Forgive me if someone already pointed this out (I haven't read the entire thread yet) but that can't possibly be the case seeing as the Female Trooper and Satele Shan are both voiced by Jennifer Hale and they had no issues having those to talk to each other. Seeing as Zenith would just be an Alliance Alert, why would Theron ever even need to talk to him anyway?

First of all, thank you! Second: Really? That's how it went down for the SW? Uuuuugh. My (1/3) SW was male and quit KotFE right after he got Vette back. The other two are females who romanced Quinn, but one will forever be camped out in Chapter 1 of KotFE and using Marr as her companion (because him healing her gives me so much joy) and the other one is 70th level but sitting on Rishi. Any time I think of progressing ANY of them further I'm kind of like THIS. I think what was worse was the GALAXY WIDE MESSAGE to Theron about how you love him and how you'll give him a bunch of Eternal Fleet ships to do what he wants just please come home. I was sincerely hoping that (seeing as I'm 98.9% positive Lana is in on this whole charade) Lana just opened a direct channel to Theron but, nope, someone on Copero (Temple or Aristocra, can't remember who) mentions the message. Ugh, ugh, UGH. Even if you DIDN'T romance Theron, the whole message is just bad, too private for public consumption, and it makes the Alliance Commander look weak, making them AND the Alliance a bigger target than they already are. Bad, bad, BAD! My husband is the exact same way for our tabletop games and in return, those campaigns last a whole lot longer than the ones our friend tries to run where he beats us over the head with weird, rule breaking weaknesses (To make it more interesting!) and shoving his idea of fun down our throats. Husband's longest campagin: Almost three years. Friend's longest campaign: 2 sessions. BW could learn something from that small statement alone. Charles Boyd, the lead writer, the guy who gave us this whole mess, is the guy who wrote the Trooper storyline. The Trooper. Yeah. So, make of that what you will. (If you liked the Trooper, great! If not...well...there you go.) (Personally I thought Trooper was, "Eh, okay." Not the best, not the worst. Which, honestly can be said about KotFE/ET as a whole. It's not exactly a ringing endorsement for KotFE/ET though.)

