Lit Ancient Races: Celestials, Rakata, and Co

PS: But I never was a fan of an external dark side, or personified dark side that posesses someone. more a fan of the internal darkside within oneself that one needs to find balance within yourself. though that does not conflict with external beings that are NOT the Force but close to it that could posess you hehe thus unifying both theories...

 

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

 

I doubt ALL darksiders were possessed. Not all darksiders had a personality change upon turning. Some were just "that way" to begin with. Ex: Palpatine, Bane

 

Derriphans are "entities of pure dark side" which occasionally possess people- but I doubt that accounts for most cases.

 

The dark side is external because the Force itself is external.

 

New information relevant to the topic courtesy of the Old Republic through its latest update.

We learn that the Gree launched an exploration ship long ago called the Gray Secant sent to explore and analyse the rest of the galaxy. This was a fully automated vessel with very advanced technology with much of the knowledge of this ship being lost to the Gree themselves. So, they tend to revere it as a religious artifact who get very excited when they see the ship. In the game, it ends up on Illum and seems to be interested in studying the war between the Republic and Imperials. Players who achieve goals are rewarded with rich Gree tech. The ship also deploys loads of droids and I really love the idea of an automated explorer ship doing its own business.

 

Which is somewhat strange as the original Gree Enclave article mentioned how the Gree don’t really care all that much for Droid tech.

 

True, the original material did say that and TOR seems to go on the opposite approach by having the Gree be heavy droid users. Mind you, its entirely possible that its post TOR that they start hating droids. During the Terror from Beyond quest, a number of their military droids go berserk on Asation so its possible it might have started the whole aversion to droids thing. Either that or its retconned... or they don't like droids of other races (weak explanation there on my part, I know ) Mind you, sources like I think the New Essential Guide to Droids I think highlight the Gree and Rakata as species who had developed automata in the past so its possible that was the start of the change in the Gree from being droid haters to droid users.

Personally though, I think I quite like the Gree as droid users. Its a bit interesting seeing this advanced alien species who sends droids to serve as their ambassadors. Plus, it makes more sense why they use droids for military purposes.

 

Imho TOR was just being lazy here, they properly had not actually finished a decent looking Gree model to be used instead of the Gree Droid on Coruscant and again just have battle droids (which the game has more of then some TCW episodes already) instead of something fancy for Warrior Gree like battle suits or really exotic non blaster weapons.

 

Thing is though even the old material never made mention of warrior caste Gree and don't think it ever gave the impression there was one. They only ever mentioned the four castes namely the researchers, crafters, operators and crafters. Two of those were practically gone by the movie period since they lost the means of creating them. A good line of dialogue in TOR is that the Gree never had such a caste and always used 'military units' for such tasks. Units being droids really. But yeah its true that BioWare was perhaps lazy with the Gree at first but they do have a very alien vibe now. I mean their looks, their dialogue that involves color and geometry and the fact that they are such isolationists that they prefer to send droids to represent them. I do know what you mean though namely done more effort to it but TORs Gree I feel aren't too bad. I tend to give BioWare more hardship for the designs given to the Sith Empire But thats something for another time and thread.

 

They don’t need a warrior caste, they are techno wizards already ^^ I would not put it past some Gree Masters to just hand fancy guns and battle suits to his apprentices and tells them to do their best, or if they are really desperate mercs with those fancy guns. It just kind of annoys me that if they wanted to expand on the awesomeness of the Gree please just don’t have them have Droids coming out the wasu, since it’s been specifically mentioned that they really don’t care for them.

 

Well, the thing is, the idea of a species of Techno-Wizards with a biology that limits their mobility not using autonomous machines for the heavy lifting seems very illogical. Yes TOR is overriding canon in a minor way (the retconning of Gree-droid aversion to post-3500 BBY only is negligible) in order to save themselves money and time, and it probably would have been cooler to arm the Gree with biological automata instead, but there's a number of reasons to avoid that, so I'd call it a wash.

And overall, I like that TOR is awash in battle droids of all shapes and sizes, the Star Wars galaxy should be full of droids doing the heavy lifting.

 

Them not caring for droids sounds more of a culture thing since they apparently value personal knowledge, skills and learning very highly. Plus just because they don’t build droids, doesn’t mean they can’t have automation or impressively complex systems that run with minimal commands but to word it like Dune “thinking machines” just don’t seem to be their fancy. That’s why them just using impressive battle suits (something along the lines of ATPTs) would seem way more fitting.
As on battle droids they have been demonstrated to be amazingly useless, either you have to make them cheap enough to simply use on mass and be so stupid that they can’t possibly be a danger to you, or if you make them smart they became so expensive that you have to outfit them with all kinds of fancy weapons to justify it and with it risk having created a droid that enjoys killing a little too much and will not stop with the enemy.

 

The Gree used to love droids, but at some point in their past something went wrong, and ever after the Gree shunned droids.

