Twin Ion Engine starfighter

The Republic Sienar Systems Twin Ion Engine (T.I.E.) starfighter was the forerunner of the Imperial TIE starfighter and its variants.
==Characteristics==
The T.I.E. starfighter was the first fighter to utilize the famous "ball-shaped cockpit flanked by vertical wings" design, and seemed very similar in terms of shape to its descendants.
==History==
The T.I.E. could be traced back to a courier design produced by Raith Sienar's Sienar Design Systems before 32 BBY, the ship which became Darth Maul's ScimitarThe Essential Guide to Warfare—although Scimitar was a large, sophisticated runner rather than a compact, mass-produced starfighter. The next stage was the Advanced Project ship, a starfighter prototype design, the latest and smallest of which Sienar was building in 29 BBY.Rogue Planet
It would be another seven years, however, before Sienar revealed the final component of the T.I.E. design, the SIE-TIE twin ion engine, a powerful and highly-innovative propulsion unit which was officially endorsed by Republic Sienar Systems shortly before the First Battle of Geonosis and the outbreak of the Clone Wars. This paved the way for the final starfighter design, and it meant that Republic Sienar Systems was well-prepared when the Republic called for a new, standard mass-production starfighter during the Clone Wars.
The T.I.E. production went underway as part of a drive by the Republic Navy to standardize their starfighter capability and create fighters that could deploy in the limited space available aboard existing warships like the Dreadnaught-class and Carrack-class cruisers.
Although the new engine design was incompatible with established hyperdrive, life-support and shield systems, the T.I.E. was incredibly cheap, very fast, and could stack tightly in converted cargo holds or external launch-racks aboard the Navy's existing line-combat ships. By this time, the original T.I.E. had evolved into the TIE starfighter, which would later be supplanted by the TIE/LN starfighter, the dominant starfighter model of the Galactic Empire.
==Sources==
*Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 
*The Star Wars Sourcebook
*The Star Wars Sourcebook, Second Edition
*The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels
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*The Essential Guide to Warfare
==Notes and references==
Category:Republic Sienar Systems products
Category:Starship classes of the Galactic Republic