What was TSL's ending supposed to be like?

[TSLforever 3]

I mean it is very weird. Dialogue on the Ravager seems to indicate that The Exile was not supposed to accompany Mandalore and Visas. How did Kreia and Handmaiden get back to Telos? How did HK and Bao-Dur go to the HK Factory without anyone noticing? And Malachor?!?! How did the Hawk get fixed? Why was the party separated?

Thoughts?

[JCarter426 1,214]

7 hours ago, TSLforever said:

Dialogue on the Ravager seems to indicate that The Exile was not supposed to accompany Mandalore and Visas.

It certainly seems that way. On the other hand, there are parts where the Exile was clearly meant to be in control, such as the encounter with Tobin and Visas' cell. @bead-v, @InSidious, @VarsityPuppet, @zbyl2, and I have discussed it at length on Discord in the past and honestly I don't think anything any of us have come up with makes sense of it. We have various ideas on how to resolve the awkwardness but everything we've come up with is almost certainly not what the developers intended due to some other weird part that contradicts it.

7 hours ago, TSLforever said:

How did Kreia and Handmaiden get back to Telos? How did HK and Bao-Dur go to the HK Factory without anyone noticing?

How does Kreia get to Malachor? How do the Handmaidens get to Dantooine when the Exile is female? Who rebuilds the enclave in the dark side ending?

I have no answers.

I think we have to live with stuff happening off-screen for a lot of it for the sake of the pacing.

7 hours ago, TSLforever said:

And Malachor?!?! How did the Hawk get fixed? Why was the party separated?

Presumably T3 fixes the ship, and it seems that the party was all thrown out of the ship like how you get repeatedly thrown clear of shuttle crashes earlier.

I believe these issues were things that Malachor VI intended to address.

@VarsityPuppet@VarsityPuppet@VarsityPuppet hint hint

[AmanoJyaku 184]

10 hours ago, TSLforever said:

I mean it is very weird. Dialogue on the Ravager seems to indicate that The Exile was not supposed to accompany Mandalore and Visas. How did Kreia and Handmaiden get back to Telos? How did HK and Bao-Dur go to the HK Factory without anyone noticing? And Malachor?!?! How did the Hawk get fixed? Why was the party separated?

Thoughts?

The short answer is we'll never know because the game was unfinished.

It was supposed to be larger. MUCH larger. But LucasArts wanted the game released in time for Christmas, so the game's development was cut short by almost a year. The budget was cut, too. The reason is shortly before TSL came out, LucasArts was restructured and a lot of their game development was canceled. Even before the restructuring, BioWare saw trouble and passed on developing the sequel. They recommended Obsidian, who had worked with them in the past.

Unfortunately for Obsidian, plotting of TSL was started BEFORE KoTOR was finished and LucasArts refused to allow Obsidian access to the developing game. When KoTOR finally came out Obsidian had to go back and redo material that didn't fit with the original game's story. They had to start over, giving them even less time to write the story. This is the reason for so many plot holes and unfinished content, which is why modders have been working to restore whatever they could find.

KoTOR and TSL are examples of what happens when a company (LucasArts) has crappy management. A whole book was written about it, in fact.

[TSLforever 3]

Thanks for the replies folks. It leads to further questions of course! 😉

I take it Lorna Vash was not supposed to be found dead? Korriban feels extremely short too. Then there is the Droid Planet (I haven't read too much about it or played the mod).

Also, why did Mandalore not want the Republic to suspect that they were on the Ravager? How did the Force Bond between Kreia and The Exile break? Did it break? Who blasted HK-47 to pieces and how did Droid Merchants get parts for him!!?? I am still not completely clear about the sequence of events that lead to Kreia being on the Hawk in the beginning of the game.

The game feels quite rushed after you finish Nar Shaada; the Restored Content mod actually makes this more apparent. I love the mod of course.

[JCarter426 1,214]

6 minutes ago, TSLforever said:

I take it Lorna Vash was not supposed to be found dead? Korriban feels extremely short too. Then there is the Droid Planet (I haven't read too much about it or played the mod).

Given that she has different voice actresses in the trial and on M4-78, I am not certain that the one on Korriban was even meant to be Vash. There is an unused female Jedi head that was used for Kaevee in TSLRCM and TSLRP before it. Perhaps they were originally two different characters.

