A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 114: Telos: Underground Base and Secret Academy (KOTOR II 05)

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

You can watch Austin play through this section of the game right here. The Exile and their companions delve into the abandoned military bunker on the surface of Telos in search of a shuttle that can, potentially, bring them to whoever has stolen the Ebon Hawk. And oh, what a "whoever" that turns out to be... Show Notes Invisible Headgear Mod Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Chia Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakeney, joined by Ali Akampura, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners by patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and to get access to all our Q&A episodes. Please head over there, support us, because Moni Electricity Bill is going through the roof in this heatway. I am, I feel like I'm dying up here. It is, we are recordings at what, night, 9 p.m. It is 85 degrees in, in my office from just, you know, being right below that block tap roof,

just baking the bricks, it's great. You know, another wonderful summer in the Northeast. That's exactly right. And it's just the way we always remember them. They were always just like this. We all love to bake it mid-June, and that was when it was always got to see. It's June mid-bake. That's what they call it.

It's what they always said, the dog days of June. So this week, a grim slog through a droid-filled dungeon leads to an explosion of exposition at a secret Jedi base on Tilos. A group of Emma Frost cosplayers are serving a woman named Atris who is trying to rebuild the Jedi Order in secret. she's also got a past with the exile having been a part of the council that passed their sentence meanwhile someone else has a mysterious past it's our boy atton who reveals himself to have onion like stone fruit like layers of complexity as craya breaks him down to his constituent atoms over the course of one memorable conversation where once again Again, he's trapped in a jail cell with nothing to do but converse. After the group gets the Ebon Hawk, they make a move to depart the planet of Tilos. But Atra sends one of her handmaidens to join the party for mysterious motives that your new ally seems uncertain about herself. Also, before you all leave, T3 pulls the video recording, sorry, the Vod.

of the Jedi Council sentencing of the exile, where they just leave the tape running while they talk out every single dimension of their decision regarding the exile, Revan, Malik. It is one of the least believable expository flashback sequences since, well, it predates it, but it's new to me, since that scene in L.A. Noir where you find the tape reel of basically L.A. Noir's Noah, Noah Cross,

like explaining his plot to take over the real estate market in Los Angeles in an edited, in an edited 8mm film with cuts. With cuts. Yeah. The cuts are good. They make good cuts. It's movie magic. I appreciate an artistic touch. You know, if I were exporting the Vod

Like I might Maybe T3 is doing it Yeah Like I'm seeing like a live A live cut situation where Are you shooting coverage and running a multi-camera setup On a criminal fucking conspiracy? 100%

You need to get everyone's perspectives You need to be able to get people's reactions To other people's dialogue It's important to You know It's face acting Face acting is so important and so huge. It's what you don't say, et cetera.

This section really makes me understand myself and what it is I want and care about in video games. Does that make sense? This dungeon is a slog. This dungeon is another. Wow. They didn't have time to test the shit, did they? It is a set of hallways with a bunch of robot fights. I can't believe they're still making a fight robots.

And the four farts in your face every five steps. That's right. Though I will say the moment that I got the level of heel that lets you cure poison, I've never felt better about getting a spell in a video game. Or it's like, oh, you know, fuck this. I'm just, let poison me. I dare you to poison me. I don't care because the second that the screen like does all of the,

all of the visual framing around people walking down hallways, the like the constant focus on that shot composition or the atress the most toxic character in star wars like back and forth with you then the back and forth with the handmaiden and her repressed feel that's the shit I'm I care about like I just care about it so much more that I under I like have come to understand why it is my feelings about games in the last 20 years are so different from so many mainstream critics and outlets why like I don't give a fuck about the games that people love and I find myself defending again and again things that are so flawed in so many ways you know it's incredible because you speak the language of the former

like you understand what the fuck reflex and keen is and also and also So you recognize the sauce in the, in the narrative, in the, in the dialogue. I just, Kotor 1 isn't doing anything like that. Like, they just are, it's absurd to me. There's nothing that Kotor 1 is doing better, which it is doing things better, like dungeon design, that I care about as much as I care about more Atris's conversation with the exile here. Or even the Kraya Atten stuff, which is, like you said,

Rob like pretty single layered but it's still so much so much oh no I don't mean to knock it no right I was so checked out of the dungeon the game and do you know the cat williams like every day I'm hustling bit where that like that that hook comes on and it's like yes and that was me when cray is like the truth is inside you squirming like a worm at me bro and I'm like oh Hang on. Game is happening again. One of the handmaiden servants says when he dropped into that a Chani style

and you're like when he did what? Excuse me? A word? Oh, you mean all of these characters have lives that existed prior to us pressing play on the game, pressing new save? Like it's so good.

We are uncovering mysteries. We are, we are, we are like that's, A very reductive way of saying it, but we are getting to know characters in meaningful ways that is not just plot beats. It's not just... Except it's all dumped on your plate though at once. That is the one thing where it's like...

Yum, yum, yum. That fucking dungeon is like I'm just crawling through it by my fingernails. Like, guess what, there's another door and another control paddle. The biggest gonged droid you have. ever seen his come out in that room five minutes back oh by the way you have to escort a dude with no fucking pathfinding back through this base he gets caught on the crates like eight times

he does i would be i would be stressed too i would be tripping on geometry if i were in his position it seems very stressful did anyone completely lose him yep yes i had to reloaded the game rather than run back through the base and try to find it so i ran outside i turned around as Where the fuck is he? Wow. I found that HK unit that you can find. It's like, hey, come follow me. And then two seconds later, it, like, has a cutscene where it makes a weird face

and that isn't there anymore. I thought the HK unit killed that guy because they were both gone completely after that point. Wait, I did too. That happened to me, too, because I rescued the guy first. And then I was like, oh, wait, did my HK blow up? No, that HK unit cannot actually. Oh, wait, did none of you rescue the guy at all? No.

I did rescue him. Okay, okay. You can. You can get him out of there. He's in there. I had to run intricate patterns around the shuttle to thread him past the crates because whoever designed this, these completely unadorned rooms, these empty hallways. It is just grid paper. It is a grid paper dungeon with no complexity whatsoever.

But somebody was like, well, this is the hangar, so obviously it should have these crates. in this hallway. And then obviously we got to make these NPCs. And our path finding in the Cotor series is just, chef kiss. These characters know where to go. Obviously, we got to have him shoot the gap like it's Beggars Canyon on Tattooing. So you can escort his ass out of the base.

I just kept doing like figure eights trying to like get him to just sort of like ooze through the gap. And finally he did. but yeah it took me like 10 minutes to get him through the hangar you know it's a little difficulty spike well you know not all not all puzzles are

yep I don't remember any of this I will say I will have to check the footage I have to edit this out let's play I don't remember if I lost him in the places and all I mean I know I saved him but I don't remember if I had to do figure eight

to keep him alive or if I just I think if you just keep him relatively like close like a kind of stop and start situation. Have you considered... He stops. Have you considered playing in a way

where you were constantly stopping to talk about German philosopher Hegel every 30 seconds extending what should be a 20-minute dungeon to an hour-long dungeon? Is that... Because if you do that, I think he's able to keep up with you. YouTube.com slash a more civilized age

or whatever the fuck everything is. I had one other thing here. Oh, actually, two things really quick. Just want to make sure of something before we go further. One, Allie is. and Natalie, the handmaiden joined your ship, right? And joined your party.

Yes. Okay. That means the mod is working. Oh, okay. Believe it or not, and we can talk about this later, that character is genderlocked in the base version of this game. Are you shitting me? I am not shitting you.

What the fuck happens? Like, so what do you get if you're? You just don't, she just doesn't get sent. I believe she just doesn't get sent. I believe she doesn't send her spy. That is correct. And let me tell you, we're going to meet the guy that you get instead. eventually and when I say he means nothing I'm sure he has some stuff that's cool I'm sure

he does and we'll find out he is not the handmaiden so so yeah now maybe she maybe she does come with you even if you're not a dude but she doesn't join the party that seems unlikely to me or maybe I'm wrong maybe is Vsos the oh that's my other question. Did anybody get another cut scene? Has anyone seen another Lord of the Sith? Okay. Yep.

Okay. So everybody but Allie has... When I rescued my man. Okay. Very odd decision. That's what it hit for you? You get this piece of shit. Yeah.

Interesting. So I can tell you what it happens. It happens when you get either 75 light side points, 25 dark side points. Like on the scale. If you go up to 75, down to 25, or in total, you've moved at least 50 points between up and down on the meter. And once you do that, you meet the second dark lord.

So it wasn't tied to the Zirka guy at all. Correct. It's tied to my decency. My goodness. That's right. 100%. Yeah. Maybe I've been to avoidance.

Like to neutral? Yeah. Like I, you know, I avoid some topics. So I'm not getting these dark light side points. Right. Right, I see. My skill has been jumping up and down, so I don't know. You'll get there, maybe.

We shall see. Also, I am confirming, yes, Handmaiden is the character who you do not, is genderlocked, yes. I look, Hallie, like, playing a Star Wars game, like, she's running for office, where it's like, just won't be baited on the topic of the Sith. So what do you think of the Sith versus the Jedi Order? I don't have not a Gen. Many complicated perspectives, differing narratives, wish all the best for all people of the galaxy. Next quest, please. You know?

All right, where do we want to actually jump in on this? Because there is a lot. Is there anything in the dungeon at all? I'm racking my brain. Like, you get to the reactor. Well, yeah, right. Because we left off with everybody at the door to the underground base, right? and then it's like all gas vents tons of droids that's right tons of droids boring droids me doing disabled

droid all the time crea just blast and shit with lightning you go deeper is there any narrative the bowdoer uh punch oh right he can does the punchy that's fun people should know about that you don't explain the punchy alley So for some reason, I mean, for a high security reason, this is a well-managed facility. Every 20 feet or so, there's a, there's a, like a shield door splitting the sections. And when bow, bow, d'er? I think it's, I think I've heard him say bea-dur, but I have for 20 years said bow-dur, so I may continuously slip up and say bow-dur, like a delicious bow, you know?

Right. He can His fist that is detached from his arm And has like electrical Current between it Can punch through the shield to disable it Which is pretty cool Except for the fact that like

You kind of walk up to the shield And it doesn't really have like A thing for it And if you start combat nothing happens You have to like click A Without hitting I'm glad this happened to you too Because I did the first few like no big deal

Like maybe there's a cutscene for the first few But you eventually get to one and I'm like All right use your cool attack that takes off their shields Which by the way you can do that as an attack also To knock out shields from enemies Which is kind of useful Also I have to tell you we'll come back to it I have a whole new respect for shields in this game

From something later on in this episode Oh yeah But yeah if you just hit attack with his arm on the shield It doesn't work You gotta do the thing you just said which is awkwardly back out of the combat menu and just hit interact with him, which maybe nobody else stumbled into,

but, uh, no, I did, yeah. Had me locked at the damn, I was like, all right, maybe my game's broke at the end. And then the X-Ile gave up and froze to death. One thing that I did think was interesting about the dungeon,

but I guess it kind of doesn't go anywhere, is that like it feels like it really encourages you to play as Boudre the entire time. like all of the terminals at least when I went to them and I have a decent computer like when you go up the options that he has for finding the codes or whatever just are there for the exile oh interesting um so I thought that like there was going to be you know some character beat on that too but it was just like oh you know you should just embody this guy for a little while now that you're just meeting him yeah I he I will say I guess he's the first character we have who has unbelievably high skill points um I don't know if y'all ran into this because I think some of you at least are doing auto-leveling. He gets so many skill points that he can max all of his class skills every level and still have one bonus one. So every other level, he gets a point in one of his non-class skills. And his class skills are all of the kind of techy things you might want, like demolitions and repair, which is great. But is, let me tell you, I'm playing the character who has high skills. And it's like, bro, you're going to be on the bench simply by the nature of me already having all

of these skills. And yet, my man, his real gift is wielding a gammerie and axe. Oh, did you give him the axe? I realized, damn, his strength really is pretty high. Yeah, dude. I get, you know, he's in the workshop. He's mounting engines, just like deadlifting droids

on the work benches. Because I was like, hang on, I feel like you will do better with this gammerian axe than I will. And he's just going, bong, trash cans exploding. Meanwhile, though, I have broken through the Jedi consular, like, my guy puts on shields. Yep. Shots just bouncing off him.

Love it. And then we're just going to land these stuns. And then my crew's getting to go around and just knock over these droids and turrets. And you don't even have Atten in the party during this dungeon where Atten, again, when someone is stunned, Atten gets to do like triple damage to them or whatever because he's a, because he's a backstab because of, because of whatever that, yeah, it's called backstab. I think. And so, like, once we get back into that mode, you're, it's, it might be smooth sailing for a little bit. We'll see.

Um, I also, like, it's interesting, I guess. So there's two things. I did in this dungeon really run headlong into the fact that, oh, you just have to craft everything now. Like, the game is not going to give you enough shit to, like, enough drops to keep up with, like, your antidote consumption rate or your med-pack consumption rate. Say it again?

I said, put those breath masks on. You could put the breath masks on. I crafted a bunch of the I just had the one though. And then you have to deal with everybody else. They don't have. I have like three. They don't have slots for them.

I just gave everyone breath masks and ran through there. I just learned the heel. I just learned the special heel that lets you. Well, I got a piece of kit. Uh, so I put a little, like, I'm making a little like a little wavy hand gesture. I put a little like underweave on my Jedi robe that did regeneration. Okay. That was about equal to the deal to the poison.

So you just stayed poison, but you were outhealing the poison? I used to be a smoker. Okay. Yeah. Same logic. Yeah. Totally. Just, it just, just huffing it, just outboxing it in those, in those rooms. Uh, but then also.

my cool, my cool jacket was just making it so that it kind of worked for, kind of worked for the exile. But yeah, so I built a bunch of garbage in the, like, I don't know what goes with what, I was like, this seems neat. It's keen. Mm-hmm.

So keen means, what is keen? I'm telling you all right now. Okay. I'm writing this down. Austin went to Canada and learned what keeners are, so that's an unfair advantage. It's an unfair advantage.

Keen, okay. Does anybody know what a, critical threat window is. No. Okay, do you know what a critical hit is? Of course. Yes, you do extra damage. You do extra damage.

When you, what causes it? In a D20 system, you hit a critical window or you roll a D20. You roll a D20, you hit a 20 on it, generally speaking. Some weapons in this game have bigger critical hit windows than just you hit it, you roll a 20. They have a 19 or a 20. Generally speaking, if I'm remembering right, the, like, smaller weapons have a bigger critical hit window. So, like, daggers or eventually we'll get those little short light sabres again.

Precision weapons tend to have that. A lot of these dex weapons have the 1920. That's exactly right. Keene increases that window further. So if you have a weapon that has, like, is already an 18 to 20 or a 19 to 20, you can imagine it goes to a 17 to 18 or to 20, rather, where you're getting that crit higher. So it's more like playing D&D with spinal tap. That's right.

up to 11 like you got to that is your it's all in you're like okay maybe i'm not going to get my averages aren't necessarily going to be higher but you're going to burst really high when you hit so you can imagine build that is keen weapons plus the critical attack the one that's like raises you're that's exactly would that be the the attack that you're so it wouldn't necessarily be useful if you're doing a a flurry night speed you know whatever force speed build where you're just I mean, it can still be useful, right? And eventually you will hit a point where you have weapons out for everybody and you're going to be like, well, I got this thing that raises the crit wind. I've keen to put on something.

Fuck it. You know, Atten, you have a keen sword now. Why not? You know? So, but that is what Keene does. The game is so bad about explaining this stuff. This is like my. It's wild.

There's not a single, like, was it in the manual of the box? Like, that's the only thing. Let's see. Because I've scoured item descriptions. No, I've checked the manual. The manual is trash. The manual gives you very, I'm looking at it now. It lists stuff that we haven't hit yet, like, different lightsaber forms, which is not

particularly useful to us in the first 10 hours of this game or whatever. But it doesn't say anything about keen about, it does, it does explain what like a skill check is. But I don't even know that it says anything about critical hits. when a character attacks and the randomly generated number is 20 out of the possible range of 1 to 20 there was a chance they have scored a critical hit this is calling this is called scoring a threat another gen- wow they're actually doing it the old d20 version another number is generated and if that number equals a hit then a critical hit is scored and double damage is inflicted some weapons or feats can increase the threat range meaning you can score a threat on a lower number

that is what keen is but the manual does not fucking say that so there's a whole page on pizzazz And a whole two pages on upgrading and crafting. There's a whole thing on different types of weapon and armors. This is not, I think this is not a good, it's a fine manual, but it's after the era of, you know, have any of you ever seen like the Balders Gate Manual, which was this huge, like, you know, three-wing binder that was hundreds of pages long with like all of the spells in the game listed out? well before you could ever get them because you had to plan ahead. We're not doing that with this manual, unfortunately.

Copy. While we're airing grievances. Please. I just want to say that I have officially no longer endeared to this, and I want to know if there is a mod that introduces a glamour system to this game. I do not want masks on my guys anymore. I had this moment. Oh, man.

I can't see you seriously dog do y'all have the one that's like the it's like full face mask and then like Templar ass yeah like the gold or like the yellow glowy face like with the tea oh the like mandolorian tea yeah but bowes bow has that now on balder and on aton and so when they're talking it's like how are you even

how do you know anything about what the other one is feeling at all right I don't know I bet there is a no helmet's mod guys being dudes they don't need to you're right wow you know uh there is an invisible headgears mod i'll send it to y'all i'll put it in the description um i'll make sure it works etc he's so funny though because he'll like his head a whip around like when the head man shows up and it's like i don't know it's like dude won't take his fucking oakley's off it's so funny it's such a it's such a goofy thing uh so the dungeon like yeah it goes on forever and then it

just kind of stops like you finally you get the you get the shuttle you fly out we get it we go back to that that insert shot of all the characters just like t-posed in the shuttle basically yeah and they're like uh-oh we're under fire and it's so funny quick thing quick thing yeah uh welcome to the brave muja hadine hk series droids yeah because they're out there with a sticker missile uh and also they're having a great time like they shoot down your shuttle and one's like hey that was a nice shot buddy they're having so much fun together even when they're like they you know that's the thing you find the one hk unit in the underground base and it falls apart immediately uh and then after you leave they show up and

they're like you know investigating and they're like oh we've tracked where they are um even in that it feels like they're like constantly celebrating each other you know they're so vain that you really are and they but they're and they're the sort of vein where you can imagine a version of this where all hate each other and they're like I am their best hk they are all they all think of themselves as a unit as of the best the best droids in the galaxy better than any meat bag I love them I'm rooting for them really I did this fight like eight times I'm not rude for okay so that that fight is a bastard I because they've also got the suicide drones uh at the start so and also you can't save the start of the fight so if you lose the fight

You got to watch the cut scene again. You saved before you left the base, but if you lose the fight, you got to watch this cut. Terrible. Some of it's not skippable. Some of it, you're going to have to watch your fucking exiled, peel himself off the deck and march through the snow so he can have his twilight, new moon or whatever the fuck of the last movie is, like encounter where we're going to like talk across the ice field. And the end. It was breaking down. Donne.

Breaking Dawn, that's right. Either way. You know, and honestly, you probably would have, like, you'd have, you'd have, what's his name, like Michael Sheen? Yes. Yeah, he's got that droid energy. Like the HKs, we, are Michael Sheen characters, basically. But they're there just to bring you in, but they can't help monologuing.

They're so eager to talk to you and they're so curious. They're like, ha, ha, ha, we knew you'd come here, and we shot down your shuttle. But we are curious, what brings you out to this icy plateau? And you can just talk to these guys for like 15 minutes. I'm really dying, imagining, replacing all of the Volturi with HK units. Oh, my God. I'm imagining. Porni pout.

that'd be great it is kind of it is kind of they're giving the same they're giving the same the Volturi and this specific squad of HK units is is when Bella meets the Voltaire for the first time 100% incredible yeah maybe we'll go find out the that the exchange has big Voltori energy we'll see who could say maybe yeah but the thing is so here's the thing you know how we got through this fight Because I was like, all right, I got to be right on it at the start of this fight. My exile got nailed by the suicide drones every single time out of the gate. Just done, done. But if I activated shield, the last thing I thought, maybe I crafted it, but Bauder,

between the shields that he could activate, and I guess his armor class, they couldn't hit him. Wait, is he still there? I thought he was knocked out. Sorry, it wasn't Bauder. It was Atten. It was Atten. Sorry. Yeah.

Atten is a beast. Atten is... They couldn't hit him. So it was the longest, worst fight I've ever seen. Like, you remember in, before there were the, um, before there were the naked gun movies, there's police squad, right? Yeah. And there's that one funny gag where it's like, routine, like, two-shot gun battles, cutting between the guys shooting each other and behind cover. And then you get a wide shot and you realize they're standing literally next to each other on the set.

leaning out. That was the exact gun battle Atten had. He is like literally standing two feet away. Everyone's missing. But he's missing less and slowly chipping down their damage until like one by one they all fell over. You know, sometimes. Cray had did last long enough to take out a couple. Like she was she was putting in the work.

But really it was just the fact that Atten couldn't get killed. You were just done. You were just out? I was done. Like the drones took out. the exile immediately. Because I can't make them do what I tell them to do

as their first move. I can say, I can make sure that box is clear. And I'm like, disable the droid. Exile. Just shoot them with your droid killing. What is going on? Why is it not working? And then the second I have the action go, a basic attack will have inserted itself in the queue and he runs forward into the drones. I'm wondering if there's an option.

I'm wondering if there's a gameplay option or a mod that we could get for this. Because I'm not having that problem, but not in a way where it's a problem. You know, I just did the big handmaiden sparring matches and that eventually gets to a point where you have to go between a bunch of targets. And it does, of course, put in a basic attack,

but I'm able to clear it and put in whatever I want. So I'm wondering if there is an option somewhere that we need to address or change or if a mod that I had you install fucked something up. It doesn't matter. The rest of those beasts can't be stopped. You can bring down the exile. Like the HKs

we're like you can bring down one of us but we have plenty more. That's me and my crew. That is what they insinuate. You can stop the exile. They're like oh there are enough of us that you can't possibly kill us all. Right. Right. Right.

They just they didn't know about disabled droid. They didn't know about they didn't know about disabled droid times two because both me and Crea were casting that nonstop and then Atten was just just melting

through droids. That fight took me like one minute. Allie, it sounds like it didn't go so great. It was so bad that I had to like turn it off and be like, I have to play this tomorrow. And thankfully it was like, That was me with the handmaid's. That was me with the handmade of.

I, like, I think I had a similar issue where, like, when I wasn't keeping track of what people were doing enough, I would just run into an issue where somebody would just die, like, right away. Because they got too close to the HKs or just weren't hitting enough or I didn't take out the drones quickly enough. I eventually was able to get around it by, like, before the fight starts, well, first, I didn't have Kray with me in the fucking dungeon. So every single time I had to do it, I had to like pause, make sure she was equipped up, like change all her shit, change everybody from melee to range because we can't get near the drones. But I ended up being able to get Kraya to just do Jedi support. And then Atten was a grenader.

And thankfully I had like made a bunch of grenades at the last little stop that I had. So it was just like keep the exile alive for as long as I can to switch between the other two to make sure that they're doing what I wanted them to do. But it did get the rest of this, like, kind of like a dream-like quality because I was failing it so much that I was like, at what point do I have to talk to people and say, like, I can't, we can't record because I can't find this game. I do want to remind people there is an easy mode, like, which I don't think anyone you can turn on for any fight and then turn it off again if you want. And it's still sometimes hard. I should look at that. I should. But I, because I looked at strategy wiki real quick. And I thought that I saw something about a droid dungeon, which is what we just did.

But I was like, did I install the wrong mod? And like, I'm not supposed to. Right, because we've talked about there being a droid planet. There's a droid planet that we're not going to do. There is an HK factory that we will do eventually, which maybe answers the question as to. A whole factory full of them. And I'm going to say this right now. If I show up trying to defend that dungeon, I have lost who I am inside.

Because I think my first time playing that dungeon, which was that first time I played this version of the game, 15 years ago or whatever, 10 years ago, I thought was trash. And so I bet it still is, though maybe I'm better at the B and D's side of it. But also, Austin wants to be tied to the mast. That's right. That's right. I do. Let me hear their song, but don't. I, yeah, we'll see.

We'll get there and we'll figure out. We'll see if it is as trash as I remember it. But yeah. So you got through it eventually, though, Allie. I did, I did, I did. I did, I did. I am also Oh no, go ahead

I We'll get to handmaid and stuff We'll get to that later Because the option that you get For fighting them It's insane We'll get there Let's save it

Let's save it The first round is the heart Yes I will say I am a A autopause truther I am autopause pilled I have every single Autopause

like option turned on so it auto pauses at every possible opportunity. Doesn't that slow things down to a crawl? Not really. It really doesn't. It like it stops the movement, but I often find as long as I can like tab through my team, my characters quickly, make sure that everyone is still doing the thing I want them to do. like someone hasn't, you know, an enemy hasn't died and now Atten is just standing there

going to go do a basic attack on someone. Like getting the ability to check in frequently, I find actually makes things go much faster because I'm able to intervene before they do something I don't want them to be doing. Notably, you can still cue things up. It's not like you can't queue up a bunch of things. Then I can just check, oh, everything is still queued up, okay, because sometimes you'll queue up five or four force screams or whatever, as one does, and then you'll run out of force points.

And so, but you might be in Atten's perspective, so you don't realize that the exile has ran out of force, and then they're now, they've auto-selected some new thing. So as long as you are kind of tabbing through, it's kind of like playing like an auto chess or like an auto bat, like something like that where you're just, you're setting the intention and then you just check in along the way and make sure that everyone's still doing the thing that you want them to do.

This is my best tip for going through battles. Other than downgrading to easy when it is just impossible, which it was for me later down the one. I will say though, man, like Knight Valor, the force speed, energy barrier, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, range, but that plus your shields.

Those are huge. Like, uh, if the force is with us, who can be against us? Like, if, like, especially, you know, there's a fight on the other side of a door. And you just got that minutes. Everyone like just, hey, let the Jedi juice everyone up. Yep. And let's go through.

And it's like, oh, wow, it doesn't matter. They might as well be stunned because they're not landing shit. Suddenly, all the, the one Jedi for every 50 clones or whatever starts to make a lot of fucking sense. But you're like, oh, you force Valored. Okay, I got it. That's not even battle meditation. That's a battle meditation is a whole other power. It's like you just gave everyone like three free levels in every fight.

It's like, well, we're now over level for this. Yeah. That's on top of, if you have it, stuff like the battle, you know, what is it actually called? Like, stim alacrity or whatever, the injectors that you can get, some of which straight up give you like plus two strength, plus two decks, plus two constitution. Like, that's a big boost. There's a lot of ways to juice yourself in this game, including juice, apparently. I mean, it's a different time. game. We're coming off the high of the home run chase. That's going to say, Barry Bond.

It was the Barry Bond era. Yep. This is what peak performance looks like, folks. That's right. We're all trying to win, okay? God. Look, if these Sith weren't cheating, then we wouldn't have to be juicing up to stay in this game. What's the fucking juiced

Olympics that, you know that I'm talking about? It's like the 1970s when it just shattered every record. No, no, no, the one that's... Wait, it happened? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The enhanced games. The enhanced games where they're like, do you not know about this? Everyone just do the performance enhancing drugs and see what happens. That is what they're doing.

And I want that, but for, but for Star Wars, where though, yeah, you could use the force on this one. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Normally we say no force. But actually, this one, all force. Everybody gets to use the force to play soccer or whatever. So the droids don't really tell you.

They intimate that, like, you got powerful enemies. It's probably the exchange. But you have powerful enemies who just want to make sure that you get brought in. And these HKs, you're their project. They are excited about bringing you in. They're going to keep coming. So get yourself ready. You fight them.

And then it's like, oh, man, bowdoer's down. We need to find shelter. What's this convenient little lump on the horizon? Oh, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a cellar door. And then you're in cutscene heaven. You're barely going to have to do shit except choose some dialogue. That's fucking right. And the next like 35 minutes of gameplay.

Oh. And so first things first, you're told, like, lay down your arms, toss in the slammer. Who tells you this? Emma Frost. Yeah, like, is it just one at this point? There's three.

There's three right away. Okay. Yeah. there's like long-haired one Karen cut one and extraneous one it so here's another one of her mods the one who has the slet the long hair they're like the little floofy bangs yeah uh in i believe the original version of the game has the same haircut as all the rest of them i know that makes no sense because later on there's a part of the dialogue where where you're like you look different than the other ones and like no she didn't so one of the mods we have

gives her a slightly different haircut. I think that was already in the game files, just not implemented. That's so funny. Oh, did you just have... She just looks the same to you. They all look exactly the same. And I got that dialogue thing.

I was like, oh, huh, all right. The handmaid him on. I get it. There it is. That's right. So, unusually, Crea's like, don't fight. Let's just go. Which is also like the DM putting, hey, so this NPC is going to tell you you can't fight.

I don't think we should do this. And it's like, all right, let's just move on. I want to get this going. Yep. So back in the slammer. And we get, ironically, because he's actually wearing a mask now all the time, but it is a unmasking of Atten. And to a degree, it's not, it doesn't feel like a mask off moment of Crea, but I was saying, sitting there, I was like, okay, to Austin's point earlier, there is no writing or delivery

in Cotor 1 that approaches what Craya does in the scene with Atten. There is not much in Star Wars that approaches this exchange between Cray at Atten, which is one of the more like bone-chilling depictions of the raw power of a Jedi and how scary they are when you actually have no idea what their allegiance is or what their motivations are, they can just not read you like a book. It is like they can unbind the book and then just like unfurl the, unfurl the sheaves of paper. And that's what she does to Atten where she, yeah. Would you like to hear it? Oh, I love it. Yes. Let me screen share. I reloaded the game so I could hear this again. Yeah, it's that good.

Like, I was like I need to tune in more for this. This is like, all right, let me share screen. All right, are we seeing it? Or are you seeing my mouse moving around? Okay. Curse are moving, yep. All right. Three, two, one.

Yes, it bears the semblance of an academy. But where are all the students curious? You've got to be joking. What is a Jedi Academy doing out here in the middle of nowhere? It is a place hidden from the galaxy. like the Academy on Dantuin, but this place... Oh, Atris, you have been clever. Atris?

It's none of your concern. Well, the sooner we're out of here, the better. Two crazy Jedi are more than enough for me. No one told me we were going to be dumped in a nested Jedi. And what is it about this place that causes you such fear? What do you mean? We're in the middle of a bunch of Jedi. You know how they are.

No, I do not. Not in the way you seem to. What are you doing? Get out of my head Stop struggling Let me follow the current Deep, deeper to its source Stop

Stop Ah With the fear Is mingled guilt It squirms in you like a worm And the why Ah

And there is its heart You surprise me I could not feel it before Your feelings are a powerful shield Indeed, do not worry Atten In quotes If he is a Jedi

He will forgive And if he is not He will not care You can't tell him Please I'm asking you I don't want him to Think less of you

I hardly think that's possible Still there is no shame in what you ask We all wage war with the past, and it leaves its scars. I will not speak of yours, Atten, but there is a price for such things. What? What price? There are those who wage war and those who follow them. You are a crude thing, murderer, but you have your uses. You know how important this man we travel with is.

Even one such as you can feel it. You will serve him until I release you. And if I refuse? You will not. If you do, then my silence will be broken. And then, Atten, you will be broken. You fear the Jedi, and rightly so. If Atris learns of your choices, you will never leave this place.

But whatever fear you hold of the Jedi, know that if you disobey me, that my punishment will make you beg for the death that has long-hounded you, wipe the fear from your mind. You will not find blind obedience. It's a difficult master. You chose it once. You will learn to embrace it again. God, I don't know how you became such a manipulative witch,

but why a vicious old scow like yourself would even bother with me is a bigger mystery. No game of Dajaric can be one without pawns, and this may prove to be a very long game. You are a slippery one. Your thoughts difficult for even one such as I to read. I suspect the self-loathing that squirms within you gives you a curious strength. Your spirit, as diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up. No matter what threats you face, whatever wreckage, you leave behind you.

I feel you have crossed our path for a reason. Perhaps even you, at the right moment, may be able to turn aside disaster. If so, your potential is not yet spent. Fine. I'll be your pawn, but I still think you've got the wrong man. Perhaps. But someone has to fly the ship, and the force is a heart. thing to predict. You crossed our path for a reason.

Our path brought us here for a reason. And now I know why. The past is here, and it must be met before the future can be set in motion. More Jedi speak. Care to explain? No. I've wasted enough time with you.

Sleep, murderer, and be silent. I need no distractions. A critical moment approaches. A critical moment approaches. Man. She knocks him out at the end there with the force I don't know if that you can't see it as a listener But that is what happened there it's the 360 era era so his model just like flops down on the dude it's the Xbox era clips through the well yeah it's not even the 360 era yeah so or maybe it is a

360 era but this was an original Xbox game who there are things that Sarah Kestelman does with her voice here that are just like unmatched in voice acting in in video games Catherine did she have is a name kept. I was like this is one of few characters in Star Wars where it's like... Oh, yeah. I guess in the same way that Obi-Wan is like a star of the actual fucking movie star appears and lends this thing legitimacy and like

sort of a Shakespearean quality. You are a crude thing murderer is a line that dies in a lot of actors' mouths. 100%. And here it's like, it is Shakespearean. It's so good. And there's so much here

around. So like you said, there's an unmasking here. But even the unmasking, I think, is really carefully done, really restrained. She doesn't say, ah, I see, you were a blank. Instead, we are still left on the line with some questions. She's called a murderer, or he's called a murderer a number of times. She intimates that he has a shield of, like, emotion that has protected his inner thoughts from both you and her. And my thing, maybe most importantly, she starts to suggest that, like, deep down inside he wants to die, that he is driven by a sort of death desire. Maybe, hard to see is that because of guilt that he has, is it, is it, you know, what she says is fear mingled with guilt

and that he squirms in him like a worm. She calls him a worm like three times. It's, it's, I just think it's it's so well done and it's like again like you said rob nothing in kotor 1 begins to approach this conversation really i i i does anyone remember if in kotor 1 we had other i perspectives outside of like were we ever privy to to to cut scenes that our character that that that we went to the sith command show Yes. So we saw like Malik talking to Darth Brandon a couple times. But wasn't that a flash?

Oh, no, no, no. No, we would see. But that was because we were mind connected. I didn't know. I think that was times that we did occasionally just get those perspectives. But you're right that the thing we, I don't think we got much, certainly nothing ever so impactful as two party members talking privately among themselves. I don't remember that happening. And if it did, it was never as consequential as this.

It feels interesting that the writers want us to have this information as the player, but not that the exile gets that information. And then we continue to play as the exile. Like, it's a really interesting tension in trying to marry the information that I have as a player. as the player who's seeing these cutscenes that the exile is not a part of versus my responses and relationships with my party members as the exile. Literally when you get back to Aten, you could be like, are you okay, buddy?

And at that point, you were doing dramatic irony. You were playing along with the game at that point. Sorry, Allie, you were yelling at joy. It's just like, well, I find it really fascinating that the game is both interesting. in these, like, really dramatic moments, but also, like, casual moments. Like, you just get, like, Atten and Bauder, like, chopping it up in the ship later, too. Like, the game is, like, really wants to characterize them in a way that Cotor one never did. But, like, the, like, that it feeds into the excitement of, like, well, you know, the game of the game is the party built and everything.

So, like, the excitement that I had of immediately being in that ship and Boudre being like, well, do you want me to be in your party now or wait back at the ship? And I was like, no, I want to hang out with that. did Greya? Like, this is crazy. Like, what is going on these to? Something, though, the thing that does bug me in this scene, and this is

a broad comment about a ton of RPGs, notable also when we get to, like, the mass effect series. Not we as in the show, though again, watch the space. But often characters, what's the way I put this?

A lot of times I feel like a lot of male characters, particularly ones who are meant to be like Everyman type characters or like a little bit like Han Soloish, kind of cool guys, kind of roguish, end up being incredibly bland and like poorly conceived and poorly delivered. The thing that does make the scene a little bit rough is Craya's lines are operating on this incredible level.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then... Atten feels like a character and a performance dropped into her readings. And it made me think of like Femmchap versus like Broshap in Mass Effect, where it's like one is a sort of fully realized character that convinces you that like the paragon and renegade possibilities to exist within this one character and they can sort of go in one direction or the other in each. scene the sort of the the the the the the male voice shop is never one that I fully believe it's often and I almost feel like there's something where crea is conceived of as like an evil crone character it's a strong archetype uh-huh and is written as such mysteriously all

knowing like a bit frighteningly feminine in some ways the little the jokes about the lights Saber and such, contempt for, contempt for men, contempt for the young. And it feels like at, and then characters like him are often, we talk about generic protagonists, in part it is that they're designed, like, what is a relatable character that a young dude, you know, you know, teens. 20s is going to, is going to relate to. And we get a lot of characters like that, but the weird thing is they're kind of unrelatable because they are so just, they're so little there, there.

And that's what I kind of find with Atten. Crea is making a really interesting case for this character. Right. That he's filled with self-loathing. It's actually become like almost a psychic shield that like Aton is a construct, that there's something way worse behind the surface that we've seen. That's great. That's all coming from Crea.

His performance, I can't sense that worm of guilt eating through his conscience, through his soul. I can't sense the fear that, like, he will be unmasked to the exile and that he will have to not just face a reckoning for whatever it is that he has done, but also be forced to confront who he is through the eyes of another, which Cray is intimating as his actual worst fear, far worse than just being punished. for murder, it is being seen for what he is. And none of his readings tell me that he feels that. You know, that is, I do think the only time in here that it works is where he says, you know, he has said, ugh, Jedi speak a thousand times. Like, stop being cryptic. And at the very end when he goes like, more Jedi speak.

It's like, oh, that's play that more. Be actually a little afraid. and not just kind of devil-may-care, like, you know, detached. And we'll see. I'm very curious how the rest of Atten's arc hits y'all. There's stuff that I'd completely forgotten about until I started prepping to do this. And some of that stuff is stuff that I think has made me really look forward to stuff

that's coming. And some of the stuff that I was like, oh, right, yeah, okay. Yeah, so much to learn. It feels like just in the way that Atten's, voice actor projects it there's that moment the moment that you just called out Austin is like it he like finally lets it go like he lets the character go and just like gives the line um and it's like the most believable not cartoonish version of him finally it's so hard to marry

Krea and Atten's dialogue against each other because it feels like they just had a completely different voice direction. Like Krea, I don't know if it was like Krea Krea's voice actor, what's your name? Sarah Kettleman or Kestelman. Yeah, got in the booth and they were just like, whoa, like, yes, just do that.

And then for, I mean, I think they had. Maiden has some interesting delivery as well as Atris has some interesting delivery too. But with Atten, it just feels like he's so constrained to like quippy side character, like cartoonish. Like even Han, like Han has more nuance than Atten does in the way that he, his voice varies and his cadence. changes, whereas Atten is very limited in his scope of delivery. And there's that one, it's like striking because there's one moment where it feels like it's the character is dropped. And it's like, whoa, that's him.

That's real. And then it resumes, you know, back to by the time we talked to him again. It's back to like, hey, exile. What's going on? And, you know, we got a lot of Jedi here and they all look the same. And it's like, bro. And it's doing a 90-stand-up routine.

Yes, it's so, it's a little bizarre. Jedi talk like this. Yeah. Much, much discomfort I sense within you. Woo-hoo! Get them again. And, you know, go ahead. Well, I just feel like, especially with the scene, I do feel like I wish that, you know,

know the the sort of conflict of the what was happening to him bled into it more but the fact that the scene starts with at and being like hijinks joky like we're in jail again yuck yuck and then this happened like really like just enhanced how like disturbing this this felt to me because it felt really shocking to have this happen immediately in what felt like after a series of joke beats in this game right you go through the funny dungeon you've you've fight a giant droid you have to talk to the HK units 10 times every me and then this happens and it's like what the what what even he sets it up he's like we're in it yeah we're in a nested Jedi and she's like wait a second you're like really afraid why are you so afraid that is the there's the thing

I do love about this is he's kind of a gradingly like one-note character but the thing that comes out in this moment is yeah we're doing the bit like oh gee you always always back in, back in, back in the four cells again. And it's like the eye of Sauron turning toward you. It's like, you realize that like, oh, you don't want Craya's full attention. Like the 10% of her attention she gives you that contempt and disinterest she has for you. That's what's keeping you safe. The last thing you want to do is become interesting to Crea.

And so when it happens, when she is first just musing over like, What a weird, like, what is this place? It's like an academy, but not. Oh, this isn't, just musing to herself. And he can't, because he can't shut up, because he's sort of a nervous talker. He betrays that like, this makes him uncomfortable.

And she locks in on that, no, I don't know what you mean. It's all. And the thing I love, too, is so many editors, so many, in the editing process, so many people, you can't have her burn him down this many times. That's right. Cut half these lines. She cannot keep getting back on the turnbuckle and coming down at him.

You can't keep doing it. But actually, it kind of works better because it's a complete breaking down of him. And I think what's kind of unfortunate is that because his character makes it so hard to really get at what's there under the surface, that to Natalie's point, it feels like the voice direction. is so always directing him to be like, you're kind of Han Solo-ish. And the thing that is missed is, no, he's not. Like, this is somebody pertaining to Han Solo and, like, I don't know,

maybe they're an ex-war criminal, right? Like, maybe this is, like, this is somebody who's, like, on the run from something really heinous. And all of this is just camouflage that they are wearing to sort of conceal who they've been. That's a really interesting character.

But his performance keeps gravitating towards, back towards, like, Timu Han Solo. And, God, they must not have been in the booth at the same time, right? I don't think they are. Well, no. You could imagine. Yeah. Imagine if he was there.

If I was him, I'd be pissed. I'd be like, this is the game. Like, this is the scene you're going to put me in and you directed me. You were like, yeah, that sounds great, buddy. And then this is what you got from her. Like, I would have modulated where I am if that was the tender of the scene in some way, you know? Or who does?

Maybe he was directed to be like this. on purpose with the knowledge that they were going to direct a cast woman to perform craa like this i have my doubts you know like i said yeah she's just doing stuff with her voice that suggests a control of character he may not know how to do there's addiction to her like there's like little things like sibilant consonants can be really hard like how do you sound like you're hissing without actually hissing into a microphone i don't know how to do it because i'm not a trained voice actor. If I try to read her lines, I will create really unpleasant noise in a microphone and it will sound like somebody trying to be dramatic and kind of whiffing.

She reads these lines and there is a sort of like, almost like machine-like precision to the delivery that like the lines sort of snap as they sort of come off. But then when she like draws out the syllables, it becomes mesmerizing. As she sort of, and it sounds, and the thing that I was comparing to is, I'm watching the scene is like, this is the most like Palpatine coded character outside of Palpatine I've ever seen. And in many ways, more interesting. More interesting. Because again, like, Palpatine's always going to go back to like, ha, ha, ha, ha, right. I've seduced you to the dark side.

I do not know what she is doing. My dream is that we eventually get a Palpatine characterization like this from something, you know? And I think the character has capacity for it. It's just not the moments the, the camera is on him particularly. We come close to it, I think, at the end of Rebels, where he's trying to seduce Ezra. Yeah. His ability to play kindly Uncle Sheave and those things. And, like, speak, like, those are the moments I think we come closest to the way he can harness his invasiveness and sort of boundary shattering to his own ends and put on a kindly face is the most effective.

but we rarely get, like with Palpatine and somebody of the other, like, you know, evil Jedi characters we meet in Star Wars, you get, yeah, you get kind of these like two-dimensional, just kind of out there for evil's sake. But here, this is just like she reaches into his mind and just starts pulling information out in a way that's like really, really scary.

And as she puts it, she doesn't really even care that much. Like the whole thing is, don't worry none of this matters because you don't matter this feels like the other thing is it's a huge moment because it's a huge moment for aton right she breaks him down to nothing mostly because she's bored and doesn't have a whole lot to do while she's in this cell she solves the mystery of him and then is like don't worry it won't matter well whatever's going to whatever the exiles going to do to you he was going to do right either way and if none of this works out we need a pilot

But so why don't you just go to sleep? Well, the thing that she gets from him is you don't get to leave. You have to stick us with us through this. A real solution to the question that comes up in the writer's room that is like, why wouldn't Atten just book it here? Why wouldn't he just fucking bounce? Why wouldn't he just pull a skein and just be like, I got mine, I'm out, you know? And instead, now we get that great moment later where it cuts to Crea for, and she doesn't

fucking say anything. And then and then and that Athens like, yeah, can't wait, buddy. We're going to go on this mission together. And it's like, oh, right, because she has threatened him. You know, she's blackmailing him. I think he's just real. Skeen is somebody doing something interesting with the roguish archetype that never happens

in Star Wars. And this is the, and this would have been like, imagine if, you know, even Moss Backrack was playing like this character where it's like could absolutely nail that mix of bravado and just like black pit of despair. at the heart of him and that's kind of the energy is missing because it's like oh he's kind of funny it's brutal partly because

Baldur's voice actor is doing so many interesting things with his voice I don't know that characterization would work here because he's so flat and affectless as kind of like the character but like it's such a unique sound to dialogue and we've all heard an Aten a thousand times in video games

it's like the default dude like you kind of said So we'll, we'll, we'll, let's keep tracking. Yeah, I, the thing that gets me about Bauder's performance is that it's so mouthy. Yeah. That he feels so much more like a real person than Star Wars characters ever have for me, especially in video games. Like, there's just like such an intimacy of being able to like hear the actual movement of the syllables that's like, I'm always locked in whenever he's talking.

but to stay on Atten for a little bit the like immediacy that the game lets you just stick your thumb on the the bruise of his conversation with Kreia of like you can be like hey are you okay you're kind of not looking good or just being like

well just shut up and whatever way in the sort of you know a Sith version of doing that but the like that in that conversation you get to be like, well, you know, if you're going to complain about it, you can kind of just leave, you know, and it immediately cuts to Kraya smirking. Oh, my God. It's so good. It's so good.

It's definitely good if you wait. Go ahead. If you wait to have that conversation. I didn't have that conversation until after I learned some information about him from the handmaidens about the Icony that he had. the Ashani training. Yeah. So first it was like, I go to talk to him and I'm like, so, like, you, you, yeah,

what's good with the fact that you're trained, you're, you're trained in the exsani, uh, uh, fighting style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like, what are you talking about? And then your options are force persuade or persuade or leave it alone. Did you already have the conversation with Kray at that point about force persuasion? no she which conversation she there's when you when you get her when we're skipping the big conversation which maybe makes sense because it will dominate the back half of this whole thing

but one of the things you can talk to with her after you get them out of jail after you have the big conversation with atress which we'll come back to uh is you can you can i forget how you can get on this rob do you remember this um you could basically be like well why don't we just force force trick our way through this situation or whatever And she's like, actually using the force to make someone do something is like a real big act to do. You shouldn't do that carelessly. That has to be a thing that you're very, you should only do it when it will absolutely bring you something in return, which is wild. Oh, right, right, right.

Because we just saw her do this to him. Now, maybe she counts manipulating him as getting something big in return. But it's what or she doesn't want you doing it to do it But I will say in this game You get dark side points for trying to force persuade people pretty often And you often can lose influence with Crea If she sees you do it Or which she just does because you're bonded

I don't think that happens here But it does happen going forward Which is the most I played Cotor 1 And had big thoughts about force persuasion Or Gen Jedi Mind Trick all the way through it And now I'm going to like Tiskly the player for doing that and think that that's like a kind of moral, an action free of moral value, you know?

But yes, you can try to try to drive him there. The fact that she deploys it so seemingly casually or naturally, rather, and then it's, I can't tell if it's as if she doesn't want. want you to fall, like, does she not want you to lean into the, oh, she just really confuses me, but in a fun way, in a fun way, because I think there, there's, there are things about future conversations with her, that it does feel like she wants you to break out of the confines of Jedi teachings. Like, like, please let, let the dogma of the Jedi go.

However, there are certain things that will disappoint her because it's not just about, like, dark side, light side. It's about, like, which is confusing, because I think the fact that the game continues to have a dark side light side system where you're getting locked out of abilities

or like... Or you're not getting locked out of abilities. They just cost you more to use. Right. They cost you more to use. But that, but at least that you have

this visual reinforcement after you make a decision that you either got more evil or more good. However, it almost feels like we're on a different value scale when it comes to actions with Crea because it's it doesn't feel like it's about

evil or good it's about what do Jedi's think and what what belongs to Jedi teachings and what exists outside of that and it's not explicitly what's Sith and what's Jedi what's evil and what's good it's very fun to grapple with and I love being in a position where I'm still figuring Crea out, I constantly feel like I don't know which option is going to actually get me influence or lose me influence with her or get me, I mean, dark side and light side is a little bit more obvious because often the dark side ones are, I want to just kill everyone. They're so bad still. They're so bad.

And so that there's something interesting about it and there's something fresh. about it because I you're you're giving me this character that I'm spending so much time with whose value exists on a separate scale than the light side good side it doesn't exist on wow murder murder murder or ooh I want to help everyone in the world it's it's outside of that however I'm still stuck in that system every character has one of those now you're not just juggling crea influence you're judging you're going to be juggling at an influence and handmade influence, and to a lesser degree about Bayo Derrer influence, because he doesn't have as many influence point checks in the game, unfortunately, as the other characters

because they didn't know what they had. But yes, and to underline it, none of those have a part of the menu where you lean forward and blue light bathes you if you choose them, and you're a good guy. The force, the light side, dark side stuff overwhelms that stuff visually in the visual language of Star Wars and in the metaphorical language of Star Wars. And in most Star Wars things, there's not even this sort of emphasis put on the distinction between those two. You might try to, you know, apply an influence meter backwards onto the prequel trilogy. But the dark side points and sheave influence gain is probably the same meter, you know. Maybe Mace Window, oh, got me. Maybe Mace Windu has some moments where dark side acts.

actions, give him influence points, but it would be very limited. And I do think that there is like, the Star Wars is here. The light side is real. The dark side is real. It is a limiting factor in a real way to this types of stories you can tell inside of that framework if you're doing it in an official capacity. Well, and it makes me so curious where this is going to go because, yes, I'm with, Crea feels like character who has transcended the, like, the binary morality of Star Wars.

And you are locked in a game that is deeply mannequin. Yep. In terms of everything that is happening. And she keeps being like none of this like, what is it? Like, you know, she, she like, like the rest of your dogs watching tennis, basically, right? And she is, she's aware of everything that's happening. And this leads us to this is their segues to now. let's get to Atris and the tape, the Vod of the trial deliberations.

But first we got to get to Atris. We sure do. So after Atten takes his little map in the cell, we see the exile marching authoritatively into this Jedi Council chamber. It's like a copy of the Chorus on one, which now is a viewer you would know. you've ever seen. Yeah, and you would recognize that from the pre for the first two prequel movies which are out by the time this comes out.

But like those chairs in the circle, which I don't think are really in Cotor one in that style. Is the, is the, is the Dantone? No, you're in the Junk Council chamber, it's just the big room. It's the big, yeah, and this is like the five people looking at you. But here are the, here's the circle of chairs looking inwards. It's that particular image. And crucially, they're all empty. And so here there's a couple interesting things about us.

Wait, who's atress? That's, because you said, you love exile and actress. What she looked like? Uh, all white outfit, white fur, white braid. Uh, I guess Northern Water Tribe is the, the, the vibe. So funny, you say that. Avatar. Yeah.

Do you know who the handmaiden voice actress is? No. It's a grade, uh, Delio, or Delio, who's also sometimes, uh, credited as Gray Griffin. Uh, who was Zula from, um, uh, what do you call it from, like queen. Yeah, from avatar. The rifle roller of the fire nation. There you go. Uh, for people who want to know what- She's a girl boss too hard.

That's right. Uh, here's the thing I'll ask all of you to do right now. If you're at your computer where Steam is, you go to Steam really quick and just look and click on Knights of the Old Republic too and look at what the banner images. That's her? That's her. That's Atris in her kimono. Oh. Dueling a mysterious Sith Lord.

who I believe Allie, you're the only one who doesn't know who this mysterious Sith Lord is at this point. I mean, I don't know that anyone knows. Mr. Owl Mask. Mr. Owl Mask is here. Anyway. Oh, yeah, and he had a whole like sear aboard that ship.

We'll get there. I can show you that scene when we get there too. But for now, yeah, this all white everything in a Jedi kimono comes down. It feels like a fairy tale when you're in her. Like, like Kria is on her like most evil sorceress ever. and then you're like it's the snow queen with her handmaidens who all look the same and all white everything and it's just it's very good it's really good I think and at first I was like oh was this your mentor and I'm like is this your axe because bro there is so this conversation is so long and and this is

there's different ways you can go because now the game will give you like eight options for how you want to play it and now you're like there's a lot of interpretive work you can do to be like how does your exile feel about all this but also what's some of the backstory on this

certain things are inviolable the last time you've seen each other was when you were sort of drummed out of the Jedi order and she remembers you putting your lightsaber in the stone of whatever, justice, true. Who knows? And that was, that was it. And she starts asking you details

about what you recall about your last meeting and the trial. And you have options. You can say that the council decided to put you in exile, but she wanted you to face a worse trial. You can simply thank her for being merciful. Yep. You can tell her to go fuck herself. You can tell her go fuck yourself. I'm to kill all of you. You can be like, where's my ship? Lots of options. So many things. It's, I mean, this goes back to one of our recurring questions. We got the question in the Q&A from last time that was like, what do you think your character did for the 10 years in between then and now? And one of the things that I said at the time was like, there are so many options, not just to answer that question, but there's so many opportunities for characterizing

who you are and how you feel. about your past. And this is one of the scenes that was really big in my mind when I thought about this. Because like from this point, through the rest of what we talk about today, there are all these opportunities where you can be effectively driven by a sort of terrible guilt about whatever happened on Malacore 5, where you think I deserved everything the Jedi did to me. And in fact, they should have gone harder. I am totally repentant, maybe even beyond that. Maybe there's no hope for me. Or you can, you can try to lay out a very clear argument that justifies your actions or you could be a cartoon villain, unfortunately, in all of the most

dark side options. But, like, there's a lot of opportunity in the middle between completely repentant. I want to be a Jedi again and help everybody, and I want to continue killing babies. There's a lot of space for interpersonal relations to drive how you define who your character is. It's not just what do I think I did back then, but it's like, how do I respond to a person who is so condescending to me and who is revealing to me potentially, both through regular dialogue options and especially if you happen to have high awareness, what her deep co-mingling

of feelings is with you. You know, I'm not going to gas up this stuff too much, but there's like a degree of being able to interrupt each other in this that approaches what a fight an actual argument with like a significant other or with a family member or with a close friend can feel like. where you're, like, talking past each other rapidly in ways that, like, lead to the marriage story scene where Kylo Ren punches a hole in the wall, you know? Like, that is what's happening in this, can be happening in this conversation. But I guess I'm curious how everyone played it.

Did anybody just, like, fully go, you know, down on the ground and say, I beg you for forgiveness, my queen? Hell no. Hell no. What was the vibe? the vibe for me was definitely making the case for myself, as well as casting judgment on the Jedi Order. I think throughout the conversation,

I avoided the options that were like, I'm here to kill you all. But I did kind of back myself throughout the conversation and saying that, you know, Um, I, I, I, I did this for the Republic. I, I didn't necessarily doing this for Revin. Um, I couldn't let innocents die in the outer rim. Um, and then there's one option where, uh, you know,

atrice is very convinced that you are, you have like, the thirst for war. Like you fell in love and you fell to the desire. You fell in love with somebody who was an actress and now she's mad about it? Anyway, no, continue. War, my other love. But I had to, it was as if she was like convinced of a version of myself that I had to keep walking her back from, which I really enjoyed that kind of back and forth.

She would be like, you were just obsessed with Revin. You just couldn't wait to fight. You couldn't wait to give yourself to fighting. And I was like, you, you sat there and did nothing. You know, you should admit that your lack of decision making, of committing to a decision is what led to the Jedi Civil War. your abstinence from from the war itself actually created the war and you know when it is wild to me to imagine a version of the exile for how I've been playing it so far that would be at this point essentially groveling at her feet and saying God I realize you know you and the council were merciful How could I imagine a world in which they were merciful for stripping me in the way that the force being taken away from you is described in this game? It is so beyond debilitating.

It is like it really feels like just the most aggressive of crimes, like just like one of the deepest types of harm that you could do someone. It's described as removing all of your senses. What if you were to wake up and none of your senses were there? Like, it is so violating that I just cannot picture a world in which the exile would be here like, yeah, you were right for doing that. Like, that is so wild to me. But I, you know, I imagine there's a playthrough that there's a version of the exile that that makes sense. Yeah, I just, I really enjoyed going back and forth and being able to air my criticisms against the council and say, you know, you were ruled by fear. Your inaction is actually not the Jedi way of that is actually falling victim to your fears and things like that.

Dark side points, by the way. If you say better good, better to go to war than be ruled by cowardice or. or that the council is weak and ruled by fear, those are dark side point gains. And I think those are like the rare exception where I'm like, oh, okay, that I didn't expect to get the dark side points. Give me that blade back or I'll tear it

from your dead hands, on the other hand. And by the way, that's the same amount of dark side points gain for both of those things, which is goofy. But maybe it's not goofy. It's not a person's lightsaber. That's right. So, yeah, for me, I played it a little more

like I was a little confused about the timing. I thought you got stripped of the powers when the uprising had already happened, basically, and you'd already, like, joined the Jedi mutiny up to a point, and we're, like, coming back from it, trying to, like, get back in good graces. So I wasn't clear on the timing. And I didn't realize this was the in-between phase before the Civil War starts in earnest, but after Malacor and the Mandalorians are defeated. There's 10-year gap there, right?

Or a multi-year gap there. So, yes, it's the Mandalorian War happens before Cotaur 1 happens. The Jedi Civil War is Cotor 1, and it happens after the Mandalorian War. That's when the hollow vid that we see later takes place too, right? So initially I was I was playing it like, oh, they did like, hey, if they stripped me in my force powers because I was off with, like, like, Reverend Alec, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then maybe I did get off easy for the, for, for what we got up to. but I did sort of take the mocking approach of yeah no the council was just going to sit here and do studies while like millions were dying blow the whistle on her bullshit about like do you realize what you've done to telos by destroying piraigas 20 worlds will die because if this project falls through the republic's not going to rescue any of the world that the Sith destroyed and that option was just lying that was a big old meatball thrown across the plate is like oh you know that the

Mandalorian scorching all those worlds out in the outer rim. But the other thing that emerged in the argument is that every time you try to argue with her, she'll be like, see, this just proves you learn nothing. You're retreading all this stuff. And the most approving reaction I got was when I was like, I'm not doing this. We're not discussing. I'm not here to debate the council's rulings with you. Where's my ship?

And it was like, oh, I see you have one. learned something. And once it turned to a real testy, like post-divorce, uh, look, I just need to get my things and get out of here. Once it turned into that, we were, we sort of were able to keep it, keep it rolling. But the other thing is, she's mad about your decision making about going to join the Jedi Crusade against the Mandalions, but also she says, this was always you. This is classic you doing whatever you think is right with all your certainty oh yeah and damn the consequences and not a thought to how it affects anyone else or how they feel and i was like oh it's like that yeah this is not this is not you returning to uh Yoda for like an after action

report about like how you put the Jedi teachings into practice. This is a, you broke ranks and that was devastating. Did you, did y'all get the awareness checks? There's two big awareness checks. Awareness 10 and Awareness 16. My guy and aware shit. Okay. So the big one is in the middle of the real,

heavy back and forth where you're cutting each other off and you're like how many people could have been saved and she's like you don't know how many people uh and you know if the mandoloreans had won would the jeddia fought then or would they have simply meditated on what to do and she says how dare you the mandolorean wars should have been your grave and malachore five is where you should have died and if you have an awareness of 16 or higher you can say your anger is it because you secretly wish you'd had the strength to follow me to war and she goes what What do you mean? And then you can say, I can see it in you.

You wanted to fight by my side, but you were too scared to defy the counsel. Or you can say, then let the fear guide you atress wherever it leads. Or if you cannot grasp the truth, then never mind. Or I do not want to speak about this again. And she says, you're wrong, just as you were wrong when you defied the counsel. And there's a lower version of that where you can make the same basic thing, which is like, Was it always personal with you? And then she's like, no, you're just seeing shadows where there are none.

But that is like so clearly the moment where she, her, she does the thing that we want Atten to do, where the face drops because you have completely cut through. She's bizarre. She's seen her. There's a hundred percent the case that she regret. The thing that makes her so mad about it all is she maybe deep down knows you were right or at the very least was compelled to want to follow you. and chose not to because she was afraid of getting chided by the council.

And who knows what else? Was she on the council when that war started? Did she become part of the council after Reverend Malik left? You know, she's about your age. And it's easy to imagine that she stayed behind as the representative of the young Jedi who then gets elevated as the sort of like reformist option who gets to stay behind. That's your Hakeem Jeffries. That 100%. Exactly.

So, and, you know, that sort of, that sort of then colors the thing that happens after this conversation is done, where we again get to see her talk to one of her handmaidens where it again kind of becomes clear. And this is a difference in male and female very slightly. If you're playing a woman, you know, so you eventually leave, we can keep talking about this conversation, but I just want to wrap this thought up really quick. after you leave, after she says, okay, go get your fucking ship, we're going to work together for stuff that we'll talk about in a second. A handmaiden, the handmaid says, are you all right, mistress? And Atra says, the exile reminded me of something I had forgotten. Forgive me, mistress, but I must ask, the exile.

I've never seen another affect you so strongly. And the two things here are, if you're a woman, she says, was she important to you once? And Atress says, we all have our heroes. And when we watch them fall, we die inside. She made a choice once, and I did not. The day we judged her, I stood in the chamber, and she was, she was so right. She was so certain of it. I doubted myself.

But not now. She will never make me doubt myself again. But now I must retire. I must meditate. And then she walks into a room filled with red and black light, which again, what made me talk about. And if it's like, if you're playing as a man, uh, have a handmaiden instead of saying, was she important to you once, says, did you care for him once? And Atress says, the Jedi.

have no such attachments. As always, he will do as he wills, and the galaxy and the feelings of others can burn for all he cares. The day we judged him, I stood in the chamber, and he was, and et cetera. And there is where she explicitly says he chose Revin over the Jedi, over the council, over. But now I'm tired. I must go meditate. As clear as can be, if you were playing a man, again, in this game that is by default extremely heterosexual. Never has a game been more comp had the coat her to at launch um you know at you see you see that hot lady your character banged her that's right buddy that's what atten is saying your character's lady nope you were friends you were friends you were buddies no attachments no she was your he you were her hero which is i think

also an interesting characterization but alley rolling your eyes yeah no there's like there's there's like a bonkers um dialogue choice that you can make with one of the handmaidens lately or later in a conversation where the handmaiden is like you know she warned us about you you're you're evil or whatever um and you can be like she's just playing with you she's like a sister to me and i was like no that's fucking wild it's so good and the handmaid and follow it by being like well that's not all she said she said all this other fucked up stuff about you so i know that you're lying about that but i was like that is such a weird like just wait to throw a around with that or like just playing with what the situation is just because, well, the,

the experience that I had talking with her was really interesting because it felt like I was trying to needle through the way that I'm trying to play my exiles disinterested in interacting with their old life at all, but also being like, well, I want to know information about this game. And like a thing that keeps coming up again in that conversation again and again is her assumption that you're coming there to speak to her. Yeah. That you were willed there because of her for some reason. And like to constantly be like, you know, I started the conversation by being like,

well, what's your version of what happened? Because I thought that would be fun. And then just again and again being like, if you thought that I came here to see you again, you're wrong, things like that. Or like, I don't want to talk about this anymore. So we do. Yeah. That's really good.

We also get a payoff. Remember when you told. Atten about your lightsaber? She brings out the lightsaber. She brings out the lightsaber as you describe it. And it's like, yeah, I have this now. You don't deserve this? Oh, you thought I was going to give her back to you?

Did anyone else take their photos of their lightsaber? I want to see. I want to see. Oh, I didn't. But I did just, I just saw it as my screenshot was there as my video was going by. Let me grab it for you. Wait, well, you didn't get this at all? No, because I did tell Ed about my lightsaber.

I was like, don't ask me about my lightsaber. So what does she bring out? Nothing. Wow. Wow. Later, Bodeu's like, I know there's no wrong way to play, but it's like Allie's out here cutting content from the game 20 years later. I don't need to see that thing.

New definition. You're going to make a new one. Yeah. New definition of the content mod. It's, uh, it's Allie removing content from the game. That's right. Uh, here is, here is, here is mine. Let me keep, jeez.

I saw it in the cut scene because you do the stabby sacrifice it Oh you do see it but that's like a black and white and you don't actually see it Yeah I will say mine's pretty sick She brings out Like double-sided blade With like a silver

Silver blade So double save the lightsaber Like a silver blade It matches her uncannily Oh I bet that looks great Yeah it looks fucking fantastic And then my guy was like I don't really care

Keep it, don't keep it, like, keep it, don't, I don't give a shit. Because I'm still playing, it's still playing as like, you're a heretic. You're sort of gleefully an apostate at this point, like the mutual contempt between the two sides. Like, why, like, and what's so funny, though, is so much of the dialogue is like, and now this is time for your character to commit to, like, wanting to get back in the Jedi's good graces. and I'm like, no, that is not where we're at. And also, like, even though the character, even though your dude might be going out there, it's like, we have to stop these Sith, that does not, it does not follow. And the game keeps being like, it's time to, I just want to help people.

I want to help the Jedi fight the Sith. And it's like, no, the Sith have to go down. But like, I'm on that Crea program a little bit now where, like, this Jedi order has lost its fucking way. And Atris is, in particular, is unsettling. So you have this woman who wants to rebuild the Jedi order from her underground moon base surrounded by women who look just like her and also are unable to feel the force that she's specifically chosen because they cannot feel the force and that they have taken an oath to never try to become Jedi.

God forbid a woman does anything. Sounds like Allie is on the atress plan. Every girl boss needs her girl assistance. I just, when you, when you see, when you see someone trying to build a force of power with their, their little handmaidens and they all look exactly the same and wear the same exact outfit, I've logged on. Like, I'm. Disney villain ass. It's wild. So, but like when, when she talks about like, reason,

presenting your certainty also, I immediately flashed a conclave. Oh, for sure. The dread of the institutionalist of the person who was certain. Yeah. The person who has a belief and acts on it. But I played the game right. I was, I, everybody, everybody thinks I'm pretty okay. They might not agree with things I say, because I don't say any real things.

I just have made friends in high places. You know, atress must be fucking just, just twisting inside of her soul that all of the, like, ladder climbing. she did when the Jedi were in power is like for nothing now, you know? Or is she? Because, so after all this, yes. All right, go pick up your crew. Right. You do come to an agreement. And that agreement, I believe, I believe, no matter what, you come to an agreement.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe, Allie, did you say, I'm getting out of here? Or did you agree to go find the remaining Jedi masters? No. Or to not, maybe not find the Jedi masters, but to like work together towards stopping the Sith. Yeah, well, that's where the conversation gets to Where it's like the Sith is back We have to stop them

We don't necessarily have to stop them together But I will give you your Eben Hawk back Right, okay She'll also say like you can be like There gotta be other Jedi out there And you can convince her that you're like Serious about this and that you can like Go out there to try to get yourselves more allies

With other Jedi Which you will later learn are the other Jedi masters By way of T3's recording Oh, I didn't even get that information because she was so mad at me. Interesting. So I didn't find out about the other Jedi until the Vod reveal. Gotcha.

Or I guess not the Vod reveal, but the download. The download, yeah, yeah. So it's like go get your crew, go get your ship, get the fuck out of here. But you walk up to the Hadvadans and be like, stop. What is this place? and they will just tell you a whole bunch, lots about this place. But interesting details that emerge. They must be so bored.

Like, I was going to be like, how can they be like so oathed up? And yet they like broke girl code so quickly and told you all of Atrice's shit. And the answer must be they're bored as hell down here. This is, this was one of my favorite beats in playing this game so far because I had the conversation with Ares and I was like, okay, I'm going to bed. Let me just see what happens when I hit. I'm looking for a fight right now because after I killed all those guys on the paragon station, I was like, oh, it's just going to be a conflict and it'll be funny. And then to like have that happen and immediately get brought into the scene where they're all

like standing around you and you don't have your armor on anymore, I was like, what the fuck it's happening? What are you people doing down here? What is this game? You don't ever fight with your, you don't fight with your girls when, when, when, would yeah sometimes you just got a start a fight club there's nothing to do here

Rob I literally named my saves fight club before and fight club after or something like that when I was going through this process blood in blood out that is all they do down here they have nothing going up they're guarding it from what from each other there's nothing to do

like your guy walking through the front door was the only thing that's ever happened here but you can be like what's up with this place and they fill you in some details. One of the really key things is Atris went to Dantuin and knew it was going to get got.

Yeah, weird. And took a bunch of the Jedi archives and artifacts off the planet and brought them here for safekeeping. The other Jedi, the evacuation didn't go super well, but like Atris, you know, couldn't save them all, but Atris got the important stuff out of there. And Asia is going to

use this to be the future of the to the Jedi order. This is going to be here at the new Academy. And we're here to bring that vision to fruition, us handmaidens. We're not here to be Jedi. To be clear, we are not here to be Jedi. We're like her acolytes, but like, nope, can't touch the force. We have to promise, not even to try.

If we try to touch the force in a dream, we have to wake up and apologize, is the vibe. It's giving like checks and balances vibes. Oh, I mean. The way that they talk about it. It is like she has all. her servants must be blindfolded and have their ears plugged because who knows what you can't they just can't have four senses around and those Jedi she's going to train they'll show up eventually but she's not ready to have students show up she's just archiving things and logging the data

and all that but you know the training she'll she'll have she'll have trainees later and your your character the exile has a lot of barbed comments to make at this moment but they're all get to the gist of this. She's never trained anyone. She's never had a Padawan. The council never saw fit to make her, like, trained people. She's on the council and she never had a Padawan?

It's an interesting detail. And let's think about what's this game, what has this game been about from the jump? Teaching. It's been about pedagogy. It's been about the relationship between mentors and their students, mentors and mentees. It's been about CREA and

And Darth Zion, now Kraya and you. It's been, I mean, we eventually learn something else later. It's gestured at in the Vod, right? We'll get to that. Okay. So we learn who Revin's master was later, sort of. It's gestured at. So much to consider about what it means when there's suddenly a character who seems unable to be part of the sort of commerce is the wrong word.

like, and transactions are the wrong one. I'm not trying to say it's transactional. But this sort of relationship, this sort of activity that the game has centered as one of the most important activities there is in personhood is teaching. And I will say, without giving particular mechanics away, this game is really interested in the way that people, we already talked about the influence system, right? The game is really interested in how can a person change another person? And the fact that Atris seems, and it's not like she can't change anybody else,

she seems to have made these handmaidens in her own image in some way, though we can get to the Achani genetics shit also if we want to. But like the fact that she can't do that marks her in a very particular way, right? Like, I don't do the thing this game is about. I don't ever have a student. Now, presumably she's been a student, but that's, we don't know to who and we don't really understand necessarily what that experience was like for her yet either.

And your character, even, when the handmaids are like, obviously, like, once the call goes out, like, students will flock here. And your character can be a real asshole about it. Like, she couldn't, like, you know, basically couldn't teach her out of a paper bag type of thing, but nobody's going to come where.

It's like she couldn't bring, she couldn't get flies to come to shit is basically what you can say. And, which is like a level of contempt that, like, Jedi Council also share this verdict on her ability to teach it like that you're she's deeply uninspiring despite this ice queen persona and all this shit this is a she's created sort of a sunset boulevard alternate reality where she is the future of the Jedi order but like if

she were the future of the Jedi order they would have made her the future it doesn't sound like they ever did right meanwhile the handmaidens are also like so that Atten do is kind of weird. What's with his He's not who he's pretending to be. Like, what? He's just a pilot and kind of a dip shit. No, that is a well-trained Tier 1 operator. He dropped into a Chani fighting

forms immediately. Caught himself, but it was his first instinct when when threatened. And your character's like, I don't believe you. All right. And then, yes, they're like, by the way, we're also a Chani.

and the thing about us is that you don't have to create too many visual assets for them because we all look the same. If we got the same parents, we all look the same. What about that one girl? Don't ask me about that one girl. We as long as we all have the same mother or the same mother and father, we all look the same. And we all have the same mother. Okay, so what about her?

We all have the same mother. Don't ask more about that. That's rude. You want to fight about it? Yes. we would love to fight about it actually there's like a bunch of ways you can get into do you want to fight about it

in the conversations with them I guess first we should say the other thing she took besides the besides taking the Jedi archives off of Dantoine she also took Jedi artifacts and when you push them on what they have and what they are or if maybe you could go see some of them

they say no you can't go see any of them, even though you might be a Jedi, but you could go ask the last of us, the least of the handmaidens about them, because she is so interested in them. It's like one of her clear faults and that she cares. She's so distracted by other things. She's not dedicated. She's the Ariel of, that is right, this academy. Yeah, that is the vibe. Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat? Isn't it neat? Yeah. Yeah, I, the moment that like really stood out to me in terms of just like the way that they're characterizing the like the the ugly duckling can maiden that joins you and just like the the way that they are all so deeply unsatisfied is when she asks you like you know

I'm not allowed to be part of the force but what is it like and my character was like I'm not talking about that fuck the force and then did crea in response to that in your party yet I don't think so no no this is when you were still alone I think it was in the the fight ring but I stopped to talk to her there. And she responds by saying like, okay, if you won't tell me about the fours, tell me what it's like to be divided from it. And like the fact that she was so curious about that too.

And my character says something like, you know, it's like an echo that moves through you. You get a lot of really interesting options, but I chose the one with the echo. And she just thanks you for saying it. She's like, I'm really happy to know that. Thank you for sharing that with me. And I'm like, man.

Man. You should have fought in the war with me. You should have fought in the war, yeah. Give it time. Give it time. Yeah. Well, yeah, she's in the party now, unless you were playing this game when it came out and you were a woman, in much case, you'd be like, bye.

So the, the, you can talk to her about a much of stuff. The thing I want to note really quick is, one, you can go get Atten and Crea and Baye-Dur if you want to before talking to any of the handmaidens besides, where are my people at? And then they will occasionally chime in with stuff. One place where Craya chimes in, you can ask the handmaidens about, about Atrice's plans. And she says, or the handmaidens, the, the non, so there's the handmaiden. That's what she's named right now. And there's also the handmaiden sisters.

The sisters are the ones with the mod. They all have the same haircut. The handmaiden, the last of the handmaidens, has a slightly different haircut. But the handmaiden sisters will say, we serve the job. Jedi, we do not question them yet. Atrice has told us that the work here at Telos may pay for similar efforts in many worlds along the rim that were destroyed when the Jedi turned on each other. She has said the Jedi order needs such a foundation if it is to rebuild.

She faults the teachings of many of the Jedi masters as the spark of the Jedi Civil War. And Creia says, indeed, a most curious reason for war. Which is wild because it kind of is the way Crea thinks about things also. Right. Craya very much has been like, the force is the only thing that moves history. The relationship between people who can wield the force, the things that they believe, that's what moves history. But here, she's like, Atris has the wrong of it somehow, right? You can also then say to the handmaiden sister that, you know, Atris, the handmaidens will be like, yeah, she says that Revin in Malik led you to war. And you're like, no, I keep telling you.

That is not why I went to war. I chose to go to war. And at that point, Kraya can say, but were the choices you had dictated by your training? A curious question, difficult to answer. And here it's like, she is saying the training is the reason for the war, right? Kraya constantly talking out of both sides of her mouth, constantly trying to like play devil's advocate. I totally get why some people just despise her. And there is something deep in me that loves the manipulation being put full on display here.

And then, yes, you can also have Kraya with the. with you when you talk to the handmaiden and Ali when she asks you to describe what either your connection or the absence of the force is, Kraya will, I was like mad at her for this because I thought I had like, I like put thought into what I said. I was like, it's, it's, um, it is, uh, I don't remember the exact one. Oh, it was, it's like a current that passes through you and carries you with it to all the places it touches. And I was like, yeah, I fucking killed that one. And then Kraya just jumps in and she's like, it is like a cloud, a mist that drifts from living creature to creature set in motion by currents and eddies it is the eye of a storm

the passions of all living things turned into energy into a chorus it is the rising swell at the end of life the promise of new territories and new blood the call of new mysteries in the dark and again the handmaid's like thank you and i was like she asked me crea we were trying to connect on some shit. Yeah, the fact that she's like, well, thank you both for responding to that. Yeah. Like, um, okay. That's also not a bar.

She says the same thing you do, but like way more. Yeah. Now, if you have her with you and you do what you said, which was I, I'm telling you about the absence. I think this is actually, again, we're going to hit some of the big themes here. When she describes the absence of the force, which it suggests she also has felt, and I guess she is level one when you get her. It is like standing atop the summit of a great mountain, the winds tearing about you, then finding

yourself buried alive, trapped, helpless, and alone. It is like having the energy of youth, then feeling the cloak of years fall upon you. And knowing you are weak, fragile, and a thing easily discarded, it is knowing what you want to say in never finding the words. It is a chorus replaced with silence, hearing teachings without meaning. It is like a beloved pupil to whom you have. shared everything, sacrificed everything, and then having them turn from you and forget all you were. I think that hits way more than her what is the force thing. And I think it might be more honest

about what her relationship to the force is. The thing that she says about, oh, it's like a cloud feels like some shit she read. You know, it feels like she opened up force affirmations and like picked a page. The shit that's like, yeah, for me, the force is like having a student who you share too much with feels very honest about who create is. I feel like it part of me feels like

it's because that's the question that's probably always asked of people who are, who can feel the force is what does it feel like to be able to touch it? You know, it's like somebody that has

you know, some great ability like, oh, what is it like to be able to do X, Y, and Z. What is synesthesia like? Tell me about what that, like, feeling is like. Whereas,

posing the question as, what does it feel like to no longer have it? I think is something that, like, it kind of removes her from autopilot, and it actually gets to something, like, she expresses herself in a way, it disarms her a little bit, and she expresses herself in a more,

in a deeper way. And I think that leads really nicely into a later point in that conversation where the handmaiden, the last handmaiden in New York going back and forth about what is battle, what are, what are Ashani kind of conceptions around battle? And she talks about it as this, like, it's a means of community. communication, that it speaks to one's, like, heart and their truest form of expression is through battle, which is wild that there's all these people here who very much value battle as a means of expression. And the one central figure is a Jedi who fell, who, who, who, uh, resided. to inaction at a critical point in time when battle was going on. It's very interesting.

But eventually you can say there's a point where you say the handmaiden starts talking about Malik and how battle was a means of expression for both Malik and Revin. That like seeing terrorist destroyed, revealed to Malik that, like, you know, revealed these feelings to Malik that, like, battle was the form of expression that they needed to execute on. And the handmaiden says she spoke through, when she's talking about Revan, I'll just read this part where she's talking about Malik and Revan, she says, the thing you can say before is either, like, combat is not the best way to communicate with others, or I agree, it shows how far you are willing to go for your goals. And they had the handmaiden response and says, it was to

the Jedi traitor Malik. It was to the Jedi traitor, Revan. When Taras was destroyed, it showed Malik's heart through its execution and intent. It was brutal without finesse, but showed his commitment to defeat the Jedi. Yet with Revin, there was the same commitment, but it was a subtle thing, like weaving threads in a tapestry or strokes upon a canvas. She spoke through battles and

tactics in a way one could never do in words. She showed her heart at Malikor 5. And finally, at the end of the Jedi Civil War, I believe she was speaking to Malik in that final battle, though few know it. And you can say,

I think the thing I said was what do you think Revin was saying? And the handmaiden responds and says, through battle, Revin was meeting betrayal with betrayal and showing Malik the pain he had inflicted on his master. What stronger display than death

for conveying one's sense of being betrayed by one's own student? Revan's anger must have been great indeed. I would have wished to have been there for that final exchange and see the truth of their conflict with each other. And Crea jumps in here and says, to claim to know anything,

of Reven's choices or lay in his heart when Malich fell is conceit, servant of Atres. And whether Revin had any choice in the matter at all is something else you should consider. The force is a powerful thing to wield or deny. So at this point, and then she says a little bit later, Crea says,

at what point does the power the force exert submerge any attempt at choice or free will? Oh, no, no, sorry. The hand, apologies. The handmaiden questions Kraya and says, to say that seems an untruth based on what I know of the Jedi. The force can drive others, but there is still choice, is there not? And Kraya says, at what point does the power the force exerts,

submerge any attempt at choice or free will? You have taken a complicated question, servant of Atris, and you have trivialized it with your answer and lack of experience. And the handmaiden is like, well, if there is no. choice in the force, then our teachings and actions are for nothing. And I refuse to believe that is true. So this is really interesting because it's like clearly the handmaiden is getting all these ideas and conceptions of the force through a Jedi lens somewhat, but also has distance enough that she is not being trained as a Jedi, that she still has at like an observational

standpoint. But Crea here saying that, oh no, actually I believe that that the force is powerful enough to remove free will that like almost as if Revin was acting as an agent of the force, as an agent of the force's desire or the force's motivations rather than making a conscious choice to fall to one side or the other is so, it's so good. This recast that earlier conversation in which she is like, history is the history of the force with slightly different light, right? Because if what she's saying, Yoda says stuff like that sometimes. And it's like, you know, Darth Vader says stuff like that.

Like, we're all small in the face of the force. The force is such a more powerful weapon or if you're not dark side, the force will guide us. The force is the thing that will move history. But here, when she explicitly says that the force could submerge any attempt at choice or free will, you have to start asking, like, is that that? good is the force the baddies? Because in the prior in the in the in the in the previous in the former version it's as it's it's it's more akin to faith. It's more akin to if you believe in this thing the force guides us. God guides all and it and it leaves it in this kind of lofty

immaterial thing where God is just this it is just you know it's the it's the threads of destiny. It's just the way the universe is working itself out. It's the turning of the planets. It's all of that. But in this, it like, it makes the, it personifies the force as, no, God capital G. He, like, it's that guy, God. And God, like, more in the kind of Old Testament conception of God, of like, God is making choices and, and, and, uh, and exerting his will. Um, in that, you know, and, and thinking about the force as a, as a god that is like,

eggs is working through people is like, is pushing its will through people. And we, and those people are just like, uh, uh, conduits for allowing the force to do its will is so, it's so interesting. And it's, I feel like it's a perspective that we, I don't think I can never think of we've really gotten before as really attributing the force as to be its own agent. You know, it's, yeah.

The only time I can think of is mortis. Oh, God. Oh, my God, it is mortis. But it's mortis without the person. It's mortis. Yes. It's mortis as will,

but it's without the father and the son and the daughter. Instead, it's this notion that history is being driven by this thing. this unknowable thing. This thing that's almost in this one line characterizes this sort of like, it's not just a god, but it's this unknowable like Lovecraftian God. Yes, yes, yes.

Seemingly indifferent to us and we're below it. And when yet we are also sort of like beholden to it, we will continue to have this conversation as the game continues. Go ahead. I mean, I just, I love to have her perspective on this with how often, in her conversations, it seems like she is using it as a way to sort of like wiggle out of, you know, responsibility for her actions. Like, even when she manipulates at Nitz, it's this thing of like, well, the challenges that we

face are going to force this of, and we're going to need these allies, so I'm just going to have to do this to you. And, you know, all of this like, well, the force is drawing us to telos, and then you get there and she's like, well, you must be here for her. but, like, you know, she's getting away from how much she is, like, steering the ship in that way by saying, well, the force is all doing it. And, you know, I don't have choice against the force. So I might as well just follow all of these impulses, but also take actions in every single point that, like, things work out the way that I want them to. but that's just because the force wants it to happen that way. Who do you think was the boat?

It's like that thing that Matt Damon says at the end of no sudden moves, right? Where it's like, you know, I, I direct the, I simply direct the path of the path of the vessel, but I don't control the current. And that is, that is her, it's sort of predestination. thing happening here.

Can you, again, it is, now you have to imagine that the year is 2006 or whatever, and I'm in college working on a philosophy degree, and this game comes out and it hits me like a missile. It doesn't force. I was a sophomore. And then he converted to

Calvinism. That's right. Or, I mean, listen, I did have him, to this day, I think like material determinism is a really strong argument for the way the world works. I don't know that I believe it in my heart. Uh, there's a lot of Dostoevsky in me who

wants to like beat my head against the wall in favor of free will. I'd like to destroy the machine that could predict the future if it existed. But there's part of me that's like, it all adds up, man, you know, like the options seem to be either like determination or chaos. It's hard for me to see the free will in the model of, of the scientific world as we understand it. You've got to get to some other stuff for it to fit in there. So like, it's compelling because it's naughty and because I don't like it. Even if it's attractive to me, I don't like believing in the world without free will. And so I like the conversation here that is like a character who seems both beholden to it, but also despises it in some way. It's the thing I kind of like

about Crea as someone of you is a little bit of a con artist. So the way that like, no matter what you do, you're damned. She'll always have something to say. Yep. But it reminds me very much of like, people will often pretend to some insight to your character or to your motives, and they will behave in such a way that is extremely knowing and presumptuous. And if you not truly know yourself, you'll wonder briefly, if they do have that insight, if they can sort of see something about yourself that you are not aware, or they can pierce the reasoning you give for your motivations and uncover some sort of hidden truth. But if you do know yourself,

if you're more grounded in yourself, and more confident of yourself, attempts to do that come across as very childish. They come across as desperate ploys, and that is often the vibe I get from Craya, which is that she needs you to be in a state of doubt. She needs you to be suggestible. And so no matter what you do,

oh, I'm sorry, you didn't quite get the lesson that I'm trying to teach. Oh, foolish child, you still have so much. much to learn. And there's a lot of moments where I'm like, that is not what I was saying at all. Like you are simply off base on this. And you can see it like shatter someone like Atten. But your character doesn't necessarily need to react this way to Kraya.

And there is a bit of these are ways that perhaps she's also retreated into doubt. Jolie Bindo gets to a point of like on the galactic time scale, eventually all of this will, you know, it'll be, it'll be dust on the wind. Like in the end, like there will be periods where evil is triumphant. There are periods where good is triumphant, but the struggle goes on. The cycle will continue. A lot of bad phases are good. There's a sort of fatalism to that. But it doesn't follow that nothing we do matters.

He draws that line too, right? You have your, you know, you still have a choice about how you react to those moments and what you do in those moments, but don't give yourself too much of a important role in the story. Kraya wants to get to this place of it was just the hand of the force. I didn't do this. Revin didn't do this. This was, yeah, it was just. it was, you know, it was God's finger on the trigger. Mm-hmm.

And I think that is a place you get to when you are fundamentally terrified of being the person with control of the trigger. Mm-hmm. And a lot of that, that's kind of the dilemma the Jedi find themselves in, you know, the best of us went rogue. But we also couldn't, we couldn't strike when the moment had arrived. We couldn't, we couldn't rise to the man. Mandalorian threat. We can now say after it has passed, oh, we were going to. Yeah.

You should have just let us, the hour had not come. You can say that now that it is done. We didn't like you how you did it. But everyone, there's a lot of like retreating from power here, or at least retreating from the responsibility for using it. Right. And there are different approaches being taken with that. And you see some of those approaches in the Vod of your trial where,

which we should note the way T3, they tried to download everything in T3's memory core, but while they were doing that, our good buddy T3 downloaded everything on the data banks of Atreus's computers. And found their

porn stash of Jedi Justice. God. It's so funny. Exile gets exiled by the Jedi Council. So So you get, again, you have control over how this cutscene unfold to some extent. You have dialogue choices.

Do you understand why we have summoned you? You can be like, for my many war crimes, I'm sorry. Or you can be like, go fuck yourselves. I came here my own free will. You didn't, you're not my dad. You have various flavors of that you can sort of take. But the TLDR of it is that. Now the war, the war of the Mandalorians is over.

I guess the Civil War has not yet begun, but the Jedi are trying to figure out what are we're going to do with the fact that you have Revin and Malik or sort of heroes to the Jedi. They've won this war while technically committing mutiny against the Jedi and kind of going rogue. And you're, you're sort of asked to explain yourself and face their judgment about whether you can continue to be a Jedi having broken ranks. join this crusade and you know the answer is no you can't they're going to they're they're going to exile you and that's you boy when atris was was describing you thrusting the the the lightsaber in the stone it sounded way cooler you see your little dude go up to it and it's like that's something looks like shit oh that's just a that's just a big rock that you just find on like the planets sort of strewn there it's like they just put one in the middle of the room

like a pylon yeah yeah yeah like one of those weird machines that they have in grocery stores to examine spills but not clean them up those like big tower things uh-huh yeah god why are all the robots so big but so useful i don't know anyway but the real meat the the real meat in the sandwich is not how you're how your exile gets exiled it's the conversation the council has after you leave, which is basically so how did we get here, do we think? And there's a few different answers.

Some of it's just like, Revin Malik who've led these kids astray, but the really interesting part is the Jedi teachings led us to this point. It was a failure of teachings and particularly Revin's teacher, she set us up for this. It's flaws in her, it's flaws in her philosophy and lessons that she is teaching her students.

And that's got to be Crea. Like what they're describing is someone who's gone off, you know, they're, they're no longer reading from the same hymnal. And they are teaching more gray Jedi shit and like encouraging the Jedi to sort of live in the gray. And the counsel here on Corrassant is being like, we got to get this lady and her disciples. We got to get control on this. Well, and it's specifically Atris, who is the one, because some of the other Germanian master's like. The other counselor is a little more circumspect. They're at first, they're like, yeah, we really fucked up with Revin.

We really let the ball drop on this one. And Atres is like, we are not the ones who taught him. There is a particular specific teacher, and she keeps teaching people shit that's not up to code. Like, what are we doing? And Master Vash and all the other ones are like, no, I'm pretty sure. Well, I mean, importantly, not giving dark side, what is the exile giving? The exile is giving wound in the force. The exile is giving an echo.

It's as if he wasn't there, that the emptiness has changed. There's something missing in him. Which predates you're being cut off from the force by what they, whatever they ate the sentence they they said they cut you off from the force but then you leave the room and they're all like that was fucking weird right hey well okay what do they say they wait do they say they cut you off from the force that's what you've been told in the game that's what you've been told in the game do we see them cut you off from the force no they just they they say you can't have your lightsaber yeah they say the thing that yoda could never say which is please turn in

your lightsaber please turn in your badge and your gun opposite but again crea that like I would love a version of this game that was just an audio book in the style of Dukyu Jedi lost because some of these performances are giving that energy. Yeah. But yeah, this is the opposite of like when Yoda leaves a voicemail on Duku's phone and is like, hey, buddy, we still love you and miss you. Take your lightsaber. Yeah. Stay in touch. It does, it does say, Master Kavar says, perhaps in many years we will call her before us and explain what happened to her and how she may be healed. until then she must accept her journey. So it did, by this point, you still have your lightsaber,

but you did lose your force powers. Right. You don't know why. Again, I think you can read this as they've done that to you. I think you can read this as someone else did that to you. We certainly know that Atris, we certainly know that Atris later in time earlier in the game, you can say Atris wanted to punish me in a way that the rest of the Jedi Council didn't. there's lots of ways to read it i am just pointing at the ambiguity of the situation which the

game does does a lot of you know um but yeah and these it turns out yeah yeah so i'm gone it turns out you know these are the master these are the remaining living jen't you know it the july they have models for it got to all of them including including one that we know from the first game master of ruk at asner back in the game uh uh seems to have survived i believe this might be one of his last roles before he died at Asner, the excellent actor, and it turns

out each of them is spread out, spread across the galaxy. T3 found Atrice's notes about where they each are and it would you know it? It's one per planet for the rest of the game. The handlebar moshed guy is on Arsidae, living it up. Dude, you know he's living it up.

You know that dude. Sorry, the handlebar or you mean the push broom. Oh, the push broom. Yeah. it's big though it's it's it's no it does it kind of comes down it does come down it does come down it does come down you're right yeah I'm looking at it now I don't know that he waxes the edges to get he doesn't he doesn't bring it up he doesn't have the gentleman twist but yeah but and also just the vibe in the bod though is people like chill atris like there's a little bit of like why are you going so why are you why are you coming at this guy so hard why are you so like up in arms about this she straight up just like he should have died on malacore and they're like no that's not he still has a bunch of shit going on the future is shifting in front of him

etc you know um it was around now maybe it was before this that i got the other cutscene um i guess really quickly this is also where you get before we go to the other one big thing this is where you get bail dur saying hey we should build you a new lightsaber then that becomes a new side quest we get everybody hating on T3, Kraya zaps T3. What? Did y'all not get this? I didn't get a zap, but I did get like, shut the hell out of. I did not get a zap either.

She's zapsed T3. She says, betrayer and zaps T3 or betrayal, zaps T3 and says like, for me at least, that she like despises my closeness with machines. Like she's like upset that I have this closeness with machines. which is interesting. And then we even get Atten shit talking T3 a little bit. And we get Bayauder repairing T3. I don't know if you got that.

I did. I did. That brought me in Beauder like closer. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Because I was like, go on T3. He probably knows what he's doing. That's right.

And Beauder was like, thanks to the boat. But it was like kind of flirtatious. And then T3 was like, boot to tweet and had a constitution plus two score. Hell yeah. And is there any other like little stuff that has, I guess the handmade and shit. shows up.

Yeah. Yes. I also do love Bauder and Atten talking to each other. Oh, I forgot about that. Yes. Is this, this feels like it's also a gendered thing, or at least it starts very gendered with the girl option. What is it?

And is, is further supporting my be obsessed with, with Atten agenda right now because he like, he found, he finds Bo Derr just like repairing walls in the ship or something. Like he's just, he's, he's, he's fussing with stuff. Yeah, he's like, whatever, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, he's like, hey man, um, I just want to ask, you know, it seems like you and Exile have like a history together or whatever, right? So I just wanted to ask, like, do you ever, do you think? And Bow was like, I do not have an opinion on this van.

Whoa. I didn't really know her that well. I was a tech. She was a general. Your guess is as good as mine. And Etton's like, well, what is your guess? Because maybe, you know, we could hook up sometime is the implication. I don't know if he ever writes it, but that's very heavily implicated.

Yeah, I do not. I did not get a version of that, I don't think. Okay. Yeah, I didn't get that conversation at all. Interesting. I wonder if it's because my influence with Boutre is maybe highest in the free or Atten, or Atten, maybe. Or Atten, yeah. Yeah, I probably have low with Atten.

Um, and there's two really funny, I mean, the cutscene is funny at all, but like, while they're talking, it cuts to the exile and Crea just like chopping it up in the cockpit, which is a funny and like insert for this after I just had this conversation with Crea where she, I was like, you don't speak for me. Stop talking about this woman this way. Um, about the handmaiden. Um, but yeah, I don't like with all of Atten's like heavy, veil stuff I'm like the sense that I'm getting from this is that he is going to bow immediately

to put on this sort of like yuck yuck I just want to get laid sort of thing when he's really he's really got some stuff he's back ignoring the Krea torture

interrogation his explicit Atten's explicit response is like please don't tell her or tell him even in both cases yeah interesting and then you

Yeah, the handmaiden shows up. The handmaid shows up and is like, yeah, I was sent here by Atris. She isn't sent there, though. She comes under her own will. No. No, no. Go ahead. Yeah, there's a cutscene between, as you're like, after you leave the planet,

there's a cutscene between Atris and one of the remaining handmaidens that are there where Kray, or one of them is. She says, Atris says, like, oh, you know, the last handmaiding has left us. And the other handmaid is like, what? Like, what are you talking about? And Atris is like, uh, I actually think it's even before this, because I think that there is, there is even earlier than that when you, um, after you do the big Atris conversation is the, the, the Atris retreat.

to, like, the room, the meditation chamber or whatever. She's got so many big chambers. She does have so many big chambers. Conversation pits everywhere. Yeah. It's the, it's the, in the conversation where, how do you know, maybe you're right. It isn't there. I'm confused into other things.

I might have gotten a different version of this conversation because I swear I remember Atra's saying, like, she left on her own will. I'm not sure if it's a betrayal or not. I definitely got one that's, hmm, hmm. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm misremembering this. I'm looking back at my notes. And it seems like in the conversation, she says between Atris and the Handmaiden Sister,

she talks about her reasons are unknown to me, but I fear she may no longer be trust. Okay, here's what I got. I sent her to travel with the exile. She may discover something I cannot. Very clear. Oh, okay. Mistress, the last of the hand, ma'amaged, she is willful. She's demonstrated a fascination with the Jedi. It may not have been wise. Like, she's almost saying, like, actress, you shouldn't have sent her to go with them. And, yes. Aetress is like, no, like, I made my fucking choice. I know what I've done. Yeah, that's what I got. But I don't, maybe that's one of the, like, expanded content, because it's not in the strategy guide at all. from what I can see. So maybe that's something from the expanded content because in the strategy guide,

it's only Atris being surprised that she left and like, oh, no, this is not good. Maybe we can get her back. But I did get that dialogue as well. So I think that must be an extent, an additional content. Yeah.

But yeah, she shows up in the ship and is like, hey, I'm here. I'm here to help you fight the bad guys. And Adam's like, you can sleep on the floor. That's right. Oh, my God. For once, Adam being mean to hot women, it's like kind of strange. Because he senses a threat.

He's like, no, the exile's mine. Which is the other thing, like, getting weird, like, other things that have misfired with this character. His, like, secret sensitivity. like Atten's really like like Atten's an empath But also Atten is like I am so obsessed with the exile Please don't tell Craig

Craya please don't tell the exile about my Wormy interior Please I can't see the exile Look at me that way And then it's like back to being sassy And but yeah like Atten's There's kind of a single white female thing happening here I think is where we can

where we can come down on this. My response to that was just like, don't mind everybody. We're all under a lot of stress. That was... Take a seat. But then she's like, I'm still going to sleep on the floor.

Okay, chill. I can confirm it is a TSL CRM mod thing, which is... Oh, cool. Oh, because she wouldn't... Aetress wouldn't have told the handmaiden to do it unless we were playing a male character. No, not even that because that's a different mod.

It is just straight up the scene. with the handmaiden or sorry with with atris talking to one of the sisters and being like yeah uh i sent the handmade now that is literally a a restored scene from the cutting room floor yeah um so as expected yeah which means again if you're playing at home and you're playing like the switch version and you don't have that scene that is why you know um it also makes me yeah go watch uh austin's let's play That's right. It's in there.com slash more civilized. But if we all have the same mods it's installed, why would we have different dialogue? I suspect, I don't know why it didn't trigger for you.

My guess is mods are mods and sometimes are inconsistent. I mean, because I got that cutscene. I just, they had a different, they said different things. That's weird. The game's, I'm looking at, you're just defying all the conventional. You're just on an unknown play for. Yeah. Yeah.

We've never seen an exile like you before. well you know right yeah maybe you said something different maybe because of something you said earlier in the scene it atrice isn't sending her after you and it is a free will thing or like a choice for for her thing i don't know this i'll tell you this though this game walked so 100x resist could run like that's that's just going on here at atrice's academy yeah uh-huh yeah um do you want to see the final thing that i think three of us got alley oh sure maybe that'll be the last thing We do. How do you feel about speaking in tongues?

Hmm. I'm going to show you. Wait, can we quickly? Did everyone make it through the handmade and gauntlet? I'm just curious. Oh, I forgot about the handmade and gauntlet. Yes, I did. It took, this is the bit where I was like, I learned to love the maeliorian melee shield,

which got me through the final fight along with the thing I remembered at the last second, which was, is I failed like four or five times. So the gauntlet is you can fight 1 v1 against a handmaiden, melee combat only. Then the second round No, no No weapons, no armor, no force powers, no nothing. Then it's like you can use force powers and you can use some items or whatever.

Then it's like you can use both of those and a weapon. Then it's you can use everything except for armor and but you have to fight two of them. Then you have to fight everything except for armor and you have to fight five of them at once. That was really hard for me. I failed it like five times. And then finally by using

the very stims, middle rain melee shield and remembering that you can pause during any turn and you use a healing consumable, you can force your way through it. And I burned through all of my fucking shit, including two Mandelary and melee shields, to win that fight. And you get 750 XP,

which is like a little something, I guess. I didn't level up off of it. But you don't get any gear or anything. So I think if you didn't do it, it is okay. You got through it, Natalie? I did get through it. I had to bump it down to easy because it was just impossible. And then I didn't realize,

that the last fight it takes off your armor because I thought you could I thought you could put your armor back on for it You can You can because at the very

It's what's weird is You can like get suited back up But then when you start the fight It takes your just your armor off It'll leave everything else on And before engaging in combat You have to go into your inventory and re-equip your armor

But if you engage in combat, it locks you out of being able to put your armor back on. So what happened to me in the, I was able to re-equip my armor for like the third and fourth round, I believe. But in the fifth round, I accidentally engaged combat and I couldn't put my armor on. So I did use one energy shield, but I was like taking so much damage. and I did end up just using a bunch of advanced med packs like on each. Again, shout out to the autopause because it let me know every time I'm in a new round and could, could re-up on med packs. But it was, it was, it was, force scream got me through that fight because, God, I could not hit

them for shit. Every, it was so hard. I couldn't do intermediate. flurry um yeah you won't hit it because the the you get a negative on your you're to hit chance right so you're going to be missing unless you are a physical combat character in a real way against that makes a lot against these characters who are like you know cracked melee combatants which by the way the handmaiden knows kung fu uh and so she's a character you could theoretically build as a melee you know hand-to-hand character uh she gets she we don't we didn't go forward

in this we didn't like start to stab people out or go to a new planet or anything so you didn't get the sort of like here's what the handmaiden's deal is but mechanically speaking i believe she gets special bonuses to um uh melee combat without a without a any melee weapons um she she has she has a she has a shawnee defense right yes um which protects her against melee attacks and she is an excellent unarmed fighter according to the little the little note that you get when she joins your party. There you go. But yeah, that was a tough.

That was tough. It definitely was the thing where I had to turn. I like stopped playing for a week and then came back and was like, okay, let me, let me fix that. So. We got through it. Rob, Allie. Any luck? Oh, I was, you tell me this optional fight.

I don't have to engage in. Classic. All right. I'm sorry, Allie. No, I just played the first one. And then I was like, I'll talk to you guys later. Peace. I'm good, actually.

Oh, sorry. Before we get into this, there's one that I do not want to forget this. Please. When you walk into the lounge of the Ebb and Hawk, per our conversation last week, where I was like, Pazak is fucking rigged because you always go first. Yeah. And then the computer just goes to react.

Atten is on tilt. With T3, it is making this exact argument. Yeah, this game is fucking fixed. I'm not gonna play it with you anymore. And T3 is like, what if we put some real money on the line? And Atten's like, I'm back in. Yeah, uh-huh. And I can confirm in the sequel, you and the computer alternate

who goes first, but I think you're right. You still go first in the first round. In Cotaur 1, you always went first, round after round after round, which is so fucking hard. All right. Let me hit play on this. I'm showing you a YouTube version instead of my version because the way the video capture shit works, I don't get cut scenes captured. I have to add them in manually afterward, which is annoying.

So this is also the original version, which is to say it's all pre-rendered. It's not in-game assets, or it's in-game assets, but it's all pre-rendered with the pre-rendered lighting. You may remember that from when the other ship shows up in Pirocus, it looks better in some ways. So, all right, I'm going to hit play. Three, two, one, go. I'm going to ship all fucked up, going through space. It looks so cool. It looks so cool.

It's like a star of start. All the art of player just blasted off. It looks so good. This hit for me right after talking to the last Handmaiden. It was perfect timing. Perfect timing. I got it by escorting the Zirka Twilak out of the tunnel. I cannot believe this.

A mysterious woman with her face covered in red and black. She has kind of like a nun's habit thing going, but it covers her whole face. She's walking down a real Sith-coded ship. I have felt a tomb, my lord. A disturbance in the force. There's nothing wrong with your recording. This is how he talks. All right, man.

I'll drink to that. I thought she was like, I don't know what the fuck you're saying, dude. I can not hear it before. The sound built so slowly, yet when you listen for it, you can make out the strains, even over the background life of the universe. Do you feel the desert? You are the darkness in which all life dies, my lord. All life exists to feed your power.

And my life, my life is yours. I beg you please. Please. Let me die. Can you... Sonner? And you're going to go to the age. Yes.

This disturbance. Echoes through the force. I can follow it to its source and bring it to you. Oh, and... ...worth noting... Worth noting, the ship is just utterly open to space all around them. The armor hole has been broken off so much that, like, you could just see the stars, sort of like the part of the Ebenhawk in the early going.

Completely. Are Sith's zombies now a little bit? Well, we know about this one a little bit, right? The, the, she, Kraya previously, if you asked her to describe the Sith, depending on if you have the right amount of influence with her. But we already read this. She described one of them as the three of them were, one bates in pain, feeds on it for sustenance.

The other has ceased being a living being so consumed by hunger that he has forgotten his own flesh. And the last one is a creature of betrayals. For without such things, there is no hope. And if you ask about the one consumed by hunger, she says, the less of that one, the better. Even a stray thought may draw him. And it is possible that he cannot be defeated

He is one who has learned The greatest of the Sith teachings And it enslaved him Until you are ready, we must not seek him out And so that is that one That is the second of the The Sith Lord's we've met Right

And his I just wouldn't join a cult Where I'm just getting randomly choked For delivering progress reports Not at all And it seems that this new character Is also now on her way To come see us

this game and it's many women much to discuss much to consider all these women before us in many different ways both in again you can imagine playing this game in 2004 young Austin's

mind being opened to the possibilities of personhood all over the place and also being like hey man this game really has a thing for evil women and corrupted women and women who are betrayers and what is that the type of women that exist is that all of them okay okay okay what the wrong with that you know I'm betrayer I'm I'm betrayer I'm betrayer you're the

betrayer Seth you're the third sin yeah that we haven't met yet yeah I see that's the that's the woman archetype I am I see yeah so yeah that is that is the where the story has left us we're going to on Duran next I've decided we are not going to do any sort of weird trickery with the level caps and stuff If we hit some difficulty spice, we can just put it on easy. Who's on Anderon now? It was, oh, it was the guy with the square rectangle face. Yeah, rectangle face Jedi guy.

Yeah, I forget what his name is. But yes, he's the one who's there. I will say the first thing we should do before we do that is go back to Tilos Station to cash in the bounty that we had. Oh, yes. For the guy that's the guys. The two criminals down there. There's something else that will trigger from that. And I think that there's a chance that something.

else will trigger on the way back if we just had the cutscene we had. As you might imagine, that character is going to show up at a certain point. But I'm not 100% sure on that. But so yeah, go to Tilos, cash in that bounty and then head to Anderon. And we'll play through Anderran. I have not played ahead yet. So I do not have a clear break point. I will do my best to do that as soon as I can. I've been dealing with tooth pain and have not been able to record a let's play until today, basically. So. I'll try to follow up this particular breakpoint as soon as I can. Sounds good.

All right. So with that, we reached the end of another episode of A More Civilized Age. Our show is produced by Chia Contreras and supported by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized. Next week or next time, Anderan. In the meantime, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. And remember, women, what are they up to? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.