Davin Felth/Legends

"Look, sir, droids."

- Davin Felth

Davin Felth, designated 1023, was a stormtrooper recruit deployed in the Zeta Squadron of the Desert Sands sandtroopers and tasked with locating the missing Death Star plans on Tatooine. It was Felth who uncovered evidence that the droids carrying the plans had escaped their crash-landing in the desert.

Early life and indoctrination
"They told me the military would change my life, but this is crazy. I expected to get some time to look around."

- Davin Felth



Davin Felth was born sometime around the founding of the Galactic Empire. He was raised to believe in the integrity and honor of the New Order, so much so that he was inspired to enlist in the Imperial Army as an eighteen-year-old not long prior to the Battle of Yavin. On his homeworld, Felth believed joining the ranks of the Imperial military was all fun and games. Becoming a part of the Emperor's elite forces invoked in him a sensation of adolescent pride.

Felth was shipped to the Imperial training world of Carida for basic training at the Academy of Carida, the toughest training facility in the galaxy, along with an induction class of 120 other wide-eyed eighteen-year-olds. As soon as he departed his transport shuttle, however, his romantic ideas of a career in the military were quickly dashed. What was seemingly a wonderful life ahead of him as rumors had promised on Carida's multi-climate world was destroyed with the harsh introduction to what a life in the Imperial military truly entailed. As if they were hit in the head with a hammer, Felth and his fellow recruits were inundated with an incomprehensible barrage of shouting and orders from a welcoming committee of superiors meant to intimidate the youths. It was all Felth could do to simply scream back in response, adding to the confusion, a ploy that succeeded in diverting attention from himself. To Felth, his initial experience with military life was a rude awakening to what the next six months of his life would hold in store.

With only a blue duffel bag of belongings from home and an assortment of administered personal supplies, Felth was assigned to a barracks room with two other cadets, Geoff f'Tuhns and Mychael Ologat. No sooner had Felth chosen his cot and introduced himself to his new roommates when an intimidatingly large drill instructor wearing the helmet of a stormtrooper entered their barracks. F'Tuhns had previously been casually munching on smuggled-in snacks, a violation of the program's carefully monitored caloric intake. When the instructor demanded to know to whom the bag belonged, Felth took it upon himself to vouch for his new friend, claiming it was in fact his food. Felth was only saved from further punishment other than a strict warning by his still being a first-day rookie.

Basic training
"An AT-AT! Can you believe we've been picked for the chance to command one of them?" "Yeah, and I'm going to make sure I'm not one of those nine recruits who washes out."

- Felth ensures a fellow cadet of his desire to become an AT-AT pilot

Felth's sixth-month training regimen was an endless chore of breakneck physical and mental conditioning preparing him for Imperial military service. After a relentless day of physical training and environmental conditioning in Carida's many planetary climates, consiting of fitness runs, winter training in Carida's southern ice fields, a week-long expedition of survival training in the planet's Forgofshar Desert, and a three-day battle against nature in the equatorial rain forest, Felth would get no more than five hours of sleep before having to wake up and do it all over again. After awakening to a stormtrooper sergeant's sonic whistle at reveille, Felth soon learned to get up a half hour before wake-up call and dress himself before climbing back into bed. He and his roommates would not dare be caught out of bed before reveille after witnessing first hand what happened to such violators. After a few months of this routine, Felth had lost fifteen pounds, but was immeasurably stronger.

After displaying a unique prowess and aptitude during his training and typically finishing at the top of his class, Felth was suddenly selected one day to report to the academy's All Terrain Armored Transport detachment division. He and several other fellow cadets whom Felth also recognized as top-tier achievers learned from a personally recorded holo-recording from Colonel Maximilian Veers, head of the Imperial Army's AT-AT forces, that they had been chosen as candidates for Imperial Army pilot duty in the cockpit of one of the assault walkers. Veers instructed them that they were about to embark on a six-week intensive training program of virtual reality simulations and, for those who succeeded, actual hands-on training with an AT-AT. Those who passed the training's initial qualifying stages would then be selected for a role in Veers's own elite AT-AT squadron. However, he left them with the warning that fewer than one in ten would successfully complete the arduous training.

AT-AT scenario
"I don't know how you did it, recruit, but I have a feeling you've been marked for a one-in-a-million career!"

