Trooper Log #6: Ganglands of Nar Shaddaa and the liberation of M1-4X

This Trooper Log series is posted simultaneously and in full on both my personal blog, Twilight Lynk, and StarWarsMMO.net. Enjoy!

Havoc Squad travels to the neutral moon of Nar Shaddaa to investigate reports that an advanced Republic Battle Droid has been captured and working for the enemy.

Warning: This entry contains spoilers from Star Wars: The Old Republic for the Trooper class. Don’t come to me complaining that I’ve ruined it all for you since you have been warned well in advance.

BEGIN TROOPER LOG //

Mission Log

Coming from Taris and setting down on the Hutt controlled moon of Nar Shaddaa takes you out of a swampy ruin and into a much different kind of cesspool. Nar Shaddaa is also one of the few pieces of neutral ground where Republic and Imperial representatives can gather in relative safety, in theory. The truth, however, is that this moon is just another battle ground where the Republic and Empire fight to win favour with the Hutts. Of course, these altercations are a lot more shady and often occurs away from prying eyes.

Our mission here is to follow-up a report about an operation being conducted by allies of the rogue Havoc Squad members involving a prototype war droid the Republic was developing. M1-4X, the droid in question was developed specifically to serve in Havoc Squad, however its creation occurred while Tavus was still in command of Havoc Squad and as a result, Tavus was able to take the droid and use it to serve his own purpose. The first order of business was to meet our local contact, a Republic SIS (Strategic Information Service) agent by the name of Jonas Balkar. This will be the first time I would be working with an SIS agent, however, under the orders of General Garza, the details of our mission must be kept a secret from both enemies and allies.

Sergeant Dorne and I took to the streets of Nar Shaddaa and headed to the Cantina where we would meet Jonas. It may not seem like the ideal location to hold a meeting about secret Republic business, however I’m sure SIS is doing its job and has secured the area before hand. Our meeting with Jonas was short and though reluctant about not knowing what we were really doing on Nar Shaddaa, he was very helpful with his information. The man knew Nar Shaddaa a lot better than we did and I trust his judgement, however I didn’t break General Garza’s orders on the matter of secrecy since too much was at stake.

According to Jonas, there have been reports of activities of a highly advanced battle droid working with a group and causing quite a lot of destruction. At this point SIS doesn’t have as much intel as we do about the identity of the droid, however they suspect some kind of Imperial involvement. The first step in our mission would be to confront the M1-4X droid and its handlers and rattle their cages enough for them to call in to their superiors. Intel suggests that this group is targeting local arms factories, raiding them for their resources to help Tavus in his efforts with the Empire.

When it finally came time to confront Tavus’ men, we were in for quite a surprise. The M1-4X droid hadn’t been reprogrammed at all and believed that it was working for the Republic all along. In fact, this droid was programmed to be completely patriotic to the Republic and was confused about its role on Nar Shaddaa. No doubt his handlers were feeding him some kind of Bantha feed about how this is a top-secret mission and that they were all on a need to know basis.

Before things got out of hand, I tried to reason with M1-4X, who was able to verify my identity as the leader of Havoc Squad. The droid seemed to be conflicted about what was going on, however Tavus had installed an override command into the droid preventing me from turning the droid against Tavus’ men. Captain Sgt. Dorne and I faced off against several soldiers as M1-4X and his handler escaped.

After this first encounter, it took us quite awhile before we were able to catch up to M1-4X again. In the meantime, our best bet to take care of this situation was to cut off all support for the operations Tavus’ men were conducting on the moon. When we returned to Jonas, he expressed surprise about the Imperial involvement, however I persisted in my stance and told him nothing about the defection and the relationship between M1-4X, the defectors and the Imperial involvement. In any case, we had to infiltrate the Imperial operations on Nar Shaddaa and somehow convince them that their plans with M1-4X and Tavus’ men would lead them into trouble, in my own way of course.

After quite a lot of running around we were finally able to disrupt our Imperial defector’s plans and come to a final confrontation with their leader and a personality overridden M1-4X. I knew this moment would come, I would have to fight and defeat this battle droid, however it didn’t sit well with me. In our first encounter this droid clearly showed that it was a loyal member of the Republic and didn’t want to do what Tavus and his men wanted him to do. He had finally figured out that he was being used and although he expressed his deep regret about the situation, his programming wouldn’t allow him to disobey his handlers orders. This was one battle I didn’t want to fight…

With 4X defeated, I ordered our support personnel to begin repairs on him immediately. I wasn’t about to let this droid become scrap metal after all he had been through. He was made to be a member of Havoc Squad and I was going to make sure he became what he was meant to be. As the operation came to an end, I made sure to thank Jonas Balkar for all of his help despite keeping him in the dark about the situation with the former members of Havoc Squad. I have to admit, if he weren’t an SIS agent, I’d try recruiting the guy myself, he certainly has some skills that I could use. However, the newest member of Havoc Squad also has some skill of their own which is going to be highly beneficial in missions to come…

Personal Log

I don’t exactly know how to describe the newest member of Havoc Squad since I haven’t had that much experience dealing with a droid packed to the brim with Republic patriotism. M1-4X can be a little overwhelming with his glorification of the Republic, however, what he lacks in restraint, he makes up for in raising morale. I think Elara and Mr. Cat like having him around, though neither of them would ever admit it if you asked them.

Along with a talk with 4X, I also spent a little time talking to Elara about her defection to the Republic and what she’s had to put up with in her time serving the Republic military. I for one am glad that she’s a part of Havoc Squad, however there are many who still feel that she has a lot to prove. I really can’t imagine all that she’s gone through, but she seems determined to prove herself to the Republic and to fight for what she believes in, and that is good enough for me.

Computer Log

When I first envisioned my Trooper, I didn’t think of him as the standard action movie hero that is the only soldier who has removed his helmet so you can see his perfectly moussed hair and winning smile. No, my Trooper would be the man who doesn’t consider himself special and is the more mysterious variety of hero… therefore, he needs a helmet that projects that quality. Of course, when people start their Trooper on Ord Mantell, they don’t start off with anything even remotely resembling armour at all and certainly not a helmet. You need to level up to get all the good stuff, though I wish it wouldn’t take so long, it was a really tough wait and while I do like the way my character creation options turned out, the character I was creating didn’t feel right without a helmet.

Finally! I got really excited coming to Nar Shaddaa because I knew from my playthrough of the Trooper in beta that this is where you could pick up a helmet from the Equipment Commendations vendor once you got 14 of them. It was a great moment getting my strange snouted helmet with yellow markings that made me look even more mismatched than before… However, at around level 40ish I came back to Taris randomly just to take another look around and I FINALLY discovered the Speciality Goods vendor that was selling a low-level helmet. I gotta say, when I discovered it I was a little pissed off because the vendor is inside a small build which, for me, was out-of-the-way from my usual business on Taris. Of course, in the end it doesn’t really matter, the helmet I bought at that Nar Shaddaa vendor stayed with me throughout much of the game and it served its purpose.

Switching gears, I want to take some time to comment about Nar Shaddaa and its NPCs… If you’ve been walking around Nar Shaddaa and you haven’t taken a moment to stop and actually look around, I suggest you do because the NPCs on Nar Shaddaa do the strangest things. The first group that caught my eye were a couple of scantily clad women splashing around in the fountain around a giant statue of a Hutt. Wait, I’m not finished… there was this one guy who was on his knees worshipping one of them, and then the other had this other guy whooping at her while a female smuggler who was standing in the fountain with them just watched these two ladies… very closely.

That’s only one example of the crazy antics that happen on Nar Shaddaa and there’s plenty more where that came from. Sure, these kinds of random animations by NPCs are happening on all of the locales you visit, but for some reason it was a lot more bizarre on Nar Shaddaa than anywhere else… it certainly has its own sleazy charm about it.

// STATUS REPORT //

• Name: Lynk
  Class: Trooper Vanguard
  Level: 24

This entry is VERY late since I’ve been playing way too much of the game lately since I’ll be heading back to Uni in March, but here it is… hopefully the next one won’t be late.

// END LOG ENTRY