Thanks to 5.9, we do now have a slightly clearer picture of the order of events and who the true mastermind is (spoiler: it’s GEMINI 16 aka, our little explorer bot we got a mail about after KotFE Chapter 16), and as far as I can tell, the Chiss explicitly became involved in the Order’s plans after Umbara, after they got their Adegan crystals for… yeah, I still haven’t parsed that one. There’s a lot of dangling plot threads I’m still trying to puzzle out.

But in the short story on the dev blogs, Chasing Copero, Theron meets with a contact in an alley who got her info on the location of Valky’s starmap from her spy girlfriend who’s grandad was part of the team that did a little raid on Sith assets for a little insurance.

(As an aside, I love that in the KotFE+ stuff they are taking such care to try and fill the galaxy with LGBT folks ♥ even with the background characters. It’s a subtle, but nice touch.)

There’s a bunch of Chiss politics going on:

“Works for me. Files say the Mitth family runs things on Copero. Is that right?”

Pova shook her head again. “Their shipbuilding business has hit some hard times. House Inrokini bailed them out with a huge investment, so they’re the real power these days. Not that Mitth advertises the fact, of course.”

“Sounds like I need to make some friends from Inrokini, then.”

Most of what I know of the Chiss politics and the cultural structure comes from @andveryginger​, so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt because I’ve probably misunderstood a few things here and there and could be wiiiildly off-base.

There are several ruling houses in the Ascendancy, and Mitth I think was supposed to be one of the more powerful ones in this time. They’re big on chess games and maintaining appearances, so it’s possible there’s always something just a little more than meets the eye initially when it comes to dealing with the Chiss society (I think?).

But the gist is, Theron decides he needs to make some friends within House Inrokini, and so he sells some “Alliance secrets” (which I bet was some intel that looked interesting on the surface but was mostly harmless) to Zenta, the Syndic of House Inrokini. Ambient dialogue from Saganu (that you hear during one of the bonus missions) indicates she’s been collecting both Alliance and Ascendancy secrets for “some time”, something Theron likely knew about and exploited to get in. This also indicates Zenta’s power play and rogue status within the Ascendancy is not a new thing, it just finally caught up to her here. Which also brings us to Valss.

Valss:

Aristocra Saganu - Commander, I must warn you: years ago, Zenta risked her status to adopt a powerful Force-sensitive into her family.

Aristocra Saganu - The Chiss consider Force-users to be contaminated, impure. Without Zenta’s support, Valss would be banished–or worse.

Player - You know how to make me feel welcome. / Player - So he’ll protect her to the end.

Aristocra Saganu - You’re an exception, Commander. You’ve made the Chiss proud. But Valss is dangerous–expect a formidable enemy. / Aristocra Saganu - Valss is unstable, and fights to the death for what he believes in. Expect a formidable enemy.

It looked like Valss was originally written as Zenta’s biological brother, but at launch this was changed for Valss to be a merit adoptive. So, the question of Valss’s birth origin, as well as how Saganu knows just how unstable and fanatical he is is an interesting question, which I’ll float an interesting theory @andveryginger came up with in a bit.

But it looks like the gist is, once Valss’s Force Sensitivity was discovered, he was about to be banished or killed, when Zenta swooped in to bring him into her fold. Considering all of her actions so far have been shown to be a clever calculation and part of some larger chess game to “protect her people and keep House Inrokini safe”, indicates she saw some use in him (and is probably less driven out of a sense of compassion for someone who is on the verge of losing everything).

He clearly has very advanced Force training, and is extremely strong in the Force, and seems to also have Force visions which I’m guessing lends into his fanaticism. My best guess is that Zenta earns Valss’s fanatical loyalty by taking him in and giving him a place when he feels like he’s been cast out, and then likely finds a way to get him trained so he can use his natural talents for her when the time comes. 

I suspect that whatever training Valss went through it was not through the normal channels of Jedi/Sith, or even Zakuul. He demonstrates a lot of raw power and mastery in his fight, but not necessarily a lot of discipline, and swaps between Force powers and regular weapons throughout the fight. It’s also indicated that Zenta’s top people put a great amount of stock in whatever vision Valss had, which indicates to me that even as Chiss they had some amount of trust in him despite him being an ickle impure Force Sensitive.

So what the heck was up with Valss’s “vision” anyway? Like, I was confused when the Copero flashpoint first dropped, because the more I looked at everything, the more vague everything was. Valss’s vision is never actually stated outright. Zenta says that he had a vision of “Shan’s victory”, and this is what Valss himself has to say:

So on the surface this seems to indicate that Valss and Theron are total bros and are saving the galaxy together, right? That Valss is just wanting to stop the apocalypse as well? Except… Theron’s body language and facial expressions during the first scene seem to indicate otherwise.

He breaks character when Valss can’t see his face, his expression drops, and he looks torn and scared. But exactly what about? Failing and the vision not being true? Or the visions coming true? Because whatever it is, he doesn’t want to share that with Valss. His tr8r mask slides back in place before he turns back to face our Force!Chiss and he makes a vague statement that he hopes Valss’s vision is true “for all our sakes”. I mean, that could seriously be taken either way.

Theron stated in Nathema Conspiracy that he’s trying to stall the Order’s plan and get the Alliance intel at this point, and it’s also heavily implied that his every word and move is being monitored by GEMINI 16. Does her surveillance powers extend to the Chiss Ascendancy? 

If they do, then she’s listening to every word being said, and he’s not going to risk his ability to get intel back to the Alliance by going “YEAH FUCK ZILDROG LET’S TAKE HIM DOWN” if Valss’s vision was about Theron’s success in saving the galaxy from Zildrog. If that’s the case, then that would mean that Valss is pro-apocalypse and his fanaticism is about striking back at something, possibly the Ascendancy for casting him out. This means Theron’s “I hope that’s true” is part of his tr8r schtick.

However if GEMINI 16 isn’t monitoring Theron while he’s on Copero, does that mean Valss got this intense Force vision of Theron saving the galaxy and he’s ultimately a good guy who’s just like really intense and maybe vaguely creepy/flirty in the way he stares at his fellow galactic saviors? Then it means he’s actually not vaguely double-speaking here and is truly hoping that Valss’s vision of victory means that everyone doesn’t die horribly.

Like seriously WHAT IS THIS VISION and how does Valss explain it to everyone around him so they’re all “yeah, let’s just leave Zenta to rot, sounds awesome! Escape!helicopter tiiiiiime!”

Look I know it’s a shuttle but I need someone in Star Wars at some point to say “GET TO THE CHOPPA NOW!” let me have this plz

But, there’s some cut dialogue that wasn’t used (meaning it’s technically not canon), that honestly clears absolutely nothing up:

Like seriously, I read it once and I’m like “Oh, that indicates Valss is coo coo for cocoa puffs” and wants to set everything ablaze, but then I read it again and I’m like “Wait, Zenta indicates that Valss doesn’t understand the danger they’re in”, but then Valss is like “Why are you hesitating Shaaaaan?” and we know Theron is on the anti-apocalypse end of the spectrum so why would he be hesitating in front of someone that fanatically believes in him because a Force vision said that everything would be hunky dory?

(I mean, beyond Theron’s “who needs the Force?” hangups.)

His boss barks too are something of note (the white text I’m less sure of is in the game… but hey, I’ll share anyway), and while they are still ambiguous “he”, “we”, I’m taking this to mean someone’s drunk the Zildrog Culty Kool-Aid:

(”He” could be Theron – but it could also be Zildrog.)

Like, honestly, you could pick just about any headcanon for Valss’s motivations and there’s enough canonical evidence we have in hand at the moment to back it up. In other words:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Personally, I’m going to take Saganu at his word that Valss is completely unhinged, and I suspect that he lies closer to the Zildrog end of the apocalypse spectrum. Saganu’s dialogue seems to indicate that Valss is fanatical about causes, not people, which explains his kind of creepy lingering stares at Theron during the holomap scene are motivated more by his glee at seeing his plans realized – and less because he wants to get into Theron’s pants because jfc fandom not everything is about sex

And for what it’s worth, Wookieepedia seems to think he’s part of the Order of Zildrog too. 

Feel free to pick your own motivation and interpretation of him, because unless Charles Boyd, Timothy Zahn, or any of the other writers clarify, it’s going to remain a mystery.

Oh, and speaking of that… ;)

Valss’s Origins

Let’s circle back to the mystery of Valss’s origins, because it seemed fairly straight-forward, that is, until the livestream with the devs and Zahn from earlier this year. Now again, I’m not really all that hip to the nuance of Chiss stuff, but even I got a little confused that when the question came up about Zenta, Valss, and Saganu’s full names, they declined to answer that question on the grounds that their complete names could be revealed in the future.

I was chatting with @andveryginger​ at the time, and she’s a big Saganu fan and was like “Wait… we know Saganu’s name!” and when I asked if it was stated in canon (because again, I still need to finish the IA storyline), she said no, but that it should have been easily inferred from his background revealed in the Vanilla!IA storyline and the composition of Chiss names.

So in theory, Saganu’s full Chiss name should be: Miurani'saga'nuruodo – but why is that a mystery? Why is Zenta’s a mystery? And why is Valss’s one?

There’s apparently this obscure concept that’s been used maybe once or twice in Legends regarding Chiss society, and that’s the concept of a Shadow Child. An extra child or heir born into important families as a “spare” to keep family bloodlines from being wiped out by rivals. That means there’s a small possibility that revealing the full name of Valss (and Zenta by extension) would reveal that he might be a blood relation of Saganu’s. Because remember Saganu’s description of him?

Sure that intel could have come from intel of spying on rival families or just ordinary Chiss prejudice against Force users, but man, that almost sounds like personal knowledge/experience speaking to me. 

If Valss was Saganu’s biological relative (possibly brother), considering all of the twisty and entangled web of Chiss politics that I can barely begin to really comprehend, their society’s disdain for the “impurity” of Force Sensitives (to the point of exiling or “worse”), and the fact that Zenta goes out of her way to bring him into her fold for mysterious, likely political reasons – it would be a recipe for political disaster – especially if this rogue family member went off and did something stupid like join an Apocalypse cult and risk all of the Ascendancy dying in flames.

However, the livestream indicated that there might be more Chiss-centric stuff coming in the future. My best guess is likely not in the upcoming expansion, since they’ve stated over and over the focus is Republic vs Empire (and not focused on a third party, ie: the Chiss), and after the events of of Copero no matter what happens, the Chiss political arena gets a little heated and they have to withdraw from Alliance stuff.