Padishah Mehmet II

So I finally got an IDE adapter to get files off this old hard drive of mine.  Luckily back then I rarely cleaned out my downloads folder, so I still have a bunch of original files and installers for games from that era.  I found a few on your list.

 

Here's Matrixman Network Transmission 1 Emerald.

 

Here's Mata Zuto 2.  Not sure if it's the old or the new version, probably the newer one.

 

Here's two lists of other pre-downtime era bzp games I found if anything else catches your eye.

You are an absolute hero my dude. Could I get a download of Taluka Silver as well?

If we're looking for old Bionicle RPGs... does anyone have a copy of Flow of the River lying about?

I do indeed.

You're in luck!  At least partially.  I have the The Son Of The Toa!  I haven't tested it yet, because I only found it a few weeks ago while cleaning an old hard drive.  It was one of my favorites back in the day (Holy #### it's like 10 years old now)

 

Here you go

 

Let me know if you have any issues with the download, etc.

 

I used to have copies of Matrixman Network Transmission and some others, but that's on an old laptop I haven't gotten around to cleaning out yet.  I doubt I'll get around to doing so soon, seeing as I'd need a special adapter, but if there are any developments there I'll let you know.

Awesome. Thanks a lot man! Let me know if you come across any of the other ones.

Hey, BZPower, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again.

Does anyone by any chance happen to have a copy of the following games? I'd be massively grateful if you guys could provide any help at all

1) Mata Zuto 2: the Infestation - the old version. Not the RMXP one, but the one made way back in the day in RM2k3 format.

2) Matrixman Network Transmission (either 1 or 2)

3) Can't quite remember what it was called for definite, but I think the name was something along the lines of "the Bionicle Anthology"? I recall it being an extremely old RM2k3 game, have no strong hopes for recovering it in this post-Great Downtime era

4) that massive one with tons of editions by Valrahk set on Mata Nui whose name I can't remember at all lol

5) Son of the Toa

6) and actually tbh the new version of Mata Zuto 2 as well seeing as the link in the software lib is apparently dead

Any help is much appreciated

thank

Been listening to a lot Sabaton recently, and I was reminded of how I sent them a song idea a couple weeks ago. It's topic was the May 29th 1453 Fall of Constantinople, and with it the final fall of the Roman Empire after 1500 years of continuous rule (the 1204 incident kinda makes this grey), and the Roman civilization that started in 753 BC. Lots of poetry can be used with it, and its a great topic for an epic battle ballad. Especially how the last Roman Emperor Constantine 11th threw off his crown and royal robes, ordered the keep gates opened, and charged with his soldiers to certain death as an equal among his subjects, embracing the destiny of his people and empire head on, eventually dying cut down by the Ottoman horde after taking a number with him. With him were Italian gunmen, Romano-Greek fire-throwers, viking varangian guardsmen and regular soldiers and civilians, as canon-shot boulders, javelins, arrows, liquid fire, and bullets flew through the Queen of Cities under Heaven before the End of an Era.

 

So here is a statue of him, in honor of that Marble King, with the imperial flag of his dynastic ancestors, and his last stand of the Romans.

Enter, the Renaissance.

 

"Throw your soldiers into positions once there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight" ~ Sun Wu Tzu

Haha.

To be honest, I had better things to do than complain about what characters you were making and for what reasons.

 

Doesn't mean I didn't cringe a little though.

"a little"

You genuinely concern me sometimes.

IC: (Cylund, Taris Lower City)

Cylund nodded very, very slowly. He still couldn't, for the love of the Force, say who this twi'lek was, and her fixation on meeting them on the swoop track seemed perverse at best.

Inquisitors being around, however, now that wasn't just strange, that was really bad and they needed to get out of here.

"Let's move, fam," he muttered to his partner and proceeded down towards the Stray Tach.

IC: (Cylund Calrissian)

"Yeah I've seen you before, on the swoop track. You think I wouldn't recognize a fellow swoop champion?"

Cylund stared blankly at Nadia. For about a minute.

"I'm sorry. I have literally no idea who you are. Are you asking for an autograph or something?"

IC: (Cylund Calrissian, Taris Junkyard)

Cylund, at the time, was trying his best to, seemingly, take a grenade apart without blowing it up with nothing but his bare hands and his teeth. Another look at it confirmed that the detonator did not seem to actually be operational, more model-like than anything; what raised as many questions as reassurances, and yet, that was Cylund for you. That said, when Benth stretched out his hand, after Tallik shook it, Cylund put his toy aside and gave Benth's hand an amicable shake.

"Nice meeting you, Benth. Rare to see a face even remotely friendly on this lump of coal of a planet."

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Lower City)

"It's surprisingly difficult to tell. It's like... it's like they've stopped following us, but are going the same way?"

