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gffa · 3 years

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OKAY, I WILL DO MY BEST HERE, but it’s one of those cases where there’s A LOT of information and NOT A LOT of information at the same time! We have a bunch of details and some good general ideas, but it’s not like it was a set-in-stone process, so there’s plenty of wiggle room if you want it. The Inquisitorius was started in 19 BBY, the same year as the fall of the Republic and the genocide of the Jedi, but seems to have been officially started after the Purge happened. Sidious had been planning something like the Inquisitorius for a long time, but this specific version of them wasn’t necessarily always the only version in development. The Inquisitors are all fallen Jedi, presumably ones that were captured by the Empire and tortured into becoming dark siders. Several of them have mentioned that they were former Jedi, but the only one we’ve seen the process of is Trilla Suduri, who we saw being tortured for a very long time in Jedi: Fallen Order. (Link of the relevant scenes here. Warning: It can be a bit of a tough watch, Trilla is physically tortured and some of it you see from her perspective, as the electricity is jolted into her body, which can be kinda disturbing.) So, in theory, it’s possible that some of them fell on their own and agreed to join, but the one explicit example we have is where she was tortured into it and, while Cal is walking around their fortress, he talks about how multiple Jedi were broken there. (For another example, Prosset Dibs is a Jedi we saw falling to the dark in the Mace Windu: Jedi of the Republic comic, so he may have willingly joined or he may have healed while he was working in the Jedi Archives but not all the way and still had to be tortured into joining.) The Inquisitors are under the direct supervision of Darth Vader (after he’d discovered the program, he was put in charge of it), who trains them incredibly harshly--in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, he’s shown cutting an arm off one of them and basically telling them to suck it up and keep fighting, to remember what loss feels like.

Sometimes they’d work with Darth Vader (the Grand Inquisitor went to the Jedi Temple in 19 BBY with Vader, where they confronted Jocasta Nu, the Ninth Sister went with Vader on a mission to investigate a possible Jedi sighting on Cabarria, Vader took them with when he went to kill Eeth Koth and kidnap his baby daughter, Vader had them with when he went to Mon Cala to confront Lee-Char, etc.), sometimes they operated separately from each other (all the times in Rebels or Jedi: Fallen Order that Kanan, Ezra, or Cal faced them when Vader wasn’t around, etc.), probably based on whatever Vader felt like or whatever Sidious felt like on a given day. The Inquisitorius as a group seem to have some degree of command over Purge Troopers, as they would often be seen leading a group of them (this happened often in Jedi: Fallen Order especially) and they could commandeer military assets (or probably civilian assets as well) if they needed to, so they had a certain amount of leeway when it came to their missions--so long as they didn’t piss off Vader or Sidious. Their main goals were to hunt down any Force-sensitives in the galaxy, whether newly discovered Force-sensitive children, former Jedi (whether they had left the Jedi Order or were Jedi in hiding, it didn’t matter), or even Force-sensitive adults who had never been trained by the Jedi. They would turn them if they could, but otherwise it was to kill anyone who might possibly be a Force-related threat of any kind. (What this means for planets like the Bardottens, they’ve never said.) They were greatly successful at their missions, so they wound up killing a great number of Jedi who had made it into hiding, along with Darth Vader being one of the biggest reasons the Jedi were mostly entirely gone by the time of the OT, which was helped along by Vader training the Jedi style out of them. Part of why he was so harsh to them (including cutting off limbs, etc.) was to force them to be more aggressive and less defensive, to be sharp and quick and fast to overpower Jedi, who were used to a different type of fight. They still had unique talents (as all Force-sensitives are not the same), like Ninth Sister had a great talent for reading emotions (including Vader’s, where she could sense how much he wanted to die),

As well as they weren’t actually Sith. Only Sidious, Vader, and Maul were Sith, the Inquisitors were dark siders or fallen Jedi or possibly a category unto themselves. They have some sort of headquarters, as seen in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, where Vader is seen training them in issue #6 (same scene as above where he cuts off their hands or lightsabers their eye out), which is labelled as being on Coruscant, somewhere in The Works in the Industrial District:

There’s a training arena we see there and at least some sort of communication/strategy rooms that Vader and the Grand Inquisitor walk off into, while they discuss the other Inquisitors. Which means it’s a pretty big complex/building, but (according to Wookieepedia and I’ll trust them on this, instead of digging out my copies of the Complete Vehicles and Complete Locations book), it was a building of Sidious’ that he used as a hideout during the Clone Wars. To what extent Vader and the Inquisitorius took it over (whether they just had a few rooms or the entire skyscraper), I don’t think we know?

Later, in issue #20, we see there’s some sort of break room that Vader storms in on, when he returns to Coruscant, that the Inquisitors were sitting around and hanging out in:

From there, it would be reasonable to extrapolate that this was a base for their operations, the place they returned to after they came back from wherever they’d been sent, possibly even this is where they slept and ate and were sheltered in between missions. But that’s just reasonable conjecture, not hard canon! There is also Fortress Inquisitorius from Jedi: Fallen Order and it’s primary use was that it was where they took the Jedi they were torturing into becoming Inquisitors. I wouldn’t say it’s an academy, per se, but it was a place that they likely used as a headquarters. In issue #20 of Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, two of the Inquisitors rebel against Vader and he winds up chasing them down and cutting a huge swath of destruction in his path (LOL @ ANAKIN), which Sidious is not exactly pleased about. He says that he’s going to move the Inquisitorious off Coruscant to another world so this won’t happen again:

The comic was written in 2018 and Jedi: Fallen Order came out about 11 months later in 2019, so the above isn’t necessarily directly referring to that the Inquisitorious were moved to Fortress Inquisitorious on the moon Nur, but it’s also a very reasonable (and probably likely) assumption. We don’t have an exact timeline for when this issue takes place, but it’s minimum three years after Revenge of the Sith (the Mon Cala arc earlier in the comic is set three years post-ROTS), so probably around 15 or 14 BBY. However, Trilla seems to have been kidnapped much closer to Order 66, so it’s likely that Fortress Inquisitorius existed long before Order 66 happened, it was used to torture Jedi once their genocide happened, but it wasn’t the Inquisitor’s HQ until several years later. We don’t see a lot of Fortress Inquisitorious, the limited amount of areas you can play through it in Jedi: Fallen Order don’t tell you a ton about what goes on there, but it’s a pretty huge underwater skyscraper sized building and you do see several prison cells and at least one training dojo.

The galaxy at large didn’t know about Fortress Inquisitorious on the water moon of Nur or even the majority of the Empire itself didn’t know about it, it was a heavily kept secret. This is where Trilla and the other Jedi were taken, tortured, and forced into becoming Inquisitors and it’s likely that’s where the Inquisitors were based after the shitshow on Coruscant. It’s a big enough building that it’s likely to have pretty much whatever kind of stuff your clubhouse needs for the Inquisitors! But we don’t have much hard canon about it, no. As for the Inquisitors themselves, they’re complicated--some of them seemed almost loyal to each other, they would work together at times or even seem to avenge each other, but other times they would sneer at each other or mock each other, it seemed like they had a lot of shifting dynamics and probably a lot of it was fear at trying to survive being around Darth Vader. We don’t know for sure how many there specifically are or if, when one of them dies, they’re replaced by another, but it seems like there were at least twelve Inquisitors and we’ve never seen them be replaced, which I think implies that they were only ever meant to be a temporary measure and would be disposed of, as soon as Sidious knew all the Jedi were dead for sure/he could raise a new group of Force-sensitive children from birth. ANYWAY YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN: LOTS OF INFO BUT NOT A LOT OF INFO. 😂

#inquisitors #inquisitorius #fortress inquisitorius #meta #long post #really long post

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capricornus-rex · 4 years

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Someone Left to Save (14)

Photo from @calkestisisbaby

Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by Anon

Summary: The Mantis crew arrives to the capital of Ulfin, in the planet of Pevera, under siege. They meet the local rebel cell spearheaded by the former Republic admiral, Jax Beneb, who seeks to destroy the Empire’s occupation that was aggressively imposed upon while exploiting the planet of its natural resources. A plan is devised to destroy the Imperial’s main base of operations—as well as their influence—in the planet; however, it was a do-or-die mission that you and Cal had gotten yourselves caught in.

Tags: Force-Sensitive! Reader, Inquisitor! Reader, Jedi! Reader, Fake Death, Jedi turned Inquisitor, Seduction to the Dark Side, Turn to the Dark Side, The Dark Side of the Force, Aftermath of Torture, Torture, Psychological Torture, Redemption Arc! Reader, Possible Redemption, Premonitions

Also in AO3

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 | Previous: Part 13 | Next: Part 15 | Masterlist

14 of ?

The throttle of the speeder bike parts the sand across the reddish-brown, arid expanse. Nothing but the noise of the motors roared across the wilderness and the whistling howl of the wind that burned your cheeks as you sped through. Feeling Cal's Force Echo on you felt nauseating yet intoxicating, you wanted more—not because of the essence of his ability, but of his touch—even in that stone-cold exterior you have carved out for yourself, you cannot deny that you yearned for the human touch that is inherently absent in the Inquisitorius.

