Yeah, we have the Eternal Fleet and the only known counter to it (The Gravestone). That's going to worry a lot of people. Also, the Sith Empire were the invaders not so long ago and the Republic might want some planets back, or reparations or whatever (I don't remember how much they conquered off the top of my head). I don't see the Sith Empire going along with that. The Republic could then put pressure on a "peace keeping" Eternal Alliance to take their side on this but risk alienating a possible ally (Empress Acina). It could be an interesting political climate going forward.

I assumed the Republic/Empire would start fighting each other again, though some elements in both could go for you. Their current leaders may support the "Eternal Alliance" but I imagine there are others who don't. These could be the 'forces' working against you. The Republic is kind of a mess now anyway, considering Saresh was really in charge and now she's out of the picture. Acina seems to want to continue honoring the alliance, but I can see other sith might want to remove her from power and attempt to take over the Eternal Throne from us.

[code][/code] Yes, she's one romance request I can definitely support.

"Darth" Acina? *ahem*, I think you meant Empress Acina I'd also prefer if they keep her as an Empress and not another companion to take up space in my huge list of comps I can use right now. Hey, I got Z0-0M to run around and heal me, so I'm all good on that front. If Acina stays as a non-comp Empress, they can do much more interesting stuff with her story.

Yeah it's ridiculous. Both have done terrible things but Vaylin is clearly very very mentally ill. Even if I take one of my own toons who had a really bad life (ex-slave Inquisitor), sure, this character has some serious issues because of this but it's not comparable to what happened with Vaylin. Yeah, we have 1 option if you want a f/f romance for literally every character we take through the story. I think I've romanced Lana 30 times. Hopefully they'll add another one that's not just flirting that goes nowhere like Acina. Each class has at least 1 heterosexual option they can have in addition to the new ones added in KotFE.

I just can't see Arcann as 'pragmatic'. More like a man-child who throws temper tantrums that end with the bombing of 5 planets. I would see him as redeemable if he had been a decent ruler in the 5 years the Outlander was in carbonite, only to start doing really bad stuff when his father (the Outlander) gets free and is a threat to him. But he didn't do that...he was an *** as a ruler from day one ('the Core Worlds will burn! muhahaaha!!').

I was playing a Deception Sin yesterday and opened up on a Merc with a Conceal Op pug. The result? The Merc melted really quick. That Merc wasn't the best but I don't think the class is so OP where it can carry bad players.

I don't think the situation is comparable since the player character (who had gone missing) doesn't have much claim to ruling the Empire (even if they are a Sith Inquisitor). Saresh's takeover also risks destabilizing the Alliance which was proven to be the only power to overthrow the Eternal Empire. If she was just trying to take out Acina and install Lorman as her puppet, that would be a bit different. Regardless, my Sith Assassin doesn't kill Saresh, sympathizing with an ex-Imperial slave. Saresh and her would probably agree on most things when it comes to the Empire. Also, if you are playing a Sith Inquisitor, two ex-Dark Council members could be in control of the two major galactic powers (besides the Republic and the Eternal Empire) . From Saresh's perspective, that would be awful. A Republic character would be more justified in anger towards Saresh, IMO.

I think you have to reroll if you got the bug before. You can't pick the romance up in KotET. The bug where it can wipe out the romance flags with new chapters might be gone since they aren't even doing those updates anymore but it wouldn't be retrospective.

I don't think she's in our head like Valkorian was. Vaylin's spirit was bound to his which is why she "in our head" when she dies (because that's where he was). Her spirit gets free of him later and when he's destroyed for good who knows where she ended up. Like you say, she didn't become one with the force, obviously. What they could do is possible allow a Force user to help her ghost find peace (kind of like the Light Side Sith Inquisitor ending). She's definitely dead and bringing back to life wouldn't work.

