First I was going to say 'Where the hell did that come from?' but I realized you meant the 'someone's bumping off Jedi' comment...
Yeah, Chion's definitely dead. He was run through with a lightsaber then blown up in a huge blast to destroyed a mountain.
And Marcus killed Balek. So Xeth has no immediate suspects.
I think we are looking in the wrong direction, here. With regards to the planets, that is. The cultists are relatively small fighting force compared to other galatic armies, having all of their offensive forces located on one planet, even a well hidden one, is very unwise tactically. If someone were to discover them, they would be destroyed easily. They would have to stay mobile, constantly moving to avoid detection. That's why I am convinced it's a battle ship of some kind which is ferrying around their fighter craft, something that could move from one front to another. You would take a planet as a base if you were planning conquest or invasion, but doing that would have every large space going army within ten sectors after them, not to mention the Republic. Right now they are just raiders, quick and fast getting what they need to survive.
Arken- though being on the Jedi team and hence more concerned with heading to Charaeus- raises an interesting point in that you can narrow down the Cult's location by discerning their motives. This makes it very important for the Renegades to find out what those motives are.
But I should point out that the Cultists can't be entirely space-borne as the entire point of your original suspicions for them having a forward base were fuel-related. Without somewhere else to re-fuel and re-fit their ships they can't be striking this far into the Republic- not practically, anyway. And it can't just be fighter craft as they would never shift any cargo, and indeed from the sensor logs Kiu recovered you know the ships they used were medium-sized freighters.
Futhermore, the Renegades know that they are looking for a location where the Techno-Union are supplying the Cult, which would be very difficult to do out at Charaeus itself.
How many people boarded the ship- difficult to be sure, but over a hundred, to judge by various bits of evidence.
Well, if you wanted a ball park figure on their numbers you would take how many dead you find, add in about a fifth of that for bodies sucked into space and then times that number by four or five and you should have a decent idea of how many were there. Since it's obvious that with a Jedi unboard, and a well armed battalion of troops, that they would of taken a decent ammount of casualities, but they also took the ship incrediabely fast so there must of been atleast four or five cultists per regular soldier.
Originally posted by McClain
Well, if you wanted a ball park figure on their numbers you would take how many dead you find, add in about a fifth of that for bodies sucked into space and then times that number by four or five and you should have a decent idea of how many were there. Since it's obvious that with a Jedi unboard, and a well armed battalion of troops, that they would of taken a decent ammount of casualities, but they also took the ship incrediabely fast so there must of been atleast four or five cultists per regular soldier.
how do you get the multiply it by four or five?
Ok, back to normal!
Well, as I think was being hazily discussed earlier, the Alzarians want to talk of the counter-strike against Charaeus.
"A full invasion is impossible, of course" says Kiro. "We don't have enough forces to mount an occupation, or the stomach for genocide. Nor do we have the ships or the logistics to mount such a course of action. We want to focus on something more limited, which is exactly what you Jedi are appropriate for, of course."