And yet... another that he could sense so clearly across the Force? Did that mean..?

"... Maybe they're not following us after all. It might have been a false alarm."

His heart knew better.

(Cylund, Junkyard outside Taris City)

"And, for that matter, believe you me, mate," Cylund spoke, grinning a shitfaced grin, "the city's not the place you wanna be right now. Don't even argue, just believe it, man. What's a Republican doing here, anyway?"

IC: (Enaltai, Somewhere in Taris)

"Whoever it is," Enaltai muttered, "they... seem to have stopped following us, that much is clear. Yet... at the same time, they're not far. And it looks as though they're getting closer. Just... a lot less coordinately than before. Are we anywhere close to that safehouse of yours?"

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Alleyway)

Enaltai did not answer. He merely followed Rex, tossing a glance over his shoulder.

Quietly, so quietly that no one could possibly hear from afar, he said, "We're being followed. Any ideas on how to lose them?"

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Alleyway)

"The short version would be: I'm looking for something on this planet," Enaltai spoke, carefully choosing his words. "I'm not sure what, exactly. But there is something here, under all this industry and marshland. There's something more to Taris than meets the eye, and I intend to find out what."

IC: (Cylund, Taris Lower City Outskirts)

When Cylund, alongside his comrade, finally arrived at the outskirts of the wreckyard, they had by that point also managed to cause no small amount of other uproar in the Lower City, having had to veritably nearly kill themselves trying to avert the attention of the Imperials at the military checkpoint that separated the Lower City from the bogs that surrounded it.

"Alright," he spoke as they finally stopped running, taking one deep, heaving breath after another. "Now you can go ahead and berate me."

(Enaltai, Taris Alleyway)

Enaltai merely nodded at Rex's suggestion. "Lead the way."

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Alleyway)

The Arkanian stretched his hand out slowly, as if contemplating his choices. Eventually, though, he took Rex's hand and shook it.

"Enaltai. This might not be the best place to speak of these things, however," he said, slightly inclining his head. He could very faintly feel another presence in the area, and he wished to remove himself from this place before that presence came closer. "If you wish to learn more of this... we need somewhere people would not find us."

(Cylund, Lower City)

Cylund didn't completely and absolutely comprehend what was going on, but as the Lower City cantina turned to chaos at one of its back rooms turning aflame, he knew that either Imperial forces or, worse, the Nine Arrows' thugs would be all over the place in minutes. So he just kept running like mad, turning only to check if Tallik was behind him.

In seconds, he was out of the cantina, followed by a whole host of people trying to flee the place - nobody, after all, wanted to stay in a cantina where something had just violently exploded. Bolting down the street, he knocked over a Duros trader's stall, by nothing other than sheer accident, and, swearing loudly, promised the angry alien something he was used to saying for whatever reason in his youth - 'Nezza the Hutt'll pay you', just before dashing off again on the literal crest of the wave of rumours spreading throughout the Lower City that something bad had happened in the Hive.

Needless to say, he had not the least of ideas who Nezza the Hutt was, and he certainly didn't recall ever knowing anyone by that name. These days he just used it as a fancy way of saying, 'my bad'.

No one, to be fair, would be surprised once they heard that somebody detonated a grenade in a cantina in the Lower City, that was hardly a non-standard event in this part of the universe after all. However, that doesn't mean people would not want to axe Cylund's head off regardless, and it most likely meant that Cylund and Tallik had to get to some place where no one could find them for the near future.

"Space cemetery, now!" Cy yelled to his partner, taking a hard right into a narrow alleyway at the sight of some Imperial stormtroopers patrolling in the distance. The 'space cemetery' was what Tarisians called the half-scrapyard, half-ruin outside Taris City proper, a field in Taris's polluted bogs littered with ridiculous numbers of wrecked spaceships dumped there during Taris's many battles. Also incidentally where Cylund and Tallik had parked their ship this time around.

Also, incidentally, where Rav Kadran's starfighter had docked. But they, of course, didn't know this yet.

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Alleyway)

Enaltai threw a quick glance over his shoulder. There was still no one in that alleyway but them, or at least it seemed so.

"That choke-thing," Enaltai replied with almost conspiratorial expression on his face, "I indeed could do because of the Force. And a great many other things, too... tell me, lad. Have you ever had times when your intuition seemed unbelievably sharp, when you could almost feel bad things happening before they did? Were there times when, if you got angry, the strangest of things would happen?"

He slowly put his sword aside and looked at the boy.

"That, boy, was the Force, the secret gift the Empire would have kept from you."

IC: (Cylund, "The Hive" Cantina)

"You could say the rules of the game have changed, Ashara," Cylund grinned at her with the brightness of a thousand supernovas.

"Oh, sod you all," Ashara shook her head. "Dral'cabur, lower that blaster, we're getting nowhere like this."

"I'm so glad you finally see that, Ash!" Cy smirked as the Mandalorian lowered his weapon and took a step back, still holding that unpleasantly primed grenade in his hand, his finger getting weary after all this time of holding the trigger down. "Let's talk about compensation, now. After that little spectacle, we'll be wanting double the price you initially suggested."

"Sod you all," Ashara repeated, pulling out a pocket datapad and quickly hammering out a few key presses. "There. The money's in your account, you Tarisian bantha-shits. Now get lost. And put that goddamn grenade aside already."

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that," Cy grinned a most shiteating grin, and all of a sudden, flung the detonator at the far wall, behind Ashara. "MOVE!" he yelled to his Twi'lek shipmate, and bolted for the door.

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Alleyway)

The Arkanian eyed the man before him suspiciously, before slowly, slowly lowering his weapon. Not putting it away, however. Something about this person piqued his curiosity. From what Rex was saying, Enaltai could not help but feel as though the Force was, in one of its multiple unpleasantly blatant ways, playing at some usual cosmic game. The boy was Force-sensitive; that much was obvious. The Force radiated from him with the fury of a thousand, still sleeping, stars.

And, he wasn't lying. Enaltai couldn't say how he knew. But he trusted the Force enough to believe his hunches.

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve. You, however..." Enaltai muttered under his nose, taking a step to the side slowly, a most thoughtful expression inscribed on his face. "You appear to indeed know nothing of me... or of..." He fell silent, seemingly lost in thought. He only spoke up a few moments later, knowing that he was likely changing the fate of the galaxy - as did every such awakening - with every syllable.

"Alright, get up. You've knelt enough. Humor me with just one question, lad. Have you ever heard of the Force?"

(Cylund, "The Hive" Cantina)

"Ashara wasn't keen on talking this time, now, wasn't she?" Cylund kept grinning furiously, shooting a glance at the aforementioned Togruta, now looking as if she was utterly boiling with rage. "Now, see, where were we... ah yes. As I was saying, you, big, armed and ugly, turn around."

"I don't think you understand the rules of the game just changed, Cylund," Ashara laughed. "Sure. You have that detonator. Thing is, I know you. You could have blown it up when it was only us in the room. Now that your friend's here, you won't dare kill him with the blast, too."

Cylund gulped.

"Y-you still can't kill me," Cylund growled at the Mandalorian, his grin suddenly gone, gripping that detonator in his hands a lot less convincingly. "when you strike me down, I'll let go of that grenade whether I like it or not!"

"Oh, I don't need to kill you, Cylund," Ashara smiled, angrily, as her two bodyguards took a menacing step towards Tallik, brandishing their swords. "We now have a new target."

OOC: nah tbh I'm switching from first to third person, just doesn't feel right with Enaltai for some reason. Maybe I'm out of practice with it.

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Alleyway)

Suddenly, the darkness itself seemed to weigh down upon Rex's shoulders like an invisible, yet infinitely heavy mattress, crushing him underneath; invisible fingers reached out and clenched around his throat. He could breathe only with great difficulty, his hands instinctively shooting upwards to push whatever was choking him aside - but there was nothing there as the grip of the Force tightened even further, raising Rex outright into the air.

Enaltai stepped out into the younger man's field of vision, his left fist clenched, vibrosword in his right hand, and spoke, his voice filled with fury.

"Who sent you?" he growled as Rex felt the grasp of the darkness recede, allowing him to succumb to the ground, although the tip of his sword was still aimed pointedly at him. "Do not try to run. Or lie. I can repeat the experience you just had at any time, this time for... longer. Who sent you? Empire? Those Inquisitorial dogs? After this, I should say they should get better agents than you, boy."

(Cylund, The Hive Cantina)

Cylund was precisely the sort of man inclined towards rash action.

Which is why right now, in a private room of the seediest cantina in all the Lower City, the young smuggler found himself staring down the barrel of a blaster, gripped fiercely by the fingers of a particularly unfriendly figure decked from head to toe in yellowish, ever so slightly rusted Mandalorian armour. Well, Cy assumed he was particularly unfriendly, at least. It had to be noted he wasn't able to see his face, exactly.

"Alright, alright, folk, relax," he muttered, taking the slightest of steps back and raising his hands defensively. "We can work this out."

"No, you Tarisian twit," growled a furious-looking female Togruta standing beside the Mandalorian merc, two rugged-looking men also standing beside her, brandishing vibroswords. "We've nothing more to work out. This job's too important to keep loose ends. And you happen to be one of those, Cylund, and however much I might like your attitude, we're done. For good."

"Come the on, Ashara," Cylund sighed in exasperation, "you don't need this! What you're saying doesn't make any sense. Do you honestly think I'm stupid enough to go and tell the Imperials I helped you get napalm onto the Tarisian black market?"

