Funny, the light side people wanted to kill him, the dark side people understood and still wanted to keep him

 

Here's the thing with having the ability to kill your companions: it screws your crafting. If it wasn't required to have them to do that, then I would have killed Vette soon after she outlived her usefulness, and Quinn during the betrayal (if he can survive a beating from me then he deserves to come back).

Oh no, I'm 100% Dark on my Mara and I wanted to kill the *beep*. I romanced his ***, he whined about Lt. Pierce giving him the "Sith spouse mortality rate"(paraphrased, don't remember what it was exactly LOL), he made plans for our future kids, and then he betrays me??? Oh hell no, as someone said in Taris one day "Angry evil Sith will do angry evil Sith things", I should have been able to kill him and revel in his demise Keeping him alive, I should have at least had the option to find a beloved friend or family member of his to keep shock collared and caged for his continued good behavior.

I should have been able to kill him and revel in his demise Keeping him alive, I should have at least had the option to find a beloved friend or family member of his to keep shock collared and caged for his continued good behavior.

lololol...Quinn having friends. What a flight of fancy that is.

As long as there is the option of keeping him as an active companion for those who chose to.. I think if they just kill him off for everyone there will be just as many upset players.

I was thinking "It would be a spectacular failure from a game design perspective to force either state, either live Quinn for all or dead Quinn for all." Then I remembered that SWTOR companions don't have game choices in the slightest. Their stories are unchangeable short stories where the player can sit in the audience commenting. So...I shouldn't be surprised that we got such an ungodly horrible railroad effect here.

You should have an option to kill him, or minimum put a shock collar on him. But another option would be interesting. I'd like to send him back to Baras. And Quinn can decide if he reports his failure and faces his precious patron's wrath. Or he can say he did kill me and starts spying on Baras for me.

Now there's a cool idea. Part of me did want to cripple him and leave him for Baras's people to find.

I've been running with a semi-geared ship's droid for heals, and it's been working okay so far.

Indeed. He made his choice, and tells it to my SW in that arrogant and smug tone, how he owes his career to Baras, and how he calculated everything blabla. I guess on a female SW side it is even more dramatic when you are in romance with him, it's like a double betrayal.

 

You should have an option to kill him, or minimum put a shock collar on him. But another option would be interesting. I'd like to send him back to Baras. And Quinn can decide if he reports his failure and faces his precious patron's wrath. Or he can say he did kill me and starts spying on Baras for me. So, he gets killed by Baras, or starts working for me to prove himself (maybe some series of quests where Quinn redeems himself before joining you again). For my Sith it would be a win or win.

Finally played through this scenario last night. Now I wasn't upset about him betraying me so much...as I mentioned before I expected him to be more loyal to Baras before I was forced to let him on my ship. I probably would have let him slide...except he had to do the arrogant smug tone as he shocked my wife (Vette.) He doesn't get to walk away from that intact.

The dark choice wall slamming was pretty fulfilling, even if I couldn't kill him. I disliked the 'bygones!' conversations afterwards. That was poorly done.

But at least I was able to put Vette's old shock collar on him. Thanks to the wonders of 1.3's adaptive social gear, he's now wearing the prisoners shock collar. Combined with Rakghoul Zombie-Quinn face, at least in my head he paid a pretty heavy price for his betrayal.

Finally played through this scenario last night. Now I wasn't upset about him betraying me so much...as I mentioned before I expected him to be more loyal to Baras before I was forced to let him on my ship. I probably would have let him slide...except he had to do the arrogant smug tone as he shocked my wife (Vette.) He doesn't get to walk away from that intact.

 

The dark choice wall slamming was pretty fulfilling, even if I couldn't kill him.

This is interesting. I just got through it today and the timing was stunning since I'd only just finished Pierce's story and had another FTB which pretty much clinched it for my marauder. If only she'd had the option to marry Pierce instead of Quinn. The effect of him shocking Vette for you was the same as him knocking out Pierce for me. I was livid. I'd been anticipating this and knew vague details but didn't expect it to have such an impact.

I have to say this was excellent writing. No other class story has caused me to have such a visceral reaction. Quinn is a brilliant bit of characterization: my mara loathes him now (when once she doted upon him like a dewy-eyed schoolgirl) but at the same time, as Dark Side as she is, she still wouldn't pitch him out of the airlock.

Unless Pierce suggested it, that is.

I'd kill Quinn.

 

I think the Empire should then assign a replacement. A generic "Imperial Captain" will work. They don't gain affection and have zero crafting bonuses. Companion skills "heals, dps abilities, etc" stay the same.

Thats a good one

I dont think I would have been able to solo the ending of the storry without a healer. I wanted to kill him after his betrail but Im glad I dident get the chans cuz otherwise I wouldent make it in the rest of the story without a friend but If they had a secundary companion for each companion you kill thet would have been better

And is there really an option to put a shock collar on him? Because she would so do that.

There's not a story option to put one on him. But theres an actual shock collar you can put on him as headgear. (Belsavis Social Item) And in the 1.3 update coming out today, that social shock collar will adapt to medium armor for him. So you can keep him 'punished' without sacrificing stats.

(And Thumbs up on the user name. I love Molly Carpenter!)

There's not a story option to put one on him. But theres an actual shock collar you can put on him as headgear. (Belsavis Social Item) And in the 1.3 update coming out today, that social shock collar will adapt to medium armor for him. So you can keep him 'punished' without sacrificing stats.

 

(And Thumbs up on the user name. I love Molly Carpenter!)

Well, that's better than nothing, I suppose. I'll have to plan on getting one of those. Still, would be nice to have the option to shock him and listen to him whimper.

Thanks. Molly rocks. Actually, the whole Carpenter family rocks. Like the Weasleys, only awesomer.

I know I'm not saying anything new at this point, but I just had him betray me last night, and I am PISSED. We had just had our first kiss, and then he has the presumption to try and murder me with droids he programmed specifically to do so because of some unknown tie to that bastard Baras? I didn't choke him because that's not revenge, that's abuse, but I would so have kicked him off my ship or even killed him if I had the option (despite being light side). The light side sith warrior has enough angst already, now I have this back-stabbing once-lover mooning about my ship and I have to keep seeing his stupid face and relying on his heals and diplomacy expertise? Grrrrr....I hope it's not too late for me to throw myself at Pierce.

Does Quinn ever do or say ANYTHING to explain his complete lapse in judgement, like tell you WHY Baras is so important to him?

Does Quinn ever do or say ANYTHING to explain his complete lapse in judgement, like tell you WHY Baras is so important to him?

lol. That would be like having closure.

Also, expect his romance conversations to continue while he completely forgets that he ever did anything.

Complete Pierce's Act 3 personal quest and you can at least get some non-traitor action.

Also, expect his romance conversations to continue while he completely forgets that he ever did anything.

This is the WORST part of it. There is NO WAY in the game at the moment to leave a romance subplot. I believe Bioware have said this, but I can't find it at the moment. James Ohlan was asking about feedback on story a week or so ago... Here is that feedback.

Quinn needs to die in a fire, or vacuum, or be fed to . Seriously... berayal like that, and being smug about it is pretty much cause for most Sith Warriors to kill him regardess of alignment... and if that Sith Warrior is female and was romancing him, death is a certain outcome. That story is BROKEN... Quinn romance and the betrayal is broken broken broken. It's the kind of writing you would get in Star Trek, one week he is the boyfriend, next week, he wants to kill you, and then later he is your boyfriend again, like nothing happened. It's so bad that I am considering if I shoud just delete my Jug and start again, making sure not to flirt with the traitor monkey... but in the end, he will still be standing there on my bridge anyway as my 2IC. The rage is testament to the quality of the rest of the writing, but this part is just broken and immersion breaking.

 

Also, expect his romance conversations to continue while he completely forgets that he ever did anything.

 

I feared that was the case.

Does it seem to anyone else like Bioware really shafted not just their gay players, but their female players? There are no sexy male dancers anywhere, just female--I don't give a damn if there aren't any male twi'lek dance slaves in the movies, there should be in this game. Only the female versions of armor ever show any skin. Male avatars can't "club dance" (at least my only male avatar does nothing when I type /clubdance). And I can't put male companions or avatars in that white "elegant dress" (despite the fact that male companions and avatars wear skirts ALL THE TIME), nor my female ones in the "elegant suit". So that's all nonsense.

