Remove ads

May The Invisible Hand Be With You - (Star Wars CK2-Style Quest)

Reader mode
Darrenb209 said:
At least to me, this is a rather blatant statement that Malachor caused it, not the severance.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Thanks. Like I said, it's been at least five years for me, so my memory isn't exactly precise.

Still, this leads back to my overall point; Malachor in and of itself was not what caused Meetra to become a Wound (and, presumably, the same holds true for Nihilus).

Meetra is noted within the game to have always been able to forge very deep bonds with people very easily (Force Bonds, I'm assuming). Consequently, all the deaths that happened at Malachor effected her much more strongly than they did anyone else who survived that day (barring possibly Nihilus). Thus, it wasn't Malachor's Wound creating a sub-Wound, it was the incident that caused Malachor to become a Wound creating multiple separate Wounds.
 
We don't know precisely what made Nihilus what he was. Meetra we can assume from a combination of giving the order and her connections with anyone she serves with.

We have to assume that, almost, since it didn't happen to Revan and he was there too.
 
fasquardon said:
Admiral Ackbar is currently Captain Ackbar of the Mon Cal self defence forces. Since the Mon Calamari have joined the CNS, could we poach him?

I just love the idea of Captain Ackbar of the interdictor Tarkin's Folly announcing "it's a trap" at appropriate moments when he, you know, traps a fleet with his interdictor.

fasquardon
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

...

...

...This is so very tempting for all of the reasons. Unless I'm actively told otherwise, I might just have to make that a thing.

spiritualatheist said:
@Dr. Snark, can you clarify what is known about the abyss watchers? Not what these two know, but what is public, what is known to intelligence agencies and so on.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Check these out:

Teron said:
Abyss Watchers Organisation Composition
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Teron said:
Abyss Watchers Organization Function
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Publicly people would know about the merc company, intel agencies would have an idea that the intel branch exists and have figured out the potential ties to the underworld (though nothing that connects them with Ciaran herself) but as far as they know their activities are limited to rumor trading and the like, nothing that major. The Watchers in general have taken serious pains to hide the total breadth of their reach, and a lot of that is due to compartmentalizing like crazy and using all of the proxies.

The Sentinels are a bit of an odd case because they got to get a peek behind the curtain, so they have a better idea of the organization's reach, but not a complete one by any stretch.

Though on the subject of Quinlan/Tholme, again, I still have more of the arc to write. We will be getting to how much those two actually know about what's going on in the galaxy right now in the later interludes.
 
Last edited:
Dr. Snark said:
Publicly people would know about the merc company, intel agencies would have an idea that the intel branch exists and have figured out the potential ties to the underworld (though nothing that connects them with Ciaran herself) but as far as they know their activities are limited to rumor trading and the like, nothing that major. The Watchers in general have taken serious pains to hide the total breadth of their reach, and a lot of that is due to compartmentalizing like crazy and using all of the proxies.

The Sentinels are a bit of an odd case because they got to get a peek behind the curtain, so they have a better idea of the organization's reach, but not a complete one by any stretch.

Though on the subject of Quinlan/Tholme, again, I still have more of the arc to write. We will be getting to how much those two actually know about what's going on in the galaxy right now in the later interludes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And presumably absolutely no one knows about the fact that we have an entire secret Force order beyond the other orders that we work with. That's the reveal I'm really looking forward to. The Abysswalkers vs Sith acolytes fight was my favorite part of the Temple Bombing arc too. It's the shadenfreude of someone realizing they have completely misjudged the magnitude of Ciaran's operations that gets me.
 
It's kind of a fascinating sort of appalled amazement that Ciaran and the Watchers are well on their way to making a Nega-Empire. Instead of a militant humano-Centuc fascist dictatorship, the Silver Imperium or whatever evolves from the CNS will likely be an Republic coalition of many races and cultures run by a secret Illuminati cabal.
 
Vicjer said:
It was in the Undercity. A couple of Sith Acolytes were following Ahsoka and a couple of our Walkers stayed behind to fight them while Arla took Ahsoka to the cantina to hide and meet up with Ciaran and Thrawn.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh, the Temple Bombing arc. For some reason I thought that was Massacre, and thought that our Walkers fought Sith double agents in the Jedi Temple.
 
Slaggedfire said:
I get that, I just don't like only having his bad qualities on display. Maybe show some good of Windu, but this quest so far has seemingly only focused on his bad side.

