The Official Kyle Katarn and Dark Forces Discussion Thread ( Spoilers when appropriate )

Valiento and everyone...

A good discussion about the timeline...

I think it's annoying that they still can't get this stuff right!.

I guess throwing out the Leviathan picture/reference is an easy fix, but I don't know if it would fix anything.

I want to update all of this new info on my Dark Forces timeline, but until we can figure out a more concrete date, I'll leave it the way it is.

http://members.cox.net/lougraziani/Katarn.htm


What really happened? To me it seems clear that the games writers ignored any of the events that weren't from JK or DF. It seems like they practically ignored MotS! I mean, it might have made sense if they'd said Kyle had given up the force after falling to the dark side in the sith temple, but that's not what they said...


Also, the central premise of the plot seems flawed... Didn't the power of the Valley dissapate after Kyle freed the spirits or something? Also, how could Kyle and Jan be the only ones that know the location of the Valley? Jerec's whole fleet was over the planet!! Those thousands of guys would have to know something!

 

Here is some stuff transcribed from the manual:

Nine years after avenging his father's death, kyle katarn is a lone-wolf mercenary looking to redeem himself. Having just barely escaped the temptation of the darkside in star wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, kyle realized he could no longer trust himself to wield the force. Confused and disapointed, he relinquished his role as a jedi knight by turning in his lightsaber and vowing to never again use the Force.
Kyle now spends his time working on reconnaissance missions for the New Republic.

His connection to the force may have weakened, but his quick thinking and fast reflexes remain powerful assets to the New Republic.

Today, Kyle and his trusted partner Jan Ors have have been sent on a routine mission to Kejim, a dark and desolate world that floats lifelessly around a fading sun. The new republic has intercepted communiques coming from what was thought to be an abandoned Imperial Listening post on the planet.
Curiously, the transmissions include cryptic refrences to the Valley of the Jedi. Mon Mothma asks Kyle to investigate this strange turn of events. While on this mission, Kyle again finds himself at the front lines against the Empire, which unlocks a secret that will force him to reconcile his troubled past.

Then on page 14:

After the battles of Star Wars Jedi Knight, and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, kyle turned his lightsaber and vowed to never use it again. However, the events of Jedi Outcast will require Kyle to eventually use a new lightsaber and reconnect to the force.

then on page 33(Towards the end of the kyle katarn entry):

Suspicious of the force's true power, Kyle decided to give up the force in order to protect himself and others from it's dark side. He turned over his lightsaber to Luke Skywalker and returned to his old post as a spy and saboteur for the New Republic. Now, Kyle's ability to use the force has weakened to the point of non-existance. Along with jan, Kyle now travel's in the Raven's Claw, a powerful and fast carrier that replaces his old ship, the Moldy Crow.

 

Hmm.

I think that maybe later this year, I will write a fan-fiction trilogy that covers MotS, Jedi Outcast, as well as a middle adventure about why Kyle left the praxuem, as well as establishing Desann and perhaps having a cameo by Corran.

 

Hi there, thought I might add a thought or two...

Concerning the lightsaber, I'd wish anyone good luck who wants to figure that out, because I guess it doesn't make much sense if you rely on the visuals.
In Mots, Kyle uses an orange lightsaber. While some here at the forum told me orange is close enough to yellow to be seen as the exact same saber (anyone remember me? ), I prefered the idea of Kyle not continuing to use Yun's saber. Building his own after the Valley mission would make perfect sense, for he would then have the time to train as a Jedi in the proper way.
The blue lightsaber is there for one reason, I guess - it is now according to the famous Lucas statement that red is for bad and blue/green for good. Are there any different coulours in Jedi Outcast, or other combinations?

My way to explain this is partly to not explain it. Remember Tales of the Jedi? How often did those guys change their lightsaber colour? Unstable crystals or something like that? Redemption was the killer of the series, with four Jedi having four different colours (and Ulic not having the colour he had in every single reel before, if I'm not mistaken).

So, blue in Jedi Outcast might mean that he never really had a yellow or orange or whatever saber - from a certain point of view.

But I know that all my babbling is hypothetical, for real EU fans do not give up before they've explained everything. Good luck!

 

The manual says that the blue saber is a new saber, not an older one. This is most likely the the saber he built while he was in training at the jedi academy, or at some point after MOTS.

The programmers of mots said in the single player game because of the adding in of the colored lighting and newer pallate, and other graphical tweaks, that the code number used in the previous game for the yellow-orange color shifted slightly(and for some reason they didn't shift the pallate number to a new one that better fit the previous JK pallete). The programmers said that it was indeed the same saber. In multiplayer on the other hand(which probably had longer time in the programming stages) they shifted the code numbers and came up with a selection of colors that best matched the previous colors in JK.

On a side note I've seen mots and jk played on all sorts of monitors, and video cards, and in the case of some monitors, the color between JK and mots for that saber was indistinguishable. So I'm begginning to think it is also reliant on how your monitor and video card handle's the pallete.

 

", I guess - it is now according to the famous Lucas statement that red is for bad and blue/green for good. Are there any different coulours in Jedi Outcast, or other combinations? "

There are Jedi training with yellow and purple sabres in the game.

