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Canonical Choices


EAFSAMWISE

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The more interesting question would be ‘what choices do you find more satisfying from a narrative standpoint?’ Is it better to play a Force user or a non-Force user in KotFE? Why? Is it a better decision to kill or to spare certain characters when given the option? Does it make more sense to you that your character would side with one faction or the other at a given point?

 

There are not definitive answers to those questions but they can generate discussion.

Edited by Atajji
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Yes, agreed, the broad-strokes version is definitive(1). Your assertion was that the fact that you *make* a choice is canon. Not the result of the choice, mind, but the fact that it happened, and the Koth thing shows that even *that* isn't true. If you choose <<== this in the earlier chapter, ==> that choice never happened.

 

(1) It's definitive, but essentially devoid of meaningful information. "Someone emerged from the part of the galaxy known to the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. This person defeated first Valkorion, then Arcann, then Vaylin, bringing about the fall of the Eternal Empire."

 

The *interesting* part is missing. Who was it? Republic? Empire? Force User? Gun user? Male, female? What species? How did this person choose to deal with X, Y, Z, and W? That stuff. None of it is definitive.

 

Again, any choice is "plausible" but the developers seem to be almost favoring the idea of it being a Jedi Knight. This is especially cemented w/ the arrival of Kira & Scourge, both of whom have connections which are more personal to the Jedi Knight and that story. Scourge specifically claims to have had a vision where the Jedi Knight was the one to both vanquish the Emperor and seize his throne. Not to mention he's the former Emperor's Wrath and is a known traitor to the Empire so it'd be awkward for him to just waltz in and expect to you to be his ally especially if you're playing as a Sith Warrior and are practically his replacement, Kira is herself a former Imperial and former Child of the Emperor who has major grudges against both. There's practically no way she'd show up and fight alongside the Outlander long-term if the Outlander was Imperial. Perhaps they could both put aside their issues for the "greater good" of the situation regardless of who the Outlander is, but it honestly makes little sense for them to show up to the Outlander of it isn't the Jedi Knight with whom they had more personal ties. The developers seem to regardless be inconspicuously setting up the Jedi Knight as the main "canonical" storyline especially for KOTFE onwards. Not to mention for characters in similar positions with the player in other class stories, they wouldn't show up to other classes, I.e. Ashara Zavros, Khem Val, etc

Edited by EAFSAMWISE
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Again, any choice is "plausible" but the developers seem to be almost favoring the idea of it being a Jedi Knight. This is especially cemented w/ the arrival of Kira & Scourge, both of whom have connections which are more personal to the Jedi Knight and that story. Scourge specifically claims to have had a vision where the Jedi Knight was the one to both vanquish the Emperor and seize his throne. Not to mention he's the former Emperor's Wrath and is a known traitor to the Empire so it'd be awkward for him to just waltz in and expect to you to be his ally especially if you're playing as a Sith Warrior and are practically his replacement, Kira is herself a former Imperial and former Child of the Emperor who has major grudges against both. There's practically no way she'd show up and fight alongside the Outlander long-term if the Outlander was Imperial. Perhaps they could both put aside their issues for the "greater good" of the situation regardless of who the Outlander is, but it honestly makes little sense for them to show up to the Outlander of it isn't the Jedi Knight with whom they had more personal ties. The developers seem to regardless be inconspicuously setting up the Jedi Knight as the main "canonical" storyline especially for KOTFE onwards. Not to mention for characters in similar positions with the player in other class stories, they wouldn't show up to other classes, I.e. Ashara Zavros, Khem Val, etc

 

I don't agree that there is some underlying JK canon, even if you could argue that the Vitiate/Valkorion-arc is a more organic continuation of the JK story than of most other class stories (SW coming in close second). As FlameYOL said earlier, default =/= canon. Canon are all the things that happened regardless of possible player choice, for example that all class-characters exist/ed and have a rough story that is the same for everybody, including the companions they meet. Everything else is a default state that could go differently depending on the character you play and how you play said character.

 

Canonically, Kira and Scourge

fight alongside the JK, get separated from them and then team up to search for the body of the Emperor. Scourge's whole storyline revolves around taking down the Emperor. Depending on dialogue choices he even tells the JK that if the JK is not the one to take down the Emperor he will look for the person who will. If you play any other class than JK, that means that in the new default world state the JK failed. Scourge's vision was still somewhat true because it set him on the path to help the person who would take down the Emperor - canon. Kira is also very adamant about taking down the Emperor because of her background. Her teaming up with Scourge and then the AC to get the job done when the JK disappears makes sense.

