TIE/sh VIP shuttle

The TIE/sh VIP shuttle was a short-range shuttle manufactured by Sienar Fleet Systems. The personnel priority model was one of the more successful variants of the basic TIE/sa bomber, affording room for up to four individuals as well as additional cargo. Although the TIE was sluggish and not designed for combat, it was equipped with a laser cannon and a shield generator and was typically used by the Galactic Empire to quickly ferry officers between starships and other installations. The TIE/sh was an unpopular mode of transportation among users, as they preferred the luxury of the larger Lambda-class shuttle.
During the Galactic Civil War, Sith Lord Darth Vader flew a TIE/sh to the planet Jerne in pursuit of Rebels Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, but the pair evaded Vader and fled using his shuttle. The Imperial Navy made extensive use of the TIE/sh in the subsequent Hoth campaign of 3 ABY, employing the shuttle as a substitute for standard comm traffic between Vader's squadron of Star Destroyers, which would have interfered with the mission's vital sensor scans and probe droid transmissions in the Hoth asteroid field. Captain Lorth Needa of the Star Destroyer Avenger made his final space voyage aboard a TIE/sh before his execution at Vader's hands for failing to capture the Rebel starship Millennium Falcon. Several years following the Empire's defeat at the Battle of Endor, Imperial leaders such as Moff Kentor Sarne and Supreme Warlord Blitzer Harrsk rode the TIE shuttle as their personal transports.
Long after, in 44 ABY, the world Nam Chorios' Mayor Snaplaunce had repurposed his TIE/sh as a personal campaign vehicle, appropriately named Vote Snaplaunce. Jedi Luke and Ben Skywalker and their Sith ally, Vestara Khai, borrowed the shuttle in their hunt for the dark side entity Abeloth, and, despite the craft's age and limited maneuverability, they took advantage of the equipment in its dual pods to survive an attack by Abeloth's ship. While the TIE/sh was heavily damaged, the group converted it into a wind-propelled landspeeder to resume their travels.
==Characteristics==
The Sienar Fleet Systems–manufactured TIE/sh VIP shuttle, otherwise known as the TIE shuttle, was a variant model of the basic TIE/sa bomber. Similar to the TIE/br boarding shuttle, the TIE/sh adopted the TIE bomber's hull configuration but replaced the bomber's portside ordnance launcher and the bomb delivery system with a small, well-appointed passenger pod. The pod could hold up to four individuals and additional cargo, containing two rows of front-facing seats that had space for two Humans and were equipped with straps. Each TIE shuttle wing had an array of three solar panels, and the craft either had its wings bent inward, similar to the TIE bomber, or bent outward. A pilot controlled the craft and simultaneously served as the gunner using starfighter-style controls from the starboard command pod.
The TIE/sh measured 7.8 meters in length and, while not designed for combat, protected its passengers with a single, lower-powered laser cannon with relevant support systems that could be set to autofire mode and that had an atmospheric firing range of 2.5 kilometers, though the shuttle required a starfighter escort if danger was nearby. Designed for short-range space travel, sluggish, and difficult to maneuver, the TIE/sh generally lacked a hyperdrive and other advances but nonetheless mounted a defensive shield generator and was equipped with sensors.
The cockpit was illuminated by lights and had a control board that included a main monitor screen, which provided diagnostic warnings via flashing yellow and red alerts, and a sensor screen. Another sensor board was located in the passenger pod, from which the sensors could be recalibrated and read to assist the pilot's flying. Communication between the pods was facilitated by an internal intercom, while a comm system automatically connected to a TIE pilot helmet's voice-activated microphone and manually accessible by both pods could be used for external contact. The shuttle boasted a cargo capacity of up to one metric ton and two days' worth of consumables.
Customary of the TIE series, the TIE/sh sported twin ion engines, which were capable of achieving a maximum atmospheric speed of 650 km/h, as well as repulsorlifts for take-off and landing. Both the TIE/sh and the TIE/br were equipped with landing gear, which, for a time, made them the only TIE series craft not dependent upon the docking racks found aboard larger Imperial ships and bases. A boarding ramp extended from the undersides of both the shuttle's cockpit and passenger pod, but each of the pods also had its own top hatch. Available only to the Imperial Military, the TIE/sh was not available for public sale. The craft marketed at 120,000 credits new and 45,000 credits used. The shuttle also had emergency tools that included an arc welder.
