The Final Hours of the Old Republic

Such a morbid post title, no? Happily, instead of the slow fade to black that depicted the actual final minutes of Star Wars Galaxies, we're getting a new expansion. I am excited to see how KotFE plays against the backdrop of the shambles of the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Scooter, who has the day off tomorrow, is poised to do the patching necessary for the headstart on both of our computers as soon as it is available. I'll be rushing home at the end of the day, though *ahem—cough, cough* I feel I may be coming down with something. >,>

So after hitting 55 (and after my last post), Scooter and I realized we might speed up the leveling process by finally using some of those 25% XP boosts that BioWare occasionally tosses our way. This worked out pretty well, since Glember and Morrenia both reached level 60 before leaving Rishi, something we did not manage on Silverleaf and Ginie.

For clarity's sake, it may help in the next few paragraphs to remember that Glember and Ginie are Scooter's Agent and Inquisitor, respectively; while Silverleaf the Bounty Hunter and Morrenia the Warrior belong to me.

After a suitably epic time on the pirate haven (which I had not connected with the Rishi Maze during our first sojourn) with Torch the Mandalorian and Revan's lackies, Morrenia and Glember traveled to Yavin IV and were instrumental in dealing with the out-of control Revanite Cult. I was mildly surprised that everyone and their brother seemed to know that Morrenia is the Emperor's Wrath (more appropriately dubbed the Empire's Wrath by Darth Marr) while none of the other characters we've played receive the same instant recognition by so many different NPCs.

Glember and Morrenia each got their interlude with a new NPC, Scooter choosing Theron while I went with Lana. These romances, honestly, feel a little tacked on compared to the efforts we went to with some of our original companions. Whereas Silverleaf was loyal to Mako throughout the expansion content (who also happens to be his regular companion on away missions), Morrenia had rejected Quinn, especially after his betrayal, and therefore has been free to play the field, and done so with pretty much everyone who had a heartbeat—something I've made a character trait. Ginie was rather taken with Vector as well, but Glember had not yet sealed the deal with Andronikos, so Theron was fair game. But with no affection gain, the romances seem awkward at first and a little "out of nowhere." I am assuming in KotFE, new companions (which, in SoR, Lana and Theron were not) will have Influence bars (the new Affection), and any possible romance will develop more slowly and "naturally." I also hope there will be fewer sexual harassment liabilities among the new romancibles.

Here, Morrenia is set to rendezvous with Glember and Lana on Ziost, where we hopefully can make significant progress this evening. I am mostly including this picture because I am gratified that Vette is in the pilot's chair, not Quinn. Morrenia probably has him cleaning the Fury's head—that's a ship's bathroom for you non-military types. Besides, 2V-R8 could use a break. I hope this bodes well for the expansion story, with Quinn nowhere in sight.

And so, Morrenia's Tempest wings into the Black. Likely, when next we meet, "five years" will have passed, and Morrenia, Glember, and all their associates will have awakened from a long sleep to a new galactic order. And the battle with the Eternal Empire will begin!

~~~~~~~~

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to this blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.