- A training instructor, congratulating Felth for his natural AT-AT piloting abilities

Felth advanced far enough in the elite training program to be able to tour the cockpit of an AT-AT. After taking a moment to marvel at the majesty of the walker's inner mechanisms, he was surprised when a training instructor sudde.nly appeared behind him, asking if Felth wished to take the AT-AT on a test drive, to which Felth eagerly agreed. While Felth sat in the co-pilot's seat, his instructor operated the machine from the pilot's seat beside him, slowly allowing Felth to assume control as he settled in. The instructor soon told Felth that he wanted to check on the AT-AT's weapon cache in the body of the walker, leaving the recruit alone in the cockpit. As soon as his instructor had departed, Felth noted four fighter craft approaching the AT-AT on an attack vector. He called to his superior for help, but received no answer. Left as the sole operator of the massive war machine, the untrained recruit frantically found himself under fire by enemy targets.



At first, Felth sat in his command seat frozen with fear as the attacking craft make several strafing runs on the AT-AT. Throughout his career at the Caridan Academy, Felth had been instructed to follow procedure. Independent thought was not encouraged. Yet, he found himself in a situation not covered in any textbook or training sequence. Felth surmised that it was none other than Alliance to Restore the Republic forces that had infiltrated Carida and were firing on him. Angrily, he took control of the AT-AT's offensive systems, vowing not to go down without a fight. Felth noted to himself, surprisingly, that none of the Rebel craft showed up on the cockpit sensor systems. In response, forced to track the ships manually, Felth decided to put himself in the greatest strategic position possible by setting the AT-AT to "kneel" to the ground with the walker's command head hunkered flat with the body so that none of the craft could fly underneath. Felth was able to destroy all four of the enemy craft using this unique maneuver.

Sitting in dazed silence in the cockpit, Felth struggled to comprehend what had just transpired. His instructor soon rematerialized from the rear of the walker and informed the cadet that a command party had landed and was waiting for him outside. Once outside, Felth was shocked that no wreckage from the battle was visible on the surrounding terrain. As his instructor noted, the skirmish Felth had just been through was nothing but a premeditated training exercise to test the recruit's abilities, and he had excelled beyond expectations. Adding to Felth's awe-filled morning was the presence of another ship swooping in from the horizon. When the craft's boarding ramp extended, Maximilian Veers himself departed. He questioned Felth on the ingenious kneeling maneuver he had executed, eager to learn from the trainee what he felt the advantages the move entailed&mdash;as well as the disadvantages of allowing enemy craft access to the walker's underbelly. Felth hesitantly replied in speculation that an enemy could use cable to tie up and trip the AT-AT. Captivated by Felth's resourcefulness, Veers ordered the recruit to keep this information classified, promising Felth that his staff would find him an assignment in the Imperial Army worthy of his talents. The young Felth could only marvel at the career that awaited him under the elite command of Veers.

Assignment to Tatooine
"I'm an AT-AT operator, not a&hellip;a foot soldier!"

- Davin Felth

The hush-hush orders handed down from Veers had done nothing but confuse Felth. Rather than receiving a one-in-a-million career to the top, Veers had instead assigned Felth to the Stormtrooper Corps, burying the recruit and his incredible discovery of the AT-AT's glaring weakness into anonymity. With this move, Veers had cemented his own rise to the top, fearing the young Davin Felth would ruin his career, or, worse, succeed him.

Felth had in fact received assignment to the Desert Sands sandtrooper detachment aboard an Imperial troop transport under the command of one Captain Mod Terrik. Terrik's unit had been ordered to relieve the 37th Detachment in the spaceport city of Mos Eisley on the remote Outer Rim Territories desert planet Tatooine. Felth's new position would be about as far as he could have possibly imagined himself being while back on Carida. Although Felth argued with Terrik that he belonged in a more prestigious position, his captain only replied that he had followed Veers's orders to a tee and threateningly remarked that he would have a month before they arrived on Tatooine to personally mold Felth into a proper "foot soldier."

Felth's training under Terrik had put him in the best shape of his life. A three-month regimen had been compacted into a never-ending hell of disciplining, schooling, and physical fitness. The other twenty stormtroopers in the detachment had each made sure to properly welcome Felth into their ranks, to boot. They were not about to admit an AT-AT operator and graduate of the Academy of Carida as one of them without a period of ritualistic hazing.

As part of his indoctrination into Terrik's detachment, Felth was assigned identification number 1023, finalizing his absorption into the beast that was the Imperial Army. With his name all but stricken from him, Felth became just another nameless servant of the Emperor's will.

