newsfeed: New Timeline Holorecord: The Battle of Bothawui

[News]

Another timeline video has been added on the official site. This time, Master Gnost-Dural recalls the battle of Bothawui, where the Jedi forces scored a major victory against the Sith. View the video below.

 

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[Miltiades]

Timeline videos maintain their quality. Can't wait for the early records.

[adamqd]

I agree, The Time-lines are on the ball all the time... apart from Mandalore's Helmet, that will live on as Fail for a long time, But everything else in them has been Cool.

[Ztalker]

Agreed...

 

The last chapters were all about Sith and Mando's pwning the Jedi...this time, the Republic shows it's best. Keeps it interesting

[Sir Vougalot]

Timeline videos maintain their quality. Can't wait for the early records.

 

Same here. The early stuff is what I'm mainly looking forward to; but unfortunately, at the rate they've been putting these out, it'll be two or three more years before we see any of that stuff.

 

 

 

 

So it's pronounced "bath-a-woo-ee," huh? I'd always pronounced it "bath-a-why."

[adamqd]

It's always Pronounced "Bothu-wee" in the Audiobooks, which, unless George himself speaks it is the closest thing we got to a standard pronunciation.

[Miltiades]

So it's pronounced "bath-a-woo-ee," huh? I'd always pronounced it "bath-a-why."

Yeah, that's how I pronounce it myself.

 

And I get the same feeling about the holorecords. I can see those early records being released later than I'd like. And since, in my opinion, those are one of the only updates of real interest, it's kind of a shame.

[TKA-001]

I cringe at their misuse of the term "Grand Moff", but this was surprisingly cool.

[jonathan7]

Same here. The early stuff is what I'm mainly looking forward to; but unfortunately, at the rate they've been putting these out, it'll be two or three more years before we see any of that stuff.

 

QFT

 

I really like the Holorecords, they are cool =) Like TKA-001, I'm not a fan of the miss-use of Grand Moths, or the fact that the Sith Empire, is far to close the the Empire IMHO.

 

Regardless it was another cool holorecord, though I wish they'd come up with a new statistic; "1 of ours for 10 of theirs" just sounded like Dxun for K2... why not for every 1 Republic soldier, 12 of their troops died....

[DAWUSS]

Does that blue Twi'lek look a bit TOO much like Aayla Secura?

[Sir Vougalot]

Well, The Essential Atlas establishes that the term "moff" is something from the days of the early Republic that the Empire revived, so maybe the book's writers were in close contact with this game's writers.

 

However, the way the game uses the title doesn't quite fit with what the book says. It says that in the early Republic, moffs were essentially the monarchical rulers of various planets who joined the republic, but retained their status as head of state on their own worlds. The game, however, presents it as a title used by the Sith Empire, not even related to the Republic.

 

It could be that it is a title that was revived several times throughout galactic history, by various political organizations, all based on early history. And, of course, we know that Palpatine was heavily influenced by the Sith Empires of the past, so maybe the incarnation of the title used by the Sith Empire of this particular era served as his inspiration for the newly-created office within his own Empire.

 

Also, pretty much any blue-skinned female Twi'lek Jedi is destined to be reminiscent of Aayla Secura. Just like the Qel Dor and Togruta Jedi Masters who are clearly rip-offs of Plo Koon and Shaak Ti.

[TKA-001]

Well, The Essential Atlas establishes that the term "moff" is something from the days of the early Republic that the Empire revived, so maybe the book's writers were in close contact with this game's writers.

 

However, the way the game uses the title doesn't quite fit with what the book says. It says that in the early Republic, moffs were essentially the monarchical rulers of various planets who joined the republic, but retained their status as head of state on their own worlds. The game, however, presents it as a title used by the Sith Empire, not even related to the Republic.

I think it's more likely that the writers of this supplement just wanted people to be reminded of Tarkin than anything else; they clearly did no actual research, because they missed the fact that a Moff is a sector governor, not a military commander as depicted here.

 

And, of course, we know that Palpatine was heavily influenced by the Sith Empires of the past, so maybe the incarnation of the title used by the Sith Empire of this particular era served as his inspiration for the newly-created office within his own Empire.

