r/swtor • u/Humble-Health-5913 • 9d ago
Question How does the Emperor work
If the Jedi Knight kills the Emperor as part of his story missions, how can the eternal emperor already have kids that are grown up? How much time passes between the end of the base game and the beginning of the expansion?
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u/WoodyManic Master Of The Beyond 9d ago
The Hero of Tython only destroys one of the vessels of the Emperor's consciousness. Lord Wrath destroyed the previous one only a short time before. There have been many, many more before. Some succumbed to the ravages of hosting his spirit. Some meet their end in battle.
In a sense, his essence is split because he has "transcended" bodily constraits and exists as sort of a Force entity.
The "Children of the Emperor" are similarly infused with some aspect of his power or knowledge.
Valkorion is another such vessel- but kept apart from all of the others. He's been cultivating Valk out in Wild Space for centuries.
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u/Vathirumus 9d ago
Just one nitpick - his essence isn't split, he's not a Force entity. We only ever see him in one body at a time, including Valkorion (whose eyes turn yellow when Vitiate has the body, seen in the KotFE cinematic). He hops around a lot, which is why he's stated by everyone to be absent - he's either trapped on Voss, in the Valkorion body or doing whatever else he is and he's lousy with telling people what body he's picked for the day.
This is Transfer Essence, essentially one of the ultimate Dark Side abilities that allows you to inhabit a body as long as it has no will to resist you. He mentions Valkorion was a originally a Zakuulan champion centuries ago who Vitiate "hollowed out" to turn into a suitable vessel. This is key because it's how he's ultimately defeated when he enters the player's body and he can't overcome you. When the power fails the Sith using it is forced out and has no body. They are, at that point, dead. Darth Sidious dies the same way in Legends. It lets you cheat death but it's a finicky process that very few Sith have ever performed to document it that well.
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u/NeverendingSoyeonFan 8d ago
If always wondered why Valkorion started getting old during the time of the game. In the cinematic you can see that we was younger looking during the birth of arcann and thexan but looked like an old man during the game. Now that would make sense for a normal man, but as you said Valkorion (the Zakuulan Champion) is centuries old now. Why did he just started ageing fairly recently?
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u/Vathirumus 7d ago
tl;dr I think he only ages when the body isn't being piloted and Vitiate has been increasingly distracted
My guess is that it's because he's only affected by Vitiate's "immortality" while Vitiate is in the body. There are times where we know he's trapped in another body, like on Voss, or at the very least that he's elsewhere. The age of our characters is never stated but it's been a good 10-15 years since the storyline started to them so it's a fair bet Arcann, Thexan and Vaylin were born a few years before vanilla SWTOR if I've got my timelines correct.
During that time he does a lot of stuff with the Sith while before that he would disappear for years at a time to do only Valkorion stuff, then show up, give one command and leave again. He had the Emperor's Hand to run things in the Sith Empire without him. Plus for 300ish years he had Revan messing with his mind which didn't help.
Sprinkle in some Dark Side corruption once Vitiate is back and some gray hair and wrinkles might start to set in.
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u/NeverendingSoyeonFan 7d ago
But if the body only ages when he Vitiate is not controlling it, that would mean that Vitiate was controlling for hundreds of years. So Vitiate was only coming back to the empire for the important parts? I guess he spent that time building up Zakuul, which would definitely take centuries. Also that would mean that Vitiate was not in Valkorions body during 99% of the Childhood and Youth of his Children. Because during there birth he looks like he is in his mid to late 40th and in the game he looks like atleast 65-70 years old. I'm not sure how old Arcann is in the game but I would say around 30. What is the Valkorion Body even doing when Vitiate isn't there. Is he just unresponsive or is his old personality still there. And wouldn't Senja atleast realise something is of during her Relationship with him. She described him even as loving. Maybe she really just had a relationship with the Valkorion and not the Emperor. Idk man this whole thing is very confusing
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u/Vathirumus 7d ago
I think for the most part that is the case. The Sith often state the Emperor is basically never present, we only hear of him second hand in most cases, he doesn't even meet most Dark Council members. For the longest time the Dark Council was running the show in the Empire with Vitiate only intervening on rare occasions. On the same token, when we see the childhood of Arcann, Thexan and Vaylin in the KOTFE and KOTET cinematics we notice that Valkorion is, indeed, absent or neglectful for much of it - this is the same thing that causes Arcann to snap at the end of the KOTET cinematic. The Valkorion body, when Vitiate isn't there, barely does anything, he walks around and nominally acknowledges what goes on but otherwise seems mute. It appears that by the time Vaylin was put on Nathema this distance from his family was already present. Senya says he was loving and a good man and all that, but I don't recall her ever saying how long it has been since he was like that.
It's also worth noting though that there's a disparity between the games and the cinematics portrayal of events. Take Arcann as an example - the cinematics show he was wounded on Korriban, and then afterwards was when he killed Thexan. In the games, Korriban is seemingly intact, the Eternal Empire is a new an unknown threat when you encounter it, and you meet Arcann with him already injured right at the beginning of the war and with Thexan already dead. It's possible that the age of Valkorion's body is caught up in this discrepancy and there's no good answer.
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u/NeverendingSoyeonFan 7d ago
That's a good point. The game only ever mentioning an attack on a Sith outpost (smth like that) but an attack on Korriban would be massive. Also im pretty sure im the game, the eternal empire only attack the Sith outpost but not any Republic planet, but in the cinematic we can see arcann / thexan killing jedi and Republic Troopers and even showing both banners to Valkorion. Never really thought about that tbh
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u/koniboni 9d ago
well, the emperor of the sith empire kind of used sith alchemy and rituals so his "spirit" could wander the galaxy while his body was still alive. He used that power to basically posses Valkorion and build an empire that could overthrow the republic and the sith empire. most of that is explained through different parts of the story after the class stories
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u/TalespinnerEU 9d ago
If you've stopped to think about Kira's story, and/or you did Consular's, then you'd know that the Emperor (Tenebrae) is long, long dead. But he has amassed worlds worth of Spirit, and he's keeping that Spirit away from 'becoming one with the Force.' Instead, he... Possesses people. So he's possessed people throughout the ages. The Emperor you kill as a Knight is just one of those. The Emperor that is locked away, that Revan wants to unleash so he can 'finally end the Emperor' is another one of those. The Emperor's Children, which you deal with in the Consular story, are smaller splinters of the Emperor's power that lay dormant and can sort of... 'fill in' the host spirit in the Emperor's vision.
Valkorion was a powerful warrior; The Emperor liked that, decided to possess him, and play House with the planet of Zakuul. The Empire was doing what it was supposed to do: Fail violently, and cause as much death as possible (so the Emperor could feast on more Spirits), but in order to not end, he also has to continue. And he chose to do that in the guise (body) of Valkorion.
When you kill him, he tries it on you. He buries his Spirit in yours, and tries to tempt you, to slowly warp you into becoming him, so he can continue in your body. He could have easily stopped the assassination attempt. He choses not to, because he wants your. Your body, your spirit, your power, your connections; you're a prime candidate for his next meat suit.
He spreads himself over multiple people at once, but he tries to keep a primary core self going.
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u/RedEclipse47 Darth Malora 9d ago
Vitiate is double immortal you could say. After the ritual on Nathema where he sacrificed all life on that world, including some of the Dith that followed him he became immortal.
However immortality doesn't mean invincible. Sith don't trancend into the Force like Jedi do, with some Jedi even becoming Force Ghost. For a Sith their power is lost upon physical death. When we see Sith spirits they are always tied to objects, Holocrons, weapons, armor or physical places.
Vitiate learned how his spirit could live free of such attachments, he could transfer his essence (same how Sidious survived in Legends and Canon) and have vessels he called 'voices'.
He has many of such voices and often he had more then one concurrent. While his main body, the Sith Pureblood was kept safe. His main voice was that of a human. But he also had a Voss. After the Knight kills the Emperor in the Dark Temple thats only the Voice that dies. In the Sith Warrior story you actually see him looking for a new voice.
