Jediphile

Actually, the Atris vs. Handmaiden fight is not cut content - it is there in the game if you play male Exile. What was cut from that scene, however, was Brianna fighting her sisters, but that too will be restored in the TSLRP, apparently with the option to defeat them in non-lethal combat, which one of the sound-files seems to point to. To be honest, I'm actually glad they dropped that idea. It didn't make much sense to me that Atris would take over all of Kreia's goals just like that. I do regret that she did not become a party member to replace Kreia. That would have been so cool. Have I not done so even in your absence and without being asked?

Team Gizka is going to try. From the FAQ "Q: I have the XBox version of the game and a (legally) modded XBox - will your mod work on it? A: At this point we're unsure. There are reports that new model files (.mdl's) - which the mod will likely contain - do not work on the XBox. After our work is completed we may look into creating a more fully compatible version for the XBox." The M4-78 team isn't sure yet, according to their FAQ "Q: I have a legally modded Xbox can I download and use this mod? A: We do not know just yet, but I would imagine the answer is no. Once the project is over I would imagine that we will attempt to find a way to get it to Xbox users."

I agree that the D&D alignment rules suck. I couldn't outlaw them fast enough for the players IMC. Real characters are far too complex to fit nicely into nine fixed little categories. That said, I'd believe the punisher is Chaotic Neutral. He clearly puts himself above the law, and so he is opposed to being lawful. He tends more towards good than evil, but I'd still place him closer to neutral than good, since he is quite willing to commit immoral acts by killing people. Batman would be a little closer to chaotic good, though he has taken turns for chaotic neutral in some of the darker periods of his life as well. He tends more towards good because he is not willing to take lives quite as casually, though.

[Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Visas - i don't see how she is more equal to Exile when the whole point of her is her submiting to Exile. I'm going to agree with Darth Blivion on this one. Visas does not submit to the Exile. She submits to the greater cause. It is not the same. If she were submissive to the Exile, then she would do whatever s/he tells her to and always agree with the Exile's decision, and we know that is definitely not the case. On the contrary, Visas openly criticises the Exile for taking risks and flatly refuses to wear the thong that you hate so much or even to lead the Exile to Nihilus before she thinks the Exile is ready for that confrontation. Refusal is not an indication of submissive behaviour. [Jediphile,May 17 2006, 09:44 AM]You shouldn't think of it as a struggle or competition. The point of the topic is not for one of us (or anyone else here) to "win", but us - collectively - to search for the truth or at least establish a concensus in some form (I find that seeing it that also has the benefit of making it far easier to accept it, when I have to concede a point to someone else ) [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Which you haven't, i just happened to notice... Perhaps that " " should have been a Always easy to take the moral high ground when you have nothing to lose, isn't it Or as Martok (from DS9) would say, "war is much more fun when you're winning" :cool: [Hekate]So Atris loved male Exile. *sigh* What tangled webs we weave. [Jediphile]...especially when first we begin to deceive... [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Is that an admission? From me?!? What do you think? [Jediphile]that's actually another reason for him to admit to those feelings, assuming he wants to have a chance with Brianna [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Do you mean "not to admit those feelings"? Yes, that's what I meant - this is what happens when you try to type two answers at the same time... :"> [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Then that would be starting it off with a lie. Yes and no. The Exile might no longer care for Atris given how she has treated him, and there are good reasons why he would feel that way. Besides, if he likes Brianna, then he would not be off to a good start by admitting to having feelings for Atris. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]But if you meant it as is posted than that is indeed another reason why he wouldn't have lied. Hence furthering the argument of why we have to take what the characters say as being the truth (except where plot dictates otherwise) because it is all we have to go on. That's always the problem with these things. We have no choice but to look at what is said, because that is our only frame of reference, but we sometimes forget that just because a character says it does not make it true. I believe that about Mical's claim that there were no one left to teach him after the Exile left, for example [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Actually, i meant a politician (who just happened to be Reagan) versus a Jedi. Infact, there is very little here (as in not the Star Wars universe) that can be compared to Jedi. The consequence of what you say here is that any and all discussion becomes pointless, because Jedi cannot be compared to normal people, and since jedi do not exist in real life, we can't compare them to anything. I don't agree with that. Not that I like analogies, but beggers can't be choosers... [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]When you explained the point of a general understanding of why Ghandi is understandably seen as heroic, i was making the point Jedi are generally seen as heroic therefore it is easy for me to accept Exile did something or somethings Atris would see as heroic. That's not the same at all. I can point specifically to why I admire Ghandi. I cannot do that for the Exile. Indeed, the Exile seems to have only failed in his past, and generally been an average student (according to Vandar and Vrook), so that just begs even more for clarification of Atris' admiration. [Jediphile]Actually, not all the jedi seem to think so highly of the Exile [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]And that makes Atris loving Exile more believable how? That sounded alot more snarky than sincere but i can't think of how to rephrase it. That people apparently have a low opinion of the Exile based on her past does not exactly lend support to Atris' admiration for the female Exile. On the contrary, it calls it into question even more. And that is why I maintain that it hurts the story, when we don't get the details about the basis of that admiration. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]i can't agree with that. When i think of those who have natural talents i do not, i admire those people's skills. When i think of kids (adults even) who hero worship athletes, they often do so based on the athlete's skill and natural talent and not based on whether that athlete has done something good for them personally nor on if that athlete is a person the admirer would respect. Hero worship of that sort has more to do with what the admirer is attributing to the "worshipee" as opposed to being about the "worshipee's" true qualities. That's due to presumed qualities people expect that person to have. Try having the same athlete kill his wife, make extreme political statements, or molest children, then see if there is any admiration left for his athletic abilities. Besides, if I were really evil, I would now say that since you said jedi are not ordinary people, when I made an analogy to Reagan, I now get to apply the standard and dismiss the comparison. It's a good thing I'm not evil, isn't it... [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]And Exile did make Force bonds. Even if Exile doesn't do it purposely, it occurs often enough for the Jedi Masters to have taken notice and for them to be impressed with. Not saying that is the case, just saying i can accept the hero worship without a stated cause as i can love without a reference base. That would require that this is common knowledge, which I doubt. Besides, jedi are not glory-hounds who want to be rich and famous. They're more like monks. So even if you were right and normal people might admire someone for an innate ability (and that's not an admission, since I still doubt it), I don't think the same would be true among the jedi themselves, since it is unreasonable to admire someone for something that he or she did not make an active effort to achieve. That would be like saying that I admire Ghandi's children for who their father was. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Usually i'd be inclined to agree about the love happens without a reason thing. Love is love, it just happens. End of story. But i felt just as lost about it with Atris as i did with Sion over the why. There was nothing personal about it in the least. Not one little memory, not one comment refering to it in anyway... To me, it felt thrown in there with the purpose of adding 'a hot Jedi chick' to the list of women who lust after male Exile. When did Atris become a "hot jedi chick"? She's an ice-queen! She could give the witch in the Narnia movie lessons in how to be frigid and aloof! [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]It is 10 years down the road. Carth was seen as a whiner for still being affected by his wife's death 4 years down the road. Atris being so furious with male Exile 10 years later based on her romantic feelings for him is, to me, not only creepy, but difficult to believe, especially for a Jedi Master and all. For anyone to identify that intencely with a person requires s/he has great difficulty distinguishing between the other person and her/himself. Romantic love does that to an extent, but there is more going on than that. Hero worship, especially if it went to the extreme it seems to have, makes more sense to me. Putting Exile up on a pedestal, especially one where Exile is seen to have been able to do no wrong and be the pillar of light and Jedi goodness (sorta the way you think Atton does for Exile but with differences), and mix in Atris expected Exile not to go to war which also justified in her own mind her not going to war, then Exile goes to war, Atris's world, and everything she used to keep herself elevated by in equating herself with Exile, is now gone. Hence, rather than look at herself, she blames Exile. Now that i can see burning at her soul for 10 years. It has little to do with Exile, and alot to do with Atris. If i'm lucky, that provided more clarity on my standpoint. Atris is blame-shifting. No doubt about that. And she does it in either case. As Kreia tells her, "you betrayed yourself, don't blame the Exile." But let's not forget those Sith holocrons. I doubt they helped matters any... Sure, Atris should have known better and controlled her emotions better, but she is like Denethor in Lord of the Rings (the novel, not the film), who has been secretly using the palantir and slowly been eroded by its corrupting effect. The sith holocrons have done the same with Atris - they have twisted all her unresolved emotions into something perverse and overpowering, and the relationship with the Exile is a particularly unclosed subject to exploit for them. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Nah, i don't buy the devs threw it in to equal things out. They likely would have chosen 'a hot Jedi hunk' for that instead. Like who? It's not as if there is a great list to choose from... [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]One would assume if they wanted to have the player feel something for the villain, the dev would have chosen to follow popular culture standards therefore Sion would have had to be more like *shudder in fear* Mical. i find it difficult to see they thought female players (whose interest i assume you are refering to by the evening out the "score" in the love interest of a villain category) would find Sion's feelings for female Exile appealing as a whole. Just look, they came up with Mical. i don't think they gave a hoot about making things even like that. If you feel that way, then I fail to see why you're objecting to my criticism of Mical and Sion as love interests... [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]It seems Sion was supposed to be alot more important in the game, all the antagonists actually, and Sion vs Atton was supposed to be a major event in female Exile's game. That battle wouldn't be as meaningful if it is just Atton who loves her as opposed to both Atton and Sion loving her (not saying Atton sacrificing himself isn't meaningful, it is. i just meant the battle itself). The only difference between Atris and Sion, when dealing with their respective loves, is the dialogue is a bit altered. There aren't any extra cut-scenes as there is with Atton (asking Boa-Dur about Exile), which could mean both were thrown in, or poorly cut out. So Atris is also poorly done? [Hekate]Now Sion, his having to die, is meaningful if female Exile chooses the "You have been a presence in my mind as well" option. Especially depending on how the Atton-Sion stuff was to turn out. [Jediphile]Why? [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]'cause he had been on her mind. You can say it, but it still made no sense to me. Besides, what does that mean "you've been a presence in my mind"? Given that Sion has been hunting the Exile all through the plot, of course he has been a presence - you're constantly scared that he'll track you down and kill you, after all. It's a completely redundant comment to make, if you look at it in that context. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]To get more specific; someone a person thinks of and has whatever feelings for is more personally significant to said person than one said person does not have those thoughts about nor feelings for. Only the player can tell whether this is true, and I never believed that the Exile could have true emotions for Sion or that Sion was still capable of them himself. He's just a dark, twisted being longing back to something he remembers from his life and which is now lost. That's not true love, only the shadow of it. And I cannot believe that the Exile can love a being a dark as Sion is, because if she is DS, then she won't care - there is no true love among the Sith - and if she is LS, then all the evil things he does will scare her off to such an extent that no true emotions will ever grow to the surface. So it's all doomed either way. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Why more meaningful depending on how the Atton-Sion fight goes? Because if she loves Atton, he gets killed. The Atton-Sion fight was cut. And in any event, I seem to recall that Atton is player-controlled during that fight and that he can win it, which also makes your point moot. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]If she loves Sion, then he kills her companion. If she loves both of them, than she has feelings for someone who just killed someone she had feelings for too. If she loves neither of them, than their feelings hold their own worth and it is a powerful image since both did things for her she will never care about. All in all, significant i say. I don't follow. But that might be because I just don't believe in the Sion-Exile "relationship". [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] We were speaking of the significance of Sion's death and how it pertained specifically to the romace plot with Exile. You're saying "So the romance thing is pointless - there is no impact or relevance to it at all." is why i tried to explain why Sion's death held impact and his caring for female Exile mattered to the game. If he died just because he had had enough and he realized he could never live-up to what Kreia saw in Exile, than his death came about from just that. On the other hand, if he died because he realized he was wrong and that his caring for Exile is stronger than his need to stay alive, than that is important. Exile had a direct impact on his death either way. The distinction lies in Sion's motivation of either giving up, or on letting go. And his letting go carries other meanings as i have pointed out in earlier posts. Ah, but then you're doing with Sion precisely what you won't let me do for Atris - assigning different value to the relationship even though the outcome is the same in either event. If you're allowed to assign a deeper interpretation to the outcome of the confrontation with Sion, because you see romance in it that are not there for the male Exile, then is it not just as reasonable to assign a similarly deeper aspect to the male Exile's relationship with Atris, when we know that she loved him? Sion must be persuaded to die regardless of the Exile's gender - there is ultimately no difference. If you assign a different interpretation to Sion's death for the female Exile, then I'm just as justified in doing something similar for Atris in the male Exile's story. [Jediphile]I'd agree if I believed his motives. But everytime I saw him, he was this nasty, powerful bugger who just wanted to kill me. The lines for regret about the female Exile just seemed to be thrown in there as an afterthought, and were nowhere nearly powerful enough to establish true feelings. If I'm to believe that in spite of Sion's repeated and constant attempts to kill the female Exile, then I need to understand his position, which I never do. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]He certainly makes it more clear than Atris does, Of course he does. Atris is doing everything she can to hide her true feelings, whereas Sion longs openly for feelings that he as lost in his now undead state. That's not a relevant basis of comparison. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]and she tries to kill Exile after she had let him go the first time because Kreia told her she would be the next Darth Traya. Unlike Sion who tries to kill the Exile everytime they meet? [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]By having that be the reason, they reduce the impact of her loving him by virtue of her attempt on his life has nothing to do with him. Whereas with Sion, his letting go instead of giving in increases the impact of his loving her. And i know the whole point of Atris having to kill Exile specifically is a sort of Sith rite to bring her to the DS, but as with Sion, she tries to kill all incarnations of Exile even if she did love male Exile. Atris is DS. She does not need to kill the Exile to meet some silly Sith standard. Kreia manipulated her to do it, sure, but is Kreia Atris' master now? I think not. Atris sees herself as the master and continues to - there is no ritual involved. As for Sion, he has to die in just the same way regardless of your gender, so that is a non-factor, even if you did believe him to be sincere about his feelings, which I don't. It's like you're saying that the outcome is the same in Atris' case, so it's irrelevant, but it's not for Sion because you assign a value to the relationship even though you have to defeat in just the same way. Sorry, but that sounds like a double standard to me. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Atton only sacrifices himself for female Exile so of course it has bearing on his importance. Or did i completely misunderstand what you were saying? Brianna only challenges her sisters and Atris for the male Exile, so that's not particularly compelling argument for the female Exile's story. Indeed, I find Brianna's confrontation far more compelling, because it both resolves her alleged betrayal to her sisters and Atris as well as settling the feelings both she and Atris have for the male Exile, which is significant because of Atris' direct tie to the Exile's past. That duality is not there in Atton's fight with Sion, since Sion is a stranger to the Exile. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Does that mean Atris' feelings for Exile went away when she tried to kill him? Do we then doubt she loved him at all and it was all just a ruse so he would let his guard down when she finally did try to kill him? No, of course not. i find it hard to believe she would try to kill someone she loves just because Kreia told her to. i fail to see the logic of Sion lying about his feelings to female Exile at that point. The difference is that Atris' feelings have had the time to become twisted and perverse, whereas Sion's have not. Therefore he should logically be more sincere to himself about what his feelings are, and yet he tries to kill the Exile at every turn. He is newly in love, which should make him want to embrace the Exile, only he doesn't. Atris' love, however, has been twisted into something perverse for a decade, making it far more believable that it no longer manifests itself in the way that it logically should. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] He explains he would rather she die than lose to Kreia and have her become broken as he was. He asked her to leave rather than go to Kreia; however; female Exile did not have that option so she had to participate in Sion's death since by his very nature, the consequence for him to accept he was wrong about the views he held, was death. Atris doesn't tell male Exile her feelings. Male Exile doesn't get the dialogue option to even aknowlege her feelings nor to suggest his own. Wrong. "I will do nothing - except tell you that I am sorry. I did not realize that the Mandalorian Wars would hurt others that had known me... and cared for me." You cannot admit that Atris loved the male Exile but merely admired the female without reading that sentence in a different light. It may have been the same for both male and female Exile, I'm not sure, but it's inescapable that it does not carry the same interpretation for the male Exile that it did for the female. And obviously there is a great difference, since you can choose to let Atris live (and actually will with the above), whereas Sion must die in any event. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Female Exile gets to say Sion is a presence in her mind, he gets to tell her she is important to him. The fact she says "as well" with regard to him being a presence in her mind indicates she believes what he is saying is true. *confusion* "Presence in my mind" can mean anything, including that she has been scared of Sion, who has continually been trying to kill her her throughout the game. What it means is therefore entirely the player's interpretation, and in any event, it still has no consequence to the outcome. [Jediphile]No, I don't agree, since I did not believe he was ever sincere. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Why not? What indication was there of him not being sincere? Repeatedly trying to kill people you claim to love is not likely to make them think you're sincere, methinks. [Jediphile]Jedi are not like ordinary people, since their emotions can lead them astray in ways that are not relevant to normal people. Pay attention to how Bastila explains how she was removed from her parents in K1. It told me pretty clearly that the younger the jedi is, the more important the order deems it to shield them from such emotions, since they are not yet able to control them. Older and more experienced jedi would be presumed to have better control of their emotions. This is obviously not true for Atris, but the other masters would likely have expected so and not noticed the danger (which doesn't seem that unlikely to me given all the other things they chose not to face...) [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]i'm not sure how well the 2 can be compared; a child being removed from her/his family, and a youth having an attraction to her/his master. Mical said he felt awe and things along those lines. There is nothing to indicate an intence crush or lust. Most likely, if his feelings were strong enough to warrant it, they would have done something about it, but they obviously were not. Considering that Mical never became the Exile's apprentice, that does not seem to be a valid conclusion. That it didn't happen is no basis for concluding that it cannot have been a problem. I can just as well conclude that they didn't deal with it simply because the problem never arose in the first place and so they never became aware of it. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Vash said (paraphrasing) "We do not cast blame, we take responsibility Atris" which to me indicates she, at least, sees a problem with the severity of Atris' feelings. That's a comment aimed at Atris dismissing the Exile's wound as a thing of the dark side out of hand, not of her emotions towards the Exile. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] i find it very difficult to believe they would have done absolutely nothing about it. As on their high horse and infalible as they believe themselves to be, Atris' feelings posed the real and forseeable danger she would fall to the DS. Such strong emotions are the very thing they guard against the most. Probably, but it never became relevant, since the Exile was, well, exiled and left. And besides, maybe Atris was good at hiding her emotions from them. Or they could have decided to let her deal with it on her own as a test of her character and only intervene if she began losing control. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Also, i thought Zez-Kai Ell was speaking his doubts about the Jedi teachings as a whole rather than casting blame on the Masters. He did say he left the Order the day Exile was exiled since he felt they should have asked why Exile chose to defy the Council, but then he speaks of how Exile's wound made them affraid and they couldn't deal with it. But that is quite different than counselling a fellow Master on controling her feelings. The strength of a Jedi comes from them never having to stand alone. By ignoring Atris' feelings and letting her isolate herself through their intencity, they are intentionally cutting her off from the Jedis' source of strength. i just can't see that, especially not given how fond of deliberating, minding eachother's business, and meditating on problems they are. They would need for Atris to acknowledge the problem herself, first. You cannot help someone unless they first accept that they have a problem. Besides, this is just another example of the very arrogance that the masters have been guilty off at this time. They think everyone else is flawed, and that they are themselves - including Atris - infallible. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Oops! i could have made that more clear. i meant if, when meeting the Council for the first time, Revan is obviously DS (in the DS alignment range, especially at point wherein it shows in Revan's features), why did they send her/him without a Master leaving Bastila out to dry with her having a strong bond with Revan, especially since she is so important with her battle meditation? That did not make any sense to me whatsoever. Nor did the whole sending them without a Master because it would draw too much attention. How so? Masters can hide their presences, can they not? The risk of sending them without one far outweighs the risk of sending one, i would think... First of all, I still don't see why Revan was *obviously* DS during that meeting. My Revan was fairly close to LS mastery at that point, actually. Anyway, the masters did explain it. 1. Sending a master along would be a beacon that Malak could track. They did not send one, because Bastila and Revan then had a better chance of slipping under the radar, while Malak was busy with all the more powerful jedi. And no, it's not easy to hide your presence, when you're a very powerful jedi. Yoda hid on Dagobah, because the cave where the dark side was strong (where Luke had his vision-battle with Vader) shielded his presence there. Apparently Sith are better at this, since Palpatine could hide under the nose of the order. Then again, they had no idea to look for him... 2. They send Bastila along, because she shared Revan's visions, and so if Revan was untrustworthy, they would at least still get the clues to where the starmaps were located and at least have a chance of finding the starforge that way. Obviously that concern must have outweighed the value of Bastila's battle meditation. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Hmm. i think he does have a complex psyche and things aren't as unentangled within him as they seem. When he speaks of Malachor V, he does not do so as if it was something of his past that has been dealt with. There even is the cut-scene where he and Exile couldn't sleep and he tells Exile of his dream of the MSG activation and he tells Exile the event is within him still. It is embeded in his psyche, he can't escape it. It's in his past so obviously it stays with him. He has to deal with it continually, since the alternative is to suppress it. And the Exile's presence has probably opened the wound a bit. But he does not have a problem dealing with it, and seems to come to the Exile mostly because he knows s/he probably feels the same way. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Exile listening in on the crew's thoughts hears Bao-Dur's echo "Malachor V". When he speaks with Exile about his being affected by her/him during the Jedification, he tells Exile he blames himself for both building the MSG, and for activating it. Exile counters, yet still Bao-Dur tells Exile he cannot see it that way. He tells Exile he may have to see himself as responsible, and through that, he attempts to atone. The fact he says it is something he might have to see that way indicates he is aware that he doesn't have to because there are other ways of looking at it, as Exile pointed out, but he also can see he needs to for his psychological and emotional stability. He can see what would happen to him if he let himself let go of that, as well as what is by refusing to let go of it. Bao-Dur knows himself quite well, but he is still very much at odds with himself. I don't see him being at odds with himself. He is quite open about where he stands here and what sort of responsibility he takes for his past. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]That he holds onto the notion Exile is not to blame for giving the order whereas he is for acting on that order shows he aknowledges his own falibility and he has a clarity of understanding his own responsibility, yet he cannot clearly see his insisting Exile is not responsible is delusional. Because that would make his own guilt pointless. Bao-Dur must accept that responsibility, because that is the only way his choices have lasting meaning. The alternative is that his actions had no significance, and that if he had not build the MSG, then someone else would have built it or something similar. He accepts responsibility, because it gives him control over the situation in the sense that all those terrible things would not have happened, if only he had made a different choice himself. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] We agree he isn't in denial (other than about the responsibility Exile had in events). And he is strong for not running from his responsibilities nor from the intencity of the emotions he used to feel. The unique thing about him is he is in a different place psychologically than everyone else. This is where we differ on this; he does surpress his feelings. When Exile does something evil, he calmly says (paraphrasing) "I only follow you because of what we have been through together General". That is him supressing the anger, disappointment, and myriad of other different things he feels so he can go on doing what he is. He changed from who he was during the Mandalorian Wars. From being an emotion driven person reacting to emotional stimulus (he even enlisted out of hate and anger), to being a reserved person who tries to do things following reason by surpressing his emotions. He does not like where his emotions had lead him. In order to not become the same monster he was, he has learned to control his anger and other emotions through supressing them. I don't entirely agree, since the only conclusion to your statements here is that you can control your emotions only by suppressing or denying them, and I do not believe that is true. I believe that you can acknowledge your emotions internally and yet choose not to respond to them outwardly. Otherwise it would be the same as saying that I'm suppressing my emotions, if someone insults me, and I choose not to go ballistic and yell at him for it. But I also have the option of just shaking my head (inwardly or otherwise) and thinking "what an idiot!", and then ignoring him because he's not worth the trouble. Is that suppression? [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] i also think Atton has dealt with some of his demons. Just leaving the Sith was him facing things about himself he hadn't dared to before. Certainly, he was still affraid. During the Jedification he tells Exile he was too affraid of it changing him when that Jedi sought him out so he killed her for showing him the truth. Then he tells Exile he isn't affraid of that anymore. He is still messed-up. No doubt about it. But he does see more than just what is obvious, and he does have self-knowledge. Atton didn't leave the Sith, he escaped. And his guilt and self-denial haunts him throughout the game. That's why Kreia can manipulate him with impunity. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] As stated above, they aren't in his past since he is still effected by it during the game. The past will always be a part of who you are at any given point in your life, and it must be reexamined on a continual basis, especially if there are dark episodes there. That's what Bao-Dur is doing. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] i do think he sees Exile as sacrosanct. There is no other reason i can fathom why he is so rational about everything other than Exile. Exile gave the order. Bao-Dur cannot accept Exile bears the responsibility that now rests on her/his shoulders because of it. Yet he can accept his own. There has to be some reason for that, some reason why he doesn't let Exile bear her/his rightful burden of responsibility and guilt. And that reason is simple: If Bao-Dur lets the Exile accept responsibility, then he will be admitting to himself that it really wasn't his fault, and that any choice he made at the time was pointless. That is more difficult for him to bear than it is to accept the responsibility for himself, it gives him control over the situation. His logic is that if he had not build the MSG, then none of it would have happened, and the guilt of that is easier to live with than the idea that he had no say in the matter and that his choices had no consequence. This is all fairly basic psychology, I think. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]i never said it is a good basis to go into a relationship consciously expecting nor thinking of. i was explaining how a relationship between them would affect them, and by extension why it wouldn't necesarily be a bad thing for them. Bad for the plot, though, since it's not romance on a sound basis. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] The level of effect being the victim of a severe trauma versus the perpetrator of a severe trauma is so completely differential in scale and scope. There most certainly is guilt involved in the complex intermixing of emotions Visas experiences. When she speaks with Exile about Katarr, she mentions she questions why she survived. Having something of that scale occur as she could do nothing other than live through it, even losing herself to the point wherein she sees life as ugly and abhorent, that does not go away with an epiphany nor a single event, not even with the death of the one who caused such destruction in the first place. And Exile is the one who caused the cataclysmic event creating the Force wound from which Nihilus, hence the resultant destruction of Katarr, was made. Then she made herself Exile's servant. That does not bode well for her psyche, nor for her being able to heal. No, she did not make herself the Exile's servant. She made herself a servant to the greater cause of destroying Nihilus. Not the same at all. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] i disagree she was in a trance-like state and she had a sudden perception change when he defeated her. She was quite aware when she spoke with Nihilus in the cut-scene, even making the decision to take a shot at him by asking him if he is affraid of the "noise" she picked-up on. Now certainly, one could assume she was in a disociative state of mind while serving Nihilus; however; that way of perceiving and experiencing life does not simply change with one event. The brain requires adjustment to the changes, especially if that is how one survived through ongoing psychological and emotional strain. Yes, but then KotOR2 takes place over the course of an entire year or more, and there are a lot of experiences during that time. And Visas seems to put her trauma behind her with astounding strength. But I don't agree with you that she is fully aware in the cutscene you mention above. Knowing Visas, it seems more likely that she is a witness to her own actions more than anything. She does not take a shot at Nihilus - she states openly whether there is concern. Given how much she is broken upon Nihilus' will at the time, she never would have dared to challenge of question his authority. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] She doesn't say, until before the Ravager when speaking with male Exile on the Ebon Hawk, she thinks perhaps life can be something to value. When on Onderon, and the Vaklu soldiers attack the cantina, she wants to slaughter everyone to rid the galaxy of the festering life she sees people represent. Well, those are not nice people... [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]i don't think her priority is to kill Nihilus before the Ravager. What?!? Are we playing the same game? Visas absolutely *refuses* to take the Exile to Nihilus until s/he is powerful enough to defeat him in the VERY FIRST conversation you ever have with her Visas: "Even if I could lead you to my Master, I cannot permit you to find him... until you are ready.{Quiet}If I bring you before my Master, untested, without your potential realized, then you will be lost to me. {Beat}And I cannot allow that to happen.It would be as if one brought fire to a paradise valley, shattered a cavern of rare crystal... or blinded a painter.It is a choice that can be made by neither one of us.Do not be so quick to meet that which you do not understand. Use the time you have now, to grow, to train, and to strengthen yourself. {Firm, slight passion}I cannot - I will not. I would die first, and gladly, to preserve you, untouched, unharmed. Now that I have found you, I cannot sacrifice what I have found.You will meet my master. It is inevitable, I have... seen it. And when you stand before him, and realize what you face, you must be prepared. Until then, I must protect you, help you, until you are ready. There is a... a greatness in you, a greatness that does not stem from the Force. It stems from who you are. And if my Master does not understand you, cannot see you, then perhaps there is hope for us all. But if you seek to survive, then you must understand why this is so." [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]i think it is to get Exile as strong as possible so s/he can feed Nihilus better. That was her mandate afterall. I had similar concerns playing the game, but it doesn't come to pass, so apparently Visas was sincere all along. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] To bring that thing she felt to Nihilus. i think it wasn't until later, when she realized what Exile is, could she even fathom the notion Nihilus could be defeated. And i don't see that as callous. i see that as her severely traumatized and following her programming. She talks of hope in the very first conversation you ever have with her. I don't see her as quite as traumatized as you do. Sure she has been through a lot, but Visas is a complex and strong person. She may have suffered under Nihilus, but she has also gained insight far beyond what her apparently young age would suggest. That's why she's able to take it all in stride. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] From a certain point of view, Visas having feelings for male Exile isn't necessarily of itself a bad thing. It might even be seen as a good sign she is able to feel a bit of a broader range of emotions again. What i am saying is she is still way too severly traumatized for anything positive to come of it if he pursued, especially since Exile is as deep in denial and unaffected by others' needs as he (and female Exile) seems to be. Adding more dilemas to Visas though, seems to be more cruel and to be pushing things with her character too far as opposed to being more humanizing. Atton never sees himself as worthy, Disciple submits completely to the Exile, and Brianna just loves the shadow of her dead father. Any of those healthy? No. I maintain that Visas is far more mature and strong than any of the alternate love interests. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Thankfully she was aware of the confrontation's inevitability from the start. And yes, if she loves Exile than that is him getting into harm's way; however; she did ask him to stay and not confront Nihilus thus he is putting himself in harm's way. And that you said she is doing it is telling. Visas will take that burden onto herself eventhough it really doesn't belong there. And that is one example that depicts why i feel the devs adding her loving Exile to the already heavily burdened character takes away from the plot and from her character development. If she does not love Exile, then Exile just becomes a weapon she can use to fight Nihilus with. Does that make the plot better or worse? [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] He loses control of himself because of the bond and because killing is something he has ingrained in him. Atton was a torturer, not a warrior. And if it's just because of the bond, then why does only he "blank" out when he attacks. The others do it because they must stand together, but Atton seems to do it even against his own will. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] i have never seen Visas refuse combat. i can't see why she would since she hates all life and wants to put an end to the chaos of living things. We diverge on the concept of what Visas' goals are. i saw her initial goal to be to bring Exile to Nihilus. You saw her goal as destroying Nihilus. Visas' servitude seems quite apparent to me. After besting her in combat she is confused why Exile would let her live and she tells Exile (paraphrasing) "you are stronger than I. I have nothing to offer." That speaks to her state of mind of her being a servant who can see value in herself only in terms of what she can bring to the other. i also saw her sacrificing herself on the Ravager as being done for Exile and not to defeat Nihilus since she first questions if he is certain. When he states he is, she does so. When it is not offered as a suggestion, she does not offer herself up for them to kill Nihilus. And that she doesn't offer herself tells me that she wants to go on living. But she is willing to accept death, if that is what it takes to defeat Nihilus. Visas doesn't hate life, she is just scared that there is no hope for it, and so she is reluctant to hold out hope for it. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Atton does not change who he is to suit what his idea of what Exile wants him to be. Atton remains true to himself throughout, eventhough he isn't sure who he is. It is not as if Atton has a sudden Exile induced epiphany and has become a pious celebate monk. He does change, but it is a part of his personal growth or regression depending on his alignment. Though that could be significantly different with the cut-content. They had to have Kreia force him into staying on with Exile to explain why he would stay, since he certainly would not have done so of his own volition, not even for female Exile. He has a complete infiriority-complex towars the Exile throughout the game. He loves her, but hates himself far too much to ever reach out for her. And he doesn't love her as much as he loves the concept of redemption that she represents to him. Not a good basis. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]Mical bows once. On Dantooine. As a greeting. He bows to male Exile too. Mical in no way changes who he is nor how he views things, he openly disagrees with her about her exile, he teachers her meditation, and he explains things to her (about stuff she should know too... ), and tells her she is wrong. Mical is not weak and maleable, nor does he do nor say things to please her. He says what he thinks and feels and if she doesn't like it, so be it. He still submits entirely to her will, and far more than Visas could ever hope to match, since he submits to the Exile directly, while Visas submits herself to a greater cause. Mical may disagree with the Exile on occasion, but he doesn't seem to have much personality or sense of self. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] He needs something to light the metaphorical fire under him to get him going. Just saying an intimate relationship would do that. No, he doesn't. Bao-Dur is fine. Why does he need fire under him? If Bao-Dur can make it alone in his life, then more power to him. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] i didn't see any sign at all that i can recall of Exile wanting to deal with her/his issues which is a reason i think something that isn't tragic nor includes killing is what Exile needs since s/he deals with those without it affecting her/him deeply. I'm not sure I understand... [Jediphile]Atton's attraction to the Exile is far more unhealthy than Brianna's is, because he loves her just because she is able to live with dark past, while he finds it far more difficult himself. In short, he loves her ability to deny the terrors and sins of her past more than he loves the Exile herself. Not very ideal... [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]i disagree with that. Atton in part wants to be able to do as she can, but there is far more to it than that. From the begining he saw Exile's weaknesses, and weakness is not something he finds appealing, and his natural inclination is to exploit it which he chooses not to do. Also from the begining, he saw Exile's strengths, her/his courage and determination. He didn't even know about the dark past at that point. When Exile is DS, he voices his discontent strongly. When Exile is LS, he speaks of it being good. To me, that indicates he is working on changing, and he is doing so regardless of what Exile does. He is a complicated person who is torn in many different directions. i do concede though, at the end of the day, his alignment and if he falls back into the pattern of his Revan days, depends a great deal on Exile. That is the nature of Exile's Force bond. Visas has the exact same large and actuated alignment deciding based on Exile. Atton and Visas' pasts are the reasons for their maleability. Visas is far more willing to disagree with the exile and criticize him/her than Atton, who is more of a confused person than a complicated one. Visas is complicated, but Atton is not, he "just" has a dark past that he cannot put behind him. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] It was Bao-Dur's hands that not only built the MSG, but also that activated it. When he speaks with Exile about the dream, he reveals he was the one to 'push the button' It was at Exile's command, but that act and its inception lie solely on Bao-Dur. He did not know, nor could he have forseen the impact that would have on the Force, nor that it created a DS power spot. The MSG had no impact on the force. It's just a weapon, albeit a fairly nasty one. The impact on the force was the Exile's doing. Otherwise the whole point of the force wound becomes irrelevant to the story. The MSG was just the catalyst that made the exile cut himself off from the force and cause the wound. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] But intentions do not take away from reality. He is responsible for his creation and for its use. Exile is responsible for ordering its use and for rejecting the Force. And yet Bao-Dur accepts responsibility for both, for the reasons I've already stated. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] What she saw, unless i am mistaken, is Exile's lack of connection to the Force. Exile's wound and the nothing the Jedi Masters saw. That would be very akin to Nihilus. Well, you already know that I see Exile and Nihilus as opposite sides of the same wound, so Visas seeing the "other" is not so unlikely to me. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]i re-read the paragraph i wrote, and i must say, i am not sure why you are stating i said most of the Jedi died during the Exar Kun Wars, You said, "they lost a huge slew of Jedi." That suggests rather a lot. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]nor that i implied the older Jedi did not take on padawans. I clearly state they most likely did. Jolee in KotOR spoke of the Exar Kun Wars splitting the Order and many Jedi died, leaving the Order weakened and with severly reduced numbers since many went to the DS, and others died fighting those who left. Based on that, those who had padawans and those who were to teach them, were lost, leaving a rather large youngling population without the chance to become padawans. A similar thing occured with the Mandalorian Wars. Except not as many left to fight, and most of the older generations remained with the yonger post-Exar generations leaving. They were at teaching age, therefore when they left, a larger number of youngling were left without those who could teach them. For the life of me I cannot understand the logic here. Yes, I realise that Mical says it, but that still doesn't mean that it makes any sense. Revan's jedi were mostly *THE YOUNGER JEDI* We hear again and again of the older jedi losing their padawans to Revan's cause. THOSE ARE PADAWANS AND NOT TEACHERS. The only thing anyone has ever said to suggest that teachers left is Mical's one statement that nobody was left to teach him. I will take the repeated statements to the contrary of everyone else talking on the subject over just Mical's any day. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM]The older Jedi who did not leave had to pick-up the slack, and they most likely took on padawans for training, but there is still a hole in the heirarchy, and there are still missing teachers. Judging from what Mical recounted, he was supposed to become Exile's padawan. i don't know if those who left were thought to return so their intended padawans were left for them or not, but i do find it believable the dent put into the Order was enough to hinder the making younglings into padawans process. How so? The older jedi and masters lost the majority of their padawans, while the younglings lost some teachers. The only logical conclusion I can reach from following that is that there were more teachers than needed. [Hekate] i've been considering these criteria for a while, and i think there are many different ways to look at it. There is: the player's perspective the overarcing storyline the tie to Exile's personal history the effect/influence the character has on Exile how solid they are as characters what they bring to the group dynamic their skills and/or abilities [Jediphile]Why is ties to the Exile's personal history relevant? It's like you're saying a character is only interesting if he or she has a direct tie to the Exile's past. I don't agree with that at all. Atton and Brianna have no ties to the Exile, and their stories are quite rich anyhow. Besides, it hurts credibility if everything in a plot has relevance to the protagonist directly, since it suggests that nothing can take place in the rest of the universe. [Hekate,May 18 2006, 06:02 AM] Did i say it is the only important factor? Did i say it is the most important factor? Did i say a character is less significant without a personal tie to Exile? Nope. i didn't at that. And I'm not allowed to question that factor? I didn't even take it out of context, you know...