The Vash on M4-78 was also called Mara at some point.

8 minutes ago, TSLforever said:

Also, why did Mandalore not want the Republic to suspect that they were on the Ravager?

The only thing that makes sense to me here is that he was talking about the Ravager crew and using "Republic" generally to mean non-Mandalorian. They mention that the Ravager was a Republic ship later on in the conversation after all. Still, it's weird.

12 minutes ago, TSLforever said:

How did the Force Bond between Kreia and The Exile break? Did it break?

I remember having this conversation before, but I think it was on LucasForums. If you're talking about how killing Kreia doesn't kill the Exile,  as far as I see it, there are a few different ways you can interpret this. For one, we only have Kreia's word that the bond could be fatal. Everyone else you talk to about it says that bonds don't usually work that way. Kreia manipulates the Exile by letting them believe things she knows not to be true, e.g. the Council being responsible for cutting the Exile off from the Force, so perhaps you could simply add this to the list. Second, Kreia herself says that in battle they will be able to shield each other from the effects of the bond—which is evident since damage to Kreia doesn't translate to damage to the player in gameplay—so perhaps this was never a danger for a different reason. The Jedi also describe some ways in which a bond can be broken, such as if one person falls to the dark side, or their if their feelings about each other changed. Whether Kreia fell to the dark side is a whole other argument, but a possibility, and I think it's a much easier argument to make that the Exile's feelings about Kreia changed after her betrayal. So perhaps the bond broke one of those ways. Finally, in some cut content in the dark side version of the enclave meeting, and in the final duel, Kreia talks about making the Exile feel the Force again and overcome the weakness of relying on Force bonds. So perhaps confronting Kreia and not being able to draw on their bond cured them of their bond addiction.

To add to the confusion, Kreia has an alternate line in the enclave in which she says that she has severed their bond.

24 minutes ago, TSLforever said:

Who blasted HK-47 to pieces and how did Droid Merchants get parts for him!!??

I don't have any good answers for this. I got the impression that HK was dismantled so that he couldn't override the navicomputer voice lock, but then there's also talk that he was in the process of being rebuilt for some task.

26 minutes ago, TSLforever said:

I am still not completely clear about the sequence of events that lead to Kreia being on the Hawk in the beginning of the game.

Neither am I, since Kreia, the Peragus staff, and even the disembodied tutorial voice mention the Ebon Hawk having a crew that we never see.

[TSLforever 3]

Wait a minute. The HK-50 from the Harbinger was locked in the same room on the Hawk as HK-47 yes?  That is weird too. How did he get locked in? By whom? T3?

The Hawk is under attack by a Sith warship right? The Harbinger detects this and moves to intercept, yes? Sion is on the Sith warship right? So Sion was looking for Kreia and not the Exile???!!??!?

2 hours ago, AmanoJyaku said:

Unfortunately for Obsidian, plotting of TSL was started BEFORE KoTOR was finished and LucasArts refused to allow Obsidian access to the developing game. When KoTOR finally came out Obsidian had to go back and redo material that didn't fit with the original game's story. They had to start over, giving them even less time to write the story. This is the reason for so many plot holes and unfinished content, which is why modders have been working to restore whatever they could find.

Wow. What a terrible decision by LucasArts.

[Nevrius 9]

On 9/15/2020 at 7:20 AM, TSLforever said:

Wait a minute. The HK-50 from the Harbinger was locked in the same room on the Hawk as HK-47 yes?  That is weird too. How did he get locked in? By whom? T3?

The Hawk is under attack by a Sith warship right? The Harbinger detects this and moves to intercept, yes? Sion is on the Sith warship right? So Sion was looking for Kreia and not the Exile???!!??!?

The way I understand the chain of events, it happened as follows: The Ebon Hawk got attacked by a Sith Warship manned by Sion and his assassins, possibly because it carried Kreia (this is just speculation, though). The Harbinger with the Exile and the HK-50 on board detected it and moved to intercept. The Harbinger later tractored in the Hawk and searched the Warship, where they found Sion's 'corpse', but nothing else. However, the assassins decided to board the Harbinger, abandoning the Warship, where they started sabotaging stuff, probably in order to get to Kreia and eventually found out about the Exile.

