Backstory/Game Path
Nov. 15th, 2025 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starcrossedscoundrelStarting point, bio mostly assumes game knowledge. Wiki page also assumes pure light choices, which Abric did not make, and also assumes the Smuggler is not the Outlander/Alliance Commander. Mine is. Differences will be noted throughout.
AU Notes: Three additional class stories (Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior, and Imperial Agent) intertwine with his instead of running parallel, and the Sith Inquisitor story has already taken place in its entirety instead of running concurrent. There's still room for canonical cross-participation along faction lines (but not across them, like this AU), until Shadow of Revan, at which point a singular protagonist is assumed--but there are four. The experiences the three intertwined classes go through in their own stories shape Abric's character in ways that would not have happened had his story existed in a vacuum.
Before the Text Crawl:
Before Captain Abric Solari ever landed on Ord Mantell, before he bought a beat-up Corellian XS freighter, he was a runaway slave child, crammed into an escape pod with over a dozen other children: siblings, half-siblings, and cousins, with only an aunt to look after them all. The other adults were in other pods. All recaptured or destroyed. A bounty hunter subcontracted by House Rist of Alderaan happened upon the scene before the children's pod could meet the same fate, and he rescued them, setting back his mission to do the right thing. He brought them back, where Rist shuffled the gaggle of Twi'leks off to the more charitable Houses Panteer and Organa. They did their best, of course, but such a large family with only a single adult to its name inevitably slipped through the cracks in short enough order, finding themselves destitute. (You'll see this Alderaanian background sometimes in Abric's turns of phrase--instead of the more common "bantha fodder", he may say something like "nerfshit". He's been known to use the distinctly Alderaanian swear "stang" over the more common "kriff" or more readable "shit" if he's drunk enough.) Finding little to look up to in the remainder of his family, Abric found role models in fiction. He gravitated to spacer heroes, associating Alderaan itself with their struggle with poverty. (Think westerns or Indiana Jones IN SPACE. ...never mind that's already what this franchise is sometimes, shh). From them, he picked up a lust for adventure and more than a few toxic ideals that have taken a lifetime to correct. In reality, he found and latched onto the bounty hunter who had saved them, a human man named Bentin. Bentin taught him how to fight and how to steal--and how to salvage, to avoid having to steal. To his credit, he tried very hard not to groom this young man into a criminal. He just failed. Mostly.
Abric got by running odd jobs as a kid--little tasks people were happy to delegate to a child. Deliver this, pick garden weeds, take a pet for a walk, and so on. But as he grew into a teenager, the pressure to find "real work" intensified. His stubborn resistance to going with the grain combined with his impulsiveness and lack of immediate resources saw to him finding some very shady work, indeed. And so, Abric was introduced to the underworld. It paid better than most work someone of his means could find in Alderaan's feudal society, and eventually, he was able to buy a ship. Sure, it was missing a few key parts, but hey--remember the salvaging he learned? He left some of his earnings with his family in permanent farewell and escaped to the stars. He never returned to the house he grew up in, and if you ask him, that's not a problem at all. Good riddance. But he goes out of his way to aid separated families, even "forgetting" to ask for payment in such cases at his most profiteering.
He fell into running freight as a general career. Sometimes legitimate, sometimes not. Whatever brought in credits and kept him flying. Though he grew up in Republic space, he didn't consider himself a true citizen, and gladly accepted jobs from anyone. With some stipulations, of course, for the Empire, who had separated him from everyone else in his family, who did not see his species as real people. To them, he would not deliver weapons, armor, or people. Luxuries, food, and medicine, however, were fair game, and a supply of medicine smuggled into the heart of the Empire would change everything.
Abric's contact in the xenophobic Empire was a nonhuman, himself, a Chiss doctor who would introduce himself as "Atir". He had a pleasant smile and a warm demeanor, and his presence was entirely nonthreatening. Drawn to lights in what he saw as a dark galaxy, Abric warmed to him immediately. When he found said Chiss stowed away on his ship, hoping to leave the oppressive Empire behind, he let him stay. It took them both nearly a year sailing the stars together to admit it, but they fell in love. Abric, raised on holos of rugged lone wolf heroes who treated commitment like imprisonment, was the one to propose. Abric, raised on tales of spacers whose only homes were where the hyperspace lanes took them, settled down with Atir on the Republic capital planet, Coruscant, so his new husband could pursue his passion in medicine in a suitably stable environment.
They were married for five years. Atir provided a safe haven for all those emotions Abric had mistakenly learned as "weaknesses", giving him a valuable outlet to be himself. He taught him how to eat right, and that he didn't have to sacrifice taste for nutrition. He encouraged him to befriend a young Mirialan Jedi Padawan named Flow (who would go on to star in the Jedi Knight story) when he and the Jedi found themselves chasing a pair of muggers down an alleyway in the name of justice. (Abric wouldn't realize until much later, but that was the first instance of stepping up to be the hero of the hour when he seemed the least likely to do so.)
Life was comfortable. He'd never known how wonderful it could be to have a place, to carve out a spot with the man he loved and his new little buddy and say this is mine.
And then the worst happened as he was returning from shipping a new supply of drinks to a cantina on a distant planet (gotta take the legit jobs too, you know!). Abric was notified there'd been an accident. A miscalibration in an automated taxi route. Three cars had been destroyed before it could be shut down. Two had been returning to their home station, mercifully empty of any organic life. The droid drivers had even been salvageable. But the third--Atir had been on that one, and there was no sign of him. The distance the wreckage had fallen left next to no room for hope.
Only one day after he'd gotten back to Coruscant from halfway across the galaxy, they found charred skeletal remains, scattered by local scavengers, but the correct height and in the correct place.
Doctor Atir Solari was declared dead. Abric had maybe half a day of normal mourning. Then the obituary went live.
A datapad Atir had left behind on the nightstand that morning--the last object Abric believed he'd ever touched in the apartment--automatically woke and decrypted a hidden message. An apology.
For being an Imperial spy.
He swore, however, his love hadn't been a lie.
Abric balked. He told himself he didn't believe it. Told himself he hated him. And yet. He couldn't expose him. Not even to his former colleagues at the medcenter where he'd calibrated prosthetics for a living. Not even to Flow, who was soon to travel to Tython for his final trials. Flow had done his best to help support him through his loss, over holos while he was still spacebound, and in person for that last afternoon where they both believed a lie. And Abric let him continue to believe it, no matter how hot his blood boiled.
(If you haven't guessed by now, Atir--who would be better known to everyone else he met as "Natirru"--would go on to become the Imperial Agent, this independently contracted job with a Sith launching him into Imperial Intelligence.)
Frustrated, deeply hurt, Abric pulled up all traces of his anchor and took to space full-time again. He nursed his pain while trying to deny it even existed. Kept telling himself he hated his ex-husband.
But he kept his wedding ring tied to his ship's flight controls.
Life continued, dimmer around the edges.
The next shipment that would change the course of his life forever was a shipment of blasters to Ord Mantell.
Chapter 1
Prologue/Coruscant
-Flavor: While the Smuggler gets plenty of lines to express concern about their ship, such lines contain an additional layer of meaning for Abric, as his promise ring is there. Not, of course, that he would let Skavak have his ship if he had the ring...he worked hard to make the old girl spaceworthy, after all.
-AU: Abric meets with Flow, fresh from his trials on Tython, at Carrick Station, and finds they're both headed to Coruscant. The two board a ship named the Esseles. This is multiplayer content, so Flow's presence is not itself AU-worthy. What is is that Abric goes on to complete the content (boarding an attacking Imperial cruiser and freeing the Esseles from its tractor beam) alone. Flow, you see, was diverted to another objective by the insistent pull of the Force's currents. It turned out, among the Imperial spies on the ship, there was a Sith with no interest in hurting anyone at all... (This Sith, though nobody on this side of the faction divide knows at this point, is the Sith Warrior, similarly fresh from his class prologue, but immediately sidetracked into Grand Moff Kilran's scheme.) When Flow tells Abric of his encounter with this Sith who was like no other, he reacts with concern, recalling the way he'd been drawn to Atir for being unlike any other Imperial. He tells Flow the truth about him, then, that Atir didn't die. About the note. His words don't seem to deter Flow from wanting to see this Sith again, however. Abric worries for his young friend...
-Flavor: Abric reclaims his ship on Coruscant. To his relief, the ring is still there. He isn't sure whether he should be insulted that Skavak didn't deem it worth selling. Corso notices the ring, and this is what prompts his first on-ship dialogue. Gently prying for information, he asks Abric if he'd ever considered settling down with a wife and kids. Rather than answer or correct his assumption, Abric deflects, asking if it was what Corso wanted. Better than dredging up more hurt.
Taris
-Player Choice: Taris was exhausting, with the threat of losing his very sentience to the rakghoul plague a constant looming nightmare. At the end of it all, when fellow smuggler Beryl Thorne comes on to him, he accepts. She is the first sexual partner he's had since his marriage ended, despite said marriage being semi-open. (Now, though, he wonders if it didn't have hidden meaning on Atir's part. It's all right to have other partners; this won't last, perhaps.) The encounter is purely physical, not romantic, and the two part as friends. Abric wonders what it means that he still feels his ring belongs where it is.
-Player Choice: The wiki assumes the Smuggler takes all light-side actions. However, rather than freeing Momi, Abric believes she is beyond help, and that any cure to all of the diseases she'd been inflicted with would come too late. He grants her request to die--though he can't look, opting to turn away as he pulls the trigger.
Nar Shaddaa
-AU: Nar Shaddaa is where things begin crumbling around him. Flow confesses to several meetings with the Sith, named Oberon, and seems to look forward to more. He calls the young man who was supposed to be his enemy his friend. To Abric's mind, he's slipping away, falling into a hole he can't dig him out of. His distress works itself into anger, because he'd backslid from the emotional health he'd enjoyed during his marriage, and sentimentality is not something a rugged spacer man could give into. During the Nar Shaddaa planetary quest line (planetary quests being multiplayer-friendly series of quests that tell stories in parallel on the planet in question, running alongside the class stories), they are faced with pure atrocity. The culprit this time is an Imperial named Vergost, a fanatic bigot who believes aliens (to clarify, not human or pureblood Sith) are not only inferior, but undeserving of life. By the time our heroes get to the planet, he's already begun rounding up the native Evocii and exterminating them in large groups. Flow's emotional health suffers greatly: he's never sensed mass death before. Neither allowing himself to feel his feelings fully nor understanding what it is to be Force-sensitive, Abric can't properly comfort him. When the two of them finally confront and subdue Vergost, Abric assumes ending the threat decisively will make it all better--he kills him. Surely, the galaxy is better off without racist scum like that. But even if it belonged to someone who would have happily killed them both for not being human, one more life ripped from the Force is simply too much for the young Jedi. Flow breaks down, the first pebble in an unstoppable mudslide he never quite comes back from. Abric blames himself. He finishes the planetary arc without his direct input, but makes a choice he wouldn't have had Flow not been there to react so negatively to Vergost's death. When given the option to execute a fallen Jedi in an Imperial prison or turn him over to the Jedi Order for rehabilitation, he lets him live, choosing hope for the future. He realizes in that moment the person he's been could hurt his friend. Abric vows to strive for improvement...unfortunately, knowing how to improve is another matter entirely...
