#tanno vik critical

[storyknitter]

Who are your 3 least favorite Swtor companions and why?

Hey, thanks for the ask!

Skadge. I know most people aren't fans of him, so this isn't a surprising answer. Just... he's a sleazeball and the BH gets ZERO choice in actually letting him join their crew. I tend to ignore that he's on the ship at all and headcanon that my BH kicked him off the ship/shot him when he tried to pull the whole, "I'm going with you whether you like it or not" bullshit.

Kaliyo. Some people love her, but in my defense, I ran Sanna through KotFE before starting the IA storyline (yeah, I know I know!), so that was my first experience with Kaliyo. I think my opinion might have been different if I'd met her through the IA storyline first, but who even knows? (WAIT, I TAKE IT BACK! I FORGOT SHE WAS ONE OF DOC’S EXES!!! Regardless, she’s a solid meh for me. Skadge is really the only companion I hate)

Tanno Vik. I've only run through the trooper class once or twice, but I can think of a couple other NPCs I'd rather have in my crew instead of him. He's another one of those "ignore he's even on the ship" NPCs

[nightingaletrash]

Arvala: I care about everyone in my squad

earlier that day

Arvala: I don't care for Vik

[sunderedazem]

Who are your 3 least favorite Swtor companions and why?

OH YOU HAD TO ASK!

Okay first- Doc. Don't get me wrong, I have never once played an f!knight because i have approximately one (1) Jedi Knight Blorbo who lives in my brain eating my braincells at all times - but EVEN SO, how he acts towards unromanceable characters is so fucking annoying. Corrain has so much fun telling him to fuck off when he tries to mess with Kira. my god. bitchass 'doctor'

Second would be Skadge. his personality is just Villain, there's nothing interesting about him besides him being a Generic Sith Baddie without the Force Powers and buffoonery. and he's not even like, an INTERESTING villain, like Khem Val, with his Sithy History stuff, or Broonmark, who at least has a motivation beyond "Likes Being Pointlessly and Annoyingly Evil," or Tanno Vik/Kaliyo, who are at least kind of just like "fuck authority and morals but I'll hang around for the paycheck and the perks." Skadge is just. bitter about being thrown in jail....for being an extremely violent gang leader who enjoyed exploiting people for no reason. like what?

and Third....M1-4X. Like....he's kind of okay in the sense that he's not rude or anything but if I had to pick a character that would pull some shit like "but it's patriotic to turn in suspected Undesirables to the government now!" it would be M1-4X. Like I understand why it's wise to make the superweapondroid intensely, unnervingly loyal to the government it's supposed to serve.....but the utter *lack* of ability to criticize a government is fucking terrifying and my queer ass is a little too keyed up around nationalists to like him.

Thanks for the ask!!! <3

[vihola]

Tell us about Teshe's relationships with each member of his squad!

I should start with the clarification that my Havoc Squad includes three of my OCs. Teshe is not the CO, he’s just one more member of the crew and it suits him fine. He sees himself as nothing more than a glorified mercenary. Patriotism and idealism aren’t in his vocabulary, he’s here to do his job. And if his superiors ever demand something he’s not willing to do (like sacrifice his life for the cause), he can find himself a different line of work ― no big deal.

Tanno Vik is the only one who can understand Teshe’s approach, but they’re not even friends. Teshe dislikes how Vik uses every opportunity to profiteer. Teshe might be a mercenary at heart, but he has some principles and professional pride. He won’t take bribes, won’t double-deal, won’t betray his employer’s trust unless he was betrayed first. And that’s why he and Vik don’t get along all that much, even though they come from similar backgrounds.

Teshe has a lot of respect for Elara. Like her, he took a great risk leaving his old life behind. And he can always count on her doing her best, that’s all he ever asks from everyone he works with. But their relationship becomes strained when Teshe finds out what Imperials did to his mother and how they basically ruined his life. Suddenly, even former Imperials can’t be trusted because each of them may secretly be an evil douchebag.

