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A Traitor Amongst the Chiss - Lets Drive a Bus Through this Story Arc :D


Jatello

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First and foremost, I shall say for the record, I am a huge lover of stories, particularly in games. SWTOR I've loved the Story, but on a few occasions have felt really let down by the lack of common sense the story seems to follow at times in this current expac.

 

SPOILERS AHEAD - You have been warned!!!

 

 

OK so the first disappointment I had was the Chapter where you are on Odessen fighting your way to Vaylin, you arrive on a ship....50,000 miles from your base.... I mean really? *** come on. Given the forces on Odessen and the fact you did in fact have AIR control, WHY would you land that far away - that was a joke. I thought honestly that couldn't be topped, but this latest chapter... beats it hands down.

 

So you get to the 3rd boss in the Chiss FP. and Theron is just leaving and is one step ahead of you...again. WHY at this stage do you not radio Lana and order the Eternal Fleet into orbit of Chiss and blow his shuttle from the sky? Worse still...we knew he was there, thats why we go in the first place. Why not simply take the fleet? Especially if ya Dark side attuned. The Chiss arn't about to challenge you, you're allied with 1 of 3 super powers in the galaxy anyway (Republic or Empire and the Alliance) At the very least, WHY arn't you using Comms to order a pursuit of his shuttle whilst you deal with Valss?.

 

So yeah, you can very much drive a bus through this current story at the moment, the plot holes are gaping and destroy what could otherwise be a fantastic story. I know the story has got the be stretched out and last...but the story has got to make sense.

 

One final thing, please drop the corny dialogue:

Valss: GO, I'll hold them off!! *Leaps from Shuttle*

Theron: "NO! You'll never win!"

Pah...lease. If ever anything could fall into the "no **** sherlock" category...

and then....wait for it, an awesome Superhero landing right in front of you!!!! Quite literally outta Deadpool (a movie I loved btw).

 

Oh and yeah, as if the story couldn't get any more of a gaping plot hole - go back to your base and into your HQ, guess who's stood next to a command console in the same room as Lana, Koth and Senya...you guessed it. Theron! He's a friendly target no less... need I say more?

 

 

Edited by Jatello
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Actually, I disagree with your assumption that

 

 

bringing the Eternal Fleet to Chiss Territory would have been a good idea.

 

Aristocra Saganu would have never allowed that. He said that the Ascendancy can look the other way if a small strike team lands on Copero. The Eternal Fleet is not a small strike team. At this point, with no help from Saganu, you'll be forced to invade the Ascendancy. As for what the Ascendancy thinks of powerful forces invading their territory...see what happened when the Sith Empire tried. So you're stuck in a war with the Chiss Ascendancy and Theron will be gone long before you have a chance to reach him.

 

Edited by Seireeni
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Actually, I disagree with your assumption that

 

 

bringing the Eternal Fleet to Chiss Territory would have been a good idea.

 

Aristocra Saganu would have never allowed that. He said that the Ascendancy can look the other way if a small strike team lands on Copero. The Eternal Fleet is not a small strike team. At this point, with no help from Saganu, you'll be forced to invade the Ascendancy. As for what the Ascendancy thinks of powerful forces invading their territory...see what happened when the Sith Empire tried. So you're stuck in a war with the Chiss Ascendancy and Theron will be gone long before you have a chance to reach him.

 

Why not send just one ship then? or you know Lana could have been hiding somewhere in the system with our ship?

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Why not send just one ship then? or you know Lana could have been hiding somewhere in the system with our ship?

 

Lana did send a vehicle for a pickup pretty soon after -- maybe she did have a ship somewhere hidden in the system but wasn't there in time to stop Theron?

 

Some sort of explanation to how Theron evaded whatever Alliance vessels there were somewhere around there would have been nice, but this was supposed to be a small, discreet operation. Bringing out the big guns just wasn't an option.

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He said that the Ascendancy can look the other way if a small strike team lands on Copero.