They could probably do this just as a mod for one of the Battlefront games... I'd rather see it as a more strategic game like a RTS or something like Empire at War. Especially since the last battle at Malachor seems to have taken place mostly in space, which would make it difficult to represent in a FPS.

Beware, my friend. To the dark side analogies and allegories to real life can lead us. That's highly inflammable subject matter... I think I'll stay clear of this one. It looks a little bit too explosive to me.

Just for the record, Kreia's exact line is: "You are greater than any I have ever trained." Now, most seem to think that it naturally follows from that statement, that the Exile was "greater", i.e., more powerful, than Revan was, since she also trained Revan. I see the logic, but I'm less certain myself for two reasons. First, Revan learned from many other masters, and he may have grown quite powerful under other teachers than Kreia. That he was not her greatest student does not necessarily mean that he has not become the most powerful jedi later. Second, and more important, you have to consider Kreia's perspectives. Revan is "just" another "ordinary" jedi, albeit an exceedingly powerful one. But he does not possess the Exile's ability (that we've seen at least) to deny the will of the force. And that ability is something that makes the Exile beautiful to Kreia, since he can deny the force that she hates so much. She may call the Exile the greatest for that reason, in the sense that it is not a measure of who is more powerful, but who has the ability that Kreia admires the most.

You mean a First-Person Shooter? Could work, I think. Might also work with the Real Time Strategy-approach. Still, it could not be an RPG (because we know too much of what must happen), and so it might be doubtful if I'd ever play it...

Don't make the villain too much a villain, though. What I mean by that is that you shouldn't make him do evil things just because, well, he's evil. Villains need really good reasons for what they're doing. Not that I'm implying you're doing that - your struggle for good plot would actually suggest the opposite - but I've seen so many published adventures, where I just thought "why is the villain doing this?", and there was just no answer to that question. Instead the villain was just this really black-hearted creep who did evil things, and often insane things too, for no other reason than because he was evil... or insane, which is always a convenient excuse So don't make the villain too black-hearted. He (or she) should be able to pass himself off as a nice person, if he wants to. In fact, if your PCs are not good guys and you sort of want them to be, make the villain their new "ally" who helps them out of a few troubles, and then promptly stabs them severely in the back, once they begin trusting him. That usually makes the PCs turn the good guys and help them for some reason... He could be a "businessman" like Jabba (only not such a silly race as the Hutt). Or think Kingpin from Spider-man/Daredevil or Lex Luthor from Superman. Those are manipulative powerfreaks who hide themselves from exposure. I love it when the PCs just know that someone is a bad guy, but they can do nothing about it because they have no proof Don't worry too much about originality. Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Just do the plot and let the players worry about whether it's original enough. You can always add details later to make it more original. There are no new plots, so you will be stealing from someone. And all it takes to make a villain that is not clich

Thank you

I get the impression that someone hasn't been looking at the M4-78 FAQ

That's doubtful. Hekate and myself can both be very verbose, but since we're both here, it's unlikely one of us will get away with anything. Besides, DAWUSS has also joined in on the long posts once or twice.

[Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Jediphile, as we delve into this deeper, it is getting more difficult to counter you. But we ain't through just yet... You shouldn't think of it as a struggle or competition. The point of the topic is not for one of us (or anyone else here) to "win", but us - collectively - to search for the truth or at least establish a concensus in some form (I find that seeing it that also has the benefit of making it far easier to accept it, when I have to concede a point to someone else ) [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] *be warned, humourous intent up ahead* Is it really fair to use the text dialogues to prove your point? *humourous threat has ended. Resume regular activities* Yup. Can't argue that. Brianna's dialogue is the same regardless, except for a "her" in place of a "him", the difference in Atris' dialogue is from the begining of your quote to the point where she speaks of judging Exile. So Atris loved male Exile. *sigh* What tangled webs we weave. ...especially when first we begin to deceive... [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Well, the point in admitting those emotions would be to let Brianna know she doesn't stand a chance, that's actually another reason for him to admit to those feelings, assuming he wants to have a chance with Brianna [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]for Exile to face reality, and for the player to have some clue what the heck is going on. Since everything the player gets to know on those subjects is through dialogues, it should be an indication of how Exile feels. *grumble* My apologies... [Jediphile]Possibly because I never played BG II and so didn't get the reference. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Blashphemer! Go rectify that right away. Choose Jaheira. Why would this surprise you - have we not already established me as one? [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]Exile cannot be compared to Regan in anyway. I was not making a direct analogy - I was just using Reagan as an example. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Ok, they are both human and have as much personality as wet noodles, but you know what i mean. Exile was a Jedi. Jedi do heroic things.It's what they are known for. Pillars of light and goodness, defenders of the Republic, and all that Jedi goodness. (i guess the US is a republic too so that doesn't count in not comparing them so shhh.) Actually, not all the jedi seem to think so highly of the Exile [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]And i wasn't suggesting hero worship just *bing!* springs into a person's heart like that. Obviously there does have to be some reason for it. What i was saying, though, is it doesn't have to have come from a massive one time event, although it could. Such things could develop over time. In a sense, friendship can be like that a little too. And i still don't think any feelings nor affections felt for others can be controlled nor artificially created. Looking up to someone may stem in logic and reasoning; however; there are people whose actions or philosophies one may look up to without feeling anything for that person. And there are people one can admire eventhough they aren't all that admirable. That is why i said hero worship, especially such a potent case of it as Atris has for Exile, is an emotion that can occur without explanation. i do understand wanting to know why and how Atris' feelings for female Exile came about. It could be that Exile is good at Force bonding and Atris isn't so she admires Exile for it. Hmmm. I don't see Atris admiring Exile for an innate ability (i.e., an ability that the Exile was born with and did nothing on his/her own to promote - Exile was, after all, completely unaware of it). Admiration usually comes from impressive things people have done willfully, I think. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] But we don't get graced with an explination, so we gotta go on what we got. Which is what I find hurts the story. If Atris loves the male Exile, okay. I don't need an explanation for that, because in most cases nobody can explain why they love someone else, but rather just know they do. But I don't think admiration works the same way, and therefore the male Exile's relationship with Atris seems more compelling to me than the female Exile's. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] We do know in the Council Chambers when Exile is being exiled, Atris is just as furious at female Exile as male Exile. And as i have stated in earlier posts, i think that is powerful for a person to react that strongly without attraction having been the catalyst. Attraction naturally increases the effect of one's emotions for the other person. Now comparing the 2, Atris freaking out at male Exile with love, and Atris freaking out at female Exile without love, it seems more viscerally impactful that she is that affected by female Exile. Her feelings for her are honest in a sense. They aren't muddled with the confusion and amplifying aspect of attraction. Obviously attraction increases feelings and their effects. But female Exile got under Atris' skin without attraction as much as male Exile did. That doesn't take away from Atris' love for male Exile though. It is just how i see it. I don't think I could disagree more. For me to ever accept that for the female Exile, I would have to hear a really good explanation for Atris' admiration of her, but the plot gives me nothing. That's not good storytelling. One thing they could have done is made Atris the Exile's old master. That would have solved the problem by explaining Atris' admiration as pride in a padawan's potential. It also seems to be a fairly convenient solution. I find it very interesting that they did not do this... [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] i think if they had done it properly, that Sion has to die has quite an impact. Again, we can only go on what was in there. But i have read people state they felt Sion-Exile was powerful. Yes, as i have agreed, it sorta comes out of nowhere and implies those two were somehow feeling eachother for a long time, to which the player is left going "hun?" but the point is Exile wasn't going "hun?". The real problem is whether the player goes "huh?"... which I did. It seemed to come out of the blue, made no sense to me, and did not lead to anything revealing or worthwhile in the plot. Which in my eyes made it look too much like the devs were thinking they used the love-theme between Atris and male Exile, and so they had to do something similar between the female Exile and one of the bad guys, and then it got forced onto Sion because it was unfeasible for Nihilus. And that's how it felt to me - forced! [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] And when i thought about it, everything the player knows about Atris' feelings comes from cut-scenes that Exile isn't even involved in. So what? Brianna even comments on the male Exile's feelings for Atris, so it's not as if the Exile wasn't aware of it. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Again, i don't remember there being anything of significance in male Exile and Atris' last confrontation, so if there is, that changes things, but the player is given a bit more feel for Atris' romantic feelings than Sion's, but not all that much really. Of her anger though, in spades. You get several options for how to end story for Atris. Unless you choose to kill her, you can choose among these: Atris: "And what will you do with me now? Abandon me here on this dead world - or end my life, as I wished to end yours?" 1. "I will do nothing - except tell you that I am sorry. I did not realize that the Mandalorian Wars would hurt others that had known me... and cared for me." 2. "I need you to see what you have become - and turn away from it." 3. "You will answer for your crimes before the Council, and then you shall return to your prison." 4. "You must return to your prison, Atris. And leave the battles to those who have the strength to fight them." [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Now Sion, his having to die, is meaningful if female Exile chooses the "You have been a presence in my mind as well" option. Especially depending on how the Atton-Sion stuff was to turn out. Why? [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]Sion becomes significant if the player accepts he is significant. i accepted he is, and i saw him as having more depth and purpose than just being the big baddie who is boss #2. How his relationship to Kreia mirrored Exile's, how he was just abandoned by her and then taken up again to fight Exile is similar to how Kreia abandoned Exile on Dantooine. And that Sion didn't want that, he didn't want Kreia to harm Exile in the way he was harmed where Exile wouldn't have anything to live for without Kreia giving her purpose, so she wouldn't turn out to be a monster as he was, Yes, but this is just as relevant to the male Exile. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]that he was even willing to kill whom he cared for to protect her, that packs a punch. I'd agree if I believed his motives. But everytime I saw him, he was this nasty, powerful bugger who just wanted to kill me. The lines for regret about the female Exile just seemed to be thrown in there as an afterthought, and were nowhere nearly powerful enough to establish true feelings. If I'm to believe that in spite of Sion's repeated and constant attempts to kill the female Exile, then I need to understand his position, which I never do. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] That Sion was a product of Malachor V makes him important since it is Exile who ordered its destruction. Sion is a physical manifestation of Malachor V, and a very acute one at that: pain. And pain is what everyone touched by Malachor V is burdened with. i see Atton and Sion as very similar in that respect; they both were affected by Malachor V, but they suffered differently, yet, they are so similar.In the cut content, Atton says to Exile once Sion messes him up severly, "Always was ugly, now the outside matches". And that, i think, is one of the important things Sion does; he shows the ugliness of Malachor V, of Exile, of the whole blood-soiled crusade. Agreed, but again, the Exile's gender has no bearing on this, since it is true for Sion regardless. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] And that this monster can actually care for something, for someone through his pain, that also is important since it shows the others affected by Malachor V just might be able to too. That is entirely dependent on whether Sion is compelling enough for the player to accept his feelings as genuine. I found that more than difficult. Especially in the female Exile's story, where he spoke of feelings for me even as he tried to kill me - that does sort of make me doubt his words, somehow... [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Wearing down his will, and that there is a difference in how that is done between male and female Exile is important, because with Sion giving up as he fights male Exile, it means something entirely different than when he lets go with female Exile. No, I don't agree, since I did not believe he was ever sincere. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] You are right though. All of what i said came from how i see things. We are told Sion is pain and such, but we really aren't given much on him, so we have to read into him what we can. i felt he was important, especially as he acted as a sort of hub where so many people's stories came together, how his path paralled others' paths, and how he was a representation of the pain Malachor V caused. He also served as a mirror to the Exile and her/his companions wherein it was shown just how tenuous their grasp on things really were. But i do understand how you feel it had no significance in the game. You also said you feel the Jedi Masters had no significance in the game. And i can understand that as well. I think I haven't explained myself well then. Sion is significant, but I don't think his emotions for the female Exile are compelling or believable in any way. The masters are significant, but they're not entirely consistent, since especially Kavar and Zez-Kai Ell appear to have changed a lot from when you first meet them and when you meet them at the council. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] i'm not sure if they would have switched a youngling's or a padawan's master for her/him having some feelings of attraction. They would seem to have more likely used it as a tool to help him learn to master his feelings. i am certain as kids grow-up they would have all sorts of those feelings for a whole bunch of different people. That is only natural. i can't see why that would have been such a huge problem. Whereas a Jedi Master having such intence feelings, that would indeed have been a big problem i would think. Jedi are not like ordinary people, since their emotions can lead them astray in ways that are not relevant to normal people. Pay attention to how Bastila explains how she was removed from her parents in K1. It told me pretty clearly that the younger the jedi is, the more important the order deems it to shield them from such emotions, since they are not yet able to control them. Older and more experienced jedi would be presumed to have better control of their emotions. This is obviously not true for Atris, but the other masters would likely have expected so and not noticed the danger (which doesn't seem that unlikely to me given all the other things they chose not to face...) [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Maybe Atris was never good at controlling her feelings and that is why she never got to instruct a padawan. Conjecture, i know, but the point is, a Master who has such feelings for a Jedi is a far more serious problem that a youth or a teen having those feelings for the same Jedi. Not only is a master strong in the Force, but a Master falling to the dark side, as Atris proved, is a far worse danger than the attraction a young padawan feels. Atris was literally freaking out after Exile's trial. She did not go about hiding her feelings in a terribly effective way. And it is the stupidity of the Jedi Council in this game with regards to Atris that makes me feel it damages the plot more than Mical's attraction does. The same thing happened in KotOR. Why the Jedi Council went about sending Revan on the Star Map mission when s/he was clearly DS when s/he got there, i will never know. That just seemed an incredibly stupid thing to do. And so the Council in KotOR II suffers with the same stupidity disease. They should have done something about Atris back then. Leaving her with such intence feelings would make it too easy for her to lose control and to fall to the dark side First of all, I think it works because it underscores the very denial of the jedi council that Zez-Kai Ell speaks off. The jedi masters are - collectively - arrogant, because they think they are always right and the younger jedi wrong, and they think they are themselves above the failings of the young. That's why Zez-Kai Ell's admission of how flawed the jedi have become is so significant to me. The master did not see many things. Atris' love is just one of them. I do not agree entirely on the masters in K1, though. How was it obvious that Revan was DS?!? And in any event, they had no choice but to send him on that journey, because that was the only way to find the starmaps and so the Starforge. Remember that while Revan and Bastila knew which planets they were on, it wasn't until Revan actually went to each planet that he gained a vision of its precisely location. And as Bastila explains, sending a master along would only have made them easier for Malak to find. But otherwise I agree, the masters have been ignorant, self-delusional, and generally unwilling to accept their own responsibility. Heck, Zez-Kai Ell even says it himself, and he's one of them, so there really is no surprise there. [Jediphile]I like Sion, but not as a romance option. It doesn't seem right for his character to me. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Out of intence curiosity, and i know i'll regret asking but oh well, why doesn't it seem right for his character? Because Sion is not characterized deeply enough to warrant such an attachment, and there seems to be no reason why he would suddenly develop it out of the blue. And to throw it in there in just six to ten lines is not enough to create the depth that a romance would require, especially if there is no backstory to establish it. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] i think Bao-Dur has a complex psyche and intellect. I think he can see things from many different perspectives and he can see how things are woven together in the grand tapestry of life. i also think how he can reduce things to manageable sizes is in and of itself a difficult thing to do since many get overwhelmed in seeing so much. Bao-Dur doesn't get overwhelmed, he simplifies. Which is precisely why he is not complicated. He is very intelligent, yes, but does not have a complex psyche. Not because he is not a deep character, but because he insists on not allowing things to overwhelm him. He simplifies things, and that is his greatest strength. He openly admits that he hated the mandalorians and took pleasure in their death. That's a terrible thing to admit. Does it make Bao-Dur evil? No, because looks on it as a part of himself, an experience that is part of what he is now. Like other experiences, it has led him to be the person he is now. And you can see his simplication of things in how he responds to things like influence. You can sweettalk your way to influence with Bao-Dur. No, he has to see you do good deeds to gain respect for you. Even here you can see that he is a no-nonsense kind-of-guy, who won't put up with explanations of justification, innuendo, or manipulation. He refuses to consider anything but the value of your acts. He keeps it simple. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] But it's not as if he loses sight of things, its more like he says "OK. This is too big for me to deal with all at once. I am going to group these issues together here, and these other issues here. I'll deal with these ones first, and once I've done enough work on those, I'll move on to doing these. But I won't forget everything else; I'll keep it all in mind and work on it sub-consciouly as I deal with one group of problems than the next." So eventhough he makes it simple, he still thinks about the other stuff, and he still sees the big picture. And he knows what he can handle at once, which also takes self-awareness and an understanding of the issues. Yes and no. He keeps it separated and puts the stuff he cannot deal with yet out of his mind, so that he can concentrate on it later, when the first problem is solved and no longer requires his attention. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] i wasn't getting at he was in a state of denial. i was saying as a consequence of how he deals with things, by his reducing and remaining mostly calm, he has taken to supressing his feelings. I don't see that at all. He openly admits his hatred for the mandalorians and the pleasure he took in killing them. But you just know as he says it, that he regrets having those feelings. That's not denial or suppression. That's dealing with them right then and there. But he is a rather reserved person, which probably comes from his long years apart from the Exile, where he had no one he could relate those emotions to. Bao-Dur is strong in that he has faced his demons alone and come to terms with them. Exile and Atton have been utterly unable to do the same. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] The only time he shows strong emotions i can remember off hand, is when Canderous pushes him too hard and when he confronts Kreia. He isn't emotional when he was being Jedified eventhough one would logically expect it to be so. Even when he is DS and Jedifies from giving into his anger, he still isn't very passionate about it. Why is that? i think for 2 reasons. The first is how he sees Exile as sacrosanct and a person he cannot get angry with regardless of what Exile does, and because he surpresses his feelings. When he speaks of the wars, he mentions how much hate and anger he felt, and how he now feels those were bad reasons to fight. He regrets he killed out of anger, and especially made the MSG out of anger. But he doesn't really connect with those feelings in a meaningful way. He chose to be active rather than emotional. I don't see it that way at all. On the contrary, he has already dealt with those emotions and closed the book on them. But they are part of the sum that he is now, and he never forgets that. If he doesn't connect with them, then it's because they are in his past and should stay there. And I don't think he sees the Exile as sacrosanct. The Exile was just there and someone he expects can understand his emotions, in which he is not entirely correct - the Exile is far more in denial than he is. But he can certainly be dismissive of the Exile, if he/she does something he doesn't like (DS acts). [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] So what i was saying is an intimate relationship might just be exactly what he needs to allow him to begin the process of getting in touch with his supressed emotions. Not only those of rage, regret, and frustration which he does allow himself to feel on occasion, but the whole spectrum of emotions he has denied himself since entering the war, such as joy, love, and so on. That sounds like the worst basis for ever being involved with someone to me. You shouldn't be with someone as a means of healing old wounds, because that suggests the other person is just a catalyst for you to deal with your own problems, and the other person does not deserve that. That's why I'm a bit skeptical about Brianna's feelings for the male Exile, since she sees too much of her father him for it to be entirely healthy. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] Visas' backstory is the darkest of them all. And as such, it feels much more inappropriate for romantic endeavours than the others' do. There is a huge difference between being active participants in death and large scale slaughter, especially when actively instigating it and being aware of the consequences, contrasted to being an unsuspecting victim who feels all life around her die, and as if that wasn't devastating enough, to be made a slave to the one who destroyed it in the first place. i just can't agree with your assesment on the differences here. Trauma like that is extremely severe. It defies logic Visas isn't just a walking zombie or in a vegetative mental state. But she isn't, so she is in the game. But it really does feel off with Visas. But there is a major difference between Visas' background and that of Atton or Bao-Dur - Visas was not responsible for it. She has a lot of trauma to deal with, but there is no responsibility or guilt over her past for her to deal with. Nihilus destroyed her world and made her his servant. She had no choice in the matter. It's more like she was in a trance-like state until the Exile defeated her and awoke her from a nightmare. She may have great pain to deal with, but she seems quite determined in what the right course of action must be. There is no doubt or hesitation. She may seem submissive to the Exile, but I don't think she really is - to her the Exile is something that can destroy Nihilus, and she is determined to bring that about, even at the cost of her own life. She will tell nothing of Nihilus until she is convinced the Exile has the power to face him, and she can be openly dismissive the Exile's choices, if she feels it puts the Exile in danger. Since I like playing LS, that makes me prefer the male Exile, because otherwise Visas is just using the Exile as a weapon, which seems callous. If Visas also has feelings for the Exile, however, then humanizes her more, because she is in the dilemma of having to put the one she loves in harms way if Nihilus is to be defeated. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] As i said though, that interaction where she is reaching out and asks Exile to allow her to look upon him, that was a beautiful moment in the game. And it felt appropriate. However a relationship would seem to me to be entirely out of the question for a good long while, if ever. Visas doesn't even know who she is. It is only with Nihilus' death is she free of her servitude to him, but as we have seen, she already transfered that servitude onto Exile long before Nihilus died so she knew she would have a master no matter the outcome. No matter what way that is looked at, it is an unhealthy and imbalanced relationship. She puts everything in the Exile's hands, not only her life and her fate, but also her ability to hope and to feel. Surely Bao-Dur, Atton, and Sion's lives are dark and full of conflict and pain, but they have retained their individuality to a strong enough degree that they would not reshape who they are to please Exile. I disagree completely. Nobody succumbs to the Exile's will more than Atton does. Note how he sort of loses control over himself and follows the Exile into combat whether he wants to or not. That is not true for Visas. Bao-Dur is not relevant to consider in this context, since he is the same for either gender. As for Visas not knowing who she is, I never saw her doubting herself or her goals in the game. She is quite determined and certain about her priorities. And she does not put everything in the Exile's hands, except as a consequnce of her seeing the Exile as the only hope for the galaxy to survive Nihilus. It is not her own hopes she puts in the Exile's hands as much as the hope for survival for the entire galaxy. And as I've said above, her "servitude" for the Exile is not an act of submission but rather a dedication to her own greater goal. She cannot defeat Nihilus, but the Exile can, and so she does everything she can to bring that about. I find Sion irrelevant in this context, because his relationship with female Exile is forced and uncompelling. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] That is why i find the male Exile to be a weaker choice for cannon if it is based on romantic relationships, since the females are such Exile dependant characters. And the male love interests aren't? Atton feels so inferior that he dare not even admit his feelings, and if the Disciple bowed and scraped more than he does, the floor of the the Ebon Hawk would suffer a hull breach. No, I don't agree. Brianna is a bit unhealthy, as I've said, but she is strong enough that I'm wondering how long the relationship would last, once Brianna comes to terms with her past. And Visas does not submit to the Exile's will - she submits to her cause and the consequences that follows. But that is her choice and not the Exile's will. [Hekate]With Mical it is different, his is more in the sweet category. The closest to 'normal' any of them could ever get. It makes sense Atton takes such exception to Mical because of how free he is, and how if Mical and Exile were to come together, Atton wouldn't stand a chance. He could never provide that aspect of normalcy, of security Mical could. [Jediphile]Precisely. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]Preciely what? Again my dim-wit sense is tingling... i'm the dim-wit. Not you Mical can provide normalcy in a way that Atton never can. That's where Atton feels threatened by Mical, because he seems Mical having a relationship with female Exile that Atton can never hope for himself. Hence the confrontation between them in the cut content. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] With Bao-Dur and Atton, i can see how intimacy could help them in different ways. It would be different from eachother, of course, because they are such different people. i already spoke of Bao-Dur, how intimacy with someone who does understand the ugliness of Malachor V as well as the responsibility of being the one who put it into action could be good for him. Bao-Dur doesn't need intimacy to deal with his past. He has no problems doing so in the male Exile's story, and he doesn't even need friendship - he has already dealt with it and put it behind him. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]And corollary, it would be good for Exile since she would have to face stuff we assume she hasn't judging by her lack of reacting to things and by how she spoke with Bao-Dur about the MSG and whose fault it was, or rather wasn't. According to Exile, neither of theirs. Just a wee tad ' denial there, lass. The Exile (either gender) is far more in denial about the past than Bao-Dur is. Bao-Dur is at the state that the Exile is still trying to reach. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] With Atton, the reason it matters it is Exile is because he actually loves her. We don't find out in the game but it is in the cut Malachor V content. No one else would be able to reach him because no one else matters to him enough. Atton has a way of emotionally getting into people, and he would definitely do so with her. He already did way back on Peragus and the conversation they have on the Ebon Hawk before reaching Telos is one of the conversations wherein she shows the most personality in the whole game, that they mostly dump for the rest of it other than a few disjointed places on occasion . Atton, being more raw, emotional, and passionate would evoke such in her. Exile would bring some calm and centering to him. So i think their demons, although bad, are still ones they could heal together from. Atton's attraction to the Exile is far more unhealthy than Brianna's is, because he loves her just because she is able to live with dark past, while he finds it far more difficult himself. In short, he loves her ability to deny the terrors and sins of her past more than he loves the Exile herself. Not very ideal... [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]But do they really blame themselves more than they should? i don't know. i think that is something no one could forget in a lifetime. It turns out an unexpected consequence of activating the MSG was the Force wound which bore Nihilus and ended-up destroying Katarr and goodness knows what else. That karmic burden, as Kreia spoke of when she told Exile of ripples and everything having far reaching consequences, is exactly what they will have to live with for the rest of their lives. Those ripples are the Exile's responsibility, not Bao-Dur's, since he was "just" another engineer at the time and not a jedi. He is not responsible for the consequences in the force, since he "just" created a warmachine that killed people. He was not the one who used it, however, and he was not the one who denied the force. [Jediphile,May 14 2006, 07:06 PM]Ah, but I think what she longs for is life and all the feelings that comes with it. Nihilus is death incarnate, and Visas has been breathing that death for too long. She longs desperately for all the emotions and feelings of life. Note her comments in the cutscene where we first see her and Nihilus: Visas: "I have felt it, too, my lord... a disturbance in the Force. It was difficult to make out, my lord. At first it was such a quiet thing, I did not notice it. But now I wonder if it has always been there, I merely could not hear it before.The sound built so slowly, yet when you listen for it, you can make out the strains, even over the background life of the universe. Do you feel it is a thr-{threat? Gets choked off by Nihilus crushing her windpipe with the Force}{Whispering, as if being choked}You... you are the darkness in which all life dies, milord. All life... exists to feed your power, and my life... {he releases her, she collapses - the next is quiet, subservient}my life is yours.I beg you... please... let me die.{Deferent, a little firmer, now that she has her second wind - she is answering a question}Yes... this disturbance... echoes through the Force. I can follow it to its source... and bring it to you. I will leave at once, my lord." [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM]i am confused. Where do you see her longing for emotions and life in that cut-scene? i got the opposite. She wants her torment to end. Hmm... again, it is fascinating how different perceptions can be... She is a void inside, her feelings dead. But suddenly she senses something from across the galaxy even over the oppressing presence of Nihilus. She shifts in her nightmare, taking a sudden and unexpected breath of the very life that seemed lost to the galaxy. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] 30 years ago they lost a huge slew of Jedi. However long the war lasted, they didn't immediately jump into taking on a boat-load of padawans. They had to recooperate, get things sorted, and then go about Jedi life again. Their numbers were diminished. They were limited with the numbers of padawans they could teach. Slowly they add to their numbers as those padawans age. 30 years down the road, the younglings who came to them after the Exar Kun war head off to the Mandalorian Wars, those who, like Exile, are supposed to begin teaching new padawans. The number of older Jedi who survived the Exar Kun war are low, and now they have to go and take care of the extra responsibilities the first generation Jedi who left to go the Mandalorian wars were no longer fulfilling. So there logically should be a larger number of younglings who did not get to be taught since the older Jedi would have been teaching apprentices anyway, and many of those of their preceeding generation who were supposed to teach them, left. To me, that makes sense. Makes no sense to me at all. You make it sound as if any and all jedi below the age of 30 or so left to fight with Revan and Malak, but that is not true. Revan split the jedi order. He did not destroy it, and the fact that there are jedi to fight him later in the Jedi Civil War would seem to prove that. Take a look at the jedi conclave on Dantooine in K1 - plenty of not old jedi around. I also don't see why the older jedi masters who lost their padawans to Revan's cause suddenly turned incapable of teaching younger padawans instead. As for Exar Kun leaving only few jedi left, I don't know where that came from. Many died, yes, but there was a lot of jedi on those ships above Yavin IV, and none of them seem to have died. The Mandalorian Wars were over thirty years later, which gave the order time enough time to recuperate and train several new generations of jedi. But it's not as if so much time had passed that all the old masters had just died. Sorry, but it doesn't add up, unless we suggest that the younglings are trained only by the young jedi who have just moved beyond the rank of padawan, and we know that is unlikely, since we saw Yoda train the padawans in Episode II. Were teachers lost. Sure. But I cannot see why the teachers alone left, but none of those padawans, who would have left their masters without an apprentice. Mical may suggest it, but both Kavar and Zez-Kai Ell tell us that they too lost padawans (Exile in Kavar's case) to Revan's cause. [Hekate,May 16 2006, 06:09 PM] i've been considering these criteria for a while, and i think there are many different ways to look at it. There is: the player's perspective the overarcing storyline the tie to Exile's personal history the effect/influence the character has on Exile how solid they are as characters what they bring to the group dynamic their skills and/or abilities Why is ties to the Exile's personal history relevant? It's like you're saying a character is only interesting if he or she has a direct tie to the Exile's past. I don't agree with that at all. Atton and Brianna have no ties to the Exile, and their stories are quite rich anyhow. Besides, it hurts credibility if everything in a plot has relevance to the protagonist directly, since it suggests that nothing can take place in the rest of the universe.