"Possibly. One way or the other, you're too much a security concern. Say goodbye, Cylund."

"Wait, wait, wait!! Alright, so working this out ain't an option," Cylund quickly recast his bets, with the dumbest smile on his face. "But maybe, just maybe, I get a last wish? Come on, be fair here."

"We've all seen /those/ films, Cylund. You're going to ask for something that will somehow get you out of this. Nah. I won't fall for that."

"Well, I suppose this will have to be done the hard way, then," Cylund muttered under his breath and turned to the Mandalorian before him. "Buddy, look here. I'mma give you a riddle. What do I have in this hand?" he asked, raising his right hand for all to see.

What was in Cylund's hand was a thermal grenade, its button pressed down, set to detonate within seconds of him letting go.

"Now, buddy, you're gonna turn around," Cylund grinned furiously, "and point that gun at your current employer. You're gonna keep pointing it at her until I leave this room. If those two other incompetents right there take a single step forward, your blaster fires. On point. If you fail these very simple instructions, we can see how quick your blaster can fire before I blow everyone, including myself, in this room to pieces. Cause if I've no other choice but to die, I'm going to take you with me as well."

The Mandalorian remained silent, for about a second. And then, just as he began to turn, the private room's doors swung open, and in walked a single figure.

"Oh, hello, Tal," Cylund said, grinning as the Mandalorian's gun was still pointed at him, and his grenade was still in his hand. "Late to the party, now."

IC: (Enaltai, Mid City Approach)

And now he's following me. Fantastic.

This wasn't the first covert pursuer I had to lose in my lifetime. And yet... something intrigued me about this fellow. If this was an Imperial or, worse yet, Inquisitorial agent, then, I knew - running would not help the matter. On the contrary, I had to find out how much this man knew.

I proceeded firmly onwards, forbidding doubt from invading my mind; I only needed to trust the Force, and I'd get out of this yet. The only emotion I was feeling was annoyance, slowly turning to rage; I felt the Force awaken within me like a wildcat, its fangs spread in a violent grin.

I shuffled past the Mid City gate, taking a path down the main pedestrian lane as I passed by one building after another, sidling through a city street I honestly found unnaturally cold. There were so many people, hundreds upon thousands of them, the very mosaic of Tarisian society laid bare before my eyes. Middle class humans, Imperial troopers, impoverished aliens. And yet... it was as though, once more, the planet was artificially silenced as a whole. The only noise came from behind me.

Oh, Force. The man following me was a Force-sensitive.

This will be interesting, I mused, as I took a sudden turn left into a narrow passageway between two apartment blocks. Proceeding down the alleyway, I took cover in the doorway of a city block and, slowly, drew my vibrosword. The alleyway was abandoned; my hope was not to eliminate this man, but to find out what he knows. In advance, I prepared to use my Force Choke - not to kill the guy, but to pin him down. As soon as he entered the shadows, I would make my move.

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Spaceport)

It ain't that difficult to guess when someone is looking at you when you've opened yourself to the Force, all your intuition going through the roof after all in comparison to what you had before. I tried my very darned greatest to act natural; it was, after all, still just a hunch. I didn't see in my immediate field of vision anyone actually looking at me as I walked up to the Neimoidian.

The alien's eyes narrowed down on me as I approached, and I knew well from his expression alone what he was thinking; I must not give us away.

"Documents, please," the customs worker named Wyl said, and for about a second, I was genuinely lost as to whether I'd gone to the right Neimoidian. And then he suddenly continued: "Ah! Never mind, sir. Now I recognise you and I do apologise. You should have introduced yourself from the outset. I have your diplomatic passport right here. It is good to hear that Bogden has finally sent an ambassador to Taris! The governor has long been keen to establish closer contact with our brotherly planet. I'm sure they're waiting for you in the Upper City already. Do go through, sir, please allow me to just... open these gates... there we go!"

I stifled a laugh. In large part because as Wyl frantically proceeded to shuffle me through in the greatest (and arguably fakest) imitation of servility ever seen, even handing me a datapad that literally did not have a single word on it - my supposed diplomatic passport - I finally noticed something out of place. My eyes met with an inconspicuous-looking man, by the looks of things not that much younger than me, standing further away, leaning on the wall ever so slightly. It took all my will not to make my expression change to one of irritation; were this man some sort of Imperial agent, being sighted was certainly not high on my list of priorities. I turned my gaze away and stepped firmly onwards, wanting to get out of this spaceport and into the Mid City as quick as possible.

Then again, this lad didn't look anything other than just that, an ordinary Tarisian guy, but that's how spies are meant to look when they're undercover, so you never really know.

IC: (Enaltai, Taris Spaceport)

To most people, Taris was little more than a story of failed hopes and dashed dreams.

More than three thousand years ago the fastest-growing ecumenopolis of the Old Republic, destroyed utterly in a frightening display of military might by Malak, Dark Lord of the Sith in ages long past, the planet had painstakingly restored, over the ages, both its population and its infrastructure, only to find as the years went on that it simply no longer mattered in this changing world. Once a thriving center of trade, the world seemed... dead, now, the fires of industry having consumed the planet's marshes, and the ages, furious and unrelenting in their assault, having consumed the planet's industry.

Billions of people lived on Taris, and yet they were all so... quiet in their existence here on the outskirts of what was still the Empire, however barely.

As the Blackhand slowly, patiently closed in on the docking bay we were assigned, Dock E7-12, I asked myself, not for the first time, why I decided to come here, to Taris. Things were nice and quiet on Ryloth; the eternal cover of the dark over the Nightlands felt comforting, as though the universe itself had granted me a cloak to shield myself from the light with, and I could be sure, while I perused the lore I had collected and meditated on the Force, that none could find me. Ryloth was peaceful. Calm.

That was, indeed, the problem.

The Force, boiling inside me, could not stand the quiet of the Nightlands for long. I wished to walk the paths of the Lords of old as I had on Thule, and learn their secrets; and, even more importantly, the anger, these five years later, had not settled. My father's cold corpse was likely rotting in some disgustingly bombastic, abnormally expensive and frankly "respectable" grave in Arkania, and, this infuriated me even further, more like than not beside my mother; who he himself had brought to that grave.

His death had not sated that anger I felt, and I reveled in the fact that it did not, for I knew; in this anger, above all else, lies my power. It did not rest in contemplative meditation on the Twi'lek homeworld; that was the way of the Jedi. My way was the way of my passions - anger, fury, lust, freedom - that I could not help but feel were being neglected there. I needed to leave that planet. The Empire was dying; the Republic, from the looks of things, was giving out blanket amnesties here and there, feeling safe to assume that most criminals under the Empire were in truth not criminals at all. I needed only to wait - and, while I waited, get myself what I wanted. What I needed.

The Force shall free me.

And the Force, oh, that this planet had. It felt... oddly silenced, like the rest of the city, as though the billions of inhabitants of this planet, as we approached, spoke only in whispers, yet all at once; like the planet, itself, wanted to yell, but had no voice, and yet it still seemed as though it had wanted to yell for thousands of years

Thousands of years, since Malak. I was on the right track. I only needed to trust my desires, and trust the Force.

"Well, that seems to be it," the captain of the Blackhand nodded to me as they began to unload the vast amounts of baggage they carried in the cargo hold onto the dock. He lowered his tone of voice and continued. "Now, listen, Arkanian. I looked into what you asked of me. There are still Imperial customs controls being performed, even with the... situation... and all, but there's limitless ways past them. Talk to the Neimoidian in the rightmost registration booth. Rightmost, hear me? His name's Wyl. Old friend. Talked to him already, he's good with what I said and even better with the credits you gave me. He'll get you sorted."

"Thanks," I replied, nodding slowly. Worst came to pass, I could make a run for it. This was Taris. If there was ever a city this large that even under the most authoritarian of regimes could prove the most anarchic, that would be this. The Blackhand's captain smiled, patted me on the shoulder amicably, and turned away.

"Oh, and one more thing, Arkanian," he threw a glance over the shoulder. I gave him a quizzical expression, and he laughed.

 "Welcome to Taris."

Name: Enaltai
Age: 26
Gender/Species: Male Arkanian
Appearance: here
Skills:Force-sensitivity, as well as a wellspring of general knowledge and education. Moderately well-trained with melee weapons. Speaks two languages fluently - Arkanian and Basic - and has significant understanding of ancient Sith, as well as a handful of Huttese words and phrases.
Force Abilities: As Enaltai's Force abilities are largely self-trained, he possesses only a few. Namely, he has some ability to use Force Pull, Force Push, and Force Choke, and has experimented, albeit mostly unsuccessfully, with force persuasion.
Equipment: A vibrosword he keeps on his back and a vibroknife, usually kept in his pockets.
Items: Several datapads. One of them is his personal journal, a couple of others he collected outline what little he could collect of the histories of the wars of the ancient Sith and Jedi.
Affiliation: None as of yet
Alignment: Enaltai feels a affinity to the teachings of the ancient Sith - not in the form that the Galactic Empire taught to its Inquisitor apprentices, however. He despises the totalitarian Empire, which, although it eliminated the Jedi, refused to share the power of the Force with those capable of wielding it: essentially, Enaltai places the final tenet of the Sith Code, "The Force shall free me" above all, and believes in a return to the days of the Sith of old, where, he is convinced, a level field existed for Force-sensitives to rise and fall based on nothing other than their own ability and skill.
Personality: This Arkanian, despite his well-recognised lure towards the dark side, is not what you would call a typical Sith adherent. He neither possesses an unsatiable thirst to dominate others, nor wishes to possess power - as Darth Bane's precept ordered - for power's own sake. In fact, his hatred for the concept of servitude is only matched by his hatred for those slavish or complacent enough to subject themselves to such disgrace. His feelings about the Jedi, too, are not ones of hatred, but ones of disdain; their order he thinks dangerous and misguided, but he does not feel strongly one way or the other about their apparent rebirth under the Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker.

