on Sleheyron, having terminated 322 "meatbags" in a single year before Bochaba was finally assassinated by his rivals. The droid shut himself down after this discovery, and was sold to a Human senator on Coruscant.

The senator first assumed HK to be a mere protocol droid, but later one of his assistants discovered the droid's assassination functions and asked the senator to destroy him. The senator instead ordered HK to kill the assistant. The droid remained with his master and helped him eliminate his political enemies. The senator was on the way to being elected as the Supreme Chancellor, but things did not go as planned.

The next target the senator ordered HK-47 to kill was his own wife, who, as he discovered, was cheating on him. As HK approached the wife and her lover to terminate them both, however, his master suddenly regretted his order and dove between HK and his intended victims. Having accidentally terminated his master, the droid had no choice but to shut down. The senator's wife later sold him to a low-ranking commercial officer of Systech Corporation.

At first, the officer used HK-47 as a protocol and bodyguard droid, but in two months he found out about the droid's assassination protocols. After that, he sent HK on a mission to eliminate workers of a competitor company that was developing a product which, if launched onto the market, would ruin the officer's career.

What the officer did not know was that the "competing company" was, in fact, another branch of Systech Corporation. By the time he realized this, HK-47 had already terminated 104 Systech employees. HK assumed that, being the only officer remaining, his master would be promoted. Instead, he went insane and attacked the droid. While doing so, he pierced one of HK-47's actuators with a writing utensil, resulting in an electric shock that killed him and destroyed the droid's assassination protocols. HK again deactivated himself.

With Revan and the Exile
"You are a very harsh master, Master. I like you."

- HK-47 to Revan



After that accident, HK-47 was sold to Yuka Laka, an Ithorian droid dealer on Tatooine. There, he was encountered by his original master, Revan, who had suffered memory loss and was ignorant of his true identity. He purchased the droid for his knowledge of the Sandpeople dialect, as he intended to negotiate with the local Sandpeople chieftain about ceasing attacks against Czerka Corporation personnel. Revan was quite taken aback to discover that HK had, indirectly or otherwise, been the cause of death of all of his interim owners. This did not stop Revan from making extensive repairs to the droid, eventually repairing everything but the memory core, which was too fragile to attempt to repair manually.

Eventually, when Revan discovered the truth about his own history, this proved to be the stimulus necessary for HK-47's internal programming to undo the simulated damage to his primary memory core, allowing the droid both full access to his entire memory as well as his entire combat and assassination protocol package. The droid remained with Revan until the end of the former Dark Lord's journey, following him to the Battle of Rakata Prime and to Malachor V, where, along with T3-M4 and the Ebon Hawk, Revan left him before departing for the Unknown Regions.

Somehow, HK-47 was severely damaged and almost entirely dismembered. He was partially repaired by an unknown party, though several of his components found their way across the Galaxy. Moreover, his schematics were acquired by G0-T0, who used them to produce HK-50 droids, clones of HK-47. When the Jedi Exile reactivated HK-47, using parts retrieved from the imitation HK-50s and a junk dealer on Nar Shaddaa, the droid was enraged to discover these copies of himself. He was particularly angered by their references to "meatbags" as "organics."

Later, the HK-51s allied with HK-47 to destroy their creator, G0-T0, during their final showdown on Malachor V, helping Bao-Dur's remote to destroy the planet.

"Retirement" on Mustafar


Sometime during the thousands of years between then and the Galactic Civil War, HK-47's AI was transferred to a computer located in a Galactic Republic cruiser.

The terminal in the Republic cruiser (which had at some point crashed on Mustafar) contacted a group of spacers (c. 1.5 ABY). HK-47 instructed the spacers to invade the Kubaza Beetle Cavern and enable his AI to be transferred from the ship. Once they succeeded in doing so, he ordered them on another quest; this time, they were to enter an old research facility on Mustafar which was said to date back to the years of the Galactic Republic and restore the power. Though the group had to fight through much of the indigenous life of the planet as well as several battle droids, they eventually managed to complete their task.

Terminal Delta Five, a terminal in the newly powered Research Facility, immediately contacted the group and ordered them to enter the old Droid Factory on the planet and enter a six-digit code into the main terminal. Unfortunately, the code was scattered over three separate terminals and were only good for ten seconds each. As soon as the group managed to enter the code, however, the Factory Guardian appeared and attempted to kill them. Once they had dealt with this threat, they returned to the Old Research Facility where they received a message from HK-47, now returned to a new body, similar to his former one.

He informed them that, although he appreciated their help for returning him to his "own body", he would have to get the factory back up and running to get some payback from the "dirty meatbags" who had taken it from him. Unfortunately, he was not sure who had taken it in the first place and so he decided to simply kill any meatbags he came across, starting with the group of spacers who had helped him. The group managed to escape, however, and returned to the Mensix Mining Facility to speak with Milo Mensix, the foreman. Surely he would want to hear of this news.

HK quickly assembled an army of AK-1A "Hammer", AK-3 "Reaper", GK-5 Sentry, and HK-77 droids in order to destroy all "meatbags" on Mustafar. The army soon attacked the Koseyet Mining Camp where they were met with several miners as well as the spacers who had previously escaped from HK-47, starting the Battle of Koseyet. Though the droids attacked relentlessly, they were eventually defeated. The group of spacers then proceeded to the Droid Factory, attacking and destroying HK-58 Aurek, HK-58 Besh, and Doom Bringer before shutting the factory down. After this the spacers were taken to the Lava Crater at the Central Volcano to destroy HK-47. Though the spacers succeeded after a long a strenuous battle against HK-47's most elite droids, they received a message from HK-47, explaining he was, in fact, still alive. HK-47 admired the spacers' ability, however, and in a slightly sarcastic motion, awarded them with a decorative hologram of himself.

The plaque at the hologram's base simply read "Meatbag."

Personality and traits
"Statement: Now do you understand the travails of my existence, master? Surely it does not compare to your existence, but still..." "I survive. Somehow." "Commentary: As do I. It is our lot in life, I suppose, master. Shall we find something to kill to cheer ourselves up?"

- HK-47 and Revan about how meatbags survive with squishy parts

HK-47 was a high-performance assassin droid, who excelled and delighted in all manner of violence. One of his more well-known programming quirks was to vocally label anything he said, usually beginning sentences with "Query:", "Statement:", or other descriptors. Despite his inherently menacing appearance, he was often mistaken for a protocol droid by many, and he used this to his advantage on more than one occasion, hiding his true nature. HK-47 was an adept and patient killer, as well as highly innovative, especially for a droid. Amusingly enough, his primary function (before it was damaged) was known as his assassination "protocols." He did, however, possess a number of protocol functions in addition to his less legal ones, being fluent in Galactic Basic Standard, Tusken, Binary, and many other forms of communication. HK-47 possessed a masterful insight into the removal of Jedi targets, so much so that he was the mastermind behind the "erosion of will" that finally conquered Darth Sion.

It is unknown if Revan programmed some of HK's "morals and ethics," or if they simply manifested on their own, but one quote is quite interesting. When the Exile asked HK-47 if he knew what love was, the droid responded: "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. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, love is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and fewer would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose, against statistically long odds."

Whether this was a metaphor with wisdom or merely more of the droid's blood lust is arguable.

Several modifications were made to HK-47 throughout his life span by his less fortunate owners, modifications that served to re-enforce his position as a ruthless, efficient killing machine. Regrettably, most of these modifications were damaged beyond anything less than intrusive repair after his dismemberment in his second service to Revan. However, a brief "upgrade" installed by the Exile gave HK-47 a short-lived appreciation for peace and pacifism, only leading to a deeper understanding of his prey. This upgrade had to be removed, for the simple reason that he found himself horrified at the very thought of causing harm to another being and by the fact that he was "scaring" the Exile.

Behind the scenes


HK-47 is a character in the computer and video games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. He is voiced by Kristoffer Tabori in both games. HK-47 is a popular character due to his self-deprecating demeanor and darkly cheerful attitude towards senseless violence, which has earned him a spot on ToyFair 's Fan Choice Figure nominations in 2005-2006. At the ToyFair 's Fan Choice Figure nominations the man who received the nomination in his stead quoted him, saying:
 * "HK-47 would like to thank all the organic meat-bags who made this nomination possible."

Despite being a self-described killing machine, HK-47 is meant to be a source of comic relief throughout the game. The fact that he is a droid and is bound to the will of his master further emphasizes that moral choices between light and dark are the responsibility of that master. When HK-47 is under the control of a being who refrains from killing, his homicidal tendencies are nothing more than comic relief, but under a more cruel and malicious person his character can become far more sinister.

With a Force alignment of 20, (0 being Dark Side Mastery and 100 being Light Side Mastery) HK-47 has the very lowest (darkest) alignment score of any member of Revan's party. He often expresses delight at the cruel actions of a Dark Side player.

Name origin
HK-47 could also be a reference to the dropship of the same designation that appears in the BioWare game Shattered Steel. This is also a possible reference to a Russian assault rifle, the Kalashnikov AK-47. Arguing along the same lines, it has also been suggested that the name refers to German weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch. HK has also been used to mean 'Hunter-Killer'.

Coincidentally, the name is also very similar to that of Agent 47, another assassin and main character in the Hitman series of video games. The term HK is also used by Kyle Reese of the Terminator series of films to describe the large, armor-clad robots that patrolled the ruins of Los Angeles during his childhood, with the mission of killing any Humans they came across. It is possible that there is a deliberate connection between HK-47 and various elements of the Terminator series to which he bears a striking resemblance.

Another possibility is that the number 47 is an in-joke to the Star Trek saga's frequent use of the number. In this possibility, it is assumed that HK stands for Human Killer.

However, in the first game when being captured by the Leviathan, a Sith trooper remarks that he "found an old Hunter-Killer Droid in the back" referring to HK-47. So, it is likely that canonically HK stands for "Hunter-Killer".

The real answer comes from BioWare writer Drew Karpyshyn. He states on his website, [], that the origin for the name of HK-47 is as follows: "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."



Products

 * HK-47 was a miniature in the Star Wars Miniatures set Champions of the Force. He had a "Very Rare" rarity level (circled star) and was depicted holding a blaster rifle. True to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, where he was introduced, he is affiliated with the Fringe, meaning he could join either light side or dark side factions during skirmish games.

Cut content

 * HK-47, in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, was originally going to attack the secret HK Manufacturing Plant on Telos IV, whose existence he learns of by torturing an HK-50 droid.


 * In the factory, HK would gain the support of the new HK-51s, due to their self-preservation program; and with the droids, they would travel to Malachor V to either help Bao-Dur's remote and dismantle G0-T0, or preserve Malachor and destroy the remote. It is unknown if it was intended that HK would perish with Malachor V, but given his resurgence in the Rebellion era, no ending in which he did can be considered canon-compatible.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan