[Light SW Immersion]

Chapter 2 is a rough time for purely light-sided Sith. It gets easier later on.

 

And I do feel one can play a LS Sith that is not merely pragmatic, but strives to be a decent person.

[Revan's fate after the Foundry encounter]

The way I see it, when he disappeared, everything he was wearing also disappeared. In particular, his signature mask disappeared with him. I figure since his mask (and robes, although they're less symbolic) wasn't left behind, he's probably alive. If not, he'll likely return as a force ghost.

 

Love how Meetra's ghost has my favorite lightsaber hilt, being such a minor Revan fan or imposer ( sarcasum on the minor. ) Is there a reason they decided to have him use Purple saber when they originally had him using Green like in the Book? I found a screenshot on google images showing him holding a Green lightsaber, with hood up-mask on. Then you look at him now, its Hood disappeared, mask on....very confusing.

I don't know about the purple saber, maybe it's symbolic of his balance between the light side and dark side.

 

I believe that in 1.2, they made it so certain masks could be worn under hoods. Both Darth Marr and Revan regained their hoods over their masks.

[Falling to death = Wilhelm scream]

I love this idea. Support.

[Tanking in Bikinis]

I MIGHT put my commando in civilian flight outfit just to give more of a feel of a field medic... Though the huge assualt cannon kinda throws off that feeling. /shrug

I usually just put social gear on my un-used and/or light armored companions. So it will be interesting to see how the morphing works with companions who are a lower armor rating than yourself.

I'm tempted to make a male Trooper with the name Tom, give him Pilot gear (the red outfit that looks like a spacesuit), and beat the class story as to give him the rank of Major.

[What I Think Happened to Revan]

1 - Speculative. That the CIVILIANS of the empire would fight the republic no matter what, even if their military and their sith overlords were removed from the picture, is EXTREMELY speculative and rather contrary to human nature. And beside the point as well, because such civilians would never pose the same threat to the galaxy nor be agents of the dark-side driven omnicide that Revan was reacting to begin with.

They're anything but helpless. Ever since Grand Moff Vaiken, the Empire has had a mandatory military service for non force sensitives. The civilians of the Empire are more than capable of fighting, because a most of them are presumably ex-military.

 

Do you really think they'd just lie down and let the hated Republic take them over? Heck, do you really expect the Republic to just take them over? They elected a Supreme Chancellor who advocates the compete eradication of the Sith Empire. Chances are the Republic is willing to repeat what they did at the end of the Great Hyperspace War.

 

2 - The methodical ethnic cleansing of billions of civilians wouldn't be tantamount to the holocaust? Flawed assertion again. You're defining the holocaust on the specifics of what motivated it, not the specifics of what it was. The holocaust was the methodical ethnic cleansing of millions of human beings, ergo the same thing as what Revan would have enacted.

Of all the genocides carried out in human history, the Holocaust is one of the least fitting comparisons. It's not about establishing a master race (which the Sith, especially the more traditionalist ones, are trying to do). It's not about eliminating people simply because of a few harmless traits are considered "undesirable". The Holocaust was carried out on already subjugated people, most of whom were of unaggressive nations that were subjugated. What Revan is doing is more along the lines of one of the genocides that don't get the spotlight, that have been mostly forgotten. All genocides are about eliminating racial or cultural groups. Fitting that criteria does not automatically make it most tantamount to the one, particularly heinous genocide that everybody actually cares about. Not when more similar actions, in both method and purpose, have been carried out throughout history.

 

 

Except the existence of such sith, including Revan himself, proves categorically that sith ideology is not dependent on sith ancestry and that the fundamental problem that causes dark side holy wars against the republic and the jedi is an ideological split amongst force users. Nationalistic dogma is secondary and a mere symptom of what Revan is reacting to, not the purpose of his attentions. Given that Revan is specifically targeting people with sith ancestry, non force sensitive civilian noncombatants included in his genocidal plans, he is therefore using race as a scapegoat for an ideological problem.

Revan and Malak were converts, brought into the Sith by the Sith Empire. Do you really think they would have fallen if the Sith hadn't been waiting to corrupt them? No, getting rid of the SIth Empire wouldn't elimate the Sith idology. It would, however, be reasonable for someone at the time to assume that such would cripple it. Having one upstart Jedi talk to Sith Ghosts and cause a rebellion only to get slapped down every 1000 years sounds a lot better than having about three Sith-related wars in that same time period.

