Part 2: I Wanted to
Be Han Solo but the Part Was Already Cast
When last we saw the Exile she was reconnecting with the
Force because of reasons. Kreia was being cryptic because of reasons. And
droids were being killed because we need EXP somehow.
Anywho we come to a door and Kreia has this to say with her
mind:
Kreia: “…but you have nothing to fear from this one… and he
might yet prove useful…”
We walk in and the man in jail says this:
Exile: “I’d keep those eyes up, and tell me who you are.”
(Seriously, why do the developers refuse to give us pants?)
Man in jail: “Atton… Atton Rand. Excuse me if I don’t shake
hands. The field only causes mild electrical burns.”
Exile: “This facility’s deserted. What happened.”
Atton: “The trouble all started when that Jedi showed up.
But the story gets better. See, some of the miners get it into their ferrocrete
skulls that since the Jedi’s unconscious, they can collect the bounty the
Exchange has posted for live Jedi. Well, what passes for the law here didn’t
like that idea, so the two groups started fighting. There was some big
explosion, I was sitting here for a long time, then you showed up in your
underwear and things got a lot better.”
Exile: “There’s a bounty on captured Jedi? Why?”
Atton: “Don’t know much about it. Maybe the Exchange wants
one as a trophy, or somebody’s got something against Jedi and is looking to
collect. Not many Jedi left… wouldn’t surprise me if the bounty’s pretty high.”
Exile: “Not many Jedi left? What happened to them?”
Atton: “The ones that weren’t killed in the Jedi Civil War
ended up switching off the lightsabers long ago. Word is, there’s not even a
Jedi Council anymore, but who knows?”
Exile: “The stories I heard were of the Sith, not the Jedi.”
Atton: “Yeah, Revan, Malak, and the Jedi that went to join
them in the Mandalorian Wars. They turned against the other Jedi and had a
scrap that almost laid waste to the galaxy. Heh. Where have you been?”
Exile: “I’ve been… away since the Mandalorian Wars.”
Atton: “Well, I wasn’t there, but like all Sith, Revan and
Malak turned on each other. After they turned on the Jedi, of course.”
Exile: “I was led to believe that Revan saved the Jedi – and
the Republic.”
(I’m going to canonicity right here)
Atton: “I guess… there’s rumors all over space about it. All
I heard was Revan returned to pay Malak back for trying to kill her in the
first place. You know women.”
Exile: “How long have you been in that cage? Revan was a
man, not a woman.”
Atton: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I just hoped Revan was a
woman.”
Exile: “Enough history, let me ask you something else.”
Atton: “Look, not like your half-naked interrogation isn’t a
personal fantasy of mine, but… Hey, wait a minute – you’re that Jedi the miners
were talking about. Where is everybody?”
Exile: “Don’t you know what happened to them?”
Atton: “From my beautiful view in this security cage? Look,
I heard some explosions, some emergency alarms, some toxic gas pouring out of
the vents… Maybe none of them survived whatever happened. And if they’re gone…
Look – hey, let me out, and I can help you. I can. I’ve gotten out of trouble
countless times.”
Exile: “[Persuade] Tell me your plan, and we can go from
there.”
Atton: [Success]”This facitilty isn’t a military
installation, which means we may have a chance. You shut down this cell’s
security field, and I can reroute the emergency systems so we can get to the
hangars. We grab a ship and then we fly out of here.”
Exile: “All right, I’ll let you out.”
Exile: “All right. let’s go.”
After some technobabble about how they can’t actually use
the computer because the main sever or something has been cut off or destroyed
or something the Exile manages to contact T3-M4 (the droid from the Prologue)
and we begin the biggest misstep of the entire game: Obsidian’s obsession with
making you play as the secondary characters that you don’t particularly care
about.
Now I actually like Atton. In this particularly long
conversation there isn’t much to analyze. Just a few more frustrating
references to the Exchange, and establishing the events of KotOR 1. The only
real plot hole is how Atton knows this stuff, is on the station, and got thrown
in jail. What I think happened, or should have happened, goes like this: Atton
is the supplier for the station, and occasionally smuggles in some off-limits
items for the miners. After an argument about prices, the law on the station
figured out Atton was smuggling and threw him in jail. Then the whole Exile
death business happens and someone makes off with Atton’s ship but crashes into
the asteroids. Simple, effective, clears up several small plot holes and it
could be taken care of in a few lines of dialogue.
Saving Throw:
I really don’t understand Star Wars’ obsession with droids.
Yes, I get it, R2 is awesome (Nostalgia glasses talking), but T3-M4 is not.
I’ve played my fair share of Star Wars Expanded Universe games and I think it
is a Law of Lucas that the developers have to include a droid. Why? With a few
exceptions (HK-47, R2) we get interesting ones, but more than half the time the
droids are just machines with no real personality. And now instead of just
leaving T3-M4 to sit in the team select screen the player is FORCED to play as
him, for the second time if you played the Prologue. It is hard, not impossible
but still very hard, to make me care about a non-human machine that is not
supposed to have a personality! That is the way they are designed, to not have
a personality (HK is the exception that proves the rule since he is an illegal
assassin droid he can have a personality since the rest of him illegal you
might as well make him interesting).
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