Part 53: Telos - Punch the Sith Lord

Last we left off, Jedi Jesus was single-handedly saving Citadel station from Darth Nilihus's Sith forces. But that's about to change, because some friends are about to come along for the ride.







Here comes the cavalry!



Aw, it's just Carth.



You can tell he's still single by the way he dresses.

Honestly, he's an Admiral now, there's no excuse for looking like that. Revan needs to come back and buy him some proper clothes or something.

"Sir, at this distance, our weapons will barely scratch it."



I don't know if it's visible on your screen, but they messed up the skybox outside the window. The stars only extend like halfway across, and then it's just a flat black texture.

"Sir, if it keeps firing on Citadel Station, the station won't be able to maintain its orbit..."





So Carth was at Malachor V too. For a battle that supposedly left so few survivors, we seem to trip across them at every stage.



The Republic ships pull up beside the Ravager, and you can see how tiny they are compared to Nihilus's ship.



Here comes our intrepid heroes in a wee little transport.





I'd like to note at this point that Canderous's entire Mandalorian 'army' was able to fit on board this shuttle.





The Sith prepare their defenses for the boarding party.



The situation and camera angles used here were suppose to be reminiscent of the very beginning of A New Hope, when Vader's troops board Leia's ship and the Rebel troops all line up outside the corridor.



But they end up blowing through the wall instead. Typical hilarious Mandalorian entrance.

God these guys are awesome.









I'm 99% sure the whole scene was scripted for no other reason than to have Mandalore do the superhero walk through the flames. But it's worth it.





"And our cargo?"
"It's being brought aboard, and soon teams will be dispatched to the target sites."





This is one part I don't really get; why would the Republic care if the Mandalorians brought some bombs aboard? Wouldn't they be happy that someone was trying to blow up the Ravager?

I suspect Mandalore was planning something bigger, something that might have threatened the Citadel station, and there would have been a missing scene that explained it.



"Did you get an ID signature on this vessel?"







"Nothing you need to worry about, Sith."
"You are coming with me?"
"Don't get all sentimental, I just don't trust you to get the job done."





All right, let's rock.



The Ravager is mostly a slog through like a hundred Sith troops. They're just really easy fodder and it's a little boring. I'd like to think there's a balanced middle ground between something like this and Oblivion, where even the easiest enemies scale to your level.



This game is still on difficult, right?







Peekaboo.



There's a beat between Visas and Mandalore as they fight.



"I know what it meant for you to accompany me here, Canderous of Clan Ordo. Your trust honors me."



"If you betray me, or my men, I will kill you."



"I was going to say the same, Canderous."





Well, we meet Colonel Tobin again.



And he doesn't look well at all.

Has he heard of exfoliating? I hear it's all the rage these days.



One thing I should note before we start on him - there's a very specific reason why he's on board. It's purely a design choice, and it's to compensate for the fact that Darth Nihilus can't speak.

So you have the problem of a) having to get across the necessary exposition for the villain, but b) the villain can't talk to communicate it. The solution ends up being a secondary character who serves as the mouthpiece for explaining who and what Nihilus is.

I guess the problem is that a lot of players don't realize it, and they either don't pay enough attention to him, kill him right away, or maybe they just miss him entirely (he's in one of these side rooms that you can skip easily).



"It is that power we felt on Onderon, that Vaklu felt... it was an echo, too strong to ignore."
"So you gave into it."
"General Vaklu and I... when it seemed that we would need more to take Onderon... make it strong again... he came. With his power, his soldiers, it seemed as if there was nothing we could not do - nothing the Queen could do to stop us."
"And nothing you could do to stop him."



"Everything exists... to feed his will. I came here, to this dead ship... and now he will not permit me to leave."



"This ship... it is a graveyard of a terrible battle. Everything on it slowly dies as long as he hungers."





"I think he is of that place. If so, then his power may be great indeed... greater than I had thought."



"The Master suffers... if he cannot feed, then the hunger begins to consume him. The planet... Telos... He may feed on something upon its surface to sustain him awhile longer."
"But there's nothing here! Telos is a near-dead world."
"You think to lie to me still? I will not be deceived again."



"Old woman?"



"Yes... the old woman on Onderon. She spoke of the Jedi Academy, here, on Telos... and my Master was forced to come here."





"He will devour them all, murder them all..."



"Even if the people below are not Force Sensitive, the small amount he can feed on from the mass destruction of the station... and the life on the planet... will sustain him a while longer."



"And if we deny him Telos?"





"He will create nothing... he will end this place. Your old woman has killed this planet, and with it, countless other worlds that depend on its survival."
"Where can I find your Master?"









Well, he's about to care really soon.

"The extent of his power cannot be put into words... and his perceptions have grown as well. To him..."



Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky...
It slips away...
And all your money won't another minute buy...
Dust in the wind...
All we are is dust in the wind...



"What about his ship?"
"This ship... is it his weakness? It should not exist, yet it cruises the darkness between the stars. He tore it from the mass shadows of Malachor, along with his fleet... that is a measure of his power."





"Hnh. More Jedi tricks."
"No, not Jedi. Not Jedi at all."





If he sees the forest and not the trees, then maybe that's his weakness?

"There is nothing to be done except wait. If you go to him, he will destroy you... and your last moments shall be of shadow... and pain."





"He has touched Onderon, and he will come back for it."
"You are right... as long as he exists, Onderon is in danger. The galaxy is in danger. What would you have me do?"







Well, a patriot to the end, I'll give him that.







There's a missing scene here where Mandalore gets injured and Visas helps him.



"Canderous, are you all right?"



"Get away from me - I don't need your help. Just leave me here."



"Canderous, the Force lies in all living things. I have watched my people die - you will survive. You have no choice. You have been wounded before and lived, Mandalorian. Rise... many battles do you still have left in you."
"You... sound like Revan. At... the end."
"Do you know what she told me, in those last days on the Outer Rim?"



"That the Mandalorian Wars were our doom, and that we had been deceived. That it had never been our decision to wage war on the Republic. Revan said the Mandalorians didn't invade Republic space ten years ago because it was our choice. We were tricked... our entire people sacrificed as pawns... and never knew it."
"She said there was a war coming. That it was waiting out in the Unknown Regions, in the dark, waiting for us to destroy each other."



"A war? This war?"
"No, not this one - another one. More terrible. Against an evil we couldn't begin to comprehend... a war of belief, that had been fought for thousands of years. Revan went off to fight it."
"And left you here."
"Revan was one of the greatest military leaders in the galaxy, in history. She knew what she was doing."



"And I always follow orders."





"If there is time, I would like to center myself. There is a meditation chamber within my cell that I would visit one last time."



Meanwhile, Jesus and Mandalore take a snack break.















As we get closer to the end, most of your party members were suppose to be get their 'spotlight' sequence - their moment in the sun, if you will.

We already saw the Handmaiden's solo fight with her sisters and Atris, which wrapped up her storyline. HK-47 had that giant HK droid factory mission, which would have (mostly) finished his story in this game; but that tragically got cut. The special sequences for Mira, Kreia, and Atton and a few others are still coming up.

But here on the Ravager? This is the conclusion of Visas' and Mandalore's stories. Visas in particular has come full circle.







As we get closer to the bridge, we meet slightly tougher enemies, such as these Dark Jedi. But go down just as fast as anybody else.





"It was never a question of need. And I would follow you wherever your path leads."





Welcome to the bridge of the Ravager. Half the surrounding panels of the ship seem to be open to the vacuum of space, but we're still breathing. How about that.



The concept art for this looks almost exactly the same, minus the bits of debris.



Down in the pits, Nihilus keeps his zombies just alive enough to run the ship.



Say hello to Darth Nihilus, Lord of Hunger.

What's interesting is they wrote the other Sith Lords as individuals; particularly virulent ones, but they're still just people. Nihilus was not a person; he was written as an elemental, a force of nature. He was a god waiting to be torn down.

But that's a lot of telling and not a lot of showing; I think one mistake they may have made was revealing him too late. He would have benefited from an initial encounter showing just how powerful he really was, much like what happened with Sion at Korriban.



While Nihilus is not a particularly engaging character by himself - you can't even understand anything he says - he's not meant to be interesting by alone. He's all about the myth, the build-up.



What he is though, is a mirror.

I've said it before, but this game is not at all about the Sith Lords, despite the subtitle. It's not about Kreia, not about the Force, it's not even about Star Wars. Everything in this game is about the Exile; it's suppose to be an inward journey, and though it's much more veiled than Planescape: Torment, it's still a very real theme. The villains are not truly separate entities or characters; rather, they each represent some aspect of the Exile's character. It fits in with one of the main theme in this game: learning through conflict.

Nihilus is meant to be a reflection of the Exile. The parallels have been hinted at throughout the game: he was a Force user, he was there during the battle at the Malachor V, and he found a way to survive like the Exile did. It's very likely that Nihilus was one of the Jedi who followed Revan to war. Up until Malachor, Nihilus was the Exile.

The purpose of Nihilus was to show what might have happened to the Exile had he not cut himself from the Force. When all those troops at Malachor died, it basically left a huge vacuum in the Force; the Exile chose to cut himself off, but Nihilus didn't, and he needed to find a way to fill that vacuum. To sate that, he began to feed on others who had the Force. While the Exile became a black hole in the Force, but Nihilus went the opposite route and became a Force vampire.

You can see where this is going.





*um nash dai no kari to. un na tari to.*





*day no kash day nam temnay tari.*









What happens when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?

...

Oh wait, that's the wrong question. The question is, what happens when a Force vampire feeds on a Force black hole?

Kreia definitely knew the answer to that, so she manipulated Nihilus into coming here to Telos. Then she arranged for the Exile to come and take him out.



In fact, he's now so weak that...



...we can fight him barehanded!















Uh yeah, sure.



Well this moment's been foreshadowed ever since Visas stepped on board the Ebon Hawk. All this "My life for yours" stuff? It's come down to this.

Vote

1) We can either try and fight Nihilus straight up, and probably lose since he's so all-powerful...
2) Or we can do it the little-known way, and have Visas try to disable him through their Force bond by sacrificing herself...

Which do you want to see?


_{And don't say both or I'll murder a puppy. Multiple puppies.}