==Role==
The Galactic Empire utilized the TIE/sh as a specialized priority shuttle for quickly transporting command-level officers, troops, and other priority cargo between naval ships, such as Imperial Star Destroyers, as well as space stations and ground installations. Efficient but utilitarian, the TIE/sh was an unpopular mode of transportation for those who used the craft, as they coveted the more luxurious Lambda-class T-4a shuttle. Indeed, while flag officers typically used the larger Lambda-class shuttle, lower-ranking officers usually rode aboard the TIE/sh. Each Imperial ship in a line carrying TIE fighters typically also carried one TIE/sh.
==History==
===Height of the Empire===
TIE/sh VIP shuttle was one of several mission-specific TIE Series models that Sienar Fleet Systems developed for the Galactic Empire, and alongside the TIE/br boarding shuttle was among the most successful variants of the TIE bomber. Admiral Conan Antonio Motti provided a brief mention of the passenger variant as author of the Imperial Navy chapter of the Imperial Handbook: A Commander's Guide tactical manual, distributed just prior to the Battle of Yavin nineteen years into the Empire's reign.The New Essential Chronology
Between 0 ABY and 3 ABY,Dark Knight's Devilry takes place following the destruction of Alderaan and the events of while Luke Skywalker still uses Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, which he loses during the events of . This time period corresponds to the years 0 ABY to 3 ABY, according to The New Essential Chronology. while in pursuit of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa of the Rebel Alliance, the Sith Lord Darth Vader piloted a TIE/sh over the sandy wastes of the ancient planet Jerne with Imperial Captain Ryko Vant aboard. Vader had lured the Rebels to the Imperial outpost Adony Station, where he planned to capture them while they searched for the purported Eternity Crystal—the Rebels had hoped that it would allow them to turn back time and prevent the planet Alderaan's destruction. However, Skywalker and Organa eluded Vader's trap at Adony Station and escaped Jerne aboard the TIE/sh.
In 2 ABY, is intended as a tie-in to the sourcebook Alliance Intelligence Reports, which is set in 2 ABY. Rebel Alliance Lieutenant Commander Bakki Sourthol filed a report on the Empire's TIE Series starfighters for the Task Force on Alliance Security. The compiled report, which detailed the development of the TIE Series and its many variant models, contained detailed TIE/sh technical specifications, including a set of schematics.
Darth Vader's personal fleet of Star Destroyers, Death Squadron, extensively utilized the TIE/sh while searching for the Rebel Alliance during the Hoth campaign in 3 ABY. Because standard comm traffic between the fleet's Star Destroyers would have interfered with vital sensor scans and communications from dispatched Viper probe droids, Death Squadron employed TIE shuttles rather than the high-profile Lambda-class shuttle to physically deliver non-vital messages back and forth when the fleet was not in hyperspace.
Captain Lorth Needa of the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Avenger made his final space voyage in a TIE/sh in the wake of the Battle of Hoth. After the Avenger lost the Rebel agent Han Solo and his fugitive freighter, the Millennium Falcon, while pursuing it through the Hoth asteroid field, Needa instructed his communications officer to prepare a TIE/sh; the captain rode it from the Avenger to Vader's flagship, the Super Star Destroyer Executor, to personally apologize to the Dark Lord for allowing the Rebel ship to escape. Vader summarily executed Needa for his failure.
===Fall of Imperial leadership===
Four years after the Empire's defeat in 4 ABY at the Battle of Endor, Moff Kentor Sarne attempted to flee the Battle of Kathol System via a TIE shuttle. Moff Sarne's forces had been losing the battle to the New Republic crew of the FarStar corvette and Sarne had personally made a last-ditch attempt to weaponize a launch gate in orbit of the planet Kathol. While the FarStar crew damaged the moff's Lambda-class shuttle aboard the launch gate, Sarne requested Captain Brannij of his Star Destroyer, Bastion, to deploy a TIE shuttle that would return him to the Bastion and subsequently leave the Kathol system via hyperspace. However, the FarStar crew was able to avert the gate's activation and kill Sarne before he could escape with the Bastion.
