Part 18: The Storyteller

Part 18: The Storyteller

Last time, we found our second Star Map on Tatooine, killed a krayt dragon and Calo Nord, and managed to deal with the Sand People with minimal violence. Speaking of the Sand People, they mentioned we would need to bring them a krayt dragon pearl if we wanted to hear the history of their people, and as it turns out we now have a krayt dragon pearl.



Ah, he's happy to see us. Let's see what he thinks of this dragon pearl.





Oh, good.



Well, it kind of is. It's not every day an outsider gets to hear the history of the Sand People.







Translation: There is only one accepted history, passed orally to each successive generation. Translation: A book or datapad can be taken away, cheapening the value of what it contains. To commit it to paper or storage is to remove it from the people.

Okay then.



I don't think we should go "EXCUSE ME GOOD SIR BUT ORAL HISTORIES ARE OFTEN INACCURATE" at this point.



Translation: The only exception is in continuing the tales once they have begun. If you leave, when you return he will continue from where he left off.

HK, we're over here. For some reason, he decided to glitch out like this until I very carefully moved us into position to actually start the story.



All right. Let's hear it.



Translation: Though the land was beautiful, they lived apart from the land. They built their walls high, and saw beyond the horizon. They dared to reach to the stars. Translation: There are no words for how long ago this was. It was before the outsiders, before the abduction, before the cities fell. Before the Builders.



After each part of the story, we can ask questions about it. I'll leave the questions for later, for now let's just continue.



Translation: Great demons of metal stripped the world of its riches, until all that was left was the green of the ground. The great cities were lifted away. Translation: Those that had used the wealth were taken along with it; transgressors abducted to serve past the sky, seeding the stars with penitent, adaptable slaves.

Continue with the history.

Translation: There came a time when the Builders were also judged for their crimes. After generations, a plague weakened them, and the time of the great war began. Translation: The Builders faltered, and his people realized why they had been punished: so that they understood the crime, and would now strike down the greater offender. Translation: They worked chaos in the machines so they destroyed themselves. The Builders fought back, laying waste to the green that had been misused with fire from above. Translation: Soil became glass, grinding to sand, but the fight was long-planned, and his people were safe. Deep in cave- homes carved from valley wall, they were free.

And that, apparently, is why Tatooine is now a desert. Well, at least in the Star Wars Legends continuity. Nothing about the Builders seems to be canon any longer.





Rather than strain my circuits on his dialect, might we just assume there was much fighting over who has the biggest bantha and move to more recent things?



We didn't come here and hand over the pearl just to get the abridged version! Get to it, HK. I want to hear who had the biggest and fuzziest bantha.







Translation: Then machines fell from the stars again. Outsiders, like you, that brazenly walked apart from the land. And greater still was the insult to come. Translation: These outsiders reminded them of their past transgressions, of the time when they too walked apart from land. The outsiders - your kind - look like their ancient abducted. Translation: So it is to the current suns, that the Sand People hate all outsiders and give them no footing. You come again, time after time, adaptable slaves to the machine.

The implication there seems to be that humans actually descended from the Sand People - or whatever they were called at the time - who got abducted thousands of years ago and spread all over the galaxy as slaves of the Builders.





I believe I have truncated it down to the useable bits in what was already said. I hope it is enough, master.

Fine work, HK.



Now let's ask some questions about the story.





These are in reverse chronological order, but it doesn't really matter. Let's start with the long walk.



Really, master, I'm sure it's important to him, but it has nothing of value that you could ever put to use.

okay fine



Clarification: The occupying force suffered some sort of species-wide plague that lowered their numbers over time. His people used this extended weakness to sabotage their larger ships. The response of the Builders appears to have been to lay waste to the entire surface of Tatooine.



Clarification: I may not have properly conveyed how long they fought with the Builders. Given time, any number of armaments could destroy a world. Hypothesis: Perhaps this is another distortion. Their climate may have begun to fail due to their unrestrained development even before the Builders arrived.



I don't think they'd appreciate it if we suggested that as a possibility, so let's ask more questions.



That does not mean they defeated anyone. It seems clear that the Builders simply sterilized their problem and left. The enemy judged them not worthy to fight.

How could they survive such an attack?

Hypothesis: If his people were moving away from technology for a long time under the Builders, they may have had extensive cave systems that could grant shelter. I would also suggest that, given the evidence of the massive shift in the nature of their society, most of them did not survive.

I want to ask something about the time of enslavement.

Clarification: I believe they were occupied by this technologically superior species for a substantial period. Stripping an entire planet of useable resources would have taken generations.

How many of his people were taken off-world?

Translation: He has no number. He claims that those that were taken were examples of the worst of his kind, arrogant and uncaring of the land. Doubtful: Master, this is just another distortion due to their demonization of the Builders. It's like claiming an aspect of his people were taken, not actual individuals.

Maybe.





Again, probably shouldn't suggest anything of the sort to them.



Makes sense.





Is there anything in the galactic record that would verify this?

Negative: I am no library, but since there is no Republic record of this planet having sentient life before Czerka colonization, I doubt you will find such evidence.

Ask him if these Builders resemble any modern species.

Translation: He only understands the Builders as an iconic force meant to test the resolve of his people. He is not making sense, master. Clarification: They claim their stories are repeated unchanged, but they have demonized these Builders. In their minds, they wreaked such havok they could not possibly be flesh and blood.

That is not a typo (I'm actually using Capture2Text for most of this, so that can be blamed for some weird typos in the dialogue transcripts that I may not catch - there are existing dialogue transcripts available online as well, but grabbing the relevant lines from the screenshots is faster than wading through the dialogue trees), the subtitles actually do say "havok".





This has become very much like a creation myth for his people. There is no date; it simply was.

That was the history of the Sand People in its entirety. I never listen to that on my actual playthroughs because you do lose the krayt dragon pearl, but I wanted to show it off in the LP because it's pretty interesting.

I may also still have that krayt dragon pearl and this entire scene may not have actually happened on the playthrough, but let's pretend it did and that I... uh, found an extra pearl for one of our lightsabers.

Anyway, I'll cut this one right here because we've got a lot of stuff and a lot of to get through. I'll post the next "proper" update in a few hours' time, consider this one something of a bonus even though it still keeps the regular numbering.