 

The problem Revan is responding to is the SITH (dark side force religion with its origin in the Dark Jedi), to which the EMPIRE is secondary, and more specifically the Emperor. You're argument presupposes that EMPIRE > SITH, both as a threat to the galaxy and as the fundamental root of the problem, neither of which is true. Revan is responding to the threat posed by the SITH (dark side force users) to the rest of the galaxy (galactic omnicide), not the political interests of a nationalistic empire. If the problem was the empire itself as a political force, and not the darkside cult in charge of that political force, then he could just as easily have directed his army of super droids to dismantle the empire as a political force without having to commence ethnic cleansing on non combatants. Considering that he probably knows that force-blind non combatants aren't a threat to all life in the galaxy, we can assume that he's including them in the genocidal plan not because their nationalism is an affront to all life, but because he fears their sith genes make them predisposed to the dark side (which, as personified in Vitiate, is what Revan is trying to protect the galaxy from). Given that Revan himself has fallen to the dark side to save the galaxy from the dark side, and given the logical fallibility of his plan given the knowledge we must assume he has, it is clear that Revan's line of argument is logically invalid.

Sith or no Sith, galactic omnicide or no galactic omnicide, the Sith Empire is a major expansionist power that seeks to destroy the Republic. Do you think the people of the Empire are simply playing along to please their masters? No, they want to destroy the Republic as much as the Sith, possibly even more.

 

Factoring in the whole galactic omnicide thing, and unhinged as it is, it's still the lesser of two evils.

 

 

A bunch of civilians, scattered across many different worlds and deprived of the only leadership they have ever known and their armed forces, would continue to prosecute a war of conquest against the galaxy's leading superpower AND the army of super killbots who just wiped out all the sith lords and the imperial military? With sticks and harsh language?

They'd still resist, with blasters and the training they themselves received.

 

Sorry, but that statement is baseless. The imperials are nationalists, not a zombie hivemind, and are subject to morale and logistics the same as anybody else. Without their military or their sith overlords, the civilian non combatants wouldn't pose a threat to the galaxy. The most that could be expected of them would be civil discontent and feeble resistance, but nothing that could threaten the republic military AND the kill bot Horde, and certainly nothing that would threaten galactic omnicide. Killing all the civilians would be a worse dark side act than anything the civilians could do if they were spared, if they even tried anything to begin with.

People probably thought the same of those that survived the Great Hyperspace War. In about 3,600 years the New Republic will probably feel similarly about the then-defeated Imperial Remnant. You don't need Sith to hate the Republic after what they did, nor did they need Sith to organize their military into a disciplined fighting force.

 

Again, you are fixating on incidental details rather than the fundamental moral principles involved. You may as well argue that blowing up a green plane with a red bomb is a completely different thing than blowing up a yellow cruise ship with a blue bomb. It doesn't matter. When you compare things on a MORAL basis, the MORAL principles are what matter. In a different discussion involving military strategy, the socio-political climate, and a side-by-side comparison of facial hair, yes there would be differences worth discussing. In a moral context, what matters is that both figures planned a methodical racial genocide against civilian non-combatants based exclusively on genetic traits rather than a person-by-person threat assessment in order to safeguard what they felt were the interests of their nation. The PRINCIPLE is identical and therefore the moral implications are interchangeable.

No they're not. As I said, of all the genocides that people have carried out over the years, the ones the Nazis did are one of the poorer comparisons. Every genocide has been about wiping out a racical group or culture (which are often closely interconnected). You can't simply equate genocide to the Nazis, because they're neither the inventors nor the codifiers of the concept. Revan's plans have nothing to do with establishing a master race, or eliminating people simply because they've got some harmless traits that are not looked upon as desirable. Revan isn't trying to wipe out groups that anybody could see are no threat and never were a threat.

 

What he's doing is more like what the Imperium does regularly in Warhammer 40,000: eliminating very real threats that can and will wipe them out given the chance, which also happen to have a very, very strong correlation to race.

 

 

The point of the killbot horde is not to win a political windfall for the Republic. The point of the killbot horde is not to ensure the republic's nationalistic supremacy until the end of time.

 

The point of the killbot horde is protect the galaxy from omnicide at the hands of dark side practitioners.

 

So, if Revan were sane, he could accomplish his goal using the same tools available without having to go holocaust on the human population of the outer rim.