No other companions have such strong ties to the Emperor as those two, so they made good catalysts for the story. Them not being there when the Emperor finally gets taken down would diminish their character arc - character arcs which are actually part of what I would call SWTOR canon.

 

There are more companions everybody gets, not just JK companions and who all play a bigger part in KOTFE/KOTET and later on like

SCORPIO, Kaliyo, Vette, Gault, Torian. I would say Jorgan, but he doesn't really get much to do after his own chapter.

If anything, there might be some Empire favoritism going on, now that I think about it...

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Again, any choice is "plausible" but the developers seem to be almost favoring the idea of it being a Jedi Knight. This is especially cemented w/ the arrival of Kira & Scourge, both of whom have connections which are more personal to the Jedi Knight and that story. Scourge specifically claims to have had a vision where the Jedi Knight was the one to both vanquish the Emperor and seize his throne. Not to mention he's the former Emperor's Wrath and is a known traitor to the Empire so it'd be awkward for him to just waltz in and expect to you to be his ally especially if you're playing as a Sith Warrior and are practically his replacement, Kira is herself a former Imperial and former Child of the Emperor who has major grudges against both. There's practically no way she'd show up and fight alongside the Outlander long-term if the Outlander was Imperial. Perhaps they could both put aside their issues for the "greater good" of the situation regardless of who the Outlander is, but it honestly makes little sense for them to show up to the Outlander of it isn't the Jedi Knight with whom they had more personal ties. The developers seem to regardless be inconspicuously setting up the Jedi Knight as the main "canonical" storyline especially for KOTFE onwards. Not to mention for characters in similar positions with the player in other class stories, they wouldn't show up to other classes, I.e. Ashara Zavros, Khem Val, etc

Something to go along with this idea is since this is a legends game. You have the Revan book which brings out Scourge having the vision of the JK character killing Vitiate. So I agree that there is not a set canon for somethings but in my mind this implies that the JK is the class that is the Outlander/Commander.

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Something to go along with this idea is since this is a legends game. You have the Revan book which brings out Scourge having the vision of the JK character killing Vitiate. So I agree that there is not a set canon for somethings but in my mind this implies that the JK is the class that is the Outlander/Commander.

 

Agreed. It's similar to how you can have Revan and the Exile be the gender and look that you want in KOTOR but there's a "canon" face and gender that BioWare has also established.

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Agreed. It's similar to how you can have Revan and the Exile be the gender and look that you want in KOTOR but there's a "canon" face and gender that BioWare has also established.

Arguably that's the definitive look that Revan has *for*SWTOR*. That doesn't make it definitive for *KOTOR*. Because they wanted to use Revan in SWTOR, they had to make the character look like *something*, but that doesn't negate or invalidate any choices that players made in the chronology context of KOTOR. I am sort of saying that there are two different Revans - one who has an unspecified(1) appearance, sex, height, etc. in the time of KOTOR, and the other who has a well-defined appearance, sex, voice, height, etc. in the time of SWTOR.

 

That's not *wrong* as such, and nor is it contradictory, but we aren't used to dealing with someone whose identity varies like that.

 

(1) It's choosable by the player, so it is like the fate of Koth in KotFE/ET, unknown in general, but known in each individual case.

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Something to go along with this idea is since this is a legends game. You have the Revan book which brings out Scourge having the vision of the JK character killing Vitiate. So I agree that there is not a set canon for somethings but in my mind this implies that the JK is the class that is the Outlander/Commander.

It is, if you play JK. As noted above by Eranis, if you play some other class, it's fairly obvious that the JK wasn't "the One" that Scourge saw, i.e. that Scourge was wrong about the identity of the person who ended the Emperor in the vision. He saw *someone*, but that someone was Kylarina Lyuze, Jedi Shadow, or Jintalie Tark, Mercenary, and not a Jedi Knight.

 

(Er, that is, to put it in Voss terms, the *mystic* had a vision that was infallible, but the *interpreter* was incorrect.)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Possibly BioWare could tweak some responses, like adding a mission outcome where the Bounty Hunter can suggest that Godoba makes Mora one of his slaves, and that the Smuggler's Drooga arc could make killing Lazhae (spelled wrong?) before taking the DNA sample into the Light Side option.
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