 

The Fleet wouldn't LAND, they would just stay somewhat close to the planet in case the traitor tries to escape. Also. A small strike team sounds like it should be between three and five people. But that's just my opinion, and it can be totally wrong.

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The Fleet wouldn't LAND, they would just stay somewhat close to the planet in case the traitor tries to escape. Also. A small strike team sounds like it should be between three and five people. But that's just my opinion, and it can be totally wrong.

 

It's still Chiss space -- I doubt they care if the enemy is on the orbit on the ground, no?

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Nah, the OP is right. Swiss Cheese plot. But I'm sure there'll be a flashpoint with 3:15 of cutscenes that wraps up all those holes in awhile.

 

Send the fleet, park it outside of the planetary defenses. If the Chiss object, tough. ;)

 

For the record, my main is a Chiss Jedi Shadow. He can do stuff like that. :p

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Send the fleet, park it outside of the planetary defenses. If the Chiss object, tough. ;)

 

The Sith Empire tried something along those lines. The Chiss objected. It was so "tough" that the Empire decided that attempting to conquer them was not worth it, and sought a diplomatic solution instead.

 

If the Alliance was so keen on attacking the Ascendancy that they would just continue the war until they won, they would probably win, but suffer loads of losses and waste time fighting the Chiss while the traitor and the Order got to do whatever they want. And even if you just brought the Eternal Fleet to fight with the Chiss for the time it takes to grab the traitor from Copero -- it's a lot harder to land on Copero or get out of there when CEDF is firing on you.

 

Not to mention if your poor Commander went and allied him/herself with the Republic -- I bet the Imperial Fleet is more than happy to join the fun after the Chiss tell them that the Alliance Commander is on Copero, and you might end up in a space battle between the Alliance and the allied forces of CEDF and Sith Empire. While Theron probably gets to do whatever he wants, because the Eternal Fleet was a little busy with the CEDF ships shooting at it to actually shoot him down.

 

My apologies, but I don't consider not letting your character act like a complete moron to be a plot hole. It's reasonable to say that they should have had some sort of explanation to why the vessel that brought you to Copero in the first place was not there to intercept Theron, but the whole damn fleet? Imo more trouble than it's worth.

Edited by Seireeni
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I don't think y'all understand what plot holes are. They certainly aren't the same thing as "individual makes suboptimal choices".

 

That's, of course, assuming that these instances are all examples of an individual making a suboptimal choice. Most of the time, they're not even that.

 

If it doesn't work for you, that's fine. You're allowed to have problems with the story. That's different from "plot holes".

OK so the first disappointment I had was the Chapter where you are on Odessen fighting your way to Vaylin, you arrive on a ship....50,000 miles from your base.... I mean really? *** come on. Given the forces on Odessen and the fact you did in fact have AIR control, WHY would you land that far away - that was a joke. I thought honestly that couldn't be topped, but this latest chapter... beats it hands down.

 

The Alliance didn't really have control of the air in KotET Chapter VIII, and I'm not sure where you got that impression. The Gravestone was still in drydock at mission start, for crying out loud. If the Alliance had had control of the air, then the Eternal Fleet wouldn't have been able to land troops at all. Clearly Odessen's airspace was hotly contested in certain areas. Presumably there was a risk/reward proposition associated with trying to land under fire, and your character elected to make a more reliable planetfall rather than risk the shuttle's destruction before you could reach Vaylin. Military leaders make that decision - or a decision like it - all the time. This isn't a plot hole, and you certainly can't fit a bus inside it.

 

So you get to the 3rd boss in the Chiss FP. and Theron is just leaving and is one step ahead of you...again. WHY at this stage do you not radio Lana and order the Eternal Fleet into orbit of Chiss and blow his shuttle from the sky? Worse still...we knew he was there, thats why we go in the first place. Why not simply take the fleet? Especially if ya Dark side attuned. The Chiss arn't about to challenge you, you're allied with 1 of 3 super powers in the galaxy anyway (Republic or Empire and the Alliance) At the very least, WHY arn't you using Comms to order a pursuit of his shuttle whilst you deal with Valss?.