Yes it's a mad, unhinged plan. No, it's not unprecedented in Republic history. Look at how the Great Hyperspace War turned out. Given who's in charge of the Republic right now, chances are that should the Empire lose in the near future, it'll play out very similarly to 1300 years ago.

 

Your argument blurrs points. You have lumped the POLITICAL EXISTENCE of the empire as an expansionist nation in with METAPHYSICAL AIMS of Vitiate and the sith, whereas the two are very much distinct from each other and one is completely ignorant of the other. The empire and its people are just a tool to the Emperor, and they are ignorant of his goals. Revan is not ignorant of the Emperor's goals, he is reacting to them. Revan's plan isn't about politics (though, I dare say that committing genocide in order to wipe out feelings of cultural and nationalistic pride is just as irredeemably evil as the alternative), it is about the threat of the dark siders ending all life through the use of the dark side of the force.

Both the politics of the Empire and the Emperor's plans are a threat to the Republic. And the loss of the Sith and the Emperor won't change the Empire's fervent anti-Republic sentiment. In fact, it'll probably worsen it. And you don't need some force sensitive overlords to build up a formidable military force.

 

Imperial civilians are COMPLETELY TRIVIAL on the subject of thwarting Vitiate's plan of nomming the galaxy, because the civilians are incapable of killing the galaxy. And yet Revan was going to wipe them all out. Wiping them all out to kill their nationalistic pride would have been evil, but wiping them out to stop galactic omnicide is evil, really stupid, and amusingly hypocritical. Ergo, Revan is mad.

As I said, disregarding galactic omnicide, they're still a group that hates the Republic and want to destroy them.

[Light sided Sith]

I find Light Side Sith interesting. Like Dark Side, there are many shades of how light-sided you are. In some cases such a Sith may simply be a slightly sentimental pragmatist or simply have a code of honor that they do not break. Or one could go beyond that and be an all around decent person, posing as a pragmatist to avoid being targeted for being too soft.

 

And even then, I love the surprise that Sith and Jedi show when you choose light-sided option even when it's not pragmatic or has potential for further cruelty. At one point in the Sith Warrior storyline, it resulted in several Sith attacking me because I showed mercy to someone who betrayed me and whom I had no further use for.

[So played The Foundry last night.....]

If it's any consolation, he wasn't in it alone. The Republic and Jedi were backing him up. I doubt they were simply misinformed, because they end up

electing Saresh, someone known for advocating the complete eradication of the Sith Empire, to the office of Supreme Chancellor.

 

 

I find it scary because on one side I see why the Republic would want to take such drastic measures to end the threat once and for all, but on the other side, I can see why the people of the Sith Empire would so fervently fight the Republic. It's the kind of quagmire typical of Warhammer 40k.

[What I Think Happened to Revan]

I reckon you should do the foundry again. It is fairly clear that he's going to release the droids to kill anyone with sith ancestry without discrimination. If he was going to direct them so specifically as to avoid people who aren't politically affiliated with the empire, there wouldn't be a need to wipe out imperial civilians because he could just as easily direct his droids to focus exclusively on military targets.

The Republic was backing him up 110%. So were the Jedi. Do you really think that they weren't at least partially in on it? Or do you really think he'd actually betray the Republic that supported him, the Republic that he did everything for? I don't think so, to me it was pretty clear he was going after the Empire. Don't forget that the Republic continued to crush the Old Sith Empire after it was clearly defeated, and it elected to the office of Supreme Chancellor somebody known for calling for the complete eradication of the Sith Empire. Sounds to me like they were in on it, because that's what they want too.

 

As for the civilians: the Sith Empire isn't just a bunch of victims oppressed by their evil overlords. The citizens love their Empire, and they'll do everything in their power to keep it going. If the Sith were wiped out, the people of the Empire would continue to work to fight the Republic and the Jedi, only with Moffs in charge rather than Sith Lords. Am I trying to justify it? No. Is it unjustifiable and tantamount to the holocaust? No.

