Star Wars features a few horrific concepts but rarely explores them as they are. The existence of the Sith promises true evil, embodied by some of the most powerful creatures in the universe. Some Sith Lords can drain life from planets to sustain their mortality. Beyond that, midi-chlorians are microscopic bugs in every living thing’s bloodstream, overwriting the concept of free will. Those ideas are scary, but Project Blackwing is a more straightforward Star Wars horror concept.
Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars was a messy affair from any perspective. The company decanonized all the extended universe material gathered over decades, leaving tons of beloved content in the dust. Its new strategy is to either incorporate or slowly replace every element they deleted. This leads to several awkward collisions as the entertainment empire attempts to rebrand creativity with its profit-friendly knock-offs.
What is Project Blackwing?
Project Blackwing was an Imperial weapons project that sought to weaponize a nightmarish plague called the Sickness. That codename and the official designation “Imperial Bioweapons Project I71A” emerged with the third galactic outbreak. The Sickness was a self-aware virus, motivated to spread, corrupt, and consume all living things. Victims suffer various symptoms that quickly give way to rapid necrosis, madness, and death. All who die from the Sickness swiftly reanimate as crazed predatory puppets, commanded entirely by the virus. It spread impossibly fast and practically guaranteed death to anyone who was infected. Though sufferers of the Sickness lose all cognitive functions, the virus can command their bodies to perform complex actions, like firing blasters or piloting spacecraft. The Sickness creates undead zombies, who violently pursue further prey.
Blackwing reawakened the creation of Darth Drear. Over 4,000 years before the Galactic Civil War, Darth Drear wielded rare Sith alchemy to create an elixir that would grant him eternal life. His chief ingredient was a self-aware, Force-sensitive flower called the Murakami black orchid. His elixir worked, granting freedom from entropy and eternal life. The Sickness emerged as a side effect, destroying the host’s brain and creating undead beings. Unfortunately, Drear consumed his elixir. He devised a solution. He believed he could maintain the benefits of his solution while avoiding the consequences by cutting out and consuming the beating heart of a midi-chlorian-rich Jedi. His minions failed to capture a sufficient sacrifice, leaving him to die of the Sickness. Sith Lord Darth Scabrous discovered Drear’s temple and tried again centuries later. He got as far as capturing his chosen Jedi, agricultural expert Hestizo Trace, but she and her brother killed Scabrous. The Sickness consumed Scabrous’s remote Sith academy, burying itself for generations.
What happened to Project Blackwing?
Darth Vader discovered the stories of Drear and Scabrous around 1 BBY, just before the Rebellion made its first successful strike against the Empire. He instructed the Imperial Biological Weapons Division to research and develop Drear’s elixir and weaponize its unintended effect. He wanted the Sickness as a mass-produced contagion that could put down armed resistance. They developed the codename Blackwing for their distilled virus. Vader demanded absolute secrecy, prompting the scientists to work on a Star Destroyer called the Vector as it toured the far reaches of the galaxy. Even the soldiers and officers aboard the Vector remained unaware of the project they supported. The scientists devised Blackwing, a concentrated viral fluid that could be aerosolized. Unfortunately, some crew members mishandled the airtight tanks of Blackwing, unleashing the virus on the Vector.
The disaster on the Vector claimed the lives of almost every living being on board. Almost 50,000 Imperial personnel members fell prey to the Sickness. The Vector‘s undead crew later assaulted a prison ship, leaving four survivors. Project Blackwing emerged again on Dathomir, where another outbreak killed thousands. Vader ordered a quarantine but couldn’t retrieve the lead scientist or an original sample. The modern canon introduced Blackwing in a mobile game featuring Undead Troopers as an enemy. The Empire and Rebellion worked to contain two outbreaks on Dandoran, successfully quarantining the virus twice. Project Blackwing experiments go unmentioned beyond the Empire. Rebel agent Jennica Pierce summed it up like this:
There’s very little intel as of yet, but we believe that a group of Imperial scientists have been doing covert bio-weapons research on Dandoran. These Death Troopers are a threat to our resources on Dandoran. Search the planet and destroy them. Jennica, out.
Could Project Blackwing appear in future Star Wars projects?
Blackwing primarily exists in the Legends continuity. Joe Schreiber’s 2009 novel Death Troopers depicted the outbreak on the Vector. The 2014 mobile game Star Wars: Commander canonized the virus to create enemies for the game. This could open the door for new interpretations of the concept, but Schreiber’s version of the story is likely stuck in its original form. In Ahsoka, the evil Admiral Thrawn wielded Nightsister magic to create the Night Troopers, another breed of undead stormtroopers. This evokes some elements of the breakout on Dathomir, where a few infected witches fought the virus with spells, gaining its immortality and the power to resurrect the dead.
Disney isn’t likely to unleash a Star Wars horror project. Death Troopers would be perfect source material, but Disney wouldn’t risk alienating fans with something as unapproachable as full-fledged zombie horror. However, since the company remains terrified of depicting the future, it will eventually run out of Galactic Civil War stories. Project Blackwing could be a compelling element in future Star Wars stories, but it’s already a brilliant underpinning for several great ones.
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