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Run It With Love - Chapter 6

Day 6 - Revan

(Sorry this is late, forgot to post on tumblr!)

A non-linear story of Bly, Aayla, and Quinlan in the time of the Knights of the Old Republic games (about 3,800 years before the prequels) designed to be read without any knowledge of that game or time.

First Chapter! Previous Chapter!

The first time Sam ever remembers hearing about Darth Revan, it was during their escape from the crashing ship where their memories begin. The words echo and stick in Sam’s head, and Sam has no idea why.

"That smack to your head did more damage than I thought. Bastila's a Jedi. She was with the strike team that killed Darth Revan, Malak's Sith master. Bastila is the key to the whole Republic war effort. The Sith must have found out she was on the Endar Spire and set an ambush for us in this system. I believe Bastila was on one of the escape pods that crashed down here on Taris. For the sake of the Republic war effort, we have to try and find her."[1]

Sam knows, deep in their soul, that those words are important, that they’re the key to something.

They’re not Sam’s first memory from after the amnesia. Their earliest memory is from twenty minutes before, being shaken awake in a bunk in the crashing Endar Spire . The man who had apparently been their bunkmate filled Sam in as quick as best they could, but Sam felt detached from the whole incident until Carth said those words.

On the surface, those words are what caught Sam, and drew them into this grand adventure. They led Sam to their partners, to Carth and Bastila, who quickly became two of the most important parts of Sam’s life. Those words set Sam on the path to find Bastila on Taris, which led to them being bonded in the Force. That bond became the key to Sam being trained as a Jedi, and the quest to find the Star Maps.

Which brings Sam back to Revan. The quest for the Star Maps which comes from visions they share with Bastila, visions of Revan and Malak hunting for the same Star Maps years ago.

At the end, Sam’s journey begins with Revan, and when they find the Star Maps to guide them to Malak’s weapon, this chapter of Sam’s journey will end with Revan too.

---

Bastila Shan has been tied to Revan as long as she can remember. When she first came to the Jedi Temple as a child, Revan was there. When they were just younglings, Bastila has been told they were briefly inseparable. Bastila doesn’t remember that so much, she just remembers when Revan reached a point when it wasn’t cool to have a little kid hanging around all the time. They had a fight, and Bastila stopped seeing Revan after that.

But that didn’t mean her ties to Revan were broken. Revan would always haunt her every step.

After her friendship with Revan ended, Bastila became fast friends with Lucian Draay, and whenever the other boy came to the temple, they would study together. However, as they grew, the world became tormented, and so did their friendship. The war that had taken place just before they were born, the war against the Sith Lord Exar-Kun had killed Lucian Draay’s father, and left him and the rest of the Jedi scattered and afraid. Lucian was always afraid of the return of the Sith. Bastila knows now he was likely even right, but at the time it seemed ridiculous.

When Revan began to speak out against the Jedi’s stance of neutrality in the budding Mandalorian Wars, Lucian protested, dug in his heels, and began to speak out about the return of the Sith. When Bastila confessed that while she supported the Jedi’s neutrality, she believed the Mandalorians a larger threat than the Sith, she and Lucian fought. She stopped seeing Lucian after that.

Lucian denounced her as a Revanist, despite the fact that she swears she wasn’t one.

Despite being called more and more a heretic by higher ranking Jedi as Revan continued to argue for the Jedi to go to war, Revan was still the brightest padawan of the generation. As Bastila progressed through her studies, she was surrounded by examples of the excellence of her childhood friend. Bastila was talented, and as such was constantly measured against Revan in every class.

That stopped when Revan left.

When Revan and Malak took most of their generation to go fight in The War alongside the republic, Bastila stopped hearing the name ‘Revan’ around the temple. At least, for a couple of years. The masters disapproved, and they were afraid that more of their ever shrinking group of padawans would follow Revan to war, that those who went off to war would fall the way so many had done during the war with Exar Kun. Bastila listened to the Masters and tried to forget all about Revan then.

The Masters were right to be concerned.

When the Republic won the Mandalorian Wars, Bastila thought Revan would finally come home. She remembered her best friend from childhood, the friend Lucian had never been to her, she saw that now. When Revan came back, she had promised herself, she would fix what had been broken.

Revan didn’t come back.

When Revan and Malak disappeared with more than two thirds of their forces and the Jedi that had been with them, the temple once again lit up with talk of Revan, of Revan’s disappearance. No one had any idea where they went, or how to bring them home again. Sometimes there were rumors of either Revan or Malak being seen around the outer rim, but they were never more than rumors.

It would have been better if they never came back from their hunt for the Star Maps.

When Revan did come back, it was as a fallen shadow of Bastila’s old friend. Revan wore a mask of steel and commanded armies that destroyed the Republic and terrorized its people. Revan came back as a Sith Lord. The Jedi council turned to Bastila, with the Battle Meditation ability she had crafted over her life. She was their only choice. She had to kill Revan.

Revan killed the others who went with Bastila, and for a moment Bastila wanted to do the same. Bastila refused to let the dark in then.

These days, Bastila keeps having visions of Revan’s lost days. Sam has the same visions. Bastila worries what that means. Revan hunted the same Star Maps, and now so do Sam and Bastila.

These days, Bastila holds the lovers her teacher told her she should be above having, holds Carth and Sam so very close, and tries not to think about Revan at all.

---

Carth Onasi has never met Revan. During the Mandalorian Wars, Carth was just a lieutenant, while Revan was functionally a general. There was never any reason for them to cross paths. But Revan was a brilliant strategist. The men and women Revan fought alongside won nearly every battle they engaged in, and Revan single handedly changed the tide of the war. Carth admired Revan during those days. The thought now makes Carth sick.

Carth used to think Revan was some sort of hero. A grand warrior who came out of a dangerously uncaring or even corrupt Jedi order, but who managed to rise above it to fight for what is right. Carth knows better now. The dangerously uncaring one was Revan. Who betrayed them so easily, who talked others into betraying everything they’d known alongside them.

When Revan had left, over half of the Republic’s soldiers had gone too. It disgusted Carth; he couldn’t understand it at all. What Revan had done to earn that loyalty from so many? To earn that loyalty from Saul?

When Revan left, Admiral Saul Karath had gone with. Before that, Saul was Carth’s mentor, his friend, his confidant. And when Saul betrayed the Republic for Revan and Malak, he betrayed Carth to Revan and Malak.

After the desertion, Carth was promoted to Saul’s position. And when the desertion was revealed to be a betrayal? Carth led the battle against the new Sith Army, fighting throughout the outer rim. And so, Saul told Revan and Malak where to find Carth’s family.

Malak and Saul went to Telos IV together, and they destroyed the planet. Bombarded every city, every town, until there was nothing left living anywhere. That bombing killed Carth’s family. Killed his wife and son. Killed Morgana and Dustil.

It was Saul’s fault, it was Malak’s fault, it was Revan’s fault.

As Carth holds those who now have his heart, clings to Sam and Bastila, he swears that he will kill Saul with his own hands, and that Saul, and Malak, will never touch them.

And yet, the ghosts of Revan remain.

---

Canderous Ordo has knelt at Revan’s feet, and has starred up from the ground at the cold steel mask Revan wore. It was Revan who brought the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders’ war against the Republic to an end, who put a stop to their conquest. It was Revan who demanded Mandalore’s unconditional surrender, and who claimed their weapons. Revan destroyed Mandalore.

Canderous does not hate Revan. Canderous respects Revan.

How can he not? When it came down to the end, the war between them was a battle of strategists, Canderous leading his warriors and Revan leading the Republic’s soldiers. When it came down to it, Revan had been willing to make the sacrifices and take the chances that allowed for the Republic Army to outmaneuver the Mandalorians, even when no one else was willing to give the orders to do so.

And in the end, when Canderous had crossed blades with Revan, Canderous had been soundly defeated, unable to so much as scratch Revan’s mask. How could Canderous not respect that strength?

Canderous has heard that what truly led to Revan’s death was a betrayal from the inside, from Malak. Canderous can believe that. No matter what Revan did, Canderous knows that Revan will always be the greatest warrior and tactician Canderous ever encountered.

---

Juhani knows that Revan was a bad Jedi and was an Objectively Bad Person. But still, Juhani can’t make herself forget.

Juhani knows that she will never forget how Revan saved her during the Mandalorian Wars, how Revan inspired her to finally leave Taris and go to Dantooine, who gave her the dream of becoming a Jedi.

Juhani will always remember her life on Taris, growing up hated by the humans who held all of the power, and the feeling of her family being the only Cathars on the planet. She knows she was shaped by her childhood as a refugee in the gang-ridden Undercity. She is haunted by the murder of her father, and the way her mother’s life faded out slowly after that until Juhani was alone.

When Juhani’s mother died, Juhani barely had time to make arrangements for the body before the Exchange came. Juhani will never forget the moment the big enforcers told her of her parent’s debt, or the way they took her afterwards.

Juhani can’t ever hate Revan because Juhani can’t ever forget the feeling of standing there, waiting to be sold, only for Revan to lead the Jedi to interrupt the sale, to save her. Because even though Revan never took off that mask, Juhani knows that Revan smiled at her.

---

To Jolee Bindo, Revan is just another page in the never-ending chain of Sith. An interlude between Exar Kun, Jolee’s first chapter, and Malak, Jolee’s current chapter. Revan isn’t even a particularly notable page - Jolee missed Revan’s entire life during his stay in Kashyyyk’s Shadowlands.

From what Jolee has heard and seen though, Revan was nothing special. Revan was just another Jedi, then just another soldier, and then was just another Sith. Jolee has seen hundreds of Jedi, Thousands of soldiers, and more Sith than he cares to count.

People talk about the shock of Revan’s betrayal as though Exar Kun had not done the exact same thing 50 years prior. They talk about the way Revan convinced other Jedi to desert, to fall, as though Exar Kun did not do the same thing first. As though Exar Kun did not convince Jedi to fall in far greater numbers, as though he did not lure away even the best of the Jedi, as though he did not lure away Jolee’s Nayama.

The galaxy talks about what Revan has done, about the people they know betraying them to follow Revan, as though Exar Kun did not inspire the same, as though Jolee never found his wife’s lightsaber at his through as her eyes glowed yellow.

The Jedi Jolee has encountered since returning from Kashyyk talk about the potential Revan had, how great a Jedi Revan could have been, as though there have not been hundreds of Jedi with great potential who never lived up to it. As though Zayne Carrick, Andor Vex, or Shad Jelevan were not padawans with equal potential who did not live up to their greatness the way they were expected too.

Jolee sees how the galaxy talks about how Revan was a brilliant tactician, how no one could outthink Revan, but he’s suitably underwhelmed. He remembers how Krynda Draay out-thought Exar Kun, how she rose up from loss to lead the Republic to victory.

Jolee Bindo never met Revan, but he remembers what came before Revan, and he will remember what comes after.

---

To Zaalbar, Revan doesn’t stand out. Revan is just another human in a galaxy of humans. Zaalbar never even heard the names of Revan or Malak before he left Kashyyyk. If the tales of Revan were told on Kashyyyk, it would be simply added to the list of terrible humans Zaalbar’s father once carved.

Revan was just another human slaver. The only difference is that Revan went after his own people rather than just the Wookies or the other sentients who don’t look like them.

To Zaalbar, Revan is nothing remarkable. The remarkable ones are those who are on board the Ebon Hawk with him, the ones who welcomed him as the family he has longed to have for so long.

---

Mission heard of Revan just once when she was a little girl, before Griff left. She heard of Revan in hushed tones, murmured between the people of Taris, after the destruction of the temple. The Jedi temple that had once been the pride of the governors of the planet, before it had been destroyed in order to chase the Mandalorians from Taris.

After the taxes were raised in the undercity so the governors could build an even more lavish temple to replace it, in hopes of drawing the Jedi back, that was when Mission first heard the name Revan. She learned that Revan was a champion of the non-humans of the galaxy, and that Revan wasn’t there when the temple fell.

Revan came later, to chase out the Mandalorians who remained, or so the stories tell. They talk of how Revan walked through the same filth covered streets they did, who stayed in the same filthy inns they did, who walked for a few days in their shoes.

To Mission and the people of the Undercity of Taris, Revan was a legend, a figure who brought ever so small a taste of equality. Even when the stories the people from the Uppercity told became tainted, talking of a darker Revan, they were considered just another political play by those who lived below. Another attempt to take away the light in their dark world.

Mission believed that as long as she could. She believed it right up until she was aboard the Ebon Hawk , looking out at the destruction Revan’s student rained down. Mission believed in Revan until Revan’s legacy left her one of the last survivors of Taris.

---

Revan first really mattered to Quinlan Vos during an undercover mission on the planet of Dromud Kaas, about six months before he was sent back in time. It was a terrible mission on a terrible planet, largely due to the cultists.

Even nearly four thousand years after the time of Revan, the cult of Revan remained, and Quinlan spent three months undercover in it. During that time, he learned very little, and none of the things he went there hoping to learn. Instead, he learned that many people learn of Revan and view Revan very differently. As Quinlan performed his initiation tasks, he dove deeper into the history of a figure that, while famous at the Jedi temple even in his time, had previously just been another historical figure.

To the cultists, Revan represented balance. The grey between the light Jedi and the dark Sith, given the time that Revan spent as both. They claimed to strive to walk that pathway, neither light nor dark. Quinlan wished that was possible. He didn’t believe it was back then – most of the cultists were deeply dark, and a few light enough that with training Quinlan would label them Jedi. There was no middle grey to be found there, despite their awareness of both.

Now here, in the era of Revan? Quinlan was more sure of that belief than ever before. There was no middle ground here in the galaxy. Those who had once been on the side of the republic were most assuredly not anymore. That did not make them half sith, half-republic, they were entirely Sith.

The same was true for the Jedi who had turned their backs and left their principals and teaching. They did not become grey, they became dark, Sith, the same way Quinlan very nearly had once. If they wanted to be anything but Sith, they would have to work every day to walk in the light the same way he does.

No matter what the cultists of Revan believe, Revan did not walk grey lines. Revan simply walked white and then black. In the force, no one ever managed to walk grey, no matter what they believed or how strong they were.

---

Notes:

1Directly quoting from KOTOR 1.[return to text]

did someone say world-building and foreshadowing? Too bad you get it anyways. Also, a wild Jolee makes his first appearnace.

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