Nico Okaar wears a Stetson while piloting a star-ship. Cowboys didn't need to look up...
Maybe he takes it off normally.
Real-life hats like that only barely obscure your vision. Presumably he moves his neck like everyone else to look up.
The use of Evil Brit accents for the Empire seems strange when Republic stalwarts like Bastila, Admiral Forn Dodonna, Atris, and many more in KOTOR use a British accent, taking place 300 years prior before this Empire was revealed. Passing off the British accent as being from Dromund Kaas is a blatant continuity error seeing as the British accent was established as Coruscanti in works preceding SWTOR. Sorry BioWare, you screwed up.
NR-02 on the Black Talon casually mentions among his functions are "manslaughter and calumniation." He expresses in Machine Monotone not to worry about any injuries among the crew of the ships, as their deaths would be statistically insignificant. If the players kill the captain for treason, they later return to the ship to find all but two of the crew dead, and those two suspiciously mute despite falling all over themselves trying to server the party. He has eight restraining bolts, when one has been shown to be sufficient mind control. In other words, he's a Killer Robot whose function is to cause slaughters for propaganda, has followed the party killing any survivors of their own crew, may have executed nearly all other survivors while the party was away, and requires seven redundant failsafes because even his master doesn't want him getting loose.
Actually, those eight bolts on NR-02 are present on other droids with his model, and variations of them on other types of protocol droids. It's likely that they're simply part of his structure. It's still not too far fetched that the droid specializing in "manslaughter" is responsible for the corpses at his feet.
What's worse about NR-02 is that both he and Moff Kilran imply that he has actually been present on Black Talon for some time before the party's arrival. Furthermore, Kilran implies that droids like NR-02 are actually Killer RobotSleeper Agents who have been stationed on Imperial vessels to pose as protocol droids, all the while screening for suitable individuals to recruit for Imperial Black Ops missions.
In a late-game Flashpoint, it is revealed that Revan, with the aid of the Republic, was building an unstoppable army of battle droids that were intended to stop the Sith Empire once and for all. And how does he plan to do that? By programming the droid army to hunt down and kill ANYONE with even the slightest Sith ancestral heritage in their genes. And according to HK-47, that accounts for about 97.8% of the entire Imperial population. That in itself is already horrifying but the more you think about it, the worst it gets. Since the droid army will also target light-sided Sith Lords, Imperial citizens that either wants to reform the Empire or were simply born into it against their will, and worst of all even defectors to the Republic. Now consider this: When you are playing as an male republic Trooper, your love interest Elara Dorne, was a defector. Just think about this for a moment, Revan, the hero of the Knights of the Old Republic, is willing to kill your lover/wife and the children that the two of you are planning to have together in the name of 'saving lives'.
The same goes for a male Jedi Knight, since Kira was born from a Sith family.
Although it is questionable just how much the Jedi and Republic know of Revan's plans for the Foundry.
Worse, think of how much side-swapping goes on in that universe. You'd kill off a signifigant chunk of the Republic as well. Something tells me that Revan was deluding himself about "holding back" the Emperor, as something like that would suit the Emperor's grander plan to wipe out every other living thing in the galaxy.
One of the planets that you will get to visit in the game is Belsavis, a nightmarish penal colony prison world that holds some of the worst and most dangerous criminals in the entire galaxy. In addition to the prison being staffed by corrupt and abusive guards, the entire world is filled with death traps leftover by the ancient Infinite Empire. Also, the prisoners held there live in appalling conditions. For example, in one of your missions, you are authorized to offer one of the prisoners improve living conditions in exchange for his cooperation, and said improvement is that he will now be allowed to take ONE bath per-week. And what is the worst part about this? Belsavis is controlled and run by the Republic! Now just imagine of the Republic treats their prisons like this, how much worse things are in the Empire. Being taken alive as a prisoner of war by the Imperials can easily be a Fate Worse Than Death.
The worst part of this is: the Republic is implied to be actually worse. Imperial Intelligence finds many documents showing that the Republic had been pitting various alien prisoners against each other in gladitorial combat, not for punishment, but to find out and record the strengths and weaknesses of each race. When the Imperial scientist finds out, he is horrified, not because it's so heartless, but because he had come up with the idea years earlier but the Empire refused it, believing that such an act would yield no valuable data and is a waste of potential laborers.
This is actually confirmed Republic side, where a quest involves finding out the details of the games and the character either deciding to let the senator, the prison official and their team of scientists continue or putting a lid on the whole thing.
Not to mention all the nasty creatures and Rakata technology they've been gleefully tinkering with.
Oh, and any children or grandchildren born to the prisoners is incarcerated for life as a maximum security inmate with no chance of parole, despite never having done a crime. This is to keep the prison Top Secret. The Warden the Consular meets blows it off, saying in effect "they were born to scum, they're just more scum." Apparently, the Republic borrowed Taris's penal code.
Tellingly, Imperial players get to repeatedly call out the Republic for the things done on Belsavis, being both appalled and impressed that the Republic had the stomach to do such things.
Particularly damning is the Republic's decision to fake the death and imprison a highly popular Cathar Prince, who was one of the leading voices amongst the Cathar who opposed the decision to join the Republic. After being broken out of stasis and finding out he's been trapped for 20 years, he vows to tell everyone what the Republic did to him, meaning if he and his supporters weren't pro-Imperial before, they definitely are now!
A lot of the romance that you can pursue in the game falls under the category of Unequal Pairing. For the Force-sensitive classes, male characters are romancing their current or former apprentices. In the Imperial agent, Republic trooper (and keeping in mind the nature of the Jedi/Sith, those classes as well) storylines, the player character is a commanding officer romancing soldiers under his/her charge. Sith lords belong in an elevated social caste compared to their non-Force-sensitive romanceable companions, a Twi'lek slave, a disgraced Imperial officer, and a space-pirate Republic defector. While this is all warm and fuzzy, an underlying power disparity always overshadows relationship. Worst of all, as demonstrated in this video of the Sith warrior storyline stating at at 6:05, a ruthless enemy can easily exploit your relationship as a weakness against you. Imagine if someone threatens to murder your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife unless your character does exactly as they say. Even if you have a super tough, unbreakable and light-sided character, do you think they can actually live with watching their loved ones killed in front of them? Perhaps there is a good story reason to not pursue a romantic relationship with any of your party members after all...
It gets even worse when one looks at the way the relationship system works in this game. Or more specifically, the fact that gifts that fit a character's likes are more effective in many cases than actually gaining their affection through conversations. Not to mention that affection lost through conversations is usually very minute, and easily overwhelmed by the gifts you can give. Meaning you can screw with your companions all you want, making decisions you know they dissaprove of, while keeping their affection high by giving them small trinkets.
After getting a Sith Pureblood character to level 50, you can play a Sith Pureblood Jedi. Ha-ha, very funny joke...except, especially with a Jedi Knight, a lot of the storyline of the Jedi classes is about what the Sith did to the Jedi during the war. So while characters don't actually treat your character any differently (in fact, they treat them as human...), you can imagine that your character might be hiding their heritage, or having to deal with people casually saying how terrible their race is (actually referencing the organization of the Sith Empire, but virtually no one ever adds "pureblood" when speaking about the species) and witnessing first hand just what their ancestors—possibly even their parents!—did to their adoptive society.
Once you've completed the romance quest for a companion and married them, they will give you companion gifts, with a startling trend toward delivering things that should interest your character class, if not your specific character.
During the trooper's storyline, part of Elara's loyalty quest involves her being forced to put up with a Jerk AssObstructive Bureaucrat from Personnel Division that accuses her of being an Imperial spy who faked her defection, even though he has absolutely no evidence. But when you play though the other classes' storylines you will discover that the Imperials were excellent Spy Masters that managed to infiltrate ever part of Republic society, even the senate and the Jedi Order for the past 1000 years. That realization suddenly puts the behavior of that officer in a different light, instead of him just being a racist jerk, he was merely being Properly Paranoid and the entire affair being a tragic case of a Knight Templar going after the wrong person due to himself being a victim of Wrong Genre Savvy.
