Well, that's rather simplified, an important thing to mention is how they treat the people there. If you fail your boss in the Republic you might be fired or demoted. If you fail your boss in the Empire you might be SET ON fire. The Empire is a Darwinian group in the extreme, not only is it the strongest survive, but the slightest moment of weakness or carelessness is justification for being killed. It's only positive advantage is it's ability to cut through red tape and answer problems directly, but even then whoever did it better be ready to face the concequences of that action. The Republic isn't an Empire, it's a group of planets that have gathered together for economical security. They share a common currency (which somehow the Empire shares ), laws, and will protect member planents of the Republic when threatened either from outside threats or within. It's greatest weakness is it's bureaucracy which results in it's slowness in responding and risk of political corruption.

Why Anakin doesn't like Dooku? He cut his hand off, people really have a hard time getting over something like that. Why Dooku doesn't like Anakin? Dooku is cut from a similiar cloth as Palpatine, manipulation is what they do but when forced to fight they fight well. Anakin is a fighter, he really doesn't like intrigue and plots and 10 times out of 10 he'd rather be fighting an army by himself than trying to negotiate with a bunch of politicians. Dooku see's him as rash and foolish, doesn't mean he doesn't see Anakin as useful, but Dooku seems him more of a tool than an ally and therefore can't respect him.

Perhaps you could offer some examples. The only outfits I could think of are sleeveless vests (I can't remember if there are any) or shirtless ( which there is). Simply complaint about imbalance isn't helpful though. The reason more "sexy" outfits are for women is that more guys play. The shirtless armor was Bioware's answer for male "sexy" gear.

Pretty sure Palpatine's was a "united" Empire so I'd say they either joined or "joined" (aka were taken over).

3/4 of the Force classes do involve the Emperor. You meet the emperor in the Knight and Warrior class story and the consular faces his "children" who have had the Emperor's power infused inside them. Knight's the only one trying to kill the emperor because he's/she's that generations "chosen one", Warrior is the Emperor's Wrath and works to carry out his will so there's no reason to fight the Emperor, Consular is dealing with all the people the Emperor went Micheal Jackson on as children, and the Inquisitor does what s/he want's and is too cool to be caught up in the Emperor's will. Smuggler and Trooper would be murdered if they fought the Emperor so they can't actually fight him and the Agent and Hunter have no reason to interact with the Emperor.

Remember the rules: No outside help of any kind so Xizor's pheromones and charm are useless here, nobody can bring in the locals for help. Xizor's just got Black Sun resources. Kun's got his support, Traya has her support.

No, what he's saying is he doens't have everything that other Black Sun leaders had. Things get destroyed or nobody tells them about it. The reason latter black sun leaders weren't as strong as Xizor is because Xizor was fairly good at keeping secrets which died either with him or with his castle so latter Black Sun didn't have access to Black Sun resources that Xizor did. It's likely that the death Alexi Garyn resulted in numerous things, including the FORTRESS ON RALLTIIR, that were lost. It doesn't mean that Xizor's powerbase is weaker, just that there are things he couldn't have had access to either because they were destroyed before he got there or the previous leader didn't feel the need to tell Xizor about them before they were killed. (Those darn crime lords are so greedy with their secrets )

No, i understood that. My point is that any form of government created using Sith policy is doomed to fail 100% of the time. You can't have a government made up of super charged serial killers and actually think it'll last, but the fact is that it CAN last for awhile if 2 things are followed: 1. A leader who can take on any single person below him in rank. 2. Those below the leader are too busy working against their rivals to ally against the leader. As long as both of those are followed then it'll last, the problem is that it never lasts forever. The only way a Sith could truely rule is if he got rid of all the jedi and other sith and controlled the government from the shadows. It was Darth Plagueis who actually thought of something like this, though he had different reasons. The strength of the idea is even if the "leader" is overthrown, the sith could just control the replacement leader, repeat as needed.

