Just leave already!

Right here: http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20150424

It's hard to figure out whether this story is foreshadowing something, or is just an exercise in character development designed to make certain characters' fates feel more meaningful. Either way, it's a great excuse to revisit Balmorra. I'm intrigued! Either it's being revisited by popular demand, or due to writers' inspiration, or perhaps this is connected to the earlier story about Darth Lachris as part of a greater story arc.

This doesn't make Darth Bane's story (as told by Karpyshyn) canon, nor does it make Revan/SWTOR/KOTOR/etc. canon. What it does show, though, is that Legends content is, as was already announced, something still there to be borrowed from. In effect, the Lucasfilm Story Group put Legends canon in the recycle bin, but they haven't clicked "Empty recycle bin".

Meh. I'm not one of those people who whines about the prophecy or the prequels in general, but I don't see the need for this. SWTOR is an entirely different timeline and it's meant to look at the Star Wars universe from a new perspective. There are little nods to the movies, but I'd rather not mesh the two eras together too much.

That's Legends canon, though. For all we now, in future novels/movies/whatever, it could still be a swampy ruin swarming with rakghouls. Anyway, I just thought it was awesome that they included the planet. From the Republic's point of view, if it could be rebuilt, it might be a great staging area for an assault on Sith space depending on the accuracy of the in-game map. It would also be great for propaganda. That's a big "if" for this timeline, though. At this point it just stands as a testament to the Republic's incompetence (I'm looking at you, Saresh!).

Uh oh, another player with a reasoned argument against Double-XP! Quick, derail the thread before this gets out of hand! Remember, you don't have a problem with Double-XP, so it shouldn't be optional.

Ah, so how much did CCP pay you to make this post?

Where is this claim that Lucas is no longer a creative consultant coming from?

I could've sworn I posted in another thread exactly like this...ah well. OP, I absolutely agree (yes, I deal in absolutes ). She's the very epitome of everything unbearably irritating and corrupt that a Senator/Chancellor could be. If it takes every ship in the Fleet and every Sith in the Empire, I can't wait to shock her and chop her head off live on the HoloNet for the cheering masses.

This. I've always preferred snow and ice over sand and blistering heat. It would also feel more appropriate for my Chiss IA character.

I'm trying to find an answer but have had no luck so far... I'm perfectly fine with waiting a week to play the expansion, but what happens if I buy it before then in terms of downloading the new content? Should I wait a week before I bother even buying it?

What happens if I buy the expansion now that the early access for pre-orders has started? Should I just wait a week until its "official release"?

Someone said it's as if they popped in KOTOR and went with the first randomly generated name. That's probably true. They should have named him Frank. As for the Revan novel, well, remember that Simpsons episode in which Homer leaves the theatre after seeing "Cosmic Wars: The Gathering Shadow" and vows never to look forward to anything again? That sums it up pretty well. I mean I was thrilled at the time about the idea of closure in Revan and the Exile's stories, but between that and the Bane trilogy I'd have to say the former isn't some of his best writing. That's keeping in mind that in all fairness people were waiting years for something like it with all sorts of high expectations.

Honestly for a number of reasons canon has stopped being a relevant concept, if it ever was, as long as there's some degree of consistency within each particular set of stories. Canon has hardly been effective at maintaining continuity in a number of cases, so its function amounts to privileging one set of stories as officially-licensed and fetishized fanfiction. My fingers are crossed, though...SWTOR being non-canon could open a lot of doors for the fate of the Sith Empire (not that this will be known until the game is finished).

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Potentium There's also this: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_transfer It's heavily implied that even Sidious used some form of Force healing at Mustafar, and Kreia also used this on Hanharr. It's possible that some Sith can use a downgraded version of Plagueis's ability in order to essentially 'impose' their will on the Force to sustain a body. So in short there are some examples in existing lore to support this.

This. I asked this a few days ago and never got an answer. What are you basing that on? Unless you have concrete proof (from the developer's own statements) don't just assume this.

What would it take to get ranked warzones popping consistently again on this server?

Wow, that just made no sense whatsoever.