Whether you like it or not: the real you still exists, bottling it all up just became five times harder after you encountered Cal—since the incident at the old Jedi Temple in the outskirts of Jeddah. You bite your lip to fight the tears, unconsciously spiking the speed of your bike forward, and all at once the sensation of his hand rubbed itself around yours—the faltering and abrupt jerk of the vehicle brought you out of your zoned-out state.

In the stillness of the surroundings, you afforded a moment to remove your helmet and catch your breath. You allow one tear to fall, only to wipe it right away with one gloved hand.

"Good thing I'm in the middle of nowhere or this would be really embarrassing!" You exhaled.

The engine growls back into life, you pick up the speed and head straight for the garrison.

By the time you've arrived to the base, the same Purge Troopers showed up sans the child. When asked, their answer was they've already went ahead and secured the baby in the medical bay—given that it's the only appropriate place in the entire garrison to keep it. They tell you the floor of the particular med-bay.

"Thank you, return to your post."

They bowed and turned their back on you. One of the Purge Troopers was foolish enough to lean in and whisper a comment to the other.

"Too polite for an Inquisitor, for my taste, at least,"

"You always notice the little, petty things,"

You ignored the words and proceeded to the said medical bay. The entire room is manned by medical droids of different variants—surgical, general medicine, and drone types. The closest qualifier to looking after the child is the GH-7 medical droid—basically, the all-around in terms of medical specializations.

A deadpan remark forms in your lips, "At least, you won't have that kid crying in your face every time you check on it."

Unable to detect the sarcasm, the droid plainly asks why. You didn't humor it for an answer.

"Nevermind." You sigh and roll your eyes with resignation.

You shifted your attention to the child who was settled in a makeshift bassinet, you couldn't figure out what the crib was before it was turned into a hovering, spherical pod that fits an infant, though it's of no importance. You ordered the child to be fed, cleaned, checked for vitals, and be given medicine and supplements if necessary. The droid obediently took note of all your orders before you retired to your own room.

Out of courtesy, some officers and cadets tipped the brims of their caps at you, accompanied by the utterance of your title—to which you responded with a curt, slow bow.

Finally, you've encased yourself in the solace of your quarters. The sensation of your body sinking into the mattress gave you a sense of comfort and relief, removing your gloves felt liberating; you shake your fingers to wring off the chafing and feel the skin against your fingertips again. A sigh escapes your lungs, you find yourself rubbing the hand that Cal had touched and inflicted his Psychometry—his grip was tight, but gentle so it doesn't hurt you, even in that intense interlock of your lightsabers.

You stand up from your bed so you seat yourself in the center of the room, you cross your legs together and straighten your back. Eyelids dropped and shrouded your vision in darkness, you recall the teachings the Inquisitors have beaten into your head, but something else is clawing for your attention—Cal. No matter how many times you decline it in your head, it just becomes more persistent by the minute, the influence of the Force Echo still ran fresh in your system.

Then his words came flooding into your mind, echoing and trailing off like a hollow gong.

“What have they done to you?”

“This isn’t you…”

“Enough…” you sobbed.

You curl into a ball, raking your scalp as you bury your face into your knees, resisting from succumbing into this haunting episode. You reply to the voices with great refusal and denial.

“It’s because you’re afraid…”

“STOP!” you cry out, alone in your room. After your outburst, you realize that you might have alerted some patrolling guards; you sit still, expecting a polite knock followed by a “Are you alright?”, none of them came—much to your relief. Although, Cal’s voice and words persists; you didn’t really notice until now that his voice and the collective voice of the Inquisitors constantly thrashed at each other like predators against one another.

“I didn’t abandon you. I looked for you…”

This is perhaps what prevailed the whole time. Cal’s tiny spark of hope in those words shone its way through the cold of your armor. You couldn’t help but feel betrayed by your brothers and sisters, they who groomed you into a killing machine with a red blade like them, and constantly gaslighted you into thinking that you were abandoned—by your friends and ultimately, by Cal—and that you owe your life to them , the Inquisitors.

“He… looked for me? He wanted to find me?” you mumble under your breath, clutching your chest as your heart calmed down.

You’re reminded of your bracelet that he wore around his wrist. You could only wonder how many time he looked at it, touched it with and without Psychometry, and just simply remembered you.

“He kept it, too…”

Your heart ached, and eventually so, you melted to the floor and reduced into a sobbing mess—all these feelings fighting in your mind, unsure which one to feel.

Anger? Yes, but for whom this time?

Sadness? For Cal and the life you’ve lost, most certainly.

Hope? Bleak but possible.

“You still have a choice…”

“Twelfth Sister?” the voice in your head trailed off the moment your gauntlet comms bleeped.

You jumped, startled by the sound. You recomposed yourself and cleared your throat prior to answering.

“We require your assistance in the war room.”

“Of course, Captain, I’ll be on my way.”

—-

Cal is exactly in the same predicament as you in the confines of his cramped room.

A while ago, he had picked up your outburst in the middle of his own meditation. He wondered what had slipped into your mind to put you in such an overwhelming mental state. All he could feel was sadness, his free hand trailed to the cord around his wrist and ran his thumb against the tarnished metal pendant.

Earlier, when he returned to the Mantis, he announced that you took a Force-sensitive child from the city, everybody was up in arms to concoct a plan—especially Cere, knowing full well what they’ll do to captive Force-sensitive children.

During that planning, the former Jedi held her finger, her expression in full, deep thought and then she marches to the communications station—her personal workspace—in the cockpit without a word to anyone. With her dexterous fingers, she fiddled with the dashboard, her arms and hands moving from one spot to another—acting on pure muscle memory and instinct.

“I found a signal,” spoke Cere softly, and she obligated to repeat herself when she assumed no one had heard her. “There’s a signal, coming from the reception tower of an Imperial garrison in the east. I’ve been keeping up with them through their comms; transport ships are frequently deployed there for various purposes—ration supply runs, troop deployment, pickup, you name it. No doubt, [Y/N] will have the child delivered to their fortress on one of those ships.”

She fine-tuned the frequency by slightly turning the knob back and forth until the audio went clear—the entire comms of the Imperial garrison plays through the Mantis’s speakers for everyone to hear.

“I just received word from the Twelfth Sister. They’re orders to request a transport ship to Mons Golotha.”

The crew collectively pulled their eyebrows together at the mention of an Inquisitor’s title and the name of a new planet, but they put aside the questions for later.

“Date of departure?”

“No word yet, she says she’ll personally see to it. I think it must be a heads up.”

“Yeah, well, they’ll process her request real quick. Inquisitors always get the priority here.”

“It’s almost like Lord Vader but less terrifying.”

Cere lowered the volume, and turned to Cal.

“Twelfth Sister?” Greez grumbled in a hybrid of disbelief and confusion.

“That’s [Y/N], she’s the Twelfth Sister among the Inquisitors,” Cal coldly answered.

An awkward silence befell between the Lateron and the young boy.

“Are you gonna burst in there like you did last time?” inquired Merrin.

“Well, it worked thus far,”

“And look where it got you.”

Merrin wins the banter of wits. Cal yields willingly, though he retained to the topic of how to rescue the child and you, without any sarcastic comebacks brimming with sound points. Cere presumed it ought to be a trap, reading between the lines of the last few sentences the Stormtroopers said; she made it clear that you are not to be underestimated, for an alliance with the Dark Side and the Inquisitorius, no less, has made you doubly unpredictable.

The adult woman hacks into the garrison’s systems again and produces a rough, three-dimensional blueprint of the complex to amp out their entry and escape. Using the computer’s projector, the holomap floats in the center of the cockpit, surrounded by everyone.

“Once we’re in the garrison yard, I can find a computer and hack it so we can get a map of the inside,” commented Cere.

Cal rotated the map so the back side of the garrison complex faces him.

“I can scale its southern wall and sneak past the guards there, which I think would be minimal, considering they’re in the middle of nowhere. I’ll create an opening for us—Cere, you’ll be the one finding the kid.”

“And I take it that you’re coming after [Y/N] then?”

Cal clicked his tongue at the same time he pointed his finger at Cere in the shape of a gun, while keeping a poker face. In response, Cere sighed and rolled her eyes, equivalent to the saying, “Of course, you will.”

He had a feeling that the transport was a front, he reminds himself of the lone TIE Fighter he spotted earlier; and so, he couldn’t afford to let another hour pass to let your plan succeed. He asks Cere to keep the comms on while their own signature is masked, it’ll be their only way of knowing if you’re on the move; it’s also his guilty pleasure of hearing your voice again, for he always thinks the moments you have together aren’t enough, it isn’t exactly docile either—given the current predicament.

While they were debating on the best approach for stealth, the speakers crackled again and drew everyone’s attention.

“Captain?”

Cal jumped on his feet as soon as he heard your voice at the first word.

“She on!”

“How long until my ship is ready for travel?”

“Not for long now, Inquisitor.”

Over the comms, the baby could be heard fussing in between your exchange with Captain Foros; another thing is the impending storm that’s gradually disrupting the signals, making it hard to piece together the conversation.