 

You have experience with the rest of the star wars franchise, I assume? The movies, kotor, etc? You're aware, then, that the disappearance of the sith race from the galaxy did nothing to stop non-stih from adopting sith ideology and perpetuating the same ideological struggle. Revan did it, Exar Kun did it, Palpatine did it. Heck, the original sith were victims of dark jedi exiles who enslaved them. The association of sith ancestry with the sith movement is a symptom, not the cause, and an extremely trivial thing to focus on considering that the overwhelming majority of imperial citizens are not sith but rather victims of the sith regime. If Revan really wanted to put an end to the sith, he'd have his droids target force sensitives rather than simply an ethnic group he didn't like, seeing as how the star wars franchise is essentially a long narrative of how billions of people die in wars because of the jedi order's inability to keep its house in order.

Where are Exar Kun's Sith? Long dead. Where are Revan and Malak's Sith? Long dead. Where are the Sith Empire's Sith? Alive and kicking despite having been crushed in the past.

 

We're still at the point at which the majority of the Sith problems are directly related to the Sith Empire. It was founded by the Dark Jedi from the Hundred Year Darkness. It was responsible for the Great Hyperspace War, the Jedi Civil War, and the Great Galactic War. Even the Exar Kun War wouldn't have happened without the involvement of the former rulers of the Sith Empire. And eliminating the Sith Empire wouldn't stop something similar. But even then, right now it's the exception, not the rule. There's been no Darth Ruin, Darth Bane, Darth Sidious, or Darth Krayt to prove just how resilient and versatile the Sith movement can be.

 

No it isn't, because the entire history of the franchise proves otherwise, and Revan knows otherwise from personal experience being on both sides of the problem. Darkside force users caused the sith, by enslaving their culture and planting the seeds of the great hyperspace war. The sith species' association with the dark side crusade is a symptom of ideological differences among force users that has nothing to do with being genetically evil.

 

There are two facts here that prove that Revan's plan is born of corruption and madness rather than sane utilitarian necessity.

 

1) Wiping out everyone with sith ancestry would do absolutely nothing to rid the galaxy of the darksider problem that causes all the sith-jedi wars. Revan knows this, because he knows the history of the jedi order and he himself was sith.

 

2) There's no reason to wipe out all imperial civilians with a giant droid army when that same droid army could be directed exclusively against military targets.

 

Your idol is beyond the point of no return. He's so hung up on race and hatred that he wanted to commit the genocide of billions to solve a problem that he knew it wouldn't solve using excessive force that he could have directed more specifically.

As I said, it's not just the Sith, it's the billions of loyal citizens that want to crush the Republic. Wiping out the Sith overlords would do nothing to stop the threat of the Empire. If their military was wiped out, they'd continue to fight, and they'd be more than capable of it because most that don't actively fight have probably already served their required tours of duty, or simply haven't gotten the chance yet. Wiping out everyone, while a distasteful and excessive solution, would in theory solve the problem and leave no room for them returning in another 1300 years. Sure there will be more Sith perhaps, lured by lost teachings or corrupted by ghosts. But it's still a huge windfall to the Republic and the Jedi for the Empire to not exist anymore.

 

 

The "it is fantasy" argument is a good indicator that you've hit the dead end where you cannot reconcile your moral opinions with your fan opinions. Separating fantasy and reality is indeed important, so long as you're properly self-aware about it. When you make a moral statement, you create a principle that can be applied to other things... and if it can't apply to other things, it should apply in the original context either. Consistency. You can't make moral excuses and argue for the redemption of exaggerated acts of fictional terrorism and genocide but not make those same excuses for real acts of genocide while remaining consistent in your values. In other words, no, this isn't real, but it does use ideas and concepts which exist in the world (like genocide, racial profiling, state terrorism, war crimes, etc), and if we are to discuss these things as fans we have to be aware of the implications that our rhetoric could have if applied in the real world.

I assure you, I've not come close to running out of ideas. Real world comparisons do not work because they're too different. 2 or 3 similarities out of 100 isn't a good comparison. Was Hitler only trying to stop an aggressive, expansionistic Empire that had caused several wars over 1300 years and desired to wipe out his home country, led by a man who had singlehandedly destroyed his home civilization and now desired to wipe out all life? Was the reborn Revan a politician who saw enemies where there were none, bullied and conquered peaceful nations and sought to make his race the master race? There are not enough similarities to declare Revan to be "Space Hitler". If anyone in this setting deserves that, it's the Sith Empire. They herd Evocii into death camps. They aggressively break peace agreements to further their territory and power. They seek to make their race the master race. They seek to subjugate lesser races beneath them. They wear unforms inspired by the Galactic Empire, which was in turn inspired by Nazi uniforms. And they place resources into designing numerous over-engineered superweapons.

