Re: My Republic Policy (and other thoughts)

[Brandon Rhea]

I've seen and heard a fair amount of concern over the last few days from a number of people about the policy that I had OOC and Banik had IC in regards to the Republic. I'm not the faction leader anymore so it doesn't particularly matter anymore, but from what I understand Ols may continue that policy so it's at least important to understand where it came from.

Where most of this concern seems to stem from is the thread Freedom of the Press, where Banik gave his final public appearance as Emperor of the Bogan just before his vessel exploded. In that thread, Banik said some things to a reporter about the Republic. Understand that most of them were completely in character and had nothing to do with IC or OOC plans; he said he liked the Republic, he liked what they represented, etc.

Whether you knew about it or not, Banik tried to save the Republic from being sucked further into the Alsakan Crisis in the third timeline, and nothing has happened to him that would make me lightswitch him into suddenly having a cliche dark side RAR RAR I HATE YOU attitude towards the Republic. Doing that would have been cheap and unrealistic for the character, something I made no attempt to hide throughout my duration as faction leader.

But that was just fluff to get the Republic thinking happy thoughts. If you read closely at what Banik said, he was basically proposing the exact same deal the Bogan had with the Hutts: you stay out of my way, we stay out of yours. The Bogan and the Hutts, save for the now formerly dual-faction Darksaber membership (which favored the Hutts anyway, as it was meant to), really didn't have any sort of partnership anyway. It was also done to have an interesting twist on the typical good vs. evil Star Wars story. The Bogan were never evil personified anyway.

So I want to clear up a few things, some of which are concerns I've heard have been said by a few people now:

1. Banik's interview did not prompt the Hutts to make the decision to declare war on the Bogan. Anyone who tells you that is 100% wrong and is actually believing IC propaganda. OOCly, this new war against the Bogan has been being planned for about a month, so just a short while after the beginning of the time skip. The interview was a convenient add-on to the IC reasoning, which basically stems from Tusa being paranoid (which is keeping in-character for him, so there's nothing wrong with that).

2. I knew about how the Hutts wanted to get rid of the Bogan for the longest time, well before the time skip. This was something that was going to be done no matter what, from everything I've been told. It was just something that the Hutts have wanted to do. More power to them.

3. Banik's policy towards the Republic had absolutely nothing to do with my own personal storyline with Banik. Well, it did once I made the decision to resign about a week ago (which is why I said Banik planned to screw over the Bogan anyway after the Hutts declared war, because that was something I decided for Banik after I decided to resign), at which point it took me a few days to rework Banik's goals and endgame to fit with what he's already done, but before I made the decision to resign it was a 100% strategic decision that I can't remember hearing a complaint about. If the Republic became our enemy, then if they were going to move forward into the Outer Rim to try and get to the Esstran sector, and they succeeded in doing so, then we could've potentially been completely screwed. If the Republic wasn't going to commit to a war against the Bogan, then the Jedi became a much weaker enemy since their personnel and fleet forces are incredibly smaller than that of the Bogan Empire. They would, however, have still been formidable, giving us a much better war against the Jedi that could've focused a lot on Jedi vs. Dark Jedi with soldiers being supporting players.

So that's that. The Republic policy wasn't about my own personal storyline, and the only reason it became an IC reasoning for the Hutts was because it was convenient. Whether you agree or disagree with it or not still is up to you, but I don't like misinformation being circled around. It's the bane of my existence on SWRP, and a lot of people will tell you that it annoys me to no end when I hear about misinformation (AND it generally has absolutely nothing to do with misinformation about me).

Additional retrospective

I wasn't going to get into anything else, but, now that I've already said a lot, I'll say a little bit more. There were a few weeks there where I wasn't as active on the site as much, but that happened to pretty much everyone who's in college too (Sreeya and Santoro included). So things did slip a bit, and I take full responsibility for it, but, contrary to some people's misinformed beliefs, I was working to fix that up again. Radzkie was sending me a number of ideas, and I was working to implement a number of them. Same goes for Horizon, he was beginning to send me some ideas as well and I was the one who guaranteed him a Governorship, which is why Ols made him Governor (he didn't have to, of course, but he did). Weiss had the religion proposal and, while it was a much lower priority, it was something we would've gotten into as well. I'm not as "in your face," so to speak, about up to the minute updates like Adena or Santoro may be, but that doesn't mean I'm not doing anything either.

One thing we had coming up was going to be the capture of Ossus. Santoro had agreed to let the Bogan do that, which he had been planning to do, with the agreement that there could be free Hutt movement through the area (which I agreed to), but we never got to that. Would it have fit Banik's story? Yes. Would it have been something important for the faction? Yes. It also would've been a lot of fun and would've been a huge win against the Jedi.

Whether people like it or not, what I did with the faction in terms of connecting it to the third timeline with the Ospion Guardians was actually re-focusing the Bogan back to its roots. Throughout a good deal of this current timeline (pre-time skip), the only reason the Bogan were going after the Jedi was because the Bogan were dark siders and that's what dark siders do. The connection to the Ospion and reminding everyone that the Jedi betrayed Banik and a number of other people during the Conclave on Ossus did suit whatever storylines I wanted to do for Banik, but also the Bogan Empire as well. It gave the Bogan an actual purpose. It gave them a reason for doing what they do rather than just mindless rampages against the Jedi because that's what evil factions are supposed to do.

This isn't meant to be an insult to Sheo, because he did a great job as Bogan faction leader, but the Bogan were seriously a purposeless faction for the longest time. They had no reason to move forward beyond Ando Prime or to wage a real war against the Jedi because they lacked a clear motive other than the fact they were evil. This wasn't much of an issue because, at that same time, the Jedi were also purposeless and lacked any sort of will power to launch an offensive war. They instead just reacted to whatever the Bogan did whenever the Bogan did it.

When I took over as Bogan I planned to create an empire out of them, which is something Sheo had started to do (and where I got the idea from) but had only done the baby steps with. Once Sreeya became Jedi faction leader, though, and started picking off high ranking Bogan, it became crystal clear to me that the Bogan needed a better purpose and motivator than "cuz we're evil" and would need to be much smaller and in much bigger of a location than just one world where we could be picked off for target practice. So, with Banik as the Bogan leader, the logical purpose to give them was the connections to the Ospion and rekindling the sense that the Jedi deserved to be punished for what they had done on Ossus.

You may not have agreed with that. You may not have liked the idea, and you may have thought I was just trying to use the Bogan for my own purposes. I wasn't. It was a legitimate effort to give the Bogan a reason for doing what they do and to give them motivation. The formation of an empire itself was an effort to rekindle lost interest in the Bogan.

One more thing I'll say is that I did not run away from the faction leader position because of the Hutt war against the Bogan. Did I know about it? Yes. However, I was under the impression that it was just starting to be planned for, not something that was actively under way, so it's not like I felt I had to run away. I had been more or less set on resigning for a little while before that anyway. Had I known that the Hutt declaration of war would've come less than 24 hours after I stepped down, I would've asked Santoro to hold off for a small bit so it didn't look like I was making a convenient exit. Everything I said about my heart not being in it anymore was true.

So to close, I'll say these last few things:

1) I don't like hearing from people that tons of people had comments and concerns about what I was doing with the Bogan when those tons of people did not come to me with those concerns. If any of those silent people with concerns were those who said "Sorry to see you go" in my resignation thread, please don't be two-faced to future faction leaders or to me in future interactions. I can only tell you so many times "Feel free to send me a PM whenever you want" until the lack of communication about concerns says more about you than it does about me. Everyone makes mistakes in anything they do, myself included, so I'm not trying to pass off the buck for mistakes, but there's absolutely no excuse for not talking to me about your concerns. If two people, like Horizon and Radzkie, come to me and bring me concerns and ideas, I'll work to fix things. If a lot of people come to me, I'll light a fire under my ass and get it done much faster because then it's actually obvious that it's a concern that people have. You, as faction members, will ALWAYS know better about problems in the faction than faction leaders. It's just a fact of life.

2) Again, my interview had nothing to do with the planning for the the Hutt war against the Bogan, it just offered convenient IC reasoning.

3) My Republic policy was strategic, not for my personal plot, and was done to protect the faction from being blown to kingdom come.

and 4) You'll see me do things in the RP that'll make it look like I was planning to screw the Bogan over to begin with. You'll see me do things that'll make it look like everything I had done was planned. I wasn't, and it wasn't. I had to re-tool everything I planned on doing once I resigned as faction leader, which both Johnny and Ols will attest to. I don't want to hear about how I was just using this faction for my own means, because it's flat out wrong and, after this thread, a flat out lie.

Sorry for ranting. If you got this far, then the order is 1) Tie the rope around your neck, 2) get up on the chair, 3) tie the rope to the ceiling fan, and 4) drop.

:CHappy

 

[Horizon]

tl;dr

Nuff' said. :CScool

Thanks for filling in things.

 

[Gambler]

I wasn't going to get into anything else, but, now that I've already said a lot, I'll say a little bit more.

Out of that entire soliloquy, that had to have been my favorite line, to be honest.

 

[Dmitri]

My ceiling fan broke...

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

"This isn't meant to be an insult to Sheo, because he did a great job as Bogan faction leader, but the Bogan were seriously a purposeless faction for the longest time. They had no reason to move forward beyond Ando Prime or to wage a real war against the Jedi because they lacked a clear motive other than the fact they were evil. This wasn't much of an issue because, at that same time, the Jedi were also purposeless and lacked any sort of will power to launch an offensive war. They instead just reacted to whatever the Bogan did whenever the Bogan did it."


In all actuality this is dead wrong. I was set on galactic domination with plans to first destroy the jedi, turn the republic against the hutts while further working with several indie factions to undermine the hutts, place the Bogan at the head of the hutt empire via a coup and then destroy the republic. In fact, I gave you that plan when I explained the first time what it was exactly I thought you should do with the Bogan when I stepped down, and explained how you could set up an empire by playing the two largest factions against each other. Do me a favor and don't misrepresent things because of the fact you wanted to do them differently. Not meaning this in a bad way, just setting the record straight here, you may have forgot, because it was in all fairness a long time ago.

 

[Horizon]

Didn't you sign Mortificar back up?

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

Didn't you sign Mortificar back up?

Yep, to help with training folks pretty much.

 

[Santoro]

For what it's worth, let me reinforce Bac's statement.

Banik's statement was not an OOC reason, and truly not an IC reason. The Bogan war has been coming for a couple weeks now and been tossed around for longer. Tusa was looking for an excuse to go to war with the Bogan for one reason: he's batshit crazy and extremely paranoid, something I've been wanting to show every time I use him. To prove the point, his personal fleet wasn't defense enough: he created a thousand-troop plus logistic permanent security detail, a spynet to watch his own military and royalty, and Darksaber squadron to kill threats that weren't even threats yet. Still, he doesn't leave the most heavily defended area of Hutt space.

This isn't about Bac's post, or for any other grudge or reason. Tusa's paranoid, and didn't want a threat to the Empire (which apparently under Sheo it was :P )

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

(which apparently under Sheo it was :P )

To be fair, there were different faction leaders then ^_^ I rather like what you've done with the hutts. But yeah, the whole point of Darksaber was to get trusted members of elite Bogan loyal darksiders into position for an assassination or ten... and I got a free armada out of it too.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

In all actuality this is dead wrong. I was set on galactic domination with plans to first destroy the jedi, turn the republic against the hutts while further working with several indie factions to undermine the hutts, place the Bogan at the head of the hutt empire via a coup and then destroy the republic. In fact, I gave you that plan when I explained the first time what it was exactly I thought you should do with the Bogan when I stepped down, and explained how you could set up an empire by playing the two largest factions against each other. Do me a favor and don't misrepresent things because of the fact you wanted to do them differently. Not meaning this in a bad way, just setting the record straight here, you may have forgot, because it was in all fairness a long time ago.

I did not misrepresent anything you said. In fact, I have absolutely no recollection of any of that, not even a vague "hmm, yeah, that sounds familiar." I'm not saying you didn't tell me, if you remember it then obviously it happened, but I don't remember it in the slightest.

Yes I forgot, particularly the part about playing factions against each other, but you saying all that when I first became the Bogan is a lot like how I just said I was going to attack Ossus. It's all "Here's what I was going to do," not "Here's what I did." One is a nice "what if" scenario, the other is part of what you're judged on.

Whatever plans you had weren't at all evident, at least to me, in the story, and weren't manifested as a purpose and means for the actual faction. Banik even said that flat out IC in the thread where your character was killed, and I don't remember anyone contradicting me on that. That's why the core of what I said had to do with the faction itself lacking purpose. If you had asked people when I first took over why they were fighting the Jedi on the occasions that they did fight the Jedi, I don't think you would've gotten any sort of unified answer, and that's what I was driving at.