Then half the classes seem to have better female romanceable companions than male romanceable companions. Honestly, my juggernaut would have ended up with Vette if she could have. But no. I'm playing a female avatar, so it's Quinn or Pierce who she must eventually marry if she wants to get with anyone. And marries? Really? That's the end of the romance story? It just doesn't fit--these are heroes flying round the galaxy, they aren't going to marry and settle down and have kids. It's immersion breaking, I don't buy it. And when before has Bioware ever had you marry a romanceable companion?

And now this? Did they not realize a lot of female Sith Warriors would be really, really pissed to learn that jerkwad Quinn pretends nothing unusual has happened after trying to kill them? It's not just an oversight--in a story-based MMO, it's a middle finger at their players.

I agree with the notion that I wouldn't be half so angry if the writing weren't so damn good, but this is awful. It's game-breakingly bad.

------------------------------------------------------------

Does it seem to anyone else like Bioware really shafted not just their gay players, but their female players? There are no sexy male dancers anywhere, just female--I don't give a damn if there aren't any male twi'lek dance slaves in the movies, there should be in this game. Only the female versions of armor ever show any skin. Male avatars can't "club dance" (at least my only male avatar does nothing when I type /clubdance). And I can't put male companions or avatars in that white "elegant dress" (despite the fact that male companions and avatars wear skirts ALL THE TIME), nor my female ones in the "elegant suit". So that's all nonsense.

 

Then half the classes seem to have better female romanceable companions than male romanceable companions. Honestly, my juggernaut would have ended up with Vette if she could have. But no. I'm playing a female avatar, so it's Quinn or Pierce who she must eventually marry if she wants to get with anyone. And marries? Really? That's the end of the romance story? It just doesn't fit--these are heroes flying round the galaxy, they aren't going to marry and settle down and have kids. It's immersion breaking, I don't buy it. And when before has Bioware ever had you marry a romanceable companion?

Slight correction: Quinn is the ONLY one you can marry. Pierce is a fling. Female player characters get eight romances and two one-night stands with companions. Male player characters get eleven romances.

Furthermore, there are six companions who have no top-level ("Love") gift preferences (Risha, Elara, Ashara, LS Jaesa, Quinn, Qyzen Fess)...unless you're male. Then three of those difficult six, if you indicate you're willing to sleep with them, magically develop Love-level gift categories. You know how many difficult male companions get correspondingly agreeable when you sleep with them? None! In terms of gifts there is a hard financial penalty for rolling a female player character.

Also, have a knife in the back from the nonresponsive expensive gift guy who is also your only full romance option. No, you may not retaliate against him, nor even get him to shut up about marriage and kids after.

And now this? Did they not realize a lot of female Sith Warriors would be really, really pissed to learn that jerkwad Quinn pretends nothing unusual has happened after trying to kill them? It's not just an oversight--in a story-based MMO, it's a middle finger at their players.

 

I agree with the notion that I wouldn't be half so angry if the writing weren't so damn good, but this is awful. It's game-breakingly bad.

The absence of a breaking-up mechanic is bad all around. On my list of "things I don't want to be reminded of in my games," "my abusive former partner continuing to demand sex after I try to leave him, and getting angry when I fail to be receptive" is pretty high up there. It's bad with all companions; with Quinn it's just mind-boggling. The plot is so good up until this point, and then...blam. Cliff.

Well,

I personally saw the warning signs, he is fully and 100% devoted to the empire and would betray his own family if it benefited the empire, that is why until same gender romances come out, i will be avoiding all romances on the female sith warrior.

It is a pity that without a healer companion, the sith warrior and jedi knight are severely gimped, since they need twice the gear to do what other classes can do with basic greens.

Wait, so, when my warrior told him, "You are no longer welcome in my quarters," that didn't break up the marriage? She might, MIGHT have forgiven him if he groveled. Eventually. But there's not even a, "Will you take me back?"

In the case of my warrior, I really sat and thought about that breakup option before I picked it. I mean, she's a Sith - not 100% darkside, very Empire-devoted, but still a Sith. Betrayal is practically foreplay. It's just... he was so stupid about it. I appreciate the alternate theories presented in this thread about him failing accidentally on purpose, especially with his wistful dialog during the confrontation. But there has to be some kind of follow-through on that, like at least an apology.