 

Maybe I'm overthinking this. It's pretty clear that even things blatantly inspired by the Nazis, like the Sith Empire, Galactic Empire, and Imperium of Man, are pretty popular with fans, yet there's clearly nothing wrong with being fans of such things. Perhaps the real fallacy here is the idea that there's anything wrong with liking such things. And while I contend that Revan lacks the necessary similarities to be able to be called "Space Hitler", perhaps the real thing to think about is that perhaps that even when somebody makes such a comparison, it doesn't make it any less right to be a fan of him. Revan, that is.

 

 

The other problem with your argument is that it isn't cogent. Revan's plan would not solved the sith problem; knowing this franchise, a jedi trying to defend the innocent imperial population from the killbots would have fallen to the darkside, discovered a holocron (maybe Exar Kun's, maybe Revan's own), and started a new sith tradition and hit a reset button on the conflict without having a drop of sith blood in him. And killing the civilians as well is completely arbitrary and unnecessary. If Revan's plan would actually have worked and his actions would actually have been necessary, you'd have an argument. As it is, you just making excuses for murderous insanity by focusing entirely on subjective particulars that don't hold up to close scrutiny.

As I said, at the moment the real Sith Empire has been directly responsible for 3 out of the 4 Sith-related wars since the Hundred Year Darkness. Yes getting rid of them won't stop people like Exar Kun from digging their teachings up and talking to their ghosts. But having one Sith conflict over the period of 1300 years instead of four is a huge improvement, and a great windfall to both the Republic and the Jedi. Sure it'll probably be disproved later, but you can't blame Revan for not being able to foresee what Darth Ruin, Darth Bane, or Darth Krayt will do thousands of years from then. He doesn't have the benefit of 3700 additional years of hindsight that we have.

 

I don't think you are quite using the word efficiency correctly.

 

Efficiency is "accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort".

 

Killing the 99% in order to stop the 1% is the exact opposite of efficiency.

If the 1% was the entirety of the problem, the war would have been resolved long ago. The problem for Revan and the Republic is that it isn't. The people of the Empire are behind the Sith, and even if the Sith philosophy is wiped out, it won't stop the Empire, not by a long shot. They won't bow to the Republic if their ruling magocracy is wiped out, they'll continue to fight defiantly.

 

No no, it is quite apt. Racial scapegoat solution for social/political problems based on patriotic dogma. I've already pointed out how the moral principles involved in the decision making in both cases are mirrored. The reason it seems different to you is because your argument continually focuses on subjective trivialities and justifications specific to Revan (of which Hitler had his own versions) without looking at the fundamental principles.

There's some major differences. Hitler saw enemies where there were none. Revan on the other hand knows that the Empire is a threat, and it runs far deeper than its armies and overlords. Anyone in the galaxy can see that the Empire is a threat to both the Republic and the Empire. Hitler's campaigns were centered around conquering unaggressive, peaceful nations. Revan is trying to stop what is currently the closest thing to Nazi Germany in the galaxy. Hitler sought to establish a master race. Revan seeks to stop a group that seeks to establish a master race. The differences are anything but trivial. If anything, it is the similarities that are more trivial than the differences.

[Holographic disguises: do they fit with Star Wars?]

As a matter of fact, we do have holographic disguises in Star Wars. They even used some in an episode of The Clone Wars.

[SWTOR storyline compared to .....]

I've played through Sith Warrior. I liked it but I feel like there weren't enough meaningful choices. Sure I could occasionally choose to spare people or kill them like my master wanted. But overall, choices didn't affect the story. I'm hoping the continuation will have some real choices for me to make, choices that will determine what happens next and how the story is resolved. I'd really like it if in the next chapter the choices I made, such as who I killed and who I didn't kill, had more of an impact this time around.

 

Edit: I'd also like if there was less railroading in the future.

[Next Class story ideas?]

There's been something I've thought about. I've played through the Sith Warrior story and while I could occasionally chose to kill or spare people, I've kind of felt like my choices were insignificant regarding the overall story. Does anyone think that in the future we'll get to see larger, more significant choices in the continuation of the stories?

[What I Think Happened to Revan]

Be that as it may, as storytelling goes, there is a reason why "second chances" are successful and common while "third chances" are virtually non-existent. What you want doesn't lessen the fact that the horse is dead and flogging it won't put the genie back in the bottle.

