Royal Guard after Red Guard

These are the kind of characters that have always fascinated me. Since the first time I saw them in the Star Wars movie The Return of the Jedi, something clicked in me. Probably due to their constant stealthy presence. They were there, but you couldn't´t perceive them. And the uniform is one of the most successful of all times. As this characters are surrounded by a sort of mist and enigma, lets try to find out a little about their origins and whereabouts.

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Sempre fui fascinado por estes personagens. Desde a primeira vez que os vi no filme Star Wars The Return of the Jedi, algo despertou em mim. Provavelmente por passarem praticamente despercebidos durante grande parte do tempo. Estavam lá, mas não se dava por eles. Quanto ao uniforme, é um dos mais bem conseguidos de sempre. Tentaremos perceber algumas coisas relacionadas com as suas origens e actual paradeiro, já que é sempre difícil saber de personagens que estão tão envoltas em mistério e enigma.

RED GUARD

"You see? You must allow yourself your own private guards, Supreme Chancellor!"

―Senator Viento to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine[src]

The Red Guard, nicknamed Redrobes, was a group of specially trained members of the Senate Guard. They were charged with the protection of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine prior to and during the Clone Wars.

History

"Yes, I remember how powerful the Red Guards were. They used to bully us."
―Kambrea[src]

As they were formed at Palpatine's discretion without a formal act, several senators (including Bail Organa) considered them to be illegal, and even the Jedi High Council were unsure of their true number and strength. Palpatine justified their creation due to rumors of corruption amongst the Senate Guard, especially after the infamous Ronhar Kim incident. During the hunt for Darth Sidious, Mace Windu and Yoda suspected that the Dark Lord of the Sith might be among their number.
During the Battle of Coruscant, the Red Guard were led by High Jedi General Windu in his defense of the Galactic Senate building. The Red Guards protecting Palpatine during the battle also expressed some anxiety at Palpatine's stubborn refusal to leave his office. Following Order 66, the Red Guard became the new Emperor's Royal Guard; however, their appearance and equipment changed little.
Unlike the Royal Guard, there is no indication that the Red Guard evolved out of the elite clone troopers and stormtroopers. Given how the Red Guard appeared independently and before the appearance of the Grand Army of the Republic, it seems that the Red Guard only gradually became the elite unit of the conventional military. However, like the Royal Guard, the Red Guard was not subject to senatorial oversight, and reported only to Chancellor Palpatine.

Equipment

The armor of the Royal Guard reflected the armor of the Mandalorian Death Watch and the Thyrsus Sun Guards. It consisted of plated crimson armor of an unknown composition, overlaid with voluminous robes, presumably to conceal weaponry. The Red Guard primarily used a meter long force pike.

Check the Wookieepedia for info about appearances, sources and other stuff.

EMPEROR´S ROYAL GUARD

"A Royal Guardsman never seeks special privileges. Ever. His entire goal in life is to serve the Emperor, and the New Order he created. His goal in life, and his desire in death."
―Grodin Tierce[src]

The Emperor's Royal Guard, also called Imperial Royal Guard or just Imperial Guard, was a highly elite guard unit tasked with the protection of Emperor Palpatine. The Emperor was almost never seen without a detachment of Royal Guards at his side. The Emperor's Royal Guard was the successor to the Republic's Red Guard.
The exact number of Royal Guardsmen serving the Emperor was unknown, with speculations ranging from less than fifty to tens of thousands, although their numbers were known to have exceeded four hundred.
Like the stormtroopers of the Stormtrooper Corps, the Royal Guards formed a military unit independent of the Imperial Military and directly answerable to the Emperor.

Palpatine's Royal Guard

The Royal Guards in the Imperial era were selected from only the best men in the Academy who had proven themselves worthy for the position. There were several ranks in the Royal Guard system, the top being Sovereign Protector.

