A Sort of Fic, Sort of Dash Summary of Mereel and Jazari
Or, I feel like I neglect Jazari and Mereel and the cuteness that is them way too much.
This got super long but I love all of it.
- Mereel and Jazari meet really, really early in the war? Jazari’s office (more of a converted broom closet that only favors freezing temperatures because of the tech) is in Arca Barracks along with her Master’s office. She meets the Nulls, Alpha ARCs, and everyone else that rotates through with Intel.
- Yes, Jazari was there for when the Nulls holed themselves up in Arca Barracks. No, she doesn’t hold that against them but dammit, the timing was inconvenient. Solus and Lumi were traumatized from Geonosis, there was a war that full on started, someone ordered a secret army of Jango Fetts, and now this?
- Their Official Meeting was less Meet Cute and more Meet Funny.
See, Jazari knows Mando’a. Partially because it’s useful and mostly because of Solus. Early on, Little Solus spoke a rough sounding Basic and forgot words a lot. Jazari started learning to help her new Katarn Clan member feel like she belonged. Now, it’s because Solus speaks Basic only when it’s convenient and she applies that word loosely.
- The Meet Funny centers around Jazari’s sleep deprived ass being called into Master Arligan’s office to help debrief the Kal and the Others. Soon as she hears Kal’s name and sees his armor her mind blanks. She looks like some kind of bastard space succulent as her face strays between it’s normal heavily olive complexion, the bright red trying to take over and her Mirialan Green showing up too.
She also curses Solus’ existence because, “You told me it’s slang for ‘small dick’ but not that it’s a name?”
(Kal knows what’s going on and just tells her to ahead and laugh. He’s resigned to this fact.)
- Bastard Space Succulents may turn into a joke with them now that I think about it. He gifts her succulents real or printed on things or just pictures.
- From there it turns into pretty smooth sailing for everyone. Jazari’s a Jedi, yeah, but she doesn’t really act like a Jedi. Her robes are a loose interpretation of standard robes, stuffy does not describe her behavior at all, and she can talk shop on a lot of things. Mechanics? Computers? Slicing? All the seedy places on Coruscant to get any kind of contraband imaginable? She’s got you covered.
- Her and Mereel just click? They get along like a house on fire. They’re both flirts, far more intelligent than people assume at first glance, and generally good humored about things. Daredevil Lunatics are Jazari’s specialty so what is reckless? Hell, she not only keeps up but can suggest even better ideas.
- The dating thing feels like it should happen early on but absolutely does not happen forever. Mereel’s a Girl of the Week type for a long while and Jazari is Jazari. She splits her time between Work, some random hook ups/friends with benefits, and whatever Thing her, Solus, and Lumi have fell into now.
- Part of the friendship totally involves food. Jazari’s been known to occasionally make treats when she sleeps at the Temple, in her and her master’s apartment. They get brought in to feed everyone at Arca because sharing is caring. If she brings a few extras, some made to look really, extra nice for Mereel who notices? Nor do they notice if she knows he’s scheduled to come through soon she makes his favorites. Who really cares?
- Zey cares because he can see where this is going. But, I also feel like there’s just a moment where he really can’t take that little bit of happiness from her. There’s a war going on that feels like it’s trying to divide the Galaxy in too, they Order’s hemorrhaging Jedi (about four months including a fellow Sentinel he helped train, Leska Drayson, leaving Solus Vetra floating in the unknown), and Clones are dying left and right. The Galaxy is falling into Hell with no end in sight and the Light feels like it’s dying. He warns her not to overtly run afoul of the Code then leaves her be. If this keeps her faith in the light going then let her have it.
- When Mereel starts hanging around her office this also turns into her offering whatever extras she has around. He just so happens to stop by and see her and she just so happens to order extra.
“I think the word to describe this is hetikles? Try it and tell me if I got the word right?”
“Lumi skipped out on meeting up again. It’s Twi’lek spicy but want her share?”
“They sent me too much. Want to share?”
- Eventually they stop acting like spending time together is an accident and they spend their kind of downtime around the Barracks together. Her tiny office couch and comfy visitor chair, as opposed to the uncomfortable one, are his. Unless, she’s sleeping there for the night...again. Because Jazari is married to computers and keeping track of everything that she stays there for days. Really, they should just give her a bunk so she can sleep stretched out.
- If Mereel has science questions for her she either answers them or goes on a giant hunt for the answer for him. Because she enjoys learning new things too and they share a love of wanting to know.
- I imagine this eventually leads to Jazari helping on occasion with finding a cure for the Clones’ rapid aging. Fully making of said cure is 100% Mereel but she’s their to offer assistance. Sometimes it’s being his sounding board for ideas, others as a study partner or Finder of Things, but mostly as a Rubber Ducky. He talks through whatever chains of chemistry and genetics that’s causing trouble to her and she listens.
- He returns the favor for her computer coding and slicing.
- Jazari also goes above and beyond and builds a sort of genetic sequence simulator for him to work with. It took some effort to get the program datapad compatible but she worked really, really hard for this. Same as she starts studying some genetics to be a better Sounding Board and Rubber Ducky.
- The first big thing Jazari leans on Mereel for is when Solus left them. It went beyond leaving the Order and the Republic but she left for Death Watch. No one could ignore those reports coming in of Solus fitting the description of a Death Watch member, how Krownest turned into House Vizsla seemingly overnight, nor the uptick in successful strikes by Death Watch against the Republic.
And no one wanted to let Jazari forget it.
- No matter how angry she is about this reckless, dangerous, stupid looking choice there is still a Solus sized hole in her life and it hurts. Her life feels out of balance without her Introvert acting like an Extrovert bounding around telling stupid stories or gushing over new fighter tech. Lumi is more withdrawn now because those two had a connection meant to span lifetimes. Beyond the anger and the sadness there is real fear. Solus may have finally bitten off more than she can chew on a path Jazari may not be able to follow her down.
A lot of what’s eating at Jazari is something she can’t verbally express to others so she turns to sparring. Mereel falls into this and they’ll go round after round together. Leaning on him was not the plan (her problems aren’t his to bear, she knows Kal’s stance on Death Watch, and she’s not making his difficult life worse) but it still happened. He’s one of the few non-Jedi people who she shares any kind of relationship with who has the security clearance for her rants.
The biggest rant that needs clearance is what Solus did to a large portion of their network on Nar Shaddaa. It was like ten proton bombs had been strapped together and get off with a Hyperdrive. The Nar Shaddaan Rooks (a fake Mandalorian Clan as Jazari had been told numerous times) almost became a smoldering crater with the few alive and mentally sound people left on the wind. That level of chaos spooked a lot of other Republic Friendly Assets in case the Psychotic Butcher came back for Round Two. Not even Jazari would piece together what in the Sevens Hells of Corellia Solus wanted to know.
- Helping out everything is the fact Jazari is almost impossible not to like. So, she gets on well with Kal and Mereel’s brothers. Tries to be observant of their Mandalorian Traditions and remembers little things. Once she even confesses that Kal reminds her of her Dad.
- This turns into Mereel getting to hear bits of what Jazari remembers about Jedha City and her Dad. A man she still quietly idolizes because he was smart and good and kind. He also gets stories about the two kind Guardians who took care of her for a few months after her father died, surly but kind Baze and humorous Chirrut.
- I’m not super aware of the specifies of the Nulls story lines just yet but I imagine Mereel starts to tell Jazari little things. Maybe admits he kind of feels like he’s in Ordo’s shadow.
- For a softer interlude, I could see Jazari taking Mereel to this multi-level garden she visits sometimes. I imagine it’s like a part museum, part botanical garden and animal sanctuary. There’s even an aquatic plant tour where you basically rent respirator masks and go on this self guided, swim tour of plants and caves. It’s one of her favorite places ever on Coruscant.
Her absolute favorite area though is the desert ones, especially the cold ones, because they remind her of Jedha.
- The next big thing Jazari leans on Mereel from is probably the shitstorm Lumi becomes when Depa Billaba almost dies. After Solus left, Mace and Lumi were on the outs more than the in (a relationship that fully crumbles after Ahsoka is cast out of the Order), Depa became Lumi’s cornerstone. Her devotion to her Lineage Sister was one of the few things keeping her in the Order beyond the obligations she felt to Clones.
Lumi withdrew so hard Jazari worried the world had only become black and white to her. She grew more aggressive, almost froze over, and threw herself into mastering Shii-Cho because, “Master Fisto had the greatest success against Grevious.” Unspoken but fully known is that Lumi is prepared to decimate Grevious entirely in Revenge.
- During this spiraling I imagine Jazari at one point makes Mereel promise he’s not going to die during all of this. She had just finished sobbing onto his shoulder (which she feels bad for later) but she’s had to face the very real chance there’s going to be a Lumi shaped hole in her life soon. She’s tired of losing people and he’s forbidden to become one of them.
“I’ll pull rank if I have too,” she murmurs into the nape of his neck while clinging to him and still trembling, “But, neither one of us give a damn about this. This is as friends. You’re too important to me. I can’t lose you too.”
It speaks volumes about how she feels because he’s on the same level as Solus and Lumi in her mind. That’s a precious, almost scared place to be.
- When something looks Off in the Coruscant Guard, Jazari trusts Mereel enough to mention it to him. There’s a new guard among Palpatine’s personal bodyguard who was part of the Umbara Fiasco. She doesn’t trust anyone’s intentions at this point.
“I read the files,” she tells him. Neither talk about the way she broke into them. “He was prepared to fire on his own brothers and killed a Jedi. Even in self-defense, I know how sly the wording in the military code is. He shouldn’t be alive.”
- What this eventually turns into is Jazari showing a complete faith in Mereel and admitting both her and Lumi had been in contact with Solus on the sly (both before Pre’s death and afterward). Solus is fully outside of this entire, rotten to it’s very core system. As she words it, “We have restrictions to what actions we can take. She does not. Even after everything, I trust her to investigate.”
- Also admitted would be the hint of jealousy she feels toward Solus being happy? Not that she’s begrudging one of her best friend’s her happiness but the fact Jazari wants to feel that level of peace. Bitterly, Jazari points out Solus looks happier among terrorists (or former terrorists after Death Watch splits) than she ever looked in the 11 years among the Order and the Republic.
- Another soft interlude moment before Order 66 is Jazari falling asleep with Mereel on her tiny office couch. It was not built to comfortably hold one person let along two with the shorter one being 5’ 10”. When they wake up, it’s wrapped entirely around each other, legs tangled together with Jazari on top of Mereel. Her chin is digging into his shoulder while her hair is tickling his nose. One of his arms is around her waist while she has one twisted in the way only a Mirialan could achieve without dislocation. They half under the quilt she came to own because someone got tired of seeing her sleep burrowed into her own robes.
Jazari tells him they should just run away together. That way they can have a million more mornings like this and in more comfortable places. They could wake up to the early morning sunlight creeping over the hills and through the window causing the curtains to glow. Have caf outside while sitting on a swing. He has to make it though because he’s picky. Wants everything made in an infuriatingly difficult way with the only the best, hand roasted beans that cost way too much.
- If they’ve never kissed until this point (which I’ve not worked out when that happens) it would 100% happen in this moment. She basically told him she wants a normal forever with him.
- Order 66 happens soon after. Jazari does not make it off Coruscant with the others. The assortment of children, teens, and adults fleeing with her got cut off in the lower levels of the Temple. Instead, they spend nearly a month collecting others, hiding out, and waging their own warfare against the encroaching Darkness with Erkan. Jazari works to get messages out and doesn’t tell them she was hurt nor how the wound isn’t healing like it needs too.
- Lumi and Mereel get a crash course in getting along when they meet up. It absolutely was not the intention for Lumi and the small group she had to crash into the Skiratas attempting to escape. But, it happened. She saved Etain when her life was almost cut short. Between that and her skills at flight it she was useful. Both of them know that Lumi and Jazari splitting from each other to better their chances of escape was the Right Choice. It doesn’t feel like the Right Call though.
- The month it takes for things to fall into place is Tense. I imagine Mereel wants to save Jazari Right Then and Lumi wants to back him with that plan. Depa’s dead and so is Caleb. Even Mace is gone and no matter how little they saw eye to eye, she still loved him. It would be so easy to give into the grief, burst in blasters blazing, and make Coruscant and Palpatine and the Galaxy feel her pain. But, she forces herself to behave.
- The surprising plan comes when Harti Wren gets in contact with Kal and the others on behalf of Solus. Jazari got a message out to her and Solus has a plan. Her riduur’s family told them how the Dark Saber was stolen from the Temple during the Fall of the Old Republic. That’s going to be their way out. It’s a really tense meeting in Harti’s Keldabe apartment; tempers rise, words get shouted, everyone is on some kind of dividing line. More so when Solus’ plan only includes herself, Lumi, and still on Mandalore, Ahsoka Tano for the mission.
Unknown to them at the time Jai Vetra was planning the evacuation of the Republic Kamino Base for the same day.
(As standoffish as Solus acts, I do believe she deeply sympathizes with Mereel and the others. Pre fought Maul and died without her being there. She knows how much it hurts to be sidelined - in her case because she had given birth only a few months prior – and have the person you love die in the process. But, she also knows that too much emotion on a mission turns it into an unpredictable shitshow. Hell, if she had better options she sure as fuck wouldn’t be heading into this clusterfuck herself because she’s too emotionally tied to the mission as well.)
- Eventually enough compromises go down for it to happen even if Jazari remembers very little of evacuation. She was feverish, weak, and it seemed to be losing a fight to an infection in her arm. She’s partially aware Erkan may have died on the way out but otherwise feverish. Solus takes the other Jedi to Clan Vetra’s stronghold (as agreed to keep Clan Skirata Safe) but Jazari is sent with them.
- Mij Gilamar ends up being able to save Jazari but it costs almost all of her left arm. The tissues too necrotic in too many places, her body doesn’t have the strength to keep up the fight to save it, and frankly, the Force may be the only reason she survived that long at all. Medicine sure as fuck doesn’t have the answer.
- Mereel’s by her side the entire time and is right outside her bacta tank when she wakes up. Everything’s super blurry in her eyes, Jazari’s almost afraid it’s a dream again because she can see Mereel, but she still smiles at him. Soon as she’s out, still coated into bacta and feeling slimey, smelling like she rolled in pineapples, they are hugging. Jazari kisses him so many times and full on cries.
- Getting used to the mechno arm took some time. Yes, it moves and feels and responds like her flesh arm but it’s not the same. She bonds with Corr over their arms and picks up his habit of sharpening knives on the metal finger tips.
- When she’s doing better, Jazari does get her “Let’s run away together” fantasy of waking up on a perfect morning. They have caf, watch the sun rise, and cuddle on a porch swing. Then there’s a tooka wrapping around her ankles, Kad starts giggling while Etain groans from the kitchen, Besany is choking back laughter, and no one’s entirely sure what’s that noise was from Parja’s workshop but it sounded like something backfiring or maybe a small explosion? It’s not what she first imagined but it is so, so, so much better.
or to put this in words; sorry but I can’t hear you over how much i love the endless legend visual design.
Quick summary of game mechanics (that are different from civ)
The world is split up into regions, each of which can only support a single city, which takes control of the entire region. They have 1-3 minor faction villages (which can be pacified to add 1 population each to your city), and up to 6 resource deposits (I think, might be more).
There’s a summer/winter system similar to the game of thrones system, with long and irregular seasons. Winters grow harsher and longer throughout the course of the game, with more debuffs added as time progresses, until permanent winter hits.
There’s weather that functions similarly to terrain on the seas (e.g. rain increases upkeep cost, lightning damages units, fog that obscures vision, etc)
resources are science, industry, food, Dust and influence. first four are standard like in civ (with the space-technomagic substance of Dust functioning as currency), while Influence acts as a second currency,which can be used to purchase empire-wide bonuses and is spent in diplomatic activities.
Strategic and luxury resources are produced by exploited resource tiles and you accumulate them, to spend on better gear and improvements, or to activate empire-wide boosts (respectively). ...Except for pearls, which spawn on the overworld during winter and are collected by the first army that walks over their tile, where they can be used to unlock and build improvements, unlock and create special equipment, or to try and choose the effects of the upcoming winter.
No tech tree; 6 tech eras, instead, after researching enough techs, the next era is unlocked. One Wonder (unique across the world) and two other challenges are unlocked per Era, with a set of unique rewards. Each tech increases the research cost of the next one, which is also dependant on era; an early era tech will always be cheaper than a later era tech at the same total no. unlocked.
Hero units exist and come with backstory, and three skill trees; a common one, one dependant on faction, and one dependant on class. They unlock skills as they gain experience, and you can use them to make them make armies ever more devastating, help your cities become powerhouses, or spy on the enemy. Faction skill tree typically focuses on aspects that apply to the faction (e.g. broken lords focus on dust, wild walkers focus on industry, etc)
To grow cities, you must build a new district adjacent to an existing city tile, expanding the amount of exploited tiles (which is basically “all tiles adjacent to a city tile”), thus increasing your various incomes in that city, but you need at least two population per district. (Wonders also act like Districts but without the population requirement). Districts “level up” when surrounded by 4 other districts, producing more happiness and resources.
Each faction has only four unit types, but those units are unique to the faction and can be equipped with a wide variety of equipment, including armor, weapons and trinkets.
There is a shared marketplace where resources, units and heroes can be bought or sold.
Happiness is localised in cities, with penalties to food and industry in that city when low, and buffs to those when high. Empire-wide approval is the averaged city-approval levels across your empire (weighted with population), and gives penalties/buffs to dust and research production across the empire.
Units are grouped into armies, which utilise a section of the world map for combat, which you can (partly) control. The number of units you can have in an army is dependant on faction traits and researched techs.
Each faction has a unique quest, which drives a plot centered around your faction and its troubles, while sidequests can be revealed by exploring ruins and parlaying with villages, or simply being assigned to you.
Lastly; a bit of backstory; In the distant past, a species known only as the Endless spread throughout the galaxy, and invented technological wonders, including a substance known as Dust; effectively orange, glowy, space magic made of science. After their society split into the Virtuals and the Concrets (those who uploaded and those who did not) they eventually entarted a civil war (the Dust Wars) and killed eachother off.
One of the planets they left most affected, being something of a labratory planet where they brought specimens from all over the galaxy to experiment on and with, was left with an unparalleled diversity of life and vast quantities of Dust imbued into everything on the planet. This planet was Auriga; the setting for Endless Legend.
in order;
the Wild Walkers; sort-of-but-not-really-elves, focused on production, as lore used to be much more like elves, channeled animal spirits (or something), but realised that it was dangerous and addictive, so moved out of the forests to try and avoid temptation (I think; I haven’t played as them much, but I know they get some major bonuses to industry straight off the bat)
Broken Lords; vampire-ghosts haunting armour that feed off of Dust to live, and must buy out new population instead of using food. They do not interact with food at all, in fact. Heavily focused on money; late game, will likely be making significantly more money than anybody else, and be capable of building cities up absurdly fast. Used to be human but sacrificed humanity to survive, now realize they’re dying again but in a different way, and have to choose between the addictive practice of vampiring off of subjugated peoples or the long, unsatisfying method of refining dust to keep themselves going.
Vaulters; sort of dwarves in many ways, but the closest to “standard humans” the game has; focus on science, and get massive bonuses when using their “holy resource”, which they assign to a particular strategic resource, and can use as a booster similarly to luxury resources; in particular, while the booster is active, they can teleport units between cities. They appear in Endless Space (later in the timeline of the setting), so presumably “won” the game. (also; matriarchal, apparently)
Mezari; reskinned Vaulters, the “original” people who crash-landed on Auriga long ago, available as a special edition bonus.
Necrophage; Zombie bug-people. Get less food per tile but can utilize pacified villages to get more food on cities (by, uh, eating the people in them). Gain food stockpiles by killing enemy units. Can produce units by laying eggs in enemy units and killing them in combat. Require less population to build city Districts. They cannot engage in any significant diplomacy with other factions, and are in a state of permanent war; if they aren’t fighting their neighbors, they’re preparing to. Their plot is centered around a struggle to become more than just animals, to craft a true society.
