K1's canon story

[Lance Monance]

Read, and all shall be made clear. (Yes, it's long, but next to no one I knew who read it was complaining.)

 

Hahaha. Great read. Now, I didn't read all of it, just skimmed through some of the passages. I love the way he mocks the game with all its (tiniest) flaws. xD

[Q]

Read the whole thing. It brings everything to light in an entertaining fashion. I think that the plot of TSL was great; it just wasn't very Star Warsy.

[Racter]

I just replayed K1 again, and it left me with the same questions. I didn't really explain my position the first time, so here's round two.

 

LS K1, Revan's supposed plan (according to Kreia) is a huge fail. The Republic is extremely weak, and his/her legions have been decapitated. Lacking a major military force, he/she goes off by him/herself to take out the True Sith? Totally unaccompanied, after going through all the trouble of converting half the Republic army to Revanism? lol

 

DS K1 makes even LESS sense. Revan brings the galaxy to it's knees, then leaves the core worlds untouched? Why in the world wouldn't he/she finish the job before leaving? Galaxy is militarily strong, on it's road to recovering politically and economically and would be ready when he/she came back to lead it's defense.

 

If LS, why isn't the Jedi Order standing strong in K2? LS or DS, what happened to the remaining Republic/Sith armies? If DS, the Sith army/navy had to be massive, and had the galaxy in a death grip. Nothing adds up. Two massive armies just disappeared, a war suddenly stopped, all the Jedi are gone, no explanation. The Nihilus hunting them down story doesn't make sense, as the council on Coruscant (core world) should have been mostly in tact, regardless of your ending.

 

I dunno. Maybe we'll get some answers in tOR. It'd be nice if we got a real K3 that somehow explained these major plot holes. lol

[Thanatos9t]

If LS, why isn't the Jedi Order standing strong in K2? LS or DS, what happened to the remaining Republic/Sith armies? If DS, the Sith army/navy had to be massive, and had the galaxy in a death grip. Nothing adds up. Two massive armies just disappeared, a war suddenly stopped, all the Jedi are gone, no explanation. The Nihilus hunting them down story doesn't make sense, as the council on Coruscant (core world) should have been mostly in tact, regardless of your ending.

 

I dunno. Maybe we'll get some answers in tOR. It'd be nice if we got a real K3 that somehow explained these major plot holes. lol

 

Well lets see the reason in K2 the Jedi Order are in ruins is due to Darth Nihilus's attack on the enclave on Katarr which wiped out the majority of the survivors from Revans Civil War.

 

The Sith on the other hand turned on themselves without a leader to command them as Sion mentions during K2, he witnessed it first hand as the academy tore itself apart.

[TKA-001]

Well lets see the reason in K2 the Jedi Order are in ruins is due to Darth Nihilus's attack on the enclave on Katarr which wiped out the majority of the survivors from Revans Civil War.

Actually, the Jedi were almost gone even before that. Kreia tells in TSL that the Order had taken immense casualties during the war, even going so far as to claim that "barely a hundred Jedi remained". If that's the case, then Katarr was merely the straw that broke the camel's back; the Jedi Order was officially rendered inoperable, and its remaining members went into exile/hiding.

[ShinDangaioh]

First off, the True Sith was mentioned in K1 by of all people Canderous.

 

"The Sith came to us with an offer...."

 

That offer led to the Mandolorian Wars.

 

TSL-RCM restored as much as it could, but TSL was only meant to be the transitory game between 1 and 3. KOTOR3 never came out.

 

As to Revan's stupidity, you can blame the Jedi Council for that one.

 

At the end of TSL, I choose to let the future rest and leave Kreia to her death and not listen to her predicitons. That way, I can see the Exile is heading back into the Republic to restore the Jedi. Probably heading for Courscant or Illum.

[mur'phon]

The armies didn't disapear without trace, it's mentioned when you get to Nar Shadda that once the war ended a lot of them found themselves without work. If DS, just asume the standard powerstruggle, if LS, consider that the republic is sorta low on cash, and until Nihilus arrives have little reason to keep a massive army.

 

As for Revan and Exiles actions, cannonically both are bat**** insane. Revan (aside from going LS) seems to think she is a god, while Exile sets out to track a needle in a haystack, a very pointed needle that doesen't seem to like him very much.

