He is not stupid.

I'm sorry but the entire traitor arc leans towards him being a complete moron.

(Information from the Wiki as I don't want to replay the traitor arc any time soon.)

Links: Theron Shan, Order of Zildrog, Vinn Atrius, Zildrog

Iokath - He reignited the war on Iokath just to get close to the Order of Zildrog.

So by this point he's already identified the leader of the Order, spoken to him and he knows about the order being responsible for the uprisings across the galaxy.

Umbara - Vinn sends Theron to Umbara to pick up some crystals to prove himself useful to the Order of Zildrog.

Theron does so and this results in the death of many Umbarans who for whatever reason already have a grudge against the Alliance. So from their perspective, the Alliance just raided one of their convoy trains and killed several dozen of their soldiers.

Copero - Theron is sent to find a map ... then gives it to the Order of Zildrog.

This is where I made up my mind ... He and Valss were the only ones to know of the exact location for this supposed super weapon. Valss is killed leaving Theron the only one who knows the exact location ... instead of telling the Alliance, he gives the information to the Order of Zildrog, turning them from an annoyance into a serious threat.

In addition the Alliance has just got involved in a Chiss internal conflict.

Space Station - Theron and Lana

Theron and Lana have a super secret method of communication they invented on Rishi which only the two of them can understand ... That would have been useful to know... at the f*cking start of this mess! Couldn't he have just left Lana a coded message on a padd?!

As for the space station, we don't know how long the Order was operating from there, though they were there long enough to put their banners up all over the place ... couldn't he have maybe leaked the location to us?!

Nathema - Theron wakes up Zildrog.

Now at this point I'm unsure on how much time has passed since Copero to Nathema but it's been long enough for the Order to set up a base while drilling into a temple. so I'm not sure what Theron's thought process was here. Wait and see what happens?

Having made it this far the Order recruits other people who have a grudge against the Player (Agent in this case) and these people blindly get fed to wake up Zildrog. Watcher II Why?!

Then Zildrog wakes up and uses the gravestone to destroy a bulk of the Eternal Fleet before being destroyed taking the Gravestone with it.

I'm sorry but the entire traitor arc leans towards him being a complete moron.

 

Iokath - He reignited the war on Iokath just to get close to the Order of Zildrog.

 

So by this point he's already identified the leader of the Order, spoken to him and he knows about the order being responsible for the uprisings across the galaxy.

 

Umbara - Vinn sends Theron to Umbara to pick up some crystals to prove himself useful to the Order of Zildrog.

 

Theron does so and this results in the death of many Umbarans who for whatever reason already have a grudge against the Alliance. So from their perspective, the Alliance just raided one of their convoy trains and killed several dozen of their soldiers.

 

Copero - Theron is sent to find a map ... then gives it to the Order of Zildrog.

 

This is where I made up my mind ... He and Valss were the only ones to know of the exact location for this supposed super weapon. Valss is killed leaving Theron the only one who knows the exact location ... instead of telling the Alliance, he gives the information to the Order of Zildrog, turning them from an annoyance into a serious threat.

 

In addition the Alliance has just got involved in a Chiss internal conflict.

 

Space Station - Theron and Lana

 

Theron and Lana have a super secret method of communication they invented on Rishi which only the two of them can understand ... That would have been useful to know... at the f*cking start of this mess! Couldn't he have just left Lana a coded message on a padd?!

 

As for the space station, we don't know how long the Order was operating from there, though they were there long enough to put their banners up all over the place ... couldn't he have maybe leaked the location to us?!

 

Nathema - Theron wakes up Zildrog.

 

Now at this point I'm unsure on how much time has passed since Copero to Nathema but it's been long enough for the Order to set up a base while drilling into a temple. so I'm not sure what Theron's thought process was here. Wait and see what happens?

 

Having made it this far the Order recruits other people who have a grudge against the Player (Agent in this case) and these people blindly get fed to wake up Zildrog. Watcher II Why?!

 

Then Zildrog wakes up and uses the gravestone to destroy a bulk of the Eternal Fleet before being destroyed taking the Gravestone with it.

Maybe i should correct myself a little: he has not been stupid BEFORE. Everything you say here is exactly what i was talking about. They have written him to do things that would totally make sense if they were done by Koth but don't really fit into what Theron has been this far. I guess he really had that lobotomy.

Nathema - Theron wakes up Zildrog.

