#so much of this silly lore lives in dms okay i just gotta let it be frEEEE

[tiredassmage]

2, 3, 4, 5, 18 (if your OC was an NPC) for Alucren (and free pass to talk about other OCs if you want :D)

crawls out of the abyss. I said one day, one day I'll work through some of my backlog, slowly. so. I'm gonna finally attempt to wrestle with this one, lol.

[oc as nps]

hands u new alucren screenshot as collateral for takin so heckin' long kladnflkadsfl

2) Would they be a class specific character? & 3) When would you recruit them?

Stabbing at both of these because I think the answer feels cleanest when I tackle it together. For all the time I've left this stewing at the back of my brain, I have yet, at least, to come up with an idea that gave me a strong opinion on class specific, but I do figure Alucren for being the type to only hang around fellow Imperials in the long-term. And that... inclines me towards saying he's a latecomer as far as an NPC, particularly a recruitable one.

And to take the excuse to ramble a bit about characters for that (and we'll go ahead and use that as a cut queue, too):

He's... stubborn, is the simplest way to say it. Raised in the Imperial system and deeply strict about his adherence to it, to go a bit further into it. And it's really not until Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne, where the entire order of the galaxy is sort of challenged by the presence of Zakuul as a major third power, that Alucren really... isn't given any other option but to face his own music and reflection in the mirror and actually... do a bit of reflection and reckoning with it. It's a little a lot maybe to dig into without also digging out a pegboard and some string to explain different versions of events with other ocs and characters and all that to explain, but the short version is, essentially, even though Alucren ultimately gets to a place where he's more comfortable in a scenario like the Alliance and willing to have those sort of cross-faction relationships despite differences in opinion and all that, it requires... a lot of self-realization first that Alucren's... really slow with and frankly pretty uncertain about, which I think I'm gonna pick back up on again for 18, so stay tuned, but.

Again, attempt to do a long thing short, he comes around a bit better to change, but it doesn't change his sense of place. His home is the Empire, and Alucren's core values... really boil down to family, and his concept of duty and honor in... sometimes a bit of a nebulous, conflicting order despite his performances and gnashing teeth to the contrary and that... means he won't leave. Any partnership sort of outside of that typical binary isn't meant to be long-term to him. He's... really not sure how to mentally explain it to himself, let alone justify prioritizing it over what he's built his life on, quite frankly, but don't tell him I told you.

4) Where would you recruit them from? & 5) What would their recruitment mission be?

Okay, so this part might have been the one that gave me the most trouble from this list (probably because it's hard for me to separate them, again >.> lol). I think the most interesting options for his recruitment would probably involve a few creative liberties with how things go in-game. Not to get too double-dipping ahead of myself, but his role is... a little difficult to define because he's not... in one that particularly. fits him. Just because he served as a Cipher doesn't mean he was ever an ideal fit for the role. But it was where he was needed - at least to be a body in a role, to fill a gap or what have you, and Alucren's raising and training requires of him to serve where he is needed by his Empire.

It's fairly likely he arguably remained in some sort of capacity with Sith Intelligence through its incarnations over the events of Ziost and into the events of KOTXX, so one of my thoughts as far as earliest appearance was maybe on Iokath as far as substantial interactions go, but... now that I've mentioned Ziost, it's possible he could've made at least a brief appearance or mention as one of the holdover assets from Imperial Intelligence. I do think he spent probably a fair amount of time working closer to home, so to speak, in between vanilla and more recent content, left to his own devices though...

Anyway, the other consideration that comes to mind is something a lot more recent - maybe tied somehow into events with Elom and Legacy of the Sith. I do think Alucren's... let's say... brand of loyalty was arguably liable to get him into something like hot water with one Sith lord or another sooner or later even if we take out the elements of him that have become so interesting to contemplate when he's around the events of Cipher Nine and Darth Jadus, so it's possible that kind of experience or that kind of relationship and owed loyalties would put him in play as an agent potentially acting on the behalf of a specific benefactor maybe even in addition to his interests as a loyal Imperial operative. His previous roles with more diplomatic and expansion roles prior to his experience as a Cipher may actually make him quite interesting to introduce as an agent for Darth Xarion's interest in the Alliance. As for the nature of that interest, is he possibly there to investigate for anyone suspiciously against the Empire's interests..? Maybe so. Or if the Commander is in more full cooperation with the Empire, he is surely there to simply facilitate a better relationship between merging parties. And help with security risks.

Certainly. Right?

In either case, it's likely less that he has a specific mission which you have to recruit him in so much that he is... introduced during one of the group cutscenes and maybe has a one-on-one interaction with the Commander after where he explains more of his role and offers his services on behalf of his superiors. Think a bit more functionally sort of how Anri and Tau have been so far, though possibly as a bit more permanent resident of the Alliance base with a posting for this particular engagement.

18) If they are recruitable in vanilla story, where are they during KOTFE/KOTET? What are/were they doing?

So, I did say I would push off his involvement, but that doesn't mean I don't have thoughts about this, lol. Some of this comes up a bit in the piece I wrote for him and Taizi (blorbo from friend's brain @hyrohkaah fame) reuniting actually during KOTFE, but I also wanna steal the opportunity to speak a bit more generally about one of the, like, catnip pieces about Alucren, to me.

And it's that Alucren is... afraid. Despite appearances, despite the kind of proud stallion act about him, a lot of it is... uncertainties and fears. And one of the interesting contrasts between him and Tyr because I love making contrasts between them - it is how I started Alucren, after all. To take things that were so integral to Tyr and... wonder what kind of character I'd have if I flipped his core values.

So, Tyr is... Tyr is so fucking ride or die. To a godsdamned fault. Quite possibly to the detriment of his own health. You'll see it in his loyalties, his justifications, the way he wears his service with Imperial Intelligence still as a badge of honor because his loyalty was to people like Keeper and Shara. Tyr doesn't give up on them because he never feels they give up on him. When Tyr says, Imperial Intelligence never betrayed me. He believes it. In the ways that matter, he believes they haven't. Keeper didn't. Shara didn't. Ardun Kothe, even, he... doesn't hold a grudge with - hell, even respects, still - because of this kind of loyalty. And Tyr... doesn't exactly have a lot of people on that kind of list. He doesn't have a lot to lose, and what little he does have is worth giving everything, to him, to fight for. He's willing to burn himself at both ends for that, to keep deconstructing himself and bending his own boundaries so someone else doesn't have to. Tyr's grounded by people that are close to him, but he's also... an idealist. As much as he doesn't realize it. He's someone capable of striving for ideals.

And... the short way to sort of say of Alucren is that... that isn't... him. Ideals and big overarching pictures just don't have as much sway on him. I've already said he's loyal. Both of them have areas where they are stubbornly loyal. And Alucren and Tyr butt heads sometimes because those areas don't always overlap.

Alucren has three older sisters that were and are dearly important to him. He grew up very close with them. Family, as was already mentioned, right? And... he has a strong sense of duty. He has a strong sense of how he was raised, and what he should value based on that experience, that more fairly-off background with a successful Imperial lineage as his backing. Change is... a lot bigger to him. He's a lot more likely to balk at it. It's... intimidating. Alucren isn't... an agent of change, in that sense, where Tyr is. Tyr is... a lot more ready to jump in because Tyr doesn't have that sense of place to lose. Alucren still has an attachment to an identity that existed before his role as a Cipher. He's got things and people that he's... not ready to lose.

Which is all just... a lot of build up to say Alucren's not the first person that would've been looking for the Outlander. Even if they had been close. When the Empire, when his superiors, say they're dead, when the threat of Zakuul is already so close as to have been the attack on Korriban, that attacks on Dromund Kaas, the blockades, all the other tensions implied during the five year period the Outlander is in carbonite... Alucren goes back to Dromund Kaas. He goes back, at least on paper, to be closer with his sisters, to keep them safe. Because he has a duty or responsibility or however else he decides to dress it up on that particular day to protect the Empire, to protect home.

But it's also... because a lot is changing. Zakuul is... upending a lot of what he knew. A lot of that sense of place, a lot of that identity he clung to in his loyalties.

And it's not just "former" Republic personnel being involved that make him hesitate to join something like the Alliance. He very likely wouldn't join the Alliance at all unless someone he knew and cared for was there and had a strong enough conviction in its need to exist and its purpose to argue for him to join them. (Tyr, for example, to go back to the fic, really only gets him there because its Taizi. And Tyr very nearly doesn't manage it. Because Tyr and Alucren have different values and Tyr argues from his understanding of his own. But... for as much as Tyr and Alucren have going on as a pair directly, Tyr's... Tyr would have a hard time convincing him to show up, based on their own relationship. If that was all they working on, but I'm. getting off-topic.)

ANWAY. THAT is all just. a long-winded way to explain that he's back on Dromund Kaas during probably a fair portion of the five year gap and at least the early parts of KOTFE. He might have had some few assignments to take him out to investigate any Republic process during that time, but he asked in his reassignment to stay closer to be with his sisters. And a lot of that time is... him trying to stick to those core three values and... also figure out what they're going to look like in a galaxy that's changing because of Zakuul's presence. Having to grapple with the real implications of his loyalties and his values and what's it all really mean, is this truly important to him, how much of it is all a mask..? All those kind of questions he never really gave himself time to sit with in the thick of a career in Intelligence. Some of it gets reaffirmed, some of it involves some realizations on areas to maybe be more open to change, if not... get ready to actually make those changes...

Which... wow, turned into a whole ramble uhm. >.> Ahhem. I give him a lot of shit for being my fucked up lil guy who is a lil like a bag of marbles dropped across the floor, but he is... he is also just. sometimes my soggy cardboard box guy. And he does some growth in there. Just a lil bit though don't inflate his ego too much.