Like me and not really being able to fully manifest my plans for the faction before I stepped down, your plans can't be described as the purpose and motivation of the faction as a whole.

For what it's worth, let me reinforce Bac's statement.

Banik's statement was not an OOC reason, and truly not an IC reason. The Bogan war has been coming for a couple weeks now and been tossed around for longer. Tusa was looking for an excuse to go to war with the Bogan for one reason: he's batshit crazy and extremely paranoid, something I've been wanting to show every time I use him. To prove the point, his personal fleet wasn't defense enough: he created a thousand-troop plus logistic permanent security detail, a spynet to watch his own military and royalty, and Darksaber squadron to kill threats that weren't even threats yet. Still, he doesn't leave the most heavily defended area of Hutt space.

This isn't about Bac's post, or for any other grudge or reason. Tusa's paranoid, and didn't want a threat to the Empire (which apparently under Sheo it was :P )

I'm glad you said that, it's really something I wanted to get across but didn't want to step on your toes. The Bogan weren't a threat to the Hutts, it all came down to paranoia. It wasn't because of one anyone in particular or what any group in particular did, it all came down to paranoia.

So for anyone who is saying that it was because of the Republic policy, I think you should give Santoro some credit in assuming that he's a smart person and would know that I'm not going to piss off the half a galaxy buffer zone between the Bogan and the Jedi.

One theme that would be interesting to run through the course of this war, if (which I expect) the war against the Bogan is more difficult than the Hutts anticipate, is the question of "Does paranoia justify going to war?"

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

I did not misrepresent anything you said. In fact, I have absolutely no recollection of any of that, not even a vague "hmm, yeah, that sounds familiar." I'm not saying you didn't tell me, if you remember it then obviously it happened, but I don't remember it in the slightest.

Yes I forgot, particularly the part about playing factions against each other, but you saying all that when I first became the Bogan is a lot like how I just said I was going to attack Ossus. It's all "Here's what I was going to do," not "Here's what I did." One is a nice "what if" scenario, the other is part of what you're judged on.

Whatever plans you had weren't at all evident, at least to me, in the story, and weren't manifested as a purpose and means for the actual faction. Banik even said that flat out IC in the thread where your character was killed, and I don't remember anyone contradicting me on that. That's why the core of what I said had to do with the faction itself lacking purpose. If you had asked people when I first took over why they were fighting the Jedi on the occasions that they did fight the Jedi, I don't think you would've gotten any sort of unified answer, and that's what I was driving at.

Like me and not really being able to fully manifest my plans for the faction before I stepped down, your plans can't be described as the purpose and motivation of the faction as a whole.

I'm not particularly looking for a pissing match, if you look at what I navigated the Bogan to achieve, the buildings of an empire, the constant talk of destruction of the galaxy and rebirth in the Bogans writings, and everything else then it's blatantly evident. The fact that I had gotten spies within both the hutts and the republic, I even talked with Ru about this stuff forever ago planning against the hutts. Though I like how you just kind of pat said work on the head and go "yeah thats nice" when you didn't even ask me how many ships I had when you took over and just assumed things, and I had to point it out later to you when I felt you were taking to long to blow shit up.

Hell I even lead the info gathering groups on Conscio last time line for you.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I'm not particularly looking for a pissing match, if you look at what I navigated the Bogan to achieve, the buildings of an empire, the constant talk of destruction of the galaxy and rebirth in the Bogans writings, and everything else then it's blatantly evident. The fact that I had gotten spies within both the hutts and the republic, I even talked with Ru about this stuff forever ago planning against the hutts. Though I like how you just kind of pat said work on the head and go "yeah thats nice" when you didn't even ask me how many ships I had when you took over and just assumed things, and I had to point it out later to you when I felt you were taking to long to blow shit up.

You're taking this far more personally than you should, and because of it you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not looking for you to give me a list of everything you did because I didn't say you didn't do anything. I was talking about a PURPOSE and a MOTIVE, a banner that people could rally behind, and from what people told me in the beginning of my reign no one was feeling there was a purpose and a motive. I would frequently see people in the OOC sections too not really understanding what the Bogan represented and stood for.

