What do you mean when you say "the philosophies?" Well, we kind of do that every moment of our lives. Just because their bodies decay faster doesn't mean they aren't experiencing a natural process. On the other hand, what they're essentially doing is entering a union with death and you're correct in identifying that state as unnatural. I think it's less a poor choice of words and more common vocabulary that's used when discussing Star Wars. I wouldn't worry too much about that beyond keeping tabs on our own implicit assumptions that the use of the word might reveal. And while you've dabbled in Buddhist meditation (Don't just do something! Sit there!) fully-trained Jedi have literally instinctualized their responses to their own emotions, and to the will of the Force. That's a key thing I think a lot of people miss. The Force has a will, and a Jedi is a Jedi only insofar as they serve that will, as they walk in accord with their own destiny. There have been times where I've been incredibly angry in my own life, but it's never stopped me from thinking clearly and acting from a place of understanding rather than wrath. Any time I've acted upon feelings of anger it's been a conscious choice on my part, not something that just happened. The only reason I'm not a Jedi, aside from not being able to play with the laws of physics like a child plays with a doll, is that my instincts are to act on my emotions. That doesn't mean I'm slave to them, it just means those are my instincts, and I've grown skilled at ignoring them. As Vergere rightly notes, people don't just "lose control. that's code for 'I don't want to admit that I'm the kind of person that would do that.'" Check the first quote in my own sig, about surrender leading to slaughter. When you surrender to Jedi instincts, to instincts of calm, compassion, harmony, peace...you get Light with a capital "L."

"His guilt then led him... fearing...led him..." Anakin was a grown man, not slave to his emotions. Regardless of what he was feeling, he saw the dark side and made a conscious choice to pursue it. His reasons for doing so are, frankly, meaningless when it comes to his actual agency. Yes, he didn't have the same instinct to quiet his mind like a typical Jedi would have, but that only makes it easier to act like a Jedi, because it's literally a changing out of one's very nature for another. The simple fact of the matter is that Anakin was doing nothing more than being true to himself when he did the horrible things he did. Anakin didn't murder all those children because he had been brainwashed, or because his emotions overpowered his better judgment or something ridiculous like that. He butchered those children because he would have rather done that than let go of his entirely selfish attachment to Padme. It's just the kind of guy he is. When Luke was saying, "there's still good in him," he wasn't talking in metaphors, and the language he used was so simple as to be almost childish, he meant it literally. There was a part of Anakin that was not okay with murdering children. Like Luke rightly identified, there was conflict in Anakin. There was conflict in Anakin when he threw Palpatine off that edge, and there was conflict in Anakin when he cut Mace's hand off. That's why he was just about literally crying the whole rest of the way to the end of the movie. "The lives and well-being of others,(good)" was a value that Anakin held as positive, it just wasn't as high on the hierarchy as "prevent my wife from experiencing a natural turn of existence.(evil)" The guilt he felt didn't "push" or "lead" him to the dark side. That was part of the inner conflict and turmoil he experienced at the cost of his choice. Plenty of otherwise good writers make this mistake when writing in the Star Wars mythos. I'm convinced they just don't understand the subject matter. Either that, or they just don't care and write what they want and the mythos be damned (some of them did just that) but I tend to be more charitable than that.

Depends on which novels you read. Nothing in the movies supports this idea, and the novels that build off of the movies instead of going in different directions don't support this idea either. In the Revenge of the Sith novelization, nothing about the dark side was addictive or poisonous. Even the author of the novel himself, who talked with Lucas himself about it, notes that the dark side wasn't tempting Anakin at all. Anakin's actions were all choices made based on what he actually wanted. He wasn't brainwashed, he wasn't addicted. In the words of Lucas, he's just greedy. Well, the dark side is death. To paraphrase one author, it's the void that remains after everything else is extinguished. The degeneration of the body and death are perfectly natural and normal things. According to Yoda, "death is a natural part of life." There's nothing "corrupt" about that. If you're talking about the accelerated degeneration people experience when they use the dark side, well, it's like this; the dark side is death, and the closer you get to it, the more you claim its power, the more like death you become, because the power of death is flowing through you. That's part of why Sidious looked the way he did in the movies, according to Lucas. Keep in mind what Mace said about the dark side and Kar Vastor; he is so strong in the dark side because he is Force sensitive and he uses his natural instincts. Vergere rightly identified the predator Jacen saw on Coruscant as a creature of the dark side.