 

Now at this point I'm unsure on how much time has passed since Copero to Nathema but it's been long enough for the Order to set up a base while drilling into a temple. so I'm not sure what Theron's thought process was here. Wait and see what happens?

 

Having made it this far the Order recruits other people who have a grudge against the Player (Agent in this case) and these people blindly get fed to wake up Zildrog. Watcher II Why?!

 

Then Zildrog wakes up and uses the gravestone to destroy a bulk of the Eternal Fleet before being destroyed taking the Gravestone with it.

I don't recall Theron dressing up as a Gemini droid ordering Zildrog to destroy the fleet. If you are going to get angry, you may as well have all the facts in one place.

Theron did give the order the location of the vault, but that was the extend of his involvement. Gemini 16 wanted to be the only gemini droid in existence and identified itself as feminine programming, meaning she was always aiming for Parricide regardless since she wanted to eradicate her own sisters.

Vinn Atrius wanted Genocide, the entire destruction of the alliance and its people, so completely for his 2 dimensional revenge because his people were no longer strong any more, and in his own mind it was the outlander who caused all the problems when in fact Valkorion sent EE fleet out orginally to conduct raids on the empire and republic outposts to test their strength and predictably their reaction. The misguided fool believed his own lies and own sense of right.

Theron had nothing to do with what it is they wanted from Zildrog, infact while i'm sure he was aware they had plans on the alliance, i doubt even Theron knew the depths of their desires extended to something this destructive.

@paulsutherland

I answer this one time to you, so enjoy. I don't normally feed forum trolls.

Theron is not stupid. He never was, and he still isn't. Suddenly writers of SWTOR lost their mind and decided to trash his character. It is bad writing. How about we stop pretending that Theron Shan is a real person who is responsible for anything, because he isn't. He is a fictional character, thus he can't be responsible for what he does. The people who write him are the responsible ones. They created him. Theron didn't do anything. Writers did.

Now that we got that cleared, we can go to them wanting to write some drama. That is well and all. Traitor-arc has plenty of it. In order to get the drama they seemed to want, they trashed Therons character and made him to be a total idiot. To accomplish that they had to create a story so stupid and so full of plot holes a kidergardener can see them without any effort. People can of course rationalise that story to their advantage (like you just did) because it servers their biases, but it is still irrational, illogical nonsense from beginning to the end. It is simply bad writing. You can show that plot to anyone who is a professional writer and they will agree with me.

People like you are the reason we lost Theron for good. You embraced the steaming pile of turd that is the Nathema-storyline, just to get rid of Theron. Your hateboners are now taken care of, I would assume, but still you can't stop bringing it up and gloating about it. Theron is not in your game anymore, so what do you care? To top of that, he is not in our game either. So it is a win/win for you, right?

Yet only people I really want to blame about all this are the writers of this travesty. They should've known better. They once created a very good character called Theron Shan. For some reason some of the writers decided it is time to throw Theron under the bus. Because Theron Shan is an imaginary character, just pixels, they could do whatever they wanted to do with him, and this is what they wanted.

Iokath - He reignited the war on Iokath just to get close to the Order of Zildrog.

 

So by this point he's already identified the leader of the Order, spoken to him and he knows about the order being responsible for the uprisings across the galaxy.

They were already preparing to go back to fighting each other right at the end of KOTET, so they clearly didn't need Theron fot that.

And in the end as Vinn points out, that move from Theron made you an ally of the Empire or Republic, actually strengthening your own position.

And even if he knew who was the leader, that was not necessarily helpful if he didn't know exactly what they were planning and how they intended to do, nor how far their plan already was.

Umbara - Vinn sends Theron to Umbara to pick up some crystals to prove himself useful to the Order of Zildrog.

 

Theron does so and this results in the death of many Umbarans who for whatever reason already have a grudge against the Alliance. So from their perspective, the Alliance just raided one of their convoy trains and killed several dozen of their soldiers.

Well, seems like that convoy was meant for the Empire (in my case) as many people on that train seemed mad at me for Acina's death.

Anyways, they were all trying to kill me even before that train crashed, so not gonna cry for them.

Copero - Theron is sent to find a map ... then gives it to the Order of Zildrog.

 

This is where I made up my mind ... He and Valss were the only ones to know of the exact location for this supposed super weapon. Valss is killed leaving Theron the only one who knows the exact location ... instead of telling the Alliance, he gives the information to the Order of Zildrog, turning them from an annoyance into a serious threat.

