Star Wars: The Old Republic



"You were deceived."

The Star Wars MMORPG developed by BioWare, set in roughly the same timeline as their Knights of the Old Republic RPGs, approximately 3600 years before the films. Three hundred years after the events of KotOR 2, the Sith Empire returned to the galaxy to attack the Republic and its Jedi guardians. After decades of fighting, a tenuous truce was established, but the events of the game look to be leading the two factions back to all out war.

The game boasts "immersive storytelling, dynamic combat, and groundbreaking companion characters". It was released on December 20, 2011 (Dec. 22 for some of Europe). During E3 2012, it was announced that players would be able play for free up to level 15.

There is a trio of books that serve as a prologue, Fatal Alliance (dealing with tensions in the truce), Deceived (Malgus's story), and Revan (detailing just what happened to Revan and the Exile after the events of Knights of the Old Republic.)

Here is the character sheet.

And here is the official website for the game.

"Male Bounty Hunter: Personally, I'm just here to kill people and cause damage."
 * 2-D Space: Played straight with the game's Galaxy Map. Justified, as a spiral galaxy (like the one in Star Wars or the Milky Way) can be 100 times wider than it is thick.
 * Acrofatic: If you pick male body type 4 during character creation. It will not hinder you from force jumping around or barrelrolling into cover. Funny and impressive at the same time.
 * Action Girl: Three of 'em; Mandalorian bounty hunter Shae Vizla, the Twi'lek Eleena Daru, and Satele Shan (descendant of Bastila Shan), as well as any female player character or companion.
 * Actually Four Mooks: Played with on Nar Shaddaa.
 * Adventurer Archaeologist: One of the Crew Skills for companion characters, used to get lightsaber crystals, and the like, as well as opening some passageways in Flashpoints. As Sith players start out on the Ancient Sith Homeworld of Korriban, many of their lessons require them to retrieve valuable artifacts from the tombs of the ancient Sith Lords. The Sith Inquisitor even spends all of Act 1 hunting for various artifacts. On the Republic side, the Jedi Consular's story begins with researching ancient Jedi holocrons  on Tython.
 * Agony Beam: Sith Inquisitors can use their Force Lightning as this in their storyline, and use it to incapacitate foes with pain, while in combat.
 * Affably Evil: Aside from the Player Characters being able to be like this, here's some of the more notable ones broken down by class.
 * Jedi Knight:
 * Watcher One  and Lord Praven  . Watcher One is a My Country, Right or Wrong type who tries to stay out of the political machinations of the Sith if possible, and is so dedicated to the Empire that
 * Lord Praven, meanwhile, considers you a Worthy Opponent, drawing you into a duel  He is so unlike other Sith that   And according to his codex, after killing a famous Jedi duelist during the invasion of Coruscant, he spared her Padawan, telling her to challenge him after she'd honed her skills. She did - and the fact that Lord Praven is still around to challenge the Jedi Knight indicates how well the padawan fared in that duel.
 * Sith Inquisitor:
 * Lord Zyn on Korriban. He's pleasant, cheerful, always smiling and generous with his praise both in conversations and in reporting your performance to your overseer. You really have to remind yourself that he's an interrogator who tortures people with force lightning to squeeze out information from them and does a Squee of delight when he hears you tearing through a subject. He also compliments you on your unusual interrogation methods if you get a confession out of the poor guy shackled to the table without zapping him.
 * Lord Zash, the Sith Lord you're trying to impress, is extremely polite during your first meeting and corrects herself when she accidentally calls you "slave" instead of Acolyte. The next time you see her . Even her Codex bio warns that any Sith Lord that is that polite and amiable must have some serious Hidden Depths.
 * Grand Moff Kilran. Seriously, everything he says is at the same time arrogant, condescending and polite—though he cuts the act once you really piss him off. Not to mention his nickname "The Butcher of Coruscant".
 * Darth Lachris: She's casually murderous, yet she genuinely enjoys your relationship (when a warrior) and you can even start a sexual relationship.
 * Doctor Charnagus on Nar Shaddaa is an especially unsettling example. On the one hand, he's been, and he seems quite proud of the procedure he's using; nevertheless, he greets the Republic PC politely, reasoning that it's "only fair" that the PC want to rescue the abducted Republic Captain who's currently on his operating table. He helpfully wakes the Captain up to tell him that he's been rescued: "Isn't that wonderful?"
 * Alien Arts Are Appreciated: One of the category of companion gifts are labeled 'cultural artifacts', which are generally works of art created by alien species around the galaxy.
 * All There in the Manual: You can enjoy the game just fine without reading/watching anything else, and the in-game codex helps a lot too. However, between the online Holonet, the comics, the novel, and all the ContinuityNods to the previous two games and the whole Star Wars universe... let's just say that there's a lot of stuff for fans to enjoy in there.
 * Exclusively Evil: The Gormak.
 * Justified/not-quite-but-almost-averted by the reveal at the end of the Voss quest chain that there are non-chaotic evil Gormak --.
 * Ancient Conspiracy:
 * And Now for Something Completely Different: While the majority of the game is standard MMO gameplay, finding the Datacrons tends to entail a lot of platforming.
 * Anti Frustration Feature: A whole list of them were added in patch 1.2. Notables including skipping right past orbital stations on the way back to you ship, being able to access vehicles in certain areas, and getting "sprint" at level 1, cutting down the Fake Longevity a great deal.
 * Apocalyptic Log: A lot of characters record their dying words in hologram messages. It must be pretty easy to set them up and use them while being mauled or murdered.
 * Apologetic Attacker: After  gets beaten down by the Inquisitor, Darth Mortis apologizes to   before snapping his neck with the force.
 * Arc Words: "You were deceived."
 * Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Ffon serves as one to the Sith Inquisitor on Korriban, constantly putting down the character (and other apprentice hopefuls) and having his skills as a true Sith being boasted about by Overseer Harkun.
 * Also Thana on Taris. She keeps doing worse than you and getting captured on top of that, yet keeps insisting that she's better than you and that you're "getting in her way." Fortunately, none of her superiors are duped by her whole bragging.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Lord Grathan is a mad scientist type. He likes weapons, cyborgs, and ergonomic chairs.
 * Ax Crazy: himself makes an appearance.
 * The Sith governor of Balmorra enjoys crushing rebels a little too much. The lines used to flirt with her are hilarious because of it; player characters can only... spend quality time with her, by acting like a complete sociopath.
