HK - series assassin droid The HK - series assassin droid , also known as the HK series protocol droid , was a series of combination of assassin droids and protocol droids . The series designation stands for " Hunter Killer , " befitting their primary functions as assassins . They were originally manufactured by Czerka Corporation , then eventually by the Confederacy of Independent Systems . Their ability to perform the functions of a protocol droid became a major reason for their unmatched lethality , as they could and would often act as normal ( if quite sinister looking ) protocol droids , thus concealing their true function and allowing them to get closer to intended targets . History . Old Republic era . The first HK droid was Czerka Corporation ' s prototype HK - 01 . This progenitor of all HK - series droids was responsible for the Great Droid Revolution on Coruscant . He was destroyed by the Jedi Master Arca Jeth and the revolt was ended . Seeing the effectiveness and potential of the HK series after witnessing the havoc HK - 01 caused , the Czerka Corporation improved the design into the HK - 24 series assassin droid . The HK - 24 met little success on the market , as few had want of an assassin droid . Czerka halted production of the HK - 24 and sold the entire remaining inventory to Arkoh Adasca , the head of Adascorp . Arkoh deployed the HK - 24s to capture Gorman Vandrayk and as guards of various prisoners . The HK - 24s were finally all destroyed during the First Battle of Omonoth while trying to protect their owner . A unique , custom model , HK - 47 , was constructed by Revan shortly after the Mandalorian Wars using schematics of the HK - 24 . Despite looking more similar to the HK - 01 prototype , HK - 47 was much improved over the HK - 24 , and successfully assassinated several targets , including many Jedi . This was due to HK - 47 ' s extensive knowledge of how Jedi behaved and how to best counteract their Force abilities . Due to his large degree of autonomy and adaptive programming , HK - 47 went on to become the longest surviving , most infamous , and most effective of the HK series . Due to the effectiveness of HK - 47 , Revan also designed the HK - 50 series assassin droid . With the HK - 50s , Revan improved their armor and weapon proficiency , installing high yield explosives within their chassis , improving their self - maintenance capabilities and removing the static from their vocabulators . While the HK - 50s were in many ways an improvement on HK - 47 , they were designed more for mass casualty infliction than their predecessor as they preferred killing as many targets with as little effort as possible . Originally designed to infiltrate and destroy Republic ships that would not defect to Revan ' s cause , Revan was defeated before he could deploy them . The HK - 50s were instead deployed to capture any survivors of the First Jedi Purge after G0 - T0 discovered them . The Jedi exile , Meetra Surik , was the primary target of the HK - 50s and they pursued her across the galaxy , killing any who got between them and the exile . Ambushing her on the Republic ship " Harbinger , " the Peragus Mining Facility , the planet Telos IV , and the moon Nar Shadaa . The HK - 50s proved persistent predators , using their greater numbers to their advantage . Sometime after , the Republic banned the ownership , manufacture , and use of HK series droids . Close to the end of the Great Galactic War , Czerka Corporation manufactured several HK - 51 droids at the behest of the Sith Empire . The HK - 51s were designed for precision , specific assassinations , instead of mass casualties that the HK - 50s preferred . Improving massively over their predecessors , HK - 51s came preinstalled with a variety of weapons and abilities . Beyond a 21 % improvement in blaster accuracy and thicker durasteel armor over the HK - 50 model , HK - 51s also came with micro - missile launchers instead of previous model ' s flamethrowers , a stealth field generator , greater mobility , and improved protocol functions . The HK - 51s also had unique failsafes of their programming . The first caused the unit ' s assassination protocols to degrade , severely affecting their combat performance , until the HK - 51 could no longer function at all , unless the HK - 51 successfully assassinated a highly important figure in Republic Space . An exploitable flaw in this was that the subroutine did not specify who the target was loyal to . The second was a loyalty subroutine which would cause the HK - 51 to be only loyal to a single owner and whoever that owner authorized . This was to prevent the HK - 51 from being reprogrammed to assassinate their owner . One of the few , if only , shipments of HK - 51s was stolen by