The Former Legacy: Silvana

Sith are known throughout the galaxy as being the embodiment of the dark side of the Force, their history stained with the blood of everyone and everything around them. To many, they are simply evil incarnate and nothing more… which is why I chose to take a different path for my Sith Warrior, one that would put her up against all of the stereotypes presented of her species, the so-called Sith Purebloods.

During beta, I was able to spend some time thinking about the different characters I wanted to create and flesh them out in my mind and in the character creator in the game itself. I made sure to read about the general story that each class followed as well as the possible species you could choose… even their voice actors determined what kind of character I would create. At the time, Silvana was not Silvana, she was actually going to be named “Klan” after a character from Macross Frontier, however when I got into early access I discovered that any use of the word “Klan” was filtered out by BioWare… possibly due to other “Klan” connections…

Klan Klang, a character from Macross Frontier, is part of an alien race called the Zentradi who, like the Sith, are a species that only knew war and destruction, though unlike the Sith they didn’t have any dark or evil motivations. They only knew war because that’s exactly what they were bred for… In the events of the first Macross anime, a war occurred between Humanity and the Zentradi and due to these events a large number of Zentradi abandoned their past and chose to embrace something more.

When I created the character named “Klan” I had the idea of a Sith Pureblood who went against everything people thought they knew about the Sith. She would follow the light side of the Force but she would do it on her own terms. That was the beginnings of this character, though as I said, things changed when I had to input a new name for this character during early access.

Silvana takes her name, not from a person, but from a warship from Last Exile… an interesting choice, but like with Klan, I had a reason to choose this name. The Silvana was a ship that had a dark and bloody legend attached to it, and anyone who spoke the name “Silvana” spoke it with fear due to its disturbing reputation. However, the truth of the matter is that the Silvana and her crew would change the world and be the guiding light that would save the kingdoms of Anatoray and Disith and their world of Prestel from destruction. I felt that this reflected very well on what I was trying to achieve with my Sith Warrior character and at the same time tied it closely to the motivations already outlined by Klan before the name switch.

The idea for Silvana was that she was brought up by people, not necessarily her parents, who believed in an Empire ruled by a more tempered use of passion and power rather than absolute hatred, rage and destruction. When I think about the things that go through her mind I find myself looking at a woman who is branded as this evil entity by everyone around her which she gladly accepts as a disguise to mask her true nature.

What Silvana really wants is to achieve some kind of freedom, to go where she wants, do as she pleases and not be bound by either the Jedi or Sith. She has a distaste for the Sith and their needless bloodshed and she is unable to follow the strict monk lifestyle of a Jedi. What she really wants is to be free and travel the galaxy with her companion, Vette. She’s no saint, but she is no demon either, she is still selfish and does things for herself, but she also does what she needs for her friends and won’t forsake others. Sith find her difficult to understand, Jedi find her completely perplexing… it makes for a great story with even better character interactions as she travels around the galaxy.

On the Republic side I have Lynk, a Shield Specialist Vanguard, as my main character, for the Imperial side I have Silvana who takes the completely opposite approach as a Carnage Marauder. I knew I wanted this ever since beta where I first experienced the power that is the Sith Marauder in action and the storyline that was presented to me. I got up to Tatooine before stopping myself from going any farther. I was already hooked by the story and especially mesmerised by how well my light side choices played out and affected the game. Everything about this character seemed to fit so well into place that it was scary. Ever since then I’ve been telling everyone I can about how awesome the Sith Warrior storyline is, especially if you make light side decisions… and I’m sure a lot of people want me to shut up about it, but the people must be told!

In the next entry of The Former Legacy series I’ll be talking about Priss, a dark side Gunslinger. Oh and on a final note, I think Silvana is probably the best dressed out of all of my characters in The Former Legacy… gotta love that purple robe.