I’m really, really hoping someone clears this up for me. Whether it’s someone at BioWare or just a diehard fan, I have just one burning question about the Sith Emperor that I now think will never be resolved.

 

Could someone please tell me what the Valkorion body was doing between the Knight story’s final mission (killing Vitiate’s human Voice) and Ziost?

 

This has caused me so much confusion. Yavin 4 was supposed to have revived the Sith Emperor. But that could not be the truth because the Valkorion body was still in existence.

 

Ziost was supposed to have re-empowered the Sith Emperor. But this also does not seem to be true because the Valkorion body was still in existence.

 

The story just doesn’t quite make sense as-is. The relatively small plot hole creates so many questions.

 

Was the Valkorion body comatose while the Emperor’s spirit was trapped on Yavin 4?

Was it cut off from the Force?

Was there a different consciousness within the Valkorion body?

Was this why Valkorion visibly aged in the Sacrifice trailer?

Was it just business as usual in the Valkorion body with Yavin and Ziost just being for the Emperor’s entertainment?

 

I must be missing some detail here, right?

My guess is much like how Tenebrae split a part of his being to be imprinted into those tattoos he split a part in Valkorion and another in the Voice, so my guess is Valkorion was still "active" so to speak during the events of the game and the stuff with Ziost was all so he could empower himself before reuniting with his other half. This of course, is all my own personal speculation.

 

As for Valkorion aging, I don't think we ever got an official answer for that but I'd assume it an artistic choice in the trailer to show the passage of time.

Just what was going on there is nebulous. However, if the Evil Thing was able to have a Voice, why could it not have multiple voices? Based upon EoO, the Evil Thing learned how to transfer its consciousness as Tenebrae. Vitiate and Valkorion existed simultaneously and both were quite powerful in the Force. Regarding the Evil Thing being near death after the Hero of Tython destroying Vitiate's physical form, we only learned it is weakened based upon the beliefs of Satele, Marr and Revan. The ramblings of Commandant Ivan were from an obviously deranged mind. We are presented with no firm evidence that the Evil Thing is near death. However, we can surmize that the Evil Thing was preparing to discard the Sith Empire so playing possum would make sense. The Dark Council had finally wised-up to the idea that the Evil Thing saw every being in the galaxy as merely its play-things, and, at its core, was nihilistic.

 

The Evil Thing could have asily learned of Marr's thoughts re: it's current fate by getting in touch with--say--Darth Ravage to learn of Marr's beliefs. The Evil Thing then plays to that part to play the ultimate deception upon everybody.

Read this post by Charles Boyd from 2017. It may shed some light on your questions.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9347029#post9347029

I'm leaning towards the theory that Vitiate, Tenebrae, Valkorion are three and the same. Different people but the same guy, split up by some Sith ritual. The moment I saw them in Echoes I thought "the unholy trinity". So when Vitiate woke up on Yavin 4, he went to Zakuul to merge with Valkorion. Whilst Tenebrae was just sitting wherever he was sitting going "Tsk tsk"

Read this post by Charles Boyd from 2017. It may shed some light on your questions.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9347029#post9347029

 

Man, I'd forgotten how vitriolic some of the posts in that thread were. Sent me on a trip down memory lane!

Man, I'd forgotten how vitriolic some of the posts in that thread were. Sent me on a trip down memory lane!

 

I am scared to look now.

I'm leaning towards the theory that Vitiate, Tenebrae, Valkorion are three and the same. Different people but the same guy, split up by some Sith ritual. The moment I saw them in Echoes I thought "the unholy trinity". So when Vitiate woke up on Yavin 4, he went to Zakuul to merge with Valkorion. Whilst Tenebrae was just sitting wherever he was sitting going "Tsk tsk"

 

What we see in Echoes are not three distinct beings. By this point, both Vitiate and Valkorion had both been destroyed. It is clear via dialogue that Vitiate and Valkorion were one in the same. Yet this Tenebrae that we are facing is the original body and it seems obvious that the Evil Thing did not bother to perform some ritual within its Vitiate or Valkorion personae to provide the Tenebrae meatbag with more recent memories.

 

What we are seeing are not the return of Vitiate and Valkorion. Tenebrae makes it clear that his two other selves being present are based upon Satele's memories--not direct experience. This is why Valkorion does not know who the PC is--we were never called "Outlander" or "Commander." Tenebrae is merely wearing these other faces to confuse us to throw us off base, probably hoping to get us to simply give up and abandon our quest to save Satele when confronted with the apparent resurrection of the other two hosts.