That's why I tried to rekindle the Ospion, and I said "whether you agree or disagree" with that or "whether you liked it or not" because I didn't think it was too successful. I was hoping that continuity would get people excited but not enough people were really around during the third timeline to really get into that. It made 100% story sense for the faction, but rock solid IC reasoning doesn't always translate into OOC as well as we might hope.

So I don't want a pissing match either here, Sheo, which is why I'm not trying to argue with you. I told you I forgot (and still do, I don't remember that at all), and then proceeded to talk about purpose and motive that the entire faction could get into the spirit of. By the time you stepped down, people weren't feeling that -- and they weren't feeling it when I stepped down either.

We can both list the things we've done, but that's not the point I'm making. No one is denying the things you did that helped make the faction strong, I'm talking about purpose and motive for everyone in the faction to get behind.

So like I said, I meant no offense, and I'm sorry if it did offend you, but I'm going by what people told me when I first took over, that the faction was lacking a clear direction, so I tried to give them one. People have now told me that the faction lacks a clear direction. So I'm not exactly saying this from some self-righteous spot where I think I know better than you.

 

[Garuga]

I can't remember where I read this, but I do recall it was when people were discussing the amusing prospect of Hutts/Jedi VS Bogans/Republic. It was something about how a problem with the last timeline was the fact that a clear 'good vs evil' situation could not be established. I wasn't here, so I don't know what happened and all, but if that was a problem, then certainly bringing the Bogan away from clichéd evil will do so too?

Also, really, I don't see the Bogan inactivity as having been a problem of 'lack of direction' or the sort. It was activity that faltered, and establishing an Empire was a good move to try to bring some life back into it, but rather than restructuring everything and all, perhaps a greater recruiting effort + focus into the members could have been more fruitful?

When everything had just been updated, like, with the new training/promotion system and all, it felt like it would work pretty well. But then, after the first few missions either worked or stuttered to a stop, all the activity seemed to just die out. This is really because the various people taking Leadership positions within the Bogan had essentially went inactive again, and nothing really flowed. Afterwards, the roster was essentially left dead and gathering dust, and not much seemed to be actually happening.

Anywho, seeing as nothing but 'The Battle of Noob Hill' had really taken place after the time-skip, I don't have anything to say about the Bogan Military or it's fleet, but I thought that Ando Prime was actually to be a pretty good basis for the battles that would occur after the time skip. As in, the Republic/Jedi launched a joint attack (But it went to IC bickering anyway haha) the Bogan/Hutts responded. Because really, the Bogans after the time-skip didn't have the activity level to actually incorporate the Military/fleet into the actual RP.

So yeah, it was confusing as to what direction the Bogan were headed towards. It wasn't active enough to handle the plans that had been laid down by you, and yet remaking the Bogan into not so much of an 'evil' faction doesn't seem to be that good of a choice because as you said, there aren't that many active members in the RP who participated in the Third Timeline to understand what the relation between the Bogan and the Ospion are.

 

[Horizon]

Well said, Garuga.

 

[Dread]

I'm happy someone is actually stepping up and saying something for once.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I can't remember where I read this, but I do recall it was when people were discussing the amusing prospect of Hutts/Jedi VS Bogans/Republic. It was something about how a problem with the last timeline was the fact that a clear 'good vs evil' situation could not be established. I wasn't here, so I don't know what happened and all, but if that was a problem, then certainly bringing the Bogan away from clichéd evil will do so too?

Well, there's a difference between evil and cliche evil, but I don't think the Bogan were ever cliche evil. Their tenets from the beginning were more Heath Ledger Joker-esque in terms of the creation of chaos.

More on this at the end of my reply.

Also, really, I don't see the Bogan inactivity as having been a problem of 'lack of direction' or the sort. It was activity that faltered, and establishing an Empire was a good move to try to bring some life back into it, but rather than restructuring everything and all, perhaps a greater recruiting effort + focus into the members could have been more fruitful?

When everything had just been updated, like, with the new training/promotion system and all, it felt like it would work pretty well. But then, after the first few missions either worked or stuttered to a stop, all the activity seemed to just die out. This is really because the various people taking Leadership positions within the Bogan had essentially went inactive again, and nothing really flowed. Afterwards, the roster was essentially left dead and gathering dust, and not much seemed to be actually happening.