I'm not aware of any instances in which Palpatine's Empire was based on previous Sith Empires; if anything, the First Galactic Empire was a departure from the norm, considering how the Sith as an organization and ideology had nothing to do with how the Empire was run (Force-wielding rulers in the Empire were in a minority; almost all Dark Jedi were flunkies of Palpatine's, carrying out special jobs for him and seeming to only have control over fleets, rather than actually territory).

 

Also, pretty much any blue-skinned female Twi'lek Jedi is destined to be reminiscent of Aayla Secura. Just like the Qel Dor and Togruta Jedi Masters who are clearly rip-offs of Plo Koon and Shaak Ti.

That is a product of one of the few major problems I have with this whole thing: TOR is not inspired by previous material; it just rips it off. KotOR never went this blatantly; they had Malak as a Sith Lord with one cybernetic feature, and that was it. They had the Sith use warships that were triangularish in design and foot soldiers with full body armor, and that was it. It's like the TOR people are afraid that people will forget that their game is part of the franchise if they depart too much from familiar designs (forgetting that the games that this is a spin-off of departed much more than they do and did fine);

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this is probably why they ripped off the Imperial Crest for this Cold War-era Sith Empire's emblem, even though canonically the Imperial Crest was a modification of the Republic emblem, meaning that canonically this Sith Empire stole their enemy's logo (Revan's ghost knows why). That reason is also probably the same one for why the Republic's logo in the Cold War suddenly turns into a rip-off of the Rebel Alliance's, that one Sith from the trailer looking like Malak and Vader mixed together, the Sith warships that look too much like Imperial Star Destroyers (when if anyone should have Star Destroyer-like designs, it's the Republic), the Sith always being human (again, Revan's ghost knows why), Sith military personnel having Imperial officer-like uniforms, Republic and Sith troops having clone/stormtrooper armor knockoffs, those big walkers seen in the comics and the aforementioned trailer, and this game's related media insisting that the Sith are called "Imperials".

[DAWUSS]

I don't mind some of the similarities, like the Republic Troopers, as there it shows the progression and evolution of the Republic military from KOTOR to the PT. Most of them, though, I think are unwarranted and there purely to rip off the PT and the OT. The logos of the factions (although, I could forgive the Republic logo if it was the logo of the Jedi Order instead of the Republic), just about everything of the Sith Empire (is this the Sith Empire or the Galactic Empire?)

 

I guess I'm a bit more forgiving for the Republic because it is the same Republic of the PT.

 

While I don't mind blue skinned Twi'lek Jedi, that one in the clip looks like she's wearing the same outfit AS wore...

 

If I see a seemingly indestructible superweapon, I will have given up all hope for originality in this game.

[Sir Vougalot]

Pretty good points you've got there, TKA. I just meant that Palpatine's ideas seem to be taken from various practices throughout history, primarily Sith history. There is no doubt in my mind that the very idea to have an empire is inspired by the various Sith Empires that have existed throughout the millennia. However, he also knew of those governments' inherent structural weaknesses, so Palpatine's Empire's fundamental difference was its adherence to the Rule of Two: it is essentially a Sith Empire in that the Sith are in control (albeit unbeknownst to the Empire), but there are only two of them; and he did technically push the bounds of the Rule of Two about as far as they would go with all of his and Vader's Dark Jedi apprentices and operatives (Vergere, Galek Marek and Lumiya likely bordering on violating the Rule outright), but you are correct: this was kept to an absolute minimum. The Empire was mainly ruled by military might rather than by the Force (though we do learn that in his latter years, Palpatine planned to replace all of his military personnel with dark Force users and establish a Dark Empire, pretty much akin to the Sith Empires of the past; though I tend to chuck this up to his deteriorated mental state that he underwent during the time in which his disembodied spirit lingered in limbo).

 

And yeah, KOTOR did borrow some major themes from the movies, but it did it so subtly that you hardly noticed, and it felt fresh. In fact, it is arguable that the first game is a retelling of Episode IV: A New Hope; but the writing was so solid that they took the story and made it new once again. TOR, on the other hand, is just blatantly ripping things off, as you said. For example: Canonically, the clone troopers' (and, by progression, the stormtroopers') armor was inspired my traditional Mandalorian battle armor. Now it looks like that will no longer be case as the Republic trooper armor from this era seem to be a precursor to the designs seen in the movies (though I guess they could retcon it so that the clone trooper armor is a hybrid of both ancient Republic trooper armor and Mandalorian armor).