Headscratchers / Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

• Why does Cal split his dominant saber from the shoto when using the Single Blade Stance? He didn't do that in Fallen Order. Why bother now?
  • ? Well it’s not like he’s using the other half?
  • In the first game he didn't really have a choice since Jaro's lightsaber was all one piece that was only able to split near the endgame. By the time that happened Cal probably wasn't skilled or proficient enough to constantly switch between Single and Double/Dual Wield.
  • Between games he might have found that he preferred using the shorter hilt while using a single blade, especially since he would have been used to that style from his years of training. Also, if by chance he was disarmed while using a single blade, keeping it split means he has a backup available.
• Does the Crossguard Stance's slowness actually make sense in-universe? Shouldn't a blade made of pure plasma be weightless?
  • Probably a Kyber crystal thing.
  • It could also be Cal using the Force to increase his strength/weight for heavier strikes.
  • Lightsaber blades clearly have some weight to them in the Original and Sequel trilogies. We also don't really know how lightsaber blades work, some fans have speculated there may be some kind of gyroscope-like stabilization that gives the illusion of weight.
• Why couldn't the Senator in the opening mission just wipe the classified data from his computer while he was adrift in this yacht? Sure, the EMP disabled flight controls, but indoor electronics seemed to work just fine, hence the hologram galaxy map lighting up. No reason he couldn't just delete the files, or, somehow failing that, smash the hard drive.
  • He probably assumed they wouldn’t get in. Or that they wouldn’t be able to access the files. He DID think he could capture a Jedi after all.
• How is Dagan able to provide lightsabers for the Bedlam Raiders?
  • Making a lightsaber isn’t hard in Star Wars. Realistically, if you had the knowledge and knew the parts needed, anyone could make a lightsaber. However, that doesn’t mean that anyone can USE a lightsaber (a completely weightless blade isn’t something people can get used to easily), nor does it mean they can get a Kyber crystal for the actual blade. That said, lightsaber crystals CAN be synthetically made, and it would not surprise me if there were various broken/damaged lightsabers scattered around Koboh for the Raiders to salvage parts/crystals from.
    • Synthetic kyber is highly unstable, to the point of being explosive.
  • It is mentioned in one of the tactical enemy guides that Rayvis is gifting his best lieutenants with lightsabers from his collection that he put together from the Jedi he killed.
  • Considering the number of Jedi structures on Koboh, it’s possible that the raiders had found a bunch of lightsabers left over from the High Republic era.
• How did the Nihil get to Tantalor in the first place? From what’s been stated most of the game, you need a Compass to get through the Abyss, and Cordova said that only three were unaccounted for (which you find in various High Republic Jedi facilities throughout the game). Yes, there’s also the possibility of using the Arrays to force a path, but the message that Khri left for Dagan makes me think that was something that came into being AFTER Dagan was sealed away. So, how did they get there? And, for that matter, how did they learn of Tantalor in the first place?
  • The Nihil’s method of travel might have allowed them to bypass the Abyss. Their Paths allow them to go places normal hyperspace travel does not allow after all. And as for how they found out about it, they might not have even KNOWN the Jedi were faffing about there. They might have just decided to look to see what’s in the Abyss.
• Why is the lightsaber of almost every Jedi in this series blue? Is it just the easiest color to animate or something?
  • Blue lightsabers are just a popular part of Star Wars. Even green ones are a bit of a minority in the franchise.
• This isn't so much a headscratcher as an attempt to make sure I understand some unspoken elements of the plot. Do I have this right: while Bode was an Imperial spy the whole time, he was (more or less) genuinely working in concert with Cal until Cal decided to give Tanalorr to the Hidden Path? If they had followed the original plan, where they had just used Tanalorr as a sanctuary and place to hide from the Empire, Bode never would have betrayed the crew and they would have just lived out their days on Tanalorr. But when Cal decided to let the Hidden Path use it as a headquarters, Bode decided that would eventually and inevitably draw the Empire's attention, so he hatched his plan to use Cal to destroy his Imperial masters and take Tanalorr all for himself. Is that pretty much what everyone else understands as well?
  • Yeah, that pretty much sums things up.
  • Even his best-case scenario, which would involve just the Mantis's crew making it to Tanalorr, doesn't seem that great. That leaves five total people on the whole planet, which would get awful lonely...especially for Kata, who wouldn't have anyone her own age. It really seems like Bode was tunnel-visioned on his daughter's physical safety without considering that his intended solution wouldn't be good for her social and mental development, especially when it drills down to just the two of them. In short, he Didn't Think This Through.
  • It's possible Bode wasn't literally thinking that there would just be five people on the entire planet, just that it would be a small, isolated, peaceful sanctuary where he could stop fighting and his daughter would be safe. So the Mantis crew and Cal's other friends, some folks from Koboh, other potential people who just want to escape. Eventually Tanalorr might grow to a small settlement, but that's still a far cry from planet being used as the headquarters of an anti-Imperial resistance operation. But yes, once he's betrayed the team and you reach the final confrontation, his plan does seem to be that he and Kata will just live there alone, which obviously isn't very reasonable. Especially considering that Cal and Merrin are willing to offer him sanctuary, in spite of all he's done.
  • Bode also forgot the biggest detail of all: getting to Tanalorr required either an Abyssal Compass or the activation of the Koboh Arrays. And at that point, none of them even knew about the arrays, since no one had viewed Santari's message in full yet, though once they did, closing the path behind them would've been as easy as blowing up only one of the arrays to disable the backup method. It would've been physically impossible for the Imperials to chase them, barring Vader using his Plot Armor to blindly charge forth and stumble across a safe route. The only dilemma would've been getting Kata off Nova Garon without being pursued, but Bode could've just come clean to Cal about his ISB affiliation and asked him to help.
• Why does Cal need a pommel for the Crossguard Stance?
  • Perhaps it balances the weapon better? Or Cal doesn’t want to risk switching on the second blade by mistake.
• How was Cal wearing Denvik's uniform an effective disguise? I get that the Empire is embarrassingly incompetent, but Cal's face is plastered all over the holo-news and Denvik should have been the only officer of his rank on the Nova Garon station.
  • To be fair, the images we see of Cal are his Fallen Order appearance, compare that with his default appearance in Survivor, and it could be reasonably assumed that he could Clark Kent his way around the base.
• Why did Dagan bother bleeding his kyber crystal?
  • Probably to force more power out of it. Or he was just doing a maintenance check of his lightsaber, only for his conversation with Cal to pull all of his trauma to the surface and it just bled on its own as he continued ranting. Given he was basically a Dark Jedi at that point, the fact he'd corrupted his weapon didn't matter at all to him.
  • I saw it as him doing it deliberately as a symbolic gesture. We learn later that he had already betrayed the Jedi before he was put in stasis, bleeding the crystal would have been his way of officially cutting ties with them.
• It has to be asked: why exactly is Dagan Gera attacking Cal Kestis to begin with? Just look into Dagans' personal background: his only goal was to return to Tanalorr in order to establish a Jedi Enclave on a planet in a corner of the Galaxy that couldn't be reached through normal Hyperspace: making it an effective location for future generations of Padawans and Jedi Knights to receive training without being attacked by external forces. Then when the Nihil randomly arrived in orbit and forced the Jedi Order to retreat from Tanalorr; he wanted to stay behind and fight for the world only to be denied and betrayed by the Council of that era and left in stasis within a Bacta Tank. Cut to when Cal Kestis shows up: telling him that the Jedi Order had collapsed and the few remaining Jedi are being hunted down by the Galactic Empire and Cal wants Dagan to lead him to Tanalorr: with the hopes of bringing other surviving Jedi and Force-Sensitives to the world as well to restart their Order. Coupled with the fact that the Jedi Council that betrayed him is long dead and that Dagan had no clue Rayvis was still alive: Cal Kestis has given Dagan Gera a second chance to fulfill his original goal, along with the chance that this act of vindication would grant Dagan an informal promotion to Jedi Master due to his seniority as both a surviving Jedi from the High Republic Era and as the man responsible for first discovering Tanalorr and building the Jedi Enclave there.
  • Sadly, it's very likely Dagan had spent his time in stasis stewing in anger, resentment, and other such negative emotions that completely sucked him into the Dark Side. The very first thing he does is bleed his kyber crystal, essentially screaming his Dark Side affiliation to the galaxy. Dagan is done with the Jedi Order, and rejects any notion of letting Cal join him once it's clear the boy is intent on restoring it. And there's the Doyalist explanation of "we'd have no story", since Dagan allying the Bedlam Raiders with the Hidden Path would've made the rest of the game a cakewalk, with Vader and possibly Bode (who might have still gone Dark-Side-psycho) as the only real threats. Denvik would've been no more than a speed bump, and it's even possible Bode might never have turned on the group if he decided all the extra help would be enough to protect Kata from the Empire, meaning he would never alert Vader to the Hidden Path's location or try to steal the Abyssal Compass.
  • Additionally, there is one Jedi Council member from the High Republic era still alive who Dagan would still see as a problem: Yoda, who is well-known in and out of universe for his fundamentalist views on the Jedi Order and its code, and was almost certainly among the council members who voted to surrender Tanalorr to the Nihil. Given the extreme longevity of Yoda's species, Dagan had every reason to believe the old frog was potentially still alive and would have attempted to meddle in whatever plans he and Cal put together, or worse, turn Cal against him.
• What were the Inquisitors doing all this time? In the game's opening, we see the Ninth Sister who acts as the first boss that ends up getting killed by Cal. But throughout the rest of the game; with the exception of Purge Troopers; the Inquisitors as a whole are nowhere to be seen. Even if you go with the argument that the majority of them were busy hunting Obi-Wan since the game apparently takes place the same year as Kenobi, You'd think that an active Jedi like Cal would be enough of a priority target that at least one Inquisitor would have been reassigned from the Kenobi hunt to go after the Mantis crew.
  • I think it's a case of Right Hand Versus Left Hand; the ISB, in this case Denvik, are dismissive of the Inquisitorious and want to prove that they are better at catching the surviving Jedi, so it's possible that, with Bode reporting to Denvik, he was deliberately obscuring reports of Cal to the Inquisitors so that he could catch him and discredit them.
    • Denvik also shows signs of witholding information from the Empire when he mentions that the archive invasion wasn't due for a few months. Whereas the Empire immediatly invades the archive the instant Bode informs them of it. Denvik was essentially planning to capture the largest amount of fish he could with one net.