 

The obvious answer is that Theron is a triple agent and Lana wants him to escape.

 

But if you don't think that that's the way this is going, then you can simply opt for the explanation given by Seireeni above: that the Commander didn't think it was worth embarking on an all-out war with the Chiss. That's a perfectly reasonable choice to make.

 

Even if you don't like the choice, tough. You're stuck with the character. I didn't much like a few things that the characters have to do during their class stories, but that's the nature of the beast: you're playing BioWare's game, and these are BioWare's characters. Not yours. Make all the "choices don't matter" complaints you like, but if the story's to have any structure at all, they have to constrain the player, and this is one of the constraints.

 

Oh and yeah, as if the story couldn't get any more of a gaping plot hole - go back to your base and into your HQ, guess who's stood next to a command console in the same room as Lana, Koth and Senya...you guessed it. Theron! He's a friendly target no less... need I say more?

 

 

That's not a plot hole, that's a bug or an oversight. Calm down.

 

Edited by Euphrosyne
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That's not a plot hole, that's a bug or an oversight. Calm down.

 

 

 

I'd even go so far as to say that they didn't bother with removing him because they fully intend to bring him back.

 

Lazy? Absolutely, but it's just another notch in the 99.999% sure pile I have that he's been a double-agent all along. I'm not entirely convinced Lana is in on it, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

Another reason I have, which will really tick me off if they don't, is that when he "traitored out," I didn't get the 40mil credit outfit I had on him back. And he's still wearing it in the above mentioned oversight.

 

 

Edited by Dracofish
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I'd even go so far as to say that they didn't bother with removing him because they fully intend to bring him back.

 

Lazy? Absolutely, but it's just another notch in the 99.999% sure pile I have that he's been a double-agent all along. I'm not entirely convinced Lana is in on it, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

Another reason I have, which will really tick me off if they don't, is that when he "traitored out," I didn't get the 40mil credit outfit I had on him back. And he's still wearing it in the above mentioned oversight.

 

 

Just in case you hadn't figured it out yet and actually wanted it back, you can get his outfit back by opening 'N' , select Theron in the companion List (he's in Main Characters for me) and top right corner is "reclaim inventory items" tiny button. That's how you get that 40mil outfit back to sue on another companion or w/e. It may make him wear underpants in the base glitch thing but meh, at least you have the clothing back!

 

This method can be used for any companion I know of that had items equipped and got killed/ran off/hasn't returned yet etc.

Edited by Asmodesu
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This method can be used for any companion I know of that had items equipped and got killed/ran off/hasn't returned yet etc.

It also works on Lana during the weird moments around the Copero FP's solo-not-story-mission thing when Lana is removed from the summonable companion list, and goes to abide with the big ol' list of deads and fleds.

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Just in case you hadn't figured it out yet and actually wanted it back, you can get his outfit back by opening 'N' , select Theron in the companion List (he's in Main Characters for me) and top right corner is "reclaim inventory items" tiny button. That's how you get that 40mil outfit back to sue on another companion or w/e. It may make him wear underpants in the base glitch thing but meh, at least you have the clothing back!

 

This method can be used for any companion I know of that had items equipped and got killed/ran off/hasn't returned yet etc.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

But another problem is that the outfit is still bound to that character, and there's nobody else I'm interested in giving it to other than Theron. I'm still convinced he's coming back though, so hopefully he'll come back with it!

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Thanks for the info!

 

But another problem is that the outfit is still bound to that character, and there's nobody else I'm interested in giving it to other than Theron. I'm still convinced he's coming back though, so hopefully he'll come back with it!

 

Normally those outfits on the companions are not bound to the companion but to your character. You could even wear it if you wanted to.

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Normally those outfits on the companions are not bound to the companion but to your character. You could even wear it if you wanted to.

 

Oh no, I mean I couldn't mail it to another one of my characters to put on a different Theron. Since it's bound to that character.

