Pilots Guild

The Pilots Guild is the in-game gateway to the space half of Star Wars Galaxies. It is not a single organization but a label for the three pilot tracks a player commits to in the Jump to Lightspeed expansion: the Imperial Navy for Imperial-aligned players, the Rebel Alliance Starfighter Corps for Rebel-aligned players, and the Smugglers Alliance / Freelance track for unaligned pilots. The Smuggler profession overlaps with the freelance track.

Role in the game

Joining a pilot organization is what unlocks the Jump to Lightspeed space content: a player can travel between planets without joining one (by hiring shuttle NPCs), but only Pilots can launch their own ship, engage in space combat, complete pilot missions, and fly the faction-locked starfighters catalogued in the Vehicles database. The Shipwright crafting profession keeps the pilot economy supplied with hulls and components.

The three tracks

• Imperial Navy — the Imperial pilot track. Recruitment NPCs live in major Imperial cities. Members fly the TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, and TIE Advanced as their faction-locked starships.
• Rebel Alliance Starfighter Corps — the Rebel pilot track. Recruitment NPCs hide in safehouse cells across the galaxy. Members fly the X-Wing, A-Wing, and Y-Wing.
• Smugglers Alliance / Freelance — the neutral pilot track. Open to any player regardless of faction standing, this is the route most new pilots take while they decide whether to commit to the Galactic Civil War. Members fly the Z-95 Headhunter, YT-1300, and Decimator.

Joining and progression

Players join by speaking to a pilot recruiter NPC for the organization they want — recruiter locations are deliberately scattered to make finding the Imperial and Rebel recruiters feel like part of the GCW (the Rebel recruiter is found by a chain of contacts on Corellia and elsewhere; the Imperial recruiter sits more openly in Imperial cities). Once recruited, the player trains the Pilot profession and gains access to the organization’s pilot trainer, mission terminals, and ship sale terminals.

Lore and faction lock-in

Crucially, choosing a pilot track commits the player. Switching pilot organizations means dropping the profession and re-training under the new recruiter, losing the in-progress ships and skill investment. This matches the Star Wars universe’s basic premise — you don’t fly for the Empire one week and for the Rebellion the next — and is one of the few hard faction commitments SWG asks the player to make.