He's a zealot and set in his ways, that ain't something I'm arguing against, but he's a Jedi. Jedi are protectors of the peace and diplomats, Windu knows how to be reasonable. At least, when the situation calls for it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The Quest is written from the perspective of a Sith lord and company. I find it dubious that anyone who might get a lot of screen time would appreciate Windu because he is a good Jedi.
 
DragonParadox said:
The Quest is written from the perspective of a Sith lord and company. I find it dubious that anyone who might get a lot of screen time would appreciate Windu because he is a good Jedi.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think she's just a Sith Lord in title only, unless I've simply forgotten which is very much possible. I don't really remember her being an avid user of the Dark Side.
 
Slaggedfire said:
I think she's just a Sith Lord in title only, unless I've simply forgotten which is very much possible. I don't really remember her being an avid user of the Dark Side.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

She is not an avid user of the Dark Side no, but she did use it without a trace of hesitation or shame. Further her two main teachers who influenced her philosophical view of the Force and really the galaxy are both Sith. Ciran's ultimate motives, the accumulation of wealth and power are very much selfish, thus Sith. What makes her unorthodox is moderation and willingness bu build up as much or more than she tears down in seeking that power. Further in that quest for power the Jedi are ultimately an obstacle and adversary, if one that cam be used against a more immediate foe, Palpatine.
 
Last edited:
This is, writ large, the issue I run into any time I write a character saying something that doesn't fit Jedi orthodoxy.

Rule 1: consider the source
Rule 2: if a character that lacks godlike knowledge says something inaccurate, perhaps that is the best they know.

Ciaran does not call it the Sid Vicious Conspiracy. Riphath does because he hasn't been read in. Sheev cannot talk about Force Light like Nomi Sunrider could.

We are in a villain with good pr-off with Sheev. The Jedi like us because we're "even evil has standards". Out of a half dozen walkers we have, exactly one is ethically fit for Jedi and that's because I wrote him that way.

Talking bad about Jedi will happen for two reasons: the source material didn't catch all the ramifications and they're in our way (but helpful and generally good for civilization and business).

Consider "gentleman" Johnny Marcone from Dresden files. Definitely a criminal and a villain. But not a literal baby stealing (fey) child eating (vampires) plaguemaking (demons) villain. And there's always enough existential threats going around that the hero grumbles and says "one of these days" and takes Marcone' s help.
 
Last edited:
Dr. Snark said:
...This is so very tempting for all of the reasons. Unless I'm actively told otherwise, I might just have to make that a thing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I hate to be that person, I really hate myself for what I'm about to say, but I did commit to some level of reasonable rationality.

At this moment in time Ackbar is the head of the Mon Calamari Guard, essentially the personal troops of the King. He has no training or experience in naval warfare. I'm unsure how he learnt it in Disney Cannon, but in Legends he got unintentionally taught by Tarkin when he was the Moff's slave. Tarkin liked to brag about how he was going to enslave more worlds and didn't notice the fact that his 'valet' was adsorbing what information he could.

So we can't use Ackbar, though if you want a Mon Calamari Captain we could have Raddus.
 
I'm sorry, Dr. Snark, but I really don't care for some of the aspects of the latest update. This whole 'wound in the Force' bit just seems too trite, too...convenient. It wasn't something the Jedi had the power to stop, it's not something the Jedi have the ability to fix, and it explains away evil or harmful behavior on their part without them having to take responsibility for it. It doesn't feel like an organic story development, but a kind of excuse that will be used to justify past and future behavior in the story. Also, I find it straining my suspension of disbelief that an 80 something year old man, who has a reputation as one of the biggest horndogs in the galaxy, cannot understand the idea of sex without attachment, so he calls Ki-Adi-Mundi a hypocrite.
 
bookworm702 said:
I'm sorry, Dr. Snark, but I really don't care for some of the aspects of the latest update. This whole 'wound in the Force' bit just seems too trite, too...convenient. It wasn't something the Jedi had the power to stop, it's not something the Jedi have the ability to fix, and it explains away evil or harmful behavior on their part without them having to take responsibility for it. It doesn't feel like an organic story development, but a kind of excuse that will be used to justify past and future behavior in the story. Also, I find it straining my suspension of disbelief that an 80 something year old man, who has a reputation as one of the biggest horndogs in the galaxy, cannot understand the idea of sex without attachment, so he calls Ki-Adi-Mundi a hypocrite.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You think that's trite and convenient? In Legends they retconned in a Dark Side Nexus directly under the Temple that nobody noticed for upwards of 5000 years just to explain why the Jedi didn't see through Palpatine's disguise despite him regularly using the Force.

