Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but I like to finish what I start, so... where’d I leave off?
Quite a Story to Tell
Author: Caitlin Sullivan Kelly
Medium: Short story
Publication Date: April 13, 2021 on SWTOR.com
Timeline Placement: 3,626 BBY
The first new SWTOR short story in four years, "Quite a Story to Tell" is, weirdly, a sequel to the Paul Kemp novel The Old Republic: Deceived. And only a decade too late!
Aryn Leneer meets with former Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan to deliver shocking and terrible news: Darth Malgus, the iconic face of Star Wars: The Old Republic who died the stupid death of an MMO flashpoint boss, is alive again, and he's come to Dantooine. Jedi dropout Aryn, along with her domestic partner Zeerid "Z-Man" Korr and his daughter Arra (do you remember all these iconic characters???), have been living on a farm on Dantooine for the last... twenty-seven years? That little girl with the robot legs has to be pushing forty by now, time to kick her out of the house, Z-Man.
Anyway Malgus comes to town and goes to investigate the ruins of the Jedi Enclave that got blowed up way back in the first Knights of the Old Republic game. I guess Aryn senses him for some reason and so they lock down the farm (what does that mean?) and Zeerid takes Arra somewhere safe. She's thirty-six, leave her alone!
For some reason, Aryn goes to face Malgus, and for some reason Zeerid is okay with leaving her behind to do this. Nothing about this setup makes any sense, but whatever, this thing's like two pages long and something needs to happen. Aryn ventures down into the darkness of the enclave ruins, where she sees Malgus fighting a seemingly unending horde of Jedi combat droids. You know, I've played KotOR several times and I don't seem to recall any combat droids in the Jedi Enclave. But I digress.
Aryn realizes that Malgus is as powerful as he ever was and she has no hope of beating him, so she turns tail and makes a run for it. What was your plan from the beginning when you got down there?
She makes it outside just as Zeerid is pulling up to help her. "This was a terrible idea," she says. "Let's make like a tree and get the fuck out of here." Then Zeerid and Arra go into hiding again while Aryn visits Satele Shan to tell her this whole story. Great!
Seeing Red
Author: Jay Watamaniuk
Medium: Short story
Publication Date: July 14, 2021 on SWTOR.com
Timeline Placement: 3,626 BBY
The Mandalorian clans of Nerak and Shale are in dispute so Jekiah Ordo, Arbiter of the Mandalorians, declares that the clan leaders will fight each other to the death, with the loser's clan being put under the knife as well. I guessed this was going to be a Judgment of Solomon parable but instead both Mandalorians agree to the terms and then the one who wins refuses to kill the loser and the Arbiter is like "Good enough."
Disorder
Medium: Cinematic trailer
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Timeline Placement: 3,625 BBY
Jedi Master Denolm Orr and his Padawan, the Twi'lek Jedi Sa'har Kateen, battle a Sith Lord in the ruins of the Temple of Nul on the planet Elom. Suddenly a blade of crimson light bursts from the Sith Lord's chest. Darth Malgus has arrived, presumably straight from his visit to Dantooine in the earlier story. Master Orr tries to hold him off while Sa'har races to destroy the giant gyroscope machine housed in the temple before Malgus can use it for his own nefarious ends.
But Sa'har stops in her tracks as she hears the voice of her long-lost brother and remembers when Master Orr took her for Jedi training as a child but left her brother behind to a life of slavery. Seeing her hesitation, Master Orr uses the Force to tear down the machine, breaking its hold over Sa'har. The broken device spits out a Holocron through a vending machine slot and Orr is like "Hand it over," but Sa'har refuses. She blames Orr for abandoning her brother, but while they're distracted Malgus uses the Force to wrap up Master Orr in a dangling cable. He explains to Sa'har that the Holocron contains the locations of Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy who the Jedi didn't consider worthy of training, including her brother. So what did the giant machine do?
Malgus is like "Give me the Holocron and we can find your brother together." She won't do it, though, so Malgus decapitates Master Orr and comes at her dual-wielding her dead Master's lightsaber and his own. The fight is badass but eventually ends when Malgus uses the Force to pull down the stone ceiling on top of Sa'har, making her drop the Holocron to save her. Malgus picks it up while the Padawan struggles with the crushing weight of the rubble.
"When you're ready," he tells her, "break free." He pulls up his hood and walks away, leaving her screaming in rage.
Like all the SWTOR cinematic trailers, this is awesome, probably the third best behind Sacrifice and Betrayed. Unlike those two, however, it doesn't really tell a complete story in and of itself. You can kind of tell that it's meant to tie in to a specific storyline in the game. If all the information was in the Holocron, what was the point of the giant machine? Who built it, and why did they bother collecting the names and locations of all the Force-sensitives the Jedi didn't want? Why does Malgus want that information? You would think if those people were so weak in the Force the Jedi rejected them for training, they wouldn't have much value to Malgus.
I'm sure all this is explained in the game, and the fact that it isn't in the trailer doesn't really affect the awesome action spectacle that is here. Malgus is still the most interesting villain of this era, declining to kill Sa'har when he has the chance and instead leaving her to struggle with her own feelings and inhibitions.
Another winner, bravo. Too bad they still can't make the game this good.
All That's Left
Author: Caitlin Sullivan Kelly
Medium: Short story
Publication Date: August 4, 2022 on SWTOR.com
Timeline Placement: 3,625 BBY
Shortly after the events of Disorder, Sa'har is a stowaway on a passenger transport vessel headed nowhere in particular. In her possession is a Holocron she happened across while escaping the temple on Elom. Not the one Darth Malgus took from her, some other one that also happened to be there, so her losing it to Malgus didn't really matter at all. She tries to access the Holocron but is psychically rebuffed, so she wanders into the galley where she meets a woman with cybernetic legs who talks about her drug-runner father. I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be Zeerid Korr's stupid daughter Arra but she's never identified by name. As Maybe-Arra talks about learning to forgive her father and deciding the course of her own destiny, Sa'har comes to forgive her dead Jedi Master Denolm Orr for abandoning her brother to slavery and lying to her her whole life. When she returns to her room, she's able to access the Holocron, which she realizes is even betterer than the one Malgus took from her. She resolves to use it to find her now-grown brother, her destiny her own at last.
Bottled Fury
Author: Jay Watamaniuk
Medium: Short story
Publication Date: November 17, 2022 on SWTOR.com
Timeline Placement: 3,625 BBY
Oh good, another Shae Vizla story.
Shae Vizla is mad because someone called Heta Kol attacked her ship, the Spirit of Vengeance II, the original Spirit of Vengeance having been blown up. Shae, or "Mandalore the Avenger" as she's now known, can't find Heta Kol, however, so instead she's hunting for Mandalorian crime boss Indigo Montoya. She has a Wild West shootout in a saloon trying to find him, but when this yields no results she just shows up to his hideout and knocks on the door. Indigo foolishly comes out to taunt her, but the local peasantry are tired of being extorted by his gang so they show up to help. Then Huttbreaker, the queen of Mek-Sha, also shows up to help. Indigo has gotten too big for his britches and Huttbreaker has come to slap him back down. He gives Shae Vizla the name of the broker who put Heta Kol in touch with her mercenary army: Carl Friedrich Gauss. Shae leaves town to find him and take her revenge.
Who care
Snare
Author: Jay Watamaniuk
Medium: Short story
Publication Date: December 9, 2022 on SWTOR.com
Timeline Placement: 3,625 BBY
Oh good, another Shae Vizla story.
Shae Vizla fights Mandalorian mercenaries and potted plants in her quest to find Carl Friedrich Gauss. After an extended chase sequence that takes way too long, Shae gets blown up, knocked out, and captured by Carl. Rather than tie her up or remove her weapons and armor while she's unconscious, though, Carl's goons don't do that, so after waking up she just murders all her captors with her armor's built-in flamethrower and tracks Carl to the planet Ruhnuk using the tracer she planted on the rifle Carl's bodyguard took from her, a prize she knew would be too tempting for him to resist. At last she will have her revenge on Heta Kol, whoever that is! Except now after taking on dozens of mercenaries single-handedly she's too afraid to infiltrate Heta Kol's stronghold by herself so she sets course for the planet Odessen. I didn't bother looking it up because I don't care but I bet she's going to get help from you, the player.
Hey, lady, aren't you Mandalore? Don't you have people you could send to take care of this for you? Now I remember why I stopped doing these reviews.
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| "I wish I was Samus Aran." |
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