Honestly, Easily Forgiven for defectors is such a common trope in Star Wars the subversions are more notable. Now, originally, it was because the Rebellion couldn't afford to turn away help, but that nuance seems to have been forgotten by writers, and by now, it's just standard.
Another interpretation might be that Kalor was potentially a spy himself, trying to use his position in relation to Dorne to gain access to information regarding Havoc Squad's activities. This can't have been the first time that a defector was ever inserted into covert or spec ops (and if it was there should have been more fanfare about it). There should have been decisive limitations to Kalor's authority and involvement, if said involvement should not have been severed outright immediately once Dorne came under Garza's authority. Kalor therefore most likely knew what he was doing, and likely had ulterior motives.
It has been said that this game is more of a spin-off to the Knights of the Old Republic games, which is fair enough considering those were single player experiences and this is an MMO. But look at it as if it were a true sequel, making it the third game in the series. The first KOTOR was very A New Hope in feel and tone, infamous plot twist not withstanding, and all you need look at is the cinematic for the good ending to see proof of that, since it was very much channeling the award ceremony of Episode IV. KOTOR 2 was unquestioningly Darker and Edgier, essentially being one huge deconstruction of everything star wars, and ending on a very somber note... just like Empire Strikes Back. So since The Old Republic is the third in the series... Think about it. Doesn't it make a lot of sense from a thematic point?
Despite everything Tharan Cedrax has seen with both the Jedi Consular and Master Syo, he is very skeptical about The Force, and really dislikes it when the Consular quotes Jedi mysticsm or uses Force Persuade. It may sound strange for him to be such a Flat Earth Atheist. But think on this; his field of expertise is strange and unusual technology from lost or obscure civilizations. Many of these things probably found their way into CargoCults across the galaxy where the so-called "experts" were little more than silly priests of the cargo cults. Worse, the only people who know anything about the Force are a bunch of Jedi mystics spouting IceCreamKoans as far as he can understand them, or Drunk On The Darkside Sith, both of which will never let a Muggle like him within a meter of it to study it and figure out how it works. An entire field of fascinating scientific possibilities are being swung around in front of him and he can't do anything about it because he wasn't (un)fortunate enough to have a high midichlorine count.
Lt. Iresso and a pal of his were briefly captured by the Imperials, had a holocron forcibly downloaded into their heads, and all but let go without explanation. Iresso questions why they did this to him, a no-name, Force-insensitive Republic grunt. No, Felix. They did this to you because you were a no-name, Force insensitive Republic grunt. A Force Sensitive would be sent over to the Inquisitors to be converted to the ranks of the Sith. A Republic officer of any value would be interrogated, ransomed, or both. And considering how useful the Children of the Emperor are for causing the Republic trouble, the Sith would want to find new and better ways to make sleeper agents that did not need Darth Cthulhu's personal attention. A no-name grunt that keeps getting shuffled from command to command would make an excellentManchurian Agent.
One of the common complains that fans of the classic Knights of the Old Republic have towards this game is that your can't really feel like The Chosen One when you know in a meta level that there are thousands of other people running around doing the same thing as you. Also, due to the game being a MMO instead of a single player RPG, there is a limit to the level of impact that your choices can have in affecting the overall storyline (no matter what you do, the character's story remain largely the same, and you can't affect the story in a large way). Then it hit me. That is EXACTLY the entire point! The Great Galactic War is meant to be a historical period in the Star Wars Expanded Universe in which both the Jedi/Republic and the Sith/Empire are at the height of their power militarily. In any other historical period, a single Player Character can win the war for their side. However, after decades of continuous war, in this point of history the entire universe has become a such a World of Badass to the point that even all the Mary Sue and Marty Stukeep getting in each other's way! Therefore, your character and crew might try their utmost to win the war for your faction, but at that very moment, someone else on the other side is doing something else to balance out the impact that your action have caused, resulting in war dragging on, with everything remaining happily screwed. Because that's the way we like it, and the only way for the game to continue without an ending.