 

This is the reason why I pretend Revan was a semi-smart girl, went DS, and is now figthing the true sith with her armada guerrila style while bying time for the republic. Exile on the other hand is smart enough to stay, help rebuild the galaxy, and get the military going again. This would have the nice side effect (aside from halping save the day) of being a nice defence against Revan in case she's still pissed.

[Darth Avlectus]

I thought in any case for the Exile, the Exile eventually leaves to go and fight?

 

Even if Exile chose to keep Malachor V and not follow Revan, obviously the republic and the Jedi Order rebuilt (if ever so feebly of course ). So Exile did whatever he/she wanted to anyways. If at the time the Republic was dissolved...it only makes sense Exile would say "Meh, **** it--why not?" and go out to fight beyond the outer rim.

 

But if I missed anything, please correct me.

[mur'phon]

Aside from A: why go off alone to the outer rim to fight an army? and B: especially since the only other person doing the same (Revan) isn't someone you seem to like (the feeling appears to be mutual).

[Darth Avlectus]

A: I suppose I should say explored. You're right--what was I thinking?

 

B: True--if in your case she was victorious and still pissed I suppose, lightside or dark, holding your grounds would probably be better. Her forces would have been exhausted.

 

You'd be real interesting to play chess against, murph.

[Tobias Reiper]

I always thought Revan took T3, HK, and the Hawk with him, but he was captured in the Unknown Regions which appeared as his death to HK, causing him to shut himself down, T3 then dragged HK on the hawk and piloted it back to the known regions to get help, it was probably already in poor repair from the Unknown Regions, and picked up by the Harbinger, after the sith killed everyone and Kreia took the Exile on board, it was attacked once more until it arrived at Peragus.

At least, that's one of two theories, of which I have because I remember only fuzzily the beginning of KoTOR II, but the second theory is this:

Same first half, but T3 instead piloted the Hawk to a planet, looking for credits to purchase repairs to the hawk, but could find no work, instead, he found the Exile who was looking for passage to another planet, as well as Kreia, but he found them in different places, which is why they did not know each other, anyway, he decided they'd be the best bets to getting credits and took them aboard, whereupon they were picked up by the Harbinger in space, before they were picked up, either Kreia or T3 voice locked the system so they would not be found out. Afterwards the rest of the story continued as the game said, harbinger crew slaughtered, kreia takes Exile on board, peragus, etc. etc.

[vanir]

The annoying thing about canon is that Star Wars industry is so huge there is always new canon which changes the context of old canon, effectively changing the backstory repeatedly.

 

Originally the heritage of the Sith was only directly touched by the Dark Horse comic series Tales of the Jedi, which expanded GL's original outline back in the 70's that Darth Vader's title (Darth was a name btw, not a title, he had no relation to the Skywalkers, was an ex-Guardsman of the Alderaanian Royal House and student of Ben Kenobi who was the Knight-General of the Guard on assignment for the Jedi Order), the Lord of the Sith inferred a backwater planet Darth was sent to in order to pacify a local dispute, where a Jedi Knight should've used diplomacy Darth used combat, and his shame is the title Lord of the Sith or Dark Lord of the Sith, which describes essentially his violent nature and the fact Ben Kenobi should never have brought him into the Order. In short the Sith were a low tech planetary populace Darth Vader subjugated in order to achieve his Jedi assignment.

 

As a Jedi Darth was only ever going to get pushed further into the background and eventually exiled for his violent, impatient nature and selfish greed. But an ambitious politician in the Core Worlds appealed to this greed, promising him vast power and influence if he helped him remove the Jedi Knights and take away the only true threat to securing a dictatorship. The planet Palpatine hailed from was a more warlike and industrialist planet than most and this alone made him a powerful senator.

 

So Darth betrayed and murdered most of the Jedi Knights, only Ben Kenobi escaped. His injuries were the result of hunting down the Jedi over a quarter of a century and meeting the more powerful ones in lightsabre duels. His role in this became Emissary of the Emperor, but he held only an aristocratic rank in ANH.

 

This brings us to the Dark Horse expansion. Firstly Lucas went and changed the story in ESB, he was undecided about Darth's claim of being Luke's father (resolved by RotJ), but tossed it in ambiguously (initially simply as a means of displaying how darksiders manipulate the emotions of those who oppose them for avantage...with half truths and outright lies to confuse and confound them, a childish but effective combat tactic), secondly he decided to make the Emperor a Force Sensitive darksider (later in RotJ he made him a full blown evil wizard as a plot device, committed Darth is Luke's father hook, and introduced the redemption theme).

 

The title Dark Lord of the Sith had of course stuck in the minds of fans although it was never mentioned in the OT. The entire Star Wars epic revolved around Jedi and dark Jedi, and an evil dictator of a corrupt Empire. There was no alien Force culture of evil called the Sith involved.

 

But this is what Dark Horse comics introduced in Tales of the Jedi.

What they did was take the Darth Vader Lord of the Sith abstract inferred by GL and made it bigger. They developed the abstract into a tale set thousands of years earlier, where a group of exiled dark Jedi found themselves upon a low tech world populated by a warlike species called the Sith. They dominated them easily and the Sith worshipped them as gods.

 

Over centuries the interbreeding between Sith and human darksider created the near-human Sith who crewed starships and populated the budding empire. Local systems were conquered, resources and industry requistioned, technology and superstition combined. Newly developed, matter-altering "alchemical" Force powers were developed and used to create monstrous war-beasts, lightsabre resistant swords, and Force resistant war-droids. The dark-Jedi and their Sith near-humans mostly based themselves on the colony of Korriban although the Sith homeworld, and the pure bred Sith originally conquered remained somewhere in the unknown regions.

The only Sith ever seen by the galaxy at large were the near-human cross breeds, some of these rising to the status of Lord.

 

Over more centuries the original Sith culture and bastardised teachings of the dark-Jedi had combined to form a new religion and Force culture. This was not unique, the were the Witches of Dathomir and other (EU) non-Jedi Force sensitives. The Miraluka were a race (introduced in Tales of the Jedi) who could see through the Force, and often sent disciples for Jedi training although they were extremely peaceful by nature and concentrated on healing disciplines (Miraluka Jedi often carried downgraded and short bladed lightsabres and used them only as a last resort, they created the Jedi class of "Jedi Healer" and were said almost capable of bringing someone back from the dead).

Several small cultures of Force Adepts existed throughout the galaxy.

 

So basically the "Sith Empire" developed its own new Force culture with new Force powers unknown by the Jedi Order. Only someone as ancient as Master Yoda would be aware of them until encountered, and he would never use them. Force Lightning is the classical example, but of course Sith Alchemy was introduced by Dark Horse and other EU have introduced other Sith-specialised powers.

It is worth noting that dark-Jedi are no longer the same thing as Sith following their creation of empire, because of these unique powers. Jedi do not learn to create life-destroying lightning, and dark-Jedi simply use normal Jedi abilities but aberrantly. Darth Vader is the classical dark-Jedi, using telekinesis to kill. Palpatine in RotJ is the classical Sith, using Force Lightning instead. For Darth Vader to learn to use Force Lightning, he would have to be shown how by Palpatine (or a Sith Holocron or similar).

 

 

This brings us back to the True Sith. That original homeworld in the unknown regions where the first dark-Jedi landed in exile.

 

Just as one could say these dark-Jedi absorbed Sith culture to form the Sith Empire, one could speculate the Sith too had learned to use the Force from these dark-Jedi, although to their low-tech, warlike and simpler minds it would be far more superstitious and corrupt in nature than any kind of Sith the galaxy is used to thus far, or the Jedi teachings.

One can only imagine, based upon powers like Force Lightning and Sith Alchemy what kind of reportoire of Force abilities these "True Sith" have developed over the millennia.

 

But...they probably still don't have the slightest clue what you do with a hydrospanner. I'd suggest this is their weakness. They would be technologically dependent, moreso than the Sith Empire we are all familiar with is technologically vampiric. I'd say they just use the same old stuff they happen across without any species interest whatsoever in traditional industry.

 

They'd get slaves for that.

[deathdisco]

The annoying thing about canon is that Star Wars industry is so huge there is always new canon which changes the context of old canon, effectively changing the backstory repeatedly.

 

QFT.

 

"Always in motion, Star Wars Canon is."~Yoda

[Q]

Yup. From good to bad to worse to awful.

[vanir]

I think it comes down to different subcultures of entertainment media. I really like the gritty atmosphere of the original book release of Star Wars (released about the time the movie came out I think, written by GL before or during production).