However, at around the same time, either Kreia or the HK-50 (not entirely sure, haven't played the game in a while) incapacitated the Exile and moved him/her onto the Hawk in order to escape Sion and company. T3 was probably still on board and most likely was the one who locked the HK-50 in the cargo hold. After detaching, the Ebon Hawk attempted to escape the scene, and the Harbinger, now under control of Sion, opened fire, which led to the Hawk being damaged, and presumably Kreia being injured. T3 later managed to get the Hawk to Peragus, where the HK-50 got out of his compartment, at which point the main plot begins.

[TSLforever 3]

Hmm. Carth and the Captain of the Harbinger have a conversation that seems to imply that Carth is aware of The Exile's presence on the ship. Atris had leaked word that The Exile had returned to Republic space, yes? So Sion, Carth, and Kreia were all looking for The Exile just prior to the game start.

Still; what was Kreia's plan? The Exile had been stripped of the Force (as had she, right?). How was The Exile supposed to stop the Sith Triumvirate in that condition?

Back to Malachor. What do the game files reveal of the sequence of events that was supposed to happen after The Battle of Telos?

[Nevrius 9]

On 9/21/2020 at 3:29 AM, TSLforever said:

Hmm. Carth and the Captain of the Harbinger have a conversation that seems to imply that Carth is aware of The Exile's presence on the ship. Atris had leaked word that The Exile had returned to Republic space, yes? So Sion, Carth, and Kreia were all looking for The Exile just prior to the game start.

Still; what was Kreia's plan? The Exile had been stripped of the Force (as had she, right?). How was The Exile supposed to stop the Sith Triumvirate in that condition?

Back to Malachor. What do the game files reveal of the sequence of events that was supposed to happen after The Battle of Telos?

Carth was aware of the Exile's presence on the Harbinger, yes. I think (this is purely speculation on my part) that this was part of Revan's orders between K1 and TSL. 

I don't think Kreia had been stripped of the Force, although I could be wrong about that. I think that restoring the Exiles connection was actually semi-intentional, although the resulting bond may well have been an accidental biproduct there. And Kreia's ultimate plan was the death of the Force, which is something she saw the potential in with the Exile. Basically, kill a forcesensitive Exile = kill the Force. Failing that, Mass Shadow Generator on Malachor V. (At least, that's how I understand this mess).

Dunno about the gamefiles, though. Maybe someone else can answer that?

[ZeldaTheSwordsman 40]

TSL implies the exile's return was through strings Atris pulled in the Republic.

Kreia is seen being stripped of the Force or at least subjected to a crude equivalent via Force Drain in the scene of Sion and Nihilus turning on her.

The editing on the timing of the Harbinger incident is sloppy; HK-50's discussion of it implies the failures started happening before the Harbinger came across the Ebon Hawk, and one line of his even makes it sound like the Hawk docked with the Harbinger after HK-50's sabotage crippled it. This is at odds with what all the recordings on the ship itself suggest. As for who incapacitated the Exile... definitely HK-50. It was done the same way he did it at Peragus - overdosing you with sedatives while you were in a Kolto tank.

G0-T0's greeting to HK-47 implies that HK-47 was reverse-engineered to enable the creation of the HK-50s. As for droid merchants having HK parts... presumably the Exile isn't the only one who's killed HK-50s. They're not specifically labeled as HK-47 parts after all. Also, K1 suggests HK-47 wasn't 100% unique even before the HK-50s were created (the dialogue for this happens if you choose him for the Leviathan mission).

Regarding the Lonna Vash thing, her encounter having a different voice from the council scene is possibly a case of actress unavailability. I haven't heard anything else to indicate there was a 6th Jedi Master on the High Council circa the Exile's banishment.

But yeah, TSL is a mess due to mismanagement at LucasArts at the time. Even TSLRCM polishing the unimplemented content as best as possible and adding it in doesn't fix everything due to the unfinished writing.