Except for the opening theme, that is unlikely to happen. I think there are copyright issues involved. Lucasarts may own Star Wars, but John Williams owns the music. Not sure what the legal issues are there...

and how many times have you added the exiles gameplay aspects into these arguments lmao yeah, im gona just spectate, and whoever says something wrong, im gona correct <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Let's play nice, guys. Yes, I've played around with OPG myself, but I decided after my previous post here that it wasn't worth it - it would neither prove nor result in anything worthwhile, and continuing in tormenting him just for my own amusement could only lead to a flamefest at some point. I know the danger-signs for that, and my warning-signals are blinking red at the moment...

Thanks... so do I

All enemies are scaled to your own level throughout the game. That's probably why they suddenly seem rather tough, when they were fairly easy to dispatch on the Harbinger. EDIT: If you're fairly high level, you may note that the spawning Sith assassins fighting primarily the Mandalorians are rather tough, whereas the fixed six or so Sith assassins in front of Mandalore's controlcenter are pushovers by comparison. That was obvious to me, because I was using the infinitely spawning assassins to boost my xp, and thought they were a challenge, but when I decided to move on, I dispatched the six hidden ones cutting me off from Mandalore with surprising ease...

Actually it's all over. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Where? The Exile has been dead for millennia by Luke's time, so claiming that the Exile would win any fight can never be anything but a claim. You're welcome to your opinion, of course, and by continuing to do so, you do not so much support your position as try to place yourself in a position where you get to be get to be judge and jury on the subject, especially when you then accuse others of fanboyism when they dare to question your lordly rulings... Um no that's storywise. You here Kreia explaining it to him. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ah, so when I use the principle of experiences making characters more powerful (which would seem to be a fairly obvious way to explain growth even in real life), then it's gameplay, but when you say that the Exile can "OMG - pwn any power/force ever instantly!!!" just because the game doesn't go through the detail of how he spends a week learning it, then it's plot and gameplay... Yes, our illustrious judge and jury has handed down his mighty verdict - all rise! KotOR2 has no passage of time assigned to it, so it is pointless to say that learning some these skills was an instant process, and if you examine the timeline, you'll note that the events of the game begin in 3951 BBY, but don't actually end until the year after 3950 BBY. About a year or more? Wow, I wonder what the Exile and co. did with all the time they *obviously* didn't spend learning skills, since the Exile can do that instantly..

Nor do I. HK-50 (masquerading over the comm as one of the crew) has a conversation with Coorta about the planned transport for the Exile. That always gave me the impression the ship had not arrived yet, while Atton had already been locked up before the droids started going crazy.