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Well I'm really glad this thread has sparked some debate. :)

 

I don't agree with some of what has been said here, the suggestion that its moronic to send in the fleet or even at the very least a ship or two under the guise of a "small strike team" is nonsense. It makes perfect tactical sense and wouldn't piss the Chiss off. The fleet, sure, but a ship or three...no - and end of the day as mentioned - The superpowers are the Sith Empire, Republic and the Alliance, the Alliance being by far the strongest (keep in mind both Republic and Sith wanted an alliance with you) . And finally, if push really came to shove, Alliance + Sith Vs Chiss or Alliance + Repub Vs Chiss - there is only one winner and it would be a pretty short war.

 

But regardless, I think another comment hit the nail on the head - the character is making sub-optimal choices and poor tactical decisions, at the very least 1-2 ships should have been in orbit.

The reason why this qualifies as a plot hole: Your character is supposedly a tactical genius that the galaxy respects/fears/craps themselves over, faliable of course, but to this degree? This is amateur.

 

Look a bit closer at Chapter Vii - replay it again if you like, you'll see that in fact the Alliance DOES have air superiority. Its barely in combat and the ships you see in the sky are Alliance vessels, not EE or anybody elses. The comms do not mention it either. Military leaders do land where they can you are right, but when they have that kind of seeming superiority they would not land that far away. The suggestion that if we had air superiority forces wouldn't land at all is nonsense, the comms illustrate that this was a sneak attack and a surprise to the base, and the forces you fight are very much a "rapid expeditionary" force, they arn't vast armies, if they were it would have to be an OPS for it to make sense lol.

 

 

So I maintain - plot holes, poor writing, laziness. But each to their own opinion and besides debate is fun :)

Keep the debate coming guys.

 

If they do bring Theron back though, I REALLY hope they give you the choice to kill him. Nothing would stop me from swinging the lightsaber even though my toon is pure angelic lightside. I've hated the Theron character ever since it was introduced. Gimmie my old companions back!!!

 

I see no one argued the point about the corny dialogue and superhero landing though :D

Edited by Jatello
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Well I'm really glad this thread has sparked some debate. :)

 

I don't agree with some of what has been said here, the suggestion that its moronic to send in the fleet or even at the very least a ship or two under the guise of a "small strike team" is nonsense. It makes perfect tactical sense and wouldn't piss the Chiss off. The fleet, sure, but a ship or three...no - and end of the day as mentioned - The superpowers are the Sith Empire, Republic and the Alliance, the Alliance being by far the strongest (keep in mind both Republic and Sith wanted an alliance with you) . And finally, if push really came to shove, Alliance + Sith Vs Chiss or Alliance + Repub Vs Chiss - there is only one winner and it would be a pretty short war.

 

But regardless, I think another comment hit the nail on the head - the character is making sub-optimal choices and poor tactical decisions, at the very least 1-2 ships should have been in orbit.

The reason why this qualifies as a plot hole: Your character is supposedly a tactical genius that the galaxy respects/fears/craps themselves over, faliable of course, but to this degree? This is amateur.

 

Look a bit closer at Chapter Vii - replay it again if you like, you'll see that in fact the Alliance DOES have air superiority. Its barely in combat and the ships you see in the sky are Alliance vessels, not EE or anybody elses. The comms do not mention it either. Military leaders do land where they can you are right, but when they have that kind of seeming superiority they would not land that far away. The suggestion that if we had air superiority forces wouldn't land at all is nonsense, the comms illustrate that this was a sneak attack and a surprise to the base, and the forces you fight are very much a "rapid expeditionary" force, they arn't vast armies, if they were it would have to be an OPS for it to make sense lol.

 

 

So I maintain - plot holes, poor writing, laziness. But each to their own opinion and besides debate is fun :)

Keep the debate coming guys.

 

If they do bring Theron back though, I REALLY hope they give you the choice to kill him. Nothing would stop me from swinging the lightsaber even though my toon is pure angelic lightside. I've hated the Theron character ever since it was introduced. Gimmie my old companions back!!!

 

I see no one argued the point about the corny dialogue and superhero landing though :D

 

Even though I think we *should* get one, to appease folks who would use it, because yes, Theron is indeed being a turd here, even if he thinks he's doing right by the Alliance, I don't think we'll see one. Because, if we do, all further story will exclude Theron...and anybody who could previously be killed...which is literally everybody but Lana. So that would wipe out all f/m and m/m love interests with any sort of story involvement. I don't see that happening, or perhaps I should say that I hope BioWare isn't that stupid.

 

IF they do introduce a kill option for Theron, then by all rights, they *should* also exclude Lana from any further story involvement...to keep things even. Again, this is purely from a "fairness" standpoint. So please, don't turn this into a ZOMG YOU HATES THE LANA! argument. Because that's so not it at all. I like her. I have characters with her. I'm just talking about fairness in the realm of players and pairings...and it would be a gigantic mistake for BW to take away any and all story-based romance content from f/m and m/m players. Like a huge monetary mistake, because they'd lose boku subscribers over it. And no, BUT YOU'RE GETTING ARCANN!!! doesn't count. Because Arcann can be dead. So all of his romance content is going to be completely independent of the story.

Edited by Dracofish
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I don't agree with some of what has been said here, the suggestion that its moronic to send in the fleet or even at the very least a ship or two under the guise of a "small strike team" is nonsense. It makes perfect tactical sense and wouldn't piss the Chiss off. The fleet, sure, but a ship or three...no - and end of the day as mentioned - The superpowers are the Sith Empire, Republic and the Alliance, the Alliance being by far the strongest (keep in mind both Republic and Sith wanted an alliance with you) . And finally, if push really came to shove, Alliance + Sith Vs Chiss or Alliance + Repub Vs Chiss - there is only one winner and it would be a pretty short war.

 

 

 

Do tell which part of Chiss culture makes you think that the Chiss would be okay with a couple of Battle Cruisers hanging out inside their territory without any kind of official sanction? Because everything I know about the Chiss -- and I've read my Outbound Flight and Survivor's Quest many, many times -- tells me that they would not tolerate any kind of military invasion by a foreign government. They're a somewhat xenophobic, isolationist bunch of warriors with too much pride for their own good and some military skill to back it up. You sending war ships to their area and CEDF not attempting to do anything about them would be a plothole.

 

And as I said earlier, if you're allied with the Republic, it's not going to be Alliance + Republic vs. the Chiss. I'd assume the Chiss would call for the Empire to help, at which point it's Empire + Chiss vs. Alliance + Republic. If Alliance was allied with the Empire, I don't know if the Chiss would be too proud to run for Republic for help, but I wouldn't rule it out. Even if not -- the Sith Empire thought conquering the Ascendancy would be fast, too. They were wrong. So, short or not, you would have wasted time and resources fighting the Chiss while Theron and the Order get to do whatever they want. And I think saying "starting useless wars because you're completely blind to politics and not achieving the goal you started the war originally for due to the WAR YOU STARTED is moronic" is very sensible.

 

I mean -- this is the equivalent of a US military sending their forces to catch a criminal hiding in, let's say, Japan.

To say that the nation being invaded would not be "pissed off" is ridiculous. As is the assumption that they should not defend themselves simply because the force they're facing is bigger than their military is ridiculous.

 

EDIT: I did mention that there could have been some sort of explanation to why the Alliance vessels that apparently were close enough to pick you up asap after Valss is defeated didn't try to stop Theron, but anything bigger than a couple of small-ish ships wouldn't really count as a small strike team -- and it's not out of the question that Theron manages to escape from a couple of small ships.

 

 

 

But regardless, I think another comment hit the nail on the head - the character is making sub-optimal choices and poor tactical decisions, at the very least 1-2 ships should have been in orbit.

The reason why this qualifies as a plot hole: Your character is supposedly a tactical genius that the galaxy respects/fears/craps themselves over, faliable of course, but to this degree? This is amateur.

 

Where does it say that the PC is a tactical genius? I'd go as far as say that, apart from you choosing to RP your character as a tactical genius, there's nothing even pointing towards that. None of the player characters get to where they are due to superior military tactics.

Edited by Seireeni
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I think there could have been a better way to chase after Theron than him getting away again. It just makes the Alliance Commander look like a fool...

 

But I really want to know why Syndic Zenta is a freaking giant Chiss???? I just found this too funny. It made me think of how large the bosses looked in WoW compared to the players.

 

https://imgur.com/QQ88MUQ

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I think there could have been a better way to chase after Theron than him getting away again. It just makes the Alliance Commander look like a fool...

 

But I really want to know why Syndic Zenta is a freaking giant Chiss???? I just found this too funny. It made me think of how large the bosses looked in WoW compared to the players.

 

https://imgur.com/QQ88MUQ

 

I'm pretty sure a good 90% of this entire story line makes the Alliance Commander look like a stoop, lol.

 

And yeah, I noticed the weird size too. I've seen that in other places as well, like the Imperial-side Forged Alliance FP on Tython...the first boss is a GIANT.

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Thinking about ships, fleets and the Chiss got me thinking that

 

 

 

Actual smart thing to do could have been to convince Aristocra Saganu to have some CEDF ships -- or if that's not something he can just pull off to do his bidding, some ships from the Household Phalanx of his House -- to hang around close enough to intercept any shuttles leaving the planet. After all, Syndic Zenta making it back to the Ascendancy would be a political nightmare for the Aristocra, and if it was Zenta escaping, he'd have all the reasons to make sure that shuttle doesn't make it. You could even ask him to move those ships to orbit in exchange of you killing the Syndic.

 

But, of course, those ships of Saganu's Household Phalanx would also be in a perfect position to fire on the Alliance vessels if Saganu decided that he didn't like it very much if you decide to imprison the Syndic, which apparently throws him into the political nightmare referenced earlier... Though, Alliance would probably avenge it on the Chiss if Saganu shot down Alliance Commander simply to kill Syndic Zenta, and that would be a political nightmare all by itself. So, the only thing standing in the way would be to determine how to place said ships so that House Inrokini doesn't immediately assume that Saganu's house is trying to siege a planet they control.

 

The only issue with this is that you kind of need to know some stuff about Chiss politics to propose this -- and it's likely that not every Alliance Commander does.

 

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Thinking about ships, fleets and the Chiss got me thinking that

 

 

 

Actual smart thing to do could have been to convince Aristocra Saganu to have some CEDF ships -- or if that's not something he can just pull off to do his bidding, some ships from the Household Phalanx of his House -- to hang around close enough to intercept any shuttles leaving the planet. After all, Syndic Zenta making it back to the Ascendancy would be a political nightmare for the Aristocra, and if it was Zenta escaping, he'd have all the reasons to make sure that shuttle doesn't make it. You could even ask him to move those ships to orbit in exchange of you killing the Syndic.

 

But, of course, those ships of Saganu's Household Phalanx would also be in a perfect position to fire on the Alliance vessels if Saganu decided that he didn't like it very much if you decide to imprison the Syndic, which apparently throws him into the political nightmare referenced earlier... Though, Alliance would probably avenge it on the Chiss if Saganu shot down Alliance Commander simply to kill Syndic Zenta, and that would be a political nightmare all by itself. So, the only thing standing in the way would be to determine how to place said ships so that House Inrokini doesn't immediately assume that Saganu's house is trying to siege a planet they control.

 

The only issue with this is that you kind of need to know some stuff about Chiss politics to propose this -- and it's likely that not every Alliance Commander does.

 

That could work... except...

 

the whole reason Saganu is sending us after Zenta is so he has deniability if anything goes wrong. If his Household Phalanx shows up with us, he can't pretend that he didn't sanction the hit.

 

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At this point I would rather play as Theron, because I suspect he is having way more interesting adventures than our protagonist. Look at him "Alpha Protocol"-ing about, seducing Chiss dudes and giant Chiss business ladies, whereas "the Commander" is moping trash on Copero while being used in Saganu's schemes in addition to Lana's. :D
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