Tatooine
-AU: On Tatooine, Abric doesn't actually finish the planetary arc, so he misses out on working with Oberon and reuniting with his ex (this world has one of the few where both factions wind up completing the same objective). With good reason; the end of his class story arc involves a crime boss being extremely creepy towards his crewmate Risha, and he hurried back to his ship to make sure those innuendos hadn't been threats. Not that she couldn't handle herself, but what would it say about him if he didn't try, he thought? Flow doesn't mention anything about the mission afterwards, except that he spent more time with Oberon. Had Abric been more forgiving of that, he might have added also meeting Natirru, but his disapproval of Oberon is enough to quash that. (even if he saved his Jedi buddy from dying of heat exhaustion, apparently? Does that make him a shitty friend for not even going to look for him? Abric's self-doubt only worsens. Instead of letting himself acknowledge his hurt, it would only build up in frustration again...)
Alderaan
AU: The planetary story for Alderaan sees them on a mission that involve the usurpers of House Ulgo torturing the native Killiks to galvanize them against their enemies (the Killiks share a hive mind among their nest and do not differentiate between the actions of an individual and a group, so non-Killik sentients are seen as a monolith). Naturally, this doesn't go over well for the one of them who is, first, still quite young, and second, supernaturally empathetic. Flow had been chasing superweapons for his class story--millions to billions of lives on his shoulders for weeks at a time. He'd sensed mass death, and then had his best friend contribute another. And now he's seen torture in action, feeling their pain and fear on the Force. After they shut down the "pain factory", Flow runs off, desperately needing to clear his head. Abric goes looking for him, determined to finally help instead of hurt, for once. What he finds is a fight--a sparring match--between Flow and the Sith he's heard so much about but never seen. He's another Twi'lek, turns out. Utterly baffling. But maybe being a Sith made up for living in the Empire as a nonhuman. Either way, for the first time, he is able to talk with Oberon.
A few important things happen in that short conversation. First, Abric learns that "Atir" was not an alias--he had, for whatever reason, given him his real name. ("Natirru" is no less true, however--more on that later.) Second, Oberon displays plenty of emotional intelligence for a Sith, and realizes that Abric needs in this moment to feel he was a good, supportive friend. Had he observed this for himself? Had Flow told him? Had Atir? He doesn't get an answer, as the other Twi'lek excuses himself from the situation under the excuse of prying into Atir's abject stupidity in giving his real name for his first undercover job (and he says he "loves him like true family"?). He assures Flow he "trusts Abric's friendship", giving him a chance to feel like he's worth something. And now he's seen firsthand that this Sith really is different. Still, he'd thought the same of Atir.
And now he's no longer sure he was entirely wrong...
Interlude: 1.5
After risking being swallowed by a black hole, and everyone else having a stressful time in their own right as they wrap up their first class story chapters, everyone seeks a safe, neutral space. In this case, a remote estate on the harsh sands of Tatooine, owned by a friend of...well, everyone but him, apparently. It turned out that after Flow had run off on Nar Shaddaa and dealt with the catastrophe of the hour presented in his own class quest, he'd found another friendly Sith. This one was a relatively recent addition to the Dark Council, title of Darth Imperius. (This one belongs to another player, but I have his permission to use him. He was more involved with the other members of the legacy, but as far as Abric's concerned, he mostly provides support from the background in the form of safe places to gather while they're still on opposite sides.)
He's sure he's walking into the jaws of a trap, but is too consumed by guilt to really care. He'd failed again to be there for Flow--while he'd been fighting to steal loot from the pull of a singularity, an entire planet had been incinerated with Flow's ship in orbit. And once again, when he'd been needed, when it would have been nice to be there, he was on the other side of the galaxy. Flow had turned once again to his Sith friend for comfort, and he and Oberon had traded lightsabers. Abric isn't into Force mysticism, but something feels off, seeing Flow with a red saber. If only he'd been there...
It's here that Flow admits he'd worked with Atir--calling himself "Natirru"--on this planet during their missions there earlier. He emphasizes the spy still loves him. Still unable to get a handle on his emotions and everything running to anger, it escalates into an argument. Flow, desperate to escape the rising tempers, tells him he doesn't have the full story and leaves--but not without a conspicuous glance at a seemingly empty corner of the room.
Atir is there, wrapped up in a stealth field, and, at last, Abric gets to confront his ex.
Explosively. Almost lethally.
All his built up frustration comes to a head, and nearly undoes all the self-realization he'd been scrabbling for all chapter. For a moment that lasts entirely too long, Abric raises a blaster to his ex-husband's head, and does his damnedest to convince himself to pull the trigger.
Thankfully, Flow hadn't gotten far, and senses something is very wrong. He hurries back to stop him. Not wanting to think about what he'd almost done (or the fact that Atir's guilt is real enough to not protest or defend himself...), Abric retreats with a drink to try to flush out conscious thought.
Later that night, he finds Atir, and they have a talk about everything that happened.
It was all true--his love, his name. "Atir" and "Natirru" are both technically true. His full name is "Larn'atir'ruzzhi", with the middle part being the given name--but Chiss take that and append bits of the surrounding name to it to create a "core name" to go by instead of isolating it like most species. Abric (and most people around them) had not known how Chiss names worked, as they were rare sights in the galaxy, making this non-alias perfectly functional as one anyway. (in fact, that Natirru had scrambled for an alias and only come up with his own given name says something about his disposition that would have blown Abric's doubts clear out of the water--or he was just distracted when he did so. But the disposition thing is clearly true.)
Abric admits then, to himself more than to Atir, that he needs him, that he hadn't been the same person since he left.
But Atir can't risk restarting their romance. He would soon be dead, or wish he was. He admits, refusing to share greater detail, that in order to save innocent lives, he'd let a threat go free. He expects Intelligence to punish him.
As he goes to meet his fate, leaving Abric paralyzed in emotional whiplash, the smuggler vows to protect him, and Flow, and even Oberon--who now called Atir "Father"! He would make up for the terrible, bitter person he's become.
(He learns shortly after this that the two Force adepts are in love, and had been reluctant to tell him. The thought of them worrying about his reaction is both absurd and upsetting--they're Force adepts and he's just some guy, after all. But, oh well. All the more to make up for.)
Chapter 2
-AU: From here on, the four characters work as a team across faction lines, slipping each other information to keep everyone alive. So long as they don't bring anything too sensitive to anyone higher up, they can keep each other safe. Is this particularly moral? Maybe not. But the galaxy is slowly going to shit around them, and all they can do is hold on to one another. Abric takes to meeting Natirru in the dead of space, falsifying his ship's onboard info to tell Natirru's ship he's an Imperial supply ship, and Natirru in turn creates false records to implant on the real ship with that serial number. Hopefully, nobody thinks to mention him to its crew...
One of these "supply docks" comes with good news. For a long while, they will--nominally--have converging goals. In a beautiful twist of irony, Imperial Intelligence has assigned Natirru to a long-term deep cover mission with their Republic counterpart, the SIS. As luck would have it, Abric has also chosen a side, if reluctantly. He's now a privateer of the Republic, contracted with one Senator Dodonna. (who is, um...an Intelligence asset, actually. In the game as presented, this is purely coincidence. With an existing connection between Agent and Smuggler, it turns into a stroke of pure genius on Imperial Intelligence's part--the Smuggler becomes a test of loyalty for their increasingly compromised Agent!)
They aren't really together again yet, however. Both of them still harbor guilt and self-hatred, and feel unworthy of one another's love at this point. They go into the chapter with the intentions of proving themselves to be better people.
-Player Choice: It should be noted that Abric begins Risha's romance route...accidentally. He believes they're just flirting for fun, while Risha is looking for something more serious. Neither thinks to actually use their words. Great start...
Hoth
-AU: The planetary story has an interesting divergence in one section. Both factions have the same goal: Stop the pirate known as Master Sav from choking off supplies to the area. But while the Imperial side involves the player(s) coming in and defeating him without further assistance, Republic players find this effort has failed and walk in on a truce, which they join. For the purposes of this AU, the Imperial version leads into, rather than averts, the Republic version. Meaning for the first time, the four fight together. (As to how Natirru is able to make a detour on Hoth at all, given his class story should prevent him...that's a story Abric never learns.) There's plenty of character moments all around, with Flow purifying the lightsaber Oberon gifted him, turning its crystal white.
For Abric, it is the very first taste of his future role as a leader. Sav taunts the combined forces, mocking them for needing to work together. He compares it to being forced to share body heat in the cold. The way he phrases it is rather evocative of the common romance trope, and Abric seizes on this to keep the team's morale up, to deflect the wedge he's trying to drive into their truce. "I bet you say that to all the heroic spacers," he says, and his allies follow. Sav calls their sarcastic quips masks over fear, but the sustained unity wins the day, and his forces are soundly defeated.
He's going to do this again. Just watch.
Nothing else wildly of note beyond canon happens in chapter 2.
Interlude: 2.5
Abric finishes off Chapter 2 with a daring heist on an Imperial treasury ship in orbit over Nar Shaddaa, then hides himself in extra work for the Republic, assisting in additional operations on Balmorra and Hoth. But when he invites Flow to join him, he gets no response. Flow never withdraws so severely he can't type up a simple "no", or refuse to answer a holocall when it's from him. Maybe he's busy, though, he thinks.
And then he quite literally runs into Natirru and Oberon on Hoth. (Turns out, the end result of colliding with another stealthed person is both stealth fields break!) And they haven't heard from him, either. They retreat to one of Darth Imperius's places and wait to hear any news at all.
As they wait, weeks passing, Abric and Natirru reconcile for real, with the pressure of impending war driving them to avoid regrets. Abric also gets to hear about the absolutely horrific things going on in his love's life while he was off dismantling Rogun's work. Like mind control. While he was off doing who knows what, he was working under the awful threat of having his entire self taken away from him. It really puts into perspective his desire to get together with him again, "deserving" or no. For once, the man he had fallen in love with for putting everyone else first has to seek out something for himself. Or he will break.
Like Flow has. He finally returns, also a victim of mind control, this kind of the Force variety. His secrecy had been due to going after the Sith Emperor himself, and he had failed miserably, falling under his thrall. They learn this not from his own account, but from his friend Kira telling them as he stands unresponsive in Oberon's arms. Breaking free of his control and dealing with the looming specter of what he'd been forced to do (though he had no memory of specifics) has taken all the strength he had.
For two days, his friend does not move, does not eat or drink until Natirru forces some Killik ambrosia into him to get him some nutrients and encourage sleep. Abric can find nothing to say or do that could possibly make it better. How do you come back from that? He'd come from a slave family, but even slaves still have claim to their own thoughts and actions. Natirru, with the closest personal experience, makes some kind of impact, but it is fleeting.
And the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake. The Emperor wants to destroy all life (why, though, who could say?) and the Jedi hero supposedly foreseen to stop him struggles with a mental health crisis so severe he can barely get to the refresher on his own. His best friend cannot function.
But he still can.
