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The Empire and your personal Morality


GavinPatterson

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I mostly go Light Side, but there are times where the LS path is something I simply cannot agree with.

 

 

Right on Tython, a quest to spy on fellow Padawans. As both of my Jedi fancy themselves scholars who know about Revan, the love restriction makes no sense. Although my Consular did end up exposing them due to his firmer devotion to the Code.

 

On Coruscant, a quest with a Senator that turns out to have started a gang war because of taking funds from burglars. I of course asked for an explanation, and it made sense. She might've started the war due to taking dirty money, but she never did anything but good with it, whereas her opponent would've likely just done nothing with his new position. So I did not expose her, and later I receive a mail from her saying she doesn't think she'll apply for re-election. That to me was the best possible outcome, well worth the DS points.

 

On Taris, doing a quest that revolves around determining whether the rakghouls are sentient beings or not, and it turns out they're guarding the graves of their ancestors. LS choice is to study that and DS choice is to use that to exterminate them. Without hesitation, I picked the DS choice. They're monsters and they can't change.

Later on, a holocron goes about trying to teach manners to Force-using raks. LS choice is to let it continue to try (despite the fact that it OBVIOUSLY wasn't working and the imprisoned Jedi Knight could attest to it) and DS is to exterminate them. Once again, DS for the same reasons.

 

With the Consular, again on Taris, a part of the storyline is either saving a person or saving medical holocrons that may contain information capable of saving thousands. I almost took the DS hit there, but having the husband of said person close by made me unable to. I still don't know if I took the right choice there.

 

I questioned Braga's sanity when he talked about redeeming the Emperor. It's one thing to redeem a Sith who clearly isn't a mindless psycopath like the others (Lord Praven), but the Emperor? The same Emperor who only cares about gorging himself with the galaxy's life to become some sort of god?

 

With the Trooper, I try to do as a Trooper would do, follow orders.

But on Alderaan, I was forced to jeopardize the alliance between the Republic and the Organas. Since said Trooper fancies himself an old man who lost a family (wife to war, kids to the rebellious teenage years), I wasn't about to just let a father get taken away from his family. Also try to show trust in my allies: a few occasions where I told Jonas about what was Havoc's objective. He's SIS, he oughta know how to keep a secret.

 

 

Haven't played much of the Empire yet, but my Pureblood is well on the path to being honorable in battle and conserving whelps that may be assets, but in everything else, Sith Code is alive and well. Still neutral, but leaning more to Dark.

One rather funny thing about him is, I treat slaves who do as their masters asked nicely. Since Vette is always complaining or cracking out of place jokes, I verily enjoy teaching her how to be a good slave. And that's what the shock collar is for :D

 

I agree with this^

 

My BH only follows his code of honor and money, sometimes it involves killing people to get my paycheck which is not a problem, but occasionally there is a line where i will let them go... usually not. Now my SW is another story, he is the true definition of a Sith within the Empire, who kills all who defy him, makes choices (even LS ones) that benefit the Empire, and seeks his own ambition; My guy is not Blood Thirsty he just has bigger ambitions than to go looking for people to cut up.

 

Overall I have come across some decisions i felt were mixed up in their alignment or further implications of your decision should be considered. Nar shadda is a prime example, I used the guys for my own ambition technically both of those were DS neither of them Light.

 

Morality in TOR logic is =Kill people bad, let people live good. Thats basically all it is and that's what grinds my gears about this**

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What can I say. Dark side is evil. Not like "steal candy from baby" -evil, but true hardcore evil. The fact that you feel bad about some options only shows that you are not that evil (irl). And that is a good thing. I personally try to keep in mind that it's not me making this (icouldn't) but my char.
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No matter which faction I play, pub or imp, my characters usually end up more dark - or all the way dark - than not. I RP my toons - but find the light side choices a bit too wussy to be realistic. I don't RP dark/light as evil/good. I find it more realistic to consider them just two sides of a neutral force. It makes more sense to me - The Jedi code makes less sense to me than the Sith code... and I can't get into a wussy goody-two-shoes character on even my most benevolent day. That being said - i pick light side choices occasionally if they make the most sense for my character. It just doesn't happen that often. Edited by ladyalchemist
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I found a few of the LS choices cheesy, unrealistic, and to display a lack of understanding of what the light side was (at least, what it was set up to be in the movies). I quickly lost connection with the mechanic because of this. Ditto with the dark side stuff. It's not very well done sometimes (though sometimes it is). The choice can be not meaningful enough, and then impenetrable i.e. you just did some thing bad and gained LS points, or both choices suck and it seems arbitrary which one is which.