Why not? Actually having to confront his actions head-on would be a first for him, because he wouldn't simply be confronting it from behind amnesia and brainwashing.

 

Meaningless. He intended to. It isn't a matter of legality and republic response, it is a matter of character development. As a character, he is well beyond the moral event horizon. For his characterization process to be rolled back to pre-moral event horizon status would be jarring and worse writing than spawned the problem to begin with.

I don't want him rolled back. I want him to get the chance to recover from his maddened state, to realize the error of his ways. This would be completely different from what happened to him during the Jedi Civil War 300 years ago. And I think he deserves the chance to see it for what it is instead of getting killed off in the middle of screwing up again.

 

Sith sent sleeper agents into the Republic. We know this from the timeline trailers. Imperials have also defected from the Empire, and the Empire's colonization efforts in the outer rim have spread imperial genetic legacy pretty far. Space-Hitler's ambitions would have killed billions of innocent people without regard for political affiliation while not actually solving the problem of the sith because the sith are, as we well know and as Revan experienced, a philosophical movement that has more to do with force sensitivity than it has to do with ancestry.

I doubt he would be attacking Republic held territories or even neutral territories. He seemed pretty determined to go after the Empire. The racial ancestry was simply an effective means of distinguishing Imperials from non-Imperials. Imperials who defected won't be an issue, given they won't be found in the places he would have planned on attacking.

 

As for the Sith philosophical movement, they seem to place a great deal of importance on racial heritage, and from what I seen, it may also provide them with force sensitivity. Of the projected 2.3% of Imperials that the droids wouldn't attack, disproportionately few would be Sith.

 

One of those invasions led by Revan himself. With no one involved in the invasion having sith or imperial origins.

 

It is using a race and ancestry as a scapegoat for an ideological movement that has precious little to do with race, the crimes of which Revan himself is more guilty of than 99.99% of the people he intended to murder.

It's not a scapegoat, it's a means to end the idealogical movement. As I said, these Sith place great importance on having Sith ancestry. Yes at this point there have been Sith that have had no such racial views. Those Sith have been dead for 300 years. And yes a few Sith may not have any Pureblooded ancestry. Those Sith are probably few enough that at the time they could be considered to be a non-issue. That said, it's still unjustified overkill. But I do think he's not too far gone.

 

Using race and ancestry as a scapegoat for problems that are social/ideological is exactly the same rhetoric as Hitler. If you did a search-replace for Mein Kamph to insert the word "sith" into the text, you'd have exactly Revan's rhetoric. Revan is blaming the imperials as a race, because of their genetic make up, for the evils that plague the galaxy and condemning them to death for it... when he knows perfectly well that isn't how force corruption works because he was/is a sith himself. And justifications of "protecting" his nation and defeating its foes with "finality" are exactly the types of justifications used by the real life genocidal crazies in question.

This isn't real life. There's no persistently aggressive Empire led by someone who is seeking to commit galactic omnicide in real life and there never was.

 

The distinctions you draw are very arbitrary and rely a very great deal on Revan's subjective justifications for his actions. Hitler also had subjective justifications. It is the nature of evil to justify itself and see itself as righteous. Doesn't change the fact that the ethical principles and rhetoric are the same. "Race and ancestry as a scapegoat for social problems", "predisposition of some races towards evil/corruption/unworthyness", "genocide as an acceptable solution to protect what I see as my nation's interests".

It's not a scapegoat in Revan's case, it's efficiency. As HK-47 pointed out, it'd potentially mean the death of 98.7% of the Empire's population, and from what I've seen on Korriban, a disproportionate number of that will be of the Sith philosophy.

 

Of all the genocides carried out in human history, I feel Hitler's is actually one of the less fitting comparisons. The Sith Empire is nothing like those Hitler or any other mass murderers ever went up against. In fact I don't know of any thing in real life that it could be adequately compared to. This kind of thing is more akin to what you'd find in Warhammer 40k.

[What I Think Happened to Revan]

Having him redeemed again would start him on a third light-dark cycle, not finish his development. Falling once and coming back was interesting. Falling twice and then coming back, after planning what would have been one of the largest acts of genocide in galactic history... would that have been any less pitiful? Would anyone really find that titillating? What's that Lucy, a football for me to kick? I'm sure you wouldn't pull the same trick three times in a row!

