The I-wing is an experimental, high-performance starfighter designed to make quick strikes on enemy shipping and overwhelm enemy starfighters by superior firepower. In many ways, New Republic strategists have considered it to be the Republic's equivalent to the Tie Defender: it embodies many of the nation's design concepts into one product and takes it up a notch. Consequently, it may see use by elite NR squadrons much like the Tie Defender is for the Imperial Navy. Yet the I-wing is in many ways the opposite of the Tie Defender. Where the Tie Defender uses miniaturization to try and fit many standard components into a tiny hull, the I-wing uses a large hull to fit standard and nonstandard components taken from not only the New Republics experience, but those of its member cultures as well