They all can. The original Sith, whether you're going with expanded universe content, or sticking strictly with what Lucas made, the original Sith were always Jedi. Jedi "conditioning" can't really fail because it's conditioned instinct. When a Jedi turns to the dark side, it's because they made a conscious agreement with an idea. They took a look at the dark side and said, "yes, give me that." There's always "risk" that someone will choose greed and personal gain over the well-being of others, and it's no more or less high in a time of war than it is at any other period. For whatever reason, too many authors who work on Star Wars have this false notion that someone can be "mind-tricked" or whatever into falling to the dark side. It's not some magical evil mind control. It's someone convincing someone of an idea. Call it brainwashing if you want, but if the convinced thinks the argument is more compelling, it doesn't make sense for them to not choose the dark side at that point.

I say the Knight because the Knight has a knack for defeating opponents that are much stronger, and there does indeed seem to be a groundswell of destiny about the character. And while you might not technically be able to deflect lightning in-game, you can totally stop that stuff with a lightsaber in-setting.

I prefer distinguishing them as myopic and cartoon villainy, respectively.

There are degrees and gradients, as in all things. "Falling" is just a colloquialism for ceasing to follow the path of the Jedi. More often than not, this occurs because an initiate fails to complete their trials. As for the dark side, the appeal of the dark side, is that it's natural, normal, and easy. To borrow from Thomas Hobbes, it's the "state of nature." It's not any more addicting than simply being oneself is, and after continuing on a difficult path for so long, I can see how it might feel like a drug to simply let go and let the dark flow, but it's not addictive, at least not in the way a drug is. Take care with the distinction here. This idea assumes a removal of the agency of the Jedi in question. A Jedi who falls so far as to fall to the dark side, is making a choice. They're not made to do anything. They're deciding, consciously, to react in a certain way to something they've experienced. It's not like Jedi just lose control or something. It's that they have a change of mind, or even a change of heart. That was why Anakin went so deep in Revenge of the Sith. No Jedi controls their emotions. You can't just "decide" how you feel about something. All you can control are your actions. A Jedi might be the angriest person in the world at any given moment, but that doesn't mean they can't dispassionately seek the will and guidance of the Force. Being that angry just makes it harder to quiet one's mind to hear the Force. To act that way instinctively takes training. The Jedi masters who last are the ones who recognize that they aren't special and that the universe doesn't revolve around them, or exist to sate their passions. Jedi don't do anything different from what other people do; they make a decision, and then they act.

In terms of power, Nox significantly outstrips a lot of other characters in the setting, the Hero of Tythan/Jedi Knight included. The Jedi Knight would still probably crush Nox.

I totally turn on the light/dark indicators in conversation, because when I play Sith/Jedi, I want to play them standard. Does this mean I agree with every choice tag on the light/dark spectrum? No, not at all. Not every killing they deem to be dark would actually be so according to the mythos, and just because an act is more kind than the cruelest option doesn't mean it isn't a dark act. But light and dark in this game are written by people who don't understand them, so I just ignore the parts that come up where the writers get it wrong. Which is pretty much what I did in KoTOR.

Well, like Vergere and Yoda said. The dark side is the quick and easy path. It's not high standards that make people fall to the dark side, it's the fact that the dark side is quick and easy, and a lot of people prefer quick and easy over patience and timing. It's not that there's a paradox in their own code, it's just that their emotions don't have any place in the instincts/mindset they use to access the Force. On the other hand, as an order, yes the Sith weaken themselves in some ways by purging their own, but when you look at what it means to be a Sith, that's just how the game is played. It's like trying to be the alpha in a wolf pack, only instead of just fighting your challengers, you have to kill everyone who might be a threat to your power.

The example I used was a core Empire quest, but you still put a lot of people in terrible positions even with "light side" options.