 

Also can you PPOR on that statement from lucas? As I recall that is just urban legend.

In actuality the only reason that they used green in ROTJ was because blue whouldn't show up too well on the desert background.

But basically we have two things, with the timeline kriffing. If the game's intro is right, then dan wallace's EC quotes are effectivly thrown out the window.

If the other sources are right the games's intro merely had a typo and no big deal really.

It's not the only time scenes have been changed in favor of the written EU expanded material, just look at the differences that can be found in the scenes from JK, JK audio, and the game itself with the cutscenes.

The question is what would you rather save? Expanded Universe EC material that expanded on kyle's life, or a rather small line in an intro? Besides the game itself better upholds the information of the EC then the intro, with that many years quote.

But really it's up to what the EU locks down later on, and what dan or others write in an official source. If lfl chooses to ignore the EC and throw it's quotes out in favor of the intro(while choosing to consider what luke said to be mere hyperbole), then it's gone it's gone.

 

Ok, let's take the script apart, don't read if you don't want a spoiler remember:






















YAVIN TEMPLE

"Welcome to the Jedi Academy, sir. Master Skywalker is waiting upstairs for you."

Kyle:"Uh...thanks. I think I can find the way."

This could be a sign that kyle katarn has been to the academy before and knows his way around.

"Kyle. I've been expecting you."

"Skywalker."

"You've come for your lightsaber?"

"Yeah."

"After all these years?"

Which means that kyle had left his newly built blue saber at the jedi academy before he left, barring that the jedi academy refrence in the EC isn't thrown out. He had stayed there until darksaber.

"My...Jan's been killed...by a Jedi. Goes by the name of --"

"Desann."

Kyle knows his name but doesn't know who desann was or his history. Good sign that kyle had to have left the academy before desann got there.

"You know?"

"I sensed a disturbance in the Force. I'll tell you about Desann while your trial is being prepared..."

"Trial?"

"A minor test to determine your fitness to wield a lightsaber again. Even in your relatively unpracticed state, you shouldn't find it too difficult."

"Why can't you Jedi ever do things the simple way?"

Kyle katarn has to do a trial, perhaps one that he never done before since luke has evolved his training styles since kyle's first time there.

"If the ways of the Jedi were easy, there'd be millions of us, instead of dozens. Take Desann, for example. He was born on a planet unfamiliar to the wonders of the Force, where his seemingly magical abilities caused him to be feared and shunned by those around him. His childhood was one of loneliness and despair until a visiting trader discovered him, recognized the Force within him, and brought him to the Jedi Academy.

"So he was a student?"

Again we see that kyle had to have left the academy years before before desann got there. Which is why kyle never knew him before.

"Yes. For the first time in his life, Desann was at peace. He'd found beings who liked him for who he was; beings who encouraged him to develop his talents. Over time, however, things changed."

"How?"

"He became cold. Severe. He belittled his fellow students for what he perceived to be their weaknesses, and argued, sometimes violently, with his teachers. During a training session, he struck down and killed a fellow student in cold blood. Desann said he was too "weak" to be a Jedi. He fled before we could...counsel him - and he has not been heard from since."

In the time that kyle was gone from the academy, during a long period of time desann went through peace then anger, over time he changed, he killed a fellow student and fled disapearring from luke, and not heard from since then.

Kyle had been gone for some time that he didn't even know about desann, and desann couldn't have been a first year student, or the next year.


If dan wallace's quotes are to be saved, then 14 year date is the only way to go.

If dan's quotes are to be thrown out, which is just as bad a tragedy in the EU sense(because they expanded on and improved on kyle katarn's history), then 8 year is the only valid date.

I think ignoring the 8 year is the lesser of two evils. But we don't know what lfl will do about this, and it would probably be better for them to modify the scrolling text in later versions of the game to better incorporate dan wallace's history. But in any direction something has to give, and I'd rather not lose dan wallace's expansion material, because when it comes to kyle we have very little expansion material to go on as it is.

Beyond that the way the game's story was written either, kyle katarn had been at the academy before, taking dan wallace's words into acount and reading into the script's text. Things have changed since he left there. The way that luke teaches

 

Maybe someone here could help clear this up, it's been bothering me for a while. Is Dessan a Ssi-Ruuk? I know they're meant to all be force-blind, but it would explain him coming from a planet not used to "the wonders of the force". He also looks exactly how I imagined the Ssi-Ruu.

 

No, he's not a Ssi-Ruuk. They look more like Raptors or something from JP. Desann's species is not known.

 

up.

 

"There are Jedi training with yellow and purple sabres in the game."
-That's cool.


"Also can you PPOR on that statement from lucas? As I recall that is just urban legend."
-I don't know how much ep2 stuff you've watched, but Making of part 10: Good to G.O. has this line in it. But it's instantly broken because of Sam Jackson who wants another colour.

"In actuality the only reason that they used green in ROTJ was because blue whouldn't show up too well on the desert background."
-I know. But from what I heard, Lucas would have been happier with just blue/red, and therefore tried to incorporate green into his little scheme. People in the ep2 forum went nuts about this, it was both bothering and funny!
My train of thought involves what I've seen in the ep2 trailers, and I'm not sure if they're spoilers in the lit forum. So unfortunately, I can't conclude my argumentation... However, the above stays, Lucas states RBG in the making of (but I do not say he does stay with this opinion - nor he doesn't).

Sometimes it's so hard to be fair!


The colour palette thing about Mots is interesting - I never saw it that way, as Kyle's saber looked just like the normal orange JK saber, and all other sabers from Mots were JK colours, too... I always thought the orange should make him more vaderish/dark side (along with the black clothes).


But enough of that... I wouldn't take the continuity information from the intro into too much consideration if it really doesn't work out. Have there ever been precedences, like wrong ages or time references in the novels? I believe there was something, but I can't put my finger on it...

 

I'm clutching at straws here, but couldn't Dessan be the same species as Boosk? He likes quite similar to Boosk to me, so could that explain what species he is?

 

Desann doesn't look much like a Trandoshan to me, and all the ones we've seen have been either greenish or orangish IIRC, not that purplish of Desann.

 

Holy moly! The actress who played Jan in JK didn't look this good in the game!

[image=http://www.fortunecity.com/athena/marriage/77/Angela03.jpg]

[image=http://www.fortunecity.com/athena/marriage/77/Angela02.jpg]

[image=http://www.fortunecity.com/athena/marriage/77/Angela01.jpg]

[image=http://goldsea.com/Personalities/Harryangela/angela.jpg]

[image=http://goldsea.com/Personalities/Harryangela/angela2.jpg]

[image=http://goldsea.com/Personalities/Harryangela/angela3.jpg]

[image=http://goldsea.com/Personalities/Harryangela/angela4.jpg]

[image=http://goldsea.com/Personalities/Harryangela/angela5.jpg]

[image=http://goldsea.com/Personalities/Harryangela/angela6.jpg]

[image=http://www.toprotectandserve-themovie.com/images/angela.jpg]


[image=http://www.lucasarts.com/products/jediknight/images/characters/jan.jpg]

[image=http://www.jediknight.net/trail/images/pro_jan.jpg]

[image=http://www.eyrie.org/~aerianne/dark.forces/jan.gif]

All I can say is: He's a lucky guy!

[image=http://www.lucasarts.com/products/jediknight/html/kylecutscn_8.jpg]

 

IAMTDS Wow... Indeed, you're right. OMG.

Just fought my two first Reborns... This game is DEFINITIVELY cool.

EDIT :

Wow... Now I really want to pelt that Desann SOB...

 

Added more pics...

 

Kyps age fluctuates from 16 to 18 as his first year age at the jedi academy. That is one of the dating errors I remember.

P.S. Thanks for posting proof, I personally find that thing weird myself. I prefer many colors, .

 

Kyps age fluctuates from 16 to 18 as his first year age at the jedi academy.

He was 18. He was 8 years old when his family went to Kessel, and they were there for more than a year before the big uprising on Kessel, from which point the second 8 years are measured. Unfortunately, some authors read this wrong, missed the year+ before the uprising, and simply added the 8 and 8, coming out with sixteen.

 

Like I said said fluctuation is the cause of his age error throughout the books, .

 

I think there is some stuff we can put down about Kyle leaving the Academy. For all we know, he was one of the original twelve, but he might have decided early on (prior to the main action in Dark Apprentice or I, Jedi) that he didn't want to become a Jedi or he could have caught a whiff of Exar Kun and decided that he'd already gotten in enough bad situations involving ancient Sith strongholds. It would explain why he was out of the action during Kun and Kyp's little rampage, and I doubt he would have had as much uncertainty about the Force if he was one of the crew that helped send that darkside psycho's spirit back where it belonged. We can also resolve the thing about him having been at the Academy during Darksaber - maybe he dropped in every now and then like Mara Jade to check up on things. He could have been there when Daala showed up and just helped out in his usual way - whip out the Bryar and whatever other nasty firepower he hauls around in his ship. I can just see him passing out rail detonators, rifles, repeaters, and blaster pistols on the landing pad. No offense to KJA, but I find the idea of thirty-some Jedi trainees beating off a fleet of ISDs and an army with nothing but the Force and two lightsabers a little farfetched. A little bit of Kyle's arsenal goes a long way.

 

Alion... That's a great point about the darksaber reference. I never thought that maybe Kyle helped out as a non-jedi...

Anyone want to dig up that quote and see if his idea fits?

 

Hey everyone, I emailed Michael Stemmle, the scriptwriter for Jedi Outcast, and he agreed to do an interview with me!

I want you guys to help me think of good questions about the writing, plot, etc. that I can ask this guy. We've all been discussing the story, this guys sounds like someone who would know the answers!

What I plan to do is gather questions until the 10th, and then organize them and send them to Lucasarts.

I have to get them approved by The head of LucasArts PR, but he seems like a nice guy and that shouldn't be a problem.


P.S. Stemmle also worked on Escape from Monkey Island. Here's a brief bio of the guy...
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,1658/

 

Well, we could ask him about the timeline for starters. Was he given any indication of how long it's been since Kyle abandoned the Force?