 

It had all the feel of any sword & sorcery fantasy trilogy, I was in primary school and absolutely spellbound by it (my teacher said at the parent-teacher night she thought it was too advanced in concepts for children my age, I remember). I also remember the vivid description of Leia's blaster shot melting the faceplate of a Stormtrooper into his flesh, searing bone and boiling his brain, naturally he was killed instantly. Descriptions of Stormtrooper blasters on Luke's adoptive family were similarly vivid, the nauseating stench of their burned and cooked bodies described adequately.

 

It's not exactly Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks.

 

Hence I like very much the Dark Horse style in EU. But other fans like the Ewoks, much of the target market is young audiences with conservative parents. Some people like cartoonish humour and happy go lucky characters, others prefer cynical antiheroes and great tragedies.

 

I like gritty fantasy with dark overtones, cynical humour and yet a moving story with passion, logic and closure. Others like lollipops, fairy godmothers and perfumed daisies.

 

LucasArts burns the candle at both ends, and tries to secure every available marketplace, some are really mutually exclusive when you think about it, and so in doing this Star Wars canon becomes confused and variously schizophrenic.

 

Most EU I stay away from. The Dark Horse material is the only EU I felt captured my inspiration in Star Wars, whether Tales of the Jedi series or Dark Empire. That and tabletop SWRPG about 1995, which had all the Dark Horse expansions and really got into all the new tech (from Old Republic era stuff to post-Endor and everything in between).

 

So all up I'm a bit selective about what I include as canon to my mind. Most EU I just ignore. Kotor sticks roughly to my favourite canon, Wookieepedia doesn't.

 

I especially love the Tales of the Old Republic expansion for SWRPG based on the Dark Horse series, which featured the specialised Jedi subclasses and Prestige classes, from Jedi Healer (who had low powered orange lightsabres), to Jedi Battlemaster (who had twin blue lightsabres and body armour), and the Sith Adept, Sith Warrior and Sith Lord prestige classes, and the Dark Side Marauder non-lightsabre wielding Force user (basically a Soldier template with some rudimentary powers and a dark side requirement, neither Jedi nor Sith but quixotic).

 

There was a special way to become a Sith, and it explained why Jedi so often became Sith.

To become a Sith Adept you had to be a Force user, but there are non-Jedi Force Adepts whom could do this. Most Sith Adepts are non-Jedi Force Adepts, they form the lieutanants of the Sith Lords and technically have greater authority (and more powers) than the Sith Warrior. They can learn to use lightsabre feats as they advance so are a bit like a Consular Jedi Padawan.

 

Becoming a Sith Warriors was difficult and required proficiency in combat as well as Force abilities. A normal Force Adept would have to multiclass to the Soldier class to become one. It is not very realistic for a Sith Adept to become a Sith Warrior (fails the combat table requirements). But a low level Jedi could become one. Sith Warriors start off with alchemical Sithswords (resists lightsabre damage) but automatically gain lightsabre feats as they progress, becoming as powerful as any Jedi Guardian with some special abilities tossed in for good measure.

 

To become a Sith Lord you had to be a high level Sith Adept or Sith Warrior, with lightsabre feats. This would require essentially that you were once a Force Adept and became a Sith Adept, or were once a Dark Side Marauder or dual class Soldier/Force Adept and became a Sith Warrior. Basically you're looking at only high level characters are allowed...except Jedi. Even a medium level Jedi can become a Sith Lord if he has a dark side leaning and spends a feat selection learning Sith Lore (which allows one to become a Sith class).

It is actually easier for dark-Jedi to become Sith Lords than it is for any non-Jedi including other Force using Sith.

 

It's quite a temptation for a medium level Jedi who's leaning to the dark side. You can be given the power and authority of the highest echelon of the Sith just for signing up. If you were Sith you'd spend an entire career trying to get there.

 

See I love all this gritty style of canon.

[Tobias Reiper]

I say the same for darkside

 

Indeed, you get betrayed and nearly murdered once, and you want to take that chance again?

No thank you.

But it's not like deciding to go and fight the true sith alone made any bloody sense at all, because he then left the Republic alone and as you clearly see in TSL, The Republic can't do very well on it's own, in fact, they even say somewhere that they NEEDED Revan to help them, so rather than doing the original thing and you know, preparing the galaxy, he decides to leave them to die and do it himself.

I think by TOR we can see that he epic failed.