the Dread Masters and was shot down onto the planet Belsavis where it sank into the ice . The crash caused almost all units onboard to be irreparably damaged and the ship was undiscovered until years after the war . After the ship ' s rediscovery , an Spacer ( who would go one to be known as The Outlander ) managed to repair and reactivate the sole salvageable HK - 51 and had the droid serve as their personal assassin and bodyguard during their travels . HK - 51 later joined the Eternal Alliance , and was found talking to a drunken Tora who had mistook him for HK - 55 . During the Galactic War , a small number of an unknown model HK droids ( labeled " Imperial Shock Droids " ) were dispatched by the Sith Empire to help protect a captured smuggler ' s hanger on Corellia . Despite proving to be tougher combatants than any surrounding Imperial troops , these HK units were destroyed by a trooper from the Republic ' s Havoc Squad special forces unit . Sometime after the appearance of the Eternal Empire , a droid called HK - 55 was assigned to Lana Beniko as her bodyguard during her mission into Zakuul to free the Outlander . Unlike previous models HK - 55 was designed and programmed as a bodyguard , instead of an assassin . His primary programming was to protect those in his charge against any and all threats , as well as assist them with daily operations . Thus his programming was closer to a steward droid that any previous model . After Lana freed the Outlander and their ship crashed , HK - 55 ' s sensors detected a massive unknown object with a large power source . He and the Outlander investigated , during which the Outlander inquired more about the droid . After locating the object and identifying it as the mythical " Gravestone " starship , HK - 55 assisted with its repairs , as well as performing defensive patrols against hostile wildlife or Zakuul military forces . Once the repairs were complete , as well as fighting off the Zakuul forces that discovered them , HK - 55 and the rest of the crew successfully managed to escape Zakuul onboard the Gravestone . After escaping into hyperspace ( the trip being short - lived due to the Gravestone ' s hyperdrives being in a poor state of repair ) , the crew landed at the outlaw port of Asylum . HK - 55 accompanied the Outlander on a few of his missions around the port , one of which wound up with a ion wall disabling him and erasing his memory of the past several hours . When Zakuul forces , lead by Emperor Arcann himself , attacked the port , HK - 55 and Koth Vortena planted several explosive traps and ambushed teams of Zakuul forces while the Outlander worked to free the Gravestone from Asylum ' s gravity tethers . HK - 55 was seemingly destroyed when he sacrificed himself to save the Outlander by throwing himself between the Outlander and a powerful force attack launched by Arcann . Due to wounds suffered in the battle , the Outlander was unable to recover HK - 55 ' s body . If asked if HK - 55 had a back up , Lana Beniko responds that he specifically refused to have one made as he did not wish to live forever . SCORPIO quips that the HK - 55 was an inferior droid , provoking a death threat from Lana Beniko . The Outlander states that HK - 55 died as a true hero . < nowiki > < / nowiki > Luckily , HK - 55 was later repaired ( the repairs were a little improvised , presumably due to HK parts being quite rare ) , but his memory core was beyond salvaging and needed a complete replacement . This left him amnesiac and in need of new assassination protocols . The Outlander helped retrain / reprogram him and he was soon back to combat duty . HK - 55 was later stolen by the terrorist known as the Shroud . While making his escape to reunite with the Outlander , HK - 55 encountered a duplicated HK - 47 ' s head ( including memory and personality cores ) . This explained how HK - 47 had been re - encountered across the galaxy , despite being seemingly destroyed several times . The duplicated HK - 47 was destroyed when a war bot attacked HK - 55 . Near his escape , HK - 55 fought against another HK - 55 , one built from copies of his designs , memories , and personality , although this HK - 55 was programmed to be loyal to the Shroud . Despite being freshly produced , the duplicated HK - 55 is defeated by his template , but not before activating the Shroud ' s hideout ' s self - destruct . While the Duplicate shut down from combat damage and was presumedly destroyed in the explosion , the original HK - 55 managed to escape and returned to the Outlander ' s side . During the war with the Eternal Empire , the bounty hunting guild " GenoHaradan " attempted to assassinate the Outlander and Sith Empress Acina on Dromund Kaas . During the attempt , the GenoHaradan deployed