So i-am-agent-washingtub made the mistake of asking me about Arlys and Quinn so info dump under the cut! A lot of it is headcanon and not explicitly stated in the game itself, but whatever. It is practically canon for the stuff I write. Major spoilers for the Sith Warrior storyline in SWTOR below the cut. Definitely don't read if you are planning on playing the game!
It is expected for a Sith apprentice to betray their master. Arlysâ master, Darth Baras, is a very cunning and manipulative man and right from the beginning puts plans in motion to kill Arlys before she can become a threat. One of these plans involved maneuvering one of his soldiers into Arlysâ crew as a spy. That soldier is Quinn. Yes, professionalism is a major reason why he tries to ignore his feelings for Alrys, but the fact that he has been betraying her from the very beginning is another.
Now Quinn is incredibly smart. He practically takes over running the ship once he joins up. (Seriously I have no idea how Arlys even functioned before he showed up. Can she even fly the ship? No, her friend Vette probably did it for her.) He probably could have buried all traces of his connection to Baras and continued his relationship with Arlys as normal and never revealed his treachery. Sure, there is the chance that Baras would reveal it at some point but there wouldnât really be any proof. I donât think he would be able to live with himself though. He is incredibly loyal and I think he hated himself every time he lied to her.
After Baras tries to kill Arlys, Quinn is forced to act. He lures Arlys to an abandoned space station where he gives a dramatic monolog, which is very out of character for him, and attacks her with robots he claims were specially created to kill her. As I said before Quinn is incredibly smart. He always has all sorts of contingency plans set up for every scenario. He also talks about statistical probabilities of success before various missions so I imagine he has a very good idea of just how powerful Arlys is so if he wanted to kill her he probably could. (I wouldn't be surprised if he had handy graphs etc of strengths/weaknesses of everyone he has ever met, the nerd.) The fact that the battle was incredibly easy leads me to believe he never had any intention of winning. He had seen how she reacts to betrayal and it always ended in death so he decided to paint himself as the villain, allowing her to kill him without remorse so (hopefully) it would be easier for her to move on.
Unfortunately she cared about him too much. She did a lot of growing during her time with her crew and had actually let herself care about people for the first time. She learned a lot too and became a slightly better person. She had even started to trust Baras, which was of course a huge mistake. Baras betraying her was bad but she could handle it. Quinn, though, made her doubt everyone and everything in her life and made her close up again. She was used to anger and hatred; she was a Sith after all. She had no idea what to do with grief though. Killing was usually how she dealt with these situations, but she just couldn't kill Quinn because even after everything she just couldn't stop caring about him.
Luckily she actually has friends who care about her now so they wonât let her close herself off for too long. Quinn still works for Arlys, but she canât really look or talk to him anymore. None of the other people on the ship know what happened so it is all super awkward and there is a ton of tension. Quin is completely dedicated to her, of course, and is doing everything he can to prove it but I havenât completely figured out where Arlys and Quinnâs relationship goes from here. Iâd like to work towards some semblance of a happy ending but all I have written for after the betrayal is super angsty.