[Hyperkarma 1]

The Ebon Hawk, by the end of the game, really can just be summoned back from the planetary core (recall the video where it moves from a simple crash landing to falling deeper into the planet,) and 'repaired' by the Exile herself. No further explanations are really needed - and this hunt for overt explanations reveals the plague that excessive literary naturalism has nested into our culture. Not everything needs to be over-explained on-script - if it was, we would not have so much fun speculating about the less clear details! (Plus Nihlus held a ship a heavily broken ship from Malachor V and a broken, slowly-being-drained crew together with the Force alone. The Exile can clearly do that and much more by the end-game) T3-M4 presumably can be involved as well, of course. Bao-Dur disappears during the Enclave Encounter sequence. "I know you can hear me [...] I need to do this - or, I will die inside. Just like I died at Malachor.) He first helps HK-47 with entering the HK Factory, then sets off for Malachor. (How he can do this is quite obvious: he is a 'Tech Specialist' and is used to building make-shift ships if need be. '[Not even I can fix that shuttle] - it's done for, scrap.' A limitation of his abilities that also imply how expansive they are barring the most extreme circumstances. Lastly, the Ithorians on Telos would be more than willing to help Bao-Dur with this.) As for companions not noticing his disappearance until it is too late - "[Atton:] Speaking of which, where is Bao-Dur? HK-47 as well', - that requires no 'explanation.' Characters in a story, just like in real life, do not have audience-level access to perfect information across all time and space. A better question to ask is: "Why should we think that Bao-Dur's disappearance without the crew initially noticing is implausible?"

The Handmaidens obviously have their own way off Dantooine. Otherwise they could not have arrived. Kreia manipulates them by saying, "It is done, she is no more." She is basically under arrest by the Handmaidens, not to imply she is constrained whatsoever by this false arrest, and that's when we get the (blissfully extended and enhanced by TSLRCM) scene where we get many quotable lines between Kreia and Atris. Kreia sets up Atris as one of the last sequences in the Exile's long-term training - eventually to overcome her past, which must be finally done at at heart of Malachor. At the precise location of the Exile's mega-trauma. (Snig from the /r/kotor boards thinks that Kreia truly wanted to 'break' the Exile and create a reverberating Force Scream that would deafen the galaxy. That is very likely wrong, otherwise there probably would not be lines like 'The apprentice must kill the master," nor 'I would have killed the galaxy to preserve you.' Her threats to break the Exile if she does not pass this final test are hollow - for, as Sion says, 'she sought you ought because you were both wounded by the Force;' that is to say, the Exile failing at that final moment would spiritually break Kreia more than anything. Furthermore she hopes that the Exile will follow Revan into the Outer Regions - but this is not necessarily just to join him in the Ancient Sith threat. Recall: "Revan was power, it was like starting into the Heart of the Force. [...] You are... different. When I looked at you, it is like staring into Death of the Force.' Now note that she despises what Sion has become for, as Sion says, Sion is wholly dependent upon the Dark Side for his survival - Sion mocks the idea that Kreia finds strength in the Exile's unique ability in the lore to fully cut herself off from the force, but realizes he was wrong once you break his will. Snig and co. over-read Sion as an authoritative source about Kreia, when he does not really understand Kreia's true intentions. Kreia plausibly wanted not only help for Revan--and in all paths 'Revan will have her army [from Canderous],' the Exile ending up with an antagonistic relationship to Revan would be all that is required to achieve her dream of a galaxy and/or universe defeaned to the Force forever. That would have been a cool ending for KOTOR3 - though it would piss off the Revan fanboys if they didn't make it multi-choice. I would hope that they wouldn't make it multi-choice affair, because Revan has little chance of winning that fight for reasons similar to why Nihlus had no real chance of ever defeating the Exile.) Kreia is unsatisfied if you do not kill Atris - as the holocrons that echo her past self but can respond to present inquiries more than heavily imply by hissing if you allow Atris to live - but in either case, either Atris or Kreia will explain the necessity of the Exile going to Malachor. Kreia played up the implications of their Force Bond's fatality from the beginning, and feeds that last morsel by the end-game to further ensure the Exile will overcome her past at the heart of Malachor V - the carried Force Echo that is destroying the galaxy.

Note that the Exile has formed various special bonds, even before having an entirely negative relationship to the Force post-Malachor yet without the weakness of uncontrollable hunger ala Nihlus and Atton's Dark Side fate. (On that note: "You are not Jedi, not truly, and that is why I love you," - i.e. such disappointments along the way like the aforementioned doesn't matter too much for Kreia in the end. She says the same thing if you go full Dark Side, but swaps the words 'Jedi' with 'Sith.') So, the Exile awakens in Dantooine and finds Atton wounded but waiting for her. ('The fool dances in your shadow,' etc.) Disciple, if you have him, as she promises to him, is granted of the knowledge he obtained at this moment but to which Kreia kept wiping from his mind in the various Ebon Hawk cutscenes. "All those lives: countless, innocent lives..." | [Disciple:] "Or the one..." - which is part of Kreia's manipulation events for most things to wrap up at Telos before going to the heart of the Force Scream damaging the galaxy and, as both the Jedi Masters and Kreia will tell you [depending on your path], the Exile is carrying Malachor V with her - always. "It is in you, it is what you are now." -Zez-Kai El. The Kreia version: "You are reponsible for all of this, and even now events spiral into destruction because you refuse to listen - to understand. I have taught you to hear the Force again, shown you the contrast, and yet still you do not understand. This is what you have wrought: countless slayers, murderers, assassins, borne of war that has, as always, taught the wrong lesson. You showed them life without the Force, and instead of showing them truth - power - all you showed them is how the galaxy may die." [The Extended Enclave modifies these lines a bit based on Kreia's influence as per developer notes, but I often do not use that aspect of the mod - for  it is a more cohesive narrative without them. There's no real reason to suppose that the influence factor was cut because of time constraints - for the same reason that they cut out Kreia being influenced toward the Light/Dark Side by the Exile for story coherence rather than time constraint reasons. [Barring hilarious unintended instances where you can use Solo Mode to violate this a little bit - at least in the vanilla game. I haven't bothered to exploit like that in a while, so I forget if TSLRCM 'fixes' those instances.)

It's worth noting that the Extended Enclave mod for TSLRCM can make things much more clear, yet can obscure some things since it follows [often misleading] developer notes more closely and, as a result, if you do not do/achieve various things in the game, the scene can be cut down and obscure anyways. All the KOTOR games are ridiculously easy if you are not new to D&D mechanics, so I just always put in +18 variables (with 30 Intelligence) for my Exile from the very beginning. That way I can get all the juicy dialogue skill bits which, from attribute to skill checks, which actually reveal much of the game's overall story. (E.g. if you have high Wisdom, the Exile already knows what Kreia's plans are with Nihlus, with Telos, with basically everything - with party members basically going "What?" and the Exile saying something "Nevermind, it's not not important right now." [Again, as a paraphrase - for which most of my quotes here are very close paraphrases from playing the game like a hundred+ times.]

HK-50 drugged the Exile with a toxic dose that he/it knew the Exile would survive. The Exile was incapacitated prior to that via being attacked by the Sith War Ship, after Kreia sought out the Exile and the Ebon Hawk. (As she says herself, she traced Revan's footsteps for quite some time.) The first HK-50's lines are deceptive half-truths, ones that he humorously can barely contain from being transparent, not an absolutely authoritative narration of objective events. Kreia awakens the Exile before the Sith Assassins and, wittingly or unwittingly, before HK-50 could fully stall events for her capture (as initiated by G0-T0; which is delayed until Nar Shaadda.) While the HK-50 units are seeking full independence in the HK-Factory - and G0-T0 admits he has lost control of them - they still have to execute the order to find the Exile anyway. (G0-T0 places bets that the HK-50 units are no match for the Exile, or "a Jedi" as he idealizes quite heavily, so the 'dead or alive bounty' was G0-T0 still wanting 'alive'. Furthermore, the 'dead' clause allowed motivated actors, like Visquis, to fall into his plans and place the Exile in G0-T0's hands no matter what happened.) Atris leaked information about the Exile to core world databases to bring her out of hiding - because while she was not at Katarr, which is another thing she orchestrated but did not expect the extremity of its results, she does know that just prior to Nihlus' draining/killing everyone but Visas, (to Nihlus' great interest and surprise,) the Jedi Masters who gathered there meditated with and/or in the presence of the Miraluka to reveal their answer to the Sith threat. The only vision was the Exile. Which resonates the 'spare the Jedi Masters path' where-in Kreia says: "She has brought truth and you condemn it? The arrogance!" Recall Kreia's dodging of "Did you know Atris" and she says "Her path is one I walked along ago, but I feel I know of her, yes." Atris realizes that Kreia is Arren Kae in the aforementioned meeting at Telos. (Arren Kae is just indisputably Kreia -and also Brianna's mother. That is a fact. Not having direct confirmation does not refute the holistic body of evidence in favour of it - decisively making it a certainty.) As mentioned earlier, Disciple uncovered the full truth about Revan, about Kreia masquerading as the Darth Traya she was once ['There must always be a Darth Traya,'] about the shadow war of belief that 'waits in the dark - waiting for us to destroy each other [Ala Canderous]' - but Kreia wiped his mind until she fulfilled her promise to him and makes him remember during the Enclave Encounter sequence.