 * NR-02, the protocol droid aboard the Black Talon, also qualifies—after a bit of Fridge Horror has kicked in.
 * Bad Boss: Imperial Intelligence tries to keep The Empire together, but still has to answer to the Sith. They often get caught up in Sith power struggles as a result, and that is never a good thing.
 * Badass Boast: It seems that everything that comes out of the Bounty Hunter's mouth is either this, or him asking for pay.
 * Badass Longcoat: A common look for Imperial Agents and Smugglers.
 * Badass Normal: Anyone who isn't a Jedi or a Sith, as usual, but the Trooper in particular is looking like this.
 * Jace Malcom, who leads a daring raid on invading Sith forces on Alderaan. He starts with massive destruction via his BFG. When that starts to get boring, he goes after the local Sith Lord. When Malgus deflects the rockets, he charges him, steam-rolling through two Sith Warriors in the process. When he's finally stopped by Force Lightning, he pulls out a freakin' knife before getting blasted away.
 * If you watch during the battle, you can see other troopers taking on Sith with their bare hands. And winning!
 * In this video, the Trooper takes out a Sith Inquisitor with nothing but a combat knife. Bounty Hunters are no slouches in Close Combat either.
 * Word of God says that the Imperial Agent will show why someone like Grand Moff Tarkin was not only able to stand up to a Sith Lord (Darth Vader), but to keep him in control.
 * Smugglers have the least equipment, and still can hold their own against powerful enemies, sometimes even kicking their enemy in the nuts.
 * Nico Okarr, the spotlight stealing smuggler of Return, is definitely one, complete with Guns Akimbo and an Unflinching Walk. And a Badass Longcoat to boot!
 * Bait and Switch Boss: The second boss of the Mandalorian Raiders Flashpoint looks like it's going to be a group of elite Mandalorians. However, these Mandalorians immediately get killed by a boarding party from your opposing faction, who serve as the real boss.
 * Bald of Evil: Darth Malgus, who features in the "Hope", "Deceived", and "Return" trailers.
 * Kaliyo Djannis
 * All Rattataki appear to be bald, and are only available to Imperial players.
 * Also one of the manifestations of the Sith Emperor, where he's a bald kid.
 * Bald Women: As stated above, Kaliyo.
 * Barehanded Blade Block: In the 2010 trailer,
 * Battle Couple: Malgus and Eleena Daru.
 * Since each of the eight player classes get's their own set of combat-effective companions, and every class has romance options...
 * Being Evil Sucks / Being Good Sucks: There being a war going aside, being a force user on either side isn't good for your love life. The Jedi being attached to something can lead to the Dark Side, which is true but still sucks, while the Sith consider love to be a weakness and since they're always trying to off each other, it makes it a very dangerous thing to start a family if one their side. The Sith power struggles mean that despite Evil Is Cool, Being Evil Sucks for the side as a whole since it can getting caught in their power struggles.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: The player character's interactions with, if the player chooses the "Flirt" options.
 * Benevolent Boss: Darth Silthar. Unlike most Sith, he looks out for his subordinates and if they fail, he offers them encouragement instead of killing them.
 * BFS: Chanya Medaal, a minor character in the Imperial Bonus Series, has a sword as tall and as wide as her entire torso.
 * Big Badass Battle Sequence: The open-world Player Versus Player battle over the lightsaber crystals of Illum, which looks like a cross between the battles of Hoth and Geonosis.
 * Big Bad: Most class quest storylines have their own Big Bad, but the Sith Emperor is the one for the game as a whole.
 * Big Damn Heroes: The arrival of Satele Shan in the "Hope" trailer.
 * Lord Kallig also has one of Grandpa Sethian proportions in the Sith Inquisitor's storyline when he rescues you from the mad ghost Darth Andru
 * Big Brother Is Watching: Kaas City is one of the most orderly places in the galaxy and the combination of Imperial Intelligence and the pacification droids which litter the streets ensure that it stays orderly.
 * Blatant Item Placement: The Final Battle of Alderaan's World Quest arc on either side features this. Apparently, Alderaan's throne room comes stocked with Rocker Launchers. They help you take down the force field protecting the throne.
 * Bittersweet Ending: All of the Imperial Agent endings leave
 * Black Cloak: The style of choice for the discriminating, fashion-conscious sith.
 * Blinded by the Light: The Smuggler and Imperial Agent's Flash-Bang grenade ability.
 * Blindfolded Vision: All Miraluka, who see using The Force, cover up their vestigial eye sockets as a courtesy.
 * Blood Knight: Darth Malgus. He's more interested in fighting and leading military expeditions, unlike the Dark Council members who are constantly struggling and backstabbing for power.
 * The meaner of the Bounty Hunter class' dialog choices, make them sound like this:

": And in the end, as the darkness takes me, I am nothing. Now I know how you felt, old friend."
 * The Sith Warrior is like this light or dark.
 * Blood Sport: Huttball, one type of PvP gameplay.
 * Boarding Party: The Void Star Player Versus Player war-zone has the Republic or Empire players doing this, to get to the ship's computer core, while the other side tries to repel them. Both factions take turns attacking and defending.
 * The 'Esseles' and 'Black Talon' flashpoints end with the players doing one of these to an enemy capitol ship, while the rest of the flashpoints have players sneaking into enemy territory with shuttle craft.
 * Bounty Hunter: One of the Sith aligned classes available to the player as the Empire has employed a large number of the mercs to bolster their ranks. Complete with a jetpack and a flamethrower!
 * Came Back Wrong:, upon escaping from the Emperor, enacts a plan that will wipe out anyone with any trace of Sith blood. This translates to 97% of the Imperial population, according to.
 * Cargo Envy: Satele Shan and her double bladed lightsaber. Made more poignant by the fact the image is not only on the DVD case, but on the game's initial loading screen.
 * Call Back: The game has these in spades.
 * There's Satele Shan, descendant of Bastila Shan.
 * Various groups met in quests follow groups directly affected by KotOR's characters: The Revanites, Sith citizens who worship Revan; The Preservers, Mandalorians follow the ways of Mandalore the Preserver  and support the Republic.
 * The Smuggler's starship design is suspiciously like the Ebon Hawk's.
 * It also looks extremely similar to the Millenium Falcon.
 * Specifically, it looks like what you'd get if the two ships had a kid.
 * The Jedi Consular's storyline involves meetings with a number of Jedi Masters from the Knights of The Old Republic series,
 * Call Forward:
 * "The Killiks, an sentient insect-like race native to Alderaan, have been infesting House Thul"
 * The Chessmaster: The Sith Emperor.
 * Chainmail Bikini: Usually Averted, but Leia's iconic metal dancer's outfit is available for purchase for both factions, and it does function as moddable light armor. Meaning Inquisitors and Consulars can use it as effective combat gear.
 * If you play your Inquisitor/Consular as Assasin/Shadow and spec into the tanking tree, you will even have armor values like a trooper in full combat suit.
 * The Chosen One: The Jedi Knight is the Jedi Lord Scourge saw killing the Emperor.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: This is the short, and the long description, of society within the Sith Empire.
 * Co-Dragons: At the end of their storylines, the Sith Warrior and the Sith Inquisitor both elevate to such positions that the Emperor is the only real authority over them.
 * Colony Drop: Hammer Station is a space station that shoots asteroids at planets.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: Players get a lot of opportunities for this in the Imperial Agent and Sith Inquisitor storylines.
 * Combat Medic: Everyone except Jedi Knights, and Sith Warriors, can specialize in healing (after level 10). Otherwise, every class gets a healing-focused companion at some point, allowing them to serve as this everywhere except Operations.
 * Combat Pragmatist: Most non-Jedi classes have to have shades of this in order to fight Jedi, but special mention goes to the smugglers, who use a Groin Attack and immediately follow up with a headshot.
 * Comedic Sociopathy: Players will be able to engage in this as the devs have gone on record saying that the Inquisitor in particular will frequently get a conversation choice saying, "Shock him". Also shows up in conversations between the Sith Warrior and Vette as she is wearing a slave shock collar. And the Inquisitor, in conversation with other Force users, can ask Khem Val what Khem Val likes to do to Force users.
 * Also, in Huttball the devs noticed that people were hogging the ball and creating an impenetrable defense around it. They fixed this by making it explode if a team tries hogging the ball in a corner. The in-universe justification for this? Huttball is for the Hutts' personal entertainment, and you're boring them!
 * In one of Coruscant's more lawless sectors, the local gangs play a game called "Boom". The local swoop gangs booby-trap Republic supply crates after raiding them, and make bets on how long it'll be before some civilian approaches it to salvage the goods. Related to this is how, on Ord Mantell, local Republic soldiers bet with refugees as to whether they can make it in one piece across a minefield. The player can put a stop to it, run the course, or join in the betting.
 * Continuity Nod: Oh, dear Lord, by the hundreds. For example, General Bouris Ulgo is related to Trask Ulgo, the first person you ever met in Knights of the Old Republic.
 * Taris has several nods to KotOR, including the wreckage of the Endar Spire, an old Swoop Track named Brejik's Run, and a quest giving some closure on what happened to the Outcasts. The ruined city with trees growing and vines hanging off the building makes the planet a two-fer in the trope area as well.
 * On Hutta, the bounty hunter gets the chance to slowly count to three before blasting a Rodian giving you attitude. Just like Calo Nord's Establishing Character Moment.
 * The Imprisoned One from both factions' world quest arc on Tatooine is implied to be back in the first Knights of the Old Republic game.
 * And many within the own game:
 * For instance, Risha the Smuggler's companion actually is a Childhood Friend of Vette. The latter actually being rescued by the former's father from slavery.
 * One talk with Qyzen Fess, companion to the Jedi Consular, reveals that he used to work with a bounty hunter named Braden. Braden being the Bounty Hunter's mentor.
 * Doc, companion of the Jedi Knight, had a one-time fling with
 * General Rakton, the main enemy of the third act of the Republic Trooper actually is mentioned by Liteunant Pierce, the Sith Warrior companion, who is sent on a mission with his old squad to take on the Bastion.
 * All Darths actually are present on the Dark Council room. Darth Maar, from instance, that is the narrator of the Voidstar Warzone throw many lines in all classes that go inside the room.
 * Late in the Imperial Agent class quest,
 * In the Imperial Agent's questline on Corellia,
 * The cults in the Sith Inquisitor's quests on Nar Shadaa are competing with the cult led by from the Jedi Consular storyline.
 * Felix Iresso, a Jedi Consular companion used to work under Aric Jorgan, the Trooper's companion
 * Conservation of Ninjutsu: The enemy strength ranking system was made with this trope in mind, weak enemies come in packs of 3-5 and die quickly, making your character feel strong by comparison, while strong and up can go one-on-one with the player and give them a good fight.
 * Cool Shades: Cyborg Imperial Agents have quite a few options that make their cybernetics look less like implants, and more like shades that they never take off.
 * Cool Ship: You get your own, complete with crew. The X-70 Phantom, which is assigned to Imperial Agents, in particular.
 * Smugglers, fittingly, start with one, which is promptly stolen.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: The Separatist's Elaborate Underground Base, on Ord Mantell.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Several over the course of events, but Gayen Lekende, the Republic's nemesis on Tatooine, takes the cake.
 * Crapsack World: Hutta, and HOW.
 * Crossover: Of course, everyone is playing the same game, but there's a significant amount interrelatedness to the character storylines. And while some is expected do to some npcs being major galactic players, there's a significant amount of small-time relations. To wit:
 * The Consular's companion Qyzen and the Bounty Hunter's companion Mako are old friends.
 * Lt. Iresso, another of the Consular's companions, once served under Lt. Jorgan, a companion of the Trooper.
 * The Jedi Knight's companion Doc's old girlfriend is Kaliyo, the Imperial Agent's first companion.
 * In fact, the IA's last chapter is a subtle mess of these, because
 * Cult: The Revanites of Dromond Kaas who secretly work to spread the word of Revan. They see themselves as persecuted by both Jedi and Sith but do little sane work that would help them be accepted by either.
 * The Sith Inquisitor also deals with a cult on Nar Shaddaa ruled by the Sith Lord Paladius.
 * Cutscene: About the only quests that don't get a Cutscene are ones obtained from mission terminals. And they're all fully-voiced cut scenes.
 * Then again, they don't really count if they are interactive.
 * Cutting the Knot: A Sith holocron has sat entombed in an obelisk for over a millennium. Hundreds of sith have tried to puzzle out how to release it. The Sith Inquisitor shot it with Force Lightning, proving that sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best.
 * Cyanide Pill: In the Agent questline, injects himself with lethal poison if you don't kill him immediately after defeating him.
 * Cyborg: Plenty of them, with this being Star Wars, and cyborg Human is one of the playable races. One Sith Inquisitor Darth Mekhis from The Lost Suns tie-in comic has has cybernetic eyebrows.
 * There is a Mad Scientist cyborg genius in the Republic Trooper storyline, who's trying to make innocents into Manchurian Agent suicide bomber cyborgs.
 * Daddy's Little Villain: The Backstory for Sith Warrior Player Characters. Contrast with the Sith Inquisitor's back-story. There's also Darth Zhorrid, daughter of Darth Jadus.
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy: The Emperor.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Might be too early to tell for certain sure, but this Sith Empire are not your grandad's villains. Darth Malgus is a loving husband who cares about his men and the civilians of the Empire, the troopers follow their leaders out of respect and not fear and the Empire itself is a meritocracy done right (usually), as the overseer had been paying attention and orders the execution of the backstabber.}}.
 * It is worth noting that Malgus is a reformist and deeply hated in some Sith circles for his radical views. The only reason he's not directly targeted is his lack of a political power base and the fact he has no desire to get involved in the backstabbing politics of the Empire. So whilst the Empire has members who aren't simply in it For the Evulz, the darker aspects still very much remain.
 * The devs have said that for this MMO, it's entirely possible to play as a Light-side Sith, meaning your own character could be an example of this trope.
 * Later history trailers have even lampshaded the idea that, logically, the Sith should have a 0% Approval Rating among the citizenry but doesn't; the promotional material and developers suggest that the entire concept of "The Empire" is going to be deconstructed to a degree in the game.
 * Imperial players have both light and dark side options, although the light side options are more Noble Demon as opposed to For the Evulz rather than full-on good. The Devs claim that as the story progresses, Imperial players can gradually become full fledged heroes, while Republic heroes can fall to the dark side completely.
 * In patch 1.2, you'll be able to use the legacy system to make a character of any race as any class. Yes, that means you can have a sith pureblood be a born and raised Jedi.
 * Darker and Edgier: Than most Star Wars fare: the game is set in a cold war where both sides can easily be called evil by the other side for entirely valid reasons. It is a BioWare game after all.
 * The Developers have said that they want to keep this game true to the Star Wars feel, as opposed to 'having their own spin' on it (like Death Troopers). Apparently, this hasn't kept them from including zombies in one of their world quests. Make of that what you will.
 * Nor did it keep their first update from being about planet wide Rahkgoul outbreaks either. With a new version looking decidedly more traditionally zombie-like.
 * Dead Guy on Display: One quest includes the option of literally putting someone's head on a pike, according to ESRB.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Most classes can get some snarking in, but the Smuggler is the king. A Smuggler's companions are also pretty darn snarky.
 * A case could be made for the Inquisitor as well. Definitely very strong in the snark side of the force.
 * Death From Above:
 * In the Deceived trailer we see the Sith fleet sacking Coruscant. They burn stuff. A later trailer also revealed that the Bounty Hunter class has an ability named this that, well, allows them to get airborne and rain AOE fire down on the enemy.
 * In the Player Versus Player battle sequence on Ilum, players can call down air strikes, and there is at least one large artillery piece present.
 * Imperial Agents and Smugglers can call in orbital strikes against enemies.
 * Deflector Shields: The Bounty Hunter's tanking Advanced Class, Power-Tech, and Trooper Vanguards, specialize in these. They get slots to equip shield generators, and activated abilities. Several companions also get a shield slot.
 * Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: In order to stand up to Lightsabers, most Melee weapons carried by non-player characters have a cortosis alloy weave. Many weapons instead glow with energy to this effect, like "force pikes" (not that force) that were made of Phrik instead.
 * To say nothing of the myriad kinds of actual weird ammunition the gun-oriented classes can fling around. For starters, the Bounty Hunter has a missile that heals people.
 * Deployable Cover: Usable by Smugglers and Imperial Agents. Besides the obvious, this is notable for granting them access several of their abilities (like Barrage), since they can only be activated while in cover.
 * Determinator: On the Republic side we have Jace Malcom at the "Battle Of Alderaan". Fighting his way through Force Lightning to try and stab a Sith Lord is something else.Never mind nearly killing yourself just to take him down. Then again, considering that he's voiced by Jolee Bindo, are you shocked? And for the Empire we have Lord Malgus. He shakes off a rocket and a grenade to the face before being blasted into a mountain with the force and he survives.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Dark side sith players may choose to decide that All Crimes Are Equal and kill all offenders equally regardless of the actual crime commited - if any at all.
 * Distant Finale: Among other things, serves as one for Knights of the Old Republic series, finally clearing up loose ends like the "True Sith"
 * Disney Villain Death: Enemies take fall damage proportionate to the length of the fall, blowing a difficult enemy off a tall cliff is a great way to end the fight quickly. However, Elite enemies in Flashpoints will respawn almost immediately after being "killed" this way.
 * Distracted by the Sexy: Consular companion character Tharan Cedrax uses this with his "Deploy Holiday" ability. It causes his own companion, a sentient female hologram named Holiday, to materialize next to an enemy and distract them by being her usual flirty self. Now, a holographic anything popping into existence right next to you would probably throw off your concentration no matter what you were, but if you happened to find female humans attractive then your concentration would really be thrown off.
 * Do a Barrel Roll: At any time during space combat, hitting the space-bar will do just this.
 * Doomed by Canon: Alderaan, of course. In addition, the Sith Empire on Dromund Kaas will cease to exist long before Episode I since the era of the (old) Republic ends in Episode III.
 * Double Weapon: Sith Inquisitors and Jedi Consulars are the only classes that can use these.
 * Footage has been shown of a Bounty Hunter using a Double Weapon.
 * Dramatic Irony: In one of the promotional videos, showing the cinematic camera usage in the game, a team of Sith are confronting an Alderaanian noble who exclaims "I would sooner see Alderaan blasted into space dust!"... cue about 3000 years later...
 * Driven to Madness:, after 300 years as a prisoner of the Emperor, enacts a plan that would wipe out 98% of the Imperial population.
