Knights of the Old Republic 39: Dueling Ambitions, Part 1
What is it ? : We start with a Gotal on a Speeder Bike fighting with a Togorian riding a beast, and the Gotal wins, as an announcement declares that Goethar Kleej has won the competition for the fourth consecutive time. He gives a speech announcing his retirement and the corruption within the sport. But his audio is replaced by another speech.
Meanwhile arriving at Jervo's World, a network of arenas above Pantolomin, are Zayne and Jarael. Zayne is geeking out having been a fan of the competitions since he was young, they meet up with Gryph who is disguised as a wiring inspector and is in the middle of a scam to rig the competition. Zayne spots an amateur league, where he can with a copy of Goethar's swoop, so he rushes off to take part, and Jarael declares it to be one of the worst dates she's ever been on.
Elsewhere Goethar is being beaten for his speech, but the organisers of the race give him a chance to take part in one final race, or they threaten his son who is taking part in the amateur competition.
Rohlan is arrested as a Mandalorian infiltrator, but Jarael and Gryph speak up for him, so he is also drafted into the competition, as the audience would love to see a Mandalorian beaten due to the war.
Zayne wins his initial race and spots one of the other competitors seemingly distracted by something, and when he steps forward to check on him, Goethar tells him that it is his son, Aubin. As he wasn't raised among other Gotal, he wasn't trained to filter out the electromagnetic noise his horns detect. Goethar threatens Zayne, telling him he'll protect Aubin in the next round, or he'll kill him.
Telling him the dream is over, and so are the games. . . .
High Points : Not a lot of great stuff in this one, it's obviously doing a lot of heavy lifting in establishing this setting, sport and storyline, but apart from some good dialogue between Jarael and Gryph, where she mentions that Rohlan is pressuring her to learn the way of the Force, and Zayne isn't putting any pressure on her at all, there isn't much to recommend in this issue.
Low Points : I feel as if they're just dumping a hobby onto Zayne for this storyline. He's interested in the races because there is a connection with Taris, but the way he talks about the racers being his heroes, not the Jedi, comes out of nowhere. Although he has been on speeder bikes in past issues, he never particularly seemed to have an interest in them.
Also they keep allowing Rohlan to wander into Republic controlled areas while wearing his Mandalorian armor. So he keeps getting arrested as there's a war going on between the Mandalorians and the Republic. It'd be nice if they'd disguise him, or learn that he needs to sit on the ship out of view, but this is around the 3rd or 4th time this has happened, and it's becoming a but dull.
So what do you really think ? : It's another Gryph scam story, which Zayne and the others are caught up in, none of which seems related to the information he supposedly was gathering from the Draay Trust. It just seems a little random, and insignificant to what came before. I'm aware there's other plot points emerging alongside the main plots, but it's all going a little slow for my liking.
Final Words : So, we've got a 3 part story here about corruption in galactic sports, while it could be amusing to have the gang caught up by accident in all of this, they really don't seem to be playing the comedy which Gryph's schemes can bring to the story, and it doesn't seem to have the gravity which they are giving the story.
I feel like I'm being a but down on this one, but it just feels like it's wasting my time.
Score : 7/10
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