 

Some more added pieces of information. The Gray Secant as part of its long exploration mission dispatched observer droids to almost all the planets seen in TOR. Well, all the planets you visit and the player is given the mission to return with the data. One I think is on Tatooine where it detects Rakatan technology but is unable to find it. Another is on Alderaan where it warns of Killiks thus suggesting prior contact with them and seeks to hunt them down. So, it connects to the other races in the game. A further droid also says its fascinated by the Gormak on Voss but is unable to send its data back to the Gray Secant with affecting the technological level of the Gormak. This actually kind of reminds me of some old Gree lore about them not interfering with the technology of 'lesser' races.

 

A couple of new stuff coming from Dawn of the Jedi comic:

Spoiler

*The Kwa Holocron explains some backstory where they say they came from their 'birth world' of Dathomir and journeyed to Tython
*They seemingly called the Force the Power of the Cosmos and were 'attuned' to it
*The species observed many worlds and brought civilization to them
*And their Holocron's activation can only come online if something catastrophic occurred on Tython
*Oh and the Kwa Master A'nang gasped in fear when he saw a Rakatan skull and the machine went offline

Some more food for thought from the TOR front. I noticed that the SWTOR website has a screencap of the Terror from Beyond creature you fight as the endboss on Asation. The screencap calls it Lotek'k... its not mentioned in the game but on the website. So, if we take that as canon information, it adds something interesting because the name structure is the same as that used by the Gree themselves. Does that mean the Terror from Beyond was a Gree and mutated beyond its normal form? Mind you, I noticed in the recent update in Return of the Gree that a number of test 'specimens' that the Grey Secant has modified have been given Gree style names also. So, the Terror could be the same in that its been given a Gree name... suggesting a possible 'specimen' as well that was banished long ago?

 

Have they? The B1s are worse than well trained soldiers, but they are designed to be cheap and expendable, with cut corners everywhere. And they are very good at what they do. Nearly every other kind of battle droid I can think of are in fact terrifyingly efficient killing machines. Let's not forget how close the Clone Wars were despite the Spartan esque training of the Clones, the powers of the Jedi, and the severe shortage of competent leaders on the CIS side.

Or just that the Gree encountered it a long time ago and named it. I don't think it talks or have a name for itself....

 

Or that, indeed Though funnily it does share a bit of a Gree-ish design with the tentacles and all but that doesn't prove anything really. But yeah, it never speaks and only dialogue relating to it is from a Dread Master who says its long banishment was at an end. Suggesting that it was banished though the Gree themselves don't seem to know anything about these monsters attacking but its been long said that the Gree have lost a lot of knowledge about their past and technology.

 

They can’t shoot straight, can’t follow orders beyond the oblivious and if you give them anything that requires even a little imitative they complete break down. Plus falling apart when they get pushed over doesn't instill that much confidence . Sure they can be impressive if used on mass and well led, but hardly to the degree of even conscript soldiers with experience.

Sure but they became almost insanely expensive by contrast and will still need someone who knows what he is doing to order them around.

Manipulation by Palpatine properly had more to do with that then anything else and the Confed forces that usually did best appear to be the living ones, who also kept up the fight way past the Clone Wars.

 

I'm so glad this discussion is still going on. It was the one I was most interested in during my first incarnation. I'm looking forward to reading through it and maybe adding to it .​

 

Glad to know you enjoy it Not got much info yet. Mostly waiting for info from the likes of TOR and Dawn of the Jedi. Been browsing Wookieepedia for stuff but don't think I found anything new yet for the topic.

 

Nearly Level 50 in TOR, so might be able to learn some new nuggets in that respect once I finish my last couple of levels.

Mother Machine was much less exciting than I'd expected... nowhere near as Creator Of All that the spoilers had originally made it sound, as if anything she/it just came across (a) nuts, and (b) as no more than a crazy scientist playing with lab animals. Her purpose was to find ways to make the Rakata sensitive to the Force again, but without experimenting on themselves, and using other species as experiments. If nothing else, everything she said was hugely POV and filled with crazy mad computer bias.

Tulak Hord and other such things have been interesting though, even if that's more been Force power stuff than any concrete information on when he lived, etc.

I did like a line Malgus says when you go to the Foundry though, where he talks about how they knew of three similar stations, and described them all as Star Forges, but with each serving a distinct purpose: the one in KOTOR built ships, the Foundry builds droid armies, and the third one does whatever it does. I found that particular phraseology pretty neat personally. (And solo-ing the Foundry a couple of nights ago, I even appreciate them making Revan a mid-game quest, as it means you can solo it, not have to listen to morons picking the lame dialogue options, can Escape out and re-do the dialogue multiple times to hear all the options, etc... albeit I only got Revan to half health because I went too near the edge and he kicked me off the combat platform so I need to play through it again for the last bits. )

 

The Greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was being a scapegoat for mankinds own d-baggery, cause if you always blame the devil, you personally never have to change.

 

Indeed, I caught that line as well So, the Star Forge itself is just one of three Star Forges. Also, the third one I think is said to be capable of xenoforming worlds though its never named like the Foundry was.

 

Ah yes, he said something about xenoforming didn't he.