 * Dual-Wielding/Guns Akimbo: Sith Warriors (as Sith Maradeurs), Jedi Knights (as Jedi Sentinels), Bounty Hunters (as Mercenaries) and Smugglers (as Gunslingers).
 * In the final cinematic trailer, one of the Jedi manages to dual-wield with one single-bladed lightsaber plus a double-bladed one.
 * Eldritch Abomination: Sel Makor
 * Elaborate Underground Base: The separatists on Ord Mantell have a very large one, complete with the usual heating system. It is so large in fact, that Smuggler and Trooper players find it much easier to jump off a bridge and get resuscitated, to save time on the way out.
 * Elite Mooks: Both sides have soldiers that are a force to be reckoned with, able to defeat Jedi and Sith.
 * Republic Trooper Player Characters start out as this (from the Imperial perspective). It helps that they're members of an Elite Special Forces team, Havoc Squad.
 * Elites Are More Glamorous: Anyone who plays as a Republic Trooper will be a member, not only of The Republic's Special Forces, but the best of their special forces: Havoc Squad.
 * Embarrassing First Name: Darth Malgus' real name is . Only his wife gets to call him that, and only when they are alone.
 * There's also the Jedi Knight companion, Doc. His real name is, but he insists that you just call him Doc.
 * The Empire: The Sith Empire and the Chiss Ascendency, both allies in the Cold War.
 * Encyclopedia Exposita: Discovering new entries for it gives you a considerable amount of Experience Points. Also, there are "Datacrons" hidden on every world, that give these, as well as permanent stat bonuses for finding them.
 * Enemy Civil War: The Sith are very, very prone to this. The largest example occurs during the Ilum questline where
 * Enemy Mine: The Republic world quest on Belsavis gives the option of working with a Sith to stop a creature called the World Razer from being unleashed.
 * Epic Movie: Well, Epic Videogame, whatever. It features 200,000 lines of voiceover, for starters.
 * Et Tu, Brute?: Almost every class story-line features this. It's to be expected for within The Empire, but still.
 * The Sith Warrior must win some kind of prize for it. You end up killing your master's master, convincing a party-member-to-be to kill her master,, and killing two of your own personal masters. It comes with the when in doubt, kill things philosophy.
 * Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Darth Malgus. Despite willing to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent and less innocent lives, he loves his Twi'lek wife, Eleena Daru (though sometimes has a rough relationship with her).
 * Even Evil Has Standards: So what does it mean, when Sel Makor does his best to keep the Sith Warrior from releasing the Emperor's conscience from his domain out of fear of what the Emperor would do to the galaxy?
 * Everybody's Dead, Dave: For level 10 Imperial Players,
 * Evil Army: The Sith Imperial Army
 * We haven't seen much of them outside of combat. They may be mostly Punch Clock Villains. See Dark Is Not Evil above.
 * One of the imperial officers on Balmorra
 * Evil Brit: Every Imperial player class outside of Bounty Hunter. Many Imperial NPCs as well.
 * The Agent is faking it, and some NPCs will call them on it.
 * Though Imperial Agents are advised to drop the Imperial accent when going undercover on Hutta.
 * Some missions have Jedi characters needing to pass themselves off as Sith, where they fake the accent.
 * Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Jedi Master Gnost-Dural partially attributes the Treaty of Coruscant to the Battle of Bothawui, where the Sith underestimated the sacrifices the Jedi were willing to make, suffering a critical stalemate as a result.
 * Evil Counterpart: All the classes have one.
 * Trooper/Bounty Hunter
 * Vanguard/Powertech (Ranged Tank/DPS)
 * Commando/Mercenary (DPS/Healing)
 * Smuggler/Imperial Agent
 * Gunslinger/Sniper (Ranged DPS)
 * Scoundrel/Operative (Stealth/Healing)
 * Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior
 * Jedi Guardian/Sith Juggernaut (Melee Tank/DPS)
 * Jedi Sentinel/Sith Marauder (Dual-Wielding, Melee DPS)
 * Jedi Consular/Sith Inquisitor
 * Jedi Sage/Sith Sorcerer (Ranged Force DPS/Healing)
 * Jedi Shadow/Sith Assassin (Stealth, burst DPS, Double Weapon)
 * Organisations:
 * Republic vs. Empire
 * Jedi Council vs. Dark Council
 * Jedi Order vs. Sith Order, and Satele Shan vs. Darth Malgus (both are the primary leaders of their faction).
 * SIS vs. Imperial Intelligence and Ardun Kothe vs. Keeper, though the latter is a Punch Clock Villain at worst.
 * Evil Makes You Ugly: The same as with Knights of the Old Republic's Karma Meter, although the effect can be disabled in this game.
 * Evil Old Folks: The terrorist codenamed "The Old Man."
 * Evil Overlooker: Darth Malgus.
 * Evil Redhead: Shae Vizla, the bounty hunter ally in the Deceived trailer.
 * Thana Vesh on Taris for the Empire
 * The player as well, by playing an evil imperial female with the correct hair color.
 * Evil Versus Evil:
 * The Empire has a lot of enemies that are as bad or worse as they are.
 * On Hutta, there's a gang war between the Hutts Nem'ro and Fa'arthra. Both of them are ruthless crime lords, but at least Nem'ro's thugs don't attack players on sight.
 * The Empire is at war with the ruthless Exchange crime syndicate.
 * Several shared flashpoints and operation are this when done by the Empire:
 * Hammer Station, where The Empire attempts to destroy an Asteroid Throwing space station to stop the Advosze from using it to conquer worlds the Empire wants.
 * Mandalorian Raiders, where the Empire fights a rogue Mandalorian clan.
 * The Eternity Vault operation, where the Empire faces off against a Sealed Evil in a Can.
 * Explosive Stupidity: If a team hogs the ball in a corner for too long in Huttball, the Hutts will get bored, and detonate it. The ball is made out of Uranium...
 * Face Heel Turn: Most non-Jedi and non-companions in the Republic, if they aren't repeatedly shooting the dog, or just corrupt, have done this, or so it seems. Taken to extreme levels for the Republic Trooper storyline,
 * Played with Ashara Zavros, one of the Sith Inquisitor's companions—while her recruitment involves her being manipulated into defecting from the Jedi order, at no point does her ideology actually change; she eventually admits that she's a Sith, but she's...not exactly villainous.