My husband and I were talking about the state of the game's story last night. For the record he thinks it's terribad and hasn't played past Chapter Nine of KotFE. In fact he initiated "Highlander Protocols (there were no sequels to the Highlander movie. There was only the one Highlander movie)" and has stated, on numerous occasions to me, that "It's such a shame that SWTOR's story was never continued past Illum. It was a good game. I wonder what happened to it?" Anyway, he stated it best: "SWTOR's current writers are like bad fanfic authors. They have a good universe to work with and very interesting characters, but then they introduce THEIR OWN "Original Character" and the entire story revolves around that sparkly new OC, completely disregarding the original characters, the lore, and the rules of the universe they're supposed to be writing for." As we all know, that's a major crime in fanfic writing: Spending more time focusing on how awesome your new OC is and having the actual universe be background characters who are only shown and referenced when it makes the OC look cool. He's not wrong. And in this instance, even OUR characters are not considered the "OC's" in this case. Cipher Nine, Wrath, Darth Nox (et al), Barsen'thor, Hero of Tython, and etcetera are real characters in the universe. We, as the players, just happen to be driving them. But say you've only EVER played the Jedi Knight: Playing only the Jedi Knight doesn't make Cipher Nine not exist in the SWTOR universe. C9 still does (Hell, Kaliyo knows Doc!), regardless of whether or not you played that story. The fact that all eight stories were at least loosely intertwined with each other made the overall story even better! The current writing team are breaking major rules in what I would consider good story telling. 1. Your OC should never outshine/be better/ be above the Universe they reside in. 2. Show. Don't Tell! They do a lot of TELLING us how (for example) cruel Arcann is, but we really only see him sitting on his throne desperately wishing people would stop calling him Emperor Three Dog. We rarely see him in action though. Unless he's puling a Deus Ex Machina move and cheaply beating our characters by cut scene. 3. Video game story telling rule: The PC, thereby the customer who paid for the game, should always in the room as the story advances. We, as players, should never see things that our character doesn't see. In the vanilla story, the story was never really advanced off screen without our input, yet most of KotFE seems to be visibly happening without our character even being there. See: Arcann sitting on his throne having his "Over the top I'm EEEEEEVIL" conversations with Vaylin. Our characters have become background characters, at best. They (our characters) aren't driving the story, Lana and Theron are. 4. They continually make our characters look like complete morons in comparison to their SUPER SPECIAL CHARACTERS. Case in point: Do you honestly think a Cipher Nine Alliance Commander, at the VERY least, doesn't know what Theron's doing in the current storyline? They did the exact. same. thing. in their own story (I mean, yeah, it sort of backfired what with the whole "Otomonophobia" thing but other than that...) And yet, I guarantee you, a Cipher Nine Alliance Commander will, without any input from us, be completely GOBSMACKED "OMG totally out of left field!" that Theron was just SO CLEVER! HE'Z THE BESTEST SPAI EVAR! The spy will be utterly in awe of the other spy...being a spy doing spy like things. 5. Speaking of "Otomonophobia..." More and more throughout KotFE have you (General You, not you, the person I'm quoting) noticed how our characters are saying things without our input? And it's ALWAYS to the SUPER SPECIAL characters. On Voss, when meeting up with Theron, we see Theron with his single pistol shooting at something off screen. Our characters say, "Good shot, Theron!" Without any sort of conversation dial. Nope. It doesn't matter how good, evil, or even WHO the actual PC is...they will ALWAYS tell Theron that's it was a good shot, taking the spotlight AWAY from the player (who is supposed the be the protagonist) and shining it on Theron...who gunned down a bunch of champion robots with a couple blaster shots (ETA: He is NEVER that useful or effective when I use him as a companion, even at Rank 50!). Also, I bring up the Agent's keyword here. My Agent went storming in after Vaylin and boldly shouted Vaylin's keyword. So did my JK. So did everyone. No conversation dial here, either. Because Vaylin is so super special she will only be defeated by her keyword. But my gripe is the agent. Not giving us the opportunity to try ANYTHING else first, my Agent who had actually said in the story "I would not wish that upon anyone else, not even my worst enemy" just all willy-nilly uses Vaylin's keyword. It's a complete disregard of the Agent and completely contradictory to what the agent themself had said ten minutes before. I don't CARE if trying anything else before keywording her would have failed, my point is that our characters weren't allowed to TRY. These five points all cross over into each other, I realize that. I just needed to dissect the specific subpoints within the overall point, which is BW's current writers are more focused on their SUPER SPARKLY characters and telling THEIR story instead of focusing it on the PC. Had the game originally been written and released in the KotFE style of story telling, my irritation wouldn't be as bad. But in 2012 they set the precedent and then they deviated away from it, making them look like fanfic writers who are trying (and failing) to imitate the original writers. Harsh, I know. But I used to write fanfiction and while my stuff was generally well received, I did receive some criticism. And man, oh man, did it hurt. HOWEVER, because I wanted to get better, I read it all and, for the most part, realized that the advice was sound. Receiving the concrit made me a better writer and made my story better and even more well received. I want the writers to get better. I want them to actually THINK about the characters they're writing for (our PC) and about (the vanilla companions and such) and not beat us over the head so much with how awesome THEIR characters are. I don't mind their characters being awesome because, in all honesty, I really like them. I just don't want them to outshine everyone else. I want to to fit in not be a "square peg being forced into in a round hole" (to paraphrase the person I quoted). It doesn't take many resources to do a bit of research and to familiarize themselves with the characters who aren't their own. Because how it looks right now: it looks like they just read the one paragraph blurb out characters get when we got one of our vanilla companions, and didn't realize that those companions had actual character development AFTER the introductory blurb.

Cowbell. ALWAYS NEED MORE COWBELL!

My training in 7 Days to Die has prepared me for this day. *chick chick* LET'S DO THIS!

