#rakghoul plague

[rulimaquina]

[oonaluna-art]

A Patreon commission of a Jedi infected by the Rakghoul Plague ~ Spooky Stuff for the Spooky Season.

—

[My Ko-Fi] [Patreon]

[legends-expo]

Happy 15th release anniversary to Dark Times #11, written by LegendsCon guest Randy Stradley! This issue sees Old Republic Jedi Celeste Morne revived from stasis by Darth Vader.

Love the Expanded Universe? Join us for Legends Con in Burbank, CA on September 9th & 10th 2023!

[sephsekla]

Thinking about how Darth Malgus is still wearing a mask, while all the Jedi gleefully run around being galactic super-spreaders.

Who's the real bad guy here? We can't all heal our Long COVID through meditation, you mystic dicks.

[rinrinp42]

for your snippet prompts: hmm would love to see your take on some clone wars-era QuinObi, platonic or not! perhaps some early days commiserating between Alpha and Quinlan about their shared idiot??

(hope you're doing well, I know we haven’t talked in a long while 🧡)

(I'm doing good and hope you are too!)

!!!  This prompt made me go all gooey!  Have a list of times Obi-Wan made Quinlan's heart race ( though I didn't get Alpha-17 and Quinlan commiserating).  Also Tholme/T’raa Saa and Mace and his tree mom will have to be pried from my cold dead hands so Quinlan gets Little Brother privileges and literally only calls Mace by his first name.

Quinlan nearly dropped the stuffed tooka the younger Initiate had dropped when the Cretchmaster brought in cookies.  The toy was infused with bleak, scary visions. As if it was trying to purge them from the redhead.  Quinlan's heart races with the images, though there's too many and they're too fragmented to tell a story.   They're just the Temple but dark and strange armored figures moving through it.  But… but they're scary, like when his Aunt made him grip the locket…

Quinlan makes up his mind.  He's going to make sure that this Initiate has something good and fun to distract him.  It'll be good for the redhead, he's sure of that.

Quinlan's mouth is dry and his heart races as a wide-eyed Obi-Wan pulled his jacket out of Quinlan's grip.  He had just wanted to stop Obi-Wan and welcome him back.  Master Tholme had said Obi-Wan had stayed behind to help settle some kids away from the fighting on Melida/Daan but what Quinlan just saw was…

Obi-Wan hadn't been hiding with a bunch of Younglings away from the fighting.  He had been leading an army of Younglings to fight against their parents and aunts and uncles and and and 

And Quinlan needs to tell Master Tholme because Obi-Wan needs help.

He may also need Quinlan to not just be standing there like an idiot.  So Quinlan slapped a smile on his face that he could only hope Obi-Wan didn't see through and threw his arms around the other Padawan, babbling about some weird twist to the mission he and Master Tholme had been on.

Quinlan lost his breath as Obi-Wan twisted them around and down onto the mat, pinning Quinlan.

The other Senior Padawan smirked down at him, somehow keeping Quinlan in place even though the Kiffer was heavier.

“Hello there,” he said and Quinlan's heart raced.

Oh.

Quinlan ran through the underbelly of Taris, following the Forcebond he and Obi-Wan shared.  His heart tried to lodge itself in his throat as it raced faster than the exercise should make it.  This was supposed to be an easy mission, and a sneaky way of celebrating that brat Anakin turning 13.  Mace had even helped arrange it!  How did Obi-Wan find some weirdo doctor trying to recreate long gone rakghoul plague?

Small gods, Quinlan hoped he would get there in time to help Obi-Wan.  Aayla and Anakin were ransacking the so-called doctor’s upper level apartment while Quinlan was on Obi-Wan Rescue duty.

Which he would not fail at (he hadn't failed at any of his self appointed Obi-Wan duties yet and had no plans on ever doing so).

Quinlan had been on a time sensitive undercover mission on the other side of the galaxy when the Clone Wars started.  It was another 3 months before he had finished up and could head back.  Mace had immediately sent him to Obi-Wan.  Quinlan's experience with undercover work meant he wouldn't end up with a battalion but Mace wanted him to work with some of Obi-Wan’s boys.  There were a few shaping up to be good at the Intelligence aspect (something niggled at the thought of the Clones and Quinlan figured a squad to back him up would help sus it out).