As it is, I couldn't look at him for a few hours, until I realized that dragging him around everywhere, making him heal me, and not looking at or addressing him as a person would be a pretty good, embarrassing punishment. "Can't trust you on the ship for a while, Quinn. Allons-y."

Wait, so, when my warrior told him, "You are no longer welcome in my quarters," that didn't break up the marriage? She might, MIGHT have forgiven him if he groveled. Eventually. But there's not even a, "Will you take me back?"

 

In the case of my warrior, I really sat and thought about that breakup option before I picked it. I mean, she's a Sith - not 100% darkside, very Empire-devoted, but still a Sith. Betrayal is practically foreplay. It's just... he was so stupid about it. I appreciate the alternate theories presented in this thread about him failing accidentally on purpose, especially with his wistful dialog during the confrontation. But there has to be some kind of follow-through on that, like at least an apology.

 

As it is, I couldn't look at him for a few hours, until I realized that dragging him around everywhere, making him heal me, and not looking at or addressing him as a person would be a pretty good, embarrassing punishment. "Can't trust you on the ship for a while, Quinn. Allons-y."

Well yes, I wouldn't mind a very VERY good apology after that one. Hoping that perhaps you can have a convo about it in the next story-expansion.

Well yes, I wouldn't mind a very VERY good apology after that one. Hoping that perhaps you can have a convo about it in the next story-expansion.

I too would love an actual apology for my female warriors, but.... I get the feeling he's not the apologizing kind. It's also pointless to hope for one because you can choose to quite literally say I

as an option.

I certainly don't mind the betrayal subplot, because it makes sense: I'm a Sith, and he's an Imperial officer who's beholden to another Sith (although theoretically only by gratitude at that point, since Baras "released" him).

It's the lack of a "kill him" option, as well as the way the romance and everything else is completely lacking any logic or tie-in. It's the lack of consequences that bothers me.

I'm a Sith. No matter how much I may admire him for acting very Sithy, or expect it to come, since I am Sith and that's how we roll, or even forgive him because it's just expected behavior, there HAS to be a kill option. And even if there's not, there HAS to be a hook in the romance story to account for the betrayal (yes, it'd be tricky to do, since you don't know where in the affection scale you'll be when the betrayal happens) and act accordingly.

OPTIONS, PEOPLE! WE NEED OPTIONS!

Let me airlock the wretch and gear my droid up for healing (or get a substitute companion)!

And make him stop stalking me after the dirty deed is done.

Oh, I would have been totally for the options of either having a generic replacement healer who is gameplay-wise a Quinn-clone, or transforming him into a Cyborg. Of course, both options would have halted story-progress with Quinn, but well.

The fact that he isn't killable is simply character-breaking; for both LS and DS. Light side, because they were actually the best catch someone with a Sith as a boss can have, given how little they usually value their underlings. Dark side, because... well, you've not just failed a Sith, but BETRAYED him? Come on!

To say the truth, I didn't quite play my Sith Lord how I wanted him to. Originally, I intended to create an empire-loyal, but still comparably forgiving and honorable fellow. Slightly light side-leaning, if you know what I mean. But because my Jedi Knight, whom I wanted to play as a sort of "renegade-jedi" gave me quite a stir (can't wear fancy relics, have problems keeping my DS-vendor boots etc.), I decided to go full light side with my SW, even though I had quite a bunch of decisions that were rather out of character (the fact that I had LS Jaesa with me most of the time helped me acting kinder than I actually wanted to). So basically after Dromund Kaas, I've been LS all the time, with two exceptions: I let the other Sith bodyguards kill that annoying noble on Alderaan (on of the very very few DS options that were actually cheering Vette up), and I killed Quinn.

Did I say Quinn? Sorry, I meant force-choked him to near-death and then took him back on my ship, because I was railroaded to do so -.-

My character takes care of the people that serve him faithfully, treating them all equally(no discrimination towards aliens), and will always help out a loyal member of the Empire. He himself is very patriotic when it comes to the Empire. However if you cross him/betray him or try to get in his way he will kill you. When it comes down to it he will even kill Vette(his wife) if she tries to betray him. So when Quinn betrayed him one of his most trusted allies he just wanted to choke the life out of him(hell so did I LOL). Therefore it was very disappointing when you weren't given the choice to do that.

