The Imperial Officer Corps Detachment (IOC) is a specialized unit within the 501st Legion, a worldwide Star Wars costuming organization. The IOC, like other detachments within the 501st Legion, was created by passionate Star Wars fans who wanted to focus on specific aspects of the Star Wars universe, in this case, the Imperial officers.

Timeline

January 2002: Detachments become an official unit type in the 501st Legion. IOC didn't exist at this point, and several other detachments were already in existence.

March 2003: Founded as "The Officer's Mess" and operated on a Yahoo Group platform. Unfortunately, this Yahoo Group is not archived, and little documentation exists about IOC during this period. Jasmine Anderson (ID-2381) took the lead in the effort to establish IOC as an official detachment.

May 2003: The name is changed to Imperial Officer Corps, adopting the slogan "Duty. Honor. Empire." The first detachment logo was created, designed by Jay Harris (TK-1010).

September 2003: IOC makes its debut at DragonCon, marking its presence in the Star Wars fan community.

January 2004: The IOC website is launched, operating alongside the Yahoo Group. The mission statement of the website emphasizes the purpose of recognizing tunic-wearing costumers within the 501st Legion and providing them with a sense of unity. At this point, the website listed 75 members.

2006 – 2007: Costume Reference Libraries (CRLs) as they are known today begin to be developed, and IOC is among the early adopters of this format.

September 2007: The IOC forums are opened at their current online home. All subsequent detachment events and records are archived on these forums. Originally hosted at imperialofficer.net, the website is later moved to imperialofficer.com under DL Rome in 2008 due to necessary upgrades, and it remains the IOC's home to this day.