#Note that I believe that Koth's objection is entirely reasonable

[swtorramblings]

I Shall Save Myself-2: We Save Who We Can

Arcann comforting Senya by @fleeting-sanity​. Finally using it for what I got it for.

I Shall Save Myself Second Draft Chapter List

Empress Vaylin has fallen, her forces in disarray, but she may have dragged the Alliance Commander down with her. The Force wielders within the Alliance have mostly been incapacitated by an unknown event, a massive burst of power that occurred during the battle. Koth and Theron arrive on the scene to investigate.

Theron and Koth were the first on the scene during the surrender of Vaylin’s forces. The Eternal Fleet was still. Most of the Alliance’s Force sensitives were incapacitated, unconscious or at least suffering severe pain. Sana-Rae had stayed in the Enclave, and was somewhat protected there. She reported that there had been a massive release of energy where the Commander had confronted the Empress. No one was moving when they arrived. Vaylin and the Commander were side-by-side on the ground. She had been defeated, finally, but at heavy cost. Theron did not trust Koth with Senya or Arcann, but didn’t care much about Vaylin’s well-being, so said, “Koth, check the Commander. I’ll check the others.” Koth hesitated, looking at Vaylin, but still went to the Richerd’s side. Theron saw the damage to the wall, and passed a section of the ground that had been so heated that the stone melted. What in the world had happened here? A pained voice came over the com system. It was Lana. “Koth, Theron, report? What is happening out there?” Koth answered first. “The Commander is badly hurt, light saber wound, at least as bad as what the Prince did.” He still refused to call Arcann by name. “We need a medical team.” The other two were already stirring as Theron reached them. “Senya and Arcann look like they took a beating, but they’re already waking up.” He reached Senya and offered his hand, but she waved him off and stood, though not without effort. Arcann stood slowly, taking in the battlefield. “Mother?” “I’m all right, Son. It’s over.” Lana broke in again. “Has anyone checked Vaylin?” Other forces were arriving, a medical team first. They were preparing the Commander to be moved to facilities in the base. The healing that Valkorian had provided last time seemed to be absent. It was going to be touch and go for a while. Koth was helping the medical team. “She’s down, Lana, and looks badly hurt. I don’t think she survived whatever Richerd did, whatever it was you felt. No way to know for sure.” He looked at the mother and son. They both shook their heads. They had been out, also. “Our royals were both unconscious. We had no eyes on the fight.” Lana responded, “You’re assuming it was the Commander, it chould have been the Emperor or Vaylin. Until we know, we have to be careful. At this point, she raised her voice, ending each word sharply for emphasis. “Again: Has anyone checked Vaylin?” Senya nodded to Theron, knowing that no one else should have to risk it. Arcann walked with her. “Sorry, Lana, this is all a lot to take in. Senya is checking. We’ll keep our forces at a distance, just in case.” Senya knelt down next to her daughter, hesitant. She was not sure she wanted to know, to verify her fears. Vaylin had several minor saber wounds (they were never really minor), some of which her mother had inflicted. Nothing like what it seemed she had done to the Commander, but still potentially lethal. Arcann put his hands on her shoulders, and said to her, “It’s all right, Mother. We did what we had to.” Then she saw it. Her daughter was breathing, shallowly, raggedly. Senya put her hands to her mouth. She did not know for a moment what to do. But only for a moment. “She’s alive!” she shouted. She took one of her son’s hands, and whispered, “She’s alive.” Koth glanced over, a scowl on his face. “So? We’re not going to do anything to help her.” Theron didn’t care for the idea of not tending to a defeated enemy, but in this case, he found himself agreeing. However, he knew that the Commander would not approve. She was beaten. One of the rules was, we save who we can. “Koth, you know we have to.” “No! I had friends in the military, with the Knights! Do you know how many of them aren’t here now? Because of her? How does she get to live when they’re dead?” Before Theron or Lana could respond, to agree or otherwise, a deep, quiet voice ended the argument. “I’m afraid”, it said, “we must insist.” Arcann had taken a position between his sister and the armed troops, hand on his lightsaber. Their mother got to her feet and joined him. Koth glared at them, but eventually threw up his hands. “Fine, you want to save that monster, that’s your business. Not in our base. We don’t want her anywhere near the Commander. Or any of us.” He hadn’t asked, but no one voiced disagreement. “Get a ship, take her away from here, hopefully you’ll crash in the wild. I’m done here.” He followed the medical team inside. “Thank you, Son.” Theron walked to them. “He has a point, though. I know this is hard, but our wounds are too fresh.” He glanced at Arcann. “And a lot of our allies already have complaints. She won’t be safe here.” Senya had gone back to tending her daughter, so Arcann responded. “Understood. Give us a shuttle and a single medical droid. Kolto if you can spare it. We will take her into the surrounding wilderness while we plan for more permanent arrangements.” Theron nodded. “Good, we’ll do what we can here.” He looked over to Torian, added him to the tally of the dead she had caused, but also remembered the reports from Nathema. “We’ll find you your kolto. If the Commander dies, though, and she’s still alive, make sure you are off-world as soon as possible.” Arcann nodded. After the shuttle arrived, he checked it over (he trusted some members of the Alliance, but not all, especially now) while Senya tenderly carried the former Empress and placed her in the bed in the back and activated the medical droid. While she watched over Vaylin, Arcann flew the ship out until it was no longer in sight of the base. Theron stood on the platform, watching them go, making sure they were not easily followed. He sighed deeply. “Commander, I hope your rules aren’t the death of us. Or of you.” He turned and went back inside, deciding to walk to the war room. He needed time.