Regarding the "justify past behaviour" thing, you've got it a bit backwards. The past behaviour caused the Wound, not the other way around.

Regarding future behaviour, it doesn't remove a person's free will. Whatever form their reactions to it take is, ultimately, entirely up to them.

Regarding Silas calling Ki-Adi-Mundi a hypocrite, I assume he's misinterpreting Mundi's special dispensation to marry and have children. In fact, Mundi privately struggles greatly with trying to balance the fact that they're his family with not getting attached. But Silas knows none of this, only that there's a Master on the Jedi Council with five wives and at least seven children who he interacts with regularly. Go on, try and tell me you wouldn't think that was the slightest bit fucky if you didn't already know the details. The problem isn't that Silas "cannot understand the idea of sex without attachment", it's that he can't understand "actively raising your kids alongside their mother, who you are married to" without attachment.

EDIT: My mistake, I was basing the idea that no-one noticed the Dark Side Nexus off of incorrect information. Apparently, a fair few Jedi did find out about it and just chose to completely ignore it and not tell anyone else for... reasons. Not even that they were corrupted, it was just mandated by continuity that no Jedi of any consequence could know about it until well after Luke founded the New Jedi Order (I think it first gets mentioned by Vergere, which puts its first mention in the material - by when it was published, not by the internal chronology - sometime after the start of the Vong War). Yeah.
 
Last edited:
Barondoctor said:
This is, writ large, the issue I run into any time I write a character saying something that doesn't fit Jedi orthodoxy.

Rule 1: consider the source
Rule 2: if a character that lacks godlike knowledge says something inaccurate, perhaps that is the best they know.

Ciaran does not call it the Sid Vicious Conspiracy. Riphath does because he hasn't been read in. Sheev cannot talk about Force Light like Nomi Sunrider could.

We are in a villain with good pr-off with Sheev. The Jedi like us because we're "even evil has standards". Out of a half dozen walkers we have, exactly one is ethically fit for Jedi and that's because I wrote him that way.

Talking bad about Jedi will happen for two reasons: the source material didn't catch all the ramifications and they're in our way (but helpful and generally good for civilization and business).

Consider "gentleman" Johnny Marcone from Dresden files. Definitely a criminal and a villain. But not a literal baby stealing (fey) child eating (vampires) plaguemaking (demons) villain. And there's always enough existential threats going around that the hero grumbles and says "one of these days" and takes Marcone' s help.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

On the other hand the fact that we can be Sith without devolving into absolute monsters does call into question Jedi Orthodoxy. No matter how you twist it they indoctrinate toddlers (far too young to make a informed decision) into a philosophy of self denial and ultimate mutilation of the self/ego by denying their own desires. It turns out that you don't become a baby-eating monster if you use the dark side, or use the force for personal gain...

That raises some serious issues about the morality of their recruitment methods, not to mention their suspiciously good record with keeping people in their cult.
 
Last edited:
DragonParadox said:
On the other hand the fact that we can be Sith without devolving into absolute monsters does call into question Jedi Orthodoxy. No matter how you twist it they indoctrinate toddlers (far too young to make a informed decision) into a philosophy of self denial and ultimate mutilation of the self/ego by denying their own desires. It turns out that you don't become a baby-eating monster if you use the dark side, or use the force for personal gain...

That raises some serious issues about the morality of their recruitment methods, not to mention their suspiciously good record with keeping people in their cult.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We're really more of a Secular Sith, like Secular Judaism except we really do secretly rule the Galaxy.

How many times have we actually used the Dark Side? Because I can only remember two Force Chokes and nothing else; which probably puts us below the average number of times an average Force sensitive person accidentally uses the Dark Side in their lives, never mind the number of times anyone actively investigating its powers would use it.

EDIT: There's also the fact that there are a number of Sith in Legends who don't go Full Baby-Eating Evil, but the odds of being such a person are slightly lower than those of surviving for an hour while naked in a sauna where all the steam is replaced with Chlorine Gas.
 
Last edited:
Max Uristwell said:
We're really more of a Secular Sith, like Secular Judaism except we really do secretly rule the Galaxy.