For the first time in what feels like too long, it's Abric who makes a difference when his friend finds himself suffering. Knowing he's signing up for what may be a suicide mission, he goes to Flow and tells him that it doesn't have to be him. All he needs to do was say the word, and he'll go try to stop the Emperor, himself. Oberon and Natirru throw their support behind this idea, agreeing not only to put their lives on the line, but to open treason if they survive. For the galaxy. For Flow.
(Of course, Abric fails to realize something important about the nature of Sith. If they survive and do kill the Emperor, it would just be Sith business as usual and they'd have Oberon on the throne and, um. Maybe they should have done this instead, actually. Oh well.)
And it works--not because Flow accepted and three story tracks abandoned ship for the Jedi Knight's, that didn't happen. It's because someone had reached out for the unbearable burden on his shoulders. The feeling of not bearing it alone gives Flow enough motivation to go on.
This is the type of leader Abric could be. From now on, he would be more sensitive to his allies' stressors and struggles, ready to boost morale. Everyone would need it.
Chapter 3:
-Player Choice: When a noble of the planet Risha is heir to (because what would a Star Wars smuggler be without a dateable princess) courts her, she hesitates. Abric finally realizes their goals don't align. In a disappointing display of continued failure to communicate after successfully motivating Flow from his slump, he doesn't tell her this. Instead, he tries to come up with ways to let her down more subtly. It never occurs to him that subtlety isn't necessary.
Belsavis
-Player Choice: Abric takes the dark side option of smuggling Ivory off of Belsavis, not because he wants him to be free or because he wants him to work for him, but because Belsavis is a corrupt, horrifying hellhole. He keeps him on his ship, with his companions and occasionally a visiting Vette (Risha's old friend, reunited now because Oberon has drifted with her into Abric's circle) to keep an eye on him.
-AU?: So, that thing about Belsavis being a hellhole? Yeah. Since it's a top-secret penal world, free from scrutiny, there's so much that can and did go wrong. The Republic scientists there were running unethical experiments so heinous the Imperial faction's NPCs there are jealous. This enrages...pretty much everyone, as their one Sith has the disposition to fall in love with a perfectly in-line (if currently emotionally compromised) light-sided Jedi. Abric and Natirru individually hatch plans to leak footage of the atrocities happening there to the HoloNet. (It's been a very long time since I've played Belsavis, so I don't remember if the Republic could do this, but I think Imperial players definitely could. So if this isn't an AU bit, consider it a character note.) It's timed so perfectly that, years later, when their alliance is no longer a secret, their allies assume it had been a coordinated effort. Hardly--just a pair of incensed warriors arriving at the same solution.
-Player Choice/slight AU: Risha seems interested in the noble courting her, or at least the advantage their union would provide her, and Abric gladly lets her go. He finally tells her they were at cross-purposes in their relationship, and the romance ends peacefully. She likely isn’t surprised: she’ll have noticed his attentions towards Natirru were vastly different from the way he treated her throughout. (obviously in canon the player just tells her it's okay to break things off)
Class Story End AU: I doubt Broadsword will bring Ivory back in any shape or form. But Abric decides to continue aiding the Republic with his newly acquired pirate fleet (because anyone concentrated against the Imperials might interrupt slave trading/escapes like his), and the criminal slips away at some point. Fleeing when you know a spy and his friends is a bad idea. Through either Natirru directly, Kaliyo through Doc through Flow, or Oberon’s highly sensitive apprentice Jaesa (via the Vette connection through Risha), a plan is put into place to assassinate him before he can go back to enslaving children. If Ivory DOES resurface, we can simply assume this attempt fails.
There’s little to say about the conclusion to the original story on Ilum. There’s a window of relative peace for the unlikely quartet and their crews after Malgus is dealt with (both sides choosing to awkwardly look the other way at a mixed task force taking him down). Abric loses track of his fleet, so wrapped up is he in seeing to his loved ones and also not really in a grand scale leadership mindset yet. He might have delegated oversight to someone like Risha or Akaavi, or taken advantage of his lover’s double agent status to give the SIS a powerful new tool. But, no, this falls by the wayside (this is to explain a persistent bug later in the story; even if it gets patched in the future, Abric still experienced the bugged version and I’m keeping it). He proposes to Natirru again, not with a ring, but with a salvaged HK droid he rebuilt himself. Yeah, he’s proud of that one.
Natirru says yes, of course. But it will have to wait. He's a double agent again for real, and getting himself out of the Empire will curtail his usefulness to the SIS. Also, he can't just leave Oberon there, and he's in the prestigious position of being the Emperor'sattack dog Wrath. He can't just vanish, and the Emperor (who isn't really dead! who doesn't STAY dead!) will eventually find him and kill everyone he loves if he leaves.
Expansions: Rise of the Hutt Cartel-Shadow of Revan
Their mission to stop the scheming of the Hutt Cartel on Makeb doesn't have any major departures from canon. Flow definitely needed more rest than he got before the story picks up again, and from what time they're able to steal with their secret Imperial boyfriends, they're struggling, too. It will get so much worse before it gets better, and so far Abric has been spared from the worst of it.
The status quo carries on for about a year, and then something very strange happens.
-Flavor: The Incursion on Korriban/Assault on Tython Flashpoint pair happen as presented, except they're forewarned about it. They send one another urgent encrypted messages, essentially saying "I can't get out of this one, I hope you're not on Korriban/Tython right now". Mere minutes apart. Natirru says it reeks of conspiracy, and when Theron and Lana gather them on Manaan (and are pleasantly surprised their teams know each other already--if a bit suspicious), he's proven right. Just not the conspiracy he thought it was.
Rishi
The picture, as it relates to Abric and the legacy, really starts to come together on the tropical planet Rishi, where they pose as a gang of fearsome pirates, the Red Hulls. Abric, with his natural spacer presence, falls into the role of captain, and comes up with explanations for the others. Nobody advises Natirru he would be undercover, so he shows up in uniform. Abric tells the first person to ask that the uniform is his prized trophy, and they'd better shut up if they don't want him (big, imposing presence that he is) to break them like he broke its previous owner. The two Force adepts' truth makes the foundation for the most convincing cover of all: they've turned to outlaw spacer life because both their orders would spurn their love.
And Abric acting as the captain nudges itself slightly into more than a role. He keeps things on track when friction rises between Natirru and Flow--the professional spy trying desperately to work with an over-sensitive Jedi who chafes at the fear and disgust people feel when they look at them and nearly blows their cover for it. The other three are still loosely following his lead when their efforts take them to the ruins and plateaus of Yavin 4 to confront their foe: Darth Revan himself, spirit split in the Force and a cult risen to aid him in his goal of resurrecting the Emperor in order to slay him for good. Never mind that resurrecting him would drain the moon of all life!
Pretenses drop here, so far as their relationships are concerned. Flow and Oberon are in too rattled a state to hide the fact they rely on one another for emotional support (the Emperor's presence is everywhere on this rock!), and Abric and Natirru figure that if the coalition is forced to accept a Jedi and a Sith holding hands, what harm could his relationship with an agent be? The four of them get results, and they all have bigger problems to worry about right now.
Ziost
...And they just keep getting bigger. The four of them converge on Ziost as the Emperor drives its population lethally mad, fueling a ritual to annihilate the entire planet. They fight bravely, of course, and evacuate as many as they can. Abric even scores a low blow on the Emperor as he taunts them--his allies had more pertinent taunts to make, but he is the one to find his voice first, and the thing he says to upset Emperor Vitiate for the distraction they need?
Something to the tune of, "All of this? I dunno...seems like you're compensating for something."
And it works. Tension cracked, Emperor distracted, and also humiliated for rising to such lowbrow bait.
I told you he'd do it again. (this isn't terribly important story-wise, but character-wise?)
Of course, there is no victory on Ziost. There is nothing anyone can do. Life is drained from the planet utterly as Abric and his allies watch from orbit. It will take much more than a crude joke to lift the weight of a planet going Force-dead before the eyes of ones strong in it.
Zakuul Arc
Knights of the Fallen Empire notes
Primary takeaways:
-Until recently, Abric has been the C story in the grand scheme of things. However, as he’s seen the strain on his buddies facing wider-ranging concerns, he’s stepped forward to take the lead more often, building on the precedent set back between chapters 2 and 3. Now, it’s about to be put to the test.
AU: As far as canon is concerned, the seven people who aren’t the player’s chosen class vanished when Zakuul invaded and caught the entire galaxy off guard. Not so here. While the people who aren’t Abric here do indeed lose contact with their crew, they’re still very much involved in the search for Abric while he’s taking the second carbonite nap of his story (the first one was deliberate reference. This one’s just a bonus.)
-As if the universe has suddenly realized it’s missed someone while handing out trauma, Abric finds himself at the forefront he’d only caught awful secondhand glimpses of through his loved ones’ battered psyches. Now he’s got the Emperor’s ghost in his head! But Abric isn’t one to openly despair. He makes the most of it. Like never, ever letting Valkorion/Vitiate live down the thing on Ziost where he successfully baited him with a dick joke. Best of all, he seems weaker than he was when he enthralled Flow. He must have Abric’s permission to take control of his body, and he sure as hell won’t give it!
He’s not stuck with you, old man. You’re stuck with him.
(I mean, yeah, having a mental passenger makes bedroom stuff awkward and there's no privacy anywhere else and it's pretty sucky all around. He owes him one, too, unfortunately. Got himself impaled on a lightsaber and Valkorion kept him alive and aided in recovery. Which tells Abric he needs him, for better or worse. Better him than poor Flow again…)
Flavor: It turns out, that’s his leadership style, really. Appealing to things both sides can relate to. Sure, Flow or Oberon make for a more inspiring figure, but Abric finds himself uniquely suited to leading in his own right. Everyone can laugh at a stupid joke. Everyone can relate to love and family and wanting a cold drink after a day of hard work. Everyone can find fulfillment in music and stories and games and cards. Abric appeals to the least common denominator, both good and bad. And Flow and Oberon, though they never say it, are relieved to be able to hang back for once, no weights on their shoulders. (Flow in particular--he fell into a depressive slump in the five year timeskip that makes him much weaker in the Force for a while.)
-Threat of Zakuul aside, Abric realizes quickly he has something valuable on his hands: the ability to get Natirru and Oberon away from the Empire that traumatized them so and keep them away. He’s much more invested in this Alliance than he ever was in his now-forgotten pirate fleet. In fact, he never would have been invested at all if not for them. He would have hated every second of it, wanting nothing more than to hand it all off to Lana and Theron and taken to the stars again the second the threat was over. (Which the player can't do, either...)
-Something interesting happens when he has a fateful meeting with an unusual pair: a microcosm of his own Alliance, the Jedi Satele Shan and the spirit of Darth Marr, who perished in the same fight that got him sealed in carbonite five years prior. They guide him through making a weapon. Not a lightsaber; he’s no good for those. It’s a blaster. A Force gun. (Dumbest thing you've ever heard, right? Don't let him hear you say yes.) Not as useful as an attuned lightsaber; he doesn’t have the same type of feedback an actual Force adept would have with their blade. But he can call it to his hand from short distances (say, its holster) and he’s attuned to the crystal inside. Which translates into being very attached to his gun. He's named it Glimmer. You know, like, of light, of hope. It sounded better in his head. But it was like the name stuck once he said it. It’s a curiosity that has the Force Enclave in the Alliance interested, wanting to experiment and test him, while all he wants to do is go out and bust some more Zakuulan butt and get them out of everyone’s way.
KOTET notes
Primary takeaways:
-Abric really hurts Natirru there with the whole brainwashing thing. They talk it out later, of course (the wedding goes on! they still love each other! these are grown men who can talk out their feelings!), but given the relentless emotions of the plot from that point on it stews a while before they do.
-HE HAS THEIR SANCTUARY AT LAST HE DID IT. Long live the Eternal Alliance! (It may, but not at this strength...)
-He's not talking about why his mindscape is a brittle gray wasteland even after he gathers himself back together. He's not even going to think about it. He's just fine. He's got to be fine. Look at how the Empire broke his family. He's the only one left. He has to be fine.
Traitor Arc
Battle for Iokath
-Abric doesn't want to choose a side. The point of the Alliance was to avoid that entirely. But they must side with one, or be destroyed by both. Abric has seen many times the power the two factions have combined against a common foe. He already knows he has to pick one. It still takes Lana bugging him until he does though. He brings it up with the others, Lana, and Theron, and eventually decides the Empire hasn't changed enough to earn his trust. Slavery was the dealbreaker way back when ruling a planet was something he actively balked at (in a reality where he'd be okay with a deeper commitment to her, he'd still end his romance with Risha because he wasn't out to be a king). And they still did that. That Twi'leks and other nonhumans seem to have better chances now does not change, in his view, the severity of having those who still wear collars.
AU: Quinn's lines are for Oberon--it's like he forgets Abric is even there. His Empress probably doesn't appreciate that much. Oberon tries to get Quinn to stop her, and is very pleasantly surprised when he actually attempts to do so. He returns later as a prisoner, and Abric allows him provisional Alliance membership under Oberon's direct command, once Oberon vouches for his loyalty to him (the man counted the days since he'd been in the Sith's company; Oberon hardly needed to do any vouching, himself). The scene is mostly the same as in-game except references to the Alliance Commander now refer to Abric rather than the warrior and are rewritten to match as needed. (AU Clarification: A non-Sith Warrior player cannot choose the Republic on Iokath and gain Quinn as a companion)
-With news of a traitor, the legacy again faces a difficult decision. Natirru is the only one who seems even remotely tempted by the idea of surveillance, but when called out, admits he was letting his concern for Abric cloud his judgment.
A Traitor Among Chiss
AU: Abric makes the call to imprison Syndic Zenta. In addition to the letter Abric gets from Saganu expressing his disappointment, he also sends a letter to Natirru, chiding him for allowing his alien husband to make this decision, ensuring the "perhaps you've forgotten where you come from" stays included.
The Nathema Conspiracy
AU?: No major departures until the very end, and even then I'll have to try to see what happens when multiple people run this one? Because there are exactly three more chairs at the end than are actually filled, so in this case there will be three extra bodies--a heart-wrenching(?) class-specific person for each of the gang!
For Abric: Master Sumalee--apparently this is bugged, and he was supposed to get someone different because he chose to focus his pirate fleet against the Empire rather than run it indiscriminately. But that's why I wrote in him just abandoning it to its own devices.
For Natirru: Shara. Definitely the hardest-hitting impact of the bunch.
AU: For Oberon: Darth Ravage. And nothing of value was lost. Since Oberon isn't the Commander, his problem with him is that the Wrath has gone rogue (he's the second one in a row!!) rather than for killing the Emperor since Abric's the one who slew Valkorion. So he actually has words for Abric, too, despite never having met him.
For Flow: Playthrough pending
No matter how you slice it, the Eternal Alliance is severely weakened now. Abric will have to fight that much harder to keep his loved ones safe in his sanctuary.
Selling Out?
In fact, he can't now. A planet as steeped in the Force as Odessen, with a naturally even balance of it and a climate perfect for agriculture, is a prize for both orders. Galactic supplies are dwindling, Zakuul's reign having drained much. And with people leaving the Alliance now that the threat of Zakuul is truly over, with their original homes ramping up tension between them once again, Abric's running out of resources, too. They won't be able to defend themselves if someone comes after them.
AU: Lana tells Abric the Republic will remember him breaking the Senator Dodonna scandal wide open, and they can add the thing with Saresh on there, too, to fit the theme. Maybe even reveal the Belsavis leaks were him and his husband? If they welcome him as a hero, they might respect him enough--or have to publicly show they do--to let him do his own thing while protecting his planet from potential threats.
And here's the biggest AU point of them all. The entire legacy is in the Republic Loyalist timeline. Sure, an SIS agent tries to get Natirru back into the double agent game, then tries to talk Oberon into it, but that attempt fails miserably. Imperial players obviously don't have this option. So far as espionage goes, Natirru is semi-retired. He can scout, heal, and fight if he has to, but he's done donning masks.
Still, Abric obviously hates it every step of the way, and when the Republic floats the idea of making Odessen a member world, possibly with himself as its senator, he refuses vehemently and without hesitation. His planet, his people. If they wind up being a crack mercenary team with a whole world as a home base, that's fine with him. He has too many ex-Imperials who can stand being ex-Imps (either too attached to the friends they've made--or in the also impossible instances of Quinn and Pierce, always followed--or disillusioned with their old life once away from it), but would never be Republic citizens, and he respects them too much to make that decision for them.
It's kind of like he's a privateer again! But infinitely more responsible this time. Where's the next corrupted Republic official he's gotta out?
AU Notes: Three additional class stories (Jedi Knight, Sith Warrior, and Imperial Agent) intertwine with his instead of running parallel, and the Sith Inquisitor story has already taken place in its entirety instead of running concurrent. There's still room for canonical cross-participation along faction lines (but not across them, like this AU), until Shadow of Revan, at which point a singular protagonist is assumed--but there are four. The experiences the three intertwined classes go through in their own stories shape Abric's character in ways that would not have happened had his story existed in a vacuum.
Before the Text Crawl:
Before Captain Abric Solari ever landed on Ord Mantell, before he bought a beat-up Corellian XS freighter, he was a runaway slave child, crammed into an escape pod with over a dozen other children: siblings, half-siblings, and cousins, with only an aunt to look after them all. The other adults were in other pods. All recaptured or destroyed. A bounty hunter subcontracted by House Rist of Alderaan happened upon the scene before the children's pod could meet the same fate, and he rescued them, setting back his mission to do the right thing. He brought them back, where Rist shuffled the gaggle of Twi'leks off to the more charitable Houses Panteer and Organa. They did their best, of course, but such a large family with only a single adult to its name inevitably slipped through the cracks in short enough order, finding themselves destitute. (You'll see this Alderaanian background sometimes in Abric's turns of phrase--instead of the more common "bantha fodder", he may say something like "nerfshit". He's been known to use the distinctly Alderaanian swear "stang" over the more common "kriff" or more readable "shit" if he's drunk enough.) Finding little to look up to in the remainder of his family, Abric found role models in fiction. He gravitated to spacer heroes, associating Alderaan itself with their struggle with poverty. (Think westerns or Indiana Jones IN SPACE. ...never mind that's already what this franchise is sometimes, shh). From them, he picked up a lust for adventure and more than a few toxic ideals that have taken a lifetime to correct. In reality, he found and latched onto the bounty hunter who had saved them, a human man named Bentin. Bentin taught him how to fight and how to steal--and how to salvage, to avoid having to steal. To his credit, he tried very hard not to groom this young man into a criminal. He just failed. Mostly.
Abric got by running odd jobs as a kid--little tasks people were happy to delegate to a child. Deliver this, pick garden weeds, take a pet for a walk, and so on. But as he grew into a teenager, the pressure to find "real work" intensified. His stubborn resistance to going with the grain combined with his impulsiveness and lack of immediate resources saw to him finding some very shady work, indeed. And so, Abric was introduced to the underworld. It paid better than most work someone of his means could find in Alderaan's feudal society, and eventually, he was able to buy a ship. Sure, it was missing a few key parts, but hey--remember the salvaging he learned? He left some of his earnings with his family in permanent farewell and escaped to the stars. He never returned to the house he grew up in, and if you ask him, that's not a problem at all. Good riddance. But he goes out of his way to aid separated families, even "forgetting" to ask for payment in such cases at his most profiteering.
He fell into running freight as a general career. Sometimes legitimate, sometimes not. Whatever brought in credits and kept him flying. Though he grew up in Republic space, he didn't consider himself a true citizen, and gladly accepted jobs from anyone. With some stipulations, of course, for the Empire, who had separated him from everyone else in his family, who did not see his species as real people. To them, he would not deliver weapons, armor, or people. Luxuries, food, and medicine, however, were fair game, and a supply of medicine smuggled into the heart of the Empire would change everything.
Abric's contact in the xenophobic Empire was a nonhuman, himself, a Chiss doctor who would introduce himself as "Atir". He had a pleasant smile and a warm demeanor, and his presence was entirely nonthreatening. Drawn to lights in what he saw as a dark galaxy, Abric warmed to him immediately. When he found said Chiss stowed away on his ship, hoping to leave the oppressive Empire behind, he let him stay. It took them both nearly a year sailing the stars together to admit it, but they fell in love. Abric, raised on holos of rugged lone wolf heroes who treated commitment like imprisonment, was the one to propose. Abric, raised on tales of spacers whose only homes were where the hyperspace lanes took them, settled down with Atir on the Republic capital planet, Coruscant, so his new husband could pursue his passion in medicine in a suitably stable environment.
They were married for five years. Atir provided a safe haven for all those emotions Abric had mistakenly learned as "weaknesses", giving him a valuable outlet to be himself. He taught him how to eat right, and that he didn't have to sacrifice taste for nutrition. He encouraged him to befriend a young Mirialan Jedi Padawan named Flow (who would go on to star in the Jedi Knight story) when he and the Jedi found themselves chasing a pair of muggers down an alleyway in the name of justice. (Abric wouldn't realize until much later, but that was the first instance of stepping up to be the hero of the hour when he seemed the least likely to do so.)
Life was comfortable. He'd never known how wonderful it could be to have a place, to carve out a spot with the man he loved and his new little buddy and say this is mine.
And then the worst happened as he was returning from shipping a new supply of drinks to a cantina on a distant planet (gotta take the legit jobs too, you know!). Abric was notified there'd been an accident. A miscalibration in an automated taxi route. Three cars had been destroyed before it could be shut down. Two had been returning to their home station, mercifully empty of any organic life. The droid drivers had even been salvageable. But the third--Atir had been on that one, and there was no sign of him. The distance the wreckage had fallen left next to no room for hope.
Only one day after he'd gotten back to Coruscant from halfway across the galaxy, they found charred skeletal remains, scattered by local scavengers, but the correct height and in the correct place.
Doctor Atir Solari was declared dead. Abric had maybe half a day of normal mourning. Then the obituary went live.
A datapad Atir had left behind on the nightstand that morning--the last object Abric believed he'd ever touched in the apartment--automatically woke and decrypted a hidden message. An apology.
For being an Imperial spy.
He swore, however, his love hadn't been a lie.
Abric balked. He told himself he didn't believe it. Told himself he hated him. And yet. He couldn't expose him. Not even to his former colleagues at the medcenter where he'd calibrated prosthetics for a living. Not even to Flow, who was soon to travel to Tython for his final trials. Flow had done his best to help support him through his loss, over holos while he was still spacebound, and in person for that last afternoon where they both believed a lie. And Abric let him continue to believe it, no matter how hot his blood boiled.
(If you haven't guessed by now, Atir--who would be better known to everyone else he met as "Natirru"--would go on to become the Imperial Agent, this independently contracted job with a Sith launching him into Imperial Intelligence.)
Frustrated, deeply hurt, Abric pulled up all traces of his anchor and took to space full-time again. He nursed his pain while trying to deny it even existed. Kept telling himself he hated his ex-husband.
But he kept his wedding ring tied to his ship's flight controls.
Life continued, dimmer around the edges.
The next shipment that would change the course of his life forever was a shipment of blasters to Ord Mantell.
Chapter 1
Prologue/Coruscant
-Flavor: While the Smuggler gets plenty of lines to express concern about their ship, such lines contain an additional layer of meaning for Abric, as his promise ring is there. Not, of course, that he would let Skavak have his ship if he had the ring...he worked hard to make the old girl spaceworthy, after all.
-AU: Abric meets with Flow, fresh from his trials on Tython, at Carrick Station, and finds they're both headed to Coruscant. The two board a ship named the Esseles. This is multiplayer content, so Flow's presence is not itself AU-worthy. What is is that Abric goes on to complete the content (boarding an attacking Imperial cruiser and freeing the Esseles from its tractor beam) alone. Flow, you see, was diverted to another objective by the insistent pull of the Force's currents. It turned out, among the Imperial spies on the ship, there was a Sith with no interest in hurting anyone at all... (This Sith, though nobody on this side of the faction divide knows at this point, is the Sith Warrior, similarly fresh from his class prologue, but immediately sidetracked into Grand Moff Kilran's scheme.) When Flow tells Abric of his encounter with this Sith who was like no other, he reacts with concern, recalling the way he'd been drawn to Atir for being unlike any other Imperial. He tells Flow the truth about him, then, that Atir didn't die. About the note. His words don't seem to deter Flow from wanting to see this Sith again, however. Abric worries for his young friend...
-Flavor: Abric reclaims his ship on Coruscant. To his relief, the ring is still there. He isn't sure whether he should be insulted that Skavak didn't deem it worth selling. Corso notices the ring, and this is what prompts his first on-ship dialogue. Gently prying for information, he asks Abric if he'd ever considered settling down with a wife and kids. Rather than answer or correct his assumption, Abric deflects, asking if it was what Corso wanted. Better than dredging up more hurt.
Taris
-Player Choice: Taris was exhausting, with the threat of losing his very sentience to the rakghoul plague a constant looming nightmare. At the end of it all, when fellow smuggler Beryl Thorne comes on to him, he accepts. She is the first sexual partner he's had since his marriage ended, despite said marriage being semi-open. (Now, though, he wonders if it didn't have hidden meaning on Atir's part. It's all right to have other partners; this won't last, perhaps.) The encounter is purely physical, not romantic, and the two part as friends. Abric wonders what it means that he still feels his ring belongs where it is.
-Player Choice: The wiki assumes the Smuggler takes all light-side actions. However, rather than freeing Momi, Abric believes she is beyond help, and that any cure to all of the diseases she'd been inflicted with would come too late. He grants her request to die--though he can't look, opting to turn away as he pulls the trigger.
Nar Shaddaa
-AU: Nar Shaddaa is where things begin crumbling around him. Flow confesses to several meetings with the Sith, named Oberon, and seems to look forward to more. He calls the young man who was supposed to be his enemy his friend. To Abric's mind, he's slipping away, falling into a hole he can't dig him out of. His distress works itself into anger, because he'd backslid from the emotional health he'd enjoyed during his marriage, and sentimentality is not something a rugged spacer man could give into. During the Nar Shaddaa planetary quest line (planetary quests being multiplayer-friendly series of quests that tell stories in parallel on the planet in question, running alongside the class stories), they are faced with pure atrocity. The culprit this time is an Imperial named Vergost, a fanatic bigot who believes aliens (to clarify, not human or pureblood Sith) are not only inferior, but undeserving of life. By the time our heroes get to the planet, he's already begun rounding up the native Evocii and exterminating them in large groups. Flow's emotional health suffers greatly: he's never sensed mass death before. Neither allowing himself to feel his feelings fully nor understanding what it is to be Force-sensitive, Abric can't properly comfort him. When the two of them finally confront and subdue Vergost, Abric assumes ending the threat decisively will make it all better--he kills him. Surely, the galaxy is better off without racist scum like that. But even if it belonged to someone who would have happily killed them both for not being human, one more life ripped from the Force is simply too much for the young Jedi. Flow breaks down, the first pebble in an unstoppable mudslide he never quite comes back from. Abric blames himself. He finishes the planetary arc without his direct input, but makes a choice he wouldn't have had Flow not been there to react so negatively to Vergost's death. When given the option to execute a fallen Jedi in an Imperial prison or turn him over to the Jedi Order for rehabilitation, he lets him live, choosing hope for the future. He realizes in that moment the person he's been could hurt his friend. Abric vows to strive for improvement...unfortunately, knowing how to improve is another matter entirely...
Tatooine
-AU: On Tatooine, Abric doesn't actually finish the planetary arc, so he misses out on working with Oberon and reuniting with his ex (this world has one of the few where both factions wind up completing the same objective). With good reason; the end of his class story arc involves a crime boss being extremely creepy towards his crewmate Risha, and he hurried back to his ship to make sure those innuendos hadn't been threats. Not that she couldn't handle herself, but what would it say about him if he didn't try, he thought? Flow doesn't mention anything about the mission afterwards, except that he spent more time with Oberon. Had Abric been more forgiving of that, he might have added also meeting Natirru, but his disapproval of Oberon is enough to quash that. (even if he saved his Jedi buddy from dying of heat exhaustion, apparently? Does that make him a shitty friend for not even going to look for him? Abric's self-doubt only worsens. Instead of letting himself acknowledge his hurt, it would only build up in frustration again...)
Alderaan
AU: The planetary story for Alderaan sees them on a mission that involve the usurpers of House Ulgo torturing the native Killiks to galvanize them against their enemies (the Killiks share a hive mind among their nest and do not differentiate between the actions of an individual and a group, so non-Killik sentients are seen as a monolith). Naturally, this doesn't go over well for the one of them who is, first, still quite young, and second, supernaturally empathetic. Flow had been chasing superweapons for his class story--millions to billions of lives on his shoulders for weeks at a time. He'd sensed mass death, and then had his best friend contribute another. And now he's seen torture in action, feeling their pain and fear on the Force. After they shut down the "pain factory", Flow runs off, desperately needing to clear his head. Abric goes looking for him, determined to finally help instead of hurt, for once. What he finds is a fight--a sparring match--between Flow and the Sith he's heard so much about but never seen. He's another Twi'lek, turns out. Utterly baffling. But maybe being a Sith made up for living in the Empire as a nonhuman. Either way, for the first time, he is able to talk with Oberon.
A few important things happen in that short conversation. First, Abric learns that "Atir" was not an alias--he had, for whatever reason, given him his real name. ("Natirru" is no less true, however--more on that later.) Second, Oberon displays plenty of emotional intelligence for a Sith, and realizes that Abric needs in this moment to feel he was a good, supportive friend. Had he observed this for himself? Had Flow told him? Had Atir? He doesn't get an answer, as the other Twi'lek excuses himself from the situation under the excuse of prying into Atir's abject stupidity in giving his real name for his first undercover job (and he says he "loves him like true family"?). He assures Flow he "trusts Abric's friendship", giving him a chance to feel like he's worth something. And now he's seen firsthand that this Sith really is different. Still, he'd thought the same of Atir.
And now he's no longer sure he was entirely wrong...
Interlude: 1.5
After risking being swallowed by a black hole, and everyone else having a stressful time in their own right as they wrap up their first class story chapters, everyone seeks a safe, neutral space. In this case, a remote estate on the harsh sands of Tatooine, owned by a friend of...well, everyone but him, apparently. It turned out that after Flow had run off on Nar Shaddaa and dealt with the catastrophe of the hour presented in his own class quest, he'd found another friendly Sith. This one was a relatively recent addition to the Dark Council, title of Darth Imperius. (This one belongs to another player, but I have his permission to use him. He was more involved with the other members of the legacy, but as far as Abric's concerned, he mostly provides support from the background in the form of safe places to gather while they're still on opposite sides.)
He's sure he's walking into the jaws of a trap, but is too consumed by guilt to really care. He'd failed again to be there for Flow--while he'd been fighting to steal loot from the pull of a singularity, an entire planet had been incinerated with Flow's ship in orbit. And once again, when he'd been needed, when it would have been nice to be there, he was on the other side of the galaxy. Flow had turned once again to his Sith friend for comfort, and he and Oberon had traded lightsabers. Abric isn't into Force mysticism, but something feels off, seeing Flow with a red saber. If only he'd been there...
It's here that Flow admits he'd worked with Atir--calling himself "Natirru"--on this planet during their missions there earlier. He emphasizes the spy still loves him. Still unable to get a handle on his emotions and everything running to anger, it escalates into an argument. Flow, desperate to escape the rising tempers, tells him he doesn't have the full story and leaves--but not without a conspicuous glance at a seemingly empty corner of the room.
Atir is there, wrapped up in a stealth field, and, at last, Abric gets to confront his ex.
Explosively. Almost lethally.
All his built up frustration comes to a head, and nearly undoes all the self-realization he'd been scrabbling for all chapter. For a moment that lasts entirely too long, Abric raises a blaster to his ex-husband's head, and does his damnedest to convince himself to pull the trigger.
Thankfully, Flow hadn't gotten far, and senses something is very wrong. He hurries back to stop him. Not wanting to think about what he'd almost done (or the fact that Atir's guilt is real enough to not protest or defend himself...), Abric retreats with a drink to try to flush out conscious thought.
Later that night, he finds Atir, and they have a talk about everything that happened.
It was all true--his love, his name. "Atir" and "Natirru" are both technically true. His full name is "Larn'atir'ruzzhi", with the middle part being the given name--but Chiss take that and append bits of the surrounding name to it to create a "core name" to go by instead of isolating it like most species. Abric (and most people around them) had not known how Chiss names worked, as they were rare sights in the galaxy, making this non-alias perfectly functional as one anyway. (in fact, that Natirru had scrambled for an alias and only come up with his own given name says something about his disposition that would have blown Abric's doubts clear out of the water--or he was just distracted when he did so. But the disposition thing is clearly true.)
Abric admits then, to himself more than to Atir, that he needs him, that he hadn't been the same person since he left.
But Atir can't risk restarting their romance. He would soon be dead, or wish he was. He admits, refusing to share greater detail, that in order to save innocent lives, he'd let a threat go free. He expects Intelligence to punish him.
As he goes to meet his fate, leaving Abric paralyzed in emotional whiplash, the smuggler vows to protect him, and Flow, and even Oberon--who now called Atir "Father"! He would make up for the terrible, bitter person he's become.
(He learns shortly after this that the two Force adepts are in love, and had been reluctant to tell him. The thought of them worrying about his reaction is both absurd and upsetting--they're Force adepts and he's just some guy, after all. But, oh well. All the more to make up for.)
Chapter 2
-AU: From here on, the four characters work as a team across faction lines, slipping each other information to keep everyone alive. So long as they don't bring anything too sensitive to anyone higher up, they can keep each other safe. Is this particularly moral? Maybe not. But the galaxy is slowly going to shit around them, and all they can do is hold on to one another. Abric takes to meeting Natirru in the dead of space, falsifying his ship's onboard info to tell Natirru's ship he's an Imperial supply ship, and Natirru in turn creates false records to implant on the real ship with that serial number. Hopefully, nobody thinks to mention him to its crew...
One of these "supply docks" comes with good news. For a long while, they will--nominally--have converging goals. In a beautiful twist of irony, Imperial Intelligence has assigned Natirru to a long-term deep cover mission with their Republic counterpart, the SIS. As luck would have it, Abric has also chosen a side, if reluctantly. He's now a privateer of the Republic, contracted with one Senator Dodonna. (who is, um...an Intelligence asset, actually. In the game as presented, this is purely coincidence. With an existing connection between Agent and Smuggler, it turns into a stroke of pure genius on Imperial Intelligence's part--the Smuggler becomes a test of loyalty for their increasingly compromised Agent!)
They aren't really together again yet, however. Both of them still harbor guilt and self-hatred, and feel unworthy of one another's love at this point. They go into the chapter with the intentions of proving themselves to be better people.
-Player Choice: It should be noted that Abric begins Risha's romance route...accidentally. He believes they're just flirting for fun, while Risha is looking for something more serious. Neither thinks to actually use their words. Great start...
Hoth
-AU: The planetary story has an interesting divergence in one section. Both factions have the same goal: Stop the pirate known as Master Sav from choking off supplies to the area. But while the Imperial side involves the player(s) coming in and defeating him without further assistance, Republic players find this effort has failed and walk in on a truce, which they join. For the purposes of this AU, the Imperial version leads into, rather than averts, the Republic version. Meaning for the first time, the four fight together. (As to how Natirru is able to make a detour on Hoth at all, given his class story should prevent him...that's a story Abric never learns.) There's plenty of character moments all around, with Flow purifying the lightsaber Oberon gifted him, turning its crystal white.
For Abric, it is the very first taste of his future role as a leader. Sav taunts the combined forces, mocking them for needing to work together. He compares it to being forced to share body heat in the cold. The way he phrases it is rather evocative of the common romance trope, and Abric seizes on this to keep the team's morale up, to deflect the wedge he's trying to drive into their truce. "I bet you say that to all the heroic spacers," he says, and his allies follow. Sav calls their sarcastic quips masks over fear, but the sustained unity wins the day, and his forces are soundly defeated.
He's going to do this again. Just watch.
Nothing else wildly of note beyond canon happens in chapter 2.
Interlude: 2.5
Abric finishes off Chapter 2 with a daring heist on an Imperial treasury ship in orbit over Nar Shaddaa, then hides himself in extra work for the Republic, assisting in additional operations on Balmorra and Hoth. But when he invites Flow to join him, he gets no response. Flow never withdraws so severely he can't type up a simple "no", or refuse to answer a holocall when it's from him. Maybe he's busy, though, he thinks.
And then he quite literally runs into Natirru and Oberon on Hoth. (Turns out, the end result of colliding with another stealthed person is both stealth fields break!) And they haven't heard from him, either. They retreat to one of Darth Imperius's places and wait to hear any news at all.
As they wait, weeks passing, Abric and Natirru reconcile for real, with the pressure of impending war driving them to avoid regrets. Abric also gets to hear about the absolutely horrific things going on in his love's life while he was off dismantling Rogun's work. Like mind control. While he was off doing who knows what, he was working under the awful threat of having his entire self taken away from him. It really puts into perspective his desire to get together with him again, "deserving" or no. For once, the man he had fallen in love with for putting everyone else first has to seek out something for himself. Or he will break.
Like Flow has. He finally returns, also a victim of mind control, this kind of the Force variety. His secrecy had been due to going after the Sith Emperor himself, and he had failed miserably, falling under his thrall. They learn this not from his own account, but from his friend Kira telling them as he stands unresponsive in Oberon's arms. Breaking free of his control and dealing with the looming specter of what he'd been forced to do (though he had no memory of specifics) has taken all the strength he had.
For two days, his friend does not move, does not eat or drink until Natirru forces some Killik ambrosia into him to get him some nutrients and encourage sleep. Abric can find nothing to say or do that could possibly make it better. How do you come back from that? He'd come from a slave family, but even slaves still have claim to their own thoughts and actions. Natirru, with the closest personal experience, makes some kind of impact, but it is fleeting.
And the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake. The Emperor wants to destroy all life (why, though, who could say?) and the Jedi hero supposedly foreseen to stop him struggles with a mental health crisis so severe he can barely get to the refresher on his own. His best friend cannot function.
But he still can.
For the first time in what feels like too long, it's Abric who makes a difference when his friend finds himself suffering. Knowing he's signing up for what may be a suicide mission, he goes to Flow and tells him that it doesn't have to be him. All he needs to do was say the word, and he'll go try to stop the Emperor, himself. Oberon and Natirru throw their support behind this idea, agreeing not only to put their lives on the line, but to open treason if they survive. For the galaxy. For Flow.
(Of course, Abric fails to realize something important about the nature of Sith. If they survive and do kill the Emperor, it would just be Sith business as usual and they'd have Oberon on the throne and, um. Maybe they should have done this instead, actually. Oh well.)
And it works--not because Flow accepted and three story tracks abandoned ship for the Jedi Knight's, that didn't happen. It's because someone had reached out for the unbearable burden on his shoulders. The feeling of not bearing it alone gives Flow enough motivation to go on.
This is the type of leader Abric could be. From now on, he would be more sensitive to his allies' stressors and struggles, ready to boost morale. Everyone would need it.
Chapter 3:
-Player Choice: When a noble of the planet Risha is heir to (because what would a Star Wars smuggler be without a dateable princess) courts her, she hesitates. Abric finally realizes their goals don't align. In a disappointing display of continued failure to communicate after successfully motivating Flow from his slump, he doesn't tell her this. Instead, he tries to come up with ways to let her down more subtly. It never occurs to him that subtlety isn't necessary.
Belsavis
-Player Choice: Abric takes the dark side option of smuggling Ivory off of Belsavis, not because he wants him to be free or because he wants him to work for him, but because Belsavis is a corrupt, horrifying hellhole. He keeps him on his ship, with his companions and occasionally a visiting Vette (Risha's old friend, reunited now because Oberon has drifted with her into Abric's circle) to keep an eye on him.
-AU?: So, that thing about Belsavis being a hellhole? Yeah. Since it's a top-secret penal world, free from scrutiny, there's so much that can and did go wrong. The Republic scientists there were running unethical experiments so heinous the Imperial faction's NPCs there are jealous. This enrages...pretty much everyone, as their one Sith has the disposition to fall in love with a perfectly in-line (if currently emotionally compromised) light-sided Jedi. Abric and Natirru individually hatch plans to leak footage of the atrocities happening there to the HoloNet. (It's been a very long time since I've played Belsavis, so I don't remember if the Republic could do this, but I think Imperial players definitely could. So if this isn't an AU bit, consider it a character note.) It's timed so perfectly that, years later, when their alliance is no longer a secret, their allies assume it had been a coordinated effort. Hardly--just a pair of incensed warriors arriving at the same solution.
-Player Choice/slight AU: Risha seems interested in the noble courting her, or at least the advantage their union would provide her, and Abric gladly lets her go. He finally tells her they were at cross-purposes in their relationship, and the romance ends peacefully. She likely isn’t surprised: she’ll have noticed his attentions towards Natirru were vastly different from the way he treated her throughout. (obviously in canon the player just tells her it's okay to break things off)
Class Story End AU: I doubt Broadsword will bring Ivory back in any shape or form. But Abric decides to continue aiding the Republic with his newly acquired pirate fleet (because anyone concentrated against the Imperials might interrupt slave trading/escapes like his), and the criminal slips away at some point. Fleeing when you know a spy and his friends is a bad idea. Through either Natirru directly, Kaliyo through Doc through Flow, or Oberon’s highly sensitive apprentice Jaesa (via the Vette connection through Risha), a plan is put into place to assassinate him before he can go back to enslaving children. If Ivory DOES resurface, we can simply assume this attempt fails.
There’s little to say about the conclusion to the original story on Ilum. There’s a window of relative peace for the unlikely quartet and their crews after Malgus is dealt with (both sides choosing to awkwardly look the other way at a mixed task force taking him down). Abric loses track of his fleet, so wrapped up is he in seeing to his loved ones and also not really in a grand scale leadership mindset yet. He might have delegated oversight to someone like Risha or Akaavi, or taken advantage of his lover’s double agent status to give the SIS a powerful new tool. But, no, this falls by the wayside (this is to explain a persistent bug later in the story; even if it gets patched in the future, Abric still experienced the bugged version and I’m keeping it). He proposes to Natirru again, not with a ring, but with a salvaged HK droid he rebuilt himself. Yeah, he’s proud of that one.
Natirru says yes, of course. But it will have to wait. He's a double agent again for real, and getting himself out of the Empire will curtail his usefulness to the SIS. Also, he can't just leave Oberon there, and he's in the prestigious position of being the Emperor's
Expansions: Rise of the Hutt Cartel-Shadow of Revan
Their mission to stop the scheming of the Hutt Cartel on Makeb doesn't have any major departures from canon. Flow definitely needed more rest than he got before the story picks up again, and from what time they're able to steal with their secret Imperial boyfriends, they're struggling, too. It will get so much worse before it gets better, and so far Abric has been spared from the worst of it.
The status quo carries on for about a year, and then something very strange happens.
-Flavor: The Incursion on Korriban/Assault on Tython Flashpoint pair happen as presented, except they're forewarned about it. They send one another urgent encrypted messages, essentially saying "I can't get out of this one, I hope you're not on Korriban/Tython right now". Mere minutes apart. Natirru says it reeks of conspiracy, and when Theron and Lana gather them on Manaan (and are pleasantly surprised their teams know each other already--if a bit suspicious), he's proven right. Just not the conspiracy he thought it was.
Rishi
The picture, as it relates to Abric and the legacy, really starts to come together on the tropical planet Rishi, where they pose as a gang of fearsome pirates, the Red Hulls. Abric, with his natural spacer presence, falls into the role of captain, and comes up with explanations for the others. Nobody advises Natirru he would be undercover, so he shows up in uniform. Abric tells the first person to ask that the uniform is his prized trophy, and they'd better shut up if they don't want him (big, imposing presence that he is) to break them like he broke its previous owner. The two Force adepts' truth makes the foundation for the most convincing cover of all: they've turned to outlaw spacer life because both their orders would spurn their love.
And Abric acting as the captain nudges itself slightly into more than a role. He keeps things on track when friction rises between Natirru and Flow--the professional spy trying desperately to work with an over-sensitive Jedi who chafes at the fear and disgust people feel when they look at them and nearly blows their cover for it. The other three are still loosely following his lead when their efforts take them to the ruins and plateaus of Yavin 4 to confront their foe: Darth Revan himself, spirit split in the Force and a cult risen to aid him in his goal of resurrecting the Emperor in order to slay him for good. Never mind that resurrecting him would drain the moon of all life!
Pretenses drop here, so far as their relationships are concerned. Flow and Oberon are in too rattled a state to hide the fact they rely on one another for emotional support (the Emperor's presence is everywhere on this rock!), and Abric and Natirru figure that if the coalition is forced to accept a Jedi and a Sith holding hands, what harm could his relationship with an agent be? The four of them get results, and they all have bigger problems to worry about right now.
Ziost
...And they just keep getting bigger. The four of them converge on Ziost as the Emperor drives its population lethally mad, fueling a ritual to annihilate the entire planet. They fight bravely, of course, and evacuate as many as they can. Abric even scores a low blow on the Emperor as he taunts them--his allies had more pertinent taunts to make, but he is the one to find his voice first, and the thing he says to upset Emperor Vitiate for the distraction they need?
Something to the tune of, "All of this? I dunno...seems like you're compensating for something."
And it works. Tension cracked, Emperor distracted, and also humiliated for rising to such lowbrow bait.
I told you he'd do it again. (this isn't terribly important story-wise, but character-wise?)
Of course, there is no victory on Ziost. There is nothing anyone can do. Life is drained from the planet utterly as Abric and his allies watch from orbit. It will take much more than a crude joke to lift the weight of a planet going Force-dead before the eyes of ones strong in it.
Zakuul Arc
Knights of the Fallen Empire notes
Primary takeaways:
-Until recently, Abric has been the C story in the grand scheme of things. However, as he’s seen the strain on his buddies facing wider-ranging concerns, he’s stepped forward to take the lead more often, building on the precedent set back between chapters 2 and 3. Now, it’s about to be put to the test.
AU: As far as canon is concerned, the seven people who aren’t the player’s chosen class vanished when Zakuul invaded and caught the entire galaxy off guard. Not so here. While the people who aren’t Abric here do indeed lose contact with their crew, they’re still very much involved in the search for Abric while he’s taking the second carbonite nap of his story (the first one was deliberate reference. This one’s just a bonus.)
-As if the universe has suddenly realized it’s missed someone while handing out trauma, Abric finds himself at the forefront he’d only caught awful secondhand glimpses of through his loved ones’ battered psyches. Now he’s got the Emperor’s ghost in his head! But Abric isn’t one to openly despair. He makes the most of it. Like never, ever letting Valkorion/Vitiate live down the thing on Ziost where he successfully baited him with a dick joke. Best of all, he seems weaker than he was when he enthralled Flow. He must have Abric’s permission to take control of his body, and he sure as hell won’t give it!
He’s not stuck with you, old man. You’re stuck with him.
(I mean, yeah, having a mental passenger makes bedroom stuff awkward and there's no privacy anywhere else and it's pretty sucky all around. He owes him one, too, unfortunately. Got himself impaled on a lightsaber and Valkorion kept him alive and aided in recovery. Which tells Abric he needs him, for better or worse. Better him than poor Flow again…)
Flavor: It turns out, that’s his leadership style, really. Appealing to things both sides can relate to. Sure, Flow or Oberon make for a more inspiring figure, but Abric finds himself uniquely suited to leading in his own right. Everyone can laugh at a stupid joke. Everyone can relate to love and family and wanting a cold drink after a day of hard work. Everyone can find fulfillment in music and stories and games and cards. Abric appeals to the least common denominator, both good and bad. And Flow and Oberon, though they never say it, are relieved to be able to hang back for once, no weights on their shoulders. (Flow in particular--he fell into a depressive slump in the five year timeskip that makes him much weaker in the Force for a while.)
-Threat of Zakuul aside, Abric realizes quickly he has something valuable on his hands: the ability to get Natirru and Oberon away from the Empire that traumatized them so and keep them away. He’s much more invested in this Alliance than he ever was in his now-forgotten pirate fleet. In fact, he never would have been invested at all if not for them. He would have hated every second of it, wanting nothing more than to hand it all off to Lana and Theron and taken to the stars again the second the threat was over. (Which the player can't do, either...)
-Something interesting happens when he has a fateful meeting with an unusual pair: a microcosm of his own Alliance, the Jedi Satele Shan and the spirit of Darth Marr, who perished in the same fight that got him sealed in carbonite five years prior. They guide him through making a weapon. Not a lightsaber; he’s no good for those. It’s a blaster. A Force gun. (Dumbest thing you've ever heard, right? Don't let him hear you say yes.) Not as useful as an attuned lightsaber; he doesn’t have the same type of feedback an actual Force adept would have with their blade. But he can call it to his hand from short distances (say, its holster) and he’s attuned to the crystal inside. Which translates into being very attached to his gun. He's named it Glimmer. You know, like, of light, of hope. It sounded better in his head. But it was like the name stuck once he said it. It’s a curiosity that has the Force Enclave in the Alliance interested, wanting to experiment and test him, while all he wants to do is go out and bust some more Zakuulan butt and get them out of everyone’s way.
KOTET notes
Primary takeaways:
-Abric really hurts Natirru there with the whole brainwashing thing. They talk it out later, of course (the wedding goes on! they still love each other! these are grown men who can talk out their feelings!), but given the relentless emotions of the plot from that point on it stews a while before they do.
-HE HAS THEIR SANCTUARY AT LAST HE DID IT. Long live the Eternal Alliance! (It may, but not at this strength...)
-He's not talking about why his mindscape is a brittle gray wasteland even after he gathers himself back together. He's not even going to think about it. He's just fine. He's got to be fine. Look at how the Empire broke his family. He's the only one left. He has to be fine.
Traitor Arc
Battle for Iokath
-Abric doesn't want to choose a side. The point of the Alliance was to avoid that entirely. But they must side with one, or be destroyed by both. Abric has seen many times the power the two factions have combined against a common foe. He already knows he has to pick one. It still takes Lana bugging him until he does though. He brings it up with the others, Lana, and Theron, and eventually decides the Empire hasn't changed enough to earn his trust. Slavery was the dealbreaker way back when ruling a planet was something he actively balked at (in a reality where he'd be okay with a deeper commitment to her, he'd still end his romance with Risha because he wasn't out to be a king). And they still did that. That Twi'leks and other nonhumans seem to have better chances now does not change, in his view, the severity of having those who still wear collars.
AU: Quinn's lines are for Oberon--it's like he forgets Abric is even there. His Empress probably doesn't appreciate that much. Oberon tries to get Quinn to stop her, and is very pleasantly surprised when he actually attempts to do so. He returns later as a prisoner, and Abric allows him provisional Alliance membership under Oberon's direct command, once Oberon vouches for his loyalty to him (the man counted the days since he'd been in the Sith's company; Oberon hardly needed to do any vouching, himself). The scene is mostly the same as in-game except references to the Alliance Commander now refer to Abric rather than the warrior and are rewritten to match as needed. (AU Clarification: A non-Sith Warrior player cannot choose the Republic on Iokath and gain Quinn as a companion)
-With news of a traitor, the legacy again faces a difficult decision. Natirru is the only one who seems even remotely tempted by the idea of surveillance, but when called out, admits he was letting his concern for Abric cloud his judgment.
A Traitor Among Chiss
AU: Abric makes the call to imprison Syndic Zenta. In addition to the letter Abric gets from Saganu expressing his disappointment, he also sends a letter to Natirru, chiding him for allowing his alien husband to make this decision, ensuring the "perhaps you've forgotten where you come from" stays included.
The Nathema Conspiracy
AU?: No major departures until the very end, and even then I'll have to try to see what happens when multiple people run this one? Because there are exactly three more chairs at the end than are actually filled, so in this case there will be three extra bodies--a heart-wrenching(?) class-specific person for each of the gang!
For Abric: Master Sumalee--apparently this is bugged, and he was supposed to get someone different because he chose to focus his pirate fleet against the Empire rather than run it indiscriminately. But that's why I wrote in him just abandoning it to its own devices.
For Natirru: Shara. Definitely the hardest-hitting impact of the bunch.
AU: For Oberon: Darth Ravage. And nothing of value was lost. Since Oberon isn't the Commander, his problem with him is that the Wrath has gone rogue (he's the second one in a row!!) rather than for killing the Emperor since Abric's the one who slew Valkorion. So he actually has words for Abric, too, despite never having met him.
For Flow: Playthrough pending
No matter how you slice it, the Eternal Alliance is severely weakened now. Abric will have to fight that much harder to keep his loved ones safe in his sanctuary.
Selling Out?
In fact, he can't now. A planet as steeped in the Force as Odessen, with a naturally even balance of it and a climate perfect for agriculture, is a prize for both orders. Galactic supplies are dwindling, Zakuul's reign having drained much. And with people leaving the Alliance now that the threat of Zakuul is truly over, with their original homes ramping up tension between them once again, Abric's running out of resources, too. They won't be able to defend themselves if someone comes after them.
AU: Lana tells Abric the Republic will remember him breaking the Senator Dodonna scandal wide open, and they can add the thing with Saresh on there, too, to fit the theme. Maybe even reveal the Belsavis leaks were him and his husband? If they welcome him as a hero, they might respect him enough--or have to publicly show they do--to let him do his own thing while protecting his planet from potential threats.
And here's the biggest AU point of them all. The entire legacy is in the Republic Loyalist timeline. Sure, an SIS agent tries to get Natirru back into the double agent game, then tries to talk Oberon into it, but that attempt fails miserably. Imperial players obviously don't have this option. So far as espionage goes, Natirru is semi-retired. He can scout, heal, and fight if he has to, but he's done donning masks.
Still, Abric obviously hates it every step of the way, and when the Republic floats the idea of making Odessen a member world, possibly with himself as its senator, he refuses vehemently and without hesitation. His planet, his people. If they wind up being a crack mercenary team with a whole world as a home base, that's fine with him. He has too many ex-Imperials who can stand being ex-Imps (either too attached to the friends they've made--or in the also impossible instances of Quinn and Pierce, always followed--or disillusioned with their old life once away from it), but would never be Republic citizens, and he respects them too much to make that decision for them.
It's kind of like he's a privateer again! But infinitely more responsible this time. Where's the next corrupted Republic official he's gotta out?
Knights of the Fallen Empire: Legacy Notes
Date: 2025-11-21 06:42 am (UTC)Chapter 1
-The four arrive at Marr’s flagship together
-They fight together until the docking clamps, splitting up to ensure all four ships can break free. Only Abric is physically barred from returning to his ship.
-Oberon and Natirru were about to stay to try to assist, but Abric insists they get out of there--he’s stuck there, so he’ll do that job for them. Anyone who can escape should.