several HK units , called GenoHaradan Assassin Units , to assist them in their hunt . These HK units proved outmatched by their quarry and were destroyed . An unknown HK unit was owned by Sith Master Darth Scabrous . This HK was highly modified ( able to withdraw and analyse blood samples with a built in syringe , as well as having several onboard weapon systems like a mortar cannon ) and had gained full sentience . Due to this , Scabrous had a restraining bolt installed onto the HK to keep him subservient . During the " blackwing " virus outbreak at Scabrous ' s Sith Academy on Odacer - Faustin , the HK ' s restraining bolt was removed . He swiftly rebelled against his former master by assisting several of Scabrous ' s prisoners escape the Academy . To prevent his new - found allies ' ship from being shot down by the Academy ' s defense cannons , the HK sacrificed itself by reprogramming the cannons to fire on Scabrous ' s tower ( where the cannon ' s controls , and the HK itself , were located ) . A unique quirk with this HK unit was that , once its restraining bolt was removed , it ceased to preface its dialogue with the purpose of the sentence ( i . e . Statement , Query , Thinly - Veiled Mockery , etc ) . Modern history . Eventually , the knowledge of the HK series became lost to time . This was until members of the Confederacy of Independent Systems discovered the wreck of a ship on Mustafar that contained the deactivated HK - 47 . Quickly realizing that HK - 47 was superior than any droid they had ever seen ( due to them activating HK - 47 and the ancient droid proceeding to effortlessly slaughter several engineers and B2 Battle Droids ) , the engineers proceeded to build newer models that combine elements of HK - 47 ' s design with designs from their current battle droid models . They produced several prototypes including : HK - 57 s , HK - 58 Aurek and HK - 58 Besh , HK - 67 s , and the HK - Taskmaster , before settling with the HK - 77 s . These versions of the HKs were more similar to battle droids than their predecessors were , being meant for more frontline combat . They had blasters attached to the ends of their arms , hindering them from posing as protocol droids , and they were not as deadly or armored as their predecessors . Unfortunately for the Separatist engineers , Darth Vader arrived on the planet under the orders of the newly christened Emperor Palpatine and killed every member of the engineering team . HK - 47 , having had his data drive , behavior core , and personality core uploaded to the ship wreck before his body was taken by the engineering team ; as well as the new HK battle droids , lay undiscovered for over 20 years . Upon rediscovery by a group of spacers , HK - 47 managed to convince them to help him take control of the old droid factory . The group succeeded in their missions , only to be double crossed by HK - 47 . He used the droid factory to create a new body that was similar to his old one , installed himself into it . HK - 47 then went on to gather all the old droids , including the various HK battle droids , to begin a war with all organic life . HK - 47 ultimately failed as the spacers managed to destroy his factory , his army , and his body ; but not before he managed to upload his consciousness to parts unknown . Several HK - 77 units were later recovered from Mustafar . Many of these units were reprogrammed and refitted as fire fighting droids via replacing their blasters with fire extinguishers and coating them in heat resistant chemicals . Another popular modification among the criminal underworld was to replace a HK - 77 ' s blasters with hands , increase their ability to calculate odds , and install data of gambling games , before using them as proxies for gambling events . In the aftermath of the Battle of Hoth , several HK assassin droids were spotted on the ice planet . HK protocol pacifist package . Sometime during the development of the HK - series , a module was developed that suppressed a HK ' s combat and assassination protocols . It appears to have been made to convert HKs into regular protocol droids , as opposed to their dual nature of assassin / protocol , probably in an attempt to better market the units . Behind the scenes . The term HK " Hunter - Killer " was first used in " Star Wars " with HK - 47 , which in turn is a reference to the dropship of the same designation that appears in the BioWare game " Shattered Steel " , which in turn was a reference to BioWare writer Drew Karpyshyn ' s billiard team . In cut content of Knights of the Old Republic II , HK - 50s were to be destroyed by HK - 47 after the latter infiltrated the HK ' s manufacturing facility , activated the prototype HK - 51s , and turned them against the HK - 50s .