Since then Ive come up with a couple of reasons as to why my SW might have left Quinn alive. Just to make it clear, if I havent already, my Sith Warrior does not have a romantic relationship with Quinn so I wont include romantic reasons.

-Firstly Quinn was still useful, despite his betrayal. He was a great tactician who could operate both on the battlefield and outside it.

-Secondly he was the best healer in the Sith Warrior's crew. Now I know that some people think this is not important, story-wise, but I have to disagree. The Sith warrior(at least my one) knew how important Quinn was on the battlefield and how valuable his skills were.

-Lastly he decided to give Quinn a chance to prove himself again, to prove that this betrayal was his first and last one. And in my opinion, to some extend Quinn did prove that he is from that point on loyal to the SW and to the SW only. This is firstly seen when while you are on Correlia. If you decide to leave Quinn on you ship to defend the Dark Council member who was going to help you defeat Baras( cant remember his name), then when the assassin comes to kill the Dark Council member it is said that Quinn was the first one to attack the assassin and the last one to retreat if I remember correctly. But for me Quinn really proved his loyalties when I had him on my side when I was fighting with his old master(Baras). Quinn didnt only stand by and watched how i killed his old master he also helped me during the battle. I think that really proves that after you spared him(someone like Baras wouldnt spare him) he becomes your loyal servant.

All of this said if I had the option I would have killed him. And if there is an option in the future where you could kill him off for his past crimes then he is going to die for betraying me despite the fact that he had proven himself after the stabbing in the back.

P.S. the reasons that I gave may apply to only my SW as other Sith warriors may have different "personalities/views".

Quinn makes me so mad. You get virtually zero opportunities to stop him doing WHATEVER HE WANTS and he always comes back saying, "Thanks for letting me do x." Over, and over, and over.

I DIDN'T LET YOU DO ANYTHING! There's no option to stop him. I hate him. I've hated him since the first time I talked to him. I've even paged gms about it. He makes me so mad. The one thing so far I've been able to stop was only temporary and he promptly does exactly the opposite in the next piece of story. What the !!!!!! AAAAAARGH. He just goes on, and on, and on, doing whatever he wants. Every single chunk of story. No matter what you say.

I don't fault the writers. I can see some people wanting to persue him being a strict Empire, but I'm sorry he would have never made it onto my ship period. There needed to be an option to completely skip him entirely. There's no point in even having conversation options with him. :mad::mad:

Now every time I see him I just want to bury my sabers into his chest. He openly does the opposite of every single thing I'd want him to do. For all intents and purposes the Sith Warrior storyline is actually the Quinn storyline, because not only does he act like he's in charge of the crew but he does whatever he wants.

I'm SO SICK OF IT. All I can do is come here and rage because there isn't squat I can do about it. It just makes me so mad. I want his entire storyline retconned and the option to dump him on Nar Shadaa the next time I stop by so that all of the people he's screwed over without my permission, while under my command, can go take care of him.

I guess I'm one of the few who liked Quinn's betrayal. Showed that he was willing to do whatever it takes to help the Empire, you just have to show him that your side is right.

I can understand how some players don't like the lack of killing him, however. I think a good solution would be being able to carbonize him until you want to use him again.

I guess I'm one of the few who liked Quinn's betrayal. Showed that he was willing to do whatever it takes to help the Empire, you just have to show him that your side is right.

You don't, though.

You never talk through how the Emperor isn't "an absentee landlord" now that he's commanding a Wrath. You don't talk about the credibility of the Emperor's Hand. You don't talk about having any kind of viable plan to benefit the Empire.

Instead, you show Quinn that Baras can kick his *** and would kill him for failure whereas you can kick his *** and won't kill him for failure. His sudden new enthusiasm for you reduces him to another Imperial lackey who will do anything to survive. The words exchanged at the transponder station after the fight aren't about the Empire. They're about Quinn saving his own skin. That he was willing to shiv you for the perceived good of the Empire, I'll respect; that he will suddenly glom onto you regardless of your attitude toward the Empire simply because you're the employer least likely to kill him, I consider outright disgusting. Add to this the fact that I'm the employer least likely to kill him purely because of plot rails and the whole thing just drives me up the wall.