 

While we cannot be certain of what Tenebrae's initial goals were, it appears that from Satele's memories, Evil Thing 1.0 was gravely disappoointed with versions 2.0 and 3.0 because they chose to build empires and 3.0 had a profoundly dysfunctional family. Tenebrae considered both of these pursuits to be wastes of time. That leads me to conclude that the desire to go Unicron on the whole galaxy was part of the Evil Thing's personality to begin with. It just didn't become nihilistic later on in life after a century or two; rather, the Evil Thing was always a believer in nothing but its own narcissism. This narcissism was at the core of the Vitiate and Valkorion skins as well, and Valk's true self emerged only when he was facing destruction within the Outlander's mind.

 

I hadn't been expecting the Tenebrae failsafe to lack the memories of Valkorion and Vitiate and found it to have been a nice twist. I suppose either the ritual that put Tenebrae into slumber/stasis may not have permitted the addition of new memories, or the Evil Thing's arrogance kicked-in and Vitiate/Valkorion believed that this failsafe would never be used, so there was no need to make regular visits to provide the Tenebrae husk with new memories--assuming it was possible to do so.

First off, I want to say that this new name of “Evil Thing” is hilariously great. I worded my original post carefully to ensure that there was a distinction between the consciousness (which I called “Sith Emperor”) and any specific body... “Evil Thing” is a so much better name that I’m almost mad I didn’t come up with it.

 

Bottom line, though, is that I feel like we’re still not passed Step 1 here. Vitiate ans Valkorion are one person. We know this. But it just doesn’t make sense for Valkorion to be “alive” while Vitiate is “dead” on Yavin 4. Even if we assumed that Vitiate was half of Evil Thing’s power, it wouldn’t make sense to have to wait for Revan’s Yavin plan to revive Vitiate and then sacrifice Ziost. Valkorion could just send the Eternal Fleet to bomb a world or two to get his Vitiate power back.

 

It seems like the only way to make this work is if we assume Valkorion was in torpor while Vitiate was dead. Either literally comatose on the Eternal Throne or just on auto-pilot.

Read this post by Charles Boyd from 2017. It may shed some light on your questions.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9347029#post9347029

 

This does help a lot, but ultimately needs one thing clarified: what did Boyd mean when he said that the Emperor “couldn’t risk Valkorion?” He couldn’t risk inhabiting Valk’s body? Or was Valk so weak that he thought that he would be killed if he tried to reach out into the Republic or Empire? That seems almost impossibly weak for him. Could be an interesting idea that he may have lost his Force-Sensitivity for a time, but that’s just an idea.

This does help a lot, but ultimately needs one thing clarified: what did Boyd mean when he said that the Emperor “couldn’t risk Valkorion?” He couldn’t risk inhabiting Valk’s body? Or was Valk so weak that he thought that he would be killed if he tried to reach out into the Republic or Empire? That seems almost impossibly weak for him. Could be an interesting idea that he may have lost his Force-Sensitivity for a time, but that’s just an idea.

 

Read that line again.

 

The assault of Sel-Makor and the final attack by the Jedi Knight take a lot out of him. His ritual is thwarted, and he is too weak to dominate another body or risk Valkorion until he's reinvigorated by Revan's plot in SoR - otherwise, he would've surely done so. He could've used the Fleet to cause the necessary deaths, but he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet - more on that shortly.

 

Beware - here there be spoilers!

 

 

Read that line again.

 

 

 

Beware - here there be spoilers!

 

Valkorion was like another of Vitiate's Voices.

 

Let us step back a moment. Sel-Makor trapped Vitiate on Voss whilst Vitiate was inhabiting a Voss as their Voice due to the machinations of Darth Baras. That imprisonment and having to fight against Sel-Makor weakened Vitiate. The Warrior released Vitiate from Sel-Makor's prison and Vititate returned to their Emperor's Hand to take possession of a new Voice, which is the being that the Jedi Knight kills. The Knight was able to defeat Vitiate at that time because Vitiate was both weakened from the fight with Sel-Makor and because it takes time for Vitiate to fully dominate a new Voice. So when the Knight goes in for that fight at the end of their story Vititate is not a full strength.

 

That defeat left Vititate further weakened and in an incorporeal state. Now the question is why did Vititate not just go slip into their Valkorion flesh suit? That is where the above quote from Charles comes in. Charles acknowledges that Vititate could have gone right to Zakuul, stepped into Valkorion, and used the Eternal Fleet to dominate both the Sith Empire and Republic, but as Charles states, "he wasn't ready to reveal its power to the galaxy yet." But that refers to the Eternal Fleet, but what about Valkorion?

 

As Charles states, Vititate is weakened following the end of the Knight's story. This is likely the weakest Vititate had been in a long time and they likely recognized that at that point they could be ultimately destroyed. Before hopping into Valkorion Vititate wanted to get a recharge, and knowing what we know about Arcaan and Vaylin that was probably a good idea. That recharge came first with Revan's actions on Yavin, and then later with the events on Ziost. Recharged, Vititate then decided to go slip into Vititate and unleash the Fleet.

 

Taking some cues from the recent story it is likely that Valkorion was not a typical Voice like the many others that Vititate dominated in order to rule the Sith Empire. Similar to Tenebrae's original body, Vitiate likely performed a ritual with the original Valkorion to prepare Valkorion as a permanent vessel for Vititate. It is known that Vititate's Voices did not last long. The power of the Emperor burned through the body and it was left ravaged by the dark side. But Valkorion was different and lived for centuries, so it is likely that Vititate did something different and did not simply dominate Valkorion but did something to allow Valkorion to become a permanent vessel. This is also likely what Valkorion was doing to our character in order to prepare them as a permanent vessel. But this is also how Vititate was able to be defeated. It seems that Vititate relied on Valkorion as a sort of anchor. When that was lost Vititate, as Valkorion, had to try to hollow out and prepare our character to be a new vessel, but that meant that Vititate / Valkorion had no anchor, no permanent link because, as it seems from the recent story, Vititate had separated from their original Tenebrae body. It was that lack of an anchor that allowed us to defeat Vitiate / Valkorion once and for all.

 

Depending on if you are a Harry Potter or D&D fan, here is another way to think of it. In a way Valkorion was a horcrux or a phylactery. Like Voldemort's horcruxes or a lich's phylactery until they (the horcrux or phylactery) are destroyed the being could not fully be destroyed. Once Valkorion was destroyed that left Vitiate vulnerable and open to be destroyed. Vitiate / Valkorion was trying to make our character into a new horcrux / phylactery. In that sense, so long as Vititate had Valkorion Vititate had a back-up plan, so Vititate would not want to risk their last option if they were weakened even if Vititate had access to the Eternal Fleet under Valkorion.

 

This is an excellent breakdown of it all!

The one thing that confuses me is : Where did Tenebrae find that Vitiate's face he wears during EoO, if the character is not a Jedi Knight ?

The Knight is the only character (PC or NPC) who actually met and saw this face.

 

He was still wearing the Voss meatsuit when the SW met him, and SW never got the chance to see him again after that as the next human meatsuit was destroyed by the JK.

Scourge and Kira didn't face him either as the JK went with T7, and Satele was not present either.

 

And none of the other classes met Tenebrae in person before meeting him in his Valkorion meatsuit.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Goreshaga

The one thing that confuses me is : Where did Tenebrae find that Vitiate's face he wears during EoO, if the character is not a Jedi Knight ?

The Knight is the only character (PC or NPC) who actually met and saw this face.

 

He was still wearing the Voss meatsuit when the SW met him, and SW never got the chance to see him again after that as the next human meatsuit was destroyed by the JK.

Scourge and Kira didn't face him either as the JK went with T7, and Satele was not present either.

 

And none of the other classes met Tenebrae in person before meeting him in his Valkorion meatsuit.

 

Very good question. It could come from either Kira's or Scourge's mind if they saw a recording made by T7 during the fight with the Emperor. It is possible one of the Emperor's Hand new the face, but neither they nor the Scions seemed to be connected, so probably not. Then also could have come from Satele's mind; formed from holo images of the Voice (which, again, would have to come from T7) and Valkorion.

Very good question. It could come from either Kira's or Scourge's mind if they saw a recording made by T7 during the fight with the Emperor. It is possible one of the Emperor's Hand new the face, but neither they nor the Scions seemed to be connected, so probably not. Then also could have come from Satele's mind; formed from holo images of the Voice (which, again, would have to come from T7) and Valkorion.

Didn't think about T7 recording the fight, but that could be an explaination.

Read this post by Charles Boyd from 2017. It may shed some light on your questions.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9347029#post9347029

Just to add to it all, I have not read the entire thread so sorry if it's been brought up.

 

There's a point in the story, I think during the cryo dream, where Valkorion says something along the lines of "our bodies are not who we are." I always took this to mean that "what you are" wouldn't necessarily have a "body limit" to exhaust (which he sort of showed on Ziost). This is similar to the line quoted by DarthDymond in the linked thread, that "You discern a fraction of reality," meaning that the perspective of one body, one entity if you will, is only a limit that can be transcended by anyone with the power to do so.

Edited January 6, 2021 by JuventusAndFCK

I interpreted it as Vitiate and Valkorion being separate, independent entities. While most of the conscience hopped between bodies, something had to stay behind to manage the bare necessities of the other life, and with Valkorion actually managing an empire, that part may have been so large and strong, that the weakened, disembodied entity that was Vitiate would have been absorbed if it just hopped over to slip into the Valkorion flesh suit.

Could someone please tell me what the Valkorion body was doing between the Knight story’s final mission (killing Vitiate’s human Voice) and Ziost?

 

Vitiate can control multiple people as we see on Ziost. As we learn, the Sith Emperor wanted to have a getaway from sith politics, found Zakuul, found Valkorian (an ancient champion of the Old Ways), hollowed him out, and took control of his body. Began raising Zakuul CENTURIES before events we see. As Marr, says "Your constant silence across our history??! This was your DISTRACTION!" According to Senya, he was very present with the kids at first, then became distracted over time, distant. As Valkorian himself says, "In all my centuries, you alone have merited my full attention." He clearly maintained his voice and control over multiple entities, and put his attention where he saw fit. But he favored Zakuul. It wasn't until recent events (Senya and the kids are obviously not 100's of years old), that things were going on so much in the greater galaxy that took his attention away from Zakuul.

 

Ziost was supposed to have re-empowered the Sith Emperor. But this also does not seem to be true because the Valkorion body was still in existence.

 

He still needed more power as the JK wounded him more than anyone, maybe even wounded his spirit according to Marr in SoR. He needed to regain his power. Which was not enough as we see according to Arcann in KOTFE. He was obviously weaker somehow. ( Remember the Sith Emperor is incorporeal, a spirit, not just a body. Wounding him affects more than just 1 body.)

 

Was the Valkorion body comatose while the Emperor’s spirit was trapped on Yavin 4?

Both bodies at same time. Cite Ziost and both JK and SW storylines as references and evidence.

 

TLDR: Vitiate controlled two bodies. He wanted to build up a perfect society, one to be truly proud of, as well as destroy the galaxy. As with his character, Valkorian never revealed any of his true plans, so would he have spared Zakuul? Or did he just want to test his society building skills, see what it was like to raise a family, and then eat them all like I do pizza? We do not know. What we do know was he wanted to rule over all life and viewed this galaxy, and all others as his to control and play with.

 

There is much more info, but I am tired of typing and this gives enough answers I think to your questions. If you have anymore, just let me know bud

Senya notes that Valk could be distant and not speak to anyone for weeks on end. I take this to mean that the Evil Thing consciousness was somewhere else at the time. As previous commenters mentioned, this was in reference to recent events pre-kotfe.

Senya notes that Valk could be distant and not speak to anyone for weeks on end. I take this to mean that the Evil Thing consciousness was somewhere else at the time. As previous commenters mentioned, this was in reference to recent events pre-kotfe.

^this

 

 

as it seems from the recent story, Vititate had separated from their original Tenebrae body.

 

Yeah, he stayed in his original body for roughly 1000 years after he consumed Nathema until after his fight with Revan. It was then he started using essence transfer.

Edited July 14, 2021 by Enskojare

I’m really, really hoping someone clears this up for me. Whether it’s someone at BioWare or just a diehard fan, I have just one burning question about the Sith Emperor that I now think will never be resolved.

 

Could someone please tell me what the Valkorion body was doing between the Knight story’s final mission (killing Vitiate’s human Voice) and Ziost?

 

This has caused me so much confusion. Yavin 4 was supposed to have revived the Sith Emperor. But that could not be the truth because the Valkorion body was still in existence.

 

Ziost was supposed to have re-empowered the Sith Emperor. But this also does not seem to be true because the Valkorion body was still in existence.

 

The story just doesn’t quite make sense as-is. The relatively small plot hole creates so many questions.

 

Was the Valkorion body comatose while the Emperor’s spirit was trapped on Yavin 4?

Was it cut off from the Force?

Was there a different consciousness within the Valkorion body?

Was this why Valkorion visibly aged in the Sacrifice trailer?

Was it just business as usual in the Valkorion body with Yavin and Ziost just being for the Emperor’s entertainment?

 

I must be missing some detail here, right?

 

Valkorian is centuries old. There are multiple "Voices" as the Voice of the Emperor is just the host body in which he forces his spirit into. The SW codex states that people feel the Voice is having conversations with others while still talking to them. As Senya says: "over time he grew cold distant" about the time we were messing things up for him in the Core Worlds. "The body is just a shell. A vessel for the spirit."

 

Valkorian was running Zakuul for centuries while Vitiate was wrapping up things in the rest of the galaxy. Was he really going to eat everyone? Or just a planet? "His hunger for immortality must always be fed. " We may never know... such a deceptive, lying, evil, secretive man.

 

TLDR: Think of Tenebrae as a man who has no body but more than one body too. He has learned to give his spirit to multiple hosts and live multiple lives. It strains his power, especially when one of the hosts are killed, but he can and has lived in more than one place at one time.

 

The story has less holes when you truly take the time to listen. Plus, the codexes and one-liners you dont think are important (like Servant One and Two reveal ALOT!) add alot of information and fill what gaps are there.

 

As a side note, the visibale aging of Valkorian in the trailer was because time had past. I would say it was because the twins went from infants to teens but truly he has already been around a few centuries so maybe having kids gave him extra stress and therefore more grays? lol.

 

Just like tootsie pops.... the world may never know