Kun really has this one. He's the only one who's prepared for a straight up fight. He's got lots of soldiers, powerful force adepts, access to ton's of resources, a powerful and loyal second in command, and a strong fleet, not to mention his own massive power. In the Revan/Grievous/GOTO fight, it worked to GOTO's advantage that he wasn't a direct fighter but that was only because both his enemies were. With two indirect fighters there's nobody to drain Kun's resources. Xizor has credits, assassins, merc groups, and a good fleet, but the problem with most criminals is that they'll kill for you, not die for you. As well in an actual fight Xizor was discribed and smart and a good fighter, but that was against normal people, force adepts could rip him apart without breaking a sweat. Guri's also way tougher than your average person but an a one on one fight against either or the other second in commands and she'd get ripped to shreds, she does have the loyalty going for her though. Xizor's is a criminal empire and while he'd rip GOTO and his power base to shreads, his forces aren't designed for the massive conflict that it would take to win against a heavy hitter like Kun. Traya has the broken remnants of Revan's Empire so ton's of assassins, a decent number of soldiers, some Marauders, some Dark Masters, and a small fleet. If this was a long fight where she could hid out and chip away at Kun then I could see her winning, but if Kun caught her in even one straight up fight she'd get destroyed. She's smart, devious, and pretty scary in her own right, and if she was able to join up with Xizor to fight Kun then I'd give it to her for even a straight up fight, but that's against the rules. Plus I wouldn't exactly call Sion a beacon of loyalty and betrayal by him is certainly not unlikely. This is the kind of fight that Traya could win if every single thing went her way but if that's...very unlikely. Xizor would need a miracle to win. Percentage-wise I give Kun a 90%, Traya a 9.9%, and Xizor a .1%

But symbols are powerful things. They can grant hope in the darkest hour, or crush that hope from ever forming, and they can bind things together either from great respect or great fear. I would also argue that whatever the emperor wants, he gets. Just because a manager runs a store for the owner, doesn't mean the owner can't get rid of him and put someone else in that runs it more to the owners liking. Same holds true for the Emperor, he doesn't micromanage his empire, he gets a bunch of guys to run it for him, but if those guys get delusions of emperorhood or start doing things he really doesn't like, then they wind up greasy stains on the floor and he gets a new guy to fill the spot. The mass infighting serves a very good pupose, as long one's minions are busy fighting among themselves then they're too busy to join up to challenge you. Also, the fighting keeps your minions sharp, the weak or stupid die and are replaced by new minions, who either keep up or join their predecessor in the corpse pile. All of which works to the advantage of a Sith Emperor. Of course with the Emperor dead it creates a power vaccum, and sith being sith will try to fill that power vaccum. Remember, loyalty isn't strong with Sith and none of the Dark Council would willing bow to another one. Only reason they bowed to Vitiate was because he could reduce them to a greasy spot with a thought, that and the fact that he had an army of super strong brainwashed minions ready to die for him. So a power struggle would likely have several members killed, with the rest splitting of and using their individual powerbases against one another leaving them vulnerable to who? The Republic. If left to their own devices a leader might emerge to unite them again, but there's no way the Republic will give them that time. (though, of course, limited factions would survive, though too individually small to challenge the Republic head on)

Really enjoying it, can't wait to see the next chapter.

I think a big thing is that, until Palpatine, the Republic never fell. No matter the enemy, no matter the threat, the Republic held strong. It fought the Sith and their puppets mutiple times throughout it's history: Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, Mandalore the Ultimate, Revan, Vitiate, Ruin, and Kaan. Mutiple times it came close to destruction, but it always pulled through. That's what made the Sith victory of Palpatine all the more important, that the Sith realized that the Republic could never actually be beaten by an outside force because no matter how messed up the Republic was, when enemies attacked the Republic got their "stuff" together and fought it back. It took Palpatine BECOMING the Republic and destroying it from within to finally work, because no threat, no matter HOW powerful was capable of facing it and actually destroying it.

Honestly, I have to agree with those who said G0-T0. Revan and Grievous would be mashing against each other pretty good and while G0-T0 would be destroyed in a fair fight against either of them I think Revan and Grievous would be working against each other. Revan might want to take Go-T0 out first, but I doubt Grievous would give him the chance. Regardless which side won against the two of them, Grievous would have quantity advantage while Revan's forces had more quality, whoever surivived would be an a position for a droid revolution and exchange sab teams. If Revan beat Grievous, he'd be vulnerable to his fleet turning against him and bombing him (as well as the risk of Malek turning on him which isn't all that unlikely ). If Grievous won against Revan then he is royally in trouble because a droid revolt takes out pretty much all his forces and I doubt Grievous would be able to run and hide from G0T0.

I imagine several members of the dark council trying to take the inquisitor out, the inquisitor surviving and getting his vengence on, unfortunately killing the fellow dark council members creates a power vaccum that leaves the empire vulnerable and the Republic comes back from near defeat to destroy the Empire. And it's all because some dark council members got greedy and couldn't leave well enough alone.

