#swtor thoughts

And Scourge announcing to him, "I promised I'd help train your kids."

All three of these scales are totally independent. A sith can be loyal to the Empire and also use the Light Side of the force to fight, like @kemendin’s Khel Sutek. A Sith can also be totally out for themselves and dark side, but still smart and not just gonna murder people willy nilly.. or they can be loyal and also totally feral. Possibilities!

ooh yes! 2 and 3 are easy, its Balmorra and Voss. Mainly because the other options (taris belsavis quesh corellia and hoth) are all annoying or meh to me. ch 1 and prologue are a bit harder but I'm gonna have to say Nar Shaddaa and Tython for those --

Voss has cool lore, I like the design and the autumn vibes and of course the prophecies!! and the colors. did I mention the colors. and the vision you get in the planetary quest is SICK

I've mentioned I love Balmorra before but still. The aesthetic is great, the first big action/war-ish planet, there are actually big things happening and changing and most to all classes play a pivotal role. Also most of the best companions come from there (eg Zenith Doc Quinn Akaavi etc.). also the music is GREAT

Of all the city/underworld planets, Nar Shaddaa pulls off the vibe best, even though it's not technically a planet. It's got the glitz and the ruined ghettos and the gang wars and the black markets and all the cool stuff about a city planet with huge issues. Most of my characters hate Nar Shaddaa, and it's frankly a pretty awful place, but as a city girl I'm personally a huge fan.

Tython is not my favorite planet ever, but it's pretty good and it's better than the other options (*cough* hutta). The Jedi deserve their own planet. the Flesh Raiders are great, as are the Twi'leks. I like the themes related to colonization, how much the Jedi will let the Republic get in their business, and the way that the Flesh Raider invasion forces new Jedi to confront things like "is it okay to kill sentient beings in self defense? what about preventatively? how justified are we REALLY in killing them when they were here and we're the interlopers?" of course none of this really gets explored but it's interesting to think about, personally.

The time when Aela's little network really shined was the Zakuul occupation. It was originally just a loose network that sponsored cells wanting to fight back against any kind of unfairness on either side of the party line. It did things, but nothing concentrated - cells did their own thing. They weren't united or working towards any kind of common goal. That changed once both the Empire AND Republic had caved to Zakuul - because what was that if not oppression at a large scale, that everyone in the network could agree to hate? So the network shifted, and grew, and soon it was the primary force behind resistance to the Eternal Empire all over the galaxy.

The Eternal Fleet couldn't be fought straight on, and most of the might of the Empire and Republic was tied up because of their agreements with the Throne. But the network wasn't sponsored by either nation. They didn't even know about it. And if Zakuul doesn't know where the attacks are coming from, there's nothing for the Eternal Fleet to bombard.

So that was a long few years. Aela worked her butt off making inroads to Wildspace and the Zakuul Empire's region of space, looking for pockets of potential resistance, ways to get agents in or contacts or ANYTHING usable. Suddenly there's need to sneak things through blockades, for example, and crack the Zakuul communication codes, and of course the biggest problem is the Fleet. How can it be compromised, how does it work?? How do their sensors work, how does the tech work. Can we capture on of the units, reverse engineer it or at least get some data on its strengths and weaknesses?

Then she gets word that an Alliance is forming. a formal resistance movement, of sorts, sponsored by important people from both sides, rallying around the sith she could never get a fix on. Vector immediately sees the potential. Sees the potential, and more important sees that they need a lot more manpower and assistance than they currently have. And he also sees that Aela is adament that they will not be joining. No official organizations. No Force users. This would be giving up her anonymity and it would be committing, to a specific cause and there are strings, there are always strings.

But Vector is a diplomat, and he knows how to work her, and after a good while of working on her and pointing out all the benefits and reminding her that this is oppression too, and do they really support freedom if they pass by this opportunity to really make a difference? and finally Aela caves. She contacts her cells, and invites them to join (not forcing, of course. never forcing) and to share what they have learned, and she herself brings an extensive network of contacts, contacts that are already plenty happy to work across borders and motivated to do it for the right reasons.

And no, Aela doesn't like being In Charge or making decisions in a war room for the rest of the galaxy. She doesn't like working with Force users, powerful ones, that she can't predict. Not at all. But they're gonna be doing this with her or without her, and as long as she is there, she can lobby for her own interests, for what she thinks ought to be done. She has a LOT of ideas... and she is stubborn, and she will push for what she thinks is right relentlessly.

yo @catohphm I'd be interested to see your answers to this if you're game