Part 14: Nar Shaddaa: "The Idea of You Fighting a Jedi is Ridiculous."

We're continuing on our quest to piss off the local mafia enough so they come after us.





"Jekk'Jekk Tarr?"
"A bar of poisonous fumes... but refreshing to members of his species. We cannot go in there to retrieve them without proper protection. So here we wait for our captain to inhale enough to lose consciousness, then he will stumble back here - but by then, we will have missed our departure date. He is a Weequay. They are untrusting and superstitious and our captain is a prime example."



Well let's just go to this bar and talk to the guy.



This is the Jekk'Jekk Tarr.

I'm not going to lie, the name is pretty awesome. My neighbourhood bar is called the Frog and Furters. Or Fox and Hound. Or Moxy's, or something. I don't remember. I know if it was called the Jekk'Jekk Tarr I'd sure remember.



"You're human. If you step in there, you'll be dead before you take two steps."
"And you're going to stop me?"
"No need - your death is certain should you enter Jekk'Jekk Tarr."







The whole place filled with poisonous gases? Aw, how bad can it be?







Anyway poison isn't so bad. Not when you have a gas mask handy.

What's that Atton? You don't have a gas mask?



I can't hear you. It's so noisy in here!



"... you fucking asshole."
"Dwoooooo."



"You the captain of the Lunar Shadow?"
"Yes... and that ungrateful crew is always hounding and slashing at me with their filthy words. It is my ship! I make the rules!"



Force 'Persaude'.



We're more or less done with the docking area, so we're off to the Refugee Sector. This is the dump that all the war refugees have been shoveled into.



It's basically a level of boxes. This is worse than Telos. Just boxes and crates and more crates, it's like something made from 1994 with the Build engine.



Now normally I'd blame this on the tight development timeline, unpolished content, etc., but the concept drawing is pretty damning evidence. They purposely designed a level full of nothing but boxes.

Of all the things that shouldn't be written on any concept drawing ever, "wall of crates" and "crates should all be the same" ranks right up there.



For a quick intro to the area we can talk to this guy.

"You've got the Serroco refugees over on the skyward side. They're veterans from the Serroco campaign and don't take kind to strangers. And on the inner side, you've got the Overseer and his Exchange. They've been pushing us refugees pretty hard lately."
"What does the Exchange do to the refugees?"
"Occasionally their thugs kidnap people and sell them into slavery with the Hutts. They've also hemmed us in... we used to live all throughout this area, but they've crammed us all in here now. They're trying to break our spirit."
"This may be an opportunity for us. If we can make life miserable enough for the refugees, they will capitulate. The Exchange will be a valuable ally to us."
"I will consider your suggestion."
"Then you will come to realize its wisdom."

Ah, the sweet smell of despair. If you're evil, you can convince them to give up and sell themselves into slavery.



"You might be right. But I can't imagine why else they'd be coming down on us. If you could convince either the Exchange or the Serroco to give us more space, that would really help a lot."

Oh, sounds like some heads need to be beaten.



Jesus heals the sick and helps the poor.



"In these close quarters, everyone might get infected."
"You're not going to kill me, are you? Please don't kill me..."
[Treat Injury] "Your illness doesn't look very serious to me. Let me help."

This is one of the few times you can use Treat Injury in a conversation.



There's some other things you can do here.

Killing him outright would be the easiest. The evilest option is having enough skill in Treat Injury to realize he's not that sick, then lying to him about his disease. Then you convince him to kill himself to prevent the disease from spreading. Oi.





A lightsaber crystal, but no lightsaber to put it in yet.



"The Overseer... Saquesh... he took my daughter to sell to the Hutts. All because I told him I could not pay his tribute. I owe Saquesh 600 credits. I don't have enough."
"Can I help you get her back?"



"I'll make sure he doesn't do that."

Healing the diseased, saving little children... Kreia would have a coronary.



Let's talk a little about the Serrocans. Their planet was shared by humans and Sterebs, a kind of pink hairless wookiee-type alien. It was a major battle site during the Mandalorian Wars; naturally, they got their asses kicked by the Mandalorians and ended up scattered around the galaxy.





They all have the Chinese-looking head models from KOTOR 1.

I guess there actually is a planet full of Asians out there somewhere.