Desert droid search
"We're deploying to the surface, bypassing Mos Eisley to participate in a search-and-destroy mission." "What are we searching for, sir?" "An escape pod. It jettisoned from a Corellian Corvette evading Lord Vader's Star Destroyer and landed somewhere on Tatooine."

- Captain Mod Terrik, explaining Zeta Squadron's duty

By the time Felth's troop transport reached Tatooine, his detachment's orders had been changed. Rather than assuming guard duty over Mos Eisley had they had originally been assigned, Felth, as part of scout unit Zeta Squadron, would instead be combing the endless deserts of Tatooine in search of a rogue escape pod that had jettisoned from a fugitive starship captured by the Lord Darth Vader. Unknown to Felth, the escape pod had launched from the CR90 Corvette Tantive IV&mdash;Princess Leia Organa's consular vessel&mdash;carrying the droids C-3PO and R2-D2, the latter of which had escaped from Vader's forces carrying the stolen plans to the first Death Star. When Felth had the nerve to inquire why the escape pod was so important, Terrik snapped that he should perform his duties without questioning orders.

Felth's unit searched the desolate sands of the Dune Sea for hours without success. At one point, Felth reported to Terrik that he believed he had found the pod, but was disappointed to unearth a rock. Later, however, a glint of sunlight reflecting off something in the sand caught Felth's eye. Rushing over to the source, he saw that he had indeed discovered the escape pod buried in the sand, recognizable by familiar Imperial markings. Leading away from the pod, Terrik also discovered, was a set of tracks, to which Felth soon attributed to an R2-series astromech droid after fishing a mechanism out of the sand that could only belong to an R2 unit.

Terrik and Zeta Squadron followed tracks in the sand until they came upon a group of Jawa traders. The stormtroopers were able to discern from them that the scavengers had picked up an R2 unit and a protocol droid near the escape pod crash site. Terrik ordered a comprehensive sweep of the Jawas' giant sandcrawler in search of the droids&mdash;with Felth searching through the droid repair bay&mdash;without success. After questioning one particular Jawa, Terrik learned that its group had sold the two droids to a moisture farmer only the day before. As Zeta Squadron began to depart for the moisture farm, Terrik ordered the sandcrawler destroyed and the Jawas slaughtered, and instructed it to be done in a manner as to appear as if the deed had been committed by a group of Tusken Raiders, notoriously known for their savagery, much to the dismay Felth. While his fellow stormtroopers cheered the annihilation of the Jawas, Felth could only turn away in silence.

Tracking the droids to the Lars homestead, Zeta Squadron again discovered that they had once more just missed the droids. While the stormtroopers ransacked the interior of the homestead, Felth, still shaken by the Jawa slaughter, lingered behind his group rather than joining in the raid, careful not to draw attention to himself. Terrik discovered from the moisture farmer Owen Lars that his nephew had taken the droids away from the farm, to which Terrik surmised could have meant only one location&mdash;Mos Eisley, where the boy could smuggle the droids offplanet. Preparing to depart the farm, Terrik once again ordered its destruction and the death of Lars and his wife, Beru Lars, as a reminder of what happens to those who give quarter to Rebels. And, once again, Felth could only avert his gaze from yet further senseless murder.

Subversion at Mos Eisley
"Where's Captain Terrik?" "Leave him. He's dead. Killed in the crossfire."

- Zeta Squadron stormtroopers, failing to realize Felth's act of rebellion

Hot on the tracks of the two rogue droids, Felth and his unit arrived at the port city of Mos Eisley, where they immediately began digging through records, interrogating charter pilots, and rummaging through repair shops. When their search uncovered nothing, Terrik resorted to sending Zeta Squadron on a methodical door-to-door sweep, simultaneously setting up roadblocks at entry entrance point to the city. When Felth heard a sudden scream emanate from a blockhouse not far from his position, he took the opportunity to break away from the sweep to interrogate the source of the disturbance. His search led him into a dimly lit cantina, despite the protests of a fellow stormtrooper. After running a quick scan through the bar, noting the array of aliens and other unsavory characters, Felth determined there was nothing to be found. Little did he know that he had actually caught a brief glimpse of the very beings who were trying to sneak the droids offplanet, an old man and a young farmboy&mdash;Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker&mdash;talking to an athletic-looking Human&mdash;Han Solo.

