When we take off, we get this cutscene...
BAD TOUCH BAD TOUCH
We'll leave Malak to his torture chamber for now.
"THANK YOU. THAT'S VERY KIND."
No problem. Let's check back in with the crew of the Ebon Hawk.
Holy crap, the Star Forge! It...it... looks like the symbol on Varen's EEVIL underwear. That's... weird.
That's a LOT of ships.
We may be dangerously approaching reference overload here.
"Unless they look out a window."
"Windows are a structural weakness. Sith have no use for them."
"That's Geth. That's the Geth you're thinking of."
"...no, I'm pretty sure it's the Sith."
"Carth, if you don't shut the fuck up, I'll write the ending to Dragon Age III the same way I wrote the ending to Mass Effect 3."
"...you wouldn't."
"And then, it turns out that the leader of the Darkspawn is an ancient starchild who created the Darkspawn..."
"AUUUUGH! Ok, fine, just don't say any more!"
"CANDEROUS! ON THE GUN TURRETS!"
"Can't! I'm sharpening my knives!"
"Zaalbar! What about you?"
"I'm too busy brooding, sorry."
"Jolee? You maybe want to save our lives?"
"Ah, this reminds of a time when..."
"Ah! No! Forget I asked. What's the point of having slaves when you can't make them perform tedious minigames for you?"
"Are you giving me orders, Carth?"
"Er..."
"The Starchild created the Darkspawn to stop the seemingly inevitable war between mages and normals, by waging war against them and killing them all..."
"No! No more! Please!"
Bioware decided that they needed a tiny bit of padding before the final planet, so they stuck this little turret sequence in.
"Technobabble explaining why things are bad!"
Ooh. Purdy.
Well that was...anticlimactic. I've seen far messier landings than this!
"Psh. We'll show you a proper crash landing. A crash landing so amazing, that it'll completely break the plot! See you in the sequel!"
Bye, Mr.Avellone.
"Mission, if you thought the landing was that bad, maybe it was YOU that was on the all-night tarisian ale binge."
"Hmm. I wonder why the Sith ships aren't affected by the disruptor field..."
"And this is a bad thing...why?"
"Ooh, I love ransacking ancient temples and stealing a culture's greatest secrets. Let's go check it out."
"What? Oh, her. I guess I could use another slave."
"Bah! Even their powers combined, they will be no match for me, Revan! The Dark Lord of the Sith!"
"If Bastila's joined Malak she'll suffer the same fate he does!"
"I do."
And so, we set out on the sands of this mysterious world, searching for the means to get to the Star Forge. It isn't long, however, before the Locals arrive...
"Oh, look, it's the dude from the Mind Prison. Hey, dude from the Mind Prison! What's up?"
"Oh...I see you brought a friend."
"...bugger."
Our incredible powers of awesomeness make short work of our assailants, and upon their defeat, figures emerge from the rocks.
Hey, look! It's the same two Duros character models they use for every Duros in this game!
"If I had known you were there, I would have waited a couple of minutes..."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Well, at least that's true. What are you doing here?"
"Where are the rest of your companions?"
"Those things killed the others?"
"There are Mandalorians here??"
"Where are they?"
"Why don't you try to get to one of the other islands?"
"Query: Why did you give those meatbags friendly advice, master?"
"Advice? There were sharks in the water! Space-sharks. C'mon, let's go watch the fun."
Off topic here, (yeah, like I NEVER do that) but wouldn't it be cool if the next big threat to the Star Wars galaxy was not Sith, not Yuuzhan Vong, but SPACE-SHARKS! With LAZER BEAMS attached to their heads! And they fly around with jetpacks, and have round helmets like you see on Flash Gordon! ... Well, at least it would be better than that scarily unfunny "Detours" thing they're doing. Yeesh.
...OH! And the twist could be that the leader of the Space Sharks (from another dimension) IS A SHARK SITH! Dun dun dunnn!
...I'll stop now.
Making our way up the beach, we encounter more mysterious aliens...which are no longer mysterious because the game thankfully labels them "Rakata".
I hate it when RPGs do this. The only one I can think of off the top of my head that avoided this was Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines (Awesome game BTW), every other one under the sun tells you what the enemies are when you're fighting them. C'mon, leave some mystery!
We make pretty short work of them, and press on.
obvious joke and moving on
"Rakata? The One? What are you talking about?"
"Statement: I apologize, Master. My exposition mode was turned on."
"No, I'm going to do the bathing later."
"Who is the One? Is he really Keanu Reeves? What's going on here?"
"Ok, he sounds badass enough to be worthy of my interest. Lead on."
"What the fuck are you babbling about?"
"The Jedi Council scrambled my brains, destroyed my mind and memories. Some people say it drove me insane, but I just think it made me more awesome."
"What was this vow, exactly?"
"All right. But you gotta answer my questions first."
"Yous should probably start with the last time I was here."
Holy crap! Varen is way beyond her, but Old Revan would still pull some seriously nasty shit.
"What about the disruptor field?"
"Do you have any parts we might use to repair our ship?"
"Tell me about the temple of the ancients."
"Tell me more about the Elders."
"I'll be back after I kill the Elders. Maybe you can show me some Bullet Time then."
"So, where are these secrets? On their computer? In a folder marked "Porn" as a clever facade?"
"Why do you think that?"
"I'll be back when I get that book."
We leave the chamber of the one, and head over to talk to the Loremaster of the tribe.
Now, I have to warn you, there is a MASSIVE history dump here that explains the history of the Rakata. What I'll do is summarise it in the next part, but also include an interlude where you can hear all the gory details. Either way is good.
So, in summary:
-The Rakatan world used to be really sucky, but beings came, that the Rakata believe to be their gods, and terraformed the planet to make it nice. The Rakatans hid underground during the great terraforming, and it turned their skin black.
-There was lots of infighting between the civilizations on Rakata, because of the Rakatans inherently violent nature, kinda like a big game of Civ where everyone is going for a military victory. Eventually, these Civilizations fell, and the First Empire rose from the ashes.
-The First Empire was the first to leave Rakata and spread itself throughout the galaxy, further than the Republic had ever gone before. They enslaved many races, and constructed the Star Forge, among other things.
-They're not entirely sure why the First Empire fell, though they think it might have had something to do with Rakatan doppelgangers. Personally, I think their versions of Tony Blair and George Bush fucked up the economy by waging pointless wars, which caused the deficit to spiral out of control, and destroy the Empire.
-From the ashes, the warring tribes of today emerged. They have been fighting each other without relent, desperately trying to gain more land. It was not until the One that a tribe has been more than marginally successful.
-The One is waging a War of reformation, and has conquered many islands. He has been halted at the temple by the Elders, and has been here for a long time. He's basically Adolf Hitler, with googly eyes.
Before we leave, we have a chat with this guy.
"I wield the force, yes."
"You idiots don't know the half of it."
"The true nature of the force is the strength to project your will upon reality.
"One as weak and pathetic as yourself could never see the true power in it."
We leave the One's compound, and proceed towards the Elder's encampment.
"When we get out of this backwater dump, I'm going to start mass producing some Robot Rancors on my new Star Forge."
"What was that, Revan?"
"Err...nothing. Nothing at all."
"Yeah, I kicked your asses pretty good."
"I know the beings you are talking about."
"Ok, I love killing, so I'll find these Mandalorians. But I'm doing it for the art of it, not to help you."
"...and?"
"Why don't I just take that information?"
"A person I can't torture? Egad! Very well, I'll do it."
We leave the One's beach, and make our way to the Temple Compound.
We encounter some Wild Rnacors, however, they're only babby ones, so we don't have too much trouble.
And here's the Temple in all it's glory. Pretty amazing, isn't it? Though, I must say, this planet's moon is friggin' GIGANTIC.
Near the temple, we find this Obelisk-like object. We move closer to inspect it, and...
...bollocks.
This is actually a tough fight. You're debilitated right from the beginning by the twin effects of poison and immobility, which means that the Mandalorians have free reign to wail on you for the first few turns. However, wants you are free to move, we don't have much trouble.
The Mandalorians dead, we progress down to the Elder's encampment.
R.I.P
Random Gizka
Update 38-Update 38