-The ongoing destruction prevents all but Natirru from returning to the flagship anyway, forcing them to depart. Natirru continues with Abric and Marr until he elects to stay behind to assist the wounded, and is prevented from returning to Abric by a fire erupting in the passage back. With no other choice, he takes an escape pod when Abric calls for evacuation, and hopes Abric can make it out alive, too...
-The following events, of course, play out only for Abric.
Chapter 2:
-In the five years that followed, the remaining three managed to regroup by reaching out to old contacts, and remained in hiding, sometimes with others, sometimes in Abric’s hidden goods stash on Manaan.
-They lost contact with most of their crews in the chaos, but Natirru retained Treek, HK, and his contract with Phrojo Nuray, and the three always stayed together even when said companions left for various reasons--almost always looking for Abric.
-HK found, instead, T7-01.
-Lana remains in contact with them on her search; they help to the best of their ability with Flow’s mental health in a critical state and Natirru’s metabolism alterations sapping him of his energy.
-And then Lana found Abric. She sets Natirru and the Force “kids” (they’ve both been adults for a while now) to finding and securing Abric’s ship.
Chapter 3:
-Slight difference in that Abric recognizes T7!
-Otherwise, no changes
Chapters 4-8:
-Abric remains separated from the rest of the legacy. He recognizes Scorpio but otherwise no changes.
-Reminder to self that Lana getting in touch with her network on Asylum includes the rest of the legacy! Probably coordinating flights and getting everyone to Odessen.
Chapter 9:
-Lana gets in touch with the others--they had already known she had succeeded in rescuing Abric, but she had told them to wait until she could establish a safe meeting place. Odessen is that place! There is a joyous reunion. Multiple, since Flow hadn’t seen T7 until just then, too, and Natirru had been likewise separated from Scorpio (though that reunion clearly isn’t as heartfelt)
-They get to work taking down the Star Fortresses Zakuul has installed over various planets to weaken its hold, gaining many new allies along the way. (This takes place over the course of several chapters, but a good chunk happens now) Abric discovers he’s had a sliver of Force-sensitivity that Valkorion being stuck in his mind has brought out. He can’t do much with it, barely able to muster it into a shockwave once under duress, but it’s there. Keep that in mind!
Chapter 10:
-Regardless of what Scorpio says, Natirru gets the feeling he knows who she’s talking about. He goes with Abric. I suspect that makes this meeting very different. (It does --Kaliyo’s outburst at Natirru is what happens instead of the usual non-agent confrontation, leading to some initial friction between her and Abric)
-Kaliyo’s speeder is a two-seater. Natirru may be the one most familiar with her, but Abric is the leader. On the other hand, Natirru is uniquely equipped to bypass automated life form detection...we’ll see if the agent version is significantly more interesting.
EDIT: Natirru got Kaliyo to back down from the killing of her own volition by appealing to the good in her. This MUST stay. Whether this means Abric hangs out in Kaliyo’s apartment or smuggles himself along somehow or shows up later like a big damn hero? Doesn’t matter. This is Natirru’s chapter now.
Chapter 11:
-There’s no reason the other legacy members couldn’t be part of this chapter. They can all go with Abric and Theron. Given the nature of the mission, Natirru accompanies Abric and Jorgan for the entire thing, while the two force kids assist in the distraction at the climax
Chapter 12:
-These events only concern Abric, of course. The others are as clueless and worried as everyone else back at the base.
-So, that sliver of Force-sensitivity his possession has awakened? Satele and Marr(‘s spirit) guide him in creating a Force crystal blaster and attuning to it, similar to the way a Force adept attunes to a lightsaber. It’s less profound, though, both because of the weapon’s construction and his weak affinity. It does, however, result in Abric feeling very attached to the weapon. Her name is Glimmer, and he’ll punch you if you call it stupid.
Chapter 13:
-Abric recognizes Vette, due to his prior association with Oberon, meaning he’s kinder about her pranks than he would have been if she’d been a total stranger, and she already has a stellar impression of him for being Risha’s friend. Gault insisted on bringing Abric alone for the first part, since he’s a veteran of underworld trade, himself.
-When the lockdown starts, the other three come running, and gathering the security spikes is a joint effort.
-Oberon very definitely gets his catch-up scene with Vette after the meeting, with appropriate changes (rather than being in stasis they destroyed their communicators in escaping the Eternal Fleet and were unable to get back in contact with each other)
-Oberon attempts to read Gault’s mind as part of the pre-op banter and regrets it. The other three are very amused.
-Literally everyone cracks jokes about how Abric’s retreading old ground, yes this deserved its own bullet point
-Break-in is done with a team of six, though Abric, Natirru, Gault, and Vette remain in stealth most of the time while Flow and Oberon make it appear there are only two assailants.
Chapter 14:
-As this chapter deals with a large-scale assault, there’s room for the entire legacy once again.
Chapter 15:
-Once again, the entire legacy is along for the ride! The party is split at the first blast door close: Only Oberon makes it through with Abric and Scorpio, and Flow and Natirru remain with Lana and Theron to assist them on Abric’s orders, even when Lana sends Senya to assist Abric and Oberon. Natirru feels he might have been able to see something unusual in Scorpio’s behavior had he been there, after the fact.
As for the prisoners, Malita Tal was the unfortunate victim.
Chapter 16:
-The agent has a specific line here about being sloppy that Natirru would absolutely interject with. The exchange he has with Kaliyo happens as well as Abric’s input on the matter.
-Generally speaking, the whole legacy has a high opinion of Vette’s effect on morale, so they agree to leave her with Kaliyo and Jorgan, feeling Torian or Gault would only escalate any problems that arise.
-Nobody thinks to assign the other legacy members to strike teams. Flow and Natirru gravitate to helping Torian (believing he’s likelier to be reckless), while Oberon sticks with Abric, Senya, and Lana. It’s too late by the time they realize nobody’s joined Gault, but he manages alone.
-Oberon remains behind with Lana to hold off the attacking knights, leaving Abric’s Destined Solo Battle as intended.
Shroud of Memory:
-This otherwise has nothing to do directly with any of them, but the Shroud’s frustration is directed specifically at Flow, as he’s the one who did the macrobinocular quests. One can infer Rusk’s command of the conscripts could have been his doing specifically to demoralize Flow, knowing that would be the easiest route after he failed to kill him on Marr’s flagship. His frustration at Abric returning, therefore, is shallower, but still present. I can’t believe I had to write a legacy canon caveat for this chapter.
Knights of the Eternal Throne Legacy Notes
Date: 2025-11-23 07:49 am (UTC)Chapter 1:
-No reason the entire legacy can't be there, though only Abric gets to pilot the Storm Rider. The others support him on foot.
Chapter 2:
-The entire legacy goes to Dromund Kaas, but aside from that, no changes--he's the only one lost of the four.
-The others join Theron and Lana in surrounding Saresh, and as each begins to make his demand--confessions or just answers--Abric interrupts the first words out of her mouth by punching her. Not even Flow can find it in himself to be upset, already raw at having dealt with everyone else's grief.
Chapter 3:
-Everyone's on the Gravestone for this one! Otherwise, no notable changes. Natirru gets to say the "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy line" in response to Abric relaying what Valkorion had revealed. Therefore, it's less aggressive than when an agent says it to Valkorion. He's been reminded: he married a victim of brainwashing.
Chapter 4:
-The party is well and truly separated on Iokath. They regroup when Theron gets ahold of them all as normal. No changes except the presence of a few extra people, and Natirru goes with Abric and Vette. Let's see how this changes things.
-Answer: Not much, except Abric is kinder and more tolerant of Scorpio because of his presence.
Chapter 5: (note: Flow's run is still here, have seen nothing from Knight perspective past this point)
-Only Abric goes in the Colossus Droid, of course.
-All of them go to stop Aries, along with Vette.
Chapter 6:
-Figuring there isn't safety in numbers here, only Abric and Theron infiltrate the party. Natirru assists Lana and T7, and Flow and Oberon remain in the shuttle just in case.
-Abric grew up being the scrappy underdog. Relishing every ounce of footing won against all odds. Of course he'd announce Vaylin's trigger-phrase with a slight edge of vindictive glee. Watching over holo, Natirru is...unhappy.
-When Arcann arrives and blasts the windows open, Flow and Oberon leave the shuttle to rejoin Abric. They all converge to assist Arcann against the Horizon Guard.
-They keep the exoboars Abric managed to befriend while he was undercover. One for each of the core legacy crew! Bergola the leader for Abric, energetic Rompy to keep Flow moving, Lil' Jwizzix recognizes Oberon as the local animal lover, and Brick realizes Natirru is the one with the best treats.
-New pets do not dim the hurt. Natirru is distant to Abric for a while, and it honestly doesn't take much to see why.
Chapter 7:
-They all go, but Flow only makes it partway through before the despair becomes too much. Natirru remains behind with him to ensure his safety while Abric and Oberon press onward with Lana.
-When Vaylin's attempt to break her conditioning goes awry, Flow senses her sudden spike in suffering and is able to warn Natirru. As the death fog begins to spread, the two hurry to catch up to the others--Abric had already begun to go back for them and meets them in the fog. They emerge--to a rather harrowed Lana's relief--and rush for the vaults. Once in safety, Flow's reserves of strength give out again, and he spends much of the next segment carried in Natirru's arms, teetering on the very edge of madness. His Force empathy literally has no off switch and this is a Force-dead world marked only by Vaylin's suffering.
-They all encourage Abric to free Dramath, though--most of all the otherwise insensate Flow.
Chapter 8:
-Flow has no time to recover before they're thrust into combat. They refuse to leave him somewhere for the enemy to pick off from the air, though, so he comes with them. Thankfully, battling under immense pressure is something he's done for a long, long time now. The immediacy of combat keeps him together, for now, but Nathema has hollowed him.
-They consider splitting their forces to save both Vette and Torian, but the injuries they've sustained to this point, physical or otherwise, ensure whoever doesn't go with their healer will die along with whoever they're going to help. Even Oberon's considerable survivability isn't enough, between the mental and physical battering he's taken between this chapter and the last. Forced to choose as one, they save Vette, and ultimately themselves; anyone who had survived to reach Torian would not have survived a battle against Vaylin without the others.
Chapter 9:
-Natirru remains on Odessen to heal the wounded, and Flow is no longer in any condition to fight. He is taken to the Force Enclave in hopes that someone's healing techniques will get through to him. Oberon remains at his side, leaving Abric to make this final journey without them.
-Flow and Oberon feel it when Valkorion is vanquished though.
-Lana has to mention dissolving Sith Intelligence brainwashing programs at some point!
Aftermath:
-Everyone rounds up their class-specific companions as they pop up. Vette finally reunites with Risha once again.
-Arcann gives Oberon his handcrafted armor even if Abric's the Commander. He recognizes that if anyone or anything will protect the man who gave him a second chance he didn't deserve, it will be Oberon. Besides, he and Oberon are already bonding over their shared history of abuse and recovery, and the depth of their gratitude to their loved ones, expressed in an oath to protect them.
-Now that they're effectively a whole separate government (who'd have thought!), Abric and Natirru finally formalize their marriage.
-Hinted above but at some point during the interlude Oberon proposes to Flow as well.
-Insert Uprisings here I guess?
-idk misc. shit to go here later, let these people fucking rest for a while.