 

In addition the Alliance has just got involved in a Chiss internal conflict.

Seems to me they already knew more or less where that map was and sending Theron was yet another test. They probably had other ways to retrieve that map even without him, but without him getting that map, we would not have known that we had to go to Nathema.

We don't even know what Valss role actually was, he may have been tasked with making sure Theron handed the map to the Order, or something completely different, but i guess we'll never know now.

Space Station - Theron and Lana

 

Theron and Lana have a super secret method of communication they invented on Rishi which only the two of them can understand ... That would have been useful to know... at the f*cking start of this mess! Couldn't he have just left Lana a coded message on a padd?!

 

As for the space station, we don't know how long the Order was operating from there, though they were there long enough to put their banners up all over the place ... couldn't he have maybe leaked the location to us?!

Well, that one's a bit silly, my only guess is that if Theron used that secret code too early and / or too often, there was a chance for GEM-16 to find out and decipher it, which would've ruined Theron's efforts.

Nathema - Theron wakes up Zildrog.

GEM-16 was the one who woke up Zildrog, not Theron, and IIRC, she was the one who actually knew how to do it.

People having a grudge against us seem to have made contact with Vinn way before Theron did, and it seems their grudge melted their brain as they clearly didn't saw that they would all die for that.

Theron gave them the map which lead them to Zildrog ... who woke it is irrelevant ... all of that happened because of Theron.

Snip

As I said in the other post, the writing for this is beyond bad, it's just a rushed plot to get rid of the Alliance and get the game back to Imp vs Pub.

I still think there were far better ways to deal with this and get the Eternal Fleet and Gravestone crushed (if the goal was to do so to force the PC back toward the factions).

1. Conditioning. Theron was an SIS agent. We know Intelligence used conditioning on both sides (Ardun Kothe had no problem using Cipher Nine's magic word and neither did any of his colleagues). He's got implants. He spent a lot of time alone on Nathema during KOTET 7 and hell, with the Revanites back in SoR, and maybe someone got to him. So someone's activated his magic word and he's fighting it like Cipher Nine, but he's forced to go and get the map, etc.

2. Cloning. We see the Eagle in the IA story able to look like anyone else. So the real Theron has been captured and someone else is doing all this nefarious stuff.

3. Blackmail. The order has Satele, or something that could insta-kill the Commander. But they don't want to do that because then the Eternal Fleet will go amok again, so they're trying to turn it against the Alliance. The order doesn't know Gemini 16 has her own agenda to destroy it. So Theron's undercover in the hopes he can eliminate the insta-kill device.

All of those would have given the commander a chance to valiantly rescue Theron.

As for the kill option, yeah, it was to appease all the edgelords, and there's no other reason they would have put that in. From the story they gave us, I can see some PCs never wanting to trust Theron again and asking him to leave, but the brutal death scene was all about the edgelord appeasement, and it's wrong that the devs gave in to that.

I still think there were far better ways to deal with this and get the Eternal Fleet and Gravestone crushed (if the goal was to do so to force the PC back toward the factions).

 

1. Conditioning. Theron was an SIS agent. We know Intelligence used conditioning on both sides (Ardun Kothe had no problem using Cipher Nine's magic word and neither did any of his colleagues). He's got implants. He spent a lot of time alone on Nathema during KOTET 7 and hell, with the Revanites back in SoR, and maybe someone got to him. So someone's activated his magic word and he's fighting it like Cipher Nine, but he's forced to go and get the map, etc.

 

2. Cloning. We see the Eagle in the IA story able to look like anyone else. So the real Theron has been captured and someone else is doing all this nefarious stuff.

 

3. Blackmail. The order has Satele, or something that could insta-kill the Commander. But they don't want to do that because then the Eternal Fleet will go amok again, so they're trying to turn it against the Alliance. The order doesn't know Gemini 16 has her own agenda to destroy it. So Theron's undercover in the hopes he can eliminate the insta-kill device.

 

All of those would have given the commander a chance to valiantly rescue Theron.

 

As for the kill option, yeah, it was to appease all the edgelords, and there's no other reason they would have put that in. From the story they gave us, I can see some PCs never wanting to trust Theron again and asking him to leave, but the brutal death scene was all about the edgelord appeasement, and it's wrong that the devs gave in to that.

