Vaylin's Farewell

[Celise]

Warning: Very long read, it is a complete suggestion as i can make it:

(it seems fitting for Vaylin's character and the last loose end to tie up surrounding her fate)

 

I had this idea about Vaylin. The last we saw of her she was inside the outlander's mind no matter the alignment, she could still be trapped there.

 

So i had the thought that one night as your character is sleeping in the alliance base, you are travelling along the memories in your mind, the subconcious when you suddenly find yourself crawling through small narrow tunnels wetih smll drops in between, when you come to the final drop a cutscene shows your character dropping out the hole and onto a platform with no support, it is just floating with chapter 2's FE music piping in the background.

 

Your character begins to realise walking around the platform that you are in someone elses physche and when you walk clear you see Vaylin standing there, hands behind her back, but no longer the evil version we all know her for. It turns out she allows you into her mind since she is still trapped in yours and explains of a way to escape and be one with the force, but in order to do this, she needs to fill you in on details of her past.

 

Each object in the area represents a memory belonging to Vaylin during her short life. as you interact with a few of them being text on the screen, she explains that there was a little more than what the text states. other memories you are moved into that memory as its frozen during the key moment in Vaylins life as your character and Vaylin stand outside the event and Vaylin explains what happened, what she felt and what her actions are, Vaylin explains that she couldn't act independently no matter how hard she tried and in one memory with Senya and Vaylin playing in a field, it was the only special moment in her life she felt so happy to be herself.

 

After interacting with about half the objects in Vaylin's mind; She explains that she wished she had a bettter life than being a weapon her father always wanted her to be, instead the outlander gave her a chance to redeem herself in an unexpected way even though it was far too late for it to matter.

 

PC Choice:

1. You aren't responsible for what your father turned you into Vaylin. I only brought out the part in you that you were never given a chance to experience in life. The ability to choose. (Light side)

2. Maybe i did, maybe i didn't. What i know for sure is that you were a threat even if you had changed your mind about me. Either way i don't really care. (Further choice later, no alignment)

3. You will always remain a weapon that Valkorion made you out to be, you can't change what you have always been. (Dark side)

 

Vaylins answer will dictate her next set of actions:

 

1. Thank you, outlander.. it means more to me than either one of us realises. All i ever wanted was the chance to lead a good life but all i ever got was a cage. I no longer want to be caged any more. (Leads to a good outcome)

 

As you go through the various memories and Vaylin explains them, you encounter a more recent one on Nathema with Valkorion in attendance looking on distantly, as he always has. Suddenly Vaylin is forced to open her eyes despite the heavy sedation in a Kolto tank as she senses and watches her father showing signs of gaining power as the immediate area to his body is rippling with force energy. (this was the exact moment the emperor consumed everything on Ziost and this voice, Valkorion also gained in power.)

 

Vaylin knew what had happened, she could sense it by reaching out as millions of people across the galaxy on this unknown world were suddenly not there any more. It was a moment that defined Vaylin as she looked visibly upset by this. However when she wasn't focusing on Ziost her father was staring directly at her from the otherside of the tank glass when she noticed.

 

The memory froze as Vaylin and the outlander spoke about this event: Vaylin mentions that this was the first choice she had but Valkorion stared at her in such a way that she was powerless to act. Vaylin only wished she could of acted to stop her father but wasn't strong enough. The Outlander says that there was nothing Vaylin could of done and that it wasn't a real choice, it was made to look like one. The outlander goes on to state that Vaylin has a choice now, to leave or to stay. Vaylin chooses to leave and thanks the outlander as she kisses the outlander on the cheek.

 

The outlander comes out of their dream state: if Senya and Arcann were saved, they hover over you as you awaken. They sensed her becoming one with the force as Arcann admits to the outlander that this is what Vaylin deserved, to be free and happy and he was proud of her for finally shaking off the shackles of her past.

Senya was in a slightly more subdued mood as she explains that she tried to rescue Vaylin once, how she took down Nathema guards, but Vaylin didn't come as Valkorion came out with more guards. She wished Vaylin had come with her, but Senya turns around to face the outlander and thanks the outlander for doing was Senya wanted for so long as both Arcann and Senya wonder off together.

 

If Senya and or Arcann is dead, neither of them show but Lana does instead. Lana explains she felt what had happened to Vaylin and Vaylin has finally broken her chains and the force has set her free. Everything a Sith following the code ever hoped to have happen to them as she manages it in a way where the Dark Side wasn't needed at all. This makes Lana reconsider her position as a Sith as she wonders off.

 

2. As you go through the memories with Vaylin a memory of her past shows on Zakuul. Vaylin has left Nathema, is now High Justice and walking through the streets of the old world, along with a few Knights with riot shields and lightsaber pikes. Vaylin looks unhappy at the state of the place. During her travel near the holovision in the old market square, a bunch of beggars ask for money from the High Justice as she looks down on them, shakes her head as the memory freezes.

 

Vaylin says that her uncaring attitude is what got her into this point, she explains she had a chance previous with her father (alluding to the memory in 1) but she longer cared after that event. The rest of the memory doesn't play she instead says that she ordered her knights to kill the beggars because they were not productive or helpful and the fact she just didn't care.

 

The Outlander and Vaylin come into conflict at this point in what to do with Vaylin (no alignment with these choices):

 

1. Decide to free her.

2. Keep her locked up.

 

If option 1 is selected, the outlander leaves the dream state and Vaylin just leaves to become one with the force. no matter if its Senya or Arcann or Lana, none of them show up.

 

If option 2 is selected, the outlander wakes up out of the dream state and nothing happens.

 

3. while going through the memories, Vaylin encounters a memory in her past as it plays. It shows her mercilessly killing everyone on one of the worlds Arcann told her to burn down in order to get cooperaion to take out the Alliance in FE. During this memory, the old, sick and infirm are all cut down as much as the heavy and young as she danced in the chaos as the knights behind her found quite distracting in a bad way. Vaylin turned around to the knights as the memory froze.

 

Vaylin said she killed those knights because they were more afraid of her and her distractions than worry about protecting her. She accepts that she never really had a choice in anything and all she will ever be is what her father programmed her for. Vaylin pushes the outlander with the force in her mind as the outlander wakes and for a moment Vaylin had control before the outlander lands on a heap on the floor next to the bed. Lana can sense conflict within the outlander and watches over them.

 

Inside the mind Vaylin throws up defenses to stop the outlander from coming after her as she attempts to access the cortex of mind. this leads to a fight where Vaylin is slain as the outlander exits the dream state with lana hovering around afriad she had lost the outlander, again.

 

Lana says she felt the outlander almost disappearing for a moment and felt Vaylin's presense the next moment. The outlander said that Vaylin didn't want to leave the outlanders mind and decided to destroy her within her own mind.

 

in all three cases with the ending it is explained when the outlander makes it outside overlooking the allince glass domes and turrets on top with Lana, more or less on the same spot Vaylin was slain. She says that Vaylin was broken, had always been broken and could never be repaired, but Vaylin always had a quality of strength about herself and it is too bad she left this world the way others wanted. With the light side choice, you see Vaylin standing there for a moment before fading.

[gamephil]

It's a lovely thought, and if we had gotten it at the time, I would not still be talking about her. Any attempt to balance out taunting, humiliating, and outright torturing her because the story told us to would be good by me. Of course, I'd prefer to have had the option to NOT do those things and then still would have liked something like this, but it would make the whole thing so much better.

 

I mean, the story they gave us for her is one I think is done way too often, and I think it's the worst example of it I have ever seen, but some form of her existing beyond it, clearly shown in the narrative, and actually getting the help (if we so choose) she should have gotten in life rather than everyone turning their backs on her, would be good. With what we were shown of what was done to her, regardless of my or anyone else's opinion of whether she was villain or victim, I will always prefer her to end the story alive, even if she leaves the story at that point, but this or something like it would be a close second. They should make you a job offer.

[Blackvinils]

Fantastic work, really. But will it be possible can we to get Vaylin as a companion, at least through the terminal, thereafter?

 

(However, I still remain in the opinion that it is possible to bring her back to life. I do not believe that everything can end so dramatic .I believe, there is another way.)

 

 

 

#BringBackVaylin

Edited May 15, 2018 by Blackvinils

[Iheaca]

This has the flavour of the kind of scenes that would come after end credits. I like it. :-)

[Celise]

It's a lovely thought, and if we had gotten it at the time, I would not still be talking about her. Any attempt to balance out taunting, humiliating, and outright torturing her because the story told us to would be good by me. Of course, I'd prefer to have had the option to NOT do those things and then still would have liked something like this, but it would make the whole thing so much better.

 

I mean, the story they gave us for her is one I think is done way too often, and I think it's the worst example of it I have ever seen, but some form of her existing beyond it, clearly shown in the narrative, and actually getting the help (if we so choose) she should have gotten in life rather than everyone turning their backs on her, would be good. With what we were shown of what was done to her, regardless of my or anyone else's opinion of whether she was villain or victim, I will always prefer her to end the story alive, even if she leaves the story at that point, but this or something like it would be a close second. They should make you a job offer.

 

having a good ending to the Vaylin storyline and having some meaningful impact would be a fine way to send her character out. the idea was to go for a fairly powerful moment with Vaylin that she never experienced since a child and the ability to let go of things holding her back. Certain Sith in lore have been known to be tied to the physical world by an object or an unfufilled sense of duty that compels their force spirits to remain, it anchors them to that realm. So by having Vaylin explain her backstory, it is like digging the anchor out the ground.

 

The good choice gives you that sense like that seen in episode 6 in the star wars film, you managed to not only redeem a former monster, but help her take flight from her past once and for all, as she comes before you to wish you farewell.

 

The dark option destroys her force spirit and brings about a tragic end to a tormented young woman that never had a choice and ultimately never did.

 

Finally the middle option opens up the request for her to leave your body or for you to keep her there and make a choice for her.

 

Fantastic work, really. But will it be possible can we to get Vaylin as a companion, at least through the terminal, thereafter?

 

(However, I still remain in the opinion that it is possible to bring her back to life. I do not believe that everything can end so dramatic .I believe, there is another way.)

 

#BringBackVaylin

 

Perhaps? occasionally you run across a force user who has this once in a million chance of getting a special force skill that needs training, or one they learned very easily, to jump from host to host like Zash. i thought about it, but it would reek of retconning too much, not just by the same power Zash used but if she controlled a being from the force it would be her voice, it would be a bit much.

 

I'm not saying no to the idea of her come back, but it would need to be original.

 

This has the flavour of the kind of scenes that would come after end credits. I like it. :-)

 

Considering this came from a very vivid dream and typed it up only hours later, i figure keeping those symbolic meanings from the dream would be perfect for a world that appears to be a dream inside the mind of Vaylin.

 

It seemed like a great thing to bring up for SWTOR.