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Does Bioware even remember what the story of Kotor was?


OldVengeance

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I don't know, maybe I'm making too big of a deal with this but why does everyone in the game refer to the Jedi Civil War as a war between the Republic and same Sith Empire as in TOR? I guess it's a relatively minor issue but I've reached Taris with both Republic and Empire characters and both sides will tell you that Taris was ruled and then destroyed by the Sith Empire in their war against the Republic. Obviously that is wrong, Revan and Malak's version of the Sith Empire was composed of corrupted Republic forces and the fleet made by the Star Forge.

 

Did they just decide to say that to avoid confusing new players? Confusingly one Republic officer actually tells the player that the Republic needed to learn to defend against orbital bombardment even though they weren't actually in control of Taris at the time. At least Darth Baras incorrectly says "Taris was once ruled by the Empire." Was it just laziness? A retcon to make the story less confusing? Are they trying to imply that the Revan's Empire was just an extension of the one in Tor?

 

The timeline feature on the website says when Revan and Malak first attacked they were working for the Sith Emperor. First of all that recton doesn't really make sense playing the first game again, and secondly it doesn't make sense even if we assume that's what they mean because destruction of Taris took place after Darth Revan rebelled against the Emperor. I've come to expect that Star Wars and this part of the EU in particular is experienced with retcon after retcon after retcon but, if this is one, it doesn't even seem necessary to tell the story here.

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One thing you have to remember is history is created by the victors. The Republic believes that the Sith Empire they fought over the star forge is the same Sith Empire that's come back recently and forced them into the treaty of coruscant. The current Sith Empire is perfectly fine with claiming Taris as a win for them. Malak was Sith through and through.
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You're going to have to point out source NPCs, because I don't recall a single person on Republic Taris stating that the Sith Empire ruled the planet. I also don't recall anyone saying it was the Sith Empire that bombarded it back into the stone age. Plenty of people say the Sith did it, which is true enough as Malak was clearly a follower of the Sith teachings and philosophy, but no one says it was the Sith Empire.

 

I find it more amusing that everyone seems to know all about the Jedi Civil War, but no one but a few esoteric historians knows who Revan is. It would be like saying you know all about the US Civil War but have never heard of General Lee.

Edited by Kedan
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I find it more amusing that everyone seems to know all about the Jedi Civil War, but no one but a few esoteric historians knows who Revan is. It would be like saying you know all about the US Civil War but have never heard of General Lee.

 

One republic NPC actually says "well that goes to show the state of the galaxies education system" or something to that effect, if you ask "Who was Revan?" when he mentions him.

 

Regarding the OP, nothing that happens means retcon necessarily. Propaganda is a powerful tool. The republic can say "We beat the Sith before, we can beat them again!", while the Sith can say "A single agent of our empire brought the Republic to its knees, and now we are here in force!", etc etc

 

Also, "misinformation" fed to the player is common in games to increase intrigue, so what a main character is told or remembers can never truly be considered 100% fact either.

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Why would they think that? They knew Revan and his Empire. The Sith Emperor only recently came out of hiding. And Gnost-Dural seems to know that Darth Revan had ambitions of his own during the war,

 

Anyway, Darth Baras says to the Sith Warrior at the start of act two "Taris was once controlled by the Empire" if you ask him to tell you about the planet.

 

And one of the Republic quest-givers in the second outpost. I'm afraid I forget the names. I think he might be the one that asks you to enter the Endar Spire. One of the responses I got as a Jedi Knight was "The Empire won that day" in response to him bringing up the bombardment of Taris. Although the actual dialogue he said didn't mention the Empire, the NPC's response then directly connected the bombardment of Taris with the sacking of Coruscant.

 

BioWare might remember, but for the NPCs in SWTOR, it was three hundred years ago. I think it would be weirder if every NPC got the history right at every turn.

 

Well, yeah but the recent conflict with the Sith Empire took place only within the last 30 years. Why would he think that a war 300 years ago was part of it? Wouldn't that like someone mistakenly thinking that Napoleon fought the Nazis or something?

Edited by OldVengeance
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Well, yeah but the recent conflict with the Sith Empire took place only within the last 30 years. Why would he think that a war 300 years ago was part of it?

 

That's the Sith for you! Some of them probably feel that the war started with the Great Hyperspace War, and never stopped.

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I suppose that makes sense for the Sith side, although Darth Baras never seemed like the type of guy to intentionally gloss over and confuse details. Particularly, regarding Sith Lords who didn't have a connection to the Empire. He never mentions Darth Malak by name, and a new player might get the impression he was talking about something that happened relatively recently in the Great Galactic War. Edited by OldVengeance
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I can't speak to Baras or the Empire side of things, since I haven't hit Taris yet with my BH, and I don't have a Warrior, but I can see how that would be confusing and contradictory.

