This is a chronicle of our absurd, canon-destroying playthrough of Star Wars Conquest, a mod for sandbox RPG Mount & Blade, originally published in 2014. We brought it back for the holidays.
To summarize the adventure so far:
- I am a Droid Jedi, wandering the universe with a band of brave but ultimately disposable space-brigands
- I became sparring buddies with Grand Moff Tarkin, inaugurating a friendship of deep respect and admiration
- Minutes later, Grand Moff Tarkin killed all my dudes and shot me a bunch
My pride and HP wounded by intergalactic jerkbag Grand Moff Tarkin, I slink back to the comfort of the cantina, hoping to find refuge in drink. Perhaps companionship will await me here, fellow warriors disillusioned by the haphazard scripting that's native to this strange, anything-goes Star Wars negaverse.
I walk up to the bar.
Ho! What's this? A fellow droid. I power on B-2HO, not bothering to wonder why he's turned off in the middle of a cantina. He immediately calls me “master.” The notion of droids subjugating their own is unsettling, but I seem to finally have a real friend, someone who understands me, and will fight/die loyally alongside me. I add B-2HO to my party as a companion character.
Being a droid Jedi certainly has its value: I can pay people to be my friends and lose blood for me. Are there more space friends that I can buy here? I wander over to a table.
Oh dear. My comment is apparently so offensive that EVERYONE in the cantina simultaneously erupts into violence. Armed men draw weapons. Unarmed men draw fists. Everyone starts stabbing or punching whoever they were just talking to.
I try to separate myself from the fray, but a Wookiee and one or two other patrons assault me. I cut them down, muttering "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry."
Then the brawl takes a strange turn: the cantina's Hutt bartender comes after me. The bar must have insulated him from the violence. The accidental end game boss of the cantina stares at me across the room, his eyes conveying a deep anger at lost revenue. He wabbles around, unusually agile.
I raise my sidearm. I fire into the unanimated blob of Hutt-shaped geometry. Zero damage. I fire. Zero damage. Fire. Zero damage. Fire. The Hutt-mound looms closer.
Let the record show that I drew my lightsaber only when I believed I was going to be eaten. I swing.
The bartender-blob spills over like a pudding cup. My relations with the Hutt Cartel dip by a few points. This is what happens when I try to make friends who aren't droids: a room full of lightsaber-scarred corpses. Even B-2HO lies on the floor, mangled but still operational. I buy a Jedi robe and cape to make myself feel better. It doesn't work.
I flee the planet, and quickly get to work recruiting from nearby planets and moons to build a new army. I desperately need credits. What's the fastest way to get credits in Star Wars Conquest? Razing and looting minor planets guarded by farmers and civilians, duh. I take everything from a few undefended worlds: melons, wheat, hyperspanners, cartons of “death sticks,” which raise the already low morale of my troops. I leave them nothing, selling off their belongings for a few thousand credits.
Guilt creeps in. I realize how dangerously close I am to becoming a full-on space viking. I'm a Jedi—I need to uphold those values. As an act of reparation, I take a mission from a planet administrator to help a band of farmers fight off a pack of bandits. I slide along the desert in my landspeeder, felling many Black Sun pirates. B-2HO is ecstatic in battle, consumed by the adrenaline surge that only rural victory can bring.
Miraculously, my good deeds are immediately recognized: Mon Mothma, aka the war mom of the Rebel Alliance, sends me a message.
A commander lord? Dantooine Moon? How can I refuse? I start the long journey to Dantooine to pledge loyalty to the Rebel Alliance.