How many times have we actually used the Dark Side? Because I can only remember two Force Chokes and nothing else; which probably puts us below the average number of times an average Force sensitive person accidentally uses the Dark Side in their lives, never mind the number of times anyone actively investigating its powers would use it.

EDIT: There's also the fact that there are a number of Sith in Legends who don't go Full Baby-Eating Evil, but the odds of being such a person are slightly lower than those of surviving for an hour while naked in a sauna where all the steam is replaced with Chlorine Gas.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We have created an entire organization that teaches and uses the Dark Side and they have not gone crazy evil either. Once can be an exception. Several dozen times less so.
 
DragonParadox said:
We have created an entire organization that teaches and uses the Dark Side and they have not gone crazy evil either. Once can be an exception. Several dozen times less so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Okay, where are the people who are actually using the Dark Side? Because all I can remember is Asajj (who would have turned out to be one of those chlorine-breathers anyway) and Dani (who's perpetually one day away from snapping and going on a murder spree).

EDIT: Remembered Dani's name, she's no longer That One Abysswalker.
EDIT 2: I found the perfect summary of the Abyss Watchers' relationship with the Force:
deadcrystal said:
There are three people on-side who seem to make heavy use of the Dark Side in the organisation and they all seem to approach it very different ways. Ciaran, Asajj, and that one Abysswalker, Dani, who seems like she'd struggle to avoid going yellow-eyed if anyone stole her pudding from the fridge.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Last edited:
Max Uristwell said:
Okay, where are the people who are actually using the Dark Side? Because all I can remember is Asajj (who would have turned out to be one of those chlorine-breathers anyway) and Dani (who's perpetually one day away from snapping and going on a murder spree).

EDIT: Remembered Dani's name, she's no longer That One Abysswalker.
EDIT 2: I found the perfect summary of the Abyss Watchers' relationship with the Force:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That is still three people who make heavy use of the dark side and the rest which must have at least some experience with it else they would have no ability to learn Vectivus' management techniques. All this with practically no institutional knowledge and making stuff up as we go along. Not exactly 'once you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny' is it?
 
DragonParadox said:
That is still three people who make heavy use of the dark side and the rest which must have at least some experience with it else they would have no ability to learn Vectivus' management techniques. All this with practically no institutional knowledge and making stuff up as we go along. Not exactly 'once you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny' is it?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sorry for the response time, my internet just shat itself so I'm now posting from my phone.

So out of the three people that use the Dark Side (bear in mind, I refuse to use examples that never actually get referenced as characters rather than in vague "well they must" terms) we have:

A) Asajj, who is the sort of one-in-a-gorillion person I used to illustrate my original point. That is to say, people who show up in the source material having truly mastered the Dark Side instead of the other way around (most of the Baneites are also on this list, oddly enough, since they were often selected because they would have happily done all sorts of bad shit without any metaphysical encouragement).

B) Ciaran. When people who can see it look at her soul it's either LITERALLY AN UNQUENCHABLE BLACK HOLE AT THE HEART OF THE GALAXY or so full of darkness and greed that it's achieved a state of Zen. She is by no means representative of any box you put her in besides "people who hold the title of Darth Traya" (and even that's arguable simply by the nature of the box).

C) Dani, who started out the closest to the galactic majority. She consistently struggles with the urge to descend into baby-eating (metaphorically), murderous (literally) insanity and is mainly kept sane by a support network of truly exceptional people (in the sense that there's maybe two or three other gatherings like them in the Galaxy).
 
Last edited:
Max Uristwell said:
She constantly struggles with the urge to descend into baby-eating (metaphorically), murderous (literally) insanity
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Once again, I have to ask you not the Flanderize the character I wrote. She struggles with the Dark Side, you are correct there, but the level she struggles with is not "constantly" baby-eating or murderous insanity.

The one time we saw her in murderous insanity was when she was dealing with a group of thugs, two of which she knows murdered her Uncle and she just saw straight up shoot an innocent bouncer and threaten what's left of her family. It doesn't help that she was talking with her cousin (said family) who was trash talking her because he thought she was the murderer.

She has issues, big ones yes, and she does use the Dark Side a bit too freely, but she's not "one step from snapping." If she was, she wouldn't have been able to step back so well from that fiasco or feel bad (she was crying at the end of that).
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top