 * An unusual variation occurs with
 * Fake American: The Imperial Agent has to lose his/her Evil Brit accent when dealing with the Hutts outside Imperial space. It doesn't seem to stick when dealing with side quests on the same world, however.
 * Fake Longevity: At the end of each chapter of a character quest, you are asked to return to your advanced class trainer on the fleet before beginning the next chapter. Nothing actually seems to happen when you do so except for getting a small amount of experience points and being told to check your ship's holocommunicator for your next objective.
 * Fascist but Inefficient: The Empire, with all their militarism and ruthlessness, is shown to suffer some massive internal corruption and inefficiency.
 * Fantastic Nuke: The Shadow Arsenal consists of these.
 * Fantastic Racism:
 * The Empire is racist against all species besides Sith Purebloods and Humans.
 * The original inhabitants of Hutta, the Evocii, have sold themselves into slavery to stop the Hutts from committing genocide against them.
 * Fantastic Slurs: Anyone in the Sith Empire are called Imps by the Republic.
 * On the other side the Imperials call members of the Republic Pubs.
 * Fantasy Axis of Evil:
 * Savage: The Mandalorian Clans, working for the Empire
 * Eldritch: Multiple instances of Sealed Evil in a Can
 * Humanoid: The Imperial military, and other willing Imperial Citizens
 * Fallen: The Empire's Sith rulers, descendants of Jedi-turned-evil
 * And the Sith RACE, who invented the practice of fueling your force arts with passion.
 * Crafty: The Chiss Ascendancy, allied with the Empire
 * Fat Bastard: A number of Imperials using the fat male model, but Lord Paladius most likely takes the cake (and eats it too). And of course, the player character themselves, should they decide to use that model and go evil.
 * And need we forget everybody's favorite evil, cheesy, butterball, Darth Baras? Videos of him squirming mad over failing to break a Republic spy is literally a meme in the net.
 * Fighting a Shadow:
 * Fighting For a Homeland: One of the reasons the Empire is warring with the Republic is to regain former Sith territory from before The Great Hyperspace War.
 * Five-Man Band / Five-Bad Band: Most classes and their assorted crews fall into this pattern
 * Smuggler
 * The Hero: The Smuggler
 * The Lancer: Corso
 * The Big Guy: Bowdaar
 * The Smart Guy: Risha
 * The Chick: Guss
 * The Sixth Ranger: Akaavi
 * Sith Inquisitor
 * The Big Bad: The Inquisitor
 * The Dragon: Andronikos
 * The Evil Genius: Talos
 * The Brute: Khem Val
 * The Dark Chick: Ashara
 * The Sixth Ranger: Xalek
 * Sith Warrior
 * The Big Bad: The Warrior
 * The Dragon: Jaesa Willsaam
 * The Evil Genius: Malavai Quinn
 * The Brute: Pierce
 * The Dark Chick: Vette
 * The Sixth Ranger: Broonmark
 * Flat Earth Atheist: All the non-Force-sensitive classes have the option to express the view that they don't believe the Force to actually exist, and that the Jedi and Sith are nothing but wacky fringe cultists. But unlike Han Solo, they live in a historical period with literally thousands of active Force-users running around the galaxy, visibly using their powers every day.
 * The Imperial Agent deserves special mention since he/she can express this view... in front of Darth Jadus and the entire Dark Council!
 * Foe Yay: In the Imperial Agent ending
 * Foregone Conclusion: "Historically" speaking, we know that the Republic is going to win, and that the Sith are going to collapse back into a wholly complete monstrosity and become minor players again for several centuries, or else the trilogies as we know them would never have happened.
 * The only question is when...
 * Not to mention a simple fact - there's still 3,000 years before the original trilogy. That's a lot of time for the scales to swing back the other way, perhaps even doing so multiple times.
 * Unfortunately, we know the events of those 3,000 years. They don't involve the Sith Empire.
 * Actually, we don't. According to the official Timeline SWTOR takes place in the year 3643 BYY (AKA: Before The events on Episode VI) After that, we more or less know what will happen over the next 50 years or so, but then there's a pretty big BIG gap of over 1500 years that are not covered in any game, comic, movie, tv show, or book. After that 1500 gap, starts the saga of Darth Bane, and yes, from that point all the way up to the events on Episode IV we do know the events. SO, 1500 years IS a lot of time for the scales to swing back and forth between the Empire and the Republic. While we know the republic ends up winning in the far distant future, on the nearby present they could very well lose.
 * We do know that the Republic from the prequel films has adopted the logo the Sith use in this game.
 * For the Evulz: Averted by this iteration of the Sith who are not solely interested in carrying an Idiot Ball.
 * That won't stop players from killing and stealing whenever they get the option to!
 * As this video demonstrates, a vicious Sith player can do evil things to innocent people for absolutely no reason what so ever other then sheer sadism.
 * Fast Roping: Used to get NPC Republic Troopers onto a landing pad, during one Ord Mantell mission. Also, in many fights, enemies will do this from seemingly nowhere mid-battle, a mechanic that should seem familiar to Dragon Age II players.
 * Full Set Bonus: Used extensively.
 * Fountain of Expies: Each class is specifically modeled off a popular Star Wars character. Want to be Luke Skywalker? Play a Jedi Knight. Want to be Han Solo? Play a smuggler. Want to be Boba Fett? Play a bounty hunter. Each class was specifically inspired by a character or set of characters in the films, and much of the artwork and designs are evocative of them. (the Bounty Hunter and Trooper design, for example). The Dark Side Jedi Knight on the other hand very nearly quotes some of Anakin's lines.
 * This is perhaps most evident in the Sith classes: the Juggernaut is based on Darth Vader, the Marauder on Asajj Ventress, the Sorcerer on Emperor Palpatine, and the Assassin on Darth Maul.
 * There are many subtle ones, too. For example: The Sith Inquisitor class is partially based on Darth Maul, and how do they regenerate in-between combat? By pacing back and forth menacingly, like Darth Maul did while Qui-Gon was meditating!
 * And how does the Jedi Knight regenerate? By meditating.
 * Strangely enough the Sith Warrior can be an expy of Darth Malgus, a powerful and intelligent warrior underestimated by his superiors with a cute Twilek assistant.
 * The only class that avoids this is the Imperial Agent, who's used to represent influential Imperials. So... Grand Moff Tarkin: spy and ladies man?
 * No—but James Bond is!
