A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 77: The Leviathan (Knights of the Old Republic 08)

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

FINALLY! After months of careful (if fundamentally futile) spoiler avoidance, we can can finally talk about the Big Twist of KOTOR. What's that? It seems as if our duo of new players had already basically figured it out? Well, hold your tongue, because there's knowing "the twist" and then there's really understanding how (and who) exactly did the twisting.  Next time: Korriban and any pre-finale side content Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes Strategy Wiki's KOTOR Guide RPG Classic's KOTOR Shrine Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Ricardo Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)   Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized!

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakening, joined by Ali Akampura, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners via patreon.com slash civilized. So head on over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes and other patron exclusives. So this week, the gang have wrapped up their work on Manan, where they emerged as the brightest legal minds in the galaxy. But no sooner do they get back aboard the mystery machine than they are intercepted by Admiral Karath aboard the Leviathan flagship of the Sith fleet. With only minutes before they are tracked into the hold of the ship, they have to come up with a plan. Knowing that everyone's going to be tossed into detention cells, they need to figure out who is going to be.

be the character they rely on to bust everyone loose and then once the party is free how they're going to get off the ship and that's really what this this whole segment of the game is about first it's sneak around get everyone out of the detention level and then with your chosen party go fight your way through the flagship disable the locks they put on the ebb and hawk get that boot off the car caller guy you know somebody you can take care of that uh-huh uh-huh and then escape it almost works until uh oh god i i've paused the pronunciation malick malic malic yeah not malac not malac not malac doesn't mollock feel right though like mollock doesn't it feel you're saying yeah i do yeah i do i actually have a a correction regarding this name which because i suggested i suggested something a couple

weeks ago. I said that friend of the show. Keith Carberry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Suggested that Darth Malick was a modification of Alec and then Revin was Evan and then Bandon was Brandon. And I forgot something important and key that I don't actually think is in this game, but is in a tertiary material, which is that Malik's pre-Darth name is Alec with a K. So I think that's evidence Norted shit He's Norted He got Norted

Alec got Norted Man things were nerdyer back in these days Uh huh Wait you can't You can't When did Kingdom Hearts come out Hold on Oh boy

After this Right around the same time right The first Kingdom Hearts game 2002 Yeah I think that's That's right after this I think this is 2001 right I don't know

I feel like there must have been an exchange of information I see No you know what You're a Cotor 2003 Okay Okay I'm vindicated

So yeah They clearly were like We need to figure out How to nort a character in this Because norting is so important It is That's Actually don't know

Is there Evan Sorry hey Evan I got to show The whole world That's a new me And I'm a little Twisted now

There's literally An Evan in Kingdom Hearts Yeah Uh huh And he Don't call me out I'm Malik. Who's Evan become in Kingdom Hearts?

Even, but it's pronounced Evan. One of the six apprentices to Anselm the Wise and becomes vexen. Vexen, of course. The cards man. He's the cards guy, right. He's the cards guy. He's got the fucking Yu-Gi-o shit on his arm. The Sith are sort of an organization 13, huh?

Totally. Yeah, it's a little overlaught. They all wear black. Yeah. They would they could learn a couple things maybe if there was a couple like more of them in a normal way in like a Non like evil no I'm picking up what you're putting yeah You know what I mean like I'm talking about camaraderie I'm talking about yeah yeah talking about two leveling plan. It's all good, but like What about having a few normal ones now and now?

You know what the rule 13 how about that? Yeah, yeah like 13 normal guys guys. Yeah. It sure stops being a normal one once Malik shows up. Oh, like Malik shows up with a lot of key information, but also some really good information about like, man,

the SIF cannot stay onside to save their lives. They just can't do it. Yeah. Uh-huh. Anyway. Yeah, it's, things go wild. The world changes.

We lose a party member. So let's get into it. Yeah. Uh, first of all, who, there's the whole debate among your core three, Carth, uh, Bastila and your character as to like, who could your character be? What are we going to call your character from now on? Because now, we can now fucking say it.

This is the thing that makes it so you can't go on any fucking Wikipedia articles. I guess, unless we're not spoiling this until we get there in this episode. Is that what we're doing? Yeah. Yeah, I guess we're going to shut our. Island scenario. We haven't gotten to the turn yet. Okay. I won't say shit. I'll come back around to this when we get there in this conversation.

Sinsana and Dups and Kellen Kallon and so new party member just dropped Shoutouts to the walkthrough channel on YouTube

for sharing their Jedi Zotija with me. That is Z-S-O-T-I-J-E-E- J.A. Shout out to them. Do not take Zotija if you suffer from high blood pressure. Needia.

Yeah. May cause depression. So who do we send, Rob? That's what you're asking. Yeah. Like, because there's the whole, the core three, they're going, they're getting the special interrogation. There is an option where your character can be like, nah, you know what?

I think I got this. But I feel like that's going to get shot down. It gets shot down immediately. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They just go like, no, we're going to be under a block and key. We got to send somebody else. So for me, it was very straightforward. It's like Jolie.

Like, that's just, that's just it. Oh, hell yes. That's fun. I'm so glad you did that. He just mind trick his way through it, basically. Yeah, I mean, there's even that cool song about him, you know. The ballad of Jolie Bindo. No, just Jolie, right?

Oh, Jolie, right. Jolie, Jolie, Jolie, Jolie. Yeah, exactly. We need to get Dolly Parton on the podcast immediately. Dolly come through. Talk about Dolly. I went with H.K. 47, which also confirmed something, which is HK stands for Hunter Killer Droid. Because when you pick HK, the guy who, what they do basically is HK's plan is that he has a reserve memory chip and backup supply that activates if he's been shut down.

for too long. And so he's like, just shut me down. Just completely deactivate my main, my main circuits. They'll move me to the junk heap and I can then reactivate myself. And when they do, the guy who like picks him up is like, yeah, we found this old hunter killer droid, you know? Oh my God. Yeah.

Which is just a Terminator thing, by the way. And then that guy gets got, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Let me tell you, HK was ready for it. HK came prepared. I feel like if you know enough to recognize a hunter killer droid in the scrap heap, maybe you should know enough to be like, hey, let's think twice about disposing of this one. Let's figure out how we want to play this. Yep.

Yep. Absolutely. Who else brought people? Well, we, I brought, we, they brought, so, brought candorous. Which I think in the last podcast, we respect it. podcast we prefaced. I think we, didn't we get to like this? We talked through this a little bit.

The candorous plan is to give him a shot to delay his healing mods. Then he will blow himself up in a closed room and it will leave burn marks that will look like he was injured in trying to make some like repairs. to the ship. He says, I quote, make my wounds bad enough and the Sith will drag me off to the morgue or the medical facility to die.

When my healing mods kick in, I'll come save the rest of you. So he just does that. He blows himself up in a way that looks fatalistic. They just turned him into Wolverine? I guess he's Wolverine now. That's already true.

That's a real. real thing in the game with him. He does heal over time. Yeah, he does have that ability. So, like for health. Yeah. He doesn't self-reserrect himself normally, but he can't come back. The whole take a, uh, an injection to not heal for a little while to be declaimed dead and then come back is not a thing that you can select from the menu. Um, and seems kind of intense, which is why I did not. It's pretty metal. It didn't work out for Romeo and Juliet It did not work out for Romeo and Juliet

Romeo tried the shit and nah F's in the chat Took a huge L off that Yeah But Candorous Is Julia Not Romeo Romeo did not try to pretend Juliet was the one he pretended

Anyway, spoilered Romeo and Juliet So yeah That candorous was my guy In this scenario All right Allie were you also candorous I had HK You went HK

I don't take HK out ever And I was like You know what Take this one This one sounds like the one For you I was curious about

I was going to do Little Ostromac That would have been fun Is that an option? Yeah you can bring T3 You can have T3 Because Wookie is not an option We talked about this last time

You cannot bring Big Z Yeah You can absolutely have T3 come through The thing that's good about T3 Is like any of the skill checks T3 is just kind of crush Because T3 is so skilled up T3 can do all the hacking

and all the slicing and all the repair stuff super easily. But, but yeah, I, you know, I'm one of the killer. You know what I mean? I want someone with that dog in them. And that's a, yeah, you're on the fucking Leviathan. You got to take out as many bodies as you can. There's no innocence here. Like, it's, if you're, if you're on a Leviathan, you got whatever's coming down.

That's right. We should blow, this doesn't end with you blowing the whole ship up, does it? You don't, do you self-destruct the ship? No. Just bounce. Because you can. There's a point which you can try to hack the, like, controls of it. And it's like, no, you can't.

Sorry, which is very funny. So, does everyone get a slightly different scenario, depending on where you start from? Because, like, Jolie just ends up in a cell. And he's like, I'm naked and I don't feel good. Guard, and he controls the guard and gets him to swap places. Yeah, I guess actually you start in a slightly different, like, I'm looking at the guide here. And it's like mission is in the southeast cell block. Jolie is in the southwest cell block.

I think H.K. was in droid repair, Allie. You might, which is like, which is like a slightly different part of the map, you know. But it's not a big first area, you know. It's like there's the droid maintenance place. There's like an infirmary. There's like a cell block center. There's a barracks. And then there's like the detention center where the, where Bastilla Carth and your character are.

Oh, did we see? skip them getting tortured, importantly? We did skip that. Yeah. Did any of you tell Karoth what he wanted to know? No. So my, this, this Jedi is not evil. You got a light sideer.

I got a light-sided Jedi for this one. Because yeah, we get, we finally get the confrontation between Karth and Karth, after all, this time. Mm-hmm. Carth is really upset. Carth, he's yelling at him. He's saying, you know, you committed acts of inhumane acts against civilians. Saul justifies it by saying, in war, even the innocent must die. The Sith would not accept me until I proved I turned my back on the Republic by bombing a

planet, which is wild. My wife died in that attack, Saul, and for that, I swear I'll kill you, says car. Let him be his, like, let him fulfill his wifeguide destiny and kill, and kill Revin. And then, yeah, he puts you through a torture sequence. Well, actually, puts Bastilla through a torture sequence as you. If you're playing as a woman puts Carth through that sequence. Oh, I'd be like, go for it. They're trying to make you and Carth happen?

It is, I have to tell you, it is the exact, they have the exact same dialogue, Bastel and Carth as they're being tortured. So when like, when, when, for me, Bassel's like, don't waste your breath, saw, we won't answer any of your questions. And then it's the same line for Carth, exactly. And when you're, you can be like, my loyalty is as true as Bass, Bassel. But if you're playing as a woman, it's my loyalty as true as Karts. It's beat for beat.

Down to them yelling, ah, in the same way. And saying, no, don't say any more if you give up the truth of where the Jedi are, you know? Oh, my God. Yeah. That is, that's funny. It's really, well, I guess there's one difference. Bastelis says, no, how could you betray the Jedi like this? And Kart says, no, how could you betray the Republic like this?

So slightly different, slightly different interests. But otherwise, they really just plug and play as the same attempt at a plot, you know? And it doesn't matter if you tell him or don't tell him. Right, right. Because he knows already, basically. He's just trying to break you. Is that right?

Is that the thing? Yeah. His main question. Because Malak is already off at Dan Tween, taking care of business. Yeah. Yeah. This first question was a test.

Obviously, Malik knew the Academy was on Dan Tune. and it has since been destroyed by our fleet. Dan T'an is an empty graveyard now. Nothing remains but a smoking ruin and the charred remains of your former masters. Brutal. Including it ever? Who could say?

I don't think we get more of those guys in this game. Oh, wow. Wow. I know some Cotor 2 stuff, but that's, you know. I thought there'd be like a huddle back up with the Jedi Council thing coming. but maybe not. I don't believe there is.

I don't think they're there. I hope the droid got out okay. Uh-huh. You know. The husband droid. The premise of Cotor 2, which is so good, is another attempt,

is another opportunity to get pissed at those particular Jedi, is what I will say. And you kind of get a delayed confrontation with the Jedi for sucking. Oh, please God. they, please got to tell me they pulled a, I'm not going to be here on the, on Malox attack on Dan Tweed. I don't remember where the stuff in Cotor 2 with them happens, but it's, it's early on

that you get to meet them again, if I'm remembering right, and also you get, or maybe you just get flashbacks of them doing stuff. It's been a while since I've played it, but like, because, because the entire premise of that game is that, is that the main character, this is not a twist, I feel fine saying this. I think I feel fine saying this. You have been exiled from the Jedi order and stripped of your powers. And so the Jedi knights don't like you. And so you have some real, like, you know, they fucking suck energy going into that game.

So one day, one day we will get there. so the other thing is craft tries to draw your character out a little bit and starts to realize intimates like oh my god you really don't know what's going on do you uh at which point the game is like pretty much like neon neon sign like flashing about the the true nature of of your character uh you know the fact that everyone is in on this uh becarth in your character basically but yeah you get the torture sequence I almost I was like man they just gonna keep is this is a bit designed to like make it so that I'm like no leave Basta alone that's gonna like really seal the deal there yeah but I was like Bassela wouldn't want me to ever let her stop being

tortured uh so she can get Jedi brownie points so I just let him I just let him go ham and then uh you know and then it wraps up and everyone's everyone's good everyone's everyone's good everyone's like no they were going to torture us no matter what yeah and and uh you know you you kill a bunch of people in this area you uh do some droid hacking this is just like rerun of every other little dungeon we've had in this game basically uh i really regret not kidding look i know why i didn't get jolly out to like be more of a computer guy yeah but that rhodian seemed to be offering a cool little little tool oh but you have to free him first huh And the lock on his cell requires, like, really strong, like, security score.

Wait, what road in? So on the detention level that Jolie is on, like, right after he escapes his cell by tricking a Sith guard, like, hey, why don't you come into the cell and I'll go outside? And the Sith guard's like, yes, that's awesome. And so Jolie is out there in his shorts. And he runs into a lone Rhodian who's like, oh no, my whole crew's got been tortured till they went insane. It's too late for them. They're fucked. But it's not too late for me.

And if you get me out of here, I'll give you a really awesome hacking device that'll basically make it like trivially easy to hack anything. But to disable the lock on his cell, you have to pass a really like, high skill check or use that or have a ton of security spikes to... For what it's worth

the thing that that guy gives you is a one time use hacking spike that you can you can just like hack the it's a way to get

to your main crew and you only can use on that one computer so it's not like a future it's not worth it's it's it's sort of real funny

if we could just could end of the game by like it works on the Leviathan Bridge and just blow the ship up that'd be great or take control of it This is my new home base.

That would be so sick. No, unfortunately. I don't know. There's Jedi aboard that. They'd be like, no, we can't use. We can't use the Leviathan because it's a Sith weapon. Yeah. It destroys planets.

And it's like, I'm not going to destroy a planet with it. I'm just going to blow some Siff up. And they'd be like, no. Not allowed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you just tear through the detention level. You spring your crew and like 20 feet away in true RPG fashion.

all your gear, your entire inventory, stored conveniently nearby because nobody wants an RPG where you actually have to reassemble all the shit you've been holding on to. Which always, like, I feel like this is always kind of a dubious move in an RPG, the whole, like,

you've been captured and stripped of everything. And like the party, the party's going to jail, son. And it's like, yeah, we know this is a bluff. Yeah. Like, the whole point of this game is that, like, it's for pack rats. Like, all my stuff is just going to be, like, right next door to the cell. And that does, indeed, prove to be the case.

I got to say, I don't feel like Bastilla had to be naked in the torture to, in the torture fields. Dudes love wearing body suits. This is a thing, though. Like, this is just fast. How come everyone gets fitted with the underarmor and Bistilla's out here in skims? Yeah. Even the nude, like, a player model is more dressed than Bistilla is. Yeah. It's, it's incredibly dressed.

I'm not sure I could sleep in that. I couldn't. The, it is straight up like, you know, they're trying to communicate. Maybe Bacela has a little dark side. Maybe Bacela underneath the Jedi robes is like, you know, she should have been at the club. Maybe. Maybe. I just, I, yeah, mm-hmm.

Yeah, you're right. You're 100% right, to be clear. Unless, I mean, maybe, I mean, maybe, I don't know. Maybe, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Basila, the character, uh, is not real. And so we can't ever actually know what's in her mind because she doesn't have one.

But we can know that someone at bio was like, what's Bastila underwear. jpeg, you know. She got to be in there. Otherwise, the torture machines don't work, obviously. Right, right. That's just how it works. They need maximum skin contact.

Except for dudes. The dudes can be like, oh, it's different. Hey, just wear that body suit. She actually breathes through her skin. That's right. And that's why she's like that. It only works for her. The thing is, it's not even like Balders Gate

where at least all the different, all the different Balders Gate characters have different underwear on that says, something about their character in some way, you know, in some way. How horny are they, for instance? No, it's like you and Carth, if you're playing a guy, basically just having the same underarmor, you know, it's that same like shorts, short sleeve. We're never nudes.

That's right. We are never nudes here on the Leviathan and on the Ebbahawk. So, and then it's more dungeon, right? That's a lot of dungeon. Yeah. And it's a lot of respawning enemies. did was anybody able to um well actually there was one bit of uh bastilla dialogue that i wanted to talk about at the end of the torture sequence uh she says we should have felt a disturbance

in the force when the attack because they've you know announced that danteween is destroyed or whatever um and she says we should have felt a disturbance in the force when the attack came the fact that we did not is a bad sign i fear the dark Excite is growing stronger, casting shadows, our vision cannot pierce. And then she says, we lost our one place of refuge in the galaxy. So one is the Jedi Academy on Dantuin the only, like, Jedi refuge out there? No, okay.

But I guess it's the one that theoretically they didn't think the Sith knew about. Okay. Right? Like, the Sith know about, um, uh, Coruscant. Right. Right. So maybe it was more like that, more like, oh, this was a place that we thought we would be safe and it turns out we're not. And so in that way, it's a refuge, you know?

But then with the disturbance of the force part, wouldn't even, okay, in the original trilogy, when Alderon gets blown up, even though this, like, the imperial army is at its height, every, everyone feels that. happen like everyone feels well the Jedi do right or does yeah the Jedi feel I don't remember how it goes in the script Leah feels it she's she watches it happen only only Ben is like

oof oof Leah's hurting for other reasons I don't know we don't know if Leah felt it but she's been they just torched the shit out of her yeah so we didn't actually get a shot in the first movie of like Leah reacting like beyond she sees it happen so we don't know if she feels it

in like a special force way but it's Ben who's like the yeah yeah a million voices all cry it out as one over silenced right okay so one of the responses you can say to this which my the character that I was following didn't choose was like how can we even be sure that that occurred if we didn't feel it which kind of was where I like when basilis says the dark side is growing stronger casting shadows our vision cannot pierce I feel like the shadows could be the shadows of like deception like who knows yeah maybe they've heard about dantween and are like testing knowledge they don't know if it's you know an active i mean it doesn't take them much to just go and check it out obviously but i just found it

interesting that basil was so like resigned to having no insight anymore and and and that her connection to the force is so severed that she wouldn't feel the pain of her master. Like, that just seems really extreme. Right. You don't get the option to be like, maybe you're lying. You didn't blow it up, right? Carrath. I don't remember if you do or don't.

I don't think so. Because you can just, it's just like you can deny that it's there or say that it is there. Oh, you can. You could say, no, you're lying. It isn't true. And Caratha's like, it doesn't matter whether you believe me or not. The fact remains that the jetty on Dantuin have been eradicated along with any hope of someone coming to rescue you. So he can, you could also say, I never liked them anyway.

That's very funny. Uh-huh. You don't have a dark side point for that because that's just the truth. It's just such a more dire place than I think has been kind of led on to this point that that Basila, presumably, you know, very force. sensitive, trained Jedi, who has a deep connection to Dantuin, has a deep connection to these masters, wouldn't feel anything at their, you know, group slaughter. Yeah, the thing that I'm reading, you know, you can say to her, maybe Admiral Carroth was lying, or I know it's hard to believe they're all gone. And she says, I'd like to believe that

Saul was lying to us, but even as he said the words, I knew they were true, the academy is gone, Which paints a suggestion that maybe she feels from him that he's telling the truth, but didn't feel the attack come and didn't feel it coming, right? There's a little bit of the prequels here of the, of Yoda and Mace talking about how shadowy the future is, how they can't quite pierce the veil anymore. They can't quite, they know something bad is coming, but they can't figure out from where or when it will hit, which makes sense to some degree, right? Yeah, I mean, they're on a pretty focused mission. But also just like the jet in the, there's a little echo of it in the sense that like, this is a moment where the Republic and the Jedi order are a little decrepit. They've lost a lot of their young talent. There has been a schism.

They are so focused on this, you know, on their failures and on this current war and on the past war. They're not at their peak anymore, you know. There's some ways in which I feel like there's like the cloudiness that comes at these moments of crisis. often reflects that the Jedi order has become stagnant in some way, which is certainly something that, like, it seems like Jolie believes. It's something that Reverend Malik believed. It doesn't seem like it's a rare perspective. I mean, all of the Jedi who went dark Jedi and joined with Revenant Malik, the ones that we are now slaughtering by the dozen are pretty, seem pretty on board with this, you know, this idea that like the Jedi have lost their way in some way, right?

Or you could assume that. I'm assuming that. I'm not. It doesn't. You're not talking to these guys in this game. Like when you talk to people about politics on various planets, there's always somebody who's like, but you know, maybe the Sith just like, maybe the Galaxy just needs something to shake things up. Yeah. And what's wild is actually dismally, that is a thing that people believe. I've met those people. I have met people who've just been like, but you know, like anything feels like anything could happen with these guys. And maybe that's just what we need.

And the Monon judge who's an accelerationist, basically. Listen, I don't agree with the Sith, but maybe we should get the Sith in charge. Let's shake it up. Do something different. Not a politician. Right. Which can contrast with, yeah, not a politician, exactly. Which you can contrast maybe with Jolie's perspective, which is like, listen, you think history is short, history is long, right?

This is, I know the names of empires you don't even know about. And they were in my lifetime. I'm not even that old, you know. The good and evil shit never ends. It just cycles or just comes back around, the rise and fall. We will live through this. It might go bad, but it won't go so bad that X, Y, Z. I think that's a distinct perspective from, hey, why not let the Sith go and be in charge?

Especially when the Sith are, you know, you know how much it pains me to say the Republic is probably better than the Sith. Because I think the Republic fucking sucks. But the Sith did just destroy a lot of innocent people on Tart. you know. Yeah. It's tough. They make it hard to defend them. They do. They're not really. The exception maybe of the, you know, the first hyperspace war, don't, usually it feels like when the Sith do the most damage, it's because they got the tools of the government that the Republic created. Absolutely. Yes. And then just like turn the guns inward. I mean, that's the actual thing. This isn't even really a war between the Sith and the Republic. This is a war, but this is a civil war. This is a war between

forces of the Republic and the Republic. They're here, but this is an officer mutiny. This is an officer mutiny. This is, yeah. Revin and Malik were members of the Republic military, effectively, on loan from the Jedi order. They worked with a bunch of Republic soldiers.

These aren't, this isn't an outside force coming in. This is like a fascist, you know, branch of the Republic, you know, teaming up with the Zerca Corporation to do like an interior mutiny coup, you know? So. Totally. Anyway. They found some weird, abandoned, like, iPads that were, like, returned. And they were like, fuck, yes, we gotta.

Yeah. We got still. They did have, they did have the Republic's iPads on, uh, on the last planet, on Monon. Yeah. Right? Literally. So.

Yeah. Uh, that's extremely funny. Uh, anywho, back to being, uh, candor HK. Cander. I wrote, I kept writing candor to save time. So I said assume candor control here. That's your pet name for candor. Canderous, yeah.

So how did y'all approach releasing the, because there was one point in which one of the computer terminals you could release the cell force fields if you had enough spikes, but my character did not have enough spikes to do that. So how did you all end up releasing them? I truly don't remember. I truly do not. I do not, because it doesn't, because, again, part of it is just like, we've done this shit seven dungeons in a row. And it's either slice using spikes or or hack using the other things, right, or bash or use repair parts. The one thing I do remember is in the next section, which is where I hacked a droid to, like, crash into a wall to open it up or something like that, which was neat. I was curious what the point of the experimental assault droid.

oh maybe it was a different one he just walks around and shoots at you he just walks around and shoots at you but he'll also shoot at you there's a droid in the second map of this dungeon the second like set of areas where you can you can repair it but it will be hostile to anybody including you so it's best to just kind of activate it and then just like get the fuck out of there and let it go clean up people I was getting XP from it killing things around that's amazing which is very funny um but yeah this first zone I just feel like it kind of comes and goes You know, you free your crew, you re-up with Bastila and Carth. The rest of the whole crew is like, we're going to go to the ship. So you're stuck with Bastel and Carth. Shoutouts to the extended shot of Basel running half-naked to just just to be clothed in the next scene immediately. There's something I've been playing through Final Fantasy 4 recently and been dipping my toes in a bunch of other classic JRPs. And there's something about this whole section that reads like a classic Final Fantasy moment where you're like, you're, it's a very linear moment. You can, you get some dialogue options, but like none of them fucking matter.

There's no choices to make in this in this place actually. And you end up, you have the little bit where you don't have all your equipment. You get stuck with one character for a little bit, which is like a classic. There's a whole section early in Final Fantasy six where you're like, all right, do you want to do Locke's story now? Do you want to do Tara's story now? Whatever. And then the thing at the end of this where you end up losing. a party member and having the big revelation about your character's backstory is so

Super Nintendo JRP. And in a way it feels, I'm interested in that because of the way that BioWare is about to leap off of this to like own RPGs for the next 10 years. You know, not that there weren't cool Japanese made and Western, European made RPGs in the next, you know,

the next console, the rest of this console cycle from the Xbox, let's say through the Xbox 360 PS4 era right? I know it's a PS3 but you know what I mean like Xbox Xbox 360 Xbox 1 era I guess the 20, the late 2000s to the

2010s I guess really the mid-2000s to the 2010s and I think part of the way that they managed to do that was by adding some JRP sensibilities not that there aren't party members who people love in Baldersgate 2 or that there aren't moments like this necessarily but there is something

really, that really blends, I think, the approaches of those two things. Meanwhile, a lot of JRP designers going into the Xbox 360 era, those studios are trying to chase Western audiences and are just kind of missing. I think maybe some of those games have gotten reappraised. You know, games like Lost Odyssey and Last Remnant have gotten appraised in the last few years as being like, oh, there's some cool stuff going on there. But at the time, as those games got like kind of bland pallets and stuff, it felt a little bit like BioWare was hitting part of what people fundamentally liked about JRP's, which was like, oh, you have a definitive set of characters who have their own personalities that are more than kind of dungeon crawly people who don't have banter. There's tons of banter in these games.

There's a big dramatic twist midway through. And I think that pushes them closer into some sort of hybrid. Can you tell I have JRPGs on the mind right now? Anyway. So yeah, then the second zone, does anybody have anything? else interesting in that first little zone I feel like we're gonna shot with Bastila

say again I shot my shot with Bastila oh oh oh on the Levi right after right after being uh you know getting out of getting out of jail well that's something yeah yeah how to go for you it went well but we only got to

the part where she's like but we mustn't I must be a Jedi didn't and I never will now because it's we're not going to have anymore. I'm really curious how this goes. Huh. Yeah. This could be a point of divergence.

We will see. Interesting. Beyond that, did you feel compelled to save Bacela because of your deep feelings for her while she was being tortured? Because she talks about that stuff. And I'm curious if that's like,

if you get that same dialogue, the same dialogue options, if you have not gotten the kiss yet. Oh, yeah. No, you 100% be like, man, it was just so hard walking and you get tortured. And she was like, no, I couldn't.

I would have, I would, I would have told him. If this had been happening to you dups, I would have, I would have told them everything. And it was like, but I would never have forgiven you for a bastella. We both must be strong for the Jedi Order. Oh, damn. Damn. Yeah.

Damn. Love it. But it was good. Like, it's right aboard the moment, like escaping the little, Leviathan and everything, like the quick, confess your feelings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that. But we'll talk about it later and then you don't get the chance.

It's actually better. That's actually great. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad that you guys started your relationship on Open Odyssey. What's up? What's up to us? Talk to us. We're not up to that part yet.

What happens in the next section? You fight a bunch of Dark Jedi? You find a bunch of Dark Jedi. and robots and You get put in a baby suit You have a spacewalks. There's just rooms of Scythka. It's just room after fucking room.

Dude. And like Well this is the fucking thing about this game is I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit At the end of it's like We gotta get out of here No we don't bring it

I didn't fucking drop a bead of sweat I will kill everyone on this spaceship The battle on the bridge I did a couple tries Did it? Okay. So much incoming damage is being put down like... Oh, I got a new power I didn't tell anybody about, which is I have drained life now.

So in any situation where there is more than three people, I am constantly stealing their life and healing myself. You can do it with less, but it really pays off when you have like eight people around you because you're just doing so much damage. Is it AO? Is it AOE? Is it AOE? Yeah. a big a, it's like forced lightning, but it's purple. You hold your hand up and then just sap, like, vampirically sap the life out of everyone around you. That's, I've been nice since

Manon and I need to get off of it. Because I've been like, oh, I could heal so much better now. I mean, you can. It's true. It's true. But it's not. I could be draining life. It'd be draining life. And this is the moment, which we were about to get to, in which I feel like my character is like, you know what? Time to go back to the old me. You know what? Because of the way this situation, unfolded Darkside now But yeah You kill a bunch of guys

On this other zone Which again is like Some barracks And a droid bay And another armory And you That's the one thing about this zone That is nice

You will find Seven canisters Of med packs and grenades If you were low on grenades This was the place to come to I got cards of new armor Yeah It was

It was absolutely nuts Like, every canister had, like, 40 items. I was like, all right, boss fight coming. I'm hearing what you're putting down. Like, it is, I'm, it is, it is, it's coming. Something's coming. It's go time. Something big.

It's go time. And meanwhile, this is what, uh, this is what the homie looked like while this was happening. Are we getting a screenshot? I'm excited. Which I hadn't seen this yet. I don't think. Um,

this headgear, but it was, uh, I hadn't, hadn't seen that one yet. This is, this is someone cosplaying an alien from the canteena in sort of a like, like, if you could do blackface for a Star Wars alien, it might be this. It's like you, you like took the face off a droid and then just put it on your face. It is like that. Like, uh, it's so weird. I have no idea what it's called. I have no idea where they found it.

I hated it. It's bad. And it was there the whole time. It is terrible. What does especially funny, given the big reveal moment at the end of this where you see the mask come off? Well, in that, it was off. Just the regular face. It would be so much funny if the mask came off and this mask was on there.

It would be so, it would be so, so funny. So, yeah, so. And then you mentioned this, Spacewalk. Were there feelings when it became clear you had to put the space suit back on, which is the same thing as the underwater suit? I loved it because I was watching it in 2X speed. So to me, it was like watching a bunch of babies just waddle all the way to the other door. Incredible. But for anyone else.

like it's such a like this is going to be a moment you're going to you're going to walk along the exterior like catwalk and loziathan and stare out and it's a preview right because they do this moment in mass effect one at the end of mass effect one and it actually rips because it's a playable action sequence you're walking on the exterior spoilers for mass effect one sort of for an area You can't use the fast travel inside of the Citadel anymore. So you go on the outside hole of the Citadel, this giant space station, and are like fighting your way down the length of the Citadel as the space fight is happening around you and Sovereign is in the background. It's sick. And this is like you're on the outside of a spaceship.

And every once in a while you see like a fake X-wing flying by in the background. They're trying. They can give the Starscape another pass there. It's like so dense and it's so bright. And I just did this and I didn't have a good time with it last time. I was remembering on this show when you had read like the like a preview article or something for Cotor that was like, these are all the things that we can put in this game. You can you can travel to different planets even.

And I was like, okay, they thought they were cooking. They were cooking. It just, it hit different in 2003, Allie? I don't know that walks slower for a little bit. It's really the like mechanics. Listen, hold on though. Hold on, hold on. Okay, thank you, Natalie.

Because the natural progression of this, the domino ends with Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2 trudging through the snow. You're totally right. Slow as hell. Crunchy boots. Crunchy boots time. Country boots time. That, that we.

we have to give credit to where credit is due to who put us there who put who put us all on it in the first place and that was we got to get to niamos arthur we're going to get out of here i'm telling you got it i would go to niamos with arthur morgan in a heartbeat in a fucking heartbeat um so yeah this is the civilization the empire wants for us arthur green ones and a paved beach. It's called Bescar, Arthur, and I know where there's a vault load of it. Make that game. Make that game. That's not going to be what this. Isn't that outlaws?

It's not going to be this. You know it's not going to be as good as this. That's out this year, though. Speaking of things that we'll get to talk about later this year, potentially is Star Wars outlaws the funny guy I'll have my wrist back by that

that hot droid guy yeah it's going to cheap and everything about Andor but it's going to be awesome when they decide that

they only thought they killed Skein yeah he's funny he's just in outlaws yeah new game

we just you you know you oh there's somebody can help you but he's been in a back

to coma for years and you just fire your way to it's bam it's scheme exactly damn

did you know that that hot droid in in star wars outlaws is voiced by d bradley bradley baker who does rex and all the clone troopers that's great awesome what if there's a clone trooper in there in the mind of the droid what if it's what if it's five's secretly oh my god his voice doesn't sound anything like the clone trooper voice but you know yeah um anyway back to so the point is we don't like we don't get journey without That's right. The space wall.

That's right. That's right. I think you can make the case. I don't know that it makes this good, but you can make the case that people playing with the idea of we're going to slow down gameplay for a little bit and make you stomp around is people grasping for something about the way something is supposed to feel. Yeah. For some physicality, for some embodiment or some. Well, so I think you don't get the Far Cry healing animations without this, you know? Mm-hmm.

But I think the thing that's, they just don't have, they don't have what they've got in terms of tech by the time of Mass Effect 1. Like that day no-mah's all-time, like great ending of a game. Yeah. But the other thing is, the Leviathan isn't doing anything at this moment. Nothing dramatic is happening outside the ship,

which is kind of the problem. They should have put this thing maybe over Dantuan or something and had it so that, like. In the middle of that fight. Yeah, and like you're watching the death. of a world, and you can't stop it. Instead, that's happening off screen. And so they have, like, the little tie fighter thing

zipping around, but, like, they're not doing anything. It's just, it's just empty space. Yeah. It's not cool. It's, there's no, there's no vibe. Also, also vibeless, the enemies you fight when you get back in, it's like yet another room full of Sith troopers.

And the other, like, because this game lends itself to, You got your standard operating procedure for combat, like, because combat, I don't want to experiment. Did you all have the weird thing where you, when you put the, when you come out of being outside, you don't have your weapon equipped anymore? Yep. Super annoying. When I came back in from outside, my lightsaber was off and I was like, I'm punching people? What's happening?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I do love that you can punch people. But yeah, it gives you like a warning before you put the spacesuit on, but it's like. I miss this. Okay. Yeah, I guess I'll- I bet that's like a, like a programming thing. Like, I can't imagine that that would be an intentional design choice to when you put on a space. Like, it has to be some like equipment, unequipped type thing that they just didn't.

Or like they, there was a problem with if you have it equipped, then you can use certain abilities and that would break the game. And so it's easier to just have them unequip it or whatever. Who knows? It's fine. This wasn't, this isn't a complaint, really. It was just a goofy moment That was funny to me You know

Yeah No, it is silly Yeah Um So Time to fight Fight Fight Admiral

Saul Yeah Carrath Carrath And Carth And Carth are a little too A little too close I will say

That's on purpose right Like Is it? Yeah Yeah Yeah Because Carth And it's like

They're like This could be like Brothers They could be like Brothers There's, like, their reflections of each other in some ways. It's like a classic foil character name thing, you know? Okay.

I think. I accept it. I think that they would have realized, like, if it wasn't, at some point someone said that and they're like, ooh, but that kind of works, right? And they kept it. Whether or not it works is a separate question. But the idea that they, like, sat with this game and didn't think about that for two years, during, three years during development or whatever, I think they probably

thought of it and then ran with it instead of, that's my guess. Yeah, that's probably accurate. Yeah, Kratz says, hey, you're going to fucking die. Why'd you come here? Which is the most video game brained bullshit in the world. Like, I just killed 40 of your dudes. He's got like a dozen in that room, but like... Should have been two dozen.

Yeah. They use a lot of it. So I guess his plan is like, your party has been getting really far on grenades. I'm going to throw a bunch of grenades. and we'll see how you like it. Yeah, that's fair. That's a fair. That's a fair thing to say.

Like, you know, Dups doesn't, Dups can't tank. Like, the, the tanks I needed for this fight were not there. So it required a lot more, like, manipulating, like, basically, you know, every fight in this area is going to be about stun locking people. But this required a little bit more, like, keeping everyone nice and, like, napsy while I'm, you know,

while Bastille's putting down the damage effectively. Yeah. There's a little, there's a little, uh, when, when, um, Carth confronts him, uh, and he's like, uh, Carroth is like, very resourceful. I assume you had some part in this. You learned your lessons well for me. And Cartes is the only thing you taught me was betrayal and death, Saul. There's a little bit of, uh, you're only a master of evil, Darth there, which, which I

I think I thought was like a little too cute, you know, that little back and forth. But he reveals that Malik is on his way, which I don't know if it's here or previously. Bastille's like, we got to get out of here before Malik shows up. Yeah. My first thought was like, why we're here. This is the whole point of this is this. Let's like 1V1 me. Like we're ready to go.

Actually, don't 1V1 me. Our whole crew is here. Where's everyone else? Where's Biggie? Get mission out. Right. Come through. Let's just confront these dudes.

Let's just win. We could win the whole war right now. Just get him in parking lot. The Ebenhawk pulls out. Yeah. The entire party comes out. Yes. Exactly.

And then he's going to be like one v. 1 man. It's like no. No. No. We're jumping you. We're jumping you. Yeah.

Yeah. But this is imagining mission and like a tiny droid and then a tall droid and a tall droid and then Zalbar and everybody Jolie Johani Yeah Jihadi's out here Jani's out here

Blood in blood out She's been like Taking naps in the back for a minute She's gonna come back out here That would be amazing I'd love to see that It should have happened But really maybe Bachela has other reasons

For not wanting to confront Malik at this point See it's how corruption begets corruption Like the whole, the way that, like, this is the moment, we just end this now. And they're like, but what if we just avoid this entire conversation that's coming? I do feel like, I'm expected more from Carrath. Like, I expected more resolution here. Like, it's just, it's just such a, like. Yeah.

Your own, yeah, we have the Your Only Master of Evil type thing. But, like, for me, the mismatch here is that they've tried hard without a ton of success to make Carth, like, one of the emotional. hearts of this game, and the skeleton key to Carth, his character is Caraff and what happened with this guy. And so you expect, like, this is in the end of my story, but this is going to be the climax of Carth's, and if he's, like, one of my main party members, like, this should be, like, this is his Darth Vader, right? Well, there is one more, there is one more thread for Carth.

Have you activated that? Have you learned about Dustil? No. Ah, Ali, have I missed the opportunity? No, you'll land. We just have to, at this point, do a round of landing on various plans. One, at this point, you can look up any strategy guides you want. We're past the point of no return at this point.

We're not actually, not in the game sense. We're past the big spoiler part. So you can go look at whatever the fuck you want. Two, just go land at every planet and hop out with everybody to see if you trigger everything. Again, there is a guide that will show you where, each of their plot triggers happen in the when you hop out of a ship thing but the carth one is that you run into someone who is like oh carth like i thought you you know i haven't seen you since the attack and i'm sorry about your this is his kid right yeah this is this kid he's like oh i'm

sorry about your your wife but you know have you had last time you talked to dustal and car's like my son dustal what do you mean dustal died in the attack and the guy's like no he didn't i'm work for the zirka corporation now and i just saw him i was just dropping off and parts over on Corbyn at the Sith Academy. And I saw your boy there learning how to be a Sith. And so that is going to be the rest of the Carth story. But you're right that this falls flat, I think. So, Allie.

Yeah. Especially because I tried to talk to Carth after this and he was like, I only want to talk about Dustal. And I was like, this isn't, we need to figure out a way for these characters to think two things at once. Because I feel like me and Carth have a lot to talk about in this moment. this moment. Yes, because Karath's final gift to Karth, if you, you can convince him, hey, it's not worth, it's not worth killing him, right? Or maybe you can't convince him. Maybe

he's like, don't do it. He's like, shut up. I'm going to do what I want to do. But Karth is like, come closer. Whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper. And then dies. And Karth is like, it can't be true. Can it? And you're like, what do you say? And Karth's like, Bastila, it is true, isn't it? You knew. The whole Jedi Council knew. You knew the whole time. And Bastel's like, it's not what you think, Carth. We had no other choice. Please, you don't understand. And Carth's like, make me understand. And Bastila's like, well, not here, not now. We'll talk later. Malik's on the way. And you can be like, yeah, we'll talk later. And Carth is like, fine, I trust you, Bastila. But as soon as we get off the ship, I want answers. But he'll get answers before that.

It's very silly that up until it is just said out loud, every time we get close to answering the question, a giant cane comes on the screen and yanks the person off the stage. It's like, it's so, it's very silly. It's, it's, it is wild to me, and it's made me, like, I don't know. how I didn't know where this twist was the first time I played through this. And again, maybe I didn't know because I hadn't encountered that style of twist before, or maybe I knew and didn't care. Or no, I maybe even just let myself been spoiled, for instance, on it as a kid and just run with it. But I do remember it hitting, and I don't know how it's so obvious on its face by now, you know? Allie, do you remember this twist? Being a twist

for you when you first played this or watched it or whatever? Yeah, I remember being like, oh, my God. I was shot at the time. Yeah, yeah. I was shocked at the time. Well, because I think it is part of the, like, this was one of the first games of this type that I encountered. Sure. I had played a lot of JRP's in the, like, PlayStation era and then stopped gaming for a little bit aside from, like,

Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk on the DS, and then, like, Mass Effect and Cotor were my big, like, oh, I'm getting a council again, and I'm going to sit down and play these. So encountering BioWare in that way was, was like a big gaming moment for me. And I remember this being like, oh, my God, I thought I was this person. And I wasn't. You're this other person instead. Well, you know, I think, interestingly, they don't really, if you think about the big BioWare games that then come out after this, is you say the Mass Effect games

and the Dragon Age games. I don't think they ever try anything as dramatic as this. I think maybe Dragon Age Inquisition there's an major NPC party member revelation at the very end and then in some DLC that is about as big.

Natalie nodding with a small grin, a sort of small guilty grin on her face. Don't read my grin. Don't read it. But other than that, There's not like a I guess there's like a sort of a reveal it the reveal about what's really going on in mass effect is really big. I think that like the conference the conversation with sovereign in the middle of that game is an all-timer is really sick. But it's not this style of twist. It's just a natural plot reveal, you know? Right. I also think like this game lends itself to like feeling shocking because like it's a game that you invest. invest a lot in your character it's very like especially for the time it's like oh you build this

person out um and you you feel like you you have a connection with this person that gets cut from you once you learn the the truth of who you are yeah yeah I think that's probably true so you go through the big door that's been locked which gives you the short cut access now to the elevator yeah and they they built some maze in this ship. They got a big elevator. It goes down to the hangar level. It doesn't drop you at the hangar.

It drops you with their death maze. Uh-huh. And so you're running through the death maze and who should you encounter? But Moloch.

The big man himself. He gets to do a little he gets to do a little Darth Vader action. where Carr tries to shoot him and he just kind of blocks the bolt and then pushes him away. You know, it's not that big of a deal to him. He laughs a lot. Yeah, I, what does Carth say? He says like, down you go or something.

I was like, this is not. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. Please. It's like. And then he just catches him with just force push.

all this and you got you got got by force push um and then we get it's a spell for a reason right yeah it is a lot of damage and then there's that stun uh-huh um and malick says you know i hope you weren't thinking of leaving us so soon basila i've spent far too much energy hunting hunting down you and your companions to let you get away from me now besides i had to see for myself if it was true even now i can hardly believe my eyes tell me why did the the Jedi spare you? Is it vengeance you seek at this? Reunion? A reunion? What do you mean? And depending on your answer, you know, you can say this meeting was an inevitable Malik, which is like, you're a little out to be like, I know it's a Shutter Island situation. If you say that,

he says, as is the outcome. I'm actually surprised this conversation didn't happen sooner, given how powerful your, how powerful your mind once was. But if you go reunion, what do you mean? Malik laughs a bunch and, like, you don't know? All this time you've been figuring it out? He says, ha, ha, ha, three times in here, actually. I wonder how long you would have stayed blind to the truth. Surely some of what you were must have surfaced by now. Even the combined power of the Jedi Council couldn't keep your true identity buried forever, could it?

And then we get a camera straight on flashback of various giveaway lines. throughout the game. Rob, did you feel like like three-pointer swish Steph Curry on a run situation? It was so clear before this that like, no.

Like the moment, like from the first where they're like, nobody remembers how you got on the ship. I remember. You have a backstory. It's real vague. You have visions that don't feel like visions. They feel like

flashbacks. They're shot like flash vows. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And it's like, this is all, like, it's like, having seen this now, like, M. Night, uh, Shaman and Christopher Nolan were so many years down the road of like, movies being built around premises, like, premises like this, where it's like, you know, uh, how, like, what, what's the line of inception? Uh,

you know, do you ever remember the start of the dream? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's 100% like, like, this so the final reveal where we get like the flashback finally to i love this because it's going to be your character model yeah the flashback to the two sith the the sith kids get an access to like the star forge star forge vault yeah yeah and we get the the camera swinging around past the hood yeah and there somewhat awkwardly is your character bottle's face jammed in there Is the hood totally working with it? Depends on your character model.

Uh-huh. There might be a little bit clipped through. Yeah, there might be a little bit. But they do remove the damn mask. It does come off and there's your guy. All sift out. I really wish I could have seen Tana Khan in that dark lord robe. I was, I was like, this isn't, this isn't how it was supposed to be.

And I was watching Zotisia. Zotija, yeah, not yours. Yeah, that's tough. I will say, though, this is worse than I thought it was. Yes, yes, agree. Like, I thought we were in a Shutter Island situation. Rob, I've been holding onto this so close in my heart since the first second that you went down this path. Because it's like, I, okay, Rob's figured this out.

Fuck, right? And like, we can try to play dumb a little bit. We can try to, like, throw you off the tracks, you know? But, like, I can't, if I push back too hard, it'll be very clear that that's what really is there. And so, and, you know, Allie and I have been messaging each other about this since you first went down. this path, be like, oh my God, how do we manage this at this point? But the fact that you didn't necessarily know all the details of how it happened. What exactly was the plan? How did it shake out? Who knew what? Was this thing in my heart of hearts? I was like, thank God. I don't

think Rob knows those details because those are the things that really make it spark. The unholy violation that's happened here. Bro. Like I thought, I thought it was a, like, I genuinely thought it was a, we had a battle. He was knocked unconscious. He forgot who he was. We have a chance to reclaim the, like, Jedi that was underneath, like, the, the Sith Dark Lord. Right.

And, like, he has a chance to, like, make these choices again and make the right ones this time. Instead, basically, what they outline here is that Revin effectively died on that bridge. Like Like in terms of intellectually Because of Malik by the way Malik? Yes We'll get to Malik here in just one little second Okay let's put some on the Revin reveal

We got a real lack of swag With some of the others here It's unbelievable. It's bad Yeah But he affected So like Revin's basically dead They've got a husk A force power like a powerful

Like force sensitive husk But like in terms of the The personality, the person and like everything underneath that, gone. Casualty of war. Uh-huh. And they just overlay a personality template on you. I think they say like as a republic soldier.

So it's, it's your mind was destroyed, but I use the force to preserve the flicker of life in your body. I brought you your mind, again, this is Basila, her words, not mine. Your mind was destroyed. But I used the force to preserve the flicker of life in your body. I brought you to the Jedi Council. They were the ones who healed your damaged mind. The Jedi Council didn't restore your wounded mind.

They merely programmed it with a new... Sorry, this is Malik. They merely programmed it with a new identity, one loyal to the Republic. They tried to make you their slave. And Bastila is like, I wanted to tell you. You know, I am sorry. We couldn't restore your true identity. It was too dangerous.

But locked inside your mind was information the Republic needed, the secrets of the StarForge. The council created an identity for you, a soldier under my command. Your subconscious memories were supposed to lead me to the StarForge. There was no other way to get the information. This is on some like reverse dark disciple shit. It's like the same, it's the same like line of thinking but done opposite basically. like in Dark Disciple, oh yeah, we're going to like program, not program, but we're going to get Quinlan to go darksided, but only to get information and then he'll quickly come back and it'll be fine and only to assassinate someone and it'll be fine. And it's worse, and this is like one of the things that feels like they really want, there's a real expectation that you are a male player romancing Bastila because like the even deeper violation here is that even you're forced bond with her.

as part of this. So, like, all the feelings you have for her and all this, like, you're sharing memories and sharing visions shit is because she healed you from the brink of death. You get that bond. And that feels like it's supposed to be, like, undercutting your romance with her an important way or, like, threatening it. And there's a line, right, that says, like, this was Basil's way of, like, experiencing the dark side.

That's what Malik says, right? Malik is like, oh, that's not, you just want to taste the dark. side a little bit for yourself. You knew the council wasn't going to let you to explore the cis power, but you could do it through Revin's memories and the bond you'd create. She's like, no, I just wanted the StarForge. So, like, the bit, the stuff where

like she's known all along, which means all those conversations where she's like, man, the bond between us is so weird. Fuck you. Fuck you. Like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me with me? Like, man, I just don't know, like, why we have this, like,

this connection. This is creepy, Bastila. This is creepy. It's so evil. It's so evil. And there's some stuff that if you go back, like, there was stuff that I was surprised wasn't in the big flashback thing. Because if you go back to thinking about some of the stuff that you learn on Tatooine

or when you like talk to the Jedi Masters on Tatooine, the little fake Yoda, what's the, Yoda's name again? Is that Veruk? No, Vruke's the, is it Vandar? Does anybody remember? I'm looking at my notes. Hmm. But there are moments when, like, characters just straight up get shushed

because it's like they're about to tell you that you're Darth Revin by mistake. It's really wild how close some of that stuff comes. And, like, you kind of get the impression, yeah, you know what it is? It's the other way. Vruik is the one who is like, are you really certain that Revin is truly dead? What if we undertake to train this one and the dark lord should return? And it's like, oh, in him, that in this guy. And Vandar, fake Yoda is like, we should discuss this matter more fully in private.

Fuck off. These guys suck. The Jedi are so bad. It's, yeah. The part that, like, the flashback part where it's one of the Jedi masters being like, hope you don't go down a path all too familiar. I just wanted to punch the screen. I was like, you are sickos.

You are so fucked in the head. And the fact that you teased it to this person, like this is, you gaslit, you gaslit Revin for months and months. And that is not okay, not okay, even if he was evil. Trying to find a StarForge. What can I say? It was the only way we could do it. We couldn't go do what Malik and Revin did the first time

and just send Jedi out to investigate the StarForge. There's no way we could have that. They would get eviled. They would get dark-sided. I guess? It's so funny. I don't know. Why?

Why would they? Just take the dark lord. Just take the fully most evil guy in the galaxy and be like, all right, go do all right, go do all the same shit you did while you were mad evil. And it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. It's going to have your reprogram. You got a new name.

You got a new girl. It's going to be fine. Well, Bastilla is there to make sure everything goes fine and be a good Jedi. Yeah. And make sure that she follows the rules and it doesn't flirt with you all of the fucking time. Yeah, we'll just, we'll just flirt. You know what, Revin Stalker will take care of him. Right.

Like this is the vibe where it's like, man, I don't know why we know so much about each other. It's just like there must be something like there's some other force bringing us together. It's like, it's you. Yeah, it's you. You studied my dossier so you could come kill or capture me. You were obsessed with me. You were on a strike team. And now you're trying to date me?

You mind-wiped me. Date, basically the blank shell of a person, the paper-thin, like, paper-thin, like, husk of a good soldier that they put in there to, like, pilot Revin's body. Like, there is no indication that, like, you're coming back to yourself as these recollections hit. You are aware of who you used to be. Reven's gone. Who you are is not a fully formed person, which I guess the liberating thing is, you know,

you're, it can be, it can still be your character now. You've built a character here. But you haven't had actually much space to express that because this is not that kind of game. And throughout it, your guide has been the person who basically like maneuvered you

into this position. Well, interestingly, you start getting, you know, the jump ahead just a tiny bit. There's a lot of debriefing with your crew in the ship after.

and even immediately your carth is saying stuff to you after this. And everybody, a lot of the characters will have a different line here or there that is like, this, you know, this makes sense based on the way you've behaved. I always felt a little darkness in you. Or, well, they say you're Revin, but you've never acted like Reven. So maybe that's not there. And there's something really weird happening where it's like, based on your decisions to this point, the game is kind of taking a nature versus nurture perspective in a weird way where

it's like, oh, have you been to. dark-sided, then it validates the people's beliefs that you, this is in you, this is your essence, this is who you are, this has come through despite the second chance. And if you go the other way, you're getting people being like, well, you've always been a good guy around me. And so, and so it must be the case that you've got a second chance on life and you've, you're different than who you used to be. And it's all, that's of all, it's kind of flat for me outside of maybe mission, who has your back in the most naive way possible, or she's just, it really works for me where mission is just like so dismissive that any of this matters, you know.

Doesn't Jolie basically like let on like, yeah, I knew what was going on? 100%. It's pretty fucked up, kid. What are you going to do? It wasn't my place to tell you what happened. That's not all me. I'm not, that's not my job, which is kind of interesting because it's, it is the, it is a great example of like where the Jolie hands off ideology can kind of fall apart, right?

where it's like, wait, man, like, you should have told me about this and your decision to be, you know, the sage on the hill, your decision to be this like, I'm not going to interfere with history guy, is kind of fucking hung me out to dry, you know? Well, there's also, like, Joel Lee, it's not the best part of his personality, but there's a strong, let's see how this plays out. Totally. Like, he's a guy who's like, I'm real curious to see how this goes. but but don't worry this revelation might tempt you back to the course of evil like who's really the good guy here except malick is a punk this guy is a punt you got nothing you got nothing on the ball because it turns out the reason you got fucked up is not because bastella beat you in a in a one v one duel uh no no this is this is not

what happened. She did not, she did not take the Risking crown following a 1v1. Instead, Malik sees the ship get boarded. The, the Reven's flagship get boarded. And he opens fire with all the guns of the fleet to kill you because a Sith business, it's time, it's time for Malik to give himself a promotion. And then Malik has the gall to be like, but I always had a little regret that I did this because it made me look like I was afraid of you, which you evidently were. Like, just skip to the bottom of the line here. If he had doubts about his capacity to take on Reven, they were well-founded. They were well-founded.

It was like, different weight classes. Different weight classes. You know, he saw the rule of two and it's time to overcome his master by shooting him like a fucking coward from 10 parsecs away or whatever. it's annoying so so malick is like now i get to kill you myself so like there's no there's no temptation to be like it's so interesting imagine what this would be like if it's like brother yeah like you were taken from me and like you are not like you don't remember why you did all this stuff i'm telling you like you're on the if it was that where it's like yeah we were on a mission

and we were going to like we were going to remake this gal this fallen galaxy who's like who like who's gonna lead you in a better path the j Jedi who've been lying to you and like stole your soul effectively? No, like come back, come back to the fold. That's an interesting moment. Like that'd be one hell of a twist, right? Because it's like you'd have that moment where, yeah, did they obliterate Taurus? For sure.

Did Tars kind of suck? Also, yes. Also yes, yeah. But the main thing here is like this is such a violation. And you could set it up to be a moment where it's like, I don't know that I want to stay on the side of the angels. Or at least you have this moment of drama. where, like, the beckoning from Malik would be a genuine temptation.

Yeah. But instead, he tried to knife you in the back. And now he's just like, but now I'm glad they brought you back to me because I've had time to lift and get swall. And now I can kick your ass. True. And then you fight. And that's how they're going to, that's how they sort of like sort of tap dance past this, this breach, right? where it's like

the worst thing that could have been done to your character was done by the Jedi but don't worry we're still going to keep the battle lines

as they are the fact that he casts fucking spinny move on you and then runs away coward shit so disrespectful

to I think is your fucking former master okay you are not going to cast spinny throw me in the air and spin me around like a little runny

you just hit me with the spinning attack and that shit was disrespectful you are going to get got so deeply I promise you Balik you will

never you will be obliterated for this disrespect it was humiliating And I'm just glad that Tana didn't experience that. Yeah, Tana never got, never got hit with the, with the old whoopty, you know. The old whoopty do. The old whoopty do didn't get, you didn't get caught with that. Hell no.

Malik has mall ninja energy. Yeah. Uh-huh. Where it's like, he's like, check out this technique I learned. And then like does a big flourishing like nothing. Yeah. And then spins his nunchucks and then runs. And then runs away.

Like, that's it. And that's, and you have to hunt his ass down through the shitty maze. Because this game can't support, like, by the way, don't make games like this.

They can't support what they want, which is a game of cat and mouse through like, they want to be like an entire maze composed of like the gates in phantom menace. You can imagine it being like where it's like the two stalking each other.

I'm going to find you, you bastard. Instead, it's just wander the maze until the next fight triggers. Walk past the frozen statues of your two buddies. update the time as you sort of reel around one identical room after another and then fight this

guy again who has a high resist to most of your force abilities but it ain't that high he can't put down that much damage one of your sons is going to get through and you're just going to beat the shit out of them yeah that's what really gets me about this sequence is that like you almost get him twice yeah he needs to run away from you and not even lock every door in the little cell that he's in, which is so pathetic. Like, how is this my nemesis? Like, can I get somebody better, please? And then he will leave, and it's like, we can't go help Bastila.

We have to get the StarForge right now. Two-on-one-one could get him. Yeah. It wouldn't be a thing. One-on-one could get him. I got him. He was got. It's just...

And the whole crew is downstairs. And we got the keys of the bridge. What are we doing? And it's not even like We gotta race him to the Star Forge He knows what the Star Forge is Presumably Right?

Maybe he doesn't But we have a whole other planet To go through You know what I mean It's not like we're like Oh And that was the fun This is the final

This is the point of no return We're gonna rush to the end of the game now We have a whole other planet to do Let's spend some of that time Just getting them Just right now we could just get them You know The Jedi deserve to fall

The Republic should end and the Jedi should fall Like it's you you blew it You're blowing it you continue to blow it It's embarrassing Yep Please you're done You're done Yeah okay it's

Unfortunately I gotta tell you right now there's no neutral ending to this game It's time to pick side Yeah At this point in the game if you are veering Light side or Dark side it is in your best interest to start pushing further that way. Find the resolution you need. Find the reason that you need for it.

Great. So we get to just embrace all the most absurd binaries that this game can. I don't believe, I'm double checking. I don't think that there is any neutral only equipment in Cotor, but we're about to start getting a very powerful light side only or dark side only equipment. A lot of the big end game stuff. is like you, you know, coming up in the next little bit, I don't think it's, I don't think it's Corbyn.

I think it's the thing after that. You can find Revin's mask, for instance. And you can only wear it if you're a super dark side character. And it gives you wild stat increases. But, but that's only if you're evil. And likewise, you start to get, I want to say maybe you get some of the Kell Drama Boys stuff for light side equipment. I forget exactly what it is.

But that's the stuff that's like, you know, you can only, we already have that one circlet that's light side only. It is like really good. Which, by the way, I think if you left on Bastel, it might just be gone. I don't know. Because I had it on Bastel and I think. Oh, no. She's got my critical crystal.

Oh, you dumbass. I didn't even need you to save me. We had him. We had him in the corner. We had him in the corner. There's time on the clock. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Like we were just going to, he had his arms up. And we're just like working the body. Rob, this is bad clock management all the way through. This is the end of the game. We have timeouts. You're not calling the time out. Why did you call a time out? You're letting the clock run?

What are we doing? You call the screen? You call the screen and stop the man? You just had him stop and turn? You slid inside. You didn't stop the clock? What are you doing? But like this is, so we got his ass.

Like Dups through the power. of being able to just buy yourself the best armor in the game until I guess the end game through the power of money just money and card sharking like Jups is just able to beat the shit out of this dude and then we have the like oh no

Malik is charging up and Bastila has her dramatic like I will save you you guys go ahead I'll hold them off but she's not she's not strong enough she's not going to make it and so the door slammed shut and it's like we have to leave her And I'm good with that.

But also it's like, like, take yourself out of the game, kid. Yeah. Excuse me. I'm Darth Revin. Uh-huh. Like, I mean, I'm on vacation from being Darth Revin, but like, please step aside. Yeah. I do.

It's interesting because now I'm starting to wonder about, like, where would the galaxy have gone on a long enough time? timeline if Revin had really died or just gone missing. Right. Because to Rob's point before, like, it is a huge missed opportunity to not be like, hey, the Jedi fucked you up, come join the Sith. Yeah. And, like, Malik is not the part of Revin and Malik who, like, had it like that in the recruitment

sense. So you have all of these, like, you know, young Jedi who were following Revin and then Revin disappears and there's still the Sith bubble up. But like, would the Jedi have been better off if they just ran the clock on that? Right? Just killed Reven, you mean? Or yeah. Yeah. Either killed Rebin or just like, you know, you live on the street now. You don't know who you are. We don't kill people. We don't try to, right, we don't try to put them, we don't put you back on a collision course with your own history. Right. You work in the archives. We gave you a new personality. You work in the archives now. Go work for the Zenzer.

Corp or whatever. Just go. Stock some shelf. The Zerka Corp. Sorry, I know. I'm sorry. In Surka, I'm sorry. The Alzabar Corp.

Like, it's, yeah, it's, the, the fire that they're playing with is so much worse than just, like, letting Malik fuck it up. Or just, because Malik can't, right, you know, be Revit. Like, it just isn't going to happen. In other words, like, it's, it's a matter of time until someone else kills Malik and the whole thing just eats itself from the inside. You know how we know this? Because that's what's happened every other time

we've seen some Sith Lord shit in the comics from this era, right? Well, hang on though. Does the fact they're playing around with the World Forge put this whole thing on a timer because they're going to get Death Star abilities, basically?

Yeah, you'll see. We will see what exactly the Star Forge is very shortly. And I think that will, that emphasizes some of why the rush. But I also at the same time think I don't know, it's, it's a bad play. It's, it's, it's a little poorly done, Emma. Like, it's, this is not the way to win this one. I think it's a, and I think it's, I think it's kind of interesting about it is that from as far as we can tell, it seems like it was all these Dantueen Jedi doing this and not the chorus. We don't know what the Choruson Jedi think of any of this, right? Which I think is kind of fun. The idea that's like, the Dan Tune Jedi do feel like, oh, we're like, we couldn't possibly consult. Like, things are so crazy right now. I couldn't possibly, like, consult with the council.

So we're just going to do this thing. That's the vibe. I don't, maybe this is contradicted by something in the game that we've missed, but it feels a lot like the Dantuin Jedi made Revin and, like, let him slip through their fingers a little bit, right? Because at least one of them talked about training Reven and how bright Revan was. And now they're like, we can fix it. We can fix it.

Bring us Reven. We can fix him. You know, we can just mind wife. It'll be fine. And that is not the case. In my first time ever playing through this game, this was the moment I was like, oh, I'm going darksided. Fuck the Jedi. You know, and it doesn't, let me tell you.

Did you declare that you would at any, because there's one point, is it Malik that asks you, like, so what will it be? And you could be like, I could be persuaded to check out the Sith for a price or whatever. I think it's, I think it's Karoth who says that. And, and, yeah, right, right. Because it's before this reveal, I think. I think you're right, yeah. Because what you could say to Malik is more like, the dark side-ish option with him that you can take is like, I'm coming for you, you know, or something like that. Very much like, I'm still alive.

I'm here to, you know, I live bitch, like that style. But with Karath, you can say, you can totally be like, yeah, I hate the Jedi anyway. And it doesn't, it doesn't feel like you get any big, you know, there's no big. I was curious if there was like another one. way, yeah, for this whole sequence. This is just, no, there's no big alternate playthrough. Again, it's not, they're not there yet in terms of, or at least they're not there yet along with this resolution and this fidelity and all that other stuff, where there's like,

suddenly you're on a different plot, you know, um, uh, which is kind of what you were asking for, I guess, Rob, that would be cool of Malik was like, join me again. And then you got a final, the whole back act of the final act of the game is different or something, right? Ooh. that'd be great or it doesn't need to be like oh you have to create an entire like narrative arc for the player to go through you just need some sort of credible but instead they make him such a little weasel yeah which which sucks too because his character design is kind

of cool like he's the he's the face you see on the main menu and it's like ooh like that dude seems like a badass like can't can't wait to confront him and it's like I tried to shoot you in the back with a starship fleet it's like dude sucks that ain't it so that's not your guy. Get back to the Evan Hawk and Carth is like, everyone needs to learn about what, by the way, and he's right. Part of this that's very funny. Yeah.

From another perspective, this feels like the Dantween Jedi, we're out to prank Carth in the most epic possible way because like this is his nightmare. This is the worst thing that could ever have happened. His mentor and best friend, father figure. turns bad. It's like you never knew him at all. He was evil. He blew up your planet and like turned traitor.

And Kars spent the entire game being like, I just don't trust people. But you seem okay. You seem like good dude. I think maybe I'll learn to trust again through working with you and you're like, yeah, you should. You know, don't put this shit on me.

You can trust me. I haven't done it to let you down. Carr's like, yeah, you're right. I should really work through that. And looming over it all is this amazing punchline. It's fucking Revin. The car has been rolling with Revin for like the whole time. Yep.

Can I tell you something, Rob? Can I tease a little something? It can get worse. It can get so much worse. So we will see. We'll see as I go down this route. We get a flashback to Revin being like, fuck that one pilot's family in particular. Hit that house with a turbo laser.

oh it's it's we got we got some more story coming and uh again we have one more whole regular ass planet and then we'll get like the big finale and the point at which the dark and light side branch has really hit is that final is the finale um and we're some there's some stuff we'll shake out at that point uh but you know we saw a cart story to do before then and that has a light side and the dark side ending so you know so yeah alley i well they're just like Increasingly, while we're at this moment, there's increasingly moments where Carth's story doesn't add up or molds to be whoever's he's maddest at in the scene. Because first it's, oh, my captain did this. It's my captain's fault.

And then you have the sort of like group meeting with everybody where he's like, Revin killed my family. How could you say that I'm not supposed to be mad about this? And Candace is like, we all know Malik did that shit. You can't say Rebid, did it? Wait a minute, it's what? Yeah. Yeah.

Which is weird. You're right. The whole game, it's been about Admiral Karoth, and now it is, and like, shout out to Candace for being a real one to have your back in this moment, which is, by the way, Candorous, Candace is the opposite of Carth. If Carth is like, I can't believe I've been pranked like this, Canderis, this is the best reveal it could have been. Canderus, who the only person he respects in the whole galaxy is Darth Revin,

the greatest warrior to ever live, to the degree that you just know the whole time. Canderis is like willing to work with you, but is not happy about it necessarily, right? Like, you seem tough, you seem strong. I'll talk with you for a little bit. The reveal that you're the guy who beat the Mandalrians, you may as well be the best Mandalorian who ever lived. Like this is, it's like a galactic revelation for him that he gets to serve with you. He's hyped.

He's so hyped. He's so hyped on it. And he should have just fucking died on Taurus. The fact that he threw in with you to get off this planet is the best decision he's ever made. Rewarded. Constantly rewarded for this. And HK, the reveal from HK. Oh, yeah. It's like, and your dog is here.

It's so funny. This is the thing. Natalie, you talked about this last time that after you get through the whole HK memories thing, As a reminder, the final memory you'd unlocked with HK was that a Mandalorian had stolen him and became his master. Well, why did the Mandalorian steal him? Because it turns out, Revin had sent him to go after the Mandalorians and do a Mandalorian assassination. And getting this last bit of information was the stimuli, which is the thing Natalie you talked about. Until he gets this last bit of stimuli, he can't access his like central memory core.

And this is it. The memory core has been activated. It's Sith protocols maintain that all droid knowledge be deleted before assassination missions. And you're like, Sith protocols. And he's like, yeah, dude, because I'm Revin's killer droid. Revin built me, basically. Daddy's home. Daddy's home.

Flex. Which, again, poor Carth. You're like, this guy is Darth Revan. Yeah, he's the only one that's like freaking out about this. And mission's like, go-hoo. Canters is like this rules. This is Darth Revin the only man strong enough to beat the Mandalorians. HK, it's like the end of like, uh, Homeward Bound.

It's like those animals just spent the entire movie killing people. It's like, oh my God, you're here, dad. Yeah. You're here. Yeah. I'm so glad to see you. Taylor's like, Jolie's like, you know, was my place to tell you that you were basically a brain clone. Yep.

literally he says he says you can go around the table basically like so what do you think Jerry Lee says what about me I already knew he were though it's not my place it wasn't my place to tell you better off that you know if you ask me does it change anything I'm not here to judge you you'll have to do what you have to do and I'll help if I can we all run the whole table right oh yeah yeah yeah okay Zobbar is like yep it's like T3 doesn't give a shit no that's enthusiasm yes believe me that's 100% he definitely didn't be like, are you all nuts? This is Darth Reven.

Yeah, he didn't go, blibly, boon. Yeah. Uh, Johani, I think, can be like, it might not be in this. I don't think she gets asked any. She's not here. But if you go to her after, um, she will be like, uh, you can say you're nothing like the one who saved. Okay.

Part of a Johani's backstory, by the way, which maybe no one's gotten yet is the whole thing about her being, uh, attacked by like slavers on. Terrace and she gets saved. Well, we've been holding out doing anything with Johani, right, until, like, there's a point where things can't bug out. Which is the next thing. But you can do conversations with her before then. The thing you can't do is trigger her to interact with her. That's fair. You can't trigger her plot line by going to the certain, by bringing her out into the, like, docking base. That's what you can't do. You can always summon her later. You can talk to her and stuff. A thing that's come up is that she almost gets captured by slavers on Taurus. She's from, well, she's her parents, she grew up on Taurus. and someone saved her from slavers on Taurus, and that person was Darth Revin, like, early on in their life, before they were Darth Revin, basically. And so you talk to her and you're, like, mostly dark. That's what colors the conversation. She says, she says, how can you possibly be Reven? The one, the Jedi whose troops saved me on Taurus, it was Revin leading an army out to defeat the Mandalorians.

It was you. But if you're dark side at that point. So she can say, at that point, if you're light-sided, she says, I knew when I heard that you'd become the dark-lord of the Sith, that something was wrong with it. In other words, like, I knew you could never be dark-sided. I knew that the man who saved me or the woman who saved me could never have been the dark-sided person because you saved me. You were good at heart. But if you're dark-sided, she's like, you're nothing like the one who saved me on Taurus. And you could be like, yeah, I am, I'm the same.

And she's like, you're not who I thought you were once upon the time. I thought you were the ideal Jedi. I thought you would never turn against us, yet here you are. And it's like, and you don't have to be that dark-sided. Does she still be in the party? She'll still be in the party. She doesn't leave the party at this point. Did that end the romance potential?

I believe it does. I do believe that it will end the romance with her. If at this point you are not at least above 40%, you know, again, the way the chart goes is zero to 150 is perfectly neutral. You have to be above 40 in order to be still, which is not that. Like, it's not like you have to be at 20 for her to be dismissive of you. You just have to be, like, leaning a little too dark at this moment. I'm just, I'm just exploring, I'm having, I'm having my own version of the Grove time.

That's right. That's right. Absolutely. So, you know, and you like, you cannot really bring her back around on you at this point. You know, you can say, I'll only do what's necessary. And she's like, and I, that's right. Once, once you've lost their trust. Yeah, she's like, time will tell.

I'll stay by you to make sure the task is done. But she's fucking done with you, basically. So, which is interesting. Zalbar is like, I swore a life debt. Life debt's a life debt. Yep. It's all good. But it does make you wonder, because a thing to think about here now that we're here is planet order, right?

We're about to go to Corribon. And part of the reason that we decided to wait on Corribon and why I like doing Corribon last is we're going to have lots of opportunities on Corribon to be like, I'm Darth Revin to people. and there were there were opportunities on other planets to do that if we had waited. So for instance, if you've already done, if you have already done this and then you do Kishik, you can tell Chundar that you're Revan. And he's like, I knew there was something weird about you. I can smell the darkness. Maybe you are even Darth Revin as you claim.

I don't care about Sith and Jedi. But like there are these options. And so one of them is you can tell, you can tell. Jolivis, when you recruit him, because you could already know theoretically that you're Reverend, right? And he says, he says, there's something you should know about me. I used to be Darth Revin. And he's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Rabble, rabble, what are you saying? And you're like, didn't you hear me? I used to be Reverend until the giant wiped away my identity. And he goes, does it change anything? I'm not here to judge you. You'll do what you

have to do, and I'll help if I can. I've seen my share of the dark and the light, and frankly, both extremes annoying me. Of course, I have felt the rumblings of change. And then likewise, when you go to the star map, do you remember the star map where you have to do the test about being Revin? It doesn't make you do the test. It's just like, that's my boy. You're Revin.

Okay. Come on in. You can just like give me the star map. And it says this unit has now completed his primary duty and has finished the subject, executing final action. And it just gives you the star map because you're Revan. Yeah. I want to do Manana's Revan.

I'm so curious Yeah I guess one of the things that happens there is All the mercenaries and stuff Will be like Damn do you hear that they blew up The Jedi base on Dantui

One of the guys is like The Jedi The Jedi is supposed to protect the galaxy They can't even save their own sorry selves Ha ha ha ha Jesus Yeah it's brutal But another thing about that

That's kind of interesting is like, despite that happening, the Selkath on Manon are still neutral. There's nothing that will push them, even though the fucking Jedi Council secret, you know, secondary council has been, has been nuked from space, uh, you know, um, I think. They got a good thing going. The Selkath are like, they're happy with what they got. They know people like you are out there to make sure things don't get too real. Uh-huh.

Like, they don't actually think that's that they're going to win. Yeah. Yeah. They're just playing the game. getting paid while they can, you know. So yeah. I do just want to say the, I do. The first time I played this, I did not remember how much Candace talks about Revan

before you know that you're Revin. You sort of know that he's obsessed with Revan the entire time. But you defeat the Annalorian clans in the war, Reven. You were the only one in the galaxy who could best us. We never met one like you before and never since. How could you even ask if I will follow you? He is in love. Whatever you are fighting, you will be worthy of my skill.

I'm your man until the end, Rebbed, no matter how this plays out. Damn. Shoulder checking bastel out of the way. Uh-huh. Just like, back off. He's mine. Yeah, exactly. We got a bond deeper than the force.

Unfortunately, I had him in this really funny helmet with the fucking forehead faceplate. Dude, this whole sequence was just a debacle of headgear for me. It was like, because I've been upgrading people throughout the time on the ship, so people have new visors. It's great. We need to toggle on this by where. We do. And they'll get there eventually.

This is, they just need it now, though. Oh, it's just so funny. It's so poor Carth. He's, he's alone in this. He's not. Everyone else is super excited. And now we've got to pretend to be okay with it. Yeah.

Like he's got to be like, yeah, no. You're right, guys, we should stop the Sith and fight Malik with Darth Raven. I just want to emphasize, again, if you have dark side points, if you are, if you were more dark than light, he straight up says, again, if you don't, he'll say like, I guess you've proven yourself to be a friend of the Republic by your actions so far, Revin, but can I trust you? Can any of us? And that's where you go around the table. And everyone is like, yeah, I trust. I trust him. But if you are a dark side, he says, it all makes sense now, Revin.

I've watched you. I've seen your cruelty. I've seen your dark side. And now this, I don't know if I can trust you. Can any of us? And then you go around the table and everyone's like, yeah, I totally trust Revin. And poor Carth, no one has his back. You know what?

Because you know what people like Carth? Winners. Fucking winners. You know what? We killed the crate draft. We rescued Basila back all the way back on Taris. We went to court three times on Monon. The charges won't stick.

You know? You did go to court three times on Manon. Yeah. They couldn't get you. It was one time we were the lawyer the one time, but they can't. That is true. Exactly. Exactly.

We went through Kashik. Zirka, who? You know? Or I guess if you had dark-sided Kashik, Zerka, my friend's on Kashik. I took it. I took back his blade and gave it to my muscle fatty friend over there. Like he's just, and the rookies were all like,

awesome. Awesome. That we love you. Incredible. I don't know. Maybe Carth, you just got to chill. Chill out a little bit.

Trust me. Trust me, bro. It's all going to work out just fine. I should just say one person is crucially not here. And that's Vassila because I don't think we said that. Oh, we did. Did we? Yeah, we talked.

We talked very briefly about it, but yes. Okay, okay. To emphasize. She's not here because she sacrificed herself behind a giant door. And she will be darksided the next time we see her, almost certainly. That's my vibe. That's your guess. That's my, I mean.

Yeah. Yeah. She's about to get Quinlan. She's going behind enemy lines. She's so suggestible. She's so suggestible. She's done. She's done.

100% It's a good guess We'll have to play to find out what happens Yeah Is there anything else on On this? Because I have two confessions Oh two confessions

I do have two confessions Okay The first confession is In I'll do this in Terms of recency Okay So while I was watching the YouTube video

for this for the segment you know I like to watch it in 2x speed because people go slow and so I was about five minutes in and I like refreshed and it like went off 2X speed and so I went to click

the settings button and I misclicked and it took me to the very end of this YouTube video, where Mission says, you're Darth Revin? And I was just like, oh, my God. Okay. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. I had my inklings.

I had my inklings leading up to the point. I had some inklings that, you know, something's a vicious might be going on because a few months ago when we started playing this game I think I was like looking up I fucking knew it I was looking up Zalbar yeah uh-huh and when you Google Zalbar uh-huh I just put I just put Zalbar and um when you Google that it says Zalbar, also nicknamed Big Z by Mission Vow, was a male wookie who aided the former Sith Lord Revin in his quest throughout the dot, dot, dot. Yep.

Uh-huh. And so when I saw that, I saw this months ago, and I was like, I can forget that. I can forget that I saw that. And I was like, let me spin it. Let me spin it for myself. Like, let me, maybe Zalbar. Okay, this is the theory. Secretly before?

Yes. Was like secretly with Revin at one point and then came and joined. And then I was like, okay, maybe not, maybe that's not it. Maybe this whole crew like somehow like all serves. Finds Revin. And then, right, right, right. And then this is a ploy. Like I am being, I am being lied to, but in not in the way that it's my identity.

By yourself. But in the way that, but in the way that, like, everyone knows, like, has encountered Revin in a way before I got there. Yeah. So I was kind of putting, but then as we're playing the game, I'm like, my, my lies to me aren't holding up so sure. You're having flashbacks. I was having flashbacks. Um Austin did you know that Natalie

accidentally I had no fucking idea Watson just But it's everywhere It's impossible And I don't have a solution For the The Cotor

You know Website makers of the world Who are not touching the stuff anyway But like on every Wikipedia page On every fact On everything It's like Here's this game

The first NPC you talk to The first NBC you talk to In this game Traskolgo You go to his Wikipedia page it opens on this quote now hurry up we have to find bastillo we have to make sure she makes it off the ship alive and then underneath it says trask olgo to revin and it's like oh my god every single co-tor character is that yes every single location or like you know most of them it's it's a minefield

when we're like you can't look at anything from wikipedia on this this is why because over and over again it attributes quotes to revin or says so-and-so to says this to reven it's like just you have to come up with the hero of the end of spire, player character, you know, whatever, you know what I mean? Like the way that, the way that in oblivion, they talk about like the hero of, of, I forget the name of the city, it's not Carth, it's something like that. The hero of Kavach is what it's called in oblivion, oblivion, the dragon born in Skyrim, you know, like give me the specter or whatever in Mass Effect. I guess I say Shepherd, right? You know, like you have the like stand in name. Just give me that, you know? Guardian and

Destiny. In Cotor 2, I mean, now there's a, there's a canon name for this fucking character, which is like Mika Sutrick or something like that. But for a long time, the fandom talked about that character as being the Jedi exile, right? And it's just like, that's useful. Because you could say, so-and-so said to the Jedi exile. And we don't have one of those for this. And so it's just Revin everywhere.

It's so annoying. I have studied at the foot of the Dark Lord himself, Darth Bandin, Revin. That's ridiculous. Why would you do that? Which, by the way, no offense. Darth Bandon getting done dirty by his Wikipedia picture here. This is not the look.

He's doing, he's doing TikTok, like head back fat chin maneuver in this image. That is not, that is not acceptable. It's not. So, yeah, those are my confessions. Thank you for being honest. I appreciate it. Again, you're now free to go look up any of the strategy guides or FAQs. I think Ali and I both support the one I'm about to link to you now, which is the strategy wiki.

org one. Yes. Which is remarkable. Like, I, it is, this document is a living testimony to how good the internet used to be. and how good the internet could still be because it was updated back in August. It's not like this is like an ancient document. We have looked at some,

we have both been also working for some other ancient, like actual ancient documents. There are some Cotor guides that are like on the game Banshee and Almar's guides one. I really love the Almar's Guide one because. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was the one that I was about to link. Drop that one, please.

There might be an even other one that I really like that has like a blue background. Does that gamer walkthroughs? I don't remember. What's the one with a good blue background? But there's a bunch of them out there that are great. The one on the strategy wiki one is so good because it has a full breakdown of all of the text in the game in any location. So anytime I've been like, this is what so-and-so says.

Here's a difference from if you do this answer or this answer. If you're dark-sided or if you're whatever your gender split is, this wiki has all of that. It's so, so good. and it's a reminder that text used to be good on the internet and now everything's fucking videos and it's annoying

and the page just loads and the page just loads and people just used to put some time into this and you could just hit search you could just search for something if you really want to lose this the blue one you were thinking of by the way is shrines dot RPG classics.com

wow yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah look at how good holy shit yeah dude it's so good and this is this is the one that I would go you know whenever I was thinking about

how do we structure these episodes are like oh there are four quests on this in this place if you go to the walk through and click on for instance here i'll just drop the tattooing one um it's like okay there are there's the middleman there's the swoop races there's the tannish trapped there's miners under siege there's desert ambush and there's fair trade they're so like whoever's grabbing these is like the one of the dude blowing up the tannis the one the dude blowing up the tannis the who's the hunter, the shitty husband hunter, on his knees, with all the droids blowing up around him, killing him, incredible.

And that's every page here has quality. The internet used to be so good. It used to be so good. Oh, how'd they get this? How'd they get this still? I don't know. That's, that's, the game isn't this dynamic? This is not what Ketor looks like.

Yeah, I know. Here is an image of the, the character on the Leviathan using lifestyle or whatever it is that I'm always using. That's awesome. Isn't that sick? Get on there. Yeah. Yeah.

It's good. I, yeah, the, the, uh, RPG classics website is especially good. I noticed after using them that they'll always include a picture of a character in peril. You're 100% right. It's a little fetish website. It's a little like, how did you go out of your way over and over again to make this person look like they're about to die? It's true.

Um, the fact that they have. The maps with like, here's where all the NPCs are. Oh, my God. It's so useful. It's so good. It's really great. It's fantastic. Shoutouts to people who used to make great content on the internet.

If you're listening and you're one of these people, you know, thank you. Literally. You're goaded. 100%. With the sauce. With the sauce? With the sauce. Damn.

Like this. This brings me. I'm like, we used to have, we used to have good websites. We used to play a video game. We did. And you'd go online and you'd look for a walkthrough and there'd be like a huge page of ASCII art. And it was like. Look at these six screenshots of all the main characters, all in their fucking action poses.

Cart looks good here. These are so cool. Everybody looks so sick. mission's like ready to lead a spinoff series yeah yeah hk looks so sick wow wow wait t3 can do this t3 can do that you give t3 a little firing a death star laser yeah you can give t3 a little plasma blaster or whatever yeah uh-huh flame thrower I guess yeah it's good this is so good I I do want to say we don't do a ton of mid episode

Patreon plugs, but while we're talking about kings of the old internet, the person who emailed us to our Q&A, who made the Bastilla gay mod. Was it the Bastilla game? Oh, yes. It was the Bastilla game mod. You're right. Thank you for that email. Check it out.

Check it out at our Patreon. Patreon.com slash civilized. We got an email from someone who was the originator of the gay Bastilla Mod for the PC release of Kotor. for what you've done. Just like we need we need a jet we need to build a place

and we need to memorialize like the Jedi statues but for good things like for good people who contributed good not for Jedi who lost their way. You're in the Jedi archives and it's like pictures of like old guides websites. Yes exactly

100% oh man I'm happy to be on the other side of this. I will say that. Yeah, me too. Again, feel free to dig into this stuff now. I think it's been really enjoyable to do that. So I was the only one who didn't know was Revin?

I guess so. You knew. I mean, I was lying to me. You were the first one. I was lying to myself. I was like, I was trying to like manifest forgetting. You were holding. You knew in your heart what this twist was.

But also you were like, I don't know how it works out. It could work on it. Natalie wasn't cheating on us. Natalie was cheating on herself. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I had no idea this is how, like I did never, I never went digging. Like I had no idea this is the, the process by which this came to be again.

I, like, you know, I was, I had a lot of. I'm not surprised. It was impossible. Like we, I don't know how we got it. Also, we moved at such a slow pace that it was like, if we didn't, if we didn't, if we didn't, if you didn't stumble into it, if we'd go another month, someone was just going to, you know, public space, you would have just stumble into it. You know what I mean? It's so out there. It's just everywhere. It was annoying that like the only guy that

could consult was like Allie and Austin via Chad because I knew any time I was like, I don't know where the phone was supposed to go. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Can't go look for it. I will say, the, the, weirdly, the strategy wiki is actually really good about this. All of these text sites are pretty good about not saying Revin all over the place. But Wikipedia, which dominates the SEO. Yep. Exactly. So, and we couldn't ever be sure about any of the wikis or guides because we didn't

like pre-read them. We just used them as we went. And so every time I was like, damn, they did a good job again. I'm not spoiling anything here. And so now, ironically, now I can look back and go, we could have just given you this and said, don't click on Leviathan, don't click on StarForge. system, et cetera. You know, as spoilers, there's a StarForge system.

The wiki is such a good side of architecture in front of just fucking violated it. Just vandalized it. Uh-huh. It's, this is so grim. This strategy wiki.org is not a fandom wiki. It is like on its own different archive, its own different layout. There's not a billion ads everywhere, you know? It's, it's, you know, it may there's.

I don't think any of them have any ads. They were just like a thing people made in GeoCities in the 2000s. I think if you don't have ad blocker on, there's like a little, there's like classic banner ads at the top and bottom of the strategy wiki stuff. I'm okay with that. I'm fine with that. That's fine. I don't need it to be. But there isn't like an embedded Fextra life Twitch archive or Twitch video running at all time.

It's auto play. Yeah. The auto play so they can jack up their views. I'll tell you that much. There isn't a fandom thing of some video somewhere that none of us have ever heard of just running so they could rack up add impressions on it. And I say this, being someone who has like, like bumped up against that shit in the past, right? When we launched Waypoint, Vice was like, oh, yeah, we can make sure you get X number of views. And like, what do you mean you can make sure?

And it's like, yeah, we can just have this Twitch embedded on all, on all Vice platforms, you know, for three hours. of this day, it'll cost us a little bit of money because it won't be advertising, but it'll bump your numbers up. And it's like, that's the grimyest thing you could possibly do. It doesn't actually help us because it doesn't give us any metrics to actually base anything off of, you know? It's like, I'm happy you're promoting us, I guess. But like, you'll be a real blatant, you know? Equivalent of buying followers. 100%. 100%. There is no. It sucks. It sucks. No. Yeah. That stuff happens. It's constant. It's so frustrating. And it makes the

internet worse to use and it's great that sites like this are just out there good reminder the world could be different you know it truly is a shrine it truly is a shrine a shrine to RPGs which we love we do all right so we had the whole calendar conversation just the other day but obviously listeners did not hear that yeah yeah so uh this one is coming out is this coming out Basically, this is this is, this is Friday the 12th, it'll drop on Friday, exactly. Yeah. And then next week, you can look forward to our AMCA, January Patreon on the rest of the Nomi Sunrider comics, on the rest of the omnibus. Yep.

And then it totally will be in that. I don't think so, unfortunately, but he should be. I think he should be. He was there. He was just, they, he was out of the camera shot. Yeah. He's just off screen. He's just on the background.

The rest of my friends. You don't see something cool on RPG shrines or shrines at RPG classics? Yes. You have it up. Does everybody have the site up? Uh, hang on. Click any of the links that we sent. I don't think it matters, which.

Yeah, I have it. All right. Click on the top left where it says RPGC. Yeah. You just get a fucking index. You just get index. You just get a classic HTML index of all of the different platforms. I'm in the television.

Yeah. There's one. television game called it's the it's a shrine to the beauty and the beast game for the television i is this a it what is this game i've never seen this this is like is this a king con knockoff i think it might be anyway you could see that they have RPG or they've guides for stuff on every console uh here's here's here's lunar guide uh-huh yep they sure do oh Uh-huh. When you go, there's like a little gif of knoll flapping his wigs and two swords.

Uh-huh. It's very good. Um, they don't, they don't make them like they used to. They don't make them like they used to. This is the world was better ones, truly. I miss sprites. I miss sprites. I miss sprites.

I miss, I miss, I miss Sprites. I miss animated gifts on websites. I did not mean for that to rhyme and make myself sound like a new core rapper. Ha ha ha. God, but I do miss it. Damn, they got, they got Kingdom Hearts on here. Of course they do. The world was different back then.

You don't see the moment they stopped. Oh. Oh, I hate that. The day the music died. You can, you get the updates. No, there's a PC game on 2014. What is it? What's the last update on 2014?

It's Cotor. Cotor PC, 2014, December 27th, 2014, 9 years ago. There's one on PSX in 2016. Oh, wait, there's a time. 2017 ultimate two on star ocean star ocean the second story oh yeah i love it i love someone being like ultimate two is unfinished business yeah i got to go back yeah we got to fix that right away wow it's good it's really good yeah all right so yeah so end of the nomi sunrider uh stuff right this is it right this is it this is the end of it so again i'll let me pull this up uh what is

the what is the actual it's the uh knights of the old republic what is the actual name of the the omnib it is tales of the jedi volume two yeah which i think some people have linked uh internet archives uh i believe it links out there and this is going to be the scyth war one through six and then redemption one through five that'll be so if you're going if you're getting like the trade paperbacks you even know you're getting like cbr files or whatever that's that is what you're looking for. The tales of the Jedi arc one through six and then Redemption 1 through 5.

A little shorter reading than the last one. And then like how this is going to wrap up like the Corabon and then the end game of this is a little bit fuzzy. I think we've totally figured out exactly what we're going to delineate. I think it's just Corabon and then the rest. I think it's two episodes.

I really think that's the only way. Corribon's a whole planet. Like that's the thing, right? We saved it for last but it's not a shorter planet than these other ones. And I have a hard time imagining we can do Corabon and the Star Forge finale all at once. But I do think we can do the Star Forge plus final thoughts as a single episode. There's no reason to break that up. I think it's pretty straightforward. So yeah. All right. So remember if you want to hear that Tales of the Jedi episode and hear the gripping conclusion of the saga of Nomi Sunrider and the

Sith dudes Ex-Atoon and Ulick Caledroma? Ullick, yeah God, another dog shit Jedi plan I guess it wasn't a Jedi plan Everyone was like, don't do this And he was like, I'm gonna do this,

I'm gonna go undercover and get like so dark-sided They'll never see me coming And everyone's like that plan sucks And indeed it did And then a Sith ghost came and was like, good news, you've been promoted to be this guy's henchman. Yep.

Yep. God, this sucks. Anyway, you want to hear that, go to patreon.com slash civilized and sign up to support the show. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. And remember who you really are. Wee. Thank you. Oh!

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