[sullustangin]

Not a disaster spy.

Note:  I speak in lawful/neutral/chaotic alignments as seen in D&D.  I’m not getting into good, evil, or neutral, nor “Dark Side” or “Light Side” activities. 

There were more than a few reasons why I commissioned a piece of art that depicted some pretty gnarly scars on Theron Shan (and on my smug, Eva, but you don’t care as much about her, let’s be real). It’s part of a story I’m telling.  It’s part of my headcanon.  Also, it’s my own sort of protest against the habit of writing Theron off as a hot but inept spy.  He’s an impulsive fool despite being intelligent, which is why he ends up in bizarre situations. He always gets hurt because of this (but he’s always magically healed up in time for any smut). 

To be clear: Theron totally has issues due to his early life and an inability to play well with others; you can label him with attachment issues, intimacy issues, whatever keeps him a bit of a lonely character (which he admits).  Personal life -- disaster.  That’s canon, explicit and implicit.

What I object to are his skills and abilities being discounted because of that.  His professional life is far from being a disaster.  Director SIS Marcus Trant brands him as one of the best field agents, and long term, he ends up being operations manager for a covert base for an upstart independent government.

Reasons:

In the book Annihilation, Theron runs around in his boots and briefs trying to destroy the Ascendant Spear.   Hot, funny, and strangely effective.

But why?

Because Jace Malcom and Marcus Trant were ok with sacrificing a few planets of people “for the greater good.”  They let Ruan be attacked.  They planned on letting Duro be attacked, because they wanted the Pub fleet to focus on the Ascendant Spear, the Empire superweapon.  They watched a planet get wrecked and planned on doing it again.  It’s war.  It’s a lawful action, for the greater good.  It complies with society’s expectations -- the Republic leadership’s expectations -- in a time of war. Lawful neutral, probably.  Maybe lawful good if you squint and do the math about the Spear’s potential fatality rate, galaxy wide.

But Theron isn’t a lawful character -- he doesn’t just do stuff because society says it’s ok.  That’s why he goes off and does impulsive stuff because sometimes, society is wrong.  Theron is a neutral, leaning chaotic character -- he mostly follows the law, but also relies on his own intuition and gut feeling about what is right. Neutral characters balance what society says is right and what a person internally thinks is right.   Chaotic characters -- like my oc smuggler -- don’t rely on society’s views at all; it’s all about her gut and moral compass.  Theron at least considers lawfulness and order in his response, which is why he is (mostly) not a chaotic character.  He has his moments, though - no character is pure.  In contrast, Lana is a Lawful character in the context of the Sith Empire.  She does things that her society approves of.  She does like to think of herself as ‘her own woman’, but her behavior patterns are heavily informed by the Sith upbringing and training - she is Lawful but leaning Neutral on occasion due to her own sense of pragmatism.  She does not go by her gut alone. 

(Please remember I’m not addressing good/evil, Light/Dark side in this post.)

That’s why Theron ends up dehydrated with cramped leg and half naked.  He didn’t want people to die "for the greater good” when he personally could stop it.  So he and Gnost Dural fool Darth Karrid into participating at Duro, which means the Republic Fleet has to defend the planet, since its target is the Ascendant Spear.  The only way that happens is that Gnost-Dural is tortured, and Theron has to manually slice into the nearly uninhabitable bowels of the ship.  Hence the whole strip tease by the end of the incident.  

Consequences: 

In the example above, it’s mostly situational embarrassment for Theron, and the Jedi gets tortured. 

In an earlier part of the book, Theron is beaten up to keep his cover and acquire important information (and loses a few teeth in the process) and leaps off a building and probably fractures a few things -- he dislocated a shoulder too.  Still didn’t blow cover, and he is able get off Ziost with Gnost Dural. 

Every SWTOR player knows about Rishi -- it’s easy to argue that Theron doesn’t give up Lana because that could burn his Republic ally.  But if  you’re playing Imp side, what’s stopping him?  Flirting is nothing to this point.  Why not burn all the Imps down?  He could save his own skin, infiltrate the Revanites that way and save the Republic Fleet -- to hell with Darth Marr.

Because it’s not just “ooo rah Republic” informing his choices -it’s not Republic society saying it’s ok and lawful that makes him sit there.  It’s his own moral compass that says it’s wrong to burn Jakarro and the operative, even if Lana did give him up.  So he holds out under torture, even as Revan tries to make his descendant his ally. 

Theron had been in SIS for about 12-13 years by the time we get to Rishi.  We know he’s fallen from high heights and survived worse falls than leaping between buildings on Nar Shaddaa -- survived, not gotten out unscathed. He was a swoop racer for awhile -- that’s a risky hobby.  As an agent, It’s reasonable to assume he’s been shot at with blasters and possibly slugthrowers (if he came across a Mando), stabbed with traditional blades or vibro-blades, got burned if he was in an industrial area or a hot engine room or a chemical lab -- the list goes on.  After Yavin, we know that the one agent possibly more chaotic than he is, Jonas Balkar, ends up giving him a few broken ribs in the name of busting up an implants ring. 

So Theron does have very real consequences for his decisions, in all likelihood.  That’s what I wanted to reflect in the recent commission; although it happens shortly before the torture session on Rishi, it shows the viewer that this is a path he’s been on before, and not by accident. 

Cutting here because boy, did I have a lot to say about what happens AFTER SoR in terms of alignment/characterization.

The KotFE and Beyond: Consistency Issues

Theron registers his approval and disapproval on certain decisions in later xpacs, and he often takes the more benevolent “light side” end of things -- whether that’s based upon his societal expectations or personal moral compass is not as clear.  But he still does disagree with the Commander (one of the more obvious examples being  storming out of the room if there are too many Pub casualties on Corellia when the player is Imp side).  While it remains a touchy topic, the Traitor Arc does reflect his neutral-chaotic tendencies. He goes with his internal moral compass.

Electrocuting the Commander on Iokath was part of Theron gaining the Order of Zildrog’s trust. Theron’s smart enough and probably familiar enough with the Commander’s bio data to know how to make it happen and look bad enough without serious ill-effects. This is part of what he does as a spy, and there’s likely a guide on double agent sabotage somewhere in SIS -- how to look like you’re doing bad stuff without actually doing as bad stuff as requested.  This is also part of what he personally believes to be a better path -- certainly not by Alliance “what to do when bad things happen” book, which was to tell his Commander.   

Does Theron fail at Nathema?  Yes; there is a major loss of war materiel (the Gravestone and the Eternal Fleet).  But what would he have considered more important?  The loss of the fleet or the loss of the Commander and others if the Fleet was unleashed?  The loss of life or the loss of stuff? That’s where Theron’s neutral-chaotic alignment comes in. 

It also does matter how the player views the entire situation -- Theron’s boss also has a say in ‘success,’ which is why Trant matters in judging Theron’s previous actions. At the end of KotET, some people had been miserable that they HAD to either be a ruler or a peacekeeper instead of just getting on their ship and riding off into the sunset for more class-specific adventures. By the end of Nathema, some people were mad about losing the weapons and the power.  Some people were relieved that they weren’t so OP anymore; the writers had written story/character development into a corner, and ending the whole Throne/Fleet thing had to happen. (It’s still not fully out of a corner, in my personal opinion.)  

Theron doesn’t get out of the Traitor Arc completely clean, no matter how many stans we write about it -- the writing is what it is.  He assuredly gains a new scar.  But it is player choice as to the severity of the failure -- and the consequences: Theron can end up married, still in love with the Commander, dumped by the Commander but in the Alliance, exiled, or dead. Those were the consequences for what he believed was the right thing to do -- this was probably his biggest leap into the chaotic alignment in terms of decision making, and this was the most dramatic spectrum of consequences.

As a side bar, the latter xpacs suffer from writing issues; there’s a lack of nuance compared to the vanilla stories and even Hutts and SOR.  Although the writers did promise that characters would leave if there were enough negative actions, only Koth actually left because of something we did; Lana never leaves, and Theron leaves regardless of prior actions -- because he’s doing the  double agent thing. (I thought the opening speech on Umbara was ill-fit for most classes, frankly -- the writing got better as we got closer to Nathema, but there are plotholes that make me fume.)  Lana and Theron never leave because the player makes too many LS or DS decisions. I honestly wish that was a consequence, because not having a consequence for decisions hallows out both characters and makes them lackeys rather than the stronger, distinct characters they were prior to Popsicle Time. Lana never leaves no matter what. Theron ultimately remains gone by player decision, not by his own.  Koth was at least granted that autonomy, for which I respect the writing for Koth. 

Theron Shan is a good spy that accepts consequences.

Theron is good at his job -- the best at his job, around the time of SoR. Because of how Theron approaches the world, he takes risks so others don’t -- so others don’t get tortured, so other planets don’t get blown up.  It doesn’t mean that he’s some inept idiot that fumbles his way toward mission success. He  knowingly suffers for his choices that are a combination of by-the-book training and his instincts. He doesn’t complain about it, even when the player points it out on Rishi.  It is the job.  Spies do really, really strange stuff to keep their covers. He also doesn’t complain as he’s limping around after Nathema, nor does he object if he’s exiled or dumped.  He knows what he did.  He can live with it (if the player lets him). 

Spies that remain alive and get back to their home nations without giving anything important up to the enemy are successful spies.  We see this in pre-SWTOR media.  Rishi is a success for Theron -- although he is exposed, he remains alive and uncooperative.  The temporary Alliance between Marr and Satele gain massive amounts of intel, including Revan’s base on Yavin.  Later, Theron is able to keep the Odessen base functional and secret.  We even get to do some infiltration work on Zakuul -- the Alliance’s spies don’t give anything up while surviving and making it home with gains.  He succeeds overall at Odessen.  He fails at Nathema, though that failure is mostly interpreted by the player in terms of severity. 

Few spies are perfect and survive to become old men.  Even if Theron is killed at the end of Nathema, he did make it further than many; if we consider that Theron was about 37 or 38 at Nathema and he started SIS at 16, that’s upwards of 20 years in the field.  That’s a long lifespan for an active field agent, even in real world estimates. 

For those of us who let Theron live, then he still has potential for more spy escapades, though probably with some serious oversight.  We can leave that to headcanons, since Lana and Theron have taken a step back in prominence since Onslaught.  Theron will never be orderly like Lana; if you favor lawful characters, you will rarely see eye to eye with Theron.  He is not a by the book spy, and even Trant complains about that.  At the same time, the instinct, the skills, and personal conscience is there, which is why Theron is successful all the way up to Nathema -- and depending on the player, arguably still is. 

Personal life -- sure, a disaster. No doubt. But as a spy?  I don’t think disaster is an accurate assessment.