-A conversation between Vergere and Jacen Solo -Mace Windu Yes, you're absolutely right. That is exactly nature in all it's unbiased glory Good and evil, yes, according to many in the saga, points of view, perspectives that depend on, well, where you stand. But there isn't any question as to whether or not the Empire is Dark with a capital "D." Not even really "to the extreme," though I'd certainly call the annihilation of all life in the galaxy extreme. It is definitely the culmination of Sith teaching though. If you're not prepared to leave everything behind for power, you're "no true Sith." If anyone here has seen/read the anime Berserk, Griffith is literally the perfect Sith. The only difference between Vitiate and every other "Sith" in the Empire is that he's better at playing the game than the rest of them, and to the Sith, that's all that matters. I think the people being murdered would disagree with you. Is it intention that determines the quality of the act? Well, I don't know...the Sith, on a long enough timeline, are literally the death of the universe, and that's even up for debate. Vitiate was not the first Sith to try and literally eat everyone, and we know he isn't the last either. Exterminating the Sith is literally excising a disease from the galaxy, if you define a disease as a mutation harmful to the body.

Damn necromancers...

I do. I'm a Dark Lord of the Sith and I can't break one mouthy Twilek brat? I'd remove her collar...and then graduate to shattering her knee caps, or planting wasp eggs under her skin. Makes it kind of hard to get into character when the most monstrous thing I can do to my slaves is begrudgingly accept how strong-willed they are, especially when I know Vette hasn't yet been introduced to real pain and horror.

I heard somewhere that we can "betray companions."

For the same reason that a female martial art master isn't referred to as a martial art mistress.

If by evil, you mean generally malignant and unhealthy for the rest of the universe, then yes, they're evil.

Well, if what they've always said about mirrors holds true, then the warrior is the more powerful of the two characters. Nox would still very likely murder the warrior were the two to ever cross.

Back when I played my warrior, they left you with an "out." All you had to do was take the collar off at some point, and you could continue advancing Vette's quest. If that has changed, I'm unaware of it. Unfortunately, there is no option to remove the collar, and then step your torture game up. Disingenuous indeed...I'm a Darth. I should be able to break her bones and crush her spirit once removing the collar.

Bounty Hunter.

Kind of. If you want to do every quest out there, sometimes the "light side" options are still pretty monstrous, and in some cases the distinction is silly. Early on on Dromund Kaas you'll have the opportunity to

Yes, there are a few players out there who place positive value judgments on this game's version of the Empire. If you're asking for my personal opinion... no, I don't think the Empire is in any way "good." They have institutionalized chattel slavery, obvious double standards when it comes to legal action, practice blatant, race-based discrimination, their society as a whole encourages regularly engaging in acts of cruelty that I would find personally disgusting in the real world, and their form of government is totalitarian in the extreme. I'm not okay with any of that. Simply put, their society is rotten, rotten to the core.

I strongly suspect that the real reason they haven't released any new timeline content, is because the last video had a couple inconcistencies and skewed portrayals that made a couple diehards raaaaaage. For those of you who saw that particular thread in the Jedi Knight section, you know what I am talking about.

I'll bite. Vader would simply apply 10 tons of crushing force in all directions at once on the mage, from a much greater distance than what said mage can strike from. Also, Vader can regenerate bodily harm at a phenominal rate when angry. No frost mage would have the damage to kill him, or the defenses to stop him. That is that. Put the Kaiburr crystal in his hands and then watch him go toe-to-toe with some of the stronger demi-gods in Warcraft. I don't think people realize just how powerful Vader actually is.

Yes. The Lucas movie timeline starts at Darth Ruin, which was before the birth of Darth Bane, which was more than 1k years before Episode 1. That was a call-back to the Ruusan Reformation, in which the old Republic changed significantly. The timline of events for past Sith lords that Lucas has set up begins with Darth Ruin, which, is again, a greater difference than 1k years. It does matter, because it makes the point that in Lucas' eyes, EU content is perfectly valid. Coruscant was and still is originally an Eu creation, but it is, in Lucas' eyes, as much a part of Star Wars as lightsabers are. Another example of this would be the double-bladed lightsaber.