Ouch, that hurt... :">

[Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] In my last post i stated Brianna asked Atris why Exile (regardless of which sex) has such and effect on her. She also states she has never seen Atris that disturbed before. Atris's own answer is the same regardless of Exile's sex, the whole cut-scene is the same regardless of Exile's sex. Atris says: "We all have our heroes and when we watch them fall we die inside." That is the reason Atris is affected by Exile so deeply. That applies even if Exile is male. I think I've found the source of our troubles now. Since there is no easy way of putting it, I think I'll just be blunt and break it to you and say that you're mistaken about the above. You have cited the passage of what Atris says correctly, but only with regards to the female Exile. For the male Exile, however, the same cutscene goes like this: Atris: "The exile reminded me of something... I had forgotten." Handmaiden sister: "Forgive me, mistress... but I must ask. The exile... I have never seen another effect you so strongly. Did you care for him once?" Atris: {Slight bitterness, doesn't want to admit she loved the player}"The Jedi have no such attachments.As always, he will do as he wills, and the galaxy... and the feelings of others... can burn for all he cares. The day we judged him, I stood in the chamber, and he was... he was so right. He was so certain of it, I doubted myself. He chose Revan over the Jedi, over the Council... over...{unspoken "me" at end}" Since you clearly believe your above statement to be true for both male and female Exile, I shall drop the issue of Atris' love for the male Exile in the rest of my reply here (except where it relates to other issues), since it would only serve to point to arguments from a basis of misinformation, and doing so would only serve to point fingers and antagonize on my part. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] Now, for Brianna's questions: "...You... you did not care for her, did you?..." It would seem Exile's answer to that question is what is important here. And in every possible answer, IIRC, it is a 'no'. To be totally honest, I do not recall what the Exile's options are, but even if they are all "no" in some form or at least evasive, I don't think that needs to mean that no such emotions were ever there. Given how Atris has treated him and continues to, it is not difficult for me to believe that he might have denied his feelings for Atris as well, if indeed he ever had any. And seeing as how she treats him now, and what she has become, there is little point in admitting to those emotions. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] *Hekate puts up a warning sign: caution: joke ahead* i thought Han was pretty busy thinking "Put it out! Put it out!!" *Hekate removes warning sign* It was pretty amusing to watch Han trying to put out the torches by *blowing* at them... How much more desperate can you get? Still, it did turn the film into slapstick - we knew they were never going to let that happen, and so you cannot take it seriously on a dramatic level. It really does make me dislike the Ewoks... [Hekate,May 13 2006, 09:31 AM] It was a joke. Trying to lighten the mood. A character in BGII says "Well, bless me for being an idiot" so i thought i'd follow suit by taking a jab at myself since i did not understand the whole wound in the Force and echoes plots with all the contradictions inherent in the game the first time around, and i sitll don't past the 7th time around. My humour attempt was foiled again, i see Possibly because I never played BG II and so didn't get the reference. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] While it is true no one can control whom they love, it's also true no one can control whom they admire nor feel a kinship to. Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree again. Admiration doesn't come from random and inexplicable feelings like love frequently does. Maybe you feel it differently, I don't know, but for me to admire someone, there would have to be some specific reason for me to do so. To say that I admire Ed Murrow and Ghandi is pointless unless you already know what I would admire those people for (and in these cases that would admittedly seem fairly obvious). However, if I said I admired someone you didn't know anything about, it would immediately prompt the question of what I admired about that person. For example, if I said I admired Ronald Reagan, that would probably raise a few eyebrows here and there, because someone might immediately wonder why, and there are indeed both reasons why one might or might not admire him. If, however, I then elaborated and said that I admired him for the role he played in ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union, then that casts my admiration in an entirely different light and would seem far more reasonable to most people (or so I think). But you would need to have that piece of information to understand it, and you would be wondering why I admired Reagan if I did not give it. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] Oi. i never said it is the most cohesive story plot on the planet. Nor did i say it fits in with any romantic ideal. Sion's a mess. Both in his body and head. Some people will be put off by it, and some people will find it compelling. Just as some people will find Atris' romance plot repulsive, and others compelling. By your own admission, love and attraction are not feelings one can control. Actually no, but I have accepted that you think so and proceeded to argue on that basis. Perhaps not a particularly important point to make, but I do wish to mark that distinction. Anyways... [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM]So Sion feels love for female Exile because he just does. i do not understand why if Sion developed those feelings throughout the game, we must have been shown it unfold. Technically though, they do in a way with him letting her go on Korriban saying she deserves at least that, and then on Malachor V he tells her why he cares about. He has had a long time to think things over and to think about her. She is more important to Kreia than he is. That draws him to her. They don't show that in cut-scenes throughout the game, but they do have him state it in-game. It is possible it was cut content and they intended to add alot more with their backstory. My problem with the Sion romance (apart from that it makes no sense to me and does not fit his characters as I see him) is that it has no significance in the game. None. You still have to fight Sion and, in the end, kill Sion regardless of it. The same is not true of Atris, however - you get the choice of whether to kill her for her crimes or spare her life and grant her redemption. What you decide for Atris will depend on how you perceive Atris and think and how you - yes - *FEEL* about her (including whether you're DS or LS obviously), but the point is that you have the choice. You have no choice for Sion - he must die. So the romance thing is pointless - there is no impact or relevance to it at all. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] i see it as a bit of a stretch to go as far as saying it hurts the credibility of the plot if Mical loves her. The same plot hurting potential holds true for Atris. I do not think it is insignificant whether the feelings between jedi is between a master and some other student or whether it is between a young jedi and her even younger padawan. I do believe that it would have been much easier for the masters to notice Mical's feelings and therefore assign him to another master. Atris is a master, however, and is undoubtedly much, much better at hiding her feelings, and even if they were discovered, what would the masters do? They can't kick her out just for having them - that would require acting on them first, which does not seem to me to have happened - and even so, the masters probably go through these emotions on a regular basis (they can't old by uncaring buggers like our admirable and dear old Vrook, after all) and are expected to be much better at controlling their emotions than a mere youngling and a very young jedi. So I don't accept that this is as true for Atris as it is for Mical. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] *Warning: humourous intent ahead* So, i take it you don't like Sion then? *Humourous attempt complete* I like Sion, but not as a romance option. It doesn't seem right for his character to me. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] Again, back to the multitude of other occurences which turn out the same regardless of the choices the protagonist makes. The first large one that comes to mind: all the Jedi Masters get killed no matter what Exile does. Next one: Kreia dies no matter what Exile does even if in the LS rendition she just does so seemingly without cause. Next: Peragus gets blown up regardless of what Exile does. There are more, as i'm sure you are well aware of. And a few spoken lines is more than Atris gets with regards to her loving Exile. In the cut content, Sion becomes very relevant to the plot, but until Team Gizka finishes the restoration, we simply won't know. I find it very interesting how you carefully avoid the question of whether the player will kill or redeem Atris in this list of events. Given how significant she is the plot, her final fate would seem fairly relevant to mention here. I wonder why you did not... [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] Since she is dedicated to stopping Nihilus, there would be no reason for her to betray Exile since they share the same goal. But is she? I was uncertain about that all the way until the confrontation with Nihilus... [Jediphile]I may see this side of Visas, but then I'm rationalizing after knowing the full story. I really was unsure all the way through playing the game, so I doubt the Exile was ever certain of this, because I sure wasn't. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM]i find that interesting, because as i stated before, i had no doubt whatsoever of her dedication to Exile in the first run through. i guess in part that is because with Visas, the more Exile spoke with her, the more she opened-up about herself and she spoke more of why she is loyal to Exile. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but that's precisely why I doubted her - she said all the right things a little to quickly and came around to my side far too easily. Not because what she said was unconvincing, but precisely because it was. And because I *wanted* to believe her. I kept thinking about this scene from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Rocks and Shoals". Let me explain: Nog, a young ferengi Starfleet cadet, and Garak, a cardassian working for Starfleet, are exploring a planet the crew has crashed on. Garak notices that Nog keeps taking a step backwards whenever Garak does... He confronts Nog about it, who initially tries to be evasive about it and feign ignorance. Garak: "You know precisely what I mean - you're deliberately staying behind me, and I want to know why! Does this have anything to do with that unfortunate business between you and me last year?" [note: this is a reference to the events of the episode "Empok Nor", where Garak was infected with psychotropic drug that made him murder several Starfleet officers and nearly kill Nog as well] Nog: "You tied me up and threatened to kill me." Garak: "There were extenuating circumstances..." Nog: "It happened! So you can either stay in front of me or walk beside me - but I won't turn my back on you again!" Garak: "Cadet, there may be hope for you yet..." Now, this kept playing over and over in my head. "Yes, Visas I trust you... erm, would you go through that door first", while I thought to myself, "I like Visas and I *want* to trust her, but she *did* try to kill me! So I'm not turning my back on her!" It all made the game a lot more fun [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] LOL Yes, actually, that is exactly what i am doing. i found how you explained it very interesting and appropriate for Bao-Dur. He himself says he sees things as parts. The only area we diverge on is the conclusion. i think one has to have complex thought processes to see things in webs to be able to understand how things interact, rather than a linear thought process of simple reduction. So you think Bao-Dur is complex because he uncomplicates things WARNING: Danger of humor detected on current course! Sorry, but seem I detect a logic-circuit overloa... [brrzzzttt] - does not compute... does not compute... does not compute... [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] i reach that conclusion because as stated above, he can see the big picture, how things connect, and how to manipulate the big into manageable and cohesive small parts. And it is exactly what you say about him breaking things down to where he can manage them that i think requires alot of awareness and understanding to be able to do. Taking apart a machine, for instance, to keep track of the parts to be able te re-assemble it, one has to understand how to group the parts together. To be able to do that properly, one has to be able to see how the machine works, what each part's function is, and how they relate to all the others. Alot of people have tunnel vision, and when they look at that metaphorical machine, they get lost because they cannot fathom the complexity of the machine. Bao-Dur not only sees it, he can manipulate it so he can better handle it. He thinks on many different levels and sees things from many different perspectives. It is a shame he is given so little dialogue in the game. But he, moreso than the rest of the cast, really understands himself, i think. And to be able to do that, he has to be able to see clearly and to be able to take all these various factors into consideration and see how they intreact with eachother. But that is just how i see it. Sorry, but that still... [brrzzttt] Damn, not again! *** System malfunction *** "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave..." [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] i don't get why complicating things for him is bad. i think it might just be the stimulous he needs to shake him out of his veneer of calm and deal with things he hasn't been able to since some of those have to do with how others perceive him and his feeling he cannot be loved by another. No, I don't agree. That would require that Bao-Dur has not been dealing with his past, and that is not the case. He struggles with his past continually, of course, as any person with his past would do on a continued basis, but he has not been in in a state of denial for all these years that now needs to be countered. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] i think the exact opposite would be true. That he isn't being shaken by attraction allows him to keep himself removed, almost emotionally and psychologically sterilized if you will, and that ultimately is worse for him. But once attraction is thrown in, by the very nature of that depth of intimacy, it would force him out of his comfort zone and he would certainly be challenged by it, but he would also grow. And growth is good And the fact he would be intimate with someone who understands his terrible karmic burden would be soulagent (sorry, slipped into French...) a mix of soothing and unburdening, which makes for less resistance to his being able to become intimate at all. So that means that for Bao-Dur to feel comfortable with others, he would not to get out of his comfort zon... [brrzzzzzttttt]. Oh no!!! *** Warning: Damage to logic core - subject will be erased from memory *** [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] i don't get it why nor how with female's Exile's romance options, they all are in doubt and that love between them would compromise the integrity of the characters and the plot. Atton and Bao-Dur both wouldn't believe she loves them and it would be detrimental if she did, and Mical was to be her padawan so that is wrong, and Sion doesn't have enough grounds to love her so that also is not acceptable. i am saddened by this i find Atton, Bao-Dur, and Sion have very dark and disturbing histories and connections to Exile, with alot of potential for very powerful interactions and meaningful storytelling. Yes, but those dark backstories is precisely why they're not so appropriate for romantic relationships. It makes more sense for Mical, except he's just too boring in my opinion and does not seem to be enough of an equal to the Exile (nor does Atton for that matter...) [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] With Mical it is different, his is more in the sweet category. The closest to 'normal' any of them could ever get. It makes sense Atton takes such exception to Mical because of how free he is, and how if Mical and Exile were to come together, Atton wouldn't stand a chance. He could never provide that aspect of normalcy, of security Mical could. Precisely. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM]i don't think Atton so much idealizes Exile and sees her as perfection, although i do agree he sees she is dealing with her karmic burden better than he is dealing with his and he is a bit jealous of that, but he also sees her as a bit of a monster as he sees himself. It is a less personal and intimate type of monster, but that distance from it, that sterility of sorts (which Exile shares a bit with Bao-Dur), is the difference between them too. His is more raw, but also more honest. She has the calming effect of the Force and having had her lifetime being trained in it. Atton is disconnected and seeking to be connected. But he is terrified of it even in his being drawn to it. i thought the romantic/intimate interactions and possibilities among the guys were quite significant, moving, complex, and deep. My problem is that they all, except for Mical, have some many demons to fight with that a romance option seems to burden the characters beyond what they can take. They just don't seem to be able to handle it on top of all the other ghosts they must also deal with. Whereas Brianna has no such ghosts and is just unhealthily curious, and Visas is from the dead "hole in the force" (Nihilus) to the live "hole in the force" (Exile). Visas sees the life that Nihilus denied to her in the Exile, in spite of his problems, because he is the opposite to Nihilus - the "positive" hole in the force. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] But i think his not blaming Exile at all and rather blaming himself entirely is a little delusional. Both Exile and Bao-Dur are a bit delusional about their guilt, in that they accept more responsibility than either of them should. And the Exile is far more in denial that Bao-Dur is. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] i feel the same way you do about Bao-Dur and Exile as i do about Visas and Exile. i think her trauma is far too severe for her to be able to really be able to cope with intimacy. i think it might have a chance down the road, after she has had a while to sort things out after she had partially been able to make peace with herself on the Ravager. Ah, but I think what she longs for is life and all the feelings that comes with it. Nihilus is death incarnate, and Visas has been breathing that death for too long. She longs desperately for all the emotions and feelings of life. Note her comments in the cutscene where we first see her and Nihilus: Visas: "I have felt it, too, my lord... a disturbance in the Force. It was difficult to make out, my lord. At first it was such a quiet thing, I did not notice it. But now I wonder if it has always been there, I merely could not hear it before.The sound built so slowly, yet when you listen for it, you can make out the strains, even over the background life of the universe. Do you feel it is a thr-{threat? Gets choked off by Nihilus crushing her windpipe with the Force}{Whispering, as if being choked}You... you are the darkness in which all life dies, milord. All life... exists to feed your power, and my life... {he releases her, she collapses - the next is quiet, subservient}my life is yours.I beg you... please... let me die.{Deferent, a little firmer, now that she has her second wind - she is answering a question}Yes... this disturbance... echoes through the Force. I can follow it to its source... and bring it to you. I will leave at once, my lord." [Jediphile]No, you have not explained it. You have postulated it. I have said before that he does not bring anything relevant to the story that you cannot learn from other sources, and you have not demonstrated anything to the contrary. Nor can you, since doing so would mean that the male Exile's story is incomplete and lacking, and I don't think you're about to suggest that. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] He brings background history to Exile. He brings Jedi history to the story. He ties the Republic in directly to the Jedi and the search for them which is directly related to what Exile is doing. He states the worlds the Jedi Masters are hidden on are connected and they together resonate the echoes amplifying their effect and that will lead to the death of the Force. Kreia tells him directly Exile is the cause of this effect and that she must die to which Mical tells her he will not let her harm Exile. He states Revan was attempting to unify the galaxy which then adds context to Kreia's comment on how Revan knew the difference between a sacrifice and a fall. Yes, but I maintain that he does not bring anything to the story that you cannot learn from other sources, and that you have not demonstrated anything to the contrary. None of what you mention here is missing in the male Exile's story. The only difference is that the male Exile does not get the relevantion that Mical was to be his padawan and that is not significant to the story. And in fact, I do seem to recall the male Exile having an option of remembering Mical from the academy, so even then he might recall that piece of information, even if it is never said in his plot. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] "...it is important to their relationship" Them being tied in that way, and that he refers to Exile as 'friend' indicates they have a different type of relationship than Exile has with the other Masters. Is it earth shattering? No. But does it cary meaning? Yes. He is the only Jedi Master to be on closer terms to Exile therefore his death would cary more weight than the others'. Actually, I felt a lot closer to Zez-Kai Ell, since he seemed to care far more about the Exile's situation and regret the masters decision than Kavar did, so I fear I'm going to have to doubt that greater meaning that you seem to think that Kavar carries in the game. Sorry. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] i do maintain Mical would know if there were teachers or not as far as his credibility as a character goes. The notion there were not enough Masters to go around also is easy for me to believe. Many went to war and those who did not had to pick-up the slack doing their Jedi things across the galaxy left with the others' abcenses. Seems perfectly plausible to me. The time frame we're talking about is during the Mandalorian Wars, years before the Jedi Civil War. This was at a time when the jedi order had apparently been recovering from Exar Kun's Great Sith War for well over 30 years without particular incident. And we know that when Revan and Malak split the order, it was mostly the young jedi who heeded the call and went with them to war. Did this cost teachers? Yes, but given the context it makes no sense to me to suggest that it cost more teachers than young jedi students, since it consistently described as being all the young hotheads who rushed off the war, while the older and more experienced teachers generally stayed behind. Therefore Mical's statement of there being no teachers left makes no sense to me - if anything, there should have been more than before, since it was mostly the students who need teachers who had left. Any particular flaws with that logic? [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] However, i do feel there is a bias in some of the arguments you make, just as you feel there is a bias in mine. For instance, the comparisson between Mical's and Brianna's personal ties to Exile. i do keep restating it is only a comparisson basis of one aspect of the characters though, and it is certainly not the only factor. i have stated numerous times how i find evaluating a character's worth on what they bring to the overarching plot to be dubious. But i do debate those terms since they were presented. Then by what what standards would you evaluate significance of the characters? To me it would probably be something along the lines of: - Their impact on the game's greater plot. - How well written and characterized they are. - How consistently and logically - and dramatically - they act during the course of the plot. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM] Again i feel as though what i wrote wasn't read. i stated Carth thanks Exile regardless of Exile's sex therefore he must have found out some other way with male Exile. But that still doesn't mean Mical isn't doing his duty to the Republic while travelling with Exile & co. which is important to the overarcing storyline. Fair enough, but that's still just presumption, since there is nothing to suggest Mical was ever in contact with Carth (or Cede) during the female Exile's plot. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM]Jediphile, i would like you to know i am enjoying debating this with you, i respect your opinions, and that i have no intent of trolling nor doing any other nasty stuff. i do regret there has been this much misunderstanding, but looking on the bright side, it killed a few potentially monotonous hours I'm just glad we survived the "bumps" on the road... And obviously I would not still be here if I had a low opinion of you or your views. [Hekate,May 14 2006, 08:20 PM]And i am glad others have joined in as well And we finally agree on something...

HK-47: "Recitation: Yes, as I said, I am an assassin droid. It is my primary function to burn holes through meatbags that you wish removed from the galaxy... Master. Oh, how I hate that term." Exile: "What term? Meatbag?" HK-47: "Answer: No, Master. Ah, I said it again."

I agree. There are plenty of MMORPGs out there, even for Star Wars. Go play them - leave KotOR alone. It's not broken (except the clipping errors and cut content in K2), so don't fix it.

Storywise all the powers and abilities in the universe will not matter, because the outcome will be whatever the heck the author wants it to be. Good only shows more of your fanboyism. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, you've discovered my bias!!!!! No evidence to suggest that. Lucas is just a man like everyone else, and just as fallible as such. I wager he'd be the first to say so himself. He wanted to call Episode VI "Revenge of the Jedi", but people doubted it, and guess what - he changed the title. Though Lucas has the authority in Star Wars, he is no God, nor would he claim to be. That's gameplay, not story Whatever. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Snappy comeback I'd retort, but then I could never hope to match your eloquence

Allow me to second your again...