Solumon Darkfrost at a distance http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v22/dmoneype/Screenshot_2013-01-18_12_46_29_633317_zps309aa516.jpg Up close and armed http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v22/dmoneype/IMAG0047_zps1eb6fe9f.jpg Confident as always http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v22/dmoneype/IMAG0051_zps61db50cb.jpg

Agreed. Smuggler is the smooth criminal, Agents just smooth, Bounty Hunter's more of a blunt outlaw.

Plus with the one Bane used it was hit or miss. Either you took the body or you fell into oblivion. Zash's clearly left some wiggle room. Like others said: Same purpose, different variants.

There was a big debate about what order the movies should be watched in. A general agreement was 4,5, (optional 1), 2,3,6. Watching 4, 5, then having the prequels kinda work as a flashback, then coming into 6 with the knowledge of the prequels. That way someone meets him as Vader, gets the suprise of "Luke I AM YOUR FATHER!", then finds out about a young Anakin, then you come back and get to see him redeemed by his son. Again, 1 is optional. It's not needed for the story and can be watched afterwords as well just to see Darth Maul and Jinn.

The guys a troll, look at his other posts, he's quite familiar with commendations.

I've tried all four imp classes and have fully beat three of them. I played "mostly light" for Bounty hunter though dark would probably be fine, most of your companions won't like hard core dark and the one that does is rather bland. My Inquisitor I started dark, but when light during Act 2 and stayed light for the rest, playing Dark for Inquisitor is fun though, companions here are pretty split, 3 are fairly dark while the other 2 are light. I'm still working on my Agent but he's pretty much light, though from what I hear Agent story is pretty mallable and works well for light and dark. My Warrior's the only one I really played Dark and I'm very glad I did, Vette's not really crazy about you being Dark but the rest respond really well to Dark choices most of the time and there's still enough room with him to be an honorable/loyal evil jerk, not just killing people for the Evilz. If your only going one evil then I throw my vote towards the Warrior.

Cute. I'd read the Death Star petition shortly after it came out, it's amusing to see that they rose to the challenge.

IA is by far my favorite, sleek and elegant. Sith is probably my second favorite cool looking, functional, and i never get lost. I haven't actually had a trooper, but the ship looks cool and relatively functional. Jedi probably fourth, it's not bad looking, but I don't find it that functional, not to mention it took me about a month before I found T-7 hiding in the basement. (Don't judge me, it was early in my gaming experience) Bounty hunter is bulky and functional, I don't have to worry about getting lost but I'm not crazy about it. Smuggler is my least favorite ship. I'm always as far away from wherever i need to be as possible and i have to run all the way around.

My first toon was kinda like this. It was an Assassin Tank, and my first real experience with an MMORPG, I was always having a tough time beating things and ended up rushing completely through Belsavis. I had someone help me beat story bosses at the end and got him up to 50, then kinda left him alone to work on other characters. Through the other characters I learned how to properly gear up and the right speccs to use, went back and fixed my assassin and now he runs pretty well. Never abandon a toon that you've got that high unless you have no choice, you can always fix your mistakes.

Which class did this appear to? I don't recall this person. Were they clearly not force sensitive or were they just not in sith robes? There are Pure Blood's who were too weak in the force to be "Sith". A different non-sensitive Sith appears in the Jedi story for Belsavis, where the Emperor spared the person, I assume any high ranker could have spared her if the fancy took them. As to how it's possible, it's a big galaxy, anythings possible

It all really depends on how you play your characters as to how bad some of your companions are. If your an evil D-bag who enjoys killing puppies for the evils then Vette isn't a very good companion and hates pretty much everything you do. I was an evil D-bad, who just happened to be civil to her, she's not in love with me but she'll stick by my side, besides, who needs Vette when you've got a crazy Jaesa. I've had very little problems with my companions, the only one who really didn't mesh well with me was Xalek, my SI followed a code, while Xalek was pretty much a killer with dark side powers. When it came to Skadge, I made it clear that I was the boss, he was the grunt, and it was my way or the airlock. I wasn't overly rude, I just told him how it was. I had very few problems with him, just stroke his ego when it needs stroked and backhand him when he needs backhanded. Ashara-my guy started light, went dark, and turned light after he got her. They didn't always agree, but they got along pretty well. Scourge-My guy was hardcore light, Scourge was dark, we were allies against the true threat. He didn't like my way of doing things, but he accepted them. He's got my back because he's got nowhere else to go. I'm only starting an Agent, but Vector just seems a little too...creepy for me...although that could be because I hate Killiks with a deep seated hatred...