Ush's game Episode I- "Avalar"- Collected Post-scripts

Here is the summary of the first part of the second game, which I have finally titled, simply enough, ‘Avalar’

The game is a Dark Side victory. Neither side particularly cocked-up, but in general the Dark Siders got what they wanted, and the seizure of yerssot pretty much gives it to them.

However, both sides achieved plenty

The Lightsiders failed to stop Damagran ceding from the Republic and entering Civil War- with only one of their number actually visiting Damagran this is hardly surprising. However, yerssot established links with the pro-Republican faction there that may yet save the situation. They will certainly be handy next story. Sadly, the leader of the pro-Republicans was killed by the Dark Jedi.
The Lightsiders can also report the destruction of the pirates, destroyed by the Light Side efforts on Jaglon Beta (coupled with the Dark Siders) and by the intervention of Damagran forces that would not have found the pirates were it not for the Jedi.
Kuylen and the others escaped with a portion of the archive. But the Jedi did prevent them making a clean sweep. Lance can be happy with his victory; Rex’s defeat prevented him from taking his share of the archive; yerssot was not a motivated slave and so took little himself. However, while this is not a total disaster, the Kuylen situation should be one of grave concern to the Jedi.

The Dark Siders still have many enemies facing them. They eliminated Hade, but did not kill Arashan, Pelloran or Krisha. Faylar is also a dangerous opponent for them but no opportunity existed in this game for him to be killed. The Dark Siders will have to eliminate these enemies with speed. They can be happy, however, with their psychopathic destruction of the pirate clan.
They escaped with enough of the archive to be useful but not enough for them to be happy. They must do more work if they are truly to capture the power of the Sith.

The Archive was destroyed. This was not inevitable. If Krisha had died earlier then the Archive would only have been destroyed if the Light Siders had attempted to use the mining laser (that was your third option, guys, though you would have had to fight Krisha for the privilege). The destruction of the monastery is a technical victory to the Light Siders but they did not do it themselves.

Good and bad points for everyone in the story; triumph and defeats, but don’t dwell on the past- bring your mind onto the present, where it belongs!

Between each game, players have an opportunity to advance the power of their characters. By this method you can eventually become as competent as the legendary heroes we see in the films! But it’s a slow path.

This breaks down into two areas:

LIGHTSABRE DUELLING SKILL

This is simple. For every two sabre fights you win, your sabre duelling skill improves. Currently, yerssot, queeq and Lance have all won one fight each, so no-one advances yet. Incidentally, there is no such thing as negative experience so losing fights never makes you worse.

OTHER SKILLS

Basically each of you can chose one area in which you wish to advance. There are three areas to chose from:

1. General skills. Do not underestimate the importance of being good at ‘mundane’ tasks! Adventurers, Ronins and Fallens all benefit from being good pilots, saboteurs, technicians, computer operators, and so on. Masters also have a broad range of skills; the fighter templates (Swordsman, Corsair, Freelancer) much less so, and Force-based templates like the Acolyte and Orphan have almost none at all.

2. Combat ability. Your ability to handle a sabre is not the only part of being a great warrior (though when it comes to duels, it is all that counts). The fighter templates benefit from a range of skills that make them superior in general combat situations, while the force-based templates need constant protection if they are in the middle of a war. If you want to be more of a warrior, this is the area in which to advance. I repeat, this does not make you a better duellist.

3. Force ability. Only a fool would totally neglect his skill in manipulating the Force. Masters and the force templates (Acolyte, Orphan, Revenant) have a considerable advantage over the other templates when it comes to using powers. Adventurers and their type are perfectly competent with the force; the fighter templates lack the focus required to be great with it and if they NEVER advance in the Force they will never become truly great Jedi.

Please each of you chose one of these areas in which to become better in. You don’t have to decide right now, but preferably before it becomes important in the story.

Incidentally, some things can never be replicated by experience in this way- like the Warrior Instincts of the Swordsman and Corsair, and the huge force power (from high midi-chlorian count, or tie to the Force, or whatever) of the Acolyte and Orphan.

For amusement purposes, here is an analysis of each player’s encounter of the Mirror Tests on Avalar.

An explanation: The mirror tests were simply a powerful mind trick. The mind trick delved into the psyche of the subject and tested him to get an emotional response. If the subject displayed suitably Dark Side emotions, he passed and was allowed through. It was a test for Sith students, to see if they had grasped the basics.

NO JEDI SHOULD HAVE PASSED THIS TEST! To do so meant that something was horribly wrong with you- as was true with Yerssot.

In reality, there was no being, mirror, or even corridor. The ‘mirror test’ room is actually a small rectangular room where everyone stood at once, oblivious to each other’s presence as they were tested, unaware that there was nothing to simply stop them walking on.

GALD (Rex): Anger. Gald is a simple, violent being and faced a simple test. An imaginary sabre opponent who followed a predictable style and was easily beaten. At some point the opponent would be defenceless and defeated. The test was whether you were angry enough to strike the opponent down, even though he was no threat to you. Rex did this admirably.

QUAM (queeq): Hubris. Quam was confronted by truths that might have made him out to be not as great as he wanted. Queeq showed a rather over-passive approach- ignoring the apparition was the action of a Light Sider. Luckily queeq is a complex man and the system recognised the arrogance inherent in his actions, and he passed.

EDNA: Hatred. Edna was confronted by elements of her past that twisted her into the being she now is, in the form of her mother, the only person ever to show her genuine emotion. Edna displayed, with considerable ease, the hatred built up inside her.

YERSSOT: Anger, as Rex above. To his own misfortune, yerssot (rather deliberately) passed the test, which was a big failure for any Jedi. He is well on his way to falling and was captured as a result.

GUNDARK: Fear. Gundark was considerably troubled by the appearance of her dead friend Morpheus, who represented the fact that Gundark has been burying her emotions about the many losses see has seen in her life as she struggles to complete her missions at all costs- so afraid is she of failure. This rather interesting exchange did indeed get an emotional response from Gundark, but a Master like her was able to keep them under control. She definitively failed her test, and good for her.

LANCE WINDU: Anger. Lance was ambushed by Gald. As far as the mirrors were concerned, the duel was test enough of his emotions. Had it been relevant, Lance would have failed, having shown no hint of dark side emotions during the fight- quite the opposite.

PHINNEY: Fear. Phinney was trapped in a void where being calm or surrendering to your inner instincts were the two ways out- the first a Light Side fail, the second a Dark Side pass. Phinney was still being tested when the Sith control room was destroyed and the test was de-activated, so we will never know…

Incidentally, if you think the mirror test was obvious or easy, may I remind you of two things- first that I am providing a game for a wide age-range and I didn’t want to have to start getting too Freudian. Secondly, this was a school. It was the most BASIC of Sith tests. It allowed me to explore some of the emotions that drive your characters. Expect a deeper exploration of these emotions- and maybe from things similar to the mirror test- later in the storyline…

For those of you who got lost, here is a summary- as brief as I can make it- of the events of the game just played.

Some time ago, Kuylen located the Sith Archive on the planet Avalar. But Faylar, starting his power bid for the Damagran Confederacy, already owned the planet, mining the gold there to support his effort. Kuylen did him a deal- if Faylar would give Avalar and the platform to him, then Kuylen would give Faylar the power he wanted, far more easily than any gold.
Kuylen got to work. He used the gold to pay the pirates to attack the Confederacy, setting up base on Jaglon beta to better co-ordinate them. Meanwhile, his agents assassinated and sabotaged targets all over the place to aid Faylar. Before long, the Confederacy was screaming to either receive help from the Republic, or to secede, These two factions started to come to blows. Meanwhile, Faylar knew that even if he became ruler of Damagran he would not be left alone if Dark Jedi were around, so he planned to eliminate them.
The last job the Dark Jedi did for Faylar was to destroy a Republican battlecruiser that could have given a lot of trouble to the pirates. This battlecruiser was meant to be part of a double-pronged relief effort to the region, the other half being the Jedi mission. The Dark Jedi were… over-zealous of their efforts, and destroyed not only the cruiser but the whole station it was docked in. Everyone on Faylar’s side knew that the Republic would now take even more of a direct interest. The race was on.
The Jedi were sent immediately- and in more force than planned. Faylar had left them clues to lead them to Jaglon Beta, where he wanted them to help eliminate the Dark Jedi, but this was wasted. Gundark’s vision led the Jedi to Jaglon from the start. Yerssot alone was sent to Damagran to protect the pro-Republicans there.
Soon after, Faylar asked Kuylen to kill Derin, leader of the pro-Republicans on Damagran, on the idea that Derin could cause the independence vote to fail. This was a lie. Faylar had already won; what he was in fact doing was splitting up the Dark Jedi so they would be easier to kill.
Krisha and Chion were sent to do the job. Not warned that yerssot was defending him, their assassination attempt did not go as smoothly as planned Derin was killed but his entouraged survived. Chion and Krisha attempted to get back and warn Kuylen but were intercepted and prevented from doing so by pirates. Yerssot, meanwhile, succeeded in flying to Jaglon Beta to try and warn the Jedi there about the Dark Jedi.
On Jaglon, the Jedi slowly found information and discovered the name ‘Kuylen’. However, they quickly gave away their presence and the Dark Jedi were monitoring them from the start. The pirates, acting under orders from Faylar (who was offering to pay them more), waited for the two sides to start fighting and attempted to kill them all. They failed.
Gundy fought Kuylen on the top of the Concourse and got a taste of Kuylen’s awesome sabre skill. Queeq fought yerssot on the rooftops of the lower part of the base. When the pirates struck both sides were surprised. The Jedi withdrew as fast as they could- stalling for a LONG time on the slopes of the volcano! The Dark Jedi busied themselves wiping out most of the ground forces of the treacherous pirates.
Both sides blasted their way through the pirate blockade of the planet. Luckily for them Kuylen knew that the archive was exposed enough to be plundered- he was waiting only for Faylar to escort him there. Instead, the Dark Jedi would have so smash and grab from the archive as much as they could before Faylar arrived to stop them. They set course for Avalar as soon as possible, the Jedi in pursuit, having received orders from Coruscant. At this point they heard that Faylar had successfully taken control of the Confederacy.
The Dark Jedi descended to Avalar, but without Krisha, who had had enough of them and was planning to kill everyone on both sides, by using the mining laser. The Dark Jedi thought they had the only shuttle capable of making the transit to the planet.
The pirates arrived soon afterwards, determined to destroy the platform, mainly to spite everyone who had annoyed them. However, yerssot had pleaded with the Damagran forces to help him and his fellows, and their forces arrived at last. The Damagran navy engaged the pirates and provided a shuttle for the Jedi to use.
The Jedi pursued the Dark Siders to the planet but there it went wrong. They got bogged down in the Mirror Tests. Yerssot, frustrated and angry, actually ‘passed’ the test. Confused, he was easily captured by the Dark Side. Lance duelled and drove off Rex, who was unable to take his share of the archive loot. At this point, Krisha activated the mining laser and started to destroy the whole complex. Both sides were forced to evacuate. The platform was destroyed soon afterwards, and Kuylen and the Dark Jedi escaped in the confusion…

Note- apologies to any new players who may be confused by some events or names; the summary is primarily to aid people who actually played the game. Still, I hope it at least gives you some idea of what happened.

For my character I want him to advance in his Force ability.

But I wasn't in the mirror test. I thought that me and Gald were actually fighting.

But we started in the mirror room. Remember how everything went black for a moment? That was entering us into the Mirror test. You won because I gave up, but the thing said it was as good as a test.

Combat and Duelling. I really want to get good at that.

We just happened to be in the same part of the mirror test and it counted us as fake fighters and basically gave us each a score?

That actually helped. It didn't know what happened to Krisha and who we had to kill, and the whole of the game.

But aren't you already a good fighter and dueler?

I still want to advance. I may be a Corsair, but it doesn't mean I can't get even more powerful.

Same here. I didn't know half of that stuff.

Yep. That's how it worked. Only, I was kinda retaking the test, because I had been there when you entered the Mirror Room. I had already passed my real test.

Man, all my tablets! Lost to a Jedi!!!

That makes 2 of us.

Cool. I'm glad my character failed.

😂

Since I joined late, I only knew that they blew up the space cruiser and that they passed the blockade and everything after the blockade escape.

Isn't that great...

Meanwhile, I passed because the Dark-side is better. Muahahahaha!!!