I am going to be really astronomically contrarian here.

I am a professional writer. Also, I've spent a slice of my career working in international affairs, some of it in human rights, in the parts where people die on a regular basis. So really, working with military people and politics and various bits is pretty familiar to me. It really colors my view of the game. And I'm older, retired early for health reasons, so I spend more time playing games than writing, which isn't so bad.

That said, I saw this quest very differently than EVERYONE here.

Everyone here thinks, "How could Quinn do this? Is he stupid? How could he think that two battle droids could kill me?"

Well, postulate this. Baras gets to Quinn and puts Quinn in the position of betraying you or if not, Quinn knows that Baras will just off him. So he sets up a betrayal bound to fail. He knows it has to be plausible to Baras, but Baras in a way is a fool, and if you play to Baras' prejudices and preconceptions, Baras is very easy to deceive.

My warrior does this all through the storyline, punking Baras over and over again, and the Darth hardly notices, because Baras wants to think of himself as the smartest man in the room. If you've ever worked in a big business you probably know the type.

If Quinn wanted to kill you, all he'd have to do is get you in a boss fight and walk away. But he sets this thing up. And it's a TRANSPONDER STATION -- if you don't know what that means, it means that this is a place where communications signals are transferred.

If you don't believe that Baras is watching this from a dozen angles, with surround sound on holo, buttered popcorn and a beer, you are insane.

Quinn is going in giving himself a 98.847% chance that you will kill him before you figure out that...

this entire scenario is a ruse

He says: "After all this time observing you in battle, I have exhaustively noted your strengths and weaknesses. These war droids have been programmed specifically to combat *you*. I calculate a near zero percent chance of their failure." Yet, what's the most common thing Quinn says, after a fight...?

"I expected that to be a difficult fight."

He never knew, he never understood your limits. He *lied* to Baras. He set this up as a shadow play.

He set it up to get him out of Baras' sphere of influence forever.

So here is a draft of the more stand-alone version of the fanfic I'm writing for this part of the storyline.

====

Dorje Triskelion was born to be Sith, and there was no point in his life where he knew else. He was born to die a Sith, or die competing to be Sith, or die in the service of the Sith. It was what he was for. It was what everyone in his family was for, in some fashion, for as long as they survived or held their sanity -- and sometimes a bit beyond.

There was no explaining to some of his more distant cousins what it was like to grow up so close to the beating heart of the Dark Side. He saw, as through windows one might see kits or puppies frolicking, the children of peasant families in their innocent rough and tumble -- in play, in argument, cajoling a parent for a sweet -- wondering if he were from the same species as these creatures.

After Korriban, he crossed paths on Nar Shaddaa with a gray force user, Mirialan, from a line of native priestesses. The Force shown through her like a shard of green glacial ice, clear and cold but neither Light nor Dark, nor judging. He asked her -- after a night of brandy and long tales -- if people ever contemplate what children such as his sibs would be like, the vipers' brood of assassins and darths, born of dark passions and sorcery and raised in twisted smokes of Dark and politics.

And oddly she laughed and said, "Dorje, I know gutter children just as Dark as you in the Exchange. I've seen into their souls as surely as Jaesa -- don't be shocked! Desire clouds judgment and Jaesa's gift is rare outside of my kind.

"But peasant Darkness is common, as you of rank would term it in your tongue -- a play on words, yes? They are just not as expertly and intellectually made. You are the flower the Empire, the hope of your generation, your peers would oddly say, some dark orchid of a man. But the rank weeds of Darkness (and the helpless flowers of Light!) choke the slum of every undercity in the galaxy, unfocused and without power. You are just a cultivated monster. But in that, you are a rare beauty."

That same evening, drunk as the lord he was, he asked her what was the curse of a Sith and what was the curse of a Jedi, since she thought that the Light and Dark were the creations of philosophy, and not fundamental to Truth, and anaethma thereby, reflected in the wars and strife in the stars -- but only the culture of them, not the nature of them.

She looked him in the eyes in a way that even to him wrapped him in her universe and said, "Here is the curse of the Jedi and the Sith: That the Jedi shall know Love and never Passion; and the Sith shall know Passion, but never Love. And with that disconnect, all the wars and strife of a galaxy arise, because judgment is entirely lost."

This haunted him. He saw love and trust in others and it struck him as a lapse in judgment but this woman planted doubt -- he twisted it to rage, converted her to a trickster, a source of error, and moved on.

Yet, here on this sterile orbital station, at yet another pivot of his life, he knew that the last remnant of hope for love was being ripped from him, something he'd hardly known he'd harbored.

Never in his life had he trusted anyone in his family -- too many conflicting interests, too much Darkness. And then, years before he was scheduled, he was propelled to Korriban, insanely vigorous from training and tall for his rawboned fifteen years, but converting his fear to rage to survive his accelerated trials. So canny and strong in the Force most took him for his twenties.

Service to Baras had been a series of eye opening puzzles -- each test confirming his stance that his master had less notion of this fog of war Dorje operated in, that his "trust" in his gifted apprentice was increasingly dependence on more than Dorje's titanic ability as a child-warrior with the Force, an unholy paladin of the Dark Side, but also on Dorje's unerring instinct and wit as the Force guided him and his intelligence and training in Empire and Sith politics led him in circles, running ahead of the master who had considered himself, previously, to be master of this art above all others.

But now, Dorje found himself out played, in the quarter he had allowed himself the only room for relaxation. Quinn -- who a thousand, thousand, thousand times had his life in his kolto stained hands -- was playing by the book, and honorably witnessing his own snug closing of Baras' noose around Dorje's neck, a trap.

Sad fussy-*** Quinn. You didn't learn quite enough from me. Learn another lesson, then.

And with that slightly detached thought, the last shred of light drained from his soul. He could feel it. His father told him he would know the moment, like a black hole collapsing, like a death, to hold onto it -- but he couldn't -- the attack was beginning and he needed to channel the rage and horror and despair into exactly every stroke and shimmer of Soresu, to not yield to his own pain in this moment, to the betrayal of the one man he had counted as friend in this mortal world, to not sink or slip in his own blood as the droids ripped into him through the heavy armor -- but to dance with darkness and death as his partners, in rage and silence and find the center of the collapse of the gravity, falling, and swooping, sweeping and cutting, one with the Force -- THERE.

FLOW. BEAUTY. RAGE.

Had any lover ever been betrayed, and so insanely as this? Any battle, Quinn could have simply held back and let him die, let him fall to shreds under the claws or blades or articulations of a thousand enemies they'd faced. And yet, here, he brings me to face a foe he has designed to face his exact estimation weaknesses, over all those thousands of melees...

[battle description] see below, he cuts Quinn down but does not kill him to kill him later slowly

[consult video for after dialog for nearly kill him and inform crew]

PAIN. Distraction. A memory -- how many times, the fussy captain, always calculating, had said, "I expected that to be a difficult fight."

He never knew. He never understood my limits. He lied to Baras. Quinn, you are the most obscure creature I can imagine. You calculated...this.

In this brief second of consideration, the droids do nearly overcome him and the pain and damage knocked him from his feet -- but he gathered himself and sprang roaring with pain and energy to the fight anew. The first droid crumpled.

[,,,]

He wondered if he should avoid Jaesa. Deep in his heart, he wondered if what he was feeling wasn't something that his Mirialan friend wouldn't call a glimmer, the faintest Light glow, of brotherly Love.

No, Jaesa might not understand at all... And no one might ever speak of any of this aloud, ever.

This is the way of the Sith, of the politics and what passes as family -- truer than the family he was born to. His legacy would be in his works, not the brood of vipers he left for Korriban, but this ship, this man who now would tend the wounds he made, these sometimes-loyal crew who put their lives in his hands and his in theirs to make his legacy and the Empire's.

Love and Passion. Kolto, not the Force; the military not the Sith -- except as passing storms and shadows. These were the lives of ordinary men.

He needed to meditate. He needed a drink. He needed Jaesa, silent as the stars for once -- perhaps he'd compare her lip to Vette's. He needed time he didn't have. He needed time to center.

He was needed on Corellia. Now.

Peace is a lie; there is only passion.

All is Dark.