He wanted to see how the Clones reacted before they knew he was a Jedi.  Especially if Obi-Wan was going to spend the war surrounded by them.  Luckily there was a battle that had finished recently so they weren't in the camp where it would have been harder to get close without revealing himself as a Jedi.  He slipped through the bombed out town, pausing now and then to watch the Clones.  And then he found Obi-Wan.

Quinlan paused in the shadow of a building as the sunset bathed Obi-Wan in color and his heart raced at how beautiful he was.

The Force must have been laughing at him and his constant adoration as it gave no warning before the larger clone slide between them staring down Quinlan with a contained sort of menace.  Kriff but he didn't want to fight one of Obi-Wan's boys.

“Alpha-17, please do be careful, Quinlan is a rather talented fighter.”

“Ah Obes, thank you,” he couldn't help answering with a shit-eating grin.

Though his face was hidden, Quinlan was sure the Clone narrowed his eyes at him.  Eh, deserved.

Quinlan stepped into the medbay, heart racing as his eyes settled on Obi-Wan.  His redhead idiot was in the bacta tank but was there and alive.  He had nearly sobbed when he felt the Bond click back into place.  Waltz and Swing had both been startled to see it, but Obi-Wan had assigned the squad to him with such care that they rallied quickly to make the plans to get to Obi-Wan.

“You're still alive?” a voice asked from a bed.

Quinlan looked away from Obi-Wan to see Alpha-17 on a bed.  But very much alive.

“Su cuy’gar,” Quinlan responded cheerfully.  He liked the ornery bastard and was glad both had survived.

Alpha-17 snorted at him and shifted on the bed.  Quinlan didn't think the clone would be back on the front lines.  But there might be something he could do…

Once Obi-Wan was out of the bacta, Quinlan would run it past the two of them.  They needed a paranoid bastard on Kamino to look into… well all of it.

Quinlan's hand slid into Obi-Wan's as the peace treaty was signed by interim Chancellor Mon Motha.  It turns out not having both sides be controlled by a Sith made peace easier to accomplish.  Who knew!

Obi-Wan squeezed his hand and Quinlan's heart raced.  Small gods but he loved him.

[utskushii-hito]

I have died infected by the Rakghoul plague because I wanted to know how the stages of the disease worked... I didn't think the second stage would have been fatal.

[greyias]

SWTOR Short Stories (and In-Universe Documents)

I know someone else has already done this work elsewhere, but for the life of me I couldn't find it. So, I've put together a comprehensive list of all of the devblog short stories and in-universe epistolary-type documents (documents, journals, dossiers, missives, personnel files, communications, etc). Short stories are bolded and marked, in case you're only looking for those.

2.0 - 7.2

SIS Intel Report: Key locations overview of the planet Makeb

Imperial Intelligence Report: Persons of Interest on Makeb

Facilities: Take a Virtual Tour

A Letter from Special Executive Rasmus Blys

WORK WITH PRIDE. WORK WITH CZERKA.

CZ-198 and the State of Czerka Corporation

CZ-198 – Meet the Staff

HoloNet News Exclusive Interview: Baron Deathmark

HoloNet News Exclusive Interview: Baron Deathmark, Part 2

A Record of the Dread Masters

The Search for Oricon

HoloNet News Exclusive Interview: Baron Deathmark

IMPERIAL EDICT GR-1NC4

Additional Personnel Files

Four More Picks for You

RE: Kuat Drive Yards

EMERGENCY ALERT: Rakghoul Plague Outbreak on Alderaan – AVOID ALDERAAN!

State of the Galaxy

Since KOTOR: Manaan

Lana Beniko’s Journal: Darth Arkous

"Surface Details" (short story)

"WANTED: DEAD AND DISMANTLED" (short story)

"Remnants" (short story)

The Revanites’ Ascendance

"Bedtime on Concordia" (short story)

Rishi: Places of Interest

Raider’s Cove: Persons of Interest

"The Price of Power" (short story)

"One Night in the Dealer’s Den" (short story)

"The Final Trial" (short story)

Go Big, Go Small, Go Nowhere

"Regrets" (short story)

"The Sixth Line: Part One" (short story)

"The Sixth Line: Part Two" (short story)

"Vacation" (short story)

"Brothers" (short story)

"A Mother's Hope" (short story)

"Trading Scars" – A Short Story on Umbara (short story)

"Copero Short Story Blog" (short story)

Jedi Under Siege: State of the Galaxy

Dantooine Tactical Report

"Quite A Story To Tell" (short story)

"Seeing Red" (short story)

Intelligence Report: Historical Analysis of Manaan

Mission Abstract: Investigate link between Darth Malgus and the planet Elom

"All That’s Left" (short story)

"Bottled Fury" (short story)

"Snare" (short story)

[lavampira]

suddenly just remembered I dreamt last night that I got sent in a space ship with others to a new planet, while bringing buildings and nonperishable goods from earth so my escape pod nearly crashed into a hotel on the way to land, after nearly freezing to death in space from a crack in the glass on the pod, and I went grocery shopping with meredith grey once I arrived. we stocked up on waffles and freeze dried strawberries. also ffxiv guydelot was there and had a crush on alex karev who was sick with a swtor rakghoul plague outbreak for the third time. and no I don’t know how to explain any of this

[swtorramblings]

I'm honestly not sure that reclaiming Taris was ever a good idea. Huge amounts of resources being expended for one world when they're already stretched thin, the likelihood that the Rakghoul plague would get out, the distinct feeling that it was a political stunt.

A political stunt that could certainly lead to good things, but still.

On the other hand, expending effort to stop it solely to show the Republic that what the Empires did cannot be undone is just as much a political stunt and seriously makes you the bad guys.

[mayxthexforce]

What Lurks Within || Celeste & Vader

Starter for @corruptedforce

3944 years, trapped...

Almost four millennia spent in Dreypa's Oubliette, surrounded by NOTHING. An endless darkness. Forgotten by everyone, never to know if Carrick had even so much as tried to find her help, if he'd just ran off the moment he was rid of her, lived the rest of his days as a cowardly rat while she ROTTED in that casket. Her connection with the force severed from the rest of the galaxy, leaving her connected to no one but her torturer, her PARASITE, Muur. And oh, what pleasure he drove from fulfilling his role. Not a day had gone by within the confines of the casket where she wasn't made acutely aware of exactly how long she'd been there for. Hours become days, days become months, months become centuries. In a —very ironic— way, the battle of wits with Muur was the one thing that kept her from slipping into madness.

And then she'd finally been released, greeted by no healers, no masters. Just HIM.

She hadn't been thinking clearly. So focused on the relief of freedom from the casket and the comforting presence of someone other than Muur, she'd just fallen into a desperate embrace. Perhaps, if Vader'd shoved her off, the memory of his arms around her and the strange apparatus he wore on his chest whirring softly as she pressed her cheek to it wouldn't still haunt her almost as insistently as Muur did. But he hadn't, he didn't push her away. In fact, she was the one who pulled back.

Things had gotten much more complicated after that.

There was no place for Jedi in this galaxy anymore. The dark side reigned over almost every corner. ALMOST. Some derelict moon in the outer rim became her hideout, a new type of prison.

3944 years imprisoned in a Sith's torture box. Now, another five years imprisoned in some barren, lonely moon, seeking nothing but solitude. And yet, the Empire still comes after her. Still looks to hurt her.

Celeste had no way of knowing that the group of imperial troopers that landed on her moon was merely a scouting mission. A group of men who were either the least fortunate or luckiest people in the galaxy for stumbling upon her hideout without intending to– if she had to pick, she'd say they were quite unfortunate. She took no prisoners. The talisman controlled the rakghoul plague, and she controlled the talisman– but it longed to spread its disease, longed to feed in the despair of those infected, and who was she to deny it such cravings when the victims had aimed blasters at her?

She kept them for a few days. Long enough for them to start cannibalizing each other, but still retaining some of their armor. Then, she packed them back into their ship and sent them back the way they came. A message. A WARNING.

[raven-of-domain-kwaad]

OC Tag Game

Got tagged by @starknstarwars thanks very much!

Will give out some no pressure tags to @swtorpadawan, @a-master-procrastinator, @dream-of-tanalorr, @imperial-topaz2003, @voidendron and anyone else that sees this and wants to give it a go!

favorite oc - Amarra Kine

I have fallen so hard for my girl Amarra. She is a force for political change yet has no vision for the future. She is one of the most powerful individuals in the empire yet has no ambition for personal power. She loves her family more than anything and yet she is completely alone in the empire. She is the deadliest warrior in the galaxy yet she wants peace for herself and her people. She is a mess of contradictions and I love her for it.

newest oc - Lana Kine

Lana is my OC Kelsa Kine's youngest child. Lana was named after Kelsa's mother Lana Beniko.

(Lana is in the background and Kelsa is in the foreground)

oldest oc - Ryscha Kine

When I made the decision to give SWTOR another chance at the start of the pandemic, I made Ryscha. She began as a semi-self insert before I just started making my Kine Family of OCs and she became her own person. (I did have two previous SWTOR characters that I made in like 2012 but I never really developed them into actual characters)

meanest oc - Avaraxi Dagan

My mad scientist OC that will happily vivisect anyone if it gets them more usable data points. They did vivisect and ran numerous experiments on Kelsa Kine, even harvesting some of her eggs for later which is how Lana Kine and her siblings came to be.

Also diversity win! The mad scientist that's running unethical experiments on you is non-binary!

softest oc - Bryala Kine

All Bryala wants in life is to be a good person and not disappoint those closest to her. And if she can help others along the way then she'll happily do so.

most aloof/standoffish oc - Keras'eren'naru

She is a Chiss that believes in Chiss supremacy. Everyone else is beneath her and her people.

dumbest (affectionate) oc - Inara Almari

She spent her early young adult life raiding dangerous tombs and ruins on the off chance that there might be ancient knowledge she can study. She will also forget about lab safety procedures if she gets too carried away while running experiments. Because she focuses so much on her work she was captured by Zakuulan forces on three separate occasions and all three times resulted in her being rescued by Ryscha Kine who eventually took her on as an apprentice. Inara might have also accidentally infected Ryscha with the rakghoul plague while developing a vaccine. Whoops sorry Master!

smartest oc - Serra Kine

I mean she helped develop the refined Children of the Emperor procedures for Vitiate. Was trusted to develop a Children of the Emperor 2.0 generation using children actually sired by the Voice of the Emperor. While doing all this successful force experimentation, she also planed out a coup against Vitiate (which while unsuccessful in her life was more or less carried out by her daughters Amarra and Ryscha). She also discovered Nathema on her own and managed to negotiate an alliance with the spirits of Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow, Tulak Hord and Exar Kun on Yavin IV to help her take down Vitiate.

horniest oc - Élise Kine and Braken Rist

This married couple enjoy dominating the other nobles of Alderaan in their spare time and will also happily engage in the whole sleep with a target before killing them assassination special. They usually go at it again with each other after said assassinations too.

oc you'd bang - Damar Nakash

Damar is kinky, caring and enjoys making his partners quiver. Also those sith ridges are always mmmm

oc you'd be best friends with irl - Inara Almari

I love folks that have special interests and hyper-fixations. Listening to them info dump passionately is always great and I enjoy learning new things that way. Inara fits that bill. She is also the right type of dumb ass that I would probably laugh a lot with her

[lily-orchard-gossip-blog]

The mention of Arthas' infamous slaughter is funnier because that is basically what Lilly's rakghoul scenario with Aliana was, killing innocent people to stop the spread of a world-ending plague. Only Arthas legitimately had no better choice because he isn't Lily's OP self-insert; they had no way to tell who was infected until they turned and the undead would quickly overwhelm Arthas' forces, so either he kills them or quarantines them, which would just end with the infected killing them anyway.

Never let it be said that Lily is above stealing a good idea.

[atekkalegacy]

an incomplete list of trans swtor characters:

- lana beniko

- darth marr

- kai zykken

- anuli

- mako

- torian cadera

- kira carsen

- that guy on hutta who asks you to get his boyfriend out of carbonite in fa'athra's palace

- that guy on hutta whose boyfriend asks you to get him out of carbonite in fa'athra's palace

- ashara zavros

- talos drellik

- ensign raina temple

- jonas balker

- sergeant jaxo

- the lady on taris that asks you to get the rakghoul plague for science

[diazuk-legacy]

The Rakghoul plague ain't the only thing that is spreading.

[swtor-lewau-legacy]

((honestly, i’m a little surprised the Consular doesn’t make the connection between Terrak Morrhage and the rakghoul plague in addition to the mind plague that Yuon and her friends suffer through. i mean, you’d think they would while trying to save Master Tykan on Taris, the very planet where the rakghoul plague originated, but apparently not.))

[ospreyeamon]

Even though the Hydian Way isn't the most important hyper-lane between the Republic and the Empire, I think it's safe to assume the Republic would need to guard all the major ones to effectively protect against imperial incursions. A space station wouldn't be able to prevent a Sith fleet from passing, but it could send warning if one did and act as a re-supply station for patrolling Republic ships. Taris was right on the border of Republic space during the Mandalorian Wars – outside then inside – so it presumably still is.

I'm not thinking a secret project originally, just a regular military outpost. Only, once the idea of going back to Taris had been raised people started coming up with other ideas about what could be done with Taris.

Like, I can definitely see how @maaruin's proposal about resettling refugees there would have been made; all of those points would appeal to a certain kind of senator. I still think recolonising Taris for that purpose would be a terrible idea, though, because even if the Republic had managed to remain ignorant of the rakghoul problem for three-hundred years it should have been revealed by a preparatory survey. Even without the rakghouls, Taris is still a miserable prospect from the refugees' perspective. All of the infrastructure had been destroyed in the orbital bombardment. Given the awful fate of the people who escaped to the Promised Land, there would still be dangerously high radiation levels in a lot of areas. There are also upper-class prats claiming the original land-rights, so even if the refugees did make it work there would be a risk they would be legally challenged over the ownership of their new homes after the planet finally was restored.

And, whatever the justification for the recolonisation effort, the traffic off Taris' surface would introduce an ongoing biohazard risk because the rakghoul plague might escape.

Maybe there is rakghoul entrapment field. You'd expect there to be a long-term pattern of poor decision making around the planet over the three-hundred years since the plague's beginning if that were the case – increasing in frequency or range as the rakghoul population increased perhaps? – but I don't think we have enough of the history between the KOTORs and SWTOR to judge.

Why do you think the Republic decided to try recolonising Taris? The reasons we're given - sticking it to the Sith Empire by rebuilding!!! - seem too stupid to have made it past a budgetary committee. I suppose there could have been pork-barrelling going on, but if so whose being porked up? The Saresh family? Contractors on the project? Or did the idea start as something more sensible before being steadily derailed, like building a space station above Taris to help control those hyperlanes?

That's a really good question! A friend and I once jokingly theorized that the planet has some sort of "bad idea" field that lures people in to provide food for the rakghouls. (Because, lets be honest, the Empire deciding to invest all that time, energy, and personnel into sabotaging the Republic's rebuilding makes about as much sense as the rebuilding does.)

But if the planet does not have an enormous "bad idea" field, then it has to boil down to strategic importance or some other secret reason why a rakghoul infested disaster zone suddenly attracted so much attention.

I'd be tempted to go with strategic importance, since it is near a major hyperlane, except that I don't think it's near the right hyperlane. Or, well, the most likely hyperlane, since there's three that go from Sith Empire space to the Republic: the Hydian Way, the Perlemian Trade Route, and the Daragon Trail. Of those, the one I'd expect the Republic to sink the most money and effort into protecting is the Daragon Trail, since it goes directly from Korriban to Empress Teta, in the Deep Core.

So if there was going to be a secret Republic project, I'd place it at Empress Teta, not Taris. Greatest danger, no inconvenient rakghouls.

(Or, depending on how exactly hyperlanes work, somewhere else along the Daragon Trail.)

Then again, the Hydian Way is kind of the hyperlane, so there could be some psychological/political advantage as well as strategic sense in finding a way to protect it. So if we have to have all the Tarisian nonsense, a secret project to protect the hyperlane is probably the best thing to go with. Anything left on the planet begs the question of why no one attempted to retrieve it before and the official reason is clearly nonsense.

It's still not a great explanation because of the Daragon Trail (and the Perlemian Trade Route), unless there are multiple secret efforts to protect hyperlanes.

Perhaps it really is that the rakgouls, en mass, create a bad idea field that causes people to come to Taris and be eaten.