KOTOR stands for Knights of the Old Republic and TOR stands for The Old Republic. KOTOR is a Star Wars video game designed for the PC and X-Box that tells the tale of the end of the Jedi Civil War, which happened 4,000 years before Episode IV: A New Hope. TOR is the new MMORPG, which is the sequel to KOTOR and KOTOR II- The Sith Lords. It takes place 300 years after KOTOR I and 3700 years before A New Hope and tells of the war between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic.
KOTOR is my favourite Star Wars game of all time. I have played numerous Star Wars games from the Empire Strikes Back on the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) to Star Wars Empire at War. The KOTOR franchise came out when Star Wars games were on the one-way course to disaster unless something was quickly. KOTOR and Empire at War redeemed Star Wars RPGs (KOTOR) and RTS's (Empire at War/EaW) because they provided everything that their respecitve genres offered with a good Star Wars twist. KOTOR was eventually surpassed by the Force Unleashed but the Force Unleashed is more of a plat form game then a role playing game. For those who don't know, a platform game is like Mario Brothers- it is very linear and you usually play in one world and have to complete many quests, and many of them don't follow a plot. You can read all about the history of Star Wars games on IGN's History of Star Wars Games.
Plot lines
In order to get a better idea of things you can check out the Historical Time Line Videos that Bioware sends out periodically. It tells the story of the Old Republic, which is the MMO they are building, in order for us to understand the back story of it. Two of the back stories are KOTOR I and KOTOR II.
Prologue to KOTOR I
In Star Wars spirituality revolves around the Force, an energy field that is created by all living things. The force has two sides- the light side and the dark side. The light side is used by the resisting of base passions such as anger, and hatred. The embracing of those emotions is how the dark side is called upon. The Jedi and Sith have been fighting against each other for centuries in the Star Wars Universe. Basically every full scale war, including the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War of the films, are about Jedi fighting against the Sith. Most of the time the Sith are the instigators, but in the case of the Galactic Civil War the Jedi were. In the Old Republic era the Jedi/Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic are on the light side of the force, while the Sith and the Sith Empire are on the darkside of the force.
The prologue of KOTOR is the tale of Darth Revan and Darth Malak's fall to the darkside and the beginning the Jedi Civil War. Darth Revan and his apprentice Darth Malak rebelled against the Jedi Council when the Mandalorians, a people group that believes battle and fighting are a way of life and the only means of self improvement, attacked the Republic.
At the end of the war they went into Deep Space in order to destroy the remnants of the Mandalorians. What they found, however, was the Sith Empire reborn on Dromund Kaas and were corrupted by the Dark Emperor of the Sith. The Sith Empire was planning to return to known space to extract vengeance against the Republic and the Jedi Order for destroying them during the Great Hyperspace War centuries ago. After corrupting Revan and Malak, the Emperor sent them back into Republic space to find the Star Forge, a space station that was created millenia ago by the old Rakatan Empire.This machine is technology fused with the dark side and is able to be both a weapon and factory at the same time. Revan and Malak were to track down the Star Maps scattered on five planets- Dantooine, Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, and Korriban- in order to extract the vengeance of the Sith Empire on the Republic and the Jedi Order centuries ahead of schedule.
Revan and Malak, now Darth Revan and Darth Malak, returned in secret to unknown space in order to track down the star maps and find the Star forge. It was not until Revan and Malak found the Star Forge and created a mass army that they officially returned to known space, declared themselves Dark Lords of the Sith, which started the Jedi Civil War. All the Jedi that were with them in deep space and all their forces were also corrupted by the dark side. Revan re-established the Sith Academy on the Sith world of Korriban in order to train people in the ways of the Sith and the dark side and used the Star Forge's system as a base where Revan and/or Malak could bring captured Jedi in order to corrupt them to the dark side or kill them.
By this time Revan and Malak had no intention of doing the Emperor's will. Instead they planned to build their own Sith Empire and eventually destroy the Sith Empire they found in Deep Space when they finished conquering the Republic. The lust for power that Revan and Malak had started to cause tension between the two, and eventually sealed their Empire's doom.
When the Jedi- lead by Bastila Shan- lured Revan and Malak into a fight, Malak betrayed his master by firing on Revan's ship after the Jedi strike team was on it in order to capture Revan. Malak's plan failed, however, and both Bastila Shan and Revan survived. Barely. Revan was almost dead but Bastila used the force to preserve his life. When Bastila brought Revan before the Jedi Council, the Council decided to erase his memory and reprogram him with a new identity. In later articles I will discuss the morality behind their choice as in doing so they made Revan into a Republic soldier in order to slowly but surely extract his memories out. They could do this because a force bond formed between Bastila and Revan when she saved his life.
Knights of the Old Republic/KOTOR
KOTOR starts a year after the event on Revan's ship. Revan is now a Republic Soldier on the Endar Spire and completely ignorant of his past self. Through the course of his travels memories start to surface of his fight with Bastila and the location of the Star Maps. During the travels the council re-trains him as a Jedi but fails to inform him that he is re-learning the Jedi ways or that he is really Darth Revan. Revan does not find out until he and Bastila, along with the Republic Soldier, Carth Onasi, are captured on the Leviathan. Revan runs into Malak during the escape attempt and is informed by his former apprentice about his true self, which is confirmed by Bastila.
Now, Bastila is captured by Malak and falls to the dark side after Malak's tortures. The end of the game is really up to the player, but canonically Bastila tries to bring Revan to the darkside but Revan refuses. On the Star Forge Revan fights Bastila, although she is the instigator of the fight that occurs before she tries to turn Revan and the fight that happens on the Star Forge, and Revan then moves on to defeat Malak.
A more thorough plot-line for KOTOR is found on KOTOR's Wookiepedia page and in this video:
I will elaborate on my opinions about Revan's choices as well as the Jedi councils' choice to erase Revan's memories in another article. I want to give you guys some time to read the Wookiepedia article first.
Knights of the Old Republic II
KOTOR II is the tale of the Jedi Exile, who is canonically female. She was one of the Jedi who followed Revan and Malak to fight in the Mandalorian Wars, but was the only one to come back and answer for her disobedience of the Jedi Council after the war. The sentence for her was exile and she ended up touring the Outer Rim during her exile for 5 years. Wookiepedia has an article and the plot line for this game too.
The Knights of the Old Republic II is really a filler between the first game and the MMO. The exile's journeys defeated the other Sith factions leftover from Revan's Sith Empire, including the Sith Triumvirate. Once they were defeated the Republic breathed a sigh of relief... Bad idea as the Exile left to find Revan and help him destroy the Sith Empire. The Republic should have heeded both the warnings of the Exile and Revan that there was a greater evil than Malak or the Sith Triumvirate out there and prepared for the Sith Empire's return over the 300 years between Knights of the Old Republic and the Old Republic, but they didn't.
I plan on critiquing A LOT of what happens in the KOTOR games and the storyline because there are a lot of things to critique, such as the actions of the Jedi Order and the Republic to the ending of KOTORII. In the next blog articles I'll be doing that but I thought I would give you guys an introduction to the franchise before diving immediately into the issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment