The Former Legacy: Lynk Former

Awhile back I started a series of “Trooper Logs” that depicted the events of my main characters journey through Star Wars: The Old Republic. However, that series came to an abrupt end when BioWare decided to have “voluntary-forced” server transfers which would mean I’d end up losing the names of my toons… which to me is unacceptable!

Of course, things ended up working out for the best and now that I’m back I feel compelled to post more entries relating to The Old Republic, though without returning to that old Trooper Log format. I’ve decided to start a series of entries about each character in “The Former Legacy” starting with my main toon on the Republic side, Lynk Former.

Back in grade 6 (so this is 1996 we’re talking) I created up a Star Wars character named “Lynk Former” who was an X-Wing pilot for the Rebel Alliance. As I remember things now, what I imagined was a man (based off of an older version of me, naturally…) who was the leader of a squadron of pilots that undertook secret assignments (now that I think about it, they were kind of like Wraith Squadron, though this was long before the first Wraith Squadron book was even released). They were so secret, in fact, that their squadron didn’t have a name, or even a codename. They weren’t officially recognised as part of the Rebel Alliance until later (when I had finally read the X-Wing books published by Bantam Spectre and added more to my “story”) when they were officially recruited into the New Republic. They were the opposite of Rogue Squadron who held the banner of the Rebel Alliance proudly and inspired others to join the cause. Lynk Former’s squadron did things that the Rebel Alliance couldn’t officially condone and if anyone in the Alliance or their sympathisers found out, the Alliance would be over.

I was quite the imaginative (and geeky) kid, I had a whole cast of characters laid out with their own arcs and relationships as well as the kinds of missions they went on, as well as little details. The thing is, this was all really just in my mind and I never wrote any of this down… some of these details I can remember, some of them are a bit cloudy since I haven’t really thought about it in years, but man… if I was into writing fan fiction, this would definitely end up being a series I’d write… not that I would, I suck at writing fiction and know enough not to attempt it. Seriously.

When Star Wars: The Old Republic was announced I was initially going to pass on it since, at the time, I was against the idea of playing an MMO or any other subscription based video game… That is until I saw the Trooper class. I had already been using “Lynk Former” as the name of my Internet persona for years by this time and the idea of a BioWare produced MMO finally got me to accept the idea of me paying a subscription fee to finally live out a Star Wars fantasy of mine.

I had expanded on the idea of Lynk Former many times since he was created and The Old Republic presented another opportunity to expand his… legacy, as BioWare would have it. The Lynk Former that would exist in the time period that The Old Republic is set would become the ancestor of Lynk Former the X-Wing pilot. However, unlike the descendant, this Lynk Former would be a Trooper, a Vanguard of the Galactic Republic. I absolutely freaked when I saw the trailer for the Trooper class when it was first released… that trailer by itself is what took me by the neck and plunged me head-first into the game. I wanted this to happen, it had to happen… I made it happen.

I was able to get into beta a year or so before the game was released and despite being Australian, I pre-ordered a copy of the Collector’s Edition of the game online from GameStop and was one of the first into the early access period… okay, not one of the FIRST, I had to wait 2 hours, but a friend of mine did get in practically first and he was able to hold the name “Lynk” for me till I finally got on… what a champ.

From that day on, Lynk Former the trooper, the ancestor of Lynk Former the pilot, came into existence and The Former Legacy expanded into something multi-generational. The cast of characters of this story of mine had expanded, though now with some help from the writers of The Old Republic who created characters like Elara Dorne and Mr. Cat (Aric Jorgan). Of course, in a strange way it’s also expanded through the help of the people I play the game with as well.

Lynk Former, the pilot, has a sister (Stell Former) as well as smuggler friend who doubled as his underworld contact (Bale something, I forget his full name) as well as an on and off love interest (Terren Surka). As I mentioned before, there’s a whole cast of characters in his story that kind of just sprang up, and the same thing ended up happening with The Old Republic as well. Lynk Former, the trooper, also has many allies such as a Gunslinger named Deckard “Zydex” Parsecs as well as a Jedi Guardian known as Kamina Starstrider and the Jedi Sage, Kusanavi McDohl. Add to the mix the other seven characters I ended up creating and the cast grows ever more dense. Oh wait, other EIGHT characters now, recently I created a character I’m going to be using to play with my nephew when he joins the fun and ended up making her Lynk’s sister (Lexiine Former)… Lynk’s a light side Trooper, may as well make a female dark side Trooper for the fun of it and make it his evil younger sister, why not? This whole thing is totally crazy and out there now with all of these great sources to pick from.

I’ve had my ups and downs with this game, but I’m glad how things have turned out. I’m living out my Star Wars fantasy and I can’t wait for what the future brings. Not only has a new Lynk Former been created, but a new cast of characters has formed and a legacy that spans over a millennia has emerged.

In the next entry of The Former Legacy series I’ll be talking about Silvana, a light side Sith Marauder.