Looking for THX 1138 in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

The THX 1138 references have found a very comfortable home in the pages, panels, and video game levels of the Expanded Universe. One of the earliest appearances was in the daily newspaper comic strip series begun in 1979 by Russ Manning. Imperial fleet officers scramble to react to a priority "THX alert" that has appeared on their scope.

What follows is a sampling of other THX appearance. This is list is by no means definitive, but does give an indication of what a popular gag it has become.

• Though not exactly a namedrop, issue #30 of the original Star Wars Marvel series (1979) has very strong THX overtones. Princess Leia visits the factory world of Metalorn, where the populace is all dressed in featureless yellow jumpsuits and their daily lives are filled with bewildering numerical monickers like Shift 114E, Junction 206-994 and Post 994-203.
• The theme park attraction Star Tours has a reference hidden in a P.A. announcement. Listen carefully as the owner of a landspeeder with the vehicle ID THX 1138 is paged.
• In the roleplaying adventure The Isis Coordinates (West End Games, 1990), one successful outcome of the story has the Star Destroyer Desolator colliding with a rogue star suspiciously named G-138.

• Decipher Inc. further specified a background speeder design originally dubbed a "Void Spider TX-3" as a "Void Spider THX-1138" in their customizable card game.
• The Duel of the Fates expansion for the Young Jedi Collectible Card Game from Decipher Inc. includes a vulture droid named DFS-1138.
• In Mission One of Battle Three of the TIE Fighter space combat simulator game (LucasArts, 1994), the player (as a TIE pilot) has to inspect suspicious containers floating at an abandoned manufacturing plant near the planet Argoon. These include a cluster of containers identified as THX-1136A, THX-1137D, THX-1138B, THX-1139D and THX-1140D.
• Wanted by Cracken (West End Games, 1993) is a collection of "wanted" posters for felons of the New Republic. Qan Gindoch, a smuggler, has this number under his mugshot: 9573THX1138C25N.
• The novel Jedi Search (Bantam, 1995) has one of more well hidden references. In Chapter 3, Wedge Antilles attempts to shut down a construction droid by transmitting the code "SGW Zero-Zero-Two-Seven." Advance each letter and number by one, and you'll see the reference.
• The novel Shadows of the Empire (Bantam Spectra, 1996) has two separate references. In Chapter 21, a Bothan tech calls for a scan of "sector Tarp-Hard-Xenon," which make for an intriguing acronym. Later, in Chapter 37, a voice from a comlink says, "Thix? What is going on down there? Thix? Come in, sector one-one-three-eight, come in--"

In The Lost City of the Jedi (Bantam Skylark, 1992), an illustration by Karl Kesel has a street-tending droid stenciled with the identifier "THX-1" on its side.

In the first printing of the d20 Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (Wizards of the Coast, 2000), each page contains computer screen-styled pagination, dressed with seemingly random numbers. One of those numbers is "1138."

Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter (Del Rey, 2001) has this particular quote from the droid I-Five in Chapter 10: "...anywhere from six to fourteen minutes before they arrive to take the bearer of the tab into custody for attempted grand theft and illegal use of communication protocols THX-one-one-three--"