 

In the end, the mechanic has revealed more about the moral ambiguity of the designers and writers than the world of SWTOR ;)

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I have a problem with some of the lightside/darkside chooses as a whole... I don't know how many times I've sent prisoners off to imperial torture cells because killing them was 'darkside'.

 

I play empire now, but I started out republic and got irritated with just how hypocritical they are IMO. Which I actually love. Got to say the Imperial propaganda's pretty good, my lightside SI get's treated so much better than my Jedi ever did.

 

But I feel "darkside" options in most games are pretty lame, there's little reasoning behind, just evil for the sake of evil. And if your playing a sociopath I guess that's fine. I ran into that problem in Fable 3 when I decided to play the evil plot, but I'd never be mean to my chef when given the option. I'm just not gonna fart in the face of the man who cooks my food.

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I have a problem with some of the lightside/darkside chooses as a whole... I don't know how many times I've sent prisoners off to imperial torture cells because killing them was 'darkside'.

 

I play empire now, but I started out republic and got irritated with just how hypocritical they are IMO. Which I actually love. Got to say the Imperial propaganda's pretty good, my lightside SI get's treated so much better than my Jedi ever did.

 

But I feel "darkside" options in most games are pretty lame, there's little reasoning behind, just evil for the sake of evil. And if your playing a sociopath I guess that's fine. I ran into that problem in Fable 3 when I decided to play the evil plot, but I'd never be mean to my chef when given the option. I'm just not gonna fart in the face of the man who cooks my food.

 

^ ^ This. I feel the same way about most of the dark side options. I know the common thought is that Sith kill everything in their path but I tend to think they act more from ambition and desire for power. That means picking up some allies and tools along the way to be used later, in my book. I play mostly LS and noticed the same thing that several LS choices for the Sith Warrior does not = good things for the recipient. Clean kill, bad. Long term torture in the hands of Imp Intelligence or an information crazy Darth, good.

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I have a problem with some of the lightside/darkside chooses as a whole... I don't know how many times I've sent prisoners off to imperial torture cells because killing them was 'darkside'.

 

This bothered me for a while, but I figured out something that satisfies me and makes sense for the Imperials.

 

Dark Side means following your emotions. NOT NECESSARILY "bad ones"! Love or compassion lead to the Dark Side too. On the other hand, Light Side means peace, calm and rationality.

 

If you shoot a prisoner, either because you want to enjoy the act (hatred) or because you want to spare the prisoner pain (compassion), well, you are acting on feelings - that's DS.

 

Usually, interrogation would serve the Empire better. It's a feeling-free, rational decision to make. Hence, it's LS.

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I find some of the light side points to be worse than the dark side. For example on False Emperor I can kill the guy or make him sabotage his whole fleet, killing thousands. To me:

-Killing a traitor would be light side.

-Making a guy kill thousands to save his own skin would be dark side.

 

I killed a lot of soldiers on my way to that guy. Why is one more what makes me evil? And there are lot of these choices I'd like a gray area that doesn't give me light or dark points. Mainly for the reasons of what the OP stated.

Probably because he was surrendering. Are you playing through the Imperial version? Because. in the Republic version at least, he definitely does not seem arrogant in anyway, just scared. Not to mention the fact that he wasn't exactly shooting at you like those other New Imperials you killed along the way.

 

Additionally, there was one in early Korriban Sith Warrior story where

A group of a apprentices find you in a corridor, asking for you to hire them to eliminate your rival. After a duel to prove themselves, they realize they can't beat your rival if they couldn't beat you. You may then tell them not to try going after him (LS), that he is weak (Neutral) or that they could definitely take him on (DS). I intended to go full DS, but the choice made no sense. I also didn't want to go all "Jedi-ish" on that alt, so I went with the neutral option. Much more sithy.

So, I know what you guys mean.

Edited by bionamaster
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This bothered me for a while, but I figured out something that satisfies me and makes sense for the Imperials.

 

Dark Side means following your emotions. NOT NECESSARILY "bad ones"! Love or compassion lead to the Dark Side too. On the other hand, Light Side means peace, calm and rationality.

 

If you shoot a prisoner, either because you want to enjoy the act (hatred) or because you want to spare the prisoner pain (compassion), well, you are acting on feelings - that's DS.

 

Usually, interrogation would serve the Empire better. It's a feeling-free, rational decision to make. Hence, it's LS.

 

agreed

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So far i am only playing Imp. With the SI i have three seperate toons: one LS, one DS and one where i choose what i would do, wether it is DS or LS. I intend to do this with as many as i can to see the story from different persectives.

 

I am however sad that so for there are few consequenses either way....

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