Drop In: Alderaan

A bit less than three weeks ago I wrote about how genius I think it is that Galactic Season's 6 unique weekly objective is to visit another person's stronghold. It's simple, educational and fun. I wanted to write more posts about visiting different planetary strongholds as each objective appeared, but then week three was so busy with Total Galactic War and everything that I didn't get around to it. I still took screenshots though, so it's time to catch up!

The drop-in objective in week three was to visit an Alderaan stronghold. This was an interesting contrast to week two as the Mek-Sha stronghold is very small, while the Alderaan one is huge. I'm honestly not sure I've ever checked out all the rooms in one. Sadly, this did have the side effect of me growing a bit tired of the whole thing after the first couple of stronghold visits. Like, I'm sure they're all meticulously decorated, but there's still a degree of diminishing returns in terms of interest by the time you check out how the third stronghold owner has arranged the chairs in the northern lodging in the mountain retreat, if you get what I mean. I also didn't visit a stronghold on Darth Malgus this time, since the Conquest madness meant that I hit 7/7 weekly objectives from other sources anyway.

So the first stronghold I visited was Starbuck's Jedi Academy on the Leviathan server, and once again the work of a French architect turned out to be my favourite. They have style! This one was 99% decorated, and unlike on Mek-Sha, I made no effort to seek out places with lower completion rates, because as mentioned, the Alderaan stronghold is huge and definitely won't feel overcrowded even if you fill the maximum number of hooks.

So what did I like about Starbuck's Jedi Academy? Well, I thought it was all very tastefully done. The outdoor area where you arrive was filled with a lot of trees and vendor stalls, and the first room you enter had a bunch of those posable taxidermy decorations that commenter Thander mentioned in a reply to my previous stronghold post.

There was a room that looked kind of like a classroom, which seemed very fitting for an academy.

The balcony featured a bunch of benches under a pergola and looked properly serene.

Finally there was what looked like a chamber intended for the Jedi Council to meet.

Now, as nice as that had been, I noticed from the listings that (at least based on the name) a lot of decorators had decided to go with a Jedi theme for their Alderaan stronghold, so my next goal was to intentionally visit strongholds whose name implied a different focus, to see what else people had come up with. This led me to Bejarah's Trade Emporium on Tulak Hord. I think this was a much less obvious fit for an Alderaanian castle, but they definitely made it work.

The outdoor area contained a lot of building structures I didn't even recognise, including what looked like a mini fighting arena for duels? It kind of made me wish there was a better way to check what decorations were used in a room than trying to come up with a decently descriptive Google search.

The statues outside made it quite clear that the owner was quite fond of bad guys, featuring Revan in his "Returned" get-up, Darth Malgus, Valkorion and Darth Marr (don't @ me about calling Marr a bad guy).

The first indoor area was filled with a lot of stalls and terminals, plus some indoor plants, which seemed fitting for a market.

The balcony was an amusing contrast to the serenity of the Jedi Academy, as it featured hot tubs and skimpy dancers.

There was also a cantina with a lot of booths, a med bay (I was really fascinated by the deco that looks like a guy undergoing some sort of full-body scan) and a second cantina with a dance floor filled with a whole load of dancing NPCs. I had no idea there were so many of these.

Still, after this is when my enthusiasm for visiting every single room in each stronghold started to wane, so that the other three I visited were only treated to a quick look around the initial set of areas.

Ayaleeta's Stronghold on Satele Shan didn't seem to have a single, clear overarching theme that I could make out, which to be honest is quite similar to most of my own strongholds. There was a landing area with a lot of shuttles and ships.

Inside, one thing that stood out to me was that the large main room had been split into lots of little alcoves via use of those placeable wall decos.

There was also a kind of council chamber similar to what I'd seen in the Jedi Academy on Leviathan, only apparently overseen by... Z0-0M?

Finally I screenshotted this room of "miscellaneous tech decos", mostly because it's a vibe I can relate to.

On Star Forge, I visited Terria Mazi's VIP Lounge, where the first thing that stood out to me was a ginormous deco just outside that was kind of reminiscent of Soa's platforms, and I spent a little time trying to climb them (with no success). Once again I would've loved to be able to check what it was called (feel free to tell me in the comments if you know).

The inside didn't particularly wow me, but as mentioned I was getting a bit bored by this point. My main impression of the main hall was that everything seemed a bit too symmetrical, as if every deco was placed exactly where the hook is by default, with no moving around or turning. I'm not even sure whether that was actually true though, I just know that something felt ever so slightly "off" to me.

I was also surprised to see that this decorator had actually created a little hangout in the Killik cave - a place I'd visited once or twice but had otherwise given up on checking out as most people didn't seem to put anything there.

As I mentioned in my Galactic Seasons Diary, the Shae Vizla server was a bit trickier as I at first couldn't find an Alderaan stronghold in the public listings, but at a later point I was able to visit Slayerassassin's Stronghold at 23% completion. Now this was a true fly-by visit as I didn't even bother with most of the rooms and was off to kill a world boss with my guild minutes later, but I did like giant solar system decoration outside, and how the wealth of Imperial flags left no doubt about the owner's faction allegiance.

What are your thoughts on other people's Alderaan strongholds that you visited?