“Make sure… I leave… hour and a half…”

“Yes-s-s-s… Inquisitor…”

With everything they’ve gathered so far, Cal assumed that they only have an hour and half left to reach you before you get off-world.

“We have to go!”

Cal and Cere dashed to the door, the boy slams the same button that opens the contained door with the speeder. Cere drove the speeder, when they closed enough distance between themselves and the garrison, she scrambled the signal of the speeder as they approached the complex. According to plan, Cere dropped Cal at the backside of the garrison.

“Hey, Cal?”

The boy turned around before even taking his first step.

“Save her.”

There is a heaviness in those two simple words, Cal felt it in his heart, nonetheless the determination is there. He clenched his fist and looked at Cere straight in the eye.

“I plan to.”

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bedlamsbard · 4 years

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you've probably been asked this before, but-- thoughts on jedi fallen order? your star wars meta/fic/etc is always my favorite and i'm very interested to hear what you think of the new game!

I liked it a lot!

So, as I’ve said before, I haven’t played it; I watched a playthrough on YouTube about a week or so after it came out, so I’d gotten spoiled for it despite trying to avoid spoilers, and the particular playthrough I watched actually had the sound cut out on two of the big scenes, so that was a disappointment. Watching it rather than playing it means that I definitely missed some things that I’ve seen people mention about it, and I’d like to play it at some point if I can get the tech to cooperate, though that likely won’t be for a while.

I was a little wary about Cal Kestis going in because of the comments that the creators of the game had made about not wanting to have a female/POC/alien main character, but for me Cal was good enough, sweet enough, and interesting enough to overcome that. I really liked how much weight JFO gave to trauma, living with it, and overcoming it, with Cal, Cere, Merrin, Trilla, and the other characters. Obviously the poncho is Peak Star Wars, and BD-1 is very sweet. And I love Inquisitors.

I know JFO has gotten some criticism for being ~yet another padawan survivor story, but Cal is so distinct from either Kanan or Ahsoka that that’s not really how it feels to me, and I think his interaction with Cere, Trilla/Second, and the Ninth Sister really make his story unique compared to the other two. I love the beginning of the game; it’s such strong world- and environment- building, and the strong sense of Cal’s personality really comes through in his introduction (headphones, blasting music, “I’m trash, I’m just not approved trash” -- he’s peak 2019 gen Z, in my millennial POV).

As far as the actual plot goes, it’s *flips hand* pretty much eh. It’s a MacGuffin and there’s no way around that; it’s also revisiting plot points from TCW and the Charles Soule Darth Vader comics. I can understand why Lucasfilm would want to continue to revisit that particular plot point but also, I’m tired of it. As far as JFO goes, the MacGuffin is mostly an excuse for the journey, which was...interesting. There are parts of it I really liked; sorry, my dumb brain loves gladiatorial fights even if that probably wasn’t, like, necessary. Kashyyyk was fun; it’s fun to see Saw Gerrera again even if I’m also kind of like “dude, you haven’t changed your armor in fifteen years?” I enjoyed seeing Dathomir again even if I have mixed feelings about the choices made insofar as the worldbuilding, but Merrin was really wonderful. The Zeffo...I still feel that the Zeffo, aesthetically, belong in Stargate rather than Star Wars; their actual use in the game also felt a bit more Stargate rather than SW, for me? I mean, they’re also a MacGuffin, but I suppose insofar as SW go they’re on the same order as Loo Re Anno’s species from the Han Solo comic or the Rakata from the EU, so not really something that doesn’t have a place in Star Wars.

The Inquisitors. I love Inquisitors. I don’t necessarily love these Inquisitors. I unfortunately got spoiled for the Second Sister’s reveal as Trilla/Cere’s former padawan, which kind of affected how I felt about her, and I’m also in the FB cosplay build group for Second and it’s a little cutthroat, so that affected it too. She’s...fine? Something about her just doesn’t hang together for me, and I can’t quite put my finger on what it is at the moment. The Ninth Sister has such a strong personality from the Darth Vader comics, and while she’s in character between the comics and the game, it also means I was a little taken aback by her abrupt ending. (And I note that it feels a little weird that Trilla gets the name and the tragic backstory and the personal attachment and the not-actually-redemption, but Ninth doesn’t get any of those.) It was also weirdly surreal for me to see the Fortress Inquisitorius, a.k.a. the canon version of the Crucible from Backbone, but tbh I think the decision to put it on another planet/moon(?) in the Mustafar system actually weakened it.

I got spoiled for Darth Vader’s appearance and that was one of the places where the sound cut out on the playthrough I watched, so it didn’t quite have the effect that it probably would have done had I gone into it cold. That said, Cal and Cere should probably be dead; as I’ve seen pointed out, Vader hasn’t been allowed to kill anyone of significance in the new canon, which kind of undercuts him. (The closest he’s come has been Jocasta Nu in the comics.)

All right. The ending. I don’t like the ending. Not because I really thought that Cal and Cere should have refounded the Jedi Order, but because I feel like they put the destruction of the holocron in the wrong place; I think they should have destroyed it to keep it away from Vader. The conscious decision made not to re-found the Order is really uncomfortable for me, especially in light of the way that the new canon has treated the subject over the past couple years. I was talking about this with @reena-jenkins a while back, so I’ll just copy and paste what I said there. (Note that this was back in November, before TROS came out.)

(I’ve cut most of Reena’s responses and a little bit of other conversation we were having.)

So yeah, I have some problems with the ultimate ending decision, but as usual a lot of it comes down to how that intersects with other plot lines that Lucasfilm has done over the past five/six years.

Another thing I kept thinking of throughout the game was something one of the creators said -- either in an interview or at SWCC earlier this year, I can’t remember which, that there was a lot of debate on where to put the hyphen in Jedi: Fallen Order, i.e. that it could have been Jedi Fallen: Order (though title-wise that doesn’t stand up as much). I do like how much emphasis there is on “fallen order” -- the Jedi Order, of course, but also the Nightsisters, the Zeffo, the Inquisitors and Purge troopers as a kind of twisted version of the Jedi and clone troopers, even the structure of the Republic being corrupted into the Empire.

One thing that took me by surprise with JFO was also how much intersection it had with Galaxy’s Edge! Not to the extent that I would have noticed it if I hadn’t already been to Galaxy’s Edge, but having gone and also having the kind of brain that literally just absorbs stuff and then retains it. Like, for example, the Galaxy’s Edge sporks that are now no longer used because people kept stealing them; they’re used in one of the meals on the Mantis. Cal remaking his lightsaber and using the parts you can get at Savi’s got picked up by a couple of news outlets; I think this is actually a bit unfortunate, because they went for the Galaxy’s Edge lightsaber proportions for many of his lightsaber options and in my opinion, those are less elegant proportions than usually seen in Star Wars, so it ends up looking clumsy to me. Another proportion thing that follows Galaxy’s Edge -- the holocron, both Cere’s and the MacGuffin holocron; the Galaxy’s Edge ones seem to be proportionally a bit bigger than the holocrons seen in Rebels and TCW, and the ones in the game follows Galaxy’s Edge rather than TCW/Rebels sizing. The Nightsister zombie crate in Galaxy’s Edge may also be a JFO reference rather than a TCW one, though obviously it could also apply to both.

I really enjoyed the Clone Wars/Order 66 flashbacks, though actually Order 66 was ANOTHER place the sound cut out! I told you that it was the most dramatic reveals where I lost sound! I loved that Jaro Tapal was a Lasat; I also like that, as far as I can tell, some of Cal’s specific movement types (wall-running and his tendency to be like “cool, gonna climb that”) seem to be more Lasat-inspired than other types of Jedi movement we’ve seen before. I really like the design of Jaro’s lightsaber; I remember in the promo I was confused about the fact that it didn’t seem to be proportional to Cal, but of course it’s not! It was made by a Lasat for a Lasat! Order 66 is always such a mess -- and actually, I’m struck by how different Cal’s and Caleb’s experiences of it were? I think one thing that the game made clear to me is how lucky Kanan got, in all ways.

The ending is obviously setting up for a sequel; I don’t really think Cal and Cere should have survived, but it we get a decent sequel out of it I guess I’m okay with it. I know I’m missing details in this review, but I really did enjoy watching it; I liked the characters, I liked the worldbuilding, I think it did some really intriguing things even if I don’t agree with every decision made. (And, selfishly, I like my Inquisition better than the canon one.)

#jedi fallen order #bedlam watches star wars #janeghoulittle #bedlam answers

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aterabyte · 4 years

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Rating Fallen Order Bosses from Easiest to Hardest for Me, Personally (Except the Albino Spider thingy because I never fought that)

Beware of spoilers and longwindedness below the cut.

12. AT-ST; this was by far the easiest boss. It took me a while to whittle down, but I don’t believe I even needed to use a stim. It was just parry until it’s stunned, run in and slash, roll away from the grenades, force push the missile, and repeat. No trouble at all. Granted, it was to introduce a recurring enemy (albeit a rare one), but I think it would’ve been served better as a more dangerous modified AT-ST of some sort (perhaps with a stomp attack?), with regular ones appearing later as degraded bosses with fewer features.