I would of just ended in on Iokath with the 'gods' taking control of the fleet and it getting destroyed. Kind of like what we saw when Scyca (sp?) and her fleet take on Izax. Wouldn't of needed to risk a companion with that.

Why would Darth Nox or any other dark sider forgive Theron?

I would of just ended in on Iokath with the 'gods' taking control of the fleet and it getting destroyed. Kind of like what we saw when Scyca (sp?) and her fleet take on Izax. Wouldn't of needed to risk a companion with that.

 

Why would Darth Nox or any other dark sider forgive Theron?

I agree they should have just smashed everything on Iokath and moved on.

Why would Darth Nox or any other dark sider forgive Theron? Mine did because he risked his own life and everything he had to save hers. Because from all the alliance folks including Lana HE was the only one who noticed the whole conspiracy. It is good to have that kind of people on your powerbase.

Actually my Nox would have wanted to sack Lana because of the whole thing, just because she failed to notice anything (and not the first time) and on top of that was making things even worse by blindly believing Theron was traitor. If Nox would have believed her, they would all be dead. She is liability and needs to go, on my Nox that is.

I agree they should have just smashed everything on Iokath and moved on.

 

Why would Darth Nox or any other dark sider forgive Theron? Mine did because he risked his own life and everything he had to save hers. Because from all the alliance folks including Lana HE was the only one who noticed the whole conspiracy. It is good to have that kind of people on your powerbase.

 

Actually my Nox would have wanted to sack Lana because of the whole thing, just because she failed to notice anything (and not the first time) and on top of that was making things even worse by blindly believing Theron was traitor. If Nox would have believed her, they would all be dead. She is liability and needs to go, on my Nox that is.

Speaking of Iokath, what is its current state? Is it still pumping out those Eternal ships?

That's how I looked at it on my Shadow but for my Nox, he cost me the Alliance. As brutal as it was, She stopped caring at that point.

As for Lana, she didn't really do much in the traitor arc. The only annoying part was here dragging us back to Odessen to tell us she decoded the map despite already knowing this from the message Theron left her on that space station. That just felt like a waste of time.

[...]

We don't even know what Valss role actually was, he may have been tasked with making sure Theron handed the map to the Order, or something completely different, but i guess we'll never know now.

[...]

Well, that one's a bit silly, my only guess is that if Theron used that secret code too early and / or too often, there was a chance for GEM-16 to find out and decipher it, which would've ruined Theron's efforts.

[...]

These are exactly the sort of speculations that has no right to exist in well crafted, heck, halway-decently crafted story and people having to come up with their own fanfiction to justify multitude of plot holes only means that bloody writers did not do their damn job.

Well, seems like that convoy was meant for the Empire (in my case) as many people on that train seemed mad at me for Acina's death.

Anyways, they were all trying to kill me even before that train crashed, so not gonna cry for them.

Well, the Galaxy's most notorious murderhobo (aka you ) just landed on their cargo/the porch of House Inrokini, can you really blame them from trying to defend themselves from oncoming murder spree or at least try go out with a bang? And even if Theronmancing bias helps to brush aside poor faceless mooks, there's still Acina and more importantly Jace Malcom (who is, let's not forget, Theron's dad), either of whom can perish and those deaths are on Theron.

Speaking of Iokath, what is its current state? Is it still pumping out those Eternal ships?

This is fuzzy for me as well. To be honest i still really don't understand what the heck happened in there alltough it is possible it was explained but i just didn't get it. Why did my PC sat on the throne even it was already proven twice it's not a good idea? And if she stubbornly wanted to sacrifice herself to save everyone why didn't Theron try to stop her but even was telling her to sit there even he had seen what is does? Who was the hooded figure and what was the meaning of triggering those explosions around that throne, did it save us or was it attempt to kill us?

And about the eternal fleet i have to admit i had hard times to follow who was controlling it in what point all trought the kotfe/kotet/iokath, with all the different owners and free will and what not. For this moment i am unsure if we got any of the eternal fleet ships left or just the ships we gained from imps and reps who defected to alliance. Heh

I think that I can swallow parts of the story without flinching too much. Even a lot of the “I cannot communicate” part. But still…

My comprehension of the story:

Iokath:

He needed to prove himself to get into the Order. Does he at that point know enough about it at that point? Probably not. So yes, he has to try infiltrating it. The fact that he does so by clearly threatening the life of our character is questionable, though, especially for those who were romancing him. Is he really that confident that we can handle it? This is frankly the part that is a bit stretched, for me.

