Revisiting a Classic - "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" (2003) - Part 6 of 11 - Manaan
Published on HivePostify by @shortshots · Tue May 16 2023
Revisiting A Classic: "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" (2003) - Part 6 of 11 - Manaan
Hey, fellow Hivers! I'm back again for the next leg of my classic Star Wars: KOTOR experience on desktop through the Steam platform.
Hopefully I can continue to find cool official and fan posters related to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic because we still got Leviathan, Korriban, Yavin, Lehon, and Star Forge System/ Space Vessel to cover.
If this is your first time seeing one of these posts, here are links to my previous posts:
Part 1 of 11 - Endar Spine
Part 1.5 of 11 - Steam's KOTOR Mods
Part 2 of 11 - Taris
Part 3 of 11 - Dantooine
Part 4 of 11 - Kashyyyk
Part 5 of 11 - Tatooine
The Water World of Manaan
We've done Endar Spine, Taris, Dantooine, Kashyyyk, and Tatooine. Now we're arriving at the the halfway mark of Manaan -- the water world and its main hub of Ahto City.
The aquatic planet of Manaan's Ahto City in background, and my crew's Ebon Hawk spaceship in foreground.
https://media.giphy.com/media/ucZD5HxqgLifrTCzgZ/giphy.gif
The natives of the aquatic planet of Manaan are a catfish-faced frog-like race called the Selkath. Manaan is a rich planet because of its naturally-occurring resource of an ocean-bottom material called Kolto which it harvests and sells to both the Republic and the Sith -- due to Kolto's extraordinary healing properties. Due to this business arrangement, Manaan maintains neutrality while doing business with both warring sides, and has a strict policy against the theft of Kolto and most violence on the planet.
Here we can see a Sith officer and a Republic soldier verbally attacking each other since all physical violence is basically outlawed on Manaan.
A Selkath from Manaan on left, my character Varen on right.
The Selkath are the standard aquatic extra-terrestrial with a focus on the more as amphibians rather than fish. They have the usual gargled voice to remind others that they originate from underwater. While I don't know much about frogs or catfish, it seems the Selkath have a somewhat very organized society ruled over by a council -- or at least that's how it works it Ahto City. Not sure how it works for the rest of the planet but I'm guessing it's pretty unified due to the reliance and economic supremacy from their Kolto imports.
We get a short scene of Darth Malak getting news that I killed the bounty hunter Calo Nord on Tatooine so his apprentice Darth Bandon -- who doesn't even have their own unique character model -- says they'll be the one to defeat my character.
After that short scene of the bad guys aboard the Sith ship Leviathan, my character Varen and his crew run into an old friend of Carth's who tells him his son is still alive on Korriban which sets that as our next destination after Manaan.
I chose Carth and Jolee as my starting crew for Manaan because they had side quests related to the planet.
After triggering Carth's side quest for the next planet Korriban, I switched him for Bastila because I much prefer going into battle with three Jedi and find the grenades in KOTOR are much too OP and kind of break the game. Another reason I add Bastila is because this time I'm trying to make my play-through a little more interesting by triggering a romance between my guy Varen and her.
After getting past customs on Manaan, I check out a cantina to restock on stimulants. It always surprises me how they didn't add a drinking mini-game here or a small fight-scene where someone does or doesn't shoot first.
Side Quests on Manaan
Courtroom of Justice on Manaan -- Republic Lawyer left, Sith Lawyer right, Five Selkath Judges in background, and my guy Varen in shaded foreground.
The side missions on the planet Manaan are: Sunry Murder Trial, Missing Selkath Youth, Swoop Racing, and some Assassination Missions.
As a Light-Side Jedi I skipped most of the Assassination Missions because it didn't fit my role-playing as a good guy. Despite that robbing me of some quick big-amounts of experience points, I'd rather grind on Tatooine by killing endless Sand People and Giant Orange Lizards than murder people for sleazy Hutt crime lords.
If this isn't your first time reading one of my KOTOR posts, then you already know I hate Swoop-Racing ... but I also added a mod that makes it super easy but I still don't think it's worth going into detail over.
Sunry Muder Trial
This was one of the game's more interesting side-quests: a Republic War Veteran and old friend of my party member Jolee is supposedly framed for the murder of a young Sith woman. Because violence is against the law on Manaan, they might put him to death unless you prove his innocence. Unfortunately you learn that not only was Jolee's friend cheating on his wife with the Sith woman but that he truthfully did murder her in cold blood ...
https://media.giphy.com/media/mXYQ8jpT6A4kK1CzGZ/giphy.gif
... But because his guilty verdict might result in the Republic being punished by Manaan with Kolto price-hikes or complete withdrawal (basically no health potions for one side of a war), I find myself carrying out what I've been asked to do, which is prove the old man's innocence . At first I thought some party members would object but they understand that this little lie will end up saing millions, if not billions, of lives in the war between the Republic and Sith.
Missing Selkath Youth
We all remember our rebellious teenage years -- maybe not if you had too much fun -- but the Selkath youth decide to get extra-risky by joining the edgiest gang of them all: the Dark Side . Or at least that's what I'm led to believe when some Selkath youth start trying to kill me ... forcing me to use the Force.
He's blue until he spots me and then the blaster-pistol pops out and so does my lightsaber and I got no choice but to show him my Jedi Dance: the Force Tango of Death.
Luckily, I don't end up having to kill all of these wayward fish-youths but I was disappointed the game didn't give me the option of persuading or Jedi mind-tricking them out of being these Dark Jedi's dumb henchmen -- it felt disrespectful to fish people.
Especially this fight here: three versus three? That's it? Varen and his crew have been grinding in the burning sands of the Tatooine desert through endless Sand People and dinosaurs. I honestly felt bad for these three.
And after all that, the Selkath Police then tried to arrest me for ridding them of pesky Sith and freeing most of their corrupted fish kids.
This was a hard sell: yes, I put down some of your unruly youths ... but I did clean out some Sith from your guy's basement?
Main Quests on Manaan
A lot of stuff happens on Manaan but mainly: my guy Varen and his crew infiltrate a Sith base to hide evidence that the Republic is doing shady side-deals for the Selkath's Kolto, we take a submarine deeper into the ocean where we kill some psycho Selkath at Hrakert Station and stop a machine that woke up an ocea-god ready to wipe out Manaan as the galaxy knows it.
Infiltrating the Sith Base
Jolee and Bastila fighting Sith Soldiers at the Manaan base.
This quest felt like the Sith Base mission on Taris but just with bigger rooms and more Dark Jedi ... so bigger and a little better. I ran into some weird situations where the grenades the Sith soldiers threw almost KO'd my party a few times -- or the Dark Jedi suddenly started using Force Powers before physical attacks, which was great but caught me off-guard. Against my better judgement hours earlier, I recently got the Force Suppression ability which weakens enemy Force-Powers but since I'd so rarely used it. ... I completely forgot I had it until I got Force-Stunned maybe twelve times in this base ... which I repeat was actually a pleasant surprise.
https://media.giphy.com/media/tXKHDpQIPaSMArUIUa/giphy.gif My character getting Force-Stunned immediately after opening a door.
A lot of this mission overlaps with the Missing Selkath Youth, so other than a few other fights -- it's basically finished once you retrieve the evidence that the Republic is cheating on their deal with the planet of Manaan.
https://media.giphy.com/media/xaXqxtWsLfdIQB8KWp/giphy.gif Bastila attacking while Jolee Force-Tornadoes a Dark Jedi.
Hrakert Station
A liquid-pressure minigame to avoid the insta-kill shark boss
Probably one of the most interesting parts about the planet Manaan is the underwater mission. It feels very claustrophobic, plus when you're down there -- the game throws the Selkath enemies at you in groups of four which was nice because I liked the idea of my character Varen's crew being overwhelmed more often.
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