Agreed, and that's one thing I was aiming to fix. One of the reasons I started the search for Governors (after faltering on that a bit because I wasn't sure what to do with them) was to aide in that, and Horizon was going to help in that administrative regard (and I hope he still does).

That said, I do think purpose and motive played into it, whether it was like how some people felt in the last few weeks that there wasn't one or that there was one that they just didn't understand (Horizon getting more involved was prompted by a conversation where someone said that the Bogan are just like the Sith, which is just not true).

This was the same issue I had when I was running the Bendu Order in the second timeline, where people thought it was nice and interesting but if you asked them to define the Bendu Order they really couldn't. When I see people saying "The Bogan are exactly the same as the Sith," it's pretty obvious to me that I haven't really done a good enough job defining them lately.

Anywho, seeing as nothing but 'The Battle of Noob Hill' had really taken place after the time-skip, I don't have anything to say about the Bogan Military or it's fleet, but I thought that Ando Prime was actually to be a pretty good basis for the battles that would occur after the time skip. As in, the Republic/Jedi launched a joint attack (But it went to IC bickering anyway haha) the Bogan/Hutts responded. Because really, the Bogans after the time-skip didn't have the activity level to actually incorporate the Military/fleet into the actual RP.

Well the Ando Prime battle was a perfect storm of "WTF?" but yeah, I know what you mean. That also plays into what I said about my Republic strategy. Had the Hutts and Jade not responded, the Bogan on Ando Prime would've been 100% obliterated (which, if I remember right, they were pretty close to anyway, but it was still a loss for the Republic and Jedi). I didn't want to just count on the Hutts showing up if the Republic and the Jedi got into our neck of the woods, so I was working to have the "don't shoot me and I won't shoot you" deal.

So yeah, it was confusing as to what direction the Bogan were headed towards. It wasn't active enough to handle the plans that had been laid down by you, and yet remaking the Bogan into not so much of an 'evil' faction doesn't seem to be that good of a choice because as you said, there aren't that many active members in the RP who participated in the Third Timeline to understand what the relation between the Bogan and the Ospion are.

This goes back to the confusion. I wasn't turning it into a non-evil faction. It was evil, just a different kind of evil. No disrespect to Sheo, since he mentioned wanting to do galactic domination as the motive of the Bogan, but I didn't really want to do galactic domination. That's the Sith, and I felt like that's what the dark side faction usually does, so it would be interesting to try something different -- the last few months of this timeline have had a lot of different trial and error things going on with risks being taken, some of which were successful and some of which were not.

In my case, the Hutts were already aiming for galactic domination, so I thought we should carve out a niche doing something else, so I wanted to do the revenge plot against the Jedi.

So it was evil, but the type of evil that was created by good. It was the type of evil that felt like the good guys were the bad guys and needed to be punished for their sins. It was the type of evil that was perfectly willing to be false gods for 20 billion people.

Different, but hard to grasp when you're used to Sith-esque evil. If I had to do it all over again knowing what I know now, I would've probably had the revenge plot stick with Banik and Elijha while having the Dark Jedi of the Bogan and, ultimately, the Bogan Empire center on galactic domination (at least against the Republic and the Jedi, so the Hutts and Bogan could work together).

I don't regret trying something new, but knowing what I know now I would've done it differently. Had I done it differently, I think this might be a more active faction, because it'd be much clearer and easier to get into it and I think it would've kept more activity and more interest amongst the people who were already in the faction.

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

Plus at the end of the day, I love ya Bac, but you make a way better good guy than you do a bad guy ;)

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Plus at the end of the day, I love ya Bac, but you make a way better good guy than you do a bad guy ;)

Generally I do, though I've had more fun being a total toying and manipulative douche with Banik than I have with a character since Ussej Padric Bac III.

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

Generally I do, though I've had more fun being a total toying and manipulative douche with Banik than I have with a character since Ussej Padric Bac III.

Come to the darkside, we have cookies.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Come to the darkside, we have cookies.

Ah, well Banik is most certainly dark side. He just has the benefit that most dark siders don't have: he really was the victim of a massive betrayal, and what he says when he talks about the Conclave on Ossus is the truth.

Banik doesn't have to lie. The truth is horrible enough.