Sabahattin Dere

Perhaps she is more of a 'guide', rather than a 'mentor'.... 'Guiding' is indeed what she does with the telephatic ability at the beginning of the game.

The latest Game Spot preview combined with the screenshots does give the idea that one of the groups on Onderon is an evil academy of some sort. so obviously both areas that they are talking about are on Onderon Armored Sith and plenty of Troops: On the trailer and the screenshots there are Dark Jedi (the ninja looking type), shoulder-robe-and-gloves-people, Sith troopers, and Lightsaber wielding Sith all attacking the main character on that area which I presume is the 'less friendly space' that they are referring to. We know who the Dark Jedi and the Sith are; but that there is another group wearing a uniform, accompanying them suggest to me that the Sith could be supporting an evil order on Onderon. They are using ordinary swords, though. The last bit on the trailer where the DS female player force chokes also features a shoulder-robe-gloves-guy as the victim -- but his head is covered again in ninja-fashion. I though the 'first encounter' was elsewhere; but anyway this implies that there is an underground stretch in Onderon where we get to meet Sion. I presume he leads the Sith, and the shoulder-robe-people up in the 'less friendly area' of the planet. Aren't the Krath supposed to be lightsaber users? Then those shoulder-robe-guys we see on the trailer and the screenshots aren't Krath. Nevertheless there seem to be some hints, that those guys are part of an evil institution on Onderon. The gloves could be hinting at their noble descent. Another thing that this suggests is that after all, the Sith Lords might have partitioned Malak's army among themselves ---hence the Sith-trooper-types still running around.

this should make it a little clearer: -->SPECULATION***FAR-OFF IDEA***SPECULATION<-- She's going to take us to Atris, who will be the Jedi Master for the LS player. -->end of SPECULATION***FAR-OFF IDEA***SPECULATION<--

She's going to take us to Atris, who will be the Jedi Master for the LS player.

Well the character in these pictures is indeed in postures that suggest some special moves; so it could be some sort of a power attack effect. Besides these are some of the oldest screenshots; maybe the 'Emitter' wasn't even implemented back then? On the other hand especially in the first shot, the stuff seems to be sprinkling down from the blade; I interpret this as a property of the blade, rather than the character.

I wonder if the sparks flying off the character's lightsaber are the work of this 'Emitter'

In any case, *Obsidian's* deadline is much earlier than Dec. -after that we'll be waiting for Lucas Arts.

*Very* interesting. You might just have unraveled the identity of those guys with the shoulder robes on the screenshots.

Interesting but reminiscent *too much* of Revan and Malak. I doubt the same idea can be the basis of a new episode.

Yes, marvellous theory on how the Sith Lords relate to R&M's fall; what needs to be worked further into is how it came about that in those '5 years', the republic was crushed and the Jedi became all but extinct --and it has to work with both endings of Kotor.... With the LS ending it's a bit easier to imagine: Once Malak -the Dark Jedi who grew in power too quickly, and very much out of proportion- was out of the way, tSL began to unfold their own sinister plans; and were successful in crippling the republic, which had lost many Jedi and a good part of its navy forces during the 'Endless Fleet' conflict, and 'the Battle of the Star Forge'. What still remains in the dark is whatever it was that sent the LS Revan -the most powerful Jedi of the Republic- into exile. The DS ending of Kotor I find more problematic, given the present theory on the Sith Lords. If the Sith Lords were terrified by Malak and the Star Forge, then it would have been all the worse for them when Revan himself -a stronger Jedi- took command of both the Star Forge and the Endless Fleet. Perhaps by some secret machinations, they succeeded in sending Revan into exile, but what could it be? Why would they not be able to do do the same ploys with Malak's original Kotor army? another problem is that I doubt whether telling TSL at the beginning how things went during Kotor will lead to radically different stories in the new game. For instance: For the TSL story, Revan probably will play a somewhat limited role, regardless whether you chose the DS ending for Kotor -where he ended the adventure pretty much invincible-, or the LS, where theories for him getting lost on a new Jedi adventure can be easily constructed. So an account has to be provided that will explain how Revan as the Dark Lord became lost, while not resorting to a totally different assessment for the powers of the new Sith Lords that one could imagine in a LS story.

What matters most is that there is a new story. I wouldn't hesitate to buy and play the game, if lightsaber colors were reduced to 3, and the rest looked -and played- the same. It's ~40 hours of an exciting new SW adventure; at this point there is nothing to honestly complain about, there being hints at definite improvements, and also because none of us know anything yet about what matters most: The Story

I can't think how having an apprentice would work; but *being one* may turn out to be truly interesting.

While referring to the sith lords as 'they', I think we shouldn't readily deduce that they are acting collectively -that's against their nature as we know all to well (?!) I believe that not only were these S.L. enemies of Malak, but they are in strife amongst one another as well. Which brings us to how the adventure will unfold for our pc in TSL. It could be that once these S.L. discover that there remains 'one last Jedi' (from their POV), they'll want to turn him to their side, to more forcefully attack the republic. The official trailer itself reveals this much, and does that very clearly. I presume this will take place somewhat later in the game when the main character has accomplished some important deeds that will catch the S.L.'s attention. Now: Why should it not be the case that the pc becomes apprentice to one of the Sith Lords, as that particular Lord battles against the other Sith? This might be how 'the story explores master-apprentice relationships' -which the devs. announced quite early, that it would. I'm also speculating that the LS candidate for Master is Atris -but anyway, back on the latest discussion: In saying that the Sith Lords themselves could be figthing one another, we seem to reach a dead end concerning the question how it came about, then, that the republic and the Jedi were so badly crippled during those 5 years, if those Sith Lords weren't acting in unison. On the other hand -how could they work collectively, being not just sith, but Dark Lords??? Maybe they started off together, but then fell in dispute, or, now that the republic was weak enough, began to betray their alliance -and perhaps that's where the action for us players starts?

The Sith Lords aren't newbies either -they have frightsome histories behind them. Look at Darth Sion: How did he end up like that? Perhaps he fought in the Exar Kun wars? What were the Sith Lords doing during the Mandalorian Wars?

I had a similar speculation long ago in a thread that died soon afterwards with this post getting one response only; I'll repost it here. and/or it could be that during Kotor 1, they waited for the Sith Lord-wannabe pretensious fallen Jedi, i.e. Malak, to destroy the Republic with the Star Forge; only then to eliminate him and conquer the galaxy more easily, now that the Republic and the Jedi were out of the way. Now this idea sort of works with both endings for Kotor: If LS, then they saw that they had to deal with an even stronger Republic -with Revan at their side- by themselves, and wreaked havoc on the Jedi during those mysterious '5 years'; if DS, then they either challenged Revan and killed him, or, used whatever it was that initiated his fall in the first place, to render him inert, sending him into exile, whatever. Maybe they joined forces with Revan and Bastila. Remember that there was no mentioning whether Malak and Revan ever faced a powerful Sith as they 'rose to power'; and the only one Malak ever challenged was Revan, and that was an act of envy rather than their master-apprentice er.. 'tradition'. I think they were *definitely* around during Kotor 1; with the second episode we'll start seeing this greater picture. -but, it could also be that the Sith Lords of TSL were in hiding during Kotor 1, not because they waited for their conspiracies to unfold, but because they actually feared Malak. Then they would have appeared to fill the vacuum created by the death of Malak and the exile of Revan. As far as I can imagine, this makes a weak connection between the two games -it's as if the idea of new and powerful Sith Lords just popped up because there needed to be a sequel. I doubt that. Some way or another, we'll start learning more about the state of the SW galaxy in that time period, during TSL; and that will necessarily include more information about the original conflict, in Kotor 1 -including the 'mysterious fall' of Revan and Malak.

who is it that are fighting? I see only a player character and a generic DS female. Akari has confirmed that no in-game shots of Atris have yet been released.

the same link was posted several days ago

also the name slipping out wouldn't be considered a 'leak' btw I was curious and tried to find out from where the name Atris could be deriving. I couldn't find anything certain but here's something interesting: ater, atra -um, atrior -or -us, aterrimus -a -um ADJ black, dark; dark-colored (hair/skin); gloomy/murky; unlucky; sordid/squalid; deadly, terrible, grisly (esp. connected with underworld); poisonous: spiteful the ablative declension for female plural appears to be: Atris this hardly makes any sense because it's plural; and though I don't speak Latin, as far as I understand, ablative declension comes after a preposition in a sentence, so it doesn't stand alone. If the author of TSL had this connection in mind, then the best thing that comes to my mind is that 'Atris' derives either from the Latin word for 'sad', 'gloomy', 'unfortunate', or weird though it sounds, 'dark', 'poisonous', 'spiteful', etc. -albeit the derivation is grammatically unsound. In any case for a fantasy-character, Atris sounds better than 'Atra' Forgive me for this post of ignorance; anyone who speaks Latin is more than welcome to assess Atris as a somewhat-Latin-derived word. Online resources always return 'Dark, Gloomy' for similar sounding words like Atrus, Atrum, Atra (female singular), etc.

Which means, I think, that if anything will have to get rushed, it'll be minor sales concerns; like maybe preparing final fancy-looking advertisement teasers, etc. I imagine that LA is working on the voice acting, pre-rendered footage, etc. concurrently with Obsidian since I believe the animations and the dialogue sounding behind them have to be done together (?) In short, it seems it's entirely up to what sales-decision LA will make, that will determine the Dec. or Feb. release.

Here's my take on Atris, which I'm re-posting; because I don't want what I've written to get drowned under an unnecessary discussion. My bet is that as soon as our character becomes powerful enough, he'll attract the attention of the Sith Lords as an emerging Force-user. They'll want to take our character on as an apprentice -an offer which we can resist, or accept. When playing DS, we could appear to be the ally of one of the Sith Lords in destroying the rest of the lords and the republic -and the game would conclude by the ultimate confrontation between our former master, and our character. So again in the end the main character would have become *the* Sith Lord. Atris, similarly, could be tracking us secretly, only to reveal herself at the right moment -when the player character reaches a certain level, attains certain feats, or completes certain quests- to take him on as her own apprentice. Then, she'd join the party, but only as our 'master' -maybe she'd have a different status than other party members, meaning that while our character's supposed to be the 'leader', that wouldn't apply to Atris-. and....the game in this case could end, in an epic battle between the main character, Atris -his master-, and the strongest Sith Lord who probably had his rivals eliminated by then. Atris would die -yes, in true 'duel of the fates' fashion- and it would be the main character that strikes down the evil lord. Atris's dying words then would be that the main character is to found the new Jedi order. Now both these ending-speculations are somewhat in tune with what the devs. have been telling about the ending of TSL so far: Bad things happening to good people; a 'happy' ending with a bitter taste; and ending that would really be pointing towards a seuel, etc...

A party NPC. -Akari thanks for the sudden eruption of information and go forth, fellow forum members, and speculate!

that's Jeanne D'Arc, can't you see? A Stand-in for the screenshot sessions.

My bet is that as soon as our character becomes powerful enough, he'll attract the attention of the Sith Lords as an emerging Force-user. They'll want to take our character on as an apprentice -an offer which we can resist, or accept. When playing DS, we could appear to be the ally of one of the Sith Lords in destroying the rest of the lords and the republic -and the game would conclude by the ultimate confrontation between our former master, and our character. So again in the end the main character would have become *the* Sith Lord. Atris, similarly, could be tracking us secretly, only to reveal herself at the right moment -when the player character reaches a certain level, attains certain feats, or completes certain quests- to take him on as her own apprentice. Then, she'd join the party, but only as our 'master' -maybe she'd have a different status than other party members, meaning that while our character's supposed to be the 'leader', that wouldn't apply to Atris-. and....the game in this case could end, in an epic battle between the main character, Atris -his master-, and the strongest Sith Lord who probably had his rivals eliminated by then. Atris would die -yes, in true 'duel of the fates' fashion- and it would be the main character that strikes down the evil lord. Atris's dying words then would be that the main character is to found the new Jedi order. Now both these ending-speculations are somewhat in tune with what the devs. have been telling about the ending of TSL so far: Bad things happening to good people; a 'happy' ending with a bitter taste; and ending that would really be pointing towards a seuel, etc...

I read the comma between 'your character' and 'a nameless' to be introducing a description of our character. Could be referring to two different people but I'm pretty much confident that the former kicked-out Jedi is none other than the main character.

From Gamespy. I know they may be talking about Kriea, but, her name has been officially released, Atris' name hasn't. they could be referring to the main character as well.