Just as he and his partner had exited the cantina to rejoin the search, Zeta Squadron came marching determinedly around a corner towards Felth when a maddened Jawa jumped out from behind the cover of a pile of starship wreckage that was the long since downed Dowager Queen. The robed creature&mdash;Het Nkik, a Jawa seeking vengeance for the death of his slain brother, Jek Nkik, killed during Zeta Squadron's sandcrawler slaughter &mdash;aimed a DL-44 blaster pistol at the stormtrooper squad and pulled the trigger several times, though nothing happened. The Jawa was unaware that his weapon had been stripped of its power cell and was otherwise useless. Felth's parter casually flipped off a shot at the creature with his own blaster rifle, sending the dead Jawa crashing back against the wreckage. Once more, Felth was left aghast. He had almost grown to forget the killing of the Jawas and the moisture farmers in the desert, but this latest round of indiscriminate murder led him to one fundamental reality&mdash;the Empire he had worked so hard to serve was basically evil.

As soon as Felth joined Zeta Squadron's march, the group was alerted of a disturbance at Docking Bay 94. The droids had been found, and a group of Rebels were trying to whisk them away from Imperial clutches. Felth and his companions converged on the docking bay where an athletic looking Human&mdash;the same man Felth had noted back in the cantina&mdash;was defending a modified YT-1300 light freighter, holding off the entire contingent of stormtroopers at twenty-to-one odds. Feeling a strange twinge of solidarity, an empathetical respect for this single man who braved to defy the Empire, Felth refrained from joining in the firefight. At that point Felth noticed Terrik just ahead of him, crouched down on one knee taking careful aim at the Rebel. Without hesitation, Felth took the opportunity to shoot Terrik in the back, his first kill in the Imperial service.

Felth's killing of his superior officer allowed the athletic human the time needed to board his ship and escape from Tatooine with the droids in tow. Although the rest of his squad was disheartened and angry at the loss of their leader, Felth felt renewed and a shared a sense of kinship with the fugitive Rebels. Secretly yearning to join their cause against the tyrannical Empire, Felth knew he could not just abandon his Imperial duties. Instead, he reasoned, he could aid the Rebellion by staying in the Imperial ranks and acting as a spy, perhaps even passing on his knowledge of the AT-AT's vulnerability.

At some point during his service in Mos Eisley, Felth helped to save a male Rodian from the physical advances of five full-grown, excited male rontos, who mistook the Rodian's scent for one given off by a female ronto in heat. Seeing the Rodian surrounded by the five creatures, who were butting and rubbing up against him as a sign of biological attraction, Felth was able to frighten the rontos away by firing several shots at their feet. Felth and his comrades had to wake the unconscious Rodian using smelling salts.

Personality and traits
When Davin Felth entered the Academy of Carida at age eighteen, he possessed a romantic view of Imperial military life, left completely unprepared for the harsh rigors that awaited him. He looked forward to the new experiences of government service, gaining usable skills, and hopefully working toward a command position, unaware of the tyrannical nature of the Empire. Basic training destroyed his youthful enthusiasm, however. He learned to adapt to his discomforts by doing whatever was necessary to survive and appease his superiors, all in the name of becoming a stormtrooper.

While at the academy, Felth was an exceptional student, consistently performing at a level above his fellow cadets, earning him the opportunity to compete for a position in Maximilian Veers's elite AT-AT squadron. He took to this rare chance with determination, promising himself that he would not be denied such a prestigious position. Felth's first dry run in an AT-AT cockpit proved to be a groundbreaking achievement for the young trainee, in which he ingeniously utilized an impromptu tactic that destroyed each enemy target, something his drill instructor had never before seen, and succeeded in exposing a vital weakness of the AT-AT design.

After graduating from the academy, Felth was left in peak physical shape and was trained in survival on any livable planetary surface. Upon assignment to Tatooine among Captain Mod Terrik's Desert Sands stormtrooper detachment, Felth was assigned the designation 1023, signifying the elimination of his individualism and the complete assimilation into the unquestioning service of the Emperor. While his fellow troopers eagerly reveled in the mystery that surrounded the indistinguishable nature of the Stormtrooper Corps, Felth was unwilling to make such a commitment. He was left feeling miserable and alone, often turning to thoughts of his family.

Appearances

 * When The Desert Wind Turns: The Stormtrooper's Tale
 * Play It Again, Figrin D'an: The Tale of Muftak and Kabe
 * Swap Meet: The Jawa's Tale
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope radio drama
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope novelization
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Star Wars 1
 * Star Wars: Force Commander
 * Star Wars: Force Commander

Non-canon appearances

 * LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy