Without a doubt, the main plotline was the Jedi one. Two VERY important plots being introduced inside otherwise standard missions, involving great tests for the players and events that will have a huge effect on the Campaign to come- and even beyond.
Plot one was Cassilis- an ancient Republic world, run by the “Z’Har”, a group of Mensa-like geniuses, an organisation as old as the Jedi, who run Cassilis very well indeed, from a building called ‘The Sanctuary’, a kind of vast combination of school and museum that is considered one of the wonders of the Republic, containing many of its most important cultural achievements in its 25000 year history. An unexpected dispute with farmers has brought this pacifist world near the brink of armed uprising; Jedi- in the form of Roan and Jelena- are dispatched to try and help bring a peaceful resolution.
Plot two was Spiridos- Spiridos is a vast hospital world, very advanced, but now mainly given over as an enormous spa, given to the luxury treatment of very rich people. The Jedi are fairly certain that Spiridos is the point of supply of a vast drug smuggling network of the stimulant ‘aspidrol’; a huge problem in the Inner Regions, The Spiridos authorise refuse to help out in any investigation, so the Jedis Gallagher and Andro are sent in undercover to try and expose the source. Undercover means no sabres, so Gallagher is a good choice as he is no combat specialist anyway; Andro makes good emergency backup as he can fight sabreless. Gallagher is also a good choice as the wealthy family in his background are the sort of people who would use Spiridos’ facilities; his Ally- a protector for the family- makes an ideal companion for the story.
Both stories were a combination of the mundane- the mission- and the mysterious- the evil problems involved in each one that form the titular ‘Revelations’ of the story. Both sides were equally important, though obviously the ultimate impact of the latter was greater. To explain the plot framework, I shall explain the mundane first.
The problem on Cassilis is one of the nature of democracy. The Z’Har effectively operate a restrictive franchise; in any practical sense, only the Z’Har can hold political power. But the success of Cassilis is making the farmers and traders so powerful in other ways that they resent not being able to hold political power. Z’Har are selected for their intellect at a very early age and the ideal is fixed. The latest dispute is started by a new tax plan for the farmers which is meant to fund social services but which they see as a. too punitive but b. more to the point, something they had no democratic say in, because the Z’Har are all of the same mind. The farmers’ and traders’ rich and powerful spokesperson, Volun, was the mouthpiece and leader of the discontent, and by the time the players get there they have mounted a forced occupation of the Sanctuary in order to get publicity for their undemocratic plight.
This was the bitchy, and very intellectual, situation the Jedi were confronted with. The situation is obviously that Cassilis isn’t very democratic at all. The Z’Har themselves do not understand why anyone would want to vote for anyone else. It is inevitable that any meritocracy, like the Z’Har are, will eventually have the prime objective of sustaining itself, at the expense of democracy. But the problem is that Cassilis is the nicest and most well run planet the players have veer been to. There is no corruption, (indeed, their Senator was clearly against the activities of the Techno Union and the like), crime was effectively non-existent, everyone was cared for, and there was no poverty or disease. They very intellectual abilities of the Z’Har were making this possible; widen the franchise, and Cassilis would eventually become like much of the rest of the Republic- corrupt and degenerate- or at the very least, this was a huge risk.
I suggested no immediate ‘correct’ answer for this puzzle; the player’s mentors sided with the Z’Har but even pointed out that as fellow members of the establishment this was probably inevitable. It was also important to understand that when Volun said that no democracy in the Republic was ever founded except by such protest he is correct- in real life, proper democracy in both the US and the UK took place only after vigorous war, and even by peaceful means, look what happened in India and Gandhi. If you value democracy as a goal in of itself- as our modern world does- then Volun was absolutely correct, there was no other way. So much of this question came down to what you thought the job of the Jedi was- the fairness of Democracy, against the standard of living on Cassilis for its people. What do they ‘need’ more? There is no answer, of course. You can debate the relative merits of freedom vs. quality of society all day. And indeed people do, in the real world, just about every day. But if there is one point I did want to make, it id that as Jedi no matter what you WANTED to be so, you had no real place trying to alter the cultural balance of Cassilis; that is very much a matter for a sovereign world to handle itself, and if that is unfair on its people, then there are countless thousands of Republican world that fare far worse in that respect, and the Jedi can’t go around sorting them all. I also made sure one other complication was stated- that Jedi complaining that a system that selected those for power by quirks of birth alone was unfair… were being massively hypocritical, because that’s exactly how the Jedi themselves work. If the Order can work and be fair, it might have been possible to find ways to get the Z’Har to work differently also.
What was important as Jedi is that you maintained dialogue between the two sides as much as possible- and tried very hard to get them to consider the point of view of the other, and see what common ground could bring at least some measure of resolution. Even if problems were apparently insoluble, whilst people were still talking they were not fighting. Admittedly under difficult circumstances, the Jedi failed in the latter and so did not get a full award for the game.
I mention this now rather than earlier because it deserves a mention of its own- the Z’Har had no capacity to fight themselves, and so had called in Mercenaries to enforce their law; the mercenaries in this case being the armies of Anaz Kuylen, cousin of the first campaign’s Larios, Voivode of Antanon and the subject worlds under his command, and all around military supreme. There was meant to be an interesting counterpoint as the Jedi debated about the relative democracy on Cassilis, whilst Anaz was openly talking of ‘subject’ worlds under his command. Anyway, other than his vast military presence making talking more difficult, this afforded all kinds of opportunities to refer back to the previous game- from the revelation of Charnellian soldiers and the name ‘Kuylen’, and the players not knowing it as not the same man at first, to plenty of talking about the nature of Charnellians, how only Larios Kuylen’s Jedi status stopped him from being the one commanding Anaz’s army, some opportunities to try and study the person that Larios was, and finally the discovery that, despite being a military-minded autocrat, Anaz is actually no bad guy with some very decent ideas about duty, loyalty and honour. One of the first things Anaz did was hand over control of his army to the players, on the idea that their authority was the more important- even though he clearly wanted military action to begin at once.
Meanwhile, on Spiridos, the facilities there certainly were the source of the drug running. The theme of the Spiridos plotline was moral degeneration- the people on Spiridos were not evil, just selfish and greedy and wanted to make even more money; the drugs themselves were not abused on Spiridos itself; the authorities just wanted the cash and never thought about the problems that drug abuse cause in the Galaxy- out of sight, out of mind. It was an example that it was more than just war and Techno-conspiracy that ay at the heart of the Republic’s ruin. Being a hospital, getting and storing aspidrol was no problem, but exporting out enough to feed a Galaxy was a much more difficult issue. This is where things turned darker. First of all, it was being smuggled out by a Church- a very large Church known as the Synod of Ferradyne, who worship the Force and believe in Balance, but have philosophical issues with the Jedi, mainly because they think it is a mis-use of the Force to use it to predict the future; they think that renders the potential of destiny within the Force impure, if you can see your decisions ahead of time. Such differences aside, they are out and out good guys, big on charity, trying to put right various wrongs in the galaxy, and the last people you would expect to be secretly taking out huge amounts of aspidrol from Spiridos to sell it to the criminal networks just to fund their charitable efforts, but that is in fact what was going on. The regular need of their famed Abbot Sienar- a man who has done much good for the Galaxy, and is currently trying to rack a difficult issue of famine relief- for medical treatment after contracting an exotic and incurable (but treatable) disease gives them a good excuse to keep going to Spiridos. More evil still, the way this aspidrol use was being covered up was in a section known as ‘Tranquil Repose’, an advanced cryogenics facility where those terminal illnesses can be stored to await curing in future. Aspidrol was used to keep their brains active in hibernation. Instead, these people were being killed, robotics shoved in their corpses to make them look still alive, and all this vast quantity of aspidrol was going into the Synod ships instead.
Again, discovery of much of the above was what took up much of the plot. On Cassilis, after the Kuylen shock, the Jedi tried- mostly in vain- to keep negotiations going. They seemed sympathetic to Volun at first but were critically hampered by mostly just letting events happen without interjecting. They talked a lot and found out a lot but couldn’t find a way to improve things.
On Spiridos, things went better. Andro eventually uncovered the criminal side of things, whilst Gallagher- plagued by the Force warning him of the impending death of Abbot- spent a lot of time in more social interaction and discovering the other side of the story.
Other characters brought complications- on Cassilis, the “Venerable Z’Har”- leader of the Z’Har- was respected by all, including the nominal leader of the world Skorzeny, but seemed to hate the players at once, and tried to force the military solution. On Spiridos, charismatic- but shrewd- businessman Deel Twain played sports with the characters and talked a lot about business (he is one of the richest men in the Republic) before turning up dead in the Synod rooms when Andro snooped around there, before being every much alive again a few minutes later, just as Andro and Gallagher were trying to raise the alarm. Confused? So are the Jedi, and they have no answer yet. The sexy nurses on Spiridos were an amusing sideline, but the sinister Father Varm of the Synod was not, likewise the Abbot’s secretary, Kathya.
Eventually the plots raced towards their conclusions, and here the sinister aspects played their part and must now be revealed.
On Cassilis, events were manipulated by The Lady. The Sanctuary, it turned out, was home to ‘The Vault’, a collection of information of which the Z’Har were guardians; this was all the information that was considered too dangerous for the Jedi to know- the Republic’s copy of the Treaty of Komal (see the plotline for the original campaign) was shown as an example. The Lady wanted information from that Vault, and needed the Venerable Z’Har out of the way to have the opportunity to gain access. She had manipulated the situation to get the rebellion to start to make this happen; using a power unknown to the Jedi she was stimulating all on Cassilis to be more aggressive and angry than normal- everyone was feeling the effect of the Dark Side without knowing it and it grew as time went by; I often wound up players in the game to make them more annoyed also. She had an agent on-site trying to break into the Vault with a piece of sophisticated technology, but she was interrupted by the Jedi who recovered the technology but did not spot its owner; this was their clue that something else was going on.
In fact, the Venerable Z’Har was only too well aware that someone was trying to access the Vault which is why he wanted the Sanctuary re-taken as soon as possible, but seeing as one of his jobs was to guard the Vault FROM the Jedi, he was in no mood to trust them. An important parallel as drawn as to the Jedi not trusting the Elder on Zeiton either- the point was made at the time that the players judged him prematurely, and on Cassilis it happened again. This wedge of mis-trust between the Jedi and Z’Har was intentional on behalf of the Lady and suited her purposes, as they opposed each other and did not see her work. In the finale, Jedi and Venerable Z’Har alike went into the Vault to protect it from each other. It was the Venerable Z’Har that the Lady’s agent followed in, as planned, but it could easily have been the Jedi as well; both sides lost out. However, Jelena’s Foresight allowed her to escape the fate the Lady had planned, as the Jedi become obsessed wit their darker feelings and ignored other events entirely (though it was a close run thing for Roan). Breaking free, the Jedi managed to make an attempt to stop the Lady’s deadly agent escaping. Although she proved to much for them- even with Anaz’s help- they exposed her existence, which was not the plan, and so the stage is set for future meetings. The Jedi are left with little idea what was removed from the Vault, and as the Venerable Z’Har put in motion the device that destroyed it- shortly before being murdered by the Lady’s agent, though he managed to warn the players of the Lady’s existence before dying- it now cannot be discerned. The effect of the lady on Cassilis caused a disturbance in the Force which was felt by Mr. Sensitive himself, Gallagher, on Spiridos- but he had his own problems by then.
On Spiridos, the twist is that the Abbot Sienar is in fact a super-powerful Dark Side Master; once known as Brith, Gallagher’s nemesis from his background, but with a history stretching back far further, with many different names. Sienar is the real deal, the equivalent of a Sith Lord; powerful, cunning and totally malevolent. It is, of course, his influence and use of Corruption that has turned the Church into turning out murderers like Varm and the horrific nature of the dead in Tranquil Repose (when Gallagher called him evil, he took it as a compliment).
Gallagher spent a portion of the game talking with Sienar before this revelation and discovered his charitable work. Gallagher knows that Sienar can save the lives of billions threatened by an extreme famine crisis approaching part of the Republic. Little of this makes sense right now; much of it will be explored later.
The important point is that the Jedi survived their trials on Spiridos, as Varm (not knowing they were Jedi but knowing they were nosy) tried to kill them, before making their final attempt at arrest (earlier than planned, though old NPC Ithrorn, general purpose Jedi Knight, was sent to aid them at this point), killing Varm, and then being totalled by Sienar who, despite being crippled by his disease (which also left him unrecognisable to Gallagher) had no trouble taking out two relatively inexperienced Jedi who were already injured by earlier fighting. The drama of Sienar’s revelation- as the Jedi had spent most of the game trying to ensure his survival- is one of the highlights of the entire game since its foundation because it had all worked so perfectly. One of the best parts of the set-up is the way Kathya and Varm seemed to be trying to hide their criminal activities from Sienar, who was seen as an innocent. On the contrary, they were actually trying to hide their failure from Sienar, who would have killed them for it (much as he knew anyway, of course, but Varm wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed. In retrospect, Kathya mocking him for having to be the one to explain things to the Abbot now looks very different). Indeed, he sent Varm to die fighting the Jedi at the end as penance.
Final twist is the personal relationship between Gallagher and Sienar. Gallagher doesn’t understand this- but Sienar took Gallagher with him at the end, which was the conclusion, and the set-up for next time.
So then, much intellectual work for the Jedi, very detailed settings, and mighty events. Both the Lady’s agent and Sienar were very dangerous foes indeed, but at this point the real struggle is being locked with Sienar, as the Dark Siders will be interacting with the Lady. The Jedi have no clue as to the nature of their foe, whereas they know exactly where Sienar is going, back to the Synod homeworld of Mandragos; the story will continue with Sienar.
In the same way parts of the campaign ‘test’ what a Clone Wars campaign would be like, Sienar is an enormous excuse to test what having a Sith Lord (other than Palpatine who we can’t really use) in the game. Not that Sienar is a Sith, and in fact there are some very important differences, but the Sienar plotline could have easily been in a Sith era game, where he would have been a somewhat aberrant Sith Lord doing the exact same thing, posing as an goodly Abbot, with a secret Darth title and everything. As it is, villains like him are one-offs in this game.
Jedi were tested on patience, and on remaining positive at all times; many times I made references to the Jedi on Cassilis feeling irritable or angry, and if they did not try and contradict or fight this things got worse. On Spiridos, it was more a matter of maintaining control under extreme provocation from Varm- but a far more personal test for Gallagher is coming.
The Jedi story is dark, and it will remain so. Next episode is the big one… but we do not yet know when it will be played.
Well folks, there you go!