Aric thinks that Teshe shouldn’t be in the military. Teshe always gets the job done, but he shows no loyalty, no commitment to the cause. Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to be a hired gun? Meanwhile, Teshe doesn’t take Aric’s criticism personally, he just waves it all away and only ever argues with Aric about something practical. So it kinda goes like this

Aric: But don’t you care about defending the Republic? Teshe: Nah, man, just doing my job. I’m paid to defend the Republic, not paid to care about it

Teshe doesn’t really understand Yuun and Forex, but his relationships with them are rather amicable. He likes learning how Yuun does his engineering stuff, it seems so fascinatingly complicated. He enjoys listening about Forex’s adventures and violently creative solutions, even though all this patriotic extremism is too much for Teshe. He’s like, “I don't get it, but it's none of my business. You do you, crazy Imperial-killing machine!”

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR and Companion Death

So. Some thoughts about companion deaths in SWTOR in general.

I'm not a fan.

SPOILERS FOR KOTFE ONWARD.

I do know the name of the franchise is Star WARS, and people die in wars. It would probably be extremely unrealistic if we had a scenario where our characters spent literally 17 years of their lives (and counting...well, 12 if we don't count carbonite) fighting and nobody around them died.

However, in SWTOR I think that most of the deaths could been avoided. I don't think they benefit the story. I think that all they really do, in the end, is deprive the audience of a lot of interesting characters. 

I do think there are occasions when a player's character may wish to reject or kill a companion, but I also feel that there are ways to write so that it is an exception, and not commonplace.

And we have not even gotten to the NPC deaths. It has been a bloodbath for years with SWTOR and the writers show no signs of stopping it. Nathema - the body count from Nathema has taken almost twenty NPCs out of the main story. Onslaught? Yeah. Many more. It's become more unusual for an NPC to actually survive for the duration than to have a kill option.

I feel there are better ways to write than to take a Game of Thrones approach and kill everyone. When you eliminate everyone's beloved characters, and you leave the player with nothing more than a rotating cast of strangers, it's quite difficult to get into the story after a while.

Going through the companion deaths from KOTFE to Iokath:

Tanno Vik: The voiceover artist who played Tanno Vik died several years ago, and apparently the devs decided not to make the character recruitable in KOTFE because of that. I can understand this one. It seems that Tanno may die regardless of your choices, too. If you spare him during your meeting, he may not have survived the attack on Asylum, especially if the PC chose to use Valkorion's power.

HK-55: Yes, we get it, you wanted to show everyone that Arcann is a big old monster. The "thrown into carbonite," "slaughtering the Scions" “subjugating both the Republic and Empire” and "ruling as a harsh dictator" plot points didn't get it across quite enough. Dramatic. Yes. And they do bring HK-55 back

My objection to this death is not that they did it - because it actually does fit, even if it's a little extreme - is that they didn't make HK-55's return available to all in the actual main story of the game. I can understand making Shroud of Memory a bonus, because it's cute and funny but doesn't tie super directly into the main plot. But Arma Rasa? I think that should have been for everyone. Yes, I know you can buy it now - and I did - but I still think it should have been main story. If it were, we could have enjoyed HK-55's commentary in the rest of KOTFE and KOTET.

Kaliyo Djannis, Aric Jorgan: Fan service. But it makes no fucking sense. What exactly are you killing them for? They didn't listen, after they tried to compensate and salvage a mission that had gone south? They were left in the lurch because your PC was mission critical and went on a hallucinogenic hiking trip and didn't show up? There's literally nothing you can do to make the mission go right. It always fails, no matter who is in charge or what you tell them to do.

In Kaliyo's case, I really question why the devs thought that she, of all people, would be the character that most players would just love to spend an entire chapter with in one-on-one quality time in KOTFE. I think her kill option was a response to that - "yes, we forced you to play a chapter with this character but look, you can let her go now." Or perhaps it was a response to the frustration some players had with not being able to kill or reject her in the class story.

I think the class story could have sustained a branch where Kaliyo was asked to leave after the Wheezer incident. I think it's reasonable that a player's Agent may not have wanted to continue associating with her at that point. There were four other characters who could have taken her dialogue in the class story missions. But to do it years later? Eh.

In Aric's case, I have no idea what they were thinking. I've never had the feeling he's a character that is widely disliked. They needed to give an option to kill someone along with Kaliyo. I don't know. But it's weird and doesn't make sense IMHO.

Senya: So she's saved her boy. We get it. But considering that Senya also spent several chapters insisting that her children needed to be brought to justice, and was fully willing to engage Vaylin in combat if not kill her - the change of heart was confusing. I think Senya's fate was attached to Arcann's simply to give Arcann greater odds of survival. It seems that people like Senya even if they don't like Arcann. If the two had been separated, I really think less people would have saved Arcann.

Koth: Fan service. Nothing but fucking fan service. I'm sure it had nothing to do with Koth being a LGBTQ+ Black man who actually protested the player's actions and didn't let them off the hook. No, nothing to worry about here with that. That;s sarcasm in case I need to clarify. If things get to the point where Koth has left, your character literally works with him to save the ship and then can kill him while Lana stands there and watches and not a single person protests. After Koth has hijacked the ship and planted a bomb on it. The ship he adores. I can’t even. They could have done so much with this character and they just...did this instead. And then chose to completely ignore him even if he remained in the player's story. I still am salty, years later, that he didn't even get a cameo in the Nathema story. It's not as though the Gravestone's fate would have bothered him at all, amirite?

SCORPIO: One of the few kill options that actually might be justifiable, but the larger question is why she was trusted so much to begin with. And why the game feels it's light side to let her merge with a planet that keeps a necropolis of billions of organics it has slaughtered as research subjects.

Arcann: I feel Arcann should be handled and considered separately because he was not established first as a companion. He was framed and written as an adversary for all of KOTFE. But here we are forced to choose between "let Arcann live and become your new BFF who takes over Lana and Theron's place of trust with no punishment for his crimes" or "kill him on live television! I'm sure I'll be an Instagram Influencer now! Follow me at AllianceCommanderOdesssen uwu!"

Vette; Torian: Completely unnecessary. You have an Alliance that is so large that fighters are literally on the cliffs and in the trees helping you as you progress through the chapter. The Gravestone's taken to the skies. And yet nobody is available to swing by Torian or Vette's position to help them. You and Lana/Theron or Senya/Arcann are literally THE ONLY PEOPLE EVER who can do that. Oh, and the super-smart Hutt scientist in charge of your Research and Development team has given Vette an assault cannon for this huge battle against strong, skilled forces, despite the fact she's only operated an assault cannon...once? For a few minutes? *thumbs up, Oggurobb!*

I feel this was simply done to try to evoke emotion and to erase any sympathy the player may have had for Vaylin, since it immediately follows the Nathema sanitarium visit.

If they really felt the need to go with this, I feel they could have tied it to player actions earlier in the game. Did you do a lot of Alliance Alerts? Did you raise the Specialists' influence above 10? Did you do some of those veteran Star Fortresses and pick up a few extra companions? Then maybe you have enough extra personnel to save both. Quinn: More fan service, served up for those who would have liked to kill or reject Quinn all those years ago in the class story.

Just like Kaliyo - and Skadge, and Tanno Vik - I think the class story could have gone on without him if the Sith Warrior had been allowed to reject him after the Quinncident. I would have rejected him at that point. The writing in the class story could have sustained it. They could have given the healer role to one of the others. And then you'd get a branch where if Quinn was present, he'd show up on Iokath. If not, it would be someone else from the Sith class story, like one of the many Moffs the Warrior meets. Maybe the dude from Ilum, since he doesn't die. Or Hesker.

Theron: Now, here's the issue. The story sets up a scenario where asking Theron to leave because you no longer trust him is understandable. But I plead the case that it never should have gotten to that point. The entire betrayal story was completely unnecessary. Theron NEEDED to go undercover like that? He had a secret language he and Lana developed and just never used it to tip everyone off? He thought frying the Commander on Iokath or throwing her out the train window would be fun? After working so hard for peace, he literally sparked the next galactic war by tipping off everyone about Iokath and manipulating them all into going there so they could learn lots of fun new ways to kill each other?

Come. On. It doesn't make sense. Even in a spy game, I don't think Theron would have really thought that prodding the Empire and Republic to war with each other and the Alliance would have been worth it.

I feel like they could have done so many other things with the Order of Zildrog, and even had the same flashpoints, without making Theron appear to betray the Alliance. 

DS Jaesa: *sigh* So she saw the Commander on the Holonet, never thought of coming to Odessen and instead went to Iokath to slaughter Alliance troops. Oh, and threaten to kill Lana, who may be the player’s partner. Again, it sets up a scenario where it makes sense that a player might kill her, but why was that even necessary? The scenario itself doesn't make sense. If you have Master Ranos, she says that Jaesa was spotted hunting for artifacts, I think? Maybe just maybe they could have worked with that?

Xalek: You're killing Xalek for...um...terrorizing miners...and...yeah. Okay. Dude was in the class story for about five minutes so I don't think anyone knows what is going on here.

Broonmark: Yes, he's basically a cold-blooded killer. But he's going after this Wookiee senator because he's allying with the Republic? Or getting some Talz to be allies? The Talz already seem to be aligned Republic. He's a bit late to that party. Why is it that I don't think Broonmark would be into politics or watching the news and would not care about this?

Rusk: Um, yeah, Bey'wan, about that guy you wanted me to recruit, he's, um, dead. Because I decided to sell him out to a Black Sun gang leader. Don't be mad?

Skadge: One of the few kill options I think most could agree is...not that bad. Your mission with Rusk is to kill him. He was an adversary in the game. My headcanon for my bounty hunters is that he never gets on the ship after Belsavis. There’s no way they would have ever brought him along. Another case of correcting something from the class story?

[fancyfade]

[image: screencap showing Tank (a red skinned republic twilek who is tall and buff) standing really close to Tanno Vik (a weequay with purple greyish skin who is even taller and buffer than tank) end image]

Dear SWTOR I want Tank and Vik to be the same height why u gotta make bt3 so much smaller and slighter on the ladies than the guys?

[lesbiannova]

I've reached Balmorra in my recent playthrough of Evanne. As I'm reading the dialogue tree on TORcommunity, I'm reminded of how much I hate Tanno Vik's companion recruitment arc, which definitely plays a huge part of my dislike of Vik.

This is why I have created Uyozu to replace Vik in Evanne's story. It would be so much better if the companion the Trooper recruits on Balmorra is a member of the Balmorran Resistance who is genuinely dedicated to the resistance's cause, instead of a loose cannon who pretends they support the resistance for personal gain. Ugghhhhhhhh.

[rainofaugustsith]

On SWTOR’s Disappearing Characters

I've learned that the discussions on the official forum are a hellscape, and that it's best to completely avoid that site, save for the dev announcements, bug reports and PTS information. I unwisely took a peek tonight, and yep, that has not changed.   I'm floored that people are still - still requesting kill options for characters. And yes, of course, it's another female character.   There haven't been enough character deaths already? Really? SWTOR is a bloodbath.  

(Spoilers for just about everything up to Onslaught)

Currently, there are only five major named characters from the class stories who can be alive for everyone, or at least have not been explicitly killed off (Satele Shan, Darth Jadus, Darth Malgus, Keeper, and the Huntmaster). There are two more from the SoR era (Lana Beniko and Shae V). One of those seven is not looking too good from a current story standpoint, and another has been the target of a lot of moaning and screaming for a kill option from some women fans, who apparently think it's totally cool to exclude wlw by killing off the only major wlw character in the game.

Three major named NPCs were killed in KOTFE or KOTET. 20 more named NPCs can potentially be killed off on Nathema, which means they now do not exist for anyone's story in a major way. It's true that some of those NPCs were extremely obscure - someone's wife, a character that only appears on that one flashpoint - but many of them were major supporting characters who could have had a critical role in future story.   Out of the companions that we originally started the game with, of the original 40, 14 are killable. In one class - Sith Warrior - there is literally only one companion who can be alive for everyone, meaning that 4/5 have now been erased from the possibility of being part of the main story.   Of the companions we gained from KOTFE onward, 4/5 can be killed. The fifth is the aforementioned character from SoR who has been pulled out of a lot of story, probably thanks to the screams of the angry fans mentioned above.   That's 18 companions, dead for some and now removed from having any large role in the main story for all. Sure, they might get a cameo every now and then, or have a few lines thrown their way because they need to have some love interests, but yeah, they're not doing much.   So we get to Ossus and there are some really cool returning characters! Malora looks great! Oops. Bye. Onward to Onslaught. By the end of Onslaught, the potential exists to kill four Dark Council members. There are only six in total on the Council so you've literally almost wiped it out. Characters like Darth Savik and Darth Malora are interesting, but their only role seems to be to show up and die or flee the Council. That nice Republic general from Esseles? Not. Jonas Balkar? Later.     And no, I don't think all of them were necessary. Yes, some were. Tanno Vik's voiceover actor passed away, so he could not stay in the story. Okay. Arcann and Senya, I will grant because they are main antagonists in the story. SCORPIO? Well, they did set that one up. Skadge was total fan service, probably because a lot of people (including myself) resented having to take him on the crew during the class story. My bounty hunter would have blown him away before she would have let him anywhere near Blizz or Mako, much less on her ship. I'll concede that he was a pretty universally (but not entirely) hated character and most fans probably would not have enjoyed having him in the story.     But Aric Jorgan and Kailyo? Unnecessary. Vette and Torian? A gimmicky Virmire move to get the player angry at Vaylin and make that final fight more palatable. Koth? That one was sheer fan service. Quinn? I fucking hate Quinn and have headcanoned that he left the crew after the Quinncident back in the class story, but they didn’t need to do that. I did take the kill option on Iokath but only because the writers gave me no other way to dismiss Quinn. If one didn't choose the kill option, on the Imperial side, the only other choice was to essentially pat him on the back and say "hey, bro, just don't do it again, K? Welcome back to the family!" But so many years after the Quinncident, do you really think my Sith Warrior was sitting there stewing and fretting over Quinn enough to kill him? Honey, she won. She defeated Baras and did fabulous things and Quinn was an afterthought by that point. She wouldn't have killed him; she just would never have let him on the base at all.   And those tactics where players’ hands are forced do skew the results. If your only options are to kill someone off vs. cheerfully accepting them, you’re going to get kill simply because players want to get away from that character. It’s the same with Arcann. If Arcann had been separated from Senya’s fate and there had been an option to say “sure, yes, recover. Just not here,” I wonder if the results might have been different. But either you kill Arcann and Senya in DS choices or you have to let them take the place of your trusted advisors, so it’s one extreme or the other.  Theron? Come the fuck on. The entire traitor arc was ridiculous. They didn't need to set Theron up as a traitor to begin with. I mean, it's not as though betrayal is not a very tired old trope that's been used about a thousand times in SWTOR already.

Yes, we all know that there are kill options on most of these, so technically you can still keep them alive. But we also know that Bioware is no longer adept at keeping them in the game for those who chose to save them, so it doesn't mean much. I saved Vette on KOTET. I think she’s sent one email to me. That’s it. That’s her inclusion in the story now.  At this point, we're so low on surviving characters that we're getting ones dug up from Esseles and the heroic quest givers, and even they're biting the dust. Is Bioware bringing everyone back just to slaughter them? Is there any point getting attached or engaged with any new characters introduced since Bioware's likely going to murder them presently?   And yet, people are asking for more? They want Bioware to keep doing this? There have been complaints that this or that character gets too much screen time, but when you kill everyone else off around them, what the fuck do you think is going to happen? Do you think killing off more characters and thus giving the writers less to play with in their sandbox will make that situation change?   I'm really wondering what's going to be left in the game. We're going to end up getting our quests from the damned gonk droid because they've killed everyone else off, created an environment where there's nobody familiar and nothing more than an endless parade of characters who appear and die, and it's already making the story much less engaging, IMHO.