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If you spend any time on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums, you are sure to have seen his passion and prose regarding all things Jedi. You know him as Professor Walsh. Each week (or thereabouts,) Professor Walsh will answer a few reader-submitted questions in order to enlighten us all with the ways of Star Wars lore and history, in this sometimes highly-opinionated piece. You can submit your own question at the end of the article!
This week, we’re taking a slight departure from the reader Q&A format, and instead focusing on a recent reveal that I just find too juicy to ignore. This is regarding the Esseles Flashpoint Developer Walkthrough, which was recently unveiled during San Diego Comic Con. Specifically, I am referring to the point where the party makes the choice to… “jettison” the engineers.
If we were formatting this similar to past Ask A Jedi columns, it would go something like this:
Dear Jedi,
How do you feel about the engineers getting spaced in The Esseles Flashpoint?
Dear StarWarsNut,
I am a bit shocked by the event in question.
Now, for the long version
For those of you who have not seen it, you can view it here:
In case you can’t view it, or don’t want to view it, allow me to give you the recap.
The party of 4 player characters, consisting of a Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Trooper, and Smuggler, have made their way to the engineering section of the ship in hopes of having the head engineer open the bridge for them so that they can retake the ship from the boarding Imperial troops. The engineers present a fast, and a not so fast, solution to the problem. The fast solution, chosen by the players in the video, is to space the engineers.
For those who don’t know what spacing is, in Star Wars spacing is the term used when someone ejects someone else into space. More specifically, eject them without any kind of life sustaining equipment. It is considered, in Star Wars, one of the most horrifying ways to die.
Imagine suffocating while at the same time having your body torn apart from the inside out. It is horribly painful, terrifying, and is rightfully feared as a fate by many characters in Star Wars. Even characters like the famed Smuggler Han Solo and Jedi Knight Jaden Korr fear spacing people.
This is such a huge issue in Star Wars it was partially the basis for Jaden Korr’s existential and moral crisis in the novel Crosscurrent. Jaden even had issues with it when it happened to people whom he considered his enemies. That’s how horrible spacing is.
In the video the characters seem very casual about it. Claiming simply that the people murdered will be honored as heroes. Interestingly enough, the Jedi Knight who pressed the button later tells the Mandalorian villain of the Flashpoint that he doesn’t want to hurt him.
This has a very surreal quality to it. I have no idea how many Dark Side points one would get from such an action, but I am fairly certain that you would get more for doing that then you would for slaughtering an entire village of Sand People… Not just the men, but the women and the children too.
I am curious as to why BioWare included this in the game. This isn’t the kind of choice that a character who wasn’t already heavily tainted by the Dark Side would make. This is just a really horrific thing.
Though I guess for all those people who wanted to know if you could go Dark Side as a Jedi in The Old Republic this is a clear answer. Not only can you go Dark Side, you can commit acts that are so evil even Luke Skywalker is likely to kill you on sight for performing it. I am squeamish about ever doing that Flashpoint with anyone who isn’t a guildie at this point but at least we can say that BioWare is absolutely allowing evil choices.
My only question is, since this is part of a low level Flashpoint, how does BioWare plan to top it? I mean seriously, that is one of the most horrific things in Star Wars lore. So where do you go from there?