Star Wars: The Force Awakens “Traitor Trooper” gets an origin story

Even though it played out like a highlight reel of the very first Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens was actually some damn good fun. And with over $1.5 billion dollars in the bank, most of the world seems to agree with that remark. Where The Force Awakens truly succeeded however, was in the universe-building department.

With most of the Expanded Universe mythos being jettisoned out into the cold, dark vacuum of space, there was ample room to build a new legend in the 30 years since the Emperor killed Darth Vader with his Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo powers. And sweet Sith-spit, has the galaxy changed since then. None of that matters however, because fans only wanted to know more about one character in particular, who stole the show with a single word and a minute of ass-kicking.

Naturally, there be spoilers ahead, so consider this your only warning. Here’s a picture of Jar Jar Binks being elbowed in the face to help protect you.

Right, with that out of the way, let’s talk about the most popular Stormtrooper around since that other Imperial hit his head on a door-frame in Episode IV: A New Hope. I am of course talking about the scene where former First Order Stormtrooper Finn attempts to flee the attack on Maz Kanata’s bar and runs face-first into an extremely ticked-off soldier who wants to have words with him. Words that come out of the end of his special big stick.

According to StarWars.com, the trooper with Death Star-sized testicles who runs at a lightsaber-equipped Finn is officially designated FN-2199, or Nines to his friends. First revealed in the Greg Rucka penned book Before The Awakening, Nines is a riot control trooper who specialises in squashing uprisings and wields a fancy Z6 baton. In the film, he was portrayed by stuntman Liang Yang.

Nines happened to have trained before with Finn, resulting in his rather zealous anger when he confronted his former soldier outside of Maz Kanata’s bar. He’s the trooper with red hair, in the picture below:

And now you know. Although I kind of like the nomenclature that the internet bestowed on him, TR-8R more.

Last Updated: January 4, 2017