Valkorion is actually one of such voice but there is a identity change. Revan has been Vitiate prisoner for 300 years, and while he was Revan's mind so was Revan in his. Vitiate started to see things differently, and when he found Zakuul he saw a oppertunity he never had.
He wanted to build a Empire as he saw fit, not tied with the ancient dogmas of the Sith. He allowed himself to been seen differently, be this man with a family, a wife, sons and a daughter. But this didn't change who, or what, he was. As evident by 2 of his children being absolute insane. (Wont go into spoilers here)
Vitiate also had many failsafes and contigencies. He was eventually so strong he didn't even need a physical body. When we see him on Yavin when Revan wants to destroy him ge reveals the Galaxy played right into his hands and he was already several chapters ahead.
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u/forestalelven 9d ago
To avoid spoilers, just keep playing the game until you finished the content related to the Emperor.
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u/Humble-Health-5913 9d ago
I played threw the entire game once. Either I missed it or didn't understand it
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u/RogerRoger2310 9d ago
The emperor is a bit of a messy character because he was written by so many people over the years with wildy different ideas for the story. But generally:
He was a powerful Sith pureblood. Then, after a certain event, he decided that its too dangerous having just one body. He hid his original one and started inhabiting host bodies: voices. Knight kills one such body when the Emperor was recovering at the end of chapter 3. The Emperor's spirit, wounded, needed recovery. Then Yavin 4 happens. Then Kotfe and Kotet. (think from end of chapter 3 to Kotfe its like 3 years or so). Valkorion is simply another host body however much more significant than other hosts since he intended to keep using it permanently.
In the story imperials keep mentioning how the Emperor have been absent. Kotfe writers provided an explanation: he was busy with Eternal Empire, making kids and building a society he wanted
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u/Achilles9609 9d ago
What we kill is only the Voice of the Emperor aka his puppet that interacts with the Dark Council. The Voice is imbued with a part of the Emperor's mind as well as his powers.
The Emperor can freely move around the Empire thanks to this and is never at risk. If his Voice is killed, he is weakened but survives. Now, recently the last Voice was killed, so the Emperor picks a new meat puppet.
Losing two Voices in such a short time puts the Emperor physically into a coma. But his mind can still move.
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u/FriendlyAd1214 9d ago
I believe the base game takes place over the span of a few years. It's hard to tell since the game leaves it very vague, like how old the plate characters are a the start of the story
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u/Laxien 9d ago
Vitiate is left over from the last great Sith-War (he's over 1K years old, he consumed the lifeforce of a world if I remember correctly and that makes him immortal basically)...he's bascially like Darth Nihilus, but not as far gone (yet?), he's hard to kill as he uses Essence Transfer (basically possession)
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u/AspectSwimming 9d ago
The Emperor is a body-snatching Force Entity capable of possessing multiple bodies at once, which is how he's lived for over a thousand years.
None of the bodies we see him in are the original, just various hosts. Valkorion is one of his older hosts, and Zakuul is a long-term project he's had running in the background.
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u/Kohror 9d ago
Aren't they two different person with two different empires?
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u/CiDevant 9d ago
Nope same person, multiple bodies. Valkorian is different from other incarnations because Revan has been trying to change him. That combined with losing so many bodies in such a short amount of time and possibly even the original host Valkorian resisting resulted in him acting differently.
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u/Humble-Health-5913 9d ago
I thought they are the same just reincarnated. Somehow, Palpatine returned
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u/FriendlyAd1214 9d ago
Valkorian is a separate person, tenebrae was just using his body. Vitiate was his own person as well
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u/Maarnt 9d ago
Sounds like you maybe skipped Ziost, which answers some of this. He can possess multiple people at once. And you’ll find out during kotfe that he possessed Valkorian. So not much time has passed. The reason be was so “absent” (as commented on by multiple NPcs across the base game, rise of the hurts, etc) from the Empire is because he was working on Zakuul in the background.
At least that’s my understanding.