Falner Oeth (from Vector's companion story. The Zabrak diplomat who was trying to "help" Vector with his treaty). That entire holo call from Anora was because that guy started stirring the pot. Remember how he asked how "Allana" was doing and Vector corrected him with "Anora. We hear she's doing well." Oeth knew of Vector's ex-girlfriend and that she was an EX-Girlfriend. It was shortly after that that Vector received her call. Oeth DID NOT like the Killiks and he was doing everything within his power to make sure that Vector's treaty didn't gain momentum which, at this point, was still in its infant stages. So Oeth contacted Anora to "regretfully inform" her of what happened to Vector and then he "helpfully" let her know that there IS a cure for it. Jesus, imagine the guilt Anora might have felt, which maybe Oeth exploited. She would feel it was HER fault that Vector became a Joiner (Neither she NOR Oeth knew that it wasn't his choice and it was Project Proteon who maneuvered Vector into it). She probably felt that Vector went all "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" by PURPOSELY getting brainwashed by the Killiks to forget her. Oeth, OF COURSE, would have "helpfully" provided the dates of when Vector became Ambassador to the Killiks, which would have lined up to around the time Vector and Anora broke up. Then Anora would have been like, "Oh no, was it because of me?" Anora doesn't strike me as a manipulator to be honest. OETH on the other hand...oh he TOTALLY is. Basically Oeth thought that Vector would have been swayed away from pursuing the Killik treaty if his old flame started making noises of "Hey, please come back to me, we'll get you help and work on us again." Oeth, however, didn't realize that A) Vector had much more autonomy and individual thought than a typical Joiner and B) Vector was starting to have feelings towards Nine. VECTOR HAD MOVED ON WITH HIS LIFE. No biggie for Oeth. Anora was low hanging fruit, but he had to start his attempts to derail the treaty SOMEWHERE, so the easiest fruit gets picked first. So, yeah, Anora had no idea Vector was a Joiner until AFTER Vector started working on his treaty and Oeth got involved.

More than that, actually. After Quinn pulled his stunt, the time from Corellia, Illum, Makeb, SoR, and Ziost is almost two years (there's a timeline floating around somewhere on Reddit I think). That's not even getting into travel times (it takes much longer than a few seconds to go from one planet to another) PLUS the campaigns on those planets take longer for our characters than it does for us players. Sleep, eating, biobreaks, coordinating and rooting out enemies all take time. Suspension of disbelief. Enemies for our characters aren't actually all neatly placed every few yards in groups of three. BUUUUUUUT... We were frozen for five years after that. Seven years has passed for everyone who wasn't in carbonite. It's only been about two for the Alliance Commander. So, adding the extra time for suspension of disbelief for Pre-KotFE stuff, but subtracting the five years a SW Commander has been frozen in carbonite (they didn't know it was that long. it was over in almost an instant for them. They were SURPRISED when they found out how much time had passed), it's been about four years for the SW since Quinn betrayed them. And any Sith worth their salt would DEFINITELY hold a grudge for at least four years

I can get behind that logic. You had better bet your bottom dollar that as soon as Quinn steps foot on Odessen, Pierce (if the Commander got him) and Vette (definitely her) would have filled the commander in on what Quinn did.

I didn't want to say that, just in case it was actually a serious remark from someone who JUST experienced the "Quinncident" but hasn't played their SW to Iokath.

I honestly can't tell if this is a serious post.

Time for another head canon! (Gotta get these in while I'm still considered a subscriber. I'm still debating about renewing my sub.) Pre-Joiner Vector and Anora's breakup. I don't have many thoughts about their actual relationship because there really isn't a whole lot to go on from the very little information we were given about her. One can assume that it was going well enough to be talking about marriage though. "We were nearly engaged to her." NEARLY engaged. Why not engaged? What happened there? It wasn't becoming a Joiner. I get the impression that their relationship ended before he was stationed on Alderaan. In fact, I think she dumped him. Now before anyone starts thinking, "Well yeah because Anora sucks," hear me out. Vector very possibly could have been the jerk here. Shhhhhhh. Hear me out. Nearly engaged. That sounds like something someone would say if they were the dumpee. If they were the person who did the dumping, the engagement part would never have been mentioned. "I nearly proposed to her but then I dumped her." That's not how someone who did the breaking up talks about their previous relationships. Especially the "nearly" part. I can see if they HAD been engaged and then for some reason Vector ended the relationship then the engagement would be mentioned. But they weren't engaged. Only "Nearly engaged." And then there's the holo call from Anora that Vector showed the Agent. She's all like, "There are still people who care about you. I still remember... *finger pick* *shuffle feet*" Now the focus on the conversation was about how he was distressed that he felt nothing for her and the agent here (a LS one who's on the road to romancing him at least) would assure him that people change and that it was normal. But the call itself...that's a call that a regretful dumper would make (I hate the words "Dump/dumped/dumper/dumpee" but my brain is kind of drawing a blank on what other words to use. Sorry if you get the giggles. Sorry if *I* get the giggles. I'm almost 41 and I sometimes have the humor of an 11 year old boy. I digress.) not someone who was dumped. I don't know about you, but I was always pretty upset when I was the one who got dumped. I stopped caring about what the exes did with their lives once I was out of theirs. "But, Ang, before you go on another tangent about potty humor, how does this make Vector the jerk? Anora is the bad guy here, she dumped precious Vector!" Here we go. Vector was an Imperial. He was raised in a military household with Imperial ideals (side note: does it bother anyone else that we're given his father's name but his mother is just, "A local woman on Jurio?" Ugh.). His dossier says that, prior to his joining, he was obedient, charismatic, and effective. He supported the Empire's ideals. One of those is ambition. Vector was very ambitious. He scored high marks in school. He raised through the ranks of the diplomatic service rather quickly for someone who was so young. Bear in mind he was 26 years old when we met him and we have no idea how long he was a Joiner, nor how long he was on Alderaan BEFORE he became a Joiner. Even if it was two or three years, that puts this dude in his EARLY twenties. And this dude in his early twenties had garnered enough favors that he was able to call in all those chits YEARS later to get his Empire/Killik Treaty pushed through. He even said that he didn't need the Agent's help, it was just the cherry on top if the Agent was on board. ANYWAY, back to Vector and Anora. Vector was ambitious. That alone doesn't make him a Jerky-Jerk McJerkface. I believe that he was, at his core, always the Vector that WE know and love but there was MORE to him and his personality prior to his Joining. He alludes to this when/if Romanced Nine asks if SHE can be a Joiner with him. But it was his ambition that lead to Anora breaking up with Vector. I did a bit of research on what Diplomats and Ambassadors actually do. There's all different types of diplomats and ambassadorial jobs, NONE of which include "Traveling in a spaceship and making first contact with new civilizations," so it was largely unhelpful. Alas. But the thing that caught my eye was the part about travelling. Earthling Ambassadors who best fit Vector's job description get stationed for long periods of time in far flung locations. A posting can be up to two years. It mentions that this can be stressful to their families if their families are not allowed to travel with the Ambassador. There it is. "Talk about burying the lede here, Ang. Jeez." I think, or rather I head canon, that Vector and Anora were getting very serious. Looking at engagement rings (or whatever the equivalent is in the SWTOR universe), looking at apartments together. Talking about 2.5 kids and an akk dog. And somewhere in there Anora asks Vector if he can possibly take a desk job at IDS (Imperial Diplomatic Service). Vector LOVES his job as a First Contact diplomat! Remember he REQUESTED to be one! Vector is a total Trekkie and he wants to boldly go where no man has gone before! But Anora points out that he's on a naval ship. No families allowed. Maybe he could be stationed permanently somewhere else? It doesn't have to be Kaas City. At this point Vector starts getting upset. He's ambitious, you see. If he does well enough at his job then they'll have enough money and influence within the Empire to-- Anora interjects with that he'd never be home. She'd be alone for YEARS at a time and holo calls just aren't enough. And what about the kids if they had any? They'd never see their father. Vector...Vector is only human. More human than he is as we know him. And humans get upset and tend to not see the forest through the trees. Anora is basically giving him an ultimatum: Her or his adventurous job. In a snit he chooses his job. Forest. Trees. Emotions are running high. It's probably something he says just because. It's not USUAL for him to be like that, but Anora is someone he loves so he wouldn't always have his Diplomat face on for her. So she breaks up with him. For good reason. He loves her, but not as much as he loves spreading the glory of the Empire. And now for added angst: A week later he gets his indefinite assignment to House Thul. Something that Anora would have loved. Buuuuuuut she's not taking his calls. And that's that. I further head canon that Vector was only at House Thul for maybe six months before meeting the Oroboro nest. He makes mention that the nest gave him peace and understanding. Sure, that can sound like a generic Killik thing to say but I like to think that it really DID give him peace after his upset over the breakup with Anora and understanding of where she was coming from. Not that it mattered anymore because the Nest is home. Until Nine enters his life. But that's another story WHEW. That took forever to write. Thank you guys so much if you read the entire thing!

IIRC, aren't those guys human though? As for Darth Skotia, I think my FAVORITE line is from Khem. Inquisitor tells Khem to eat Skotia and Khem is basically all like, "No. The cybernetics gives me indigestion." (Paraphrased of course. For the life of me I can't remember the exact line.)

I agree. I made this when I first ran my D5 Inquisitor through. I also agree with this. I don't agree with BW for writing such a Force heavy story seeing as it excludes half the classes in the game. I mean, for the most part my Agent fit in okayish, but not 100% WHY would Valkorion take an interest in her, you know? Bad writing. That's all I can really say.

Ah! You guys are both right. Jesus, and I've played the Agent 8 times, you'd think I would have at least remembered Saber. My hatred of Hunter and absolute adoration of Vector just kind of shadows over everything else I guess I stand corrected! With that in mind, they TOTALLY should have just added cybernetics as a jewelry option instead of their own race (which is just a human with cybernetics *shakes head* )

Nope. Arcann enjoyed watching the houses fight each other. It was a form of entertainment on Zakuul. The Alderaan Star Fortress contact mentioned this. So Thul is still around.

Probably not. Excluding the new KotFE characters (who were created in a different program apparently), all the other NPC's and stuff used the same character creator we did (with a few, notable exceptions: The Torian/Vector face template-which if you guys will notice is identical-is NOT available for players to use. I've TRIED to recreate it and it's not there.) But, in Theron's book Annihilation, the main villain is a Mirialan who has cybernetics in her. Cybernetics are just...cybernetic enhancements, you know? It's not that only humans would use them. It's a very confusing choice BW made there and I can only assume they made Cyborgs a separate race because they wanted 8 races in the legacy window for visual balance and they couldn't make other Star Wars races (like the Nautolans) playable back then. The Cathar and Togrutas came afterwards and, still, it's a balance in the window with five over five. That's what *I* assume and how I'd do it because I'm OCD like that. *shrug*

This game. It was THIS game that the Devs got death threats from the players. Stay classy, SWTOR players, amirite?

I never understood this as well. WHY ON EARTH would Lana unfreeze Darth Nox? Occlus? I can see that. Imperious? Absolutely. But NOX? REALLY? The Get Along Gang would NOT stand behind a tyrant that Nox most likely would be.

Good point. They already have Cyborgs (who are only humans with cybernetics) as a separate race. Adding more races that are basically human with some slight variations becomes redundant. (Personally I'm baffled as to why Cyborgs themselves are separate. Cybernetics should have been an optional jewelry option for all the races, TBH.)

OH YEAH! (It's a link. I spent waaayyy too much time on this stupid joke. And waaaayyy too much time laughing while I did it.) ETA: My husband brought up a good point as well. Vector basically went AWOL with the Killiks and Thul is in support of the Empire. WHY would Thul allow what are essentially DESERTERS into the palace, not even getting into the fact that said deserters are Killiks!

You DO know that Leliana was brought back to life by the Maker and is at the end of DA2 and is one of your character's main advisors in DA:I, right? Right? So MY point still stands that BW will keep Lana safe. FFS, BW waved THE HAND OF GOD over their Bae and brought her back to life.

PTS =/= Closed beta. PTS, also known as PUBLIC Test Server is just that: Public. Closed Beta is NOT open to the public. NDA's are in effect and enforced.

I will take you up on that bet. Because Lana's in on it. Theron's playing Double Agent. She and Theron came up with the plan together. That's where MY money lies. And the Commander is going to be made to look like an effing moron while Theron and Lana slap each other on the back for being so clever (A Cipher Nine Commander won't even have the option to be like, "Duh, I did the same thing in Act 2 of my personal story.") No. Lana and Theron will be made to look SUPER DUPER CLEVER and we won't even have the option to say "boo" to them about it. Of COURSE more male companions have been returned because almost 75% of the companions are male. Why the huge disparity is a completely different argument, as is the lack of LGBTQ companion choices.

I can get behind this one because I never remember who Rusk is. KILL HIM FOR BEING UNMEMORABLE!

They dont use the PTS because they don't want to spoil the story. Shhhhhhh, pay no attention to the fact that there really hasn't been any story in the last year... But seriously, that is the reason why they don't open up the PTS. They have closed servers that they invite big name raiding guilds to so they can test out the raid bosses and that's it.