But it wouldn't just be the cycle repeating itself. The last time he was redeemed, it was because he lost his memories and by the time he got them back, he was a new person. I don't want that happening again, nor do I want him turning to the Dark Side a third time. What I want for him is different. I want him to have the chance to see what he's become and hopefully turn away not from the perspective of an amnesiac Jedi, but as the person who thought wiping out the Sith Empire was a good idea. And in doing so, he will finally be able to resist falling into the same pitfall a third time. As it stands, killing him off at the Foundry feels like a 300 year long shaggy dog story, because he ends up essentially the same as if Bastila had never healed him when Malak tried to kill him, thus making his personal journey since then moot.

 

As for consequences, he never actually carried out genocide, he was thwarted before he could. The Republic won't take action against him because even if he did something that is against their law, they have no evidence. The Jedi will forgive because and give him another chance because that's what they do. And the Sith will hate him regardless.

 

 

I'm sorry, did you do the Foundry?

 

Revan's grand plan to stop the sith was to commit genocide and wipe out everyone with sith ancestry. He would kill billions of people; imperial civilians, imperial defectors, republic civilians, anyone with a specific ancestry no matter how diluted. That's not nearly the same thing as a war. Revan didn't scour the Outer Rim, murdering mandalorian babies and anyone with a mando in their family tree, as he planned for the sith. Considering that Revan himself turned to the dark side and led a sith crusade against the Republic - without himself or any of his followers having genetic sith ancestry - it is a hypocritical non-solution.

 

Normally I don't like to Godwin. People typically Godwin in very clumsy comparisons. But Revan is literally Space-Hitler. The guy used genetic ancestry as a scape goat for all the problems facing his civilization and planned to unleash an indiscriminate, methodical genocide of anyone in that racial group. He's directly, seamlessly, effortlessly compatible with the actions and rhetoric of that other guy.

 

Once you associate a character with the attempted genocide of billions of people without discrimination, it really isn't credible to say he is a good person again and expect your audience to buy it. The credibility is gone, the character has been used up, and any attempt to salvage it would be so inelegant as to make things worse. Again, Bioware can learn a lot from the storytelling failures of other games in the mmo arena, which have made these same mistakes to predictably bad results.

Sith never intermingled with the Republic. The Republic wasn't even aware of their existence until the Great Hyperspace War, and after it was over it was believed that the Sith race was extinct. Very, very few people in the Republic would have Sith blood, few enough that comparatively speaking, the collateral damage is minimal yet there will be few Imperials that would survive, too few and presumably too removed from the Sith ways to rebuild their Empire into what it was.

 

I suspect the reason he chose Sith blood was because it was an effective way to distinguish Imperial from Republic, because few Imperials don't have any Sith blood, while few Republic citizens do. Even then it's not for some reason of racial purity of perceived superiority, it's because the Sith Empire has engineered no fewer than three invasions of the Republic, four if you include the Great Hyperspace War. I don't condone his actions, but I can see where he's coming from in wanting to finish the SIth Empire off once and for all.

 

Seeking to commit genocide =/= Hitler. Hitler did it for purposes of removing undesirables and asserting racial superiority, more along the lines of what Darth Ikoral desires. Revan wants to ensure the Sith Empire gets wiped out without the opportunity to recover and instigate yet another invasion. Racial ancestry just happens to be a very efficient way to distinguish Imperial from non-Imperial. And it's all to protect and aid the Republic.

 

And as a disclaimer, I don't condone what he did. But it's hardly the same as what Hitler did.

[What I Think Happened to Revan]

What is the alternative?

 

If he died in the foundry, then his story came full circle. His "second life" mirrored his first; he ultimately fell to the dark side as a means to an end. His last words are a fitting homage to Malik, and their complicated relationship.

 

If he survived the foundry, referencing Malik's last words was a meaningless gimmick. If he survived the foundry and doesn't get redeemed yet again, then he's crazy team rocket villain with his very own incarnation of the "setback" meme. If he survived the foundry but was redeemed yet again, then 1) that sends the message that Space-Hitler is redeemable if he has a cool cape and a laser sword, and 2) Revan's fall and redemption cycle becomes an endless wash-rinse-repeat cycle wherein the character mindlessly flip flops between light and dark without regard for narrative progression or thematic sense.