 * Or possibly Mara Jade (without force ability)
 * This isn't just the classes; Companion characters are designed to channel Star Wars Tropes like the Big Aliens and Protocol and Astromech Droids,. Non-player characters also channel Star Wars characters; Satele Shan, for instance, acts as a cross between Mon Mothma, Leia, and Yoda. Grand Moff Kilran is clearly inspired by Tarkin, even channeling some of his lines. Darth Malgus also has elements of Darth Vader in him. Even the ships all channel starships from the movies! And then we get to the non-Star Wars examples...
 * Anyone who sees the colicoid mutants of Balmorra is instantly reminded of the zerg.
 * Commander Madine on Balmorra is the leader of a Republic offensive determined to liberate Balmorra from Imperial occupation.
 * From Nobody to Nightmare: The origin story of the Sith Inquisitor is that they start out as a captured slave whom the Sith have discovered some Force Sensitivity.
 * Funny Background Event: During the wrap-up of Act 1 for the smuggler, he gets the oportunity to make a joking comment that he was going to use the fortune they found to hire an army of Wookies. In the background, Corso can be seen walking by the hatchway and stumbles at those words, apparently having been listening in and thinking he's gonna be replaced by Bowdarr and his wookie army.
 * Genre Savvy: Two NPCs have a banter in front of Imperial Intelligence headquarters. One of them blames the other for getting them called before Intelligence for selling a large amount of medical supplies to someone suspicious. The other NPC responds that he put a tracker in the box just in case.
 * God Was My Co-Pilot: Non-force-sensitive classes can get "force bonuses" to their combat ability.
 * Good Is Not Nice: Many Republic quests give players the option of reacting with righteous fury to the Knight Templar behavior of authorities. For example, after discovering Republic Intelligence officials on Ord Mantell torturing a woman just because she's related to a separatist, you can threaten to kill everyone else in the room to set her free.
 * Gotta Catch Them All: Datacrons. Most of them are hidden, and the majority give a permanent stat boost for finding them. A few, however, give "shards" which can be assembled on the capital worlds to create "artifacts", that you can equip.
 * Gatling Good: Several of the weapons available to high-level Troopers are gatling blasters.
 * Genocide Backfire: The current Sith Empire is made up of descendants of those few fleeing survivors from when the Republic attempted to wipe them out after their defeat in the Great Hyperspace War.
 * Glass Cannon: While each class has more than one path for building their character into this, all of them start out this way. Only after several levels do players get to specialize in absorbing damage, or healing, both through progression and their companions.
 * Particularly Jedi Sentinels, who don't get a proper healing companion until they're in their mid-30s. They have no healing abilities, few damage reduction cooldowns, and little crowd control. to make matters worse, their class quest seems to have been designed more for the other Jedi Knight advanced class, which can tank.
 * Going Through the Motions: It seems everyone in the galaxy has the same body language.
 * Go Look At the Distraction: A Balmorra imperial captain, when confronted about slaughtering a farming village who sold food surplusses to republic insurgents, suggests you "go look at the bribe on the table to forget about this incident."
 * Good Is Boring: Idealist speeches from jedi opponents will nearly always offer sith inquisitor players with "Yawn" as a possible response.
 * Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Played tragically straight with Tol Braga.
 * Government Drug Enforcement: Ord Mantell separatists, force teens at gunpoint to join their army, and keep them running on stims, to make them into aggressive Slave Mooks. One person manages to snap out of it, but not before rambling on about how awesome he (not really) is.
 * Grand Theft Me:
 * Gray and Gray Morality: Interestingly enough, morality isn't decided by faction so it is entirely possible to be a dark-sided Jedi fighting for the Republic and a light-sided Sith fighting for The Empire.
 * An even better example goes to the Ord Mantell Civil War. On one hand, you have a corrupt, oppressive government that remained loyal to the Republic. On the other hand, you have a guerrilla force of separatists that want to secede, backed by the Sith.
 * The two factions themselves are morally grey as well, as both are itching to make the cold war hot, and are constructing planet-destroying superweapons to boot.
 * Green-Skinned Space Babe: Both sides have Twi'lek as character race option, the Republic side has the Mirialans, as well as other races that can have green skin. Being an MMO, female character models tend to be babalicious. Babes also available in blue, pink, grey, and many other colors.
 * Grenade Launcher: The Republic Trooper's specialty, good for keeping enemies off their feet.
 * Groin Attack: The Smuggler has this as one of his abilities.
 * During the intro sequence for an Imperial Agent, in the background a Gamorian is demonstrating that Rodians are vulnerable to this.
 * Guilt Based Gaming: Go a while without logging in or unsubscribe and you'll get e-mails about how your most-used companions miss you.
 * Guns Are Useless: Averted, guns are just as capable of killing Jedi and Sith.
 * A Handful for An Eye: A Smuggler ability.
 * Harmless Freezing: The Trooper's Cryo Grenade ability does this.
 * Healing Shiv: Republic Trooper Commandos and Bounty Hunter Bodyguards use gun attachments to heal other players, as well as summoning healing droids from Hammerspace.
 * Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Jace Malcom doesn't wear a helmet. As noted above, he's one of the most badass characters shown.
 * Also, there is the option of making your headgear invisible.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Heavily implied to be the fate of Revan and the Exile when they returned to the Unknown Regions to try and confront the True Sith Empire 300 years prior.
 * Belth Allusis destroyed an invasion force of 40,000 Sith with a tenth of the number, at the cost of their lives, an act which would galvanize the Republic and act as a turning point in the Great Galactic War.
 * Satele's master, Kao Cen Darach, in the Return trailer.
 * During the Jedi Knight's third act,.
 * Hide Your Children: Strongly Averted, Republic players can even threaten to murder one (just because he's nearby), in order to coerce a woman into giving medical supplies to you, instead of desperate refugees.
 * One of the contacts in Justicar territory on Coruscant is a young girl begging the character to rescue her older brother.
 * Hitbox Dissonance: Operatives and Scoundrels can testify to the game's erratic definition of "behind" for the purposes of flanking attacks.
 * Hive Mind: Killiks are present in the game.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: The Death Mark in the Jedi Knight Class Quest is a satellite that will kill anyone it targets while ignoring everything else.
 * Hold the Line: The objective of one team, in the Void Star war-zone, is to repel the other side's Boarding Party. Both factions take turns leading an assault on the titular ship's computer core.