Ardent mages; They utilize pain and sufffering to harness great magical power, for example, the ability to cast “pillars” onto the world map, which grant bonuses to all adjacent tiles ranging from increased production from them to increased stats for units on them. They also have units that grow more powerful and dangerous in combat as they get more heavily damaged.
The Roving Clans; Another dust based faction, but instead of focusing on raw production of dust, designed around manipulating the Market; has unique access to information about what other factions purchase or sell, and have the ability to ban a faction from the market. Can also move their cities to elsewhere in a region, if they choose to. Cannot declare war (bad for business) but can hire “neutral” mercenaries which you control and can send into enemy territory to attack/harass them.
Drakken; Ancient dragon-looking people, very heavily based around use of influence; they have the ability to, for example, force other factions into Peace, Truce or even Alliance with them; they have earlier access to better empire-wide buffs purchased with influence, and start off knowing the start location of all other factions, and being in diplomatic contact with them. Their units are few, but powerful, and as a faction they focus on forming a peaceful alliance to attempt to survive the coming cataclysmic winters. Of course, though, they should be the ones in charge...
The Cultists of the Eternal End; basically a villain faction; where every other faction wants reveres the Endless, the Cultists are headed by two murderous creations of the Endless that hate them; the Queen and the Unspoken; the former locked in a cage in the citadel of the Cultists, but has a mental connection to all their followers (many Cultist hero units had their mind rewritten on a whim by the Queen in order to solve whatever problem was important at that specific moment), and the latter wandering and probably insane, but vastly powerful. They are confined to a single city, but have the ability to convert minor factions outside the home region to their cause, spawning free units for them and rebelling against other factions. They also, uniquely, have access to level 3 districts, which grant even more bonuses, but require a tile to be completely surrounded by districts.
The last three factions are added by expansions, which also added the mechanic that they most excel at or most rely upon compared to other factions;
The Forgotten; They were abandoned and forced onto the surface of auriga, during the cataclysm by the Vaulters, basically to see if they could survive. They are understandably angry about this. Also, because of this, they do not trust scientists and researchers, thus cannot research techs for themselves, and must use the excellence at spying and infiltration to steal technologies, or simply buy them. (their expansion added, among other things, espionage)
The Allayi; the original people of Auriga; A focus on utilization of Pearls, and are interested in protecting the planet and trying to reverse whatever damage is causing the winters to worsen; They also, uniquely, “shift” into more aggressive, offensive forms during winter; an Allayi player may not respond to aggression during summer, but if you piss one off, you will know, come winter. They also have a unit uniquely suited to finding Pearls, and they need Pearls more than any other faction. (their expansion added the Pearls and the many applications of them)
Lastly, the Morgawr; a... hive minded? Collection of aquatic looking peoples, they recently escaped their entrapment at the bottom of the oceans; nobody knows why they were created, or if they were a success or failure. They’re unique in that they have “natural” naval units, rather than constructing boats, and if there’s a Morgawr player around, they will control the seas, sooner or later. The Morgawr plot focuses around their desire to never be endangered again, to dominate and destroy all who could potentially trap and cage them, until all that remains is Morgawr. (their expansion also added the oceanic weather and the fomorion minor faction; similar to the minor faction villages, except on the water)
Even leaving aside the obvious source of lore that is the faction quests, the sidequests typically have much lore, as well as the hero units, and many items have a lot of lore too. Unlike civilizations in, well, Civ, it’s not just a matter of “they’re all the same, except for a unique ability, improvement and unit”, they play in entirely different ways and feel extremely distinct from eachother. Not to mention the visual design of the game... I mean, sheesh. Whew. It’s some good goddamn visual design. Seriously look at the mezari. And the allayi. And the margwar. And the cultists. And... ok look you get the picture right?
To greatly summarise, if you enjoy games like civ, which is to say, 4x games, you are doing yourself a disservice if you haven’t played endless legend. And if you prefer space ones? Then you’re in luck, Endless Space 2 has been in early access for a little while now, and is already lookin’ good, with the addition of many elements from endless legend into the endless space design, it’s already looking like a good game. Very obviously incomplete, but, it’s in early access, that’s to be expected.