Enaltai's link to the Dark Side, stronger than anything else, is an unabated wellspring of anger and a disregard for the interests of others. It is not to say that the Arkanian is incapable of kindness - he shows it well enough to those close to him and especially the downtrodden, forgotten and misunderstood of galactic society. He detests, despite his interest and affection for the teachings of the Sith, the Empire, and disdains the New Republic, seeing it as the resurrection of an inefficient, outdated regime.
History: Born 26 years ago at the outset of the Clone Wars in the Colonies world of Arkania to the family of a noted Arkanian geneticist, Enaltai was identified as a force-sensitive child in the last waning days of the Republic by a Jedi master visiting the planet, who intended to, with his parents' permission, take Enaltai into the Jedi Order for training as soon as possible on his next return; however, as the Republic was replaced by the Empire, and the Jedi purged, Enaltai remained with his parents, who sought to hide their child's force-sensitivity for fear harm might come to him.

It was an authoritarian sort of household, with Enaltai's parents desiring he, too, embrace a path through life in science as they had. His father, Morsan, demanded often unreasonable things of the youth, especially as he grew into a teenager, and placed often unreasonable restrictions on him, like outright forbidding close-combat training - a hobby Enaltai much liked - for fear of triggering his Force abilities in some way. Yet despite their best efforts, they could not hide Enaltai from himself: at the age of 16, an untrained Enaltai, while sparring with a friend, infuriated by his friend's taunts, harnessed, in his fury and by accident, what he later understood to be the power of the Force in what was essentially a primitive Force Push.

His parents, when they heard, were horrified - they punished him by forbidding all outings for the teenage Enaltai, and sought to force him to shift his focus to his studies. However, Enaltai now knew there was something more to him than they would tell him, and sought knowledge of what this power that he held was. No matter how many times he attempted to replicate what he had done, it would not come to him, and the libraries of Arkania, long robbed of all literature speaking of the Jedi and the Sith by the Imperial authorities, held no answers.

What held answers were the rumours and stories of older people, who spoke in hushed tones of an age before the Empire, of the age of the Republic, where an entire Order of those who used to wield the Force - the Force, a mystical energy that joined all living creatures together - existed; and this intrigued Enaltai, for understandable reasons. He began to, mostly covertly, as he knew that being noticed by the Imperial authorities would have been anything but pleasant, collect what historical knowledge he could about the Jedi and the Sith of old; he devoured databook after databook of the philosophies of these ancient wielders of the Force, though he for understandable reasons could not find any guidance as to how to use the Force.

His parents grew increasingly concerned about his interest, especially his father, who became gradually more and more paranoid, convinced, for unclear reasons, that Imperial security was already following them; he began to argue increasingly with Enaltai's mother Arta, adding more fuel to an already blazing flame of argument between them. Morsan accused his mother of being the source of 'their suffering' - for, as Enaltai learned, his maternal relatives claimed a distant descent from an ancient Sith Lord, a lineage supposedly stretching from before the Great Hyperspace War.

What this ultimately ended in was that Morsan's patience broke after repeated attempts to prevent Enaltai from studying the Force, and he sent his son away, on a pre-arranged apprenticeship with another Arkanian scientist; an arrangement Enaltai absolutely hated, not least because this scientist instituted an even more authoritarian regime than the one of his father's. Nevertheless, he found that it too had it's uses: the scientist, before long, decided to send his young apprentice off to improve himself and study genetics - a course simply obnoxiously overflowing with other Arkanians - at Alderaan University, paying for his tuition and his accommodation costs. Enaltai, although he hated the course itself, found Alderaan a welcome breath of fresh air, where the university's immense library could provide him with far more detailed accounts of the ancient Jedi - and Sith - than he previously had experienced. It was there that he first learned of two figures that would fascinate him for the rest of his life - Darths Malak and Revan, of the old Jedi Civil War. It was there, in the gardens of that magnificent university, that he learned to meditate and reach out, feeling the Force in the world around him, and began to - carefully, having first taken all necessary security precautions - attempt to repeat what he had done long ago as a teenager.

Shocking news came from home, however, in his third year of university, when he was 21. His mother had died - killed herself, in fact. Shocked and dejected, Enaltai left Alderaan, returning to Arkania - where he found that in the time that he was gone, his father had taken a mistress during one of his rows with Arta, and delighted in how public his affair was, psychologically torturing Enaltai's mother until she could take no more. Even then, Morsan seemed to feel no remorse, gladly admitting to what he had done.

Overcome with fury, Enaltai unexpectedly tapped into the Force, namely, as one might expect, given that he was drawing on his anger, its dark side. Feeling its vast power overwhelm him, Enaltai slew his father's mistress by slamming her to the wall with a Force Push and finishing her off with his pocket vibroknife. His father he broke with a furious Force Choke just as he sought to call upon his guards.

As Morsan lay dying, his trachea crushed from Enaltai's Force Choke, his son approached him and said the last words he'd ever hear again, Enaltai's mission statement:

"No longer will I be denied the gift that is in my blood. No longer will you deny me my life. And no man in this galaxy will ever bend others to their will as you had, or they shall answer to me. The Force shall free me."

Understanding that he now had no future on Arkania, except perhaps a cold jail cell as soon as the Imperials figured out what killed Morsan and his mistress, Enaltai fled the planet. In his subsequent wanderings, of which little is known, he adopted fully his own reinterpretation of the ancient Sith Code, which emphasises liberation through power, and rejects the Rule of Two. He has now arrived on Taris as a passenger on the freighter Blackhand, out of the Outer Rim. What brings him here, only he can say.



Name: Cylund Calrissian
Age: 23
Gender/Species: Male Human
Appearance: here
Skills: Cylund is an excellent, if not exceptional, pilot and has a fairly good grasp of basic computing, as well. Quite ###### good with a blaster, too. Only speaks Basic and a smattering of Ryl words. Has, however, learned to understand and, impressively, "speak" the Lekku language with his dreadlocks: although, as Tallik often points out, badly. He also has a fair amount of ability with a swoop bike, having raced quite a few in his youth.
Force Abilities: N/A
Equipment: BlasTech A280 blaster rifle, pocket vibroknife.
Affiliation: Technically none, but professes a theoretical allegiance to the New Republic. Other than that, his only real ally is his shipmate Tallik.
Alignment: Cylund is best aligned with two things: the freedom of open space and the cool digital feel of a batch of credits. Also occasionally a weakness for Zeltron women.
Ship: The Tarisian Midge, an Adarian-make freighter that he pilots and shares ownership of with his Twi'lek teammate, Tallik Vao. Originally found in less than mint condition in a Tarisian junkyard, Cylund and Tallik repaired the ancient piece of bantha fodder only through great effort, trial and error, and a certain absolute disrespect for the law on Cylund's part. With every more lucrative blockade run, the ship would get an upgrade, now equipped with:
-a class 1 hyperdrive from Kuat Drive Yards,
-angled ray and particle deflector shields,
-sensor jammers,
-an Adarian carbon ice-drive left over by the freighter's previous owners, that had been initially badly damaged, now repaired by Cylund and Tallik,
-two KX-4 swivel-mounted laser cannons,
-a single forward-mounted H6 turbolaser.
The ship contains a basic enough set of amenities: the pilot's cabin, guest quarters, Cylund and Tallik's rooms, a medbay equipped with two stasis pods, a cargo hold (with three hidden smuggling compartments + a swoop bike) and a bar.
Personality: Cylund is a light-hearted soul with a dislike for concerning himself with things beyond his ability to understand or to deal with. He likes simple things: money, cards, women, life. Although it is obvious he is no fool, he rarely bothers himself with higher pursuits - instant gratification being his general preference. He is anything but unkind, however, and will never actively seek ill upon others, unless his life itself depends upon it. Clever, but not shrewd, Cylund honestly wants nothing but for the authorities, whoever they are, to leave him alone to his own devices, for the wine to keep flowing, and for the money to keep accumulating in his pockets.
History: These days, everyone's heard of smuggler-turned-magnate-turned-New Republic General Lando Calrissian. It's hard not to if you live in, really, anywhere outside the Unknown Regions; blowing up the second Death Star does give you a certain sense of fame if nothing else.

Lando Calrissian's elder brother Astan, meanwhile, did not at any point in his lifetime have it as easy as Lando did. Or as exciting. Unlike his renowned sibling, Astan left Socorro when Lando was but five years old to do what he called "good, honest work" - he became a mechanic, working on the crews of various freighters. While working on a merchant ship, the Rodia VI, that would, every month, make its way along the Hydian Way between Serenno and Taris, Astan, on shore leave in Taris, met a Tarisian woman, Nayla. From that point on, every time the Rodia VI docked at Taris, Astan would seek her out, and increasingly the month-long wait to return to Taris would seem far too long. By the time he got fired by his captain on his ninth return to Taris, he no longer minded, and in 21 BBY he and Nayla got married.

Cylund, Astan and Nayla's son, was born two years later - under tragic circumstances indeed. His parents lived on Taris a life even less affluent than Astan's was as a ship mechanic, getting by on whatever jobs they could find, and thus the best clinic they were able to afford for Nayla to go into labour in was arguably Taris's worst. In the deeply unsanitary circumstances of Taris's lowest reaches, Nayla gave birth to Cylund - only to perish in childbirth. As if things were not bad enough, two days later came word that the Republic had been abolished and the Empire constituted in its place, and his father, who'd been raised a lifelong supporter of the Republic and its Constitution, felt utterly shellshocked by this turn of events.

Having lost his wife, the one person he loved the most, and shocked by the political developments on the galactic stage, Astan gave all his love and care to his son, Cylund. The conditions in which they lived were appalling at best, however; Astan attempted to make a living off his mechanic abilities, working as a droid mechanic in the lower levels of Taris, but that paid rather badly and passage off of Taris for both him and the young Cylund was too expensive to afford. He found himself giving away his last scraps of money to feeding both himself and Cylund, and things just seemed to be getting worse and worse; by the time Cylund turned 5, they got kicked out of their small apartment due to a failure to pay the rent, and from there on they would attempt to make a living in whatever abandoned dwellings they could find, usually in some truly awful conditions.

This all culminated, truly and utterly, when Cylund was but 9 years old - his father died. One day, when Cylund woke up, his father was no longer breathing, dead from malnutrition. Cylund, a nine-year-old homeless child in one of the most unequal societies in civilised space, was completely and utterly alone.

And that was when he met Tallik Vao.

Cylund has been known to exaggerate the story of how, exactly, he met his Twi'lek shipmate. By 'exaggerate', it is meant to say that he has been known to claim it involved the two fighting off an entire squadron of Imperial soldiers and a dozen light AT walkers. What can be gleaned from merging his and Tallik's interpretations into one is that at some point, Cylund attempted to pickpocket a man in Taris's streets. It went rather wrong, with the man in question turning out to be a resident of the Upper City and the employer of a personal regiment of mercs he used as his guards, which he immediately set upon Cylund, at that time trying his best to escape. Just as it seemed they would catch up with the young Calrissian, a small stone flew across the air, hitting the merc commander right in the helmet; this created a distraction Cylund was able to exploit, removing himself from the area as quick as possible - running into, very soon, the person who had created this distraction, a Twi'lek urchin kid around his age, Tallik Vao.

The two became fast friends - and the only allies the other had in the cold and unforgiving atmosphere of Imperial Taris. Together, they helped each other find what food and shelter they could manage. Eventually, the two, whilst working odd jobs in the Lower City, became smugglers. Their current ship, an Adarian-make freighter, they found in a Tarisian junkyard, and with great effort and a great neglect of most property laws they made it spaceworthy again; which allowed them, ultimately, to finally get off Taris, to run smuggling routes to Telos IV and elsewhere, and to have, for once, a decent chance there'll be food in their plates.

Now, however, they have returned; a lucrative job offer by a Tarisian businessman with an unscrupulous attitude towards the law has brought them home for the first time in a couple of years. What else they might find here, only the Force knows.
 

both preapproved by grav

-Dovydas

IC: (Mathyn Llethri. The Lucky Guar, Narsis)

"I'll be sure to check in with the council, then," Mathyn said, nodding at Angel's words. "And no," he said to Eponine, with a smile, "Sorry, but I haven't the slightest - this isn't a city I tend to visit often, after all. I'd try a general goods store, or the local scribe. I'll take my leave for now, however; it appears my House has need of me. It has been nice to meet you, my Breton friend!"

Leaving a tip for the Altmer at the bar, he went outside, where he bumped into Kelh. Bowing customarily, he grinned at the 'purveyor of Dwemer artefacts' and shook his hand in a comradely manner. "O'Valenwood. It has been a pleasure, but I must take my leave. Thanks again for alerting the guards; it appears," he threw a glance to the right, where the guards were carrying the unconscious Dark Brother to the city cells, "they did their job well."

IC: (Mathyn Llethri. The Lucky Guar, Narsis)

"Here. I don't really want them. One's too... daggery and the other one's too redundant. Well, that, and the fact that I already have one."

Mathyn nodded and took the weapons off her hands. He had no use for them either, preferring his longsword, but the Great House Redoran could sure use such a donation. Worst case scenario, he'd send them to a Mephalan temple for the purposes of irony.

He turned towards the man who had just entered the Guar, his eyes lighting up in recognition. "Ah! Captain Balchar!" he said, smiling at the new arrival. "I heard strange sounds outside. Guessing you dealt with our little problem?"