What's the context? If it's the Outlander then I would say there's 0 chance either would spare you since both really wanted you dead. I could make up possible scenarios where they might save you...ex:, Vaylin actually might spare you if you can give her Senya. I'm not saying he's a complete idiot, but I don't see the evidence that he's necessarily more intelligent than Vaylin is (or even if that means he deserves redemption where she does not, getting back to the original discussion). He's made other decisions that were questionable and led to failure (as others in the thread have mentioned) so I don't see how he has a tactical mind on any level. It seems to me Arcann got power in the galaxy through brute force alone, but that no longer worked against the Outlander and the Alliance since they also had the Gravestone which could combat the might of his fleet. SCORPIO took the fleet out from under him eventually. I do think Vaylin is presented in a such a way that people will look at her as being a crazy whacko incapable of any reason (her voice acting for one example) where Arcann is not.

Right, it's a convenient last minute thing. It didn't involve any elaborate writing to set up. It seems most Star Wars redemption stories go the same way. It would have been easy to do something like that with Vaylin as well w/o drastically changing the writing of her character up to the magical moment we do 'something' and 'poof' she's now redeemed. Arcann: 'Let's kill half our Knights b/c I'm mad at father'. Vaylin: 'Um, no that's dumb.' I don't see all that much different between them during KotFE Ch. 1 - 16.9 besides Vaylin is more powerful and then potentially more dangerous. I say Ch. 16.9 since it's just the last 0.1 of that chapter where the writers decide 'whelp, Arcann can be a good guy now.' For your question, I wouldn't trust either to spare me.

@Eshvara I typed up a reply but my cat sabotaged it by jumping on my desk and apparently hitting the back button (he doesn't think Vaylin deserves redemption either, I guess). I just wanted to ask what you would think of Arcann if he just died at the end of KotFE (Senya doesn't show up to save him). Would he have still deserved redemption? My main issue is that the writers do nothing to set him up as worthy of redemption before that and it just kind of conveniently happens because Senya. Vaylin never gets that privilege. I think I typed something up about using the holocron to save her in Ch. 8 instead of just slowly walking up to her during the UNLIMITED POWAH Force thing she was channeling and stab her with a light saber (or blast her). Using the holocron to stop her makes more sense anyway. I think of young Vaylin as a lot like young Anakin Skywalker but even he got redemption (and he killed his wife, tortured his daughter, tried to kill his son until the last minute where he decided that was bad, oh yeah, and he killed billions of innocents). But most people see Anakin as a good person at heart and worthy of redemption.

She was freed from his direct control (no more magic word to use against her) but was never free from how she was conditioned. We don't ever know what Vaylin would want since we don't get to interact with her in a state where she was healed. If Arcann just died at the end of KotFE when we fought him, would you think he should have had a redemption arc instead of just getting death? This is mainly where I disagree. I think they could have given Vaylin a redemption arc (if they wanted to). They didn't and that's just how it is (I can express disappointment in this but whatever). I just don't agree that there's something about how she is written even now that would make redemption impossible or not fit her character if they had wanted to go that route. So did Arcann. Anger hardly makes someone awful. I think a lot of it was Vaylin being frustrated over not being able to use the Force like her brothers (until she discovered she could).

I don't see why they couldn't make Satele a comp now (what is she even doing now?). I mean, we now have Mandalore running around with us (I kind of want to level a BH and use Shae the whole time for the lolz). I think Acina would have to be dethroned before she joined the Alliance as a companion. It could happen as I'm sure there are plenty of Sith/Imperials that don't like her, especially more conservative ones. I do really like Acina but I don't think I want her as a companion simply because I think she makes a more interesting Sith Empress. I think the storyline will go back to focusing on conflicts between the Sith Empire and Republic with the 'Eternal Alliance' (I hate that name) either trying to mediate and bring peace or dominate them both (or maybe you can favor one over the other). Acina would play a big role in that but not so much if she's just another companion. I do like her armor, but would never wear it since I don't want to look like other NPCs.

I don't think it's unreasonable that you have to save Arcann to keep Senya around. She sees him as the only child she can save and if she loses him, she has nothing. There's so many redemption or 'cured from the Dark Side' stories in Star Wars. I just don't get why some think it's so impossible for Vaylin or that she doesn't deserve it. What qualities does one need to deserve redemption (or the attempt at least)? Is it just when they almost die and have a last minute change of heart? With the examples you use, they caused a lot of pain to others but never stopped and thought about it while doing it. Arcann ordered a whole planet destroyed because he was mad at the Outlander (his father). He didn't seem so pained about it while he was giving that order. Before Vaylin was taken to Nathema and caged and horrifically abused daily from pre-adolescence to adulthood, she seemed like a somewhat normal little girl who loved her mother and looked up to her older brothers. I think that is a quality her character has that makes her redeemable (i.e., Vaylin was forced to become what she is now and isn't in her nature). I would argue that the only one who doesn't have redeemable qualities or deserves it is Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorian/Bob/whoever. That guy was pure evil from birth.

That's one gripe I have about Lana's character. We don't really know much about what makes her tick. She's lacking a properly developed background, imo. We know some vague details but that's about it. She was born into a wealthy business family but we know nothing more. Does Lana like her family? Did she want to follow in their footsteps before becoming Sith? How did she feel about becoming Sith? A part of this is the way her character was introduced into the story. Lana was mainly a quest giver that helped you move the plot along in the SoR expansion. It's similar to Theron's role but as you said, he as more development in material outside the game. Even if everyone hasn't read this, it's still there for those who are interested in him and is still a part of his character story. They (unfortunately) removed the type of conversations we used to have with companions which limits how much info we can get about new ones. But it's also the way they write Lana. Koth is a new character, but I feel like I know more about him even since he's very open with his feelings and will let you know if you do something he likes/hates. Basically, I wish Lana would talk about herself/feelings more and not focus her so much on just being support for the main character and their goals.

It's bugged on Story mode. You can do it in Veteran but it's a lot harder.

Doc? lol I mean, we could go back and forth on who we believe is the most popular but there's really no hard evidence. I'm not convinced that was their intent though. It just seems like people are unhappy b/c their faves didn't come back.

You assume everyone feels the same way about those characters as you do. It wasn't meaningless for those who liked them (or maybe just one of them). Sure, there could have been a different combo that would have made me care more (like Ashara/Kira...eek, that would be really hard) but that's just me. Vette always seemed pretty popular to me (maybe not on this website but on other places like reddit). She's the first SW comp you get and I've seen lots of people speak highly about her romance. Who would you say are the popular companions from vanilla SWTOR then?

The same can be said about Arcann before two things happen: 1) Our characters almost kills him. 2) Senya saves him and takes him to the Voss for healing. We never got to this point with Vaylin since when we fought her we just killed her. It's not really a fair comparison.

Imperial characters seemed to have a romance going with Lana during the Shadow of Revan/Ziost missions. So I think they were with her before Koth, unlike a Republic character. I romance her with a Jedi Knight and I never got the impression it was serious back then for obvious reasons. Plus, the last last time my Knight saw Lana before being frozen in carbonite, Lana was yelling at her (because of the whole Master Surro thing on Ziost). I do like the idea that Lana is the main character that can't lay off the [flirt] button... For an Imperial character, you would be Liara, Koth is Miranda, with Lana getting back with "Liara" (your character) again in ME3.

It seems like Lana had her "3 minutes" of Koth during the years the Outlander was frozen in carbonite but I don't think they are together currently.

He only tried to do the right thing after the Outlander kicked his *** and mommy gave him some magic LS healing love or whatever Senya did to him. Arcann was responsible for a lot of death and the destruction of whole planets before then. This was due to anger over his father not paying attention to him. This is still a form of abuse and very wrong ofc, but nothing like Vaylin suffered. She's definitely more deserving of redemption to me, even if it would be harder to achieve.

Nah, they don't. I think she would need more than "LS magic healing" though. That would be a start, but Vaylin would need a lot of psychiatric counseling after Nathema. But our characters couldn't even try...I think the most reaction we have to what had happened to her was saying something about feeling bad for here while we were on Nathema. You can't even call out Valkorian after Nathema...like, "hey, *** is wrong with you, man!?!" (I guess we already know he's an evil bastard, so it would be redundant).