Royal Guards wore matching scarlet robes, battle armor, and helmets. Although ceremonial, the red armor did not hamper movement or fighting. The armor bore design influences from the uniforms of the Death Watch of the Mandalore system, the Sun Guards of the Thyrsus system, and the Senate Guards of the old Galactic Republic. Their preferred weapon was the meter-long force pike, although they were trained in the use of many common and exotic weapons and martial arts, such as Echani art. They used a special "combat language" that only they understood, and part of the training included removal of fingerprints. They flew specialized red variants of the TIE/In starfighter.

The primary duties of the Imperial Guard included the personal protection of Palpatine and his designees, as well as guarding his secret facilities and clone laboratories on Byss, as well as the Emperor's Citadel. This task was considered the most prestigious and was usually reserved for the Sovereign Protectors. Others operated the Guard training facility on Yinchorr or served at some of the Emperor's other safehouses.

The only records regarding their exact number remained with Palpatine, or in his private archives on Imperial Center or Byss. With their primary mission to protect the Emperor and any of his designees, the Royal Guard was never sent on combat missions as a corps. Instead, a few small elements of Royal Guardsmen were sent into combat on a rotating basis to keep them in fighting trim, appearing as and working alongside the usual stormtroopers. This was how Grodin Tierce explained his survival of his unit's destruction on the second Death Star.[1]

After the death of Palpatine, many of the Royal Guard—such as Kir Kanos—refused to choose sides among the various Imperial factions. Others remained undercover in their stormtrooper units, while others still pledged themselves to Sate Pestage and his successors. In 10 ABY, however, they all flocked to Byss when summoned by the reborn Palpatine. They fought by his side until his final death the next year. It was later revealed that his death had been hastened by the sabotage of his clones by renegade Protector Carnor Jax.

After Palpatine's final death, the remnants of the Royal Guard, much decimated by the disasters on Byss and Eclipse II[2], returned to Yinchorr, where they gathered to mourn Palpatine and form a plan to avenge him. However, Jax had laid a trap, and they were slaughtered by his stormtroopers. Ironically, the Royal Guards suffered the same fate as the old Jedi Order. As the Royal Guards were annihilated by the stormtroopers, so too were the Jedi by the clone troopers decades before the massacre of the Royal Guards. Only Kir Kanos escaped, and eventually killed Jax. Kanos is often said to be the last surviving member of the Royal Guard, but this may only be true "from a certain point of view", as at least one member of Palpatine's original Royal Guard, Vin Northal, defected to the Rebel Alliance, and others still may have served the Dark Lady Lumiya. The clone of Grodin Tierce and members of the new Royal Guard recruited by Admiral Daala were the most high-profile "Guardsmen" encountered by the New Republic.

Training

Members of the Royal Guard were hand-picked from the ranks of the most elite stormtroopers. Each recruit was scrutinized to fit select size, strength, intelligence and loyalty requirements, as well as latent Force sensitivity. Recruits strong but not too strong in the Force were noted and pulled aside to test into a special class of Royal Guards known as Sovereign Protectors. If they passed these even more rigorous tests, they were trained by Dark Jedi to wield the Force. The names of the Royal Guardsmen were never uttered by anyone outside the Guard, including Palpatine.

Equipment and training were lavished upon them at the Imperial Royal Guard Academy on Yinchorr. Students would train fencing and fighting in an arena called the Squall. Classes consisted of approximately forty students each, and trainees were partnered up into doubles. During a yearlong training program, recruits sparred against each other continuously to perfect their combat skills. A step away from the squad-based stormtrooper training received on Carida, by working both alone and in pairs, recruits learned how to rely on themselves or on a teammate to achieve victory. Training mainly centered on Echani hand-to-hand combat, and failure often resulted in death. Casualty rates were very high; out of Kir Kanos's class of forty-two, only two reached full Guardsman status—all others were killed in training. During their final test, trainees fought each other to the death before Palpatine himself. Only a handful would survive this final test in a display of their loyalty and skill.

During training, the Guards were inculcated with the belief that Palpatine, and his every order, were beyond fault or question.

More info about The Royal Guard at Wookieepedia.

There´s a very cool section of known members of this elite force.

Also check the official Star Wars databank.

Mauro Bex : maurobindo