 

Maybe Bioware did make a mistake with how they used Revan in this game. I'd argue that they made a mistake bringing Revan three hundred years forward in time to begin with, and I think they've certainly made many narrative mistakes with TOR that could have been avoided by studying the storytelling failures of other leading mmos. But what is done is done and now the question remains of how to proceed. Fact is there is absolutely no way to salvage Revan and use him further without resorting to really, really bad storytelling... and the end result wouldn't be worth it because it would bound to be empty repetition.

 

The only way for the Revan character to maintain any dignity whatsoever is for him to be dead as the foundry originally established. Anything else will make the story objectively worse because it will inevitably involve overuse of tropes, bad literary devices, and thematic inconsistency.

Full circle wouldn't be dying after having fallen to the Dark Side again, it'd be returning to the Light again, because that's what he originally was. For it to all end after having fallen into the same pitfall as before just seems pitiful.

 

Are we really invoking Godwin's Law? Revan is not "Space Hitler". Simply seeking to wipe out a civilization doesn't make one Hitler. He's doing it to save the Republic. In a way, it's not too far off from what he did to the Mandalorians, only this time he's not willing to sacrifice or corrupt any Jedi or Republic soldiers to do it. If Revan could be redeemed from wiping out most of the Mandalorians, he can be redeemed from trying to wipe out most of the Sith Empire.

 

Would redeeming him again be redundant? Yes. Was turning back to his old solution of wiping out the opposition redundant? Yes. If anything, however, I feel a second redemption could be more meaningful than the first, because it wouldn't simply be losing his memories for a few years, but a full realization of darkness of his plans in the midst of thinking they are a good idea. As his former Master Kreia said, "It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it." I at least want him to get a chance to admit it, to see the error in his ways instead of losing his memories and rebuilding his mind. And instead of dying without getting the chance to do so.

[What I Think Happened to Revan]

I don't want Revan to live forever. But I am adverse to the idea of him getting killed off in the state that he's in. Weakened, perhaps a bit maddened, and skirting the Dark Side, it feels downright depressing for someone like him to go down in such a pitiful way. I'm glad they changed it so his fate is more ambiguous.

[The Problem of the Sith Empire]

not really the imperial moffs are just bloodthirsty as their sith masters did you not play black talon or bounty hunter to see imperial are just as vile as sith.

Some are as nasty as the Sith, but others are just normal people doing their jobs running the Empire.

 

That aside, what I meant to convey was the Sith aren't interested in the small and mundane, yet essential details that need to be taken care of to keep everything running smoothly. The Sith Empire's infrastructure is built not upon the scheming Sith at the top, but upon the non force-sensitives who take care of all the boring yet important details every day.

[The Problem of the Sith Empire]

excuse me if the sith were that flawed and would overthrown by imperials at anytime then how come they still in control of the empire and ruled over it for 1400 years?

I suspect that it is the non-force sensitive leaders, like the moffs and governers, that keep the Empire running smoothly.

[Warrior Story - Master Timmns - Belsavis]

I encountered a similar problem: I had LS Jaesa with me when I came face-to-face with Timmns and when when he spoke to her (he will do that if she's with you), her response was clearly meant for DS Jaesa. Sure she has to pretend to be a Sith, but there's no reason to keep up the facade to a Jedi that she obviously knows.

[The Problem of the Sith Empire]

Well, ultimately we know the Sith Empire does fail. Now when that occurs is open ended, but obviously sometime before the rise of the New Sith Empire c. 2000 BBY (founded by Darth Ruin, which will also eventually be destroyed circa 1000 BBY, followed by the rise of Darth Bane and the rule of two).

 

As far as I know there's a pretty big timeline/lore gap between Vitiate's Sith Empire (the one for the game) and the one founded by Darth Ruin. I suspect at some point in the timeline the emperor dies or is killed, and then you have a bunch of warring Sith "fiefdoms" until the rise of Darth Ruin, as the emperor's strength appears to be the only thing keeping the empire "united" (or more accurately keeping the Sith from warring with each other).

 

If we go by what Pre Vizsla said in The Clone Wars, the "Old Republic" and the Galactic Republic of the New Sith Wars and Clone Wars may not be the same entity either.

[Next Class story ideas?]

I think it'd be interesting if the Sith Warrior, after spending some more time eliminating the Emperor's enemies and obstacles, were to learn of his master's true plans. And all the implications for himself, the Empire, and the galaxy that they carry with them.