 

As for the Republic:

 

And one of the Republic quest-givers in the second outpost. I'm afraid I forget the names. I think he might be the one that asks you to enter the Endar Spire. One of the responses I got as a Jedi Knight was "The Empire won that day" in response to him bringing up the bombardment of Taris. Although the actual dialogue he said didn't mention the Empire, the NPC's response then directly connected the bombardment of Taris with the sacking of Coruscant.

 

The NPC says something to the effect of "We never did figure out how to defend against an Orbital Bombardment, if we had we could have protected Coruscant..." which is where you're getting that connection I suspect.

 

As a smuggler, I gave a smart aleck response about being able to stop a Cruiser or two by myself, but a fleet being a little much.

Edited by Kedan
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That is correct. But another part of the connection, aside from the paraphrase dialogue was the fact that he says that Taris was "one of the Republic's greatest failures" before tying that to bombardment of Taris and Coruscant. So while it's not as explicit as the Empire's version, it still feel like they are trying to draw a connection.
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While the writers truly might have had something up their sleeve, so to speak, when said dialogue was written, I have another theory:

 

It's quite obvious that BW is trying as hard as possible to attract any and all comers, and that means not leaning too heavily on a prequel game (even if that prequel game is KOTOR) for your lore. The broad canvas is Republic vs Empire, which all original trilogy fans will relate to, as this current Sith Empire has pretty much the exact same uniforms, insignia, and banners, with a few aesthetic differences here and there, as the OT Empire. There's stuff here and there about KOTOR's story, but BW kept the sole focus on a very generic good side vs bad side.

 

My thoughts, and nothing more or less.

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I don't know, maybe I'm making too big of a deal with this but why does everyone in the game refer to the Jedi Civil War as a war between the Republic and same Sith Empire as in TOR? I guess it's a relatively minor issue but I've reached Taris with both Republic and Empire characters and both sides will tell you that Taris was ruled and then destroyed by the Sith Empire in their war against the Republic. Obviously that is wrong, Revan and Malak's version of the Sith Empire was composed of corrupted Republic forces and the fleet made by the Star Forge.

 

No, they were sent back into Republic space by Emperor Vitiate to act as a vanguard for the rest of the Empire's invasion.

 

Did they just decide to say that to avoid confusing new players? Confusingly one Republic officer actually tells the player that the Republic needed to learn to defend against orbital bombardment even though they weren't actually in control of Taris at the time. At least Darth Baras incorrectly says "Taris was once ruled by the Empire." Was it just laziness? A retcon to make the story less confusing? Are they trying to imply that the Revan's Empire was just an extension of the one in Tor?

 

They're implying that it was an extension of the Empire because it was. Vitiate told them to go crush the Republic, they went off to do so, then got it in their heads that they should rule their own Empire.

 

The timeline feature on the website says when Revan and Malak first attacked they were working for the Sith Emperor. First of all that recton doesn't really make sense playing the first game again, and secondly it doesn't make sense even if we assume that's what they mean because destruction of Taris took place after Darth Revan rebelled against the Emperor. I've come to expect that Star Wars and this part of the EU in particular is experienced with retcon after retcon after retcon but, if this is one, it doesn't even seem necessary to tell the story here.

 

Yes, there is something of a retcon here, but its not really huge, and it still makes sense.

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Yes, there is something of a retcon here, but its not really huge, and it still makes sense.

 

Read the book Revan and do a bit more research before spouting that out. It was made clear that Revan and Malak

 

 

wrested control of the Emperor's influence as they resisted his mind control. As a result, their minds began erasing memory of the event and started believing the choices and actions they made were their wills, not the Emperors, and assumed the roles of dark lords of the Sith acting on their own will to take over the galaxy.

 

Edited by Forgon
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Read the book Revan and do a bit more research before spouting that out. It was made clear that Revan and Malak

 

 

 

 

Try reading the first line of my post. They might have thought whatever they wanted. It doesn't change the fact that they were there because of the Empire. They fought a war against the Republic because Vitiate told them too.

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You do know that The guy who wrote the revan book wrote kotor 1 right?

 

Drew Karpyshyn, awesome author imho,

 

I've really enjoyed reading through his books,

Darth Bane Triology, Mass Effect Triology and the Revan book, all were a great read...

 

I really reccomend the Darth Bane books..

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You do know that The guy who wrote the revan book wrote kotor 1 right?

 

You do know that the guy who made a prequel trilogy also made the orginal trilogy, right?

 

Just bc he was one of writers of KotOR doesn't mean he is omniscient, especially as he had nothing to do with KotOR2. What's even funny with his Revan novel he contradicts not only KotOR2 but also KotOR.

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