[Success] "All right. We'll lay off a bit."
"Not good enough. Disarm yourselves."
"No chance."

Whoops, pushed a bit too far.



Diplomacy is great, but killing them all pays off in experience points.



Did you know you could get the Serroco thugs to attack the Exchange?

"I heard you've been looking for me."
[Persuade/Intimidate] "Stop harassing the refugees."
[Success] "Hmm... Then what would you propose me and my men do?"
"Why don't you deal with the Exchange? I know they're encroaching on your space here. I have a plan to drive them out of this sector."
"Do you now? Suppose I were interested. What's this plan of yours?"
[Force Persuade] "Attack the Exchange now."
[Success] "We'll go and make our move. Men, let's take them out!"

You could persuade them to attack from the north or south, or from both sides. Presumably they'd kill each other off and make it easier for you to move in on the Exchange yourself. It seemed like lot of the code for this was there, it just got cut at the last minute.





Next up, the Exchange. They're mostly made up of Gamorreans, but they won't attack you unless you try to steal stuff.



This is kid we're suppose to rescue. I hate kids.



"Then maybe you ought to keep a tighter leash on his tentacles, vac-brain. Because he's running this sector into the ground. Saquesh and his thugs torture the humans, make everyone's lives miserable. After I'm sold, at least I'll have someone making sure I stay alive. My mom owes Saquesh some credits. So he took me to sell me to the Hutts. They always need spice handlers for their camps... a lot of people die down there."
"You don't sound too concerned about it."
"Anything is better than this slum."

"Are you Adana?"
"Oooh... the ugly thug knows my name. Can it also count? What's two plus two?"
"Five."
"Hah! You and me should play some high stakes Pazaak."



"Wait here while I settle matters with Saquesh."
"Oh goody. I was hoping I'd get to sit in this cell a little longer."

I hate kids. So much.



We're drawing closer to Saquesh, the Exchange boss of the area, and I get the feeling it's not going to end well. Setting a few mines up here beforehand won't hurt.



"Then maybe you ought to start bathing."
"Is it humor? Such a human indulgence... and look where your filthy people are now."
"I'd like to talk with you about Adana."
"Adana? Yes, the feisty one. Nadaa's daughter. She is not your concern."



[Failure] "You are welcome to try."



You'll notice I could have ended most of these situations by talking out of it, but the problem is they didn't reward enough experience for that. Not compared to the craploads you can get by just righteously killing everything in sight. There's no huge 'quest experience' reward you can get like in Planescape or Baldur's Gate just for successful diplomacy. It's too bad, really.





Scram, kid.



There's an airspeeder you can fix here in the Refugee Sector. Its primary function is to boost influence with your party members, because it sure isn't all that useful for traveling.



There's 3 or 4 parts you have to gather from the other areas.



Once you fix it, it lets you transition to the other 2 zones quickly. The problem is of course, there's only 2 other zones you can transition to, and half the time, walking is quicker.



Bao-Dur has fused with his Remote to form a super entity, Remote-Dur.



Once you get the speeder parts, you can have Bao-Dur, T3, or Atton to check over your work for a bunch of influence gain.

Speaking of Atton, it's time to find out his back story.









Duly noted. Now to confront Atton about it.



"I met someone on Nar Shaddaa who says he knows you."





If I ever had to choose a fake name, I wouldn't pick one that sounds like a venereal disease.



"Calm down, I just wanted to know. No harm meant."



"Why don't you just crawl in my head and try to dig out whatever you're looking for rather than asking about it?"
"Maybe I will if you won't tell me."
"You know what? I helped you get off Peragus. If I hadn't been there, you wouldn't have even gotten off the administration level. I'm trying to help you. I don't know why I'm bothering."
[Intelligence] "Actually, if I had been trapped on the administration level on Peragus, the Sith still would have arrived through the airlock and tried to capture me."
"Yeah, well... I - I still helped you. Sort of. Maybe you shouldn't look a free ronto in the mouth before you buy it."
"You should if a Hutt is giving it to you."
"You know what? Not once have I asked you about the Mandalorian Wars. Not once."





"Go on, let's hear it all."
"How did you even live with yourself after Malachor? Is that why you went back to the Jedi Council? Hoping they'd kill you? Maybe you thought they'd forgive you - sure, you might have thought they'd execute you. But Jedi don't kill do they? At least not their prisoners. Maybe you were counting on it when you went back in chains."
"So you got off easy - you were exiled, brushed under the cargo ramp, another dirty little Jedi secret. I'll tell you - all those Jedi at Malachor?"
"You weren't there. You have no idea what happened."
"Oh yeah? Shows how much you know. Maybe you're wrong about a lot of other things, too. They deserved it. Every last one of them.""
"They did not deserve it. Why would you even say that?"



He drops the dumbass act and get serious, finally.

You know that goofy guy in your group of friends that everyone else picks on relentlessly? The guy who's usually a bit slow, but easygoing and likable, and doesn't mind the constant ribbing. Then one day someone says something innocuous to them, and they completely snap and fly off the wall, and everyone is left standing there wondering, "What the hell just happened?"

That's Atton.





"I'd like to know about your past, especially if we're travelling together."
[Influence: Success] "Well, don't get too attached to me - I don't like it."



"Well, you haven't seen anything yet. I have this habit... I'm a deserter. It's what I do."
"I didn't know you served with the Republic."
"I did. Up until the Republic officers began to "betray" their oaths to the Republic and side with Revan - Admiral Karath, Mon Halan, General Derred, and all the rest. Right after that final battle at Malachor, I was right there with the rest of the defectors, because it was the right thing to do."









I want a basilisk droid!



"Instead, you all became Sith."
"If that's what you want to call knowing when to fight and when to kill, then yes, but you can't really break down people into Sith and Jedi and expect everything to make sense."



"So you followed Revan - like I had."
"After Malachor, after the Mandalorian Wars, that's when the Sith teachings started spreading through the ranks. We knew where our loyalties lay - to the Jedi who came to help us, not the ones who sat back on Dantooine and Coruscant, watching us die. So when those same Jedi who watched us die decided to start fighting us during the Jedi Civil War, we fought back. I fought back."



I guess he would be good at accidentally crash-landing a ship onto a Jedi.



"People say killing Jedi is hard. It's not, you just have to be smart about it. No blasters, no getting close to them, no attacking them directly when you can gun down their allies instead."



"What's worse, is that killing them wasn't the best thing. Making them fall... making them see our side of it, that was the best."
"This is a little hard to believe."
"Yeah, maybe you'll believe this - that when fighting a Jedi, you wound the Padawan first, then let the rest take care of itself. Not only will the master move to protect the student, but the Force bond between the two will mess up the master's head better than any stab wound."
"Anything else? That's only a sample of my arsenal."
"Tell me, I need to know how to protect myself, and others around me."







This is actually good strategy to know, especially for a gunslinger Exile. Of course, there aren't that many Jedi left to use it on.

"How could you have killed Jedi?"
"I taught myself... techniques. It's hard for Jedi to sense what you're really thinking if you throw up walls of strong emotions and feelings. Lust, impatience, cowardice... most Jedi awareness doesn't cruise beyond the surface feelings, to see what's deeper. And I was good at that, throwing up walls, and my superiors knew it. Sometimes the Jedi on our side wouldn't even realize I was there."
"Is that why you act the way you do?"

Meaning, is this why he's such a twit?

"Part of it. Maybe it was always me. It's hard to tell sometimes. I haven't known who I am for years."
"I know you left at the Mandalorian Wars, so you don't know much about what went on behind the scenes in the Jedi Civil War. But Revan understood one thing - the real battle was going to be fought between the Jedi on both sides. That was the only battle that mattered. Whoever had the most, the strongest Jedi were going to win the Civil War. If Revan couldn't convert Jedi, then Revan would kill them."
"So Revan trained elite Sith units into assassination squads, whose duty was to go out and capture enemy Jedi. I was in one of the special units trained to do this. Revan had plans for all Jedi. I think it was important that the Jedi see her side of things, the Sith teachings. Revan wanted to break them. And then have them join her."
"Why are you telling me this? You're telling a Jedi you killed Jedi."



I'm pretty sure this is an error with the writing.

When did the Exile kill Jedi? He left before the Jedi Civil War, he wouldn't have had a chance to fight either Jedi or Sith.

"And I've been with you only a short time, enough to know that as soon as someone signs on with you, they haven't got long to live. You got history, and anyone who travels with you doesn't. And maybe I want somebody to know who I was in case a story needs to be set straight. Maybe you understand."
"But why did you leave the Sith?"



"I never knew her name. She sought me out. She said she had come to save me. She was lying, of course - or I think she was. It doesn't matter - she told enough truth to get my attention."
"She said that Revan was doing something terrible to Jedi within the Unknown Regions. That when we captured Jedi, they were sent to a place designed to... break them. And that anyone in his service who showed any ability with the Force was sent there, too, to turn them, to break them into Dark Jedi... or assassins trained to kill Jedi. She said that's what would happen to me - that I had the Force inside me, that's why I was so good at killing Jedi."
"And that when the Sith learned of it, there would be no escape, no turning back. I would become an instrument of the dark side, forever. I had heard talk in the ranks, troops vanishing. I knew what she meant, but I didn't believe her - or want to believe her. I did what I did with all Jedi. I hurt her. I hurt her a lot. And then, right when I thought she couldn't take anymore - she showed me the Force. In my head. And I felt everything she felt, and I heard just an echo of what the Force was. And how what I was doing..."

I think she was lying to him.

This Jedi he's talking about is just so completely different from any of the Jedi depicted in the KOTOR games. They're not messianic figures out to sacrifice themselves to save others; they're dogmatic and stubborn, and while somewhat well-meaning, are often quite selfish too. Look what they did to Revan (erased his memories) and to the Exile here.

The Jedi that 'saves' Atton is completely out of character with regards to this, which is why I tend think she was more intent on manipulating him rather than rescuing him.



What does even mean?





"In the end, she sacrificed herself to keep my secret, to prevent the Sith from knowing about that touch of the Force inside me. She wasted her life to save me. Me. And I felt her die, when she opened her mind. I've killed Jedi like I said, but I was never there to feel it, to be on the receiving end."



This is what we've been working for during all this: the ability to turn Atton into a Jedi.





Real Jedi train from childhood to have control over the Force. But we're just gonna stuff all that knowledge in his head right here, right now. It's that easy!











I thought these two were going to lean in for a kiss if this went on any longer.

It would have been such a sweet moment.



At now Atton is a proper Jedi Sentinel. They have a different leveling table from Scoundrels, with more saves and abilities an the like, but the main difference will be the use of Force powers. We'll also get him going with lightsabers when they start dropping off enemies.



After our whole heart-to-heart talk, Atton feels confident enough to confronts Kreia.



He's still no match for her though.



"Ah. And now you are free?"
"Yeah - so no more threats, no more of your "requests." You and me - we're done."



"Did you ever think I truly held you? You are more of a fool than I thought. What truly held you was you - and let me show you why. I once held the galaxy by the throat..."



"I can unlock that part of you anytime I wish. It is a simple thing, the human mind, once it feels something strongly, it becomes etched in the memory, the subconscious. Shall I show you? That part of you that hungered to kill Jedi, that took pleasure from it? Or perhaps you will continue to listen to my counsel and I shall ignore your pathetic attempts at freedom."



It's fun to see Kreia crush people like a little bug.

There's an alternate line here:
"Did you know I once held the galaxy by the throat - no, you did not. I wielded power like you cannot imagine. Everything I saw was awash with possibilities, spreading outwards, touching everything else. I saw all of that, all that the Force is... and only when it was ripped from me did I truly see it. And I know what lies buried within you. That you hide with your desperate thoughts, your guilt, your lusts."



This cutscene is suppose to trigger when you have enough influence, either positive or negative, with the Exchange. It's kind of bugged. I've had it trigger as soon as I set foot in the Refugee Sector, but sometimes it doesn't start until I wander around Nar Shaddaa doing nothing for like half an hour.





Oh great, another squid head.

"I am Visquis, a representative of an... exchange of shipping interests here on the smuggler's moon. I am extending an invitation to you to join me in my private lounge within the Jekk'Jekk Tarr, where we may speak without being disturbed. I wish to discuss something of mutual interest concerning your past profession - and prospects for the future."







Poor Handmaiden.







Next update, solo missions for all!

We'll get to find out in a hurry whether we messed up the character builds.