Eight years after the Endor battle, Supreme Warlord Blitzer Harrsk, formerly one of the most respected minds in the Imperial Military, met his demise at the controls of a TIE/sh. Harrsk had previously suffered a traumatic brain injury during the Battle of Endor, causing him to adopt an insane dual persona as Captain Bolla Thoath, his former second-in-command, who had died at Endor. Returning from a meeting with Admiral Natasi Daala and other Imperial warlords at the Tsoss Beacon asteroid—in which Daala murdered all present, with the exception of Harrsk, whose brain injury had saved him from Daala's poison gas—Harrsk's Thoath persona, determined to end Harrsk's madness, abruptly threw their shuttle into a tailspin. As the two personalities struggled for control of the craft, Harrsk came to the sudden, shattering realization of his own insanity and suicidally slammed the TIE/sh into the asteroid, killing them both.
===Vote Snaplaunce===
In the decades following the collapse of the Empire, a retired mechanic formerly of the Imperial Navy settled on the planet Nam Chorios around 29 ABY,In Fate of the Jedi: Conviction, Snaplaunce remarks that he purchased his TIE shuttle from a retired Imperial mechanic who settled on Nam Chorios "about fifteen years ago." The Essential Reader's Companion dates the events of Fate of the Jedi: Conviction to 44 ABY, thereby placing the mechanic's arrival on Nam Chorios around 29 ABY. where he carefully restored and sold Imperial vessels to private owners. Among the vehicles the mechanic sold was a disarmed TIE/sh to an Ithorian named Snaplaunce, who proceeded to paint the ship a bright yellow and adorn its external hull with his campaign slogan for the mayoral office of Hweg Shul, capital city of Nam Chorios: "Vote Snaplaunce," which was also registered as the shuttle's official name. The Ithorian modified Vote Snaplaunce for civilian use so that the shuttle effectively served as both his personal transport and a traveling campaign advertisement.
Vote Snaplaunce remained in the mayor's personal service by 44 ABY, when exiled Grand Master Luke Skywalker of the New Jedi Order, accompanied by his son, Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker, and Lost Tribe of Sith member Vestara Khai, arrived on Nam Chorios in pursuit of the dark side entity known as Abeloth. Snaplaunce, a previous acquaintance of Skywalker's, agreed to loan his shuttle to the motley group of Humans to aid in their quest.
With the elder Skywalker at the controls, Vote Snaplaunce soon fell under attack by Ship, a Sith Meditation Sphere in the service of Abeloth, and Koval Station from orbit. Although Skywalker's monitors were knocked out of commission, he worked in tandem with his passengers via intercom to evade the attacks and flee the skirmish. Due to battle damage and complications brought about by sabotage, the TIE shuttle spun out of control in the atmosphere for a time and its engines gave out, but Skywalker was nevertheless able to maneuver it safely onto the ground. In the absence of engine thrust, and with timely repairs on the TIE/sh rendered impractical under the circumstances, the group took advantage of Vote Snaplaunce repulsorlifts and physically pushed the ship to a more sheltered spot before effecting repairs.
The group resorted to rigging a sail rudder on top of the shuttle, operating its arc welder with the ship's power to fit the rudder in the span between the twin pods. They also attached wires and cables to the solar panels' trailing edges that connected to the wheels of each pod's top hatch, serving as a pulley. Deeming their work a "bantha poodoo" landspeeder, the group proceeded to continue pursuing Abeloth, frantically steering their rigged craft through a hilly route as they were propelled by the port ion engine, reaching nearly fifty km/h.
Skywalker's team eventually abandoned the TIE/sh outside Hweg Shul, though media interests reported that Vote Snaplaunce was later recovered. The Jedi Master subsequently jested to journalists Kandra Nilitz and Beurth Ogh if they would like to know of Abeloth and the Lost Tribe of Sith or receive a complicated account of how his group managed to operate the shuttle; Nilitz took the former offer. During a subsequent battle against Abeloth and the Sith Tribe, Khai rigged a capacitor from the shuttle to explode a small sentient tsil crystal, causing a death convulsion that incapacitated her and the Skywalkers' opponents to allow their own escape.
==Behind the scenes==
===Concept to creation===
The shuttle was first mentioned in Donald F. Glut'sStar Wars: The Empire Strikes Back novelization April 1980 novelization of the original trilogy film that was released in the following monthStar Wars Year By Year: A Visual History, New Edition—Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back—in which it first appeared. The TIE shuttle's design, which is basically a TIE bomber without the bomb chute, dates back to the original concept stages of the first Star Wars film, 1977's Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, in which a twin-pod boarding vehicle was to be seen among the Imperial forces. The idea was dropped from Episode IV before being resurrected for The Empire Strikes Back.
