At Comicon this year the 501st Legion was in deployed to full effect capturing the imaginations of Star Wars fans and demonstrating that "With stormtrooper armor. This excellent article details the history of the 501st from their garrison structure to their charity and event deployments all tracked in a global database including individual unit designations like TK421, playing cards and unit patches. All in all, it is an impressive example of how a science-fiction inspired group can form a massive volunteer organization inspired by military aesthetics but fulfilling humanitarian missions and having a good time doing it.
"Tom suited up with me and the reaction was ten times bigger with two stormtroopers! I went from a curious standing museum piece by myself to a pair of stormtroopers that looked like a 'patrol' or 'detail.' That seemed to carry a lot more authority, visually. Suddenly, I realized how much more authentic stormtroopers looked when in numbers. It occurred to me then and there that there were no diminishing returns on the visual impact of stormtroopers. Quite simply, the more you have in one room the cooler they look."
We know some 501sters and we might incorporate 501st participation and into Spacepunk and similarly organized patches and "deployments" into Codecorps.
