So Kyraza is starting to come together as an old school, old blood Pure Sith, following along the lines that the Sith Code was not initially evil. She's big on warriors' honor code (seriously, with the 3 prisoners, how is "A warrior should die with his boots on." a Dark choice) and the Code is about overcoming personal limitations, not conquering and killing for the sake of killing. She is something of a bloodist, very proud of "wearing the red" and I'm going to try to find a set that exposes at least her arms, or one of the "relaxed" sets, because 1) additional freedom of movement 2) fuck yes I'm a Red Sith, you're gonna get wrekt. She's definitely the kind of Juggernaut that has healers tearing their hair out because Force Charge Berserker all day erry day. Edit: Ironically, outwardly she's everything Isilta hates about the Sith because I: Get back here you lunatic, how have you not noticed you've been gutshot?! K: *wild cackling*
"Get back here you lunatic" is always a really promising start when sith are involved. ...Mostly in regards to entertainment factor, but also on other metrics, I'm sure.
Today we're going to ramble about healing! So there's basically 3 types of healing in SWOTRverse. Force Healing, Bacta Pure Kolto and Dilute Kolto. I think they work completely differently. Bacta: Dilute Kolto: Incredibly strong when pure, basically accelerates cell regrowth to a ridiculous extent. Available in many strengths, most often diluted to near-water viscosity and used in life-support tanks. Can repair broken bones and internal damage in tanks, but fluid must permeate the tissues Pure Kolto: First-Aid goop/gel. Basically ME Medigel. Slap it on an injury and the gel seals over as a flexible, waterproof bandage that heals the flesh under it. Designed for Troopers/Soldiers in the trenches. Often mixed with bacta to create a bandage that promotes tissue regrowth. Not uncommon to see someone walking around with bright green dried kolto goo patches for several days after a battle. Force Healing: Channeled energy from a Force User into themselves or others. Kolto vs Force: Chemical cell regrowth tends to be indiscriminate. Everything in contact with the goo will instantly start regeneration, which can be problematic with things like, say, half-cauterized sucking chest wounds. While this can be controlled in a hospital setting, this is where Force Healing has an advantage in the field. The Healer can fine-tune the flow of the force to heal deep-tissue layers and work their way out, preventing complications, internal bleeding and cancer-like growths of overstimulated tissue. However, then you eventually end up with an exhausted Force User. You may end up with a half-dead Force User with her fist jammed inside her nope-definitely-not-lover's chest because she was already exhausted during the battle to get to a Sith who may have decided he should be Emperor. Then haha-totally-not-boyfriend apparently decided he could take a direct slash to the chest if it meant he could plant the bombs on not-Emperor and kick him off a balcony, so Healer starts life-tapping her own energies (and that of a few other people). And both are dragged out of the dying ship on the same stretcher and it's very stressful. (I actually miss the old False Emperor boss fight. Back in vanilla you had to get him down to like, 10%, drag him away from the throne and stick a grenade on him that knocks him off the balcony, it was great. Now you just kill him :/)
This reminds me of a conversation I saw once in the Mass Effect fandom, over whether medi-gel could be effectively used as lube. It was eventually decided that no, that's a terrible idea, because medi-gel works to immediately seal wounds and staunch bleeding, which is why that one poor NPC in the hospital in ME3 is being slated for an amputation. Foreign matter got into his wound before the medi-gel was applied and started an infection. Try to shove that stuff up yer bum, and all you'll end up with is one hell of a constipation problem. However, I note that both kolto and medi-gel can be used intravenously, which implies that in very small quantities it can be adjusted to work directly on damaged muscle tissue without, for example, sealing shut all of the surrounding capillaries. And we know it is definitely pure kolto that can be used that way, because bacta didn't yet exist in the Old Republic era, and yet there's Ukabi, bragging about his tubes. Screw you Ukabi, how come you haven't dropped any good loot the last six times I killed you? Being able to heal deep tissue directly sounds like an amazingly useful talent. If the Jedi were sensible they'd focus more on training people for combat medic/trauma surgeon roles, where their skills could actually do some good. The Republic has plenty of front-line fighters, but it NEEDS to shore up its infrastructure. Also, can you imagine how amazing a Jedi diagnostician would be? They'd NEVER confuse the patient's exotic ailment with lupus! Poor Jedi. Were she and her definitely-not-a-lover okay? (Also that boss fights sounds really cool -- and yet also kind of aggravating, considering how many times Darth Dipstick knocked *me* off the balcony the first time I fought him, in the revamped version. Now it hardly ever happens, because I know to stay in the MIDDLE OF THE PLATFORM, but that first time...)