The TIE shuttle in storyboard sketches and the model itself that appears in the film had wings that bent outward, unlike other TIE vessels. However, later depictions of the shuttle show it with wings bent inward, including the image provided in the StarWars.com Databank, which is an image of a TIE bomber with its bomb chute edited out. 
===Naming and specifications===
The craft that appears in The Empire Strikes Back was first provided its formal classification as a "TIE/sh" in the article "Alliance Intelligence Report: TIE Fighters," written by Timothy S. O'Brien for the May 1996 tenth issue of the Star Wars Adventure Journal, a supplement to the West End Games Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. Written from an in-universe perspective by Rebel Alliance starfighter pilot Bakki Sourthol, the article designates the ship as a TIE shuttle and also provides its technical specifications, which are reused for the publisher's Galaxy Guide 3: The Empire Strikes Back second edition, released in July that year. The 1998 CD-ROM Star Wars: Behind the Magic by LucasArts alternatively identifies the craft as a "Transport Shuttle."
With the advent of Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars: Age of Rebellion roleplaying game, the TIE/sh received a new set of technical specifications that differs from its original West End Games stats, as well as a new designation, the TIE/sh VIP shuttle. The July 2014 Star Wars: Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook changed the TIE/sh's atmospheric speed from 1,050 km/h to 650 km/h, upgraded its maximum number of passengers from two to four, and specified that it was equipped with a shield generator. The 2011 novel Fate of the Jedi: Conviction by Aaron Allston had firmly established that the TIE shuttle had only two seats for the Human characters Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai as a part of the plot, but given that this fact does not necessarily contradict Age of Rebellion specification that the craft could hold up to four individuals, the article assumes that both sources are correct.
The Imperial Veterans Expansion Pack supplement to Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game also restricts the passenger number to two individuals if the player upgrades their TIE bomber into a TIE shuttle.
===Canonical ambiguity===
The comic story "Dark Knight's Devilry," published by Marvel Comics in the 153rd issue of The Empire Strikes Back Monthly with writing by Steve Moore and illustrations by Alan Davis in January 1982,Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Original Marvel Years Vol. 3 features Darth Vader piloting a "scout ship" that appears identical to the TIE shuttle; however, as both the TIE/sh and the TIE/br boarding shuttle are virtually indistinguishable visually,Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections certain ambiguity arises as to the scout ship's classification. Yet given that the scout ship's port-side passenger pod displays an ovular inset, different from the more circular inset of the TIE/br, as illustrated in the 1998 reference book Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections, this article treats the Dark Knight's Devilry craft as a TIE/sh.
The 1996 "Endgame" adventure in the Endgame supplement to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game The DarkStryder Campaign gives several suggestions for the players' final chapter with Moff Sarne, who is attempting to activate the launch gate and flee aboard a TIE shuttle, spelled as "TIE/shuttle," back to the Star Destroyer Bastion. Players, who roleplay as the crew of the FarStar, could kill Sarne before he flees and then work to prevent the launch gate from activating or stop the gate's activation first, in the process letting him escape on his shuttle; if the players are successful either way, the game ends with them defeating Moff Sarne's plans and preventing the gate's activation.
The "last resort" option that the game suggests involves a frustrated Captain Brannij helping the FarStar crew by instructing its members how to deactivate the launch gate and also blowing up Sarne's TIE shuttle before surrendering the remaining Imperial forces to the New Republic. The first part of the "The Imperial Warlords: Despoilers of an Empire" article, published on StarWars.com on December 5, 2013, confirms that the moff was killed by a crew member of the FarStar—Jessa Dajus—before he could escape with the Bastion.
==Appearances==
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*Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back junior novelization 
*Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back novelization 
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*Fate of the Jedi: Conviction 
===Non-canon appearances===
*William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back: Star Wars Part the Fifth 
==Sources==
*The Empire Strikes Back Notebook 
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*Galaxy Guide 3: The Empire Strikes Back, Second Edition
*Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays 
*Star Wars Trilogy Sourcebook, Special Edition
*Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: The Illustrated Screenplay
*Star Wars: Behind the Magic 
*Starships of the Galaxy 
*The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels
*Rebellion Era Campaign Guide
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*Star Wars: Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook 
*Star Wars: Imperial Handbook: A Commander's Guide 
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==Notes and references==
Category:Shuttle classes
Category:Starship classes of the Galactic Empire
s-sh VIP shuttle