Bane himself almost gave up on the possibility of Zannah killing him and sought the secret of essence transfer to extend his life, potentially indefinitely. Plagueis and Sidious both sought immortality because each was convinced the Rule of Two ended with them. In any case, is it more Sith-like to die for the sake of ideological purity, or to live for oneself? That seems to be the heart of cognitive dissonance in Bane's thoughts. The strongest winning also doesn't universally match up with the aims of the Sith as much as the aims of the dark side do. What would a Banite Sith apprentice do, faced with a genuinely stronger master, perhaps one with power on a massive scale of the likes of Nihilus or Vitiate? If teaming up with other, 'weaker' Sith temporarily can accomplish a Sith's goals, it goes against Sith nature not to do so, by Bane's own admission. "Purity" doesn't mean trying to artificially limit infighting. I've played the Inquisitor storyline, and it makes the point that 'Sith' is a broad category with different potential approaches, goals, interpretations of the Code, etc. It's Ashara, speaking as a Jedi, who argues that that can't be sustained. Who says they were supposed to be a "crazy religious death cult"? Some interpretations, and probably better ones, emphasize "breaking chains" by gaining power, taking their rightful place, conquering, etc. The reason the Rule of Two worked for a while is not because it was the purest embodiment of Sith nature, it is because it was such an unexpected approach and so contrary to the Sith's nature. Nobody would have expected Sith of a single generation to give up their own lives for the sake of a victory that would happen centuries after their deaths, let alone for a millennia's worth of generations. That is the strength of the Rule of Two, but it doesn't negate the practical and philosophical problems I mentioned in my above post, because when it reaches its limit it is catastrophic. It's mischaracterization to say he didn't want any infighting (I know you didn't)---he just wanted it done while the Sith were already in a precarious position. The Rule of Two might work as a failsafe in the event of the Sith's near-destruction, but it shouldn't be adopted as a default practice or dogma. The dark side is strongest, not just in the sense of pure potency but in the sense of enduring dominance, in an essentially 'chaotic' universe bursting with passions. Even if Plagueis and Palpatine's manipulative sorcery made the dark side the strongest it ever was, canonically, the fate of both speaks for itself. You can't just rely on one or two Siths' sorcery. It's no accident that Force nexuses or "wounds in the Force" played so significant a role for the Sith up to SWTOR's era. The corruptibility may not have been due to Banite activity, but its corruption was largely due to that, yeah. I freely admitted as much. That's one way of looking at it. You could also say they were so fragile that it only took a neophyte Jedi Knight and an attempt at replacing Vader on Palpatine's part to take them both down, and exposed the flaw in the Rule of Two in that it's such an ad-hoc position,inappropriate as a general rule, that a single betrayal, something which Sith Empire's had survived on much larger scales many times before because it was a fact of existence they prepared for, ruined them completely.

Philosophical purity definitely played a big part in Bane's formulation of the Rule of Two. Purism seems like it could be unbecoming for a true Sith, though, and that's why it seemed to be tacitly acknowledged that a master or apprentice would seek out a replacement for their partner in secret and begin that process of training well before the second of the two Sith was ultimately defeated. That, and there is an argument to be made that Bane effectively handed the galaxy over to the Jedi and the Republic (albeit an incredibly corrupted Republic and an unprepared Jedi Order) through a catastrophic betrayal motivated by his own interpretation of the Sith Code. An enforced rule or a simple convention in a larger Sith Empire determining when it is acceptable or unacceptable to challenge a rival Sith, for pragmatic purposes of preventing advances by the Republic/Jedi, far from necessarily makes the Sith less "pure" in the long run when confrontation does inevitably happen. In Knight Errant, at a point when the Sith roam almost completely unchecked, one Sith Lord even reflects that a Sith would rather lose to another Sith, a follower of the dark side, than to a Jedi. Also, as I recall, Malgus did kill his sweetheart for reasons of his Sith philosophy, and he wasn't alone in that perspective toward sacrifice. In any case, if I recall correctly, Bane also justified the Rule of Two as a way to address infighting. In purely practical and highly predictable terms, all that did was shrink the scale of infighting dangerously down to the point where one kamikaze attack ultimately took out both reigning Sith Lords after one of them turned back to the light. There were a number of reasons they managed to last that long in spite of close calls, but infighting seems inescapable and in the case of the Empire it serves a purpose of letting the strong win out while still having a larger civilization steeped in the dark side. This is probably more of a rant than I wanted it to be, but in short, based on the results (a millennia of planning leading to two decades of rule vs. centuries of both within the Sith Empire's borders), and on a philosophical position (the dark side is actually stronger, one would think, when it is the dominant Force in the galaxy, and plenty of Sith running around, even if they kill each other, suggests a more dominant position for the dark side), Bane was a traitorous ideologue and the Sith were better off as the Sith Empire. As strong as he was, the "Golden Age of the Sith" wasn't in Palpatine's reign, after all.

Emperor Palpatine made this point, in a sort of ironic way. "We shall have peace...". If "peace" is defined as a status quo uninterrupted by violent insurrection, but containing thinly-veiled systemic violence, then "peace" of that sort is undesirable. "Peace", for some, can mean being in chains, whether in the sense that the Sith Code depicts them or in a more literal sense. As Yuthura Ban said, "Sometimes anger and hatred are so deserved and right. Sometimes things change because of it."

This. However, the Empire is a militaristic society, and there are cases where a young Sith recruit has little choice but to follow orders even from a non-Force sensitive who always happens to be a military figure with connections in high places. It would help if I could recall more specifics, but there was one case as an Inquisitor in which I threatened/mocked an officer and he told me off, went on about being well-connected, etc. In one quest line on Dromund Kaas, you can even help to stop Sith who are killing Imperials in Kaas City. Being a Dark Council member is one thing, but while being a Sith matters, it's not nearly as big of a deal as being one of two Sith Lords was for Vader, for example. There are hundreds of Sith in the Empire, and simply being one of them, particularly a raw recruit or 'grunt', doesn't get you a pass to do whatever you want all the time. At the very least, you won't make the necessary alliances if you make too many enemies too quickly. So I would imagine it can happen and Imperials can get away with it from time to time, but in general it's ill-advised. Actually, now that I think of it...run an Agent, tell Darth Zhorrid that she's pathetic, and see what happens!

Where was that ever "mandated"? Also, there are a fair number of stories out there with either Sith or dark-side protagonists.

It's worth pointing out that this doesn't justify the imposition of Double-XP on players when there's already a simple alternative mechanism for faster levelling in the form of XP Boosts. That said, yeah, I have the same strategy.