T3-M4 locked the Navicomputer. This is revealed if you interrogate T3-M4 with the right attribute and skill checks. HK-47 has a scene where he deduces it but is stunned and presumably micro-memory wiped by T3-M4.

HK-47's pieces being scattered across the galaxy requires no answer. He was dismantled, at some point, and his archaic yet still valuable and unique parts would be valuable for collectors and other proprietors. Of course merchants across the galaxy would be selling them! Now, of course, you find all the pieces via gameplay convenience - but it's hardly some great near-impossibility that demands an overt answer. In any case, it is heavily implied that HK-47 was dismantled by Revan, T3-M4, or both, for Revan believed she needed to walk her path alone. (The Canderous story about Revan--should he nearly die after the Nihlus encounter, which able to be missed if one sacrifices Visas--reveals some more useful information: since he went with Revan in the Outer Rim initially and was abandoned by Revan 'as he lay dying'; it may also imply that HK-47 did come with Revan, but as per T3-M4's instructions, was sabotaged 'with multiple blaster shots' in tandem with T3-M4 locking the Navicomputer to hide Revan's tracks. HK-47 does not recall everything even after 'full' repair, and the aforementioned Ebon Hawk scene with T3-M4 freshly undermining HK-47 backs that up.)

Note, further, how many Telos as in teleology puns are made in the game. "All paths lead to Telos," etc. How many events centre around Telos - how much Kreia's manipulations centre around ending [most of] the Sith threat at Telos. (That last bit she directly says to the Exile just prior to dying in the Trayus Core.)

Kreia was stripped of the force temporarily--"only when it was stripped away from me, did I see it for what it truly was,"--but not absolutely in the way the Exile was able to achieve. All those who have tried to turn away from the force have maintained at least subconscious ties - except the Exile. Recall the Sion quote I mentioned earlier, though there are more things to recall - but my energies are draining writing this post fully. The pInsert other media oint is that the game is not that much of a 'mess', even prior to TSLRCM, and all the TSLRCM clarifications were already undercovered by simply playing the game alone - no listening to the cut content audio files was even required.

As one last point, while digging into the dev. commentary - and some interesting lines that TSLRCM have not restored due to a lack of dev direction for 'how it was supposed to go' - is very useful, one must realize that script rewriting happens constantly. Even beyond the constraints they were shackled within LucasArts' sillines. Reading too much into alternate dialogue sequences will only confuse things, whereas the holistic body of facts as presented in the game-itself makes it much clearer what were cut out directly and what were cut out for lagely LucasArts-based reasons. (G0-T0's Yacht almost got cut btut Avellone revealed that a member of the time desperately decided to make it within either a day or a week - I forget which - but kudos to that team member. Now the game truly would have been a mess without that.)

Edited January 25, 2021 by Hyperkarma
Editing out typos - no guarantee that I will have catched them all

[TSLforever 3]

Malachor:

The group gets separated somehow.  Thrown clear of the crashed Hawk. Atton escapes Kreia after the party attempts to ambush her, then has his confrontation with Sion? Mira meets up with the others before the ambush of course (?), after defeating Hanharr? Visas and Mandalore are alone together for a bit too. T3 stays on the Hawk to repair it? Bao Dur is dead (killed in the HK Factory?). HK is on his way...but never rejoins the party?