Meeting the Curator

Aside from the big Chains in the Dark story update, patch 7.4 also contained a smaller side story with KOTOR-style cut scenes, which continued the storyline that started with Lane Vizla on Ruhnuk in 7.2.

What's it about? Spoilers ahead:

Lane recalls you to Ruhnuk to tell you that she's been working on restoring the small Basilisk droid you left with her but she's made no real progress as she just doesn't know enough about their inner workings. She has however found out about a reclusive rich guy called the Curator who apparently collects rare droids, and she wonders whether he can help. As he shuns company, she wants you to infiltrate his home stealthily, while pretending to be a courier with his newest purchase.

For this, you have to fetch a bunch of stuff from around Ruhnuk, Mek-Sha and Dantooine. You then go to the Curator's house, which just happens to be on the outskirts of Kessan's Landing (convenient!). Your disguise gets you in, but it quickly becomes obvious that you're not delivering the real goods he expected (though I think it's funny that he instantly turns on the messenger instead of assuming the seller sold him a fake or something like that). His defenses consist of nothing but some antique astromechs though, which are disabled with as much as a kick and a slap.

When you demand to know more about Basilisk droids, he has to admit that they are so rare that even he doesn't own the schematics... however, he knows of an equally as rare/even rarer(?) HK-24 droid on Belsavis, a type of droid that was specifically used to hunt Basilisks and should therefore have lots of information about them. He suggests that you retrieve its memory core, and that in exchange for providing you with its location, he gets to keep the chassis for his collection.

You do go along with this plan and return the HK core to Lane. She puts it into an old astromech to access it and the astromech goes absolutely nuts, yelling about how it's malfunctioning and wanting to self-destruct, followed by an attempt to destroy the powered off Basilisk droid. 

Lane asks you to return the astromech to the Curator to see if he can fix it up to not go crazy. He's not too pleased to see you again but offers to put together a bespoke restraining bolt. While you fetch some parts for him, he puts the HK-24 core back into its chassis and of course something goes wrong, causing it to turn on and attack him. You come back in time to take it out again and protect him, after which the memory core goes back into the astromech with a restraining bolt applied.

When you turn it back on on Ruhnuk, it still gets somewhat agitated, seemingly arguing with itself, but in a somewhat more restrained manner. Lane also says that the Curator has contacted her and wants to sponsor the restoration of the Basilisk droid.

This story was about what I expected in terms of length and depth. I was a bit surprised by just how silly it was, considering that the previous installment of this storyline was quite serious. Not that there's anything wrong with silly, but we did just have the goofiness of the Galactic Season 5 story as well...

There were only a couple of small things I didn't like. For example I was thrown off by the fact that during the first conversation with Lane, her pronunciation of the "G0-T0 eye" (the thing you're supposed to pretend to deliver to the Curator) changes between "go-to" and "gee zero tee zero", which is quite a big difference.

Also, the whole premise of pretending to be a delivery person was a bit... eh. It wasn't quite sweeping the floor of the Gormak cantina, but it felt close. Not exactly a job for an Alliance Commander or Sith Lord in my opinion. The whole thing was a bit weird from a mechanical point of view as well, as they literally make you put a whole gear set on, which in the age of the Outfit Designer doesn't change your appearance anyway (unless you go and select "show gear as outfit", which I did for my own immersion, but it did feel a bit clunky). I would've expected to just get a quest item that you click and poof, you're disguised. But I don't know, maybe someone out there was really happy to get this cosmetic gear set for future pizza delivery roleplay (since you do actually get to keep it)?

Finally, the last thing that got me was that when you're on Belsavis and some guards stop you, you have to kill them even as a Republic trooper! That just felt wrong; there should have been a non-violent solution available.

Aside from those things, I quite enjoyed the story. I had a good chuckle at all the droid shenanigans, from the ridiculous defense droids to the maddened HK to digging for parts outside the Curator's house. I did laugh out loud at the bit when you first leave his house and there's this glowy chest next to the door... I was like "Is this a lore object?" and clicked, just to be greeted by an "intrusive thoughts" cast bar, which finished with my character swatting the relic off its pedestal, to an audible expression of dismay from the Curator.

I believe there's been an indication that part three of this storyline, when it arrives, will bring it to its conclusion, presumably with us actually getting a Basilisk... companion? Then again, I'll be very surprised if this is the last we've heard of the Curator, and I wouldn't put it beyond him to mess things up somehow...