Star Wars: Somehow Mashing Together the Two Most Iconic Ships Doesn’t Make Them Better – The X-TIE Breakdown
What happens when you combined the iconic TIE Fighter with the beloved X-Wing? Nothing Good. We break down the X-TIE.
Throughout the galaxy, no one had the reputation for ship piloting or building like the Corellians. Oh there may have been better manufacturers. Or better designers. But there was no denying that the Corellians had a certain ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness that you wouldn’t find just anywhere.
And no line of ships proved that quite like the Ugly starfighters. Uglies were a model of starship made from cannibalized parts of other ships. For the most part, they were uncommon enough in design that there weren’t uniform names. They were Uglies. But a few “standard” models stood out above the rest. And one of the most infamous was a cross between two iconic starfighters: the X-Wing and the TIE Fighter. Together they made the Ugly known as the X-TIE.
X-TIE Design
As with any Ugly starfighter, there was no standard manufacturer for the X-TIE. No standard blueprint. But despite being on opposite sides of a galactic conflict, there were some surprising compatibilities between X-Wing and TIE/ln parts. They weren’t necessarily good ones. But they were there nonetheless.
Typically most pilot/engineers would mount the fuselage of an X-Wing with the solar panels and wing arrays of a TIE fighter. And as a result most weapons were mounted on the fuselage of the X-Wing. Typically in place of the proton torpedo launchers. With Uglies, it was all about making space. Most commonly the X-TIE mounted the X-Wing’s Taim & Bak KX9 laser cannons, though they would mount TIE L-s1 laser cannons if the full suite of four weren’t available.
Towards the later years of the New Republic, before the Corellian crisis, reports of an X-ceptor with a much more powerful armament started circulating.
History Among The Uglies
These were most common during the later years and immediate aftermath of the Galactic Civil War. X-TIEs could be found everywhere. Because the starfighters were so common, their parts could be scavenged from battlefields throughout the galaxy.
And while Corellian pirates and smugglers were the most predominant users, by a significant margin, even the Corellian Defense Forces employed Uglies. Though as with most things involving the barely spaceworthy Uglies, it was more of necessity than choice.
After the fall of the Empire, the New Republic found itself embattled by Imperial Remnants and breakaway forces. One such apocryphal tale was the “Corellian Crisis,” which reportedly involved an organized crime syndicate trying to carve out a miniature empire in the Corellian Sector.
Only the actions of the New Republic Intelligence Service and figures like Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian (who were there on entirely unrelated business) saved the day. And in fact, an X-TIE carried NRI agent Belindi Kalenda away from the Corellian System, allowing word to escape before the criminal syndicate could make their move.
It just goes to show, even the Ugliest starfighter can make all the difference.
May the Force be with you
