Why and how does Watcher X help Cipher Nine?
When you meet Watcher X at the Shadow Town which is basically like a open prison you know about him that he feels traited by the Empire. That makes it astonishing that he helps you without any promblems (except the paranoia which caused that he was sent there). It isn’t that astonishing anymore when you find out that he has to do it since he is tortured with headaches when he dosn’t serve the Empire. But you get out by own experience that he is very inteligent when he uses your mission to escape from the Shadow Town. After that you can choose if you want to help him or kill him. In both cases he is helping you later on when the Republic uses the IX serum against you. (Question in passing why did I need almost two month to find out that IX ist the Latin number for nine what relates to your Charakter?) Since you don’t get a final answer in game I made some theories myself.
First I want to get out how he was able to help you what you can basically seperate into three points.
The first one is that he gets acess to your mind due to the poison and/or implants he gave you when he worked with you on Nar Shadaa. But there is the question why he has done it. If you think you can beliefe him that far he hasn’t had the plan to escape in the beginning of your mission but later on when he saw you work. So it were the implants for sure maybe in a mixture with the poison he gave you in the beginning of the quest. If this is the truth why has he done it? I can’t believe that he has done it in a good porpuse since he is too cold and calculating therfore so I think he wanted to have an advantage by doing it so that he can defeat you only with the power of your own thoughts. But there is still the oportunity that I think too bad about him. Since he informed you about his escape instead of just hiding from you he must have thought that you aren’t a normal agent and he has experienced himself what happens to people who work for Imperial Inteligence and aren’t like just obeying and nothing else. And that he acts perspicacious is obvious. (That can only be true when Cipher 9 left Watcher X alive because I don’t see how somebody without a body could use such a technique.) And I ask myself why Watcher X didn’t use this technique when I fought against him since it would have saved his life.
The second posibility is that Watcher X became something like a force ghost due to the experiments they did with him. This had enabled him to talk to Cipher nine freely without being concerned about the conditioning. But that seems unlikely since actually only stron force users can become force ghosts and Watcher X wasn’t capeble of using the force. If he were others would have noticed it or he had used it in the fight agains Cipher nine since it was clear that only one of them will leave the place and using the force would have made it easyer for Watcher X to be that one.
The third and in my eyes most likely case when you killed Watcher X is that he is only a delusion and the Agent goes mad. In addition to be more realistic compared to being a force ghost it might have logical reasons. First, you can say that Cipher Nine was stressed due to the occurences which hapened and the fact that he wasn’t able to ask anyone for helf even if he wanted to do it. This kind of inner tension makes it more likely to get delusions. More over, Cipher Nine is enabled to empathize with Watcher Nine. When you killed him than because he knew to much and was a potential danger who got tortured by headaches when he didn’t obey. Now you are almost in the same situation. You know a lot of things which the Republic, which only needs one word to get it from you, isn’t supposed to know. And you are in the situation since the Sith and the minister for Imperial Inteligence distrusted you for helping them and risking your life for them. That is also similar to the story of Watcher X when you regard Operation: Undertow in witch Watcher X fought for the Empire and got punished because of paranoia witch is the responsibility of those who did the genetic experimens. All that causes that Cipher Nine can empathize to Watcher X and maybe has bad conscience about his deed. And together that can cause that Cipher Nine almost becomes crazy and he hasn’t somebody to talk since he can’t tell about his situation even if he wanted since the conditioning makes him say something else when he tries to tell the truth. When you become mad you automatically remember Watcher X since he was mad either and Watcher X was high analytic minded and not loyal to the Empire so you could’n have had a better help for getting yourself free. In addition to that imagine Watcher X gives you the feeling that you don’t have to do anything on your own what can be a great relief either. When you dind’t kill Watcher X leave the part where I’m talking about killing him away the rest will fit in both cases)
But why should Watcher X help you?
The answer can be splitted in why he helped you when you let him alive and why when you kill him (without the dellusion theorie which is already explained).
Let’s start with the theorie that you let him alive.
I think it’s basically a practical thing when you let him alive because Watcher X observed how Cipher Nine fights and dosn’t wat to get into conflict with him for saving his own life. Additional to that he can get a ally against Imperial Inteligence which betrayed both of you. When he keeps his promises now and you are betrayed by Imperial Inteligence you are more likely to help him in secret and it is a very easy chance for him. And I don’t know if you can say it about him but he knows how it feel to be traited what possibile makes him honest when he promises something (except he only promises for building a trap by it). Finally it could be that he is seeking some ways to get his own conditioning away and hopes to find something when he helps you (I mean he can transmit the princip he used for getting rid of your conditioning to get rid of his conditioning)
When you killed him there is still the thing with seeking rvenge in Imperial Inteligence what was only your job since he isn’t able to act. More over, it could be possibile that you almost did him a favour by killing him. I mean like what could he do? He had headaches as soon as he acts against the Empire and it was unlikely that he could get rid of the conditioning of his own.
The intersting and almost ironic thing is that, when Watcher X is really there, he is the only one who can at least almost fulfill his aims. Imperial Inteligence gets abolished what causes that he gets his revenge for what they did to him (be honest I don’t think that the Dark Cauncil is frindly to the former members of the secret service) and since there isn’t like a person who watches what he is doing he can get rid of his conditioning. More over, the only one who works as a kind of Secret Service is one of his allys. And since Cipher Nine didn’t obey when he let Watcher X alive the former Watcher controls the situation. What he also does by being the only one who knows that Cipher Nine got rid of the IX serum (except the minister for Imperial Inteligence if he is still alive). (The part which is written cursive is only important when you let Watcher X alive).
Thinking further
When I looked for inspiration I found a topic in a internet forum a tread which told that the Imperial Agend acutally died when he fought against Darth Jadus. Even though I dont think so it’s an interesting story which would explain a lot of the things which aren’t explained in the game. Like why didn’t i notice that I’ve got the IX serum, how can a young member of the Imperial Intelligence stop one of the most important and powerfull Sith Lords for a while? And it is an additional explanation how I was able to see Watcher X. When we both are dead he musn’t do any efforts to get into the real world and he dosn’t need any power. Another thing which could be used to agree to that theorie is that Lord Alaric (?) tells at the temple of the Sark side that some people don’t notice that they are dead when they die in a trap or someting like that (and Ciffer Nine was the only one on Jadus ship. That agents have no value in the end is something that I musn’t explain...) But there are also things which speak against the theorie. First of all you get to know people who you never could haver have heard of like Hunter and why would you imagine that? More over, nobody could have described Voss to you and you are there. And when you play as a Sith you have to find out conspiracies which are supposed to known by Imperial Inteligece what shows that they to either a rather bad job or they don’t exist anymore. But the first thing would lead to the second thing since nobody needs a organisation which works that bad, especially when war goes on. (Except in one old religion where the number nine stands fror trancendence it has no meaning which has to do with things like dead and that was interpreted too far)
Nevertheless, the story of the Agent contains a lot of things where you never get an answer for. For example Hunter tells you that you are the only one left who is like the star cabal but why? More over, Hunter asks in one part of the game if Cipher Nine could remember the code word which was given to him by Watcher X but it dosn’t appear in the game anymore what leads to the question if it was only a try to frighten Cipher Nine or if it had a deeper meaning. And it was interesting to know what happened to the other people of Imperial Intelligence (although I believe they are dead or soldiers what means basically the same at least after a few time).
I hope this text dosn’t contain that much misstakes but in the end i had problems by focusing me and I never needed complex English for around a half year. So if you’ve got problems with understanding something or you notice misstakes in my spelling or grammar I was greatfull if you would tell it :)