8t88

"Ah, &hellip; if only you could. But the malfunction is hidden within your skull, a difficult place to make repairs. I don't know if you've seen any brains lately, but they're hard to sort out. A CPU makes more sense."

- 8t88

8t88 was a Tiss'shar administrative droid that existed for nearly two hundred years.

Early existence
"When someone desires information, they come to me."

- 8t88

Originally equipped with a reptilian head reminiscent of his creators, it was replaced with the smaller head of a JMM espionage model in a prank devised by Vice-Chancellor Zokor Polpot of the University of Coruscant, designed to embarrass his boss during a visit by the Woostri. 8t88 was horrified by the way he had been disfigured, and from then on he not only made sure to keep an updated backup of his memories, but became a misanthrope dedicated to avenging the damage done to him. However, as he only had backup memory files of the incident, his memory of the perpetrators was imperfect.

8t88 became an information broker, hoping to not only find his perpetrators but use the wealth acquired through his brokering to be extravagant in his revenge. Though cruel, the droid nonetheless doted on his pet hornagaunt Grendel, a giant, wing-clipped beast from the planet Tertiary Kesmere.

Valley of the Jedi incident
"I should have aimed for your head when I had the chance." "A lost opportunity."

- Kyle Katarn and 8t88

8t88 took a job from the Dark Jedi Jerec to locate the hidden Valley of the Jedi, outbidding the infochant Balancesheet in the process. His search led him to a holodisc in the residence of one of Jerec's victims, Morgan Katarn. When Morgan's son, Kyle Katarn, went seeking information on the death of his father, 8t88 met Kyle on Nar Shaddaa, promising to exchange the disk for information on breaking the code. 8t88 left Kyle without handing over the disc in the company of a pair of thugs, but not before Katarn attached a tracking droid to 8t88's right leg. After chasing the droid through a cargo facility, Katarn finally caught 8t88 as he was preparing to board a shuttle. Kyle distracted him and opened fire with his blaster pistol, several shots impacted on the shuttle's landing ramp, which was slowly being raised, along with 8t88, into the ship; one of the shots, however, found its mark, severing 8t88's arm at the shoulder and dropping it, along with the datadisk, into the bowels of the Smuggler's Moon.

Katarn again encountered 8t88 on Sulon immediately after the droid had finished uploading the coordinates of the Valley of the Jedi to The Vengeance, Jerec's flagship. 8t88 had deciphered the original stone map to the Valley, which Sariss, Yun, and Boc had stolen from Katarn's father's workshop in Barons Hed, and which Katarn was seeking to recover. 8t88 escaped with all four limbs intact, but the map was destroyed by Yun, one of the seven Dark Jedi seeking the Valley. While Katarn and Yun each faced his first duel, 8t88 fled ahead to rendezvous with Gorc and Pic, where he voiced his expectations:




 * "I'm here for my well-deserved payment."

Hopping from his brother's shoulder, Pic responded by decapitating the droid. Grendel, in an ironic twist, proceeded to swallow his former master's head.

Katarn, having tracked 8t88, later carved the head from one of the hornagaunt's three stomachs before being ambushed by Pic and Gorc. The short battle was ended when Katarn used 8t88's severed head to bash Pic's skull; in another ironic twist, 8t88 had exacted revenge on his deactivator. Katarn escaped the planet with 8t88's remains, and his own family droid WeeGee downloaded the map of the Valley of the Jedi from it.

Second reactivation
"This looks familiar."

- Mara Jade

8t88 was believed to have been deactivated, but several years later Mara Jade came across 8t88's head on Rathalay, in smuggling kingpin Kaerobani's lair, pitifully plotting to reclaim his lost body. Reports have filtered in of 88 droids sporting a variety of heads, from that of a Phase I dark trooper to that of an ASP droid, from around the Galaxy.

Most recently, an 88 was spotted sporting an EV-series supervisor droid's robotic skull on Mawan, a sighting that coincided with a fatal accident claiming the life of visiting University of Coruscant Chancellor Polpot. This incident led to 8t88's head and torso having received individual entries in New Republic Intelligence General Airen Cracken's Most Wanted list.

Features
"Hmm, 88's brain is heavier than I imagined."

- Kyle Katarn

8t88's skeleton-body was silver and powered by hydraulic tubing. This tubing caused his movements to make a great deal of noise. In addition, a tapping noise constantly issued from his interior.

His specially-modified vocabulator spoke in an intelligent, elegant, well-mannered voice, which was reminiscent of a clerk of the Galaxy. He was equipped with an infrared sensor, a microscopic imager, a holographic projector/recorder, a special storage compartment (since he did not wear clothing), extremely perceptive audio sensors, a concealed beam transmitter, a broadband communication antenna, and Tiss'sharl talons for hands.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
 * Dark Forces: Rebel Agent
 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith