Smuggler's Vanguard
Today on Suicide by Star Wars Apocrypha, we’re looking at a pair of short stories about two female NPCs from Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare’s World of Warcraft clone that ruined the Old Republic era forever.
The first stars Hylo Visz, a sexy green-skinned smuggler chick delivering an illegal shipment of prototype ion drives to the Rendili Vehicle Corporation for her employer, Barrga the Hutt. Hylo is superstitious to the point of being mentally infirm, so when the hyperdrive generator on her crappy ship stops working during the delivery, she begins freaking out and tries to abandon the assignment. Barrga’s tagalong enforcers beat her up and take over her ship, completing the delivery and leaving her behind when they take off with their payment. But it turns out that they were paid in bombs, and Hylo-Vision Eye Drops’ ship explodes as soon as it’s in the air.
Hylo sneaks into the Rendili facility and disguises herself as a mechanic. She discovers that the facility is about to perform a test flight for a new model of starfighter designed specifically for the Jedi Order, the high-speed Vanguard corvette. She decides to steal the ship and use it to escape the planet, but her grand theft starship is interrupted when the worst Jedi Knight in the world enters the fighter. Hylo hits him in the face with her welding mask, immediately knocking him unconscious. She contemplates murdering him in cold blood, but decides this will probably bring her bad luck and elects to just throw him off the ship instead.
She takes off in the Vanguard and sets course for the Hutt moon of Nar Shaddaa, trying to think of a way to explain to her boss what happened, when she realizes that Barrga the Hutt probably thinks she’s dead and she can go anywhere she wants. So she does. The end.
This short story is pretty long for having so little happen in it. There are one or two somewhat suspenseful moments but mostly it’s boring and not very engagingly written. Also at one point the author wrote “bold-faced lies” instead of “bald-faces lies,” which makes this story terrible.
1.5/5 Death Stars.
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The Final Trial
Sith acolyte Lana Beniko and her friends, Bensyn and Kagan, have begun their final trial to prove themselves worthy of becoming full-fledged Sith: retrieving the helmet of Tulak Hord from the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban, homeworld of the Sith and most evil planet in the galaxy.
[Continuity Note: The story itself gives no indication of when it takes place. Wookieepedia places it between 3,644 and 3,640 BBY, but in “The Final Trial” Lana is still an apprentice and text in The Old Republic refers to her as already being a Sith Lord by 3,653 BBY.]
Kagan has been injured by some kind of slug monster, but together they press on, helping and relying on one another to succeed and generally not acting much like Sith at all. Suddenly they are attacked by a crazed former student who has been lost in the tomb for years. Lana has the opportunity to kill her, but pity stays her hand and she allows the dangerous crazy person to leave.
Eventually they find the helmet and are making their way back out of the tomb, Bensyn forced to carry Kagan as she grows ever weaker, when suddenly the insane student reappears and attacks them again, plunging a knife into Kagan’s chest. Lana quickly decapitates the lost acolyte but it’s too late to save their friend. Lana expects Bensyn to lash out at her in rage, but instead he continues carrying Kagan’s body out of the tomb, insisting that they all leave this place together.
Lana Beniko is a romanceable companion character in The Old Republic, and from what I understand she’s supposed to be a “good Sith” character, which seems like an oymoron but ooooh shades of gray or whatever. In this story, though, her un-Sith-like compassion comes back to bite her and gets her friend killed. Since it doesn’t really work as an origin story for why she’s a Sith Lord but not really evil, I’m not sure why it exists. Unless it’s, like, Bensyn not attacking her when she expected him to taught her that just because you’re a Sith you don’t always have to be a dick, or something. I don’t know, though; I didn’t get that vibe.
Not horribly written, I just don’t see the point of it. 2/5 Death Stars.
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| Well-behaved Sith Lords rarely make history. |
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