Knights of the Old Republic 5: Commencement, Part 5
What is it ? : Zayne and Jariel have been confronted by Master Lucien and Taris Security Forces on the Rogue Moon of Taris, but Gryph and the Last Resort come to the rescue. Camper has remembered where he routed the power and restored the ships, vastly upgraded, weapons to operation and Gryph fires upon the forces on the surface of the moon, allowing Zayne and Jariel to escape with the rescued remains of T1-LB.
They lose themselves in the Asteroid field again, and Zayne asks Camper to repair T1-LB, which he does, but discovers that some core functions are damaged, so replaces them with more advanced parts from another droid, allowing T1-LB to actually speak and project images from his memory.
He is reluctant to show them the memories, but is ordered to do so, and shows them the meeting of the Jedi Masters on the surface of the Rogue Moon. The Jedi Consulars meditate on the Force and receive sudden brutal visions, they see their own deaths, the destruction of the Jedi Order, and an assault on Coruscant itself. This is all connected to a figure wearing the red spacesuit of a Jedi Padawan, which they decide must be a connection to one of their own Padawan's currently making their way across the surface of the moon wearing red spacesuits. Lucien decides that to stop this vision coming true, and therefore save the Jedi Order, they must kill their Padawan's, liking it to cutting off a diseased hand to save the arm. He then turns on T1-LB and orders him to kill himself by walking off a cliff and the memories end.
After showing them the memories, T1-LB begins malfunctioning, the loyalty he is programmed to show to his masters, is being countered by his desire for self preservation and the memory of being ordered to kill himself. So he just wipes the memories to stop the contradiction.
As Camper considers whether he can restore the memories if they need to access them again, the ship shudders as it comes under a tractor beam, so they rush to the cockpit where Gryph recognises it as the Oroko, whose captain, Valius Ying will be seeking the bounty.
So they dock, and Gryph goes to speak to Valius, he discovers the bounty only names Gryph and Zayne by name, and negotiates his own freedom by passing on the location and passcodes to all his hidden stashes of loot across Taris.
Zayne is angered by being the only one excluded from the deal, and Gryph tells him the bounty on him is just too high, but suggests that while Zayne and Valius are alone in the ship, Zayne should just use the Jedi Mind Trick to escape, pointing out Valius isn't very smart so should make an easy mark.
Zayne tells Gryph to just tell him they're cutting him loose and abandoning him, and Gryph explains that if things were different he would prefer to team up with Zayne, having a Jedi with all his powers could really set Gryph on a massive profitable path. But Zayne gives in and realises that none of the others have signed up for the danger he's putting them in, and agrees to go with Valius the next day.
During the night, Jarael catches Zayne trying to steal the Last Resort, that he just wants to vanish and be a nobody and not be hunted, which Jarael responds that she and Camper just wanted the same, but Zayne ruined that for the two of them. That Camper is a brilliant man, and was hiding the trash pile for a reason, and she was protecting him, and now can't do that because of Zayne.
Zayne realises the effect he has had on Jarael and Camper, who owe him nothing and whose lives he's destroyed, so he drops his lightsaber, and declares that he's going to turn himself in . . . .
High Points : And so we get to the meat of the conspiracy, that the Jedi Masters had a vision of a Padawan destroying Taris, wiping out the Jedi Order, and it leading to their own deaths. And decided for the betterment of the galaxy, they should just kill all of their Padawan's to remove this threat, and Zayne was just a unfortunate complication to their plans.
And we get a great moment between Gryph and Zayne, showing while Gryph mainly thinks of Zayne as a possible set of skills that he can exploit for profit, he's becoming fond of the young Jedi, going so far as planning Zaynes escape from captivity even when he's selling him out.
While finally, Jarael adds some background to Camper and herself, the reason these two extraordinary characters were hiding out in a junkyard at the very lowest levels of Taris. And giving Zayne the realisation of the effects he has had on the others, and how far they've already gone to help him when they had no reason to do so.
Low Points : While I've obviously got future knowledge of the timeline and the events of the 2 Kotor video games, it does seem pretty obvious that it might not be one of the Padawans on Taris which cause the events of the vision, it could (and is) a Padawan elsewhere. But obviously we've got a long way to go before we get to that.
The escape from Lucien on the Rogue Moon of Taris is a bit easy. Lucien, even though he knows that Zayne has more than one co-conspirator, leaves his ship empty and takes everyone down to the surface to confront Zayne and Jarael. Meaning that the two of them escape onto their ship in the confusion when it opens fire, and they can escape before Lucien or his Taris Security Force allies can get back to the ship to follow them. If Gryph had been really opportunistic, he could have stolen Lucien's vessel as well, and left him and his forces stuck on the moon. There's no reason why he needed all of the Security Forces, he's a Jedi, so could handle Zayne and his team single handed. It's just a bad decision, made to allow this easy escape.
So what do you really think ? : A solid issue, and one which takes us right to a confrontation to end this part of the story, as Zayne stops running and confronts the Jedi Masters he now knows the motivations of, and that they're definitely guilty of the murders of his fellow Padawan's.
Final Words : Commencement is all just one massive start to Zayne's story, bringing his team together, and setting up the conflict with the Jedi. And what a job it's doing of that, we're getting some dramatic conflict set up, as a Padawan who has always been underestimated goes up against his respected and influential masters. While bringing a team together around him of other people who aren't part of society, exiles, and each bring a strong skill and value to the group. A massively solid start to this series.
Score : 8.5/10
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