Yeah I'm never sure on the bacta/kolto timeline conversion. Knowing that they didn't exist together, I'll edit. The Star-Crossed Jedi are fine, that's my main, Xausoi and Hubsand's Chatnoir. That incident was what finally cracked their ridiculous "We Are Jedi, We Can't Be In Love!" denial mating dance. It's very difficult to yell at your okay-probably-future-wife about her life choices from a kolto tank, so goopy panicked "we're alive?!" makeouts will have to do.
The Republic definitely underutilizes Jedi as healers, and sees them more as Magic Weapons. Looking at you, Saresh. They would probably be under a lot less stress WRT the Dark Side, because battlefield medics are obviously deeply in the Light. If one starts getting tetchy about all the bloodshed and wants to Do Something About It, let them blow off some steam on the battlefield. If they start edging Darkish, back to medic duty. It wouldn't be a perfect solution but it would definitely be a highly beneficial one. Sith healers are a perpetual conundrum though. Like, everyone thinks of the Dark Side as rage and pain and electrocution. How terrifying must it be that first (or every) time you wake up in a trench or medic tent with someone snarling "Don't you fucking dare die on me, Lieutenant!" with red eyes and black-purple glowing hands going right for your injury? Huh. Bet Sith would actually be more efficient healers. If Jedi tap the Force through basically life-energy, and Sith through rage and pain, a Sith could just tap into the flow of the battlefield itself and keep going for far longer than a Jedi. Say, generally users tap the Force with their own physical/mental energy as a guide/channel/control valve. Jedi would eventually be SOL and have to start tapping their life energy or that of willing volunteers to continue channeling past their natural limit. Sith would just be able to pull the free-floating emotional turmoil coming off everyone around them and keep on trucking. At a guess Jedi could compensate by having like, a blanket agreement for Knights that if you're not dying and not on duty go donate energy to the Sages. Luckily for the Republic not too many Sith are predisposed to the healing arts.
Isilta bought a Kaas apartment for the convenience and short commute to II. It happens to house an absurdly large number of plush couches, all of them facing the rainy windows and surrounded by bookshelves. No one has ever actually seen Isilta relax, because she doesn't. Occasionally when Isilta is in hiding or recovering from a high profile case offplanet, Vashti and maybe someday Rejalgar can catch rare glimpses of a slight, plain-looking person with fine fluffy brown hair trailing either to or from the kitchen in one or more expensive nexu-wool sweaters with an oversized mug and dark circles under their eyes. (Have I decided that "Isilta" is just yet another cover? Yes.)
That is awesome and yet really, really sad at the same time. Isilta, babe, nooooo. :( You'll work yourself into an early grave. Of course I give it ten to one odds that VOICING this opinion in her face would just result in her working even hard to hide any moment of weakness, sooooo...
Her theme song is "Cover Up" by Trapt :3 "Red Blade" was easy. A tissue-paper party favor of a mask. She's made and discarded dozens of those. Occasionally some will thicken with paper mache. "Isilta" is hand-painted Corellian porcelain. Isilta is the model agent, the unstoppable killer, the perfect spy. Cipher 13. Isilta's callsign is Silence, for fuck's sake. Isilta can't break. Isilta can't take a break. Isilta doesn't need to. So sometimes Isilta needs to stop existing for a while and let the normal person flop sideways onto a couch and speak in monosyllables for a few days. It's not MPD or dissociation, it's just compartmentalization taken to extreme and probably unhealthy levels.
A bit of (possibly) amusing background on a thing I posted about Rejalgar elsewhere: We decided that at some point Rejalgar had a run-in with one of Drake's Consulars, Sempervi. His crew had gotten a tip-off while waiting for Jaesa to contact him in Chapter 1, regarding something left behind by the Eagle's organization on Nar Shaddaa, something at a satellite location that hadn't been identified before the Hutts resold the property to a Republic medical testing firm. Rejalgar broke in during off-hours and attempted to very calmly explain to some very freaked out scientists that he needed access codes so he could go remove a horrible terrorist something that was hiding in the walls. And then Sempervi pounced from the rafters and effed him up so fast it made his head spin. Cue a bloodied up and disoriented sith trying to explain to a jedi that no really, he's trying to save civilian lives, while said jedi's trandoshan friend is grumbling about points.