11. Security Droid; another boss fight to introduce a new enemy, and only slightly more dangerous than the last. It had tight confines that made the droid hypothetically dangerous, given its long ranged melee attacks and high damage, but the droid was ultimately far less threat than many droids that appeared later on due to being fought alone. I’m not sure it even brought me to half health on my first stim pack.

10. Arena Bounty Hunter; Ding, mine was called. She caught me by surprise during the ambush and stunned me without me landing a single blow, and when I finally got to the arena and got my lightsaber back, I had an infuriatingly tough fight--I think I must have died three or four times. The last death was right after I reached her with about half my health left and no stims--but then when I got to come back in at full health with no beasts to fight, she was pathetically easy. She mostly attacks with blaster fire, which can be easily parried. Every once in a while, she’ll fire a missile or strafe you with a flamethrower, but these are easily avoided. The only time she even damaged me in our second fight was when I got greedy and didn’t roll away in time after landing a lightsaber combo, and she hit me with her flamethrower.

9. Nydak Alpha; this one took some time for me to figure out as I’d spent most of Dathomir avoiding the Lesser Nydaks. Because of this, I died once when I had almost killed it. When I came back, however, it was just a matter of patience and diligence, dodging its unblockable lunge and then parrying its three-hit combo to get a few good hits in. Rinse, repeat.

8. Second Sister; by far the easiest melee-focused humanoid enemy in the game. She has an impressively varied set of combos and some good range, but her attacks are easily parried, and her unblockables are not only easily dodged, but leave her very vulnerable. Not only that, but the fight ends at half health, so she doesn’t last very long. Unlike the previous two entries, she didn’t even kill me--but at the same time, the last two were mostly circumstantial losses, and she got a number of good licks in due to her sheer variety.

7. Gorgara; This oversized bat seemed at first like it would be a terrifying foe. Its very early first phase is easy, with just a couple of heavily telegraphed unblockable that let you land several hits, followed by an opportunity to Force Pull it to the ground and hit is head for massive damage. After you do that, though, it takes to the air and starts hitting you when sonic strafing runs, then charge attacks, then ground pounds that make a shockwave like the last two bosses. For all its variety, though, this boss fight is clearly a power fantasy more than anything. Its attacks are easily avoided and it takes little damage to bring down for its size.

6. Taron Malicos; Essentially a better version of Second Sister in every way, and the first boss I’d say gave me serious trouble as a lone enemy against a full-health Cal. He starts off with some easily-parried lightsaber combos, but those combos quickly cease to be easily-parried once he starts mixing in his unblockables. Malicos is an extremely technical fighter who will often take a parry, then bounce back with an unblockable--or throw his lightsaber at you several times in a row, then toss one into the air out of your sight to pull in back down at you while you’re dueling him, or just pick rocks out of the air and throw them. Lucky you, Merrin will come in and start helping you halfway through the fight, hitting him with magic at various points that drops his stamina. He didn’t quite kill me, but he got me within a single hit of death, which was impressive since I had six stim packs at this point and a badass magic lady teleporting in and out of the fray.

Honorable Mention. Electrobaton Purge Troopers; these guys are actually just regular enemies, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The first time I encountered one, he killed me with almost no damage taken because of his absurdly fast combos that stunlock you into taking several more hits if you don’t block or parry the first blow--and then killed me two or three more times for good measure. These guys also have an unblockable at the end of their main combo, which catches you by surprise at first. And if you don’t parry before attacking and instead just block then dodge, they also tend to, instead of blocking and letting you take down a chunk of their stamina meter, dodge your attack and throw a weird jumping attack out of nowhere. Plus, they tend to come in areas where you can’t Force Push them off the ledge, at least after you unlock the upgrade that makes your pushes strong enough to affect them. Even at the end of the game, one of them came in with a couple scout troopers and took two of my stim packs, which was absurd since I was tearing through every other regular enemy in the Fortress Inquisitorius with ease. Fuck these guys.

5. Oggdo Boggdo; Oggdo Boggdo was an interesting one. The earliest miniboss in the game, encounterable in the first hour to hour and a half. If I’d come back and killed it later, I likely wouldn’t have struggled at all. Fighting it as early as I did, however, I only had a single lightsaber blade, one force power (which didn’t even work right, because if you Slow its tongue and try to hit it, your blade goes right through) and little enough health that it could kill me in two hits even after I lowered the difficulty to normal for the only time in the game. Even after doing so, I had to drop down from above and cut off a quarter of its health, and it still brought me to almost no HP. Oggdo Boggdo may not have been that dangerous in reality, but with how early I faced it, it earned a solid place just just inside the top 5.

4. Haxian Brood Droid and Bounty Hunter; of the randomly-generated miniboss ambushes, this was the only kind I ever encounter, and it was a doozy. Both enemies are unthreatening on their own--the Bounty Hunter is identical to the one in the arena, and while the droid has long range and mostly unblockable attacks, it’s also slow and easily avoided. The problem is that this is a very good combination. The Bounty Hunter tends to stay in the air, and it’s a lot harder to deflect her charged shot and bring her down when you have a Droid named Chonk or whatever pummeling you. Conversely, if you try to focus on the Droid, you get pelted with annoying lasers and stunned with missiles. Of the four times one of these pairs showed up, the only one I actually killed was on Kashyyyk, where the Bounty Hunter got stuck in an infinite walk cycle and couldn’t move or attack unless I came close, allowing me to whittle down the, on its own, pathetically easy Droid. This pair is perhaps the greatest example of enemies being more than the sum of their parts.

3. Rabid Jotaz; Funny enough, I never actually killed this thing. I went to face it immediately after getting the scomplink, died three or four times, and then gave up. I’m confident I could have killed it if I’d faced it a little later, but at that point in the game, this simple enemy was too much. Its attacks have wide arcs and obvious tells and are easily dodged in theory, and its health was pitiful for its massive size, but the Rabid Jotaz had one big advantage--a tiny arena. Seriously, the arena was a claustrophobic circle maybe two and a half times its armspan in diameter. It didn’t matter how slow the thing was when there was no room to go anywhere and its unblockable swept across half the room. It would’ve been much easier, I think, had I come back to kill it later on but I hate backtracking, so it gets a spot in the top three.

2. Trilla Suderi; Trilla has an absurdly varied moveset. Even right off the bat, she likes to throw two different combos with multiple variations on how they can end, sometimes leading into each other, sometimes leading into a weird spinny move, sometimes leading into a jumping downward stab. Of course, that’s nothing compared to the shockwave she has. It’s like Ninth Sister’s where she’ll smash her hand into the ground after a short windup and send a wave of force bullshit you have to jump. The thing is, she likes to throw it at two inconvenient times. One, right after she summons an annoying probe droid to distract and stagger you, and two, when you’re at point blank range and have no time to dodge. She also has absurd range, blinking across the entire large arena in a matter of moments, which is bad enough when she’s throwing an unblockable lightsaber attack, but is even worse when she’s throwing her most infuriating attack of all. She’ll lunge at you, grab you by the face, and suck out both your health and, for good measure, your Force meter. The only saving grace is that is has a generous windup time.

With all that, why’s she only number 2? Well, she’s sloppy. I had a hard time whittling down her block meter because so many of the attacks she does will let you just hit her health directly and take off a good chunk. Plus, after my first death I started using a fun tactic where I’d run in, spam Force Push to drop her Stamina, hit her to regain my Force meter along with the experience she stole, then use a dual lightsaber attack for massive damage, dropping somewhere close to a fifth of her HP in one fell swoop. Plus, her attacks are mostly easily blocked or dodged. She killed me five times, but it was always because she either used her OHKO suck-yer-brains-out move, or because she summoned a Probe Droid that staggered me at critical moments before I could kill it. With all that, it was very satisfying that I beat her by throwing her own exploding probe droid into her.

1. Ninth Sister; she killed me a whopping twelve times. Like, seriously; this lady did not play around. Her first phase, when she’s using just one blade, is simple. Parry, parry, dodge to the side to avoid the unblockable stab when she Force Pulls you in, don’t get hit by the overhead jumping swing. You can deal good damage to her with the openings she leaves, but she’s still more defensive than Trilla despite her brutish style, and she has health befitting her stature. Still, the first phase poses no threat. Then, she activates the other blade on her lightsaber and becomes a lot tougher.

Noticeably, she has several more special moves. She’ll do a shoulder charge that’s pretty easy to avoid, but once her health gets down to about a third, she’ll throw in a second charge, which caught me off guard sometimes even when I was expecting it. She has an unblockable spinning blade attack, which is easy to avoid but does massive damage, and she has a ground slam like Trilla--but easier to evade because she always creates distance before doing it. My big struggle was the simpler part. Her combos are faster and last longer, she seems harder to land hits on, she pulls switcharoos with similar-looking attacks that turn out to be unblockables, and her stab seems to have less windup time, making it a far more dangerous attack than in the first phase. For all the fanciness that she adds, it’s mostly easily avoided. What got me was just the regular attacks, and that damnable stab. With this, the Ninth Sister of the Inquisitorious takes the #1 spot.

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