 * Hollywood Hacking: Shows up in two forms: One, the crew skill "slicing", is about this and opening lock-boxes. Second, Imperial Agents can use this to incapacitate almost any droid in the galaxy indefinitely.
 * Hollywood Pudgy: The "fat" female model is clearly a fit woman who happens to have curves. This wouldn't stand out so much except that the male equivalent is almost spherical (albeit obviously heavily muscled), complete with obvious man-boobs.
 * Hollywood Tactics: The helmetless trooper that shows up in the "Hope" trailer really loves them.
 * It just wouldn't be Star Wars if anyone fought intelligently. Unarmored fighters using cover is about it for the whole franchise.
 * Hologram: Used extensively, as usual for the setting. These are used to include players into group conversations when they can't be there in person.
 * Hope Spot: Done in the Hope trailer, which ends with the attack on the Sith army successful (of which there are a large number, and a Republic fleet moving in to liberate Alderaan from the Sith. The Sacking of Coruscant happened shortly afterwords.
 * Hot Chick with a Sword: Well, it's actually a double-bladed lightsaber, but Satele Shan in the "Hope" and "Return" trailers is definitely one of these.
 * Human Popsicle: Carbonite freezing is present in the game, just like the movies. In fact, one of the trailers shows the Bounty Hunter class freezing one of his bounties. Awesome.
 * The Bounty Hunter Progression Video shows a bounty hunter spinning and carbon freezing enemies on all sides of him, then finishing them off with his flamethrower. Awesomer.
 * Humanoid Aliens: Obviously, since this is Star Wars. All of the playable alien races are these, with Word of God saying that being a weirder alien would inhibit storytelling.
 * Humongous Mecha: The Killer Robot Annihilation droid XRR-3, that guards the Eternity Vault on Belsavis. It comes equipped with a great many missiles, and players who get too close will be Punched Across the Room.
 * Hunting the Most Dangerous Game:
 * A Heroic Quest on Dromund Kaas involves a Mandalorian Warrior who wants to go out in a glorious battle and pays people to hunt him.
 * In a side quest on Dromund Kaas, some Sith are subjecting random Imperial citizens to this.
 * I Call It "Vera": The Smuggler's first companion, Corso Riggs, is a local merc who names all of his weapons. His main motivation for joining up with you is to get revenge on the same guy who stole your ship - for stealing his favorite blaster. Which he calls Torchy.
 * Andronikos Revel, one of the Sith Inquisitors companions, averts this, noting that It's not a good idea to get attached to a weapon when you ask him if he names his blasters.
 * I'm a Humanitarian:
 * Khem Val, companion to the Sith Inquisitor class, has devoured over 1000 Jedi in his life.
 * Seh-run on Korriban. When you find the beast master who used to feed him, it's revealed he used to give him dark-side infused blood and bones from dead sith acolytes. Players have the dark side option to feed him more of it, giving him enough strength that he will be able to hunt more acolytes on his own.
 * The Sith Warrior may threaten to eat the corpses of a handful of thugs at one point. A follow up dialog choice is to tell them that you are not joking.
 * Immortality Immorality: The Sith Emperor gained his Immortality by draining all life out of his home planet.
 * Indian Burial Ground: The research facility that Czerka abandoned on Tatooine was built over a Sandpeople holy burial ground. Players will discover why it was abandoned.
 * Invisibility Flicker: Sith Warriors, Smugglers and Jedi Shadows can enter stealth while in combat, letting them do this.
 * Insult Backfire: Some previews of the game consist of complaining that this is World of Warcraft with a story, before praising their favorite upcoming MMORPG... Causing several fans to react in accordance with this trope, saying that an engaging story, a less restrictive "Holy Trinity", companions that are much more than pets, and a cover system for some classes, are just what that game needs.
 * Instant Sedation: A scene (known as "29:30") from the beta where this happens to a Jedi (Padawan), has become infamous. It's not actually that unusual within the Star Wars Expanded Universe for Jedi to be sedated; Jedi Masters were surprised in the films, too.
 * Interspecies Romance: Darth Malgus was married to the blue Twi'lek Eleena in the trailers.
 * Several of the romance option companions for player characters are not of the same species as said character, particularly Vette (Sith Warrior), Ashara Zavros (Sith Inquisitor), and Nadia Grell (Jedi Consular).
 * Interface Screw: A mild case. Of the three dialogue options in conversations, typically the first is good, the second is neutral/pragmatic, and the third is evil. If you're not careful, the exceptions to this can sneak up on you, and you might find your paragon unexpectedly growling at the poor refugee asking you for help.
 * Interface Spoiler: Par the course for an MMO. Get a codex entry for a character in your storyline and it has likes/dislikes? They're going to join you. See a level-capped character going around with a certain title? Tells you flat out the end results of certain plot-points.
 * Ironic Echo:
 * Several of the romance option companions for player characters are not of the same species as said character, particularly Vette (Sith Warrior), Ashara Zavros (Sith Inquisitor), and Nadia Grell (Jedi Consular).
 * Interface Screw: A mild case. Of the three dialogue options in conversations, typically the first is good, the second is neutral/pragmatic, and the third is evil. If you're not careful, the exceptions to this can sneak up on you, and you might find your paragon unexpectedly growling at the poor refugee asking you for help.
 * Interface Spoiler: Par the course for an MMO. Get a codex entry for a character in your storyline and it has likes/dislikes? They're going to join you. See a level-capped character going around with a certain title? Tells you flat out the end results of certain plot-points.
 * Ironic Echo:


 * It Amused Me: A frequent dialogue choice for the Sith Inquisitor when confronted by people who ask why the player chose a deliberately cruel option. Occurs as frequently as "yawn" in response to hammy or melodramatic NPCs.
 * Grand Moff Kilran lampshades this as he debriefs you from the Black Talon flashpoint, especially if you're a Sith inquisitor who chose the It Amused Me option. He notes that it's a great day when Sith hobbies and Imperial strategic interests are on the same page.
 * Item Crafting: What's special about TOR's crafting, is that you can task multiple companions with collecting resources and/or producing items, at the same time, even while you are off-line. This is shown in a trailer, with a player turning off the lights in the room where his companions are working.
 * It's Up to You: Abundantly Lampshaded; the one thing that all classes share is a reputation among NPC's for being the one who succeeds when everything else has failed.
 * Jerkass: Many npc/