Before Umbara:

OK, so he cannot say anything to anyone. Actually… why not in most cases. In most place you go, there are communication devices that could be potentially hacked. He, himself could have his implants hacked. Would he necessarily know something about it? Perhaps not. Since Gemini could probably use the fleet, perhaps they have a super duper way of scanning all communication waves on a planet, use super duper video cameras or whatever else. OK, I’ll swallow that it might not be easy to find a solution. BUT Theron is a spy! And a rather good one from what I recall, especially on the tech’s side. He is supposed to be able to find solutions for such a problem.

Umbara:

He shoots us (ok, let’s assume that he had put his blaster in stunning mode), bombs a train… He must again be super confident that we can make it to put us in this situation. We could make the hypothesis that he helped us escape by shooting the window (it would therefore not be an accident) but again his trust in the fact that we can make it is super stretched! And the fact that an angry Force-wielder is not able to stop him right there right now is… Well ok, let’s admit that my toon was too shocked for it.

Copero:

For House Inrokini! (You’re welcome, this way I’m not the only one with the ear worm, now )

So he is providing the enemy with the super weapon… Again his trust in the fact that he can then stop everything without too many casualties is less and less making sense. But I can still deal with the fact that he needs to dig deeper into the Order to be sure it can be taken apart.

Then suddenly he can communicate again, slip away on Nathema, and that part does not add up at all…

So the only things I can think about are purely about Theron himself. A need to prove himself that does not make him try to share as much as he could have and to prove that “Damn you all with your Force powers and all, I can do big things on my own too!” (thanks Satele !). A wish to protect the others that make him be overly… dumb and non-sensical. A strong paranoia (I strongly believe that spies must be the most paranoid of all beings) that would make him overly cautious until the moment when he realizes that he definitely cannot do it alone and will cause many deaths. And in a way he does not trust us to be capable of faking the fact of not knowing anything of what he is doing. Us being on the frontline is fine, but us being subtle? Naaaaaah, not possible.

All of it is plausible… but only to a certain extent and the traitor arc has gone sadly too far to be really credible. Sadly. In the end, Theron himself comes and admits that he has totally ****ed up. He admits having been stupid, hooray!

Now, I would not necessarily complain too much that he is not there that much in the beginning of Jedi under Siege. Or conclude that he will disappear. Yes it would sense that he is more involved, absolutely, especially for those who have him as a LI. Now only think about all the other companions, including LI, that have been left aside… None of the LI would decently let the Commander go without saying anything, all we can do is imagine all the behind-the-scene stories that are not displayed.

Why would Darth Nox or any other dark sider forgive Theron?

Why would they want Vaylin as their companion ?

But more seriously, why would Theron risk his own life to try saving such individuals in the first place ? Why would he even be following them ? Especially if said dark siders have already shown several times that they have no problem killing anyone who rubs them the wrong way for no particular reason...

These are exactly the sort of speculations that has no right to exist in well crafted, heck, halway-decently crafted story and people having to come up with their own fanfiction to justify multitude of plot holes only means that bloody writers did not do their damn job.

Never said it was not problematic, but if you dig, you can find explanations, even if that's somewhat fanfictionning there.

But i agree it's bad when you have to make them yourself.

Well, the Galaxy's most notorious murderhobo (aka you ) just landed on their cargo/the porch of House Inrokini, can you really blame them from trying to defend themselves from oncoming murder spree or at least try go out with a bang? And even if Theronmancing bias helps to brush aside poor faceless mooks, there's still Acina and more importantly Jace Malcom (who is, let's not forget, Theron's dad), either of whom can perish and those deaths are on Theron.

My JK is LS, she doesn't kill unless someones comes trying to kill her.

They'd not be dead if they did not attack first actually

Well, their death is on them as much as on Theron actually.

No one forced them to be there in the first place, and no one forced them to sit on these thrones, especially since we tried to explain to them that they'd probably just kill everyone, them included by doing that...

This is fuzzy for me as well. To be honest i still really don't understand what the heck happened in there alltough it is possible it was explained but i just didn't get it. Why did my PC sat on the throne even it was already proven twice it's not a good idea? And if she stubbornly wanted to sacrifice herself to save everyone why didn't Theron try to stop her but even was telling her to sit there even he had seen what is does? Who was the hooded figure and what was the meaning of triggering those explosions around that throne, did it save us or was it attempt to kill us?

 

And about the eternal fleet i have to admit i had hard times to follow who was controlling it in what point all trought the kotfe/kotet/iokath, with all the different owners and free will and what not. For this moment i am unsure if we got any of the eternal fleet ships left or just the ships we gained from imps and reps who defected to alliance. Heh

The Iokath Operation is confusing too. You fight through the first four bosses fine, then all of a sudden out of the blue the fourth boss (Scyva) is helping you bring down the last boss (Izax). I'm not sure what happened here either but until they say otherwise I'm assuming Iokath and all the ships inside are under her control.

Well, we've got at least one as I did the Inquisitor Pirate's alliance alert after Nathema. If we need a replacement fleet? Go to Iokath and claim Scyvas? Iokath has plenty of ships and chairs scattered around.

Why would they want Vaylin as their companion ?

Unlimited POWAH!!!!!!

But more seriously, why would Theron risk his own life to try saving such individuals in the first place ? Why would he even be following them ? Especially if said dark siders have already shown several times that they have no problem killing anyone who rubs them the wrong way for no particular reason...

Hmmm ... good question. In that scenario I imagine Theron would of been doing it stop both the Order of Zildrog and us from using the superweapon.

These are exactly the sort of speculations that has no right to exist in well crafted, heck, halway-decently crafted story and people having to come up with their own fanfiction to justify multitude of plot holes only means that bloody writers did not do their damn job.

As a fan fiction writer, I do not totally agree. Plotholes are not necessarily bad as they allow people to see the story their own way. But only when the holes are limited to parts that are not essential. Which is not the case here of course.

Well, the Galaxy's most notorious murderhobo (aka you ) just landed on their cargo/the porch of House Inrokini, can you really blame them from trying to defend themselves from oncoming murder spree or at least try go out with a bang? And even if Theronmancing bias helps to brush aside poor faceless mooks, there's still Acina and more importantly Jace Malcom (who is, let's not forget, Theron's dad), either of whom can perish and those deaths are on Theron.

On the other hand. who says that we would have killed everyone on the way. But fair enough, people are not always rational. As per the deaths on Iokath, I would not put them on Theron at all. We know that he tampered with the throne we are sitting on, but I do not think that he necessarily did the same with the thrones they try to use. What if they simply are not powerful (willpower, physical strength, whatever) enough to wield the weapon and it fires back against them?

So the only things I can think about are purely about Theron himself. A need to prove himself that does not make him try to share as much as he could have and to prove that “Damn you all with your Force powers and all, I can do big things on my own too!” (thanks Satele !). A wish to protect the others that make him be overly… dumb and non-sensical. A strong paranoia (I strongly believe that spies must be the most paranoid of all beings) that would make him overly cautious until the moment when he realizes that he definitely cannot do it alone and will cause many deaths. And in a way he does not trust us to be capable of faking the fact of not knowing anything of what he is doing. Us being on the frontline is fine, but us being subtle? Naaaaaah, not possible.

There may be a bit of a combination of all that.

Even more so if he's romancing a FU, as he may feel that he's a bit useless / left behind.

Especially seeing as he nearly always runs off to meet contacts whenever he could be with you...

About the wish to protect others he cares about that makes him dumb, it's true actually, as he did it in Annihilation to try to protect Teff'ith while ruining a SIS operation and wrecking the Nar Shaddaa spaceport at the same time

No one forced them to be there in the first place, and no one forced them to sit on these thrones, especially since we tried to explain to them that they'd probably just kill everyone, them included by doing that...

"No one forced them" is a very weak argument that can be used to excuse absolutely everything (e.g. "No one forced Master Orgus to follow Darth Murderevil to his ship") and that's why it works on nothing. Theron planted the intel causing them to come, Theron's responsible, and no excuses like "oh but they didn't have to come personally they could have sent henchmen" would whitewash him out of it.

As a fan fiction writer, I do not totally agree. Plotholes are not necessarily bad as they allow people to see the story their own way. But only when the holes are limited to parts that are not essential. Which is not the case here of course.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Fanfiction's supposed to explore, expand, speculate; not to fix glaring plotholes.

"No one forced them" is a very weak argument that can be used to excuse absolutely everything (e.g. "No one forced Master Orgus to follow Darth Murderevil to his ship") and that's why it works on nothing. Theron planted the intel causing them to come, Theron's responsible, and no excuses like "oh but they didn't have to come personally they could have sent henchmen" would whitewash him out of it.

Well they chose to do it.

My JK tried 3 times to convince Acina not to sit on that throne, not to activate the weapon and shut it down, Quinn also did it (he does it even more if you play a SW who sides with the Republic and she force pushed him on a wall for that), so yeah she chose her own fate at that time, and she's as much responsible of her own death as Theron for giving the intel on the superweapon

As much as Orgus chose to get on that ship, ready to sacrifice his own life if it meant giving a way to his former Padawan to save the Republic if he was unable to do it himself... Wich he did. No one forced him to sacrifice himself, but he did, because he though it'd be the best chance for the Republic to rely on his former Padawan to stop Angral

Avoid spoilers if you didn't play these storylines. Either the story doesn't make any sense, or it is not finished, and we are yet to find out who the traitor really was (Valkorion lives and was behind it?).

 

I played through the stories again, starting from Iokath, this is what happened.

 

 

 

Someone lured the Alliance, Republic and Empire at the same time on Iokath to reveal the superweapon and attempted to wipe them all out. Someone dressed as sith/jedi sabotaged the throne, your character nearly died. Noted, that Theron urges you to seat on the malfunctioning throne.

 

Later, in Crisis on Umbara it is revealed that the traitor is Theron Shan. He gives his explanation that he didn't like your rule bla bla. He seriously attempts to kill you (again). So, was it him too messing around with the superweapon on Iokath?

 

The things don't get better on Copero. Your character's boyfriend / closest advisor since Forged Alliances went nutso. Or the SWTOR writes went nutso. This "subversion of expectations" was so cheap and stupid that I thought I won't be coming back to play this game.

 

Then, on Nathema you find out that Theron was not a traitor, but he went deep undercover to protect you.

The bad guy is revealed to be some random dude from the Order of Zildrog who you see for the first time in your life. Was it him on Iokath? He doesn't have the brains to do what was done on Iokath.

 

The deep undercover nonsense doesn't explain why Theron seriously tried to kill your character starting from Iokath.

 

 

It just doesn't make sense. One of the worst parts is when Lana tells you that her and theron have a way of communicating that no one but them knows. Their own made up way to communicating that no one would have any basis or previous knowledge in how to decipher. Then we have to go through a ton of garbage story just to hear theron whine about not being able to say anything because he would be found out and then showed the bad guys everywhere they needed to go while having the perfect way of communicating but did little to nothing to actually do it..

It was just rough to play and I hope he's really dead given his poor writing.

Well they chose to do it.

My JK tried 3 times to convince Acina not to sit on that throne, not to activate the weapon and shut it down, Quinn also did it (he does it even more if you play a SW who sides with the Republic and she force pushed him on a wall for that), so yeah she chose her own fate at that time, and she's as much responsible of her own death as Theron for giving the intel on the superweapon

As much as Orgus chose to get on that ship, ready to sacrifice his own life if it meant giving a way to his former Padawan to save the Republic if he was unable to do it himself... Wich he did. No one forced him to sacrifice himself, but he did, because he though it'd be the best chance for the Republic to rely on his former Padawan to stop Angral

Ah, the good old (and ever so logical) "I like the character = their reasons are good and valid, I don't care about them = its their own fault" argument.

Ah, the good old (and ever so logical) "I like the character = their reasons are good and valid, I don't care about them = its their own fault" argument.

Well she chose to be there because she though that it may have been what was best for the Empire, doesn't change the fact that she made the decision for herself by herself, and is partially responsible for her own death, at least as much as the one who gave the intel.

Yes, Theron gave the intell, after that she acted on her own free will. So putting all the blame on Theron for Malcom or Acina's death is also ridiculous...

She got some suspicious intel on a superweapon on Iokath and decided that it was a good idea to go there uninvited, while sneaking behind our back to do so, while Iokath was technically Alliance territory and she was supposed to be our ally, to be able to wipe out the Republic and maybe even the Alliance in the process.

I liked her during KOTET, that doesn't change the fact that we were forced to pick a side, i picked one even though if i really had it my way i'd have told both Acina and Malcom to get out of the Alliance territory when they were not invited (and we have valid reasons to reject both of them actually). And it doesn't change the fact that what she did while on Iokath was her own choice. Call it bad writing if you want, i won't contradict you on this, but we have the opportunity to call out to her several times, there are other characters who do it too, but she doesn't listen (note that all of this applies to Malcom as well if you side with the Empire..)

I'm sorry but the entire traitor arc leans towards him being a complete moron.

 

(Information from the Wiki as I don't want to replay the traitor arc any time soon.)

 

Links: Theron Shan, Order of Zildrog, Vinn Atrius, Zildrog

 

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Iokath - He reignited the war on Iokath just to get close to the Order of Zildrog.

 

So by this point he's already identified the leader of the Order, spoken to him and he knows about the order being responsible for the uprisings across the galaxy.

 

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Umbara - Vinn sends Theron to Umbara to pick up some crystals to prove himself useful to the Order of Zildrog.

 

Theron does so and this results in the death of many Umbarans who for whatever reason already have a grudge against the Alliance. So from their perspective, the Alliance just raided one of their convoy trains and killed several dozen of their soldiers.

 

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Copero - Theron is sent to find a map ... then gives it to the Order of Zildrog.

 

This is where I made up my mind ... He and Valss were the only ones to know of the exact location for this supposed super weapon. Valss is killed leaving Theron the only one who knows the exact location ... instead of telling the Alliance, he gives the information to the Order of Zildrog, turning them from an annoyance into a serious threat.

 

In addition the Alliance has just got involved in a Chiss internal conflict.

 

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Space Station - Theron and Lana

 

Theron and Lana have a super secret method of communication they invented on Rishi which only the two of them can understand ... That would have been useful to know... at the f*cking start of this mess! Couldn't he have just left Lana a coded message on a padd?!

 

As for the space station, we don't know how long the Order was operating from there, though they were there long enough to put their banners up all over the place ... couldn't he have maybe leaked the location to us?!

 

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Nathema - Theron wakes up Zildrog.

 

Now at this point I'm unsure on how much time has passed since Copero to Nathema but it's been long enough for the Order to set up a base while drilling into a temple. so I'm not sure what Theron's thought process was here. Wait and see what happens?

 

Having made it this far the Order recruits other people who have a grudge against the Player (Agent in this case) and these people blindly get fed to wake up Zildrog. Watcher II Why?!

 

Then Zildrog wakes up and uses the gravestone to destroy a bulk of the Eternal Fleet before being destroyed taking the Gravestone with it.

Well written.

Just want to add Theron is the one that sabotaged the Throne that almost killed you and left you one on one with Tyth.

Umbara made no sense, the reason for going was vague to pointless, not sure what we did with the crystals. But more so unless Theron was trying out for Bond Villain then even the order must have questioned this elaborate and highly unsucessful plan to kill you vs just placing a bomb on your shuttle and exploding it as soon as it hit light speed.

It was Therons contact in the short story that made it possible for them to find the location of the Star map on Copero. He made the entire thing possible and finding the location possible, all he had to do was give it to you and you could have got there first. So that made no sense, and since Gemini 16 couldn't download the map remotely she clearly couldn't see what he was doing he could have left it in tact and taken a fake map back. As for the Chiss Jedi, who knows what that was about, if his vision hadn't led him to sacrifice himself to allow Theron to escape you could have captured Theron and the map and gotten their first as well.

While Nathema showed that Theron was quick enough to shoot Vinn, so why didn't he just do it in the shuttle on route to Nathema or anytime he was alone with him. This would have achieved his goal and not assisted them in destroying the fleet.

As for the idea that Theron's death was for edgelords, what a derogatory term just because you don't like that it was an option. This game is based on killing people, be they npcs or pc's. The idea only edgelords kill anyone is ridiculous as you can't even get to that point without having killed a damn lot of NPCs. You have killed 100 of thousands of republic (or Imperial) personal and Jedi (sith), local security and definitely Chiss put in harms way by Therons actions. But his death is only for edgelords. Maybe if you think killing NPCs makes someone an edgelord, you have to ask have you killed any NPCs in the game. And if you have that makes you one, I think it makes everyone an edgelord. So the game is only for edgelords who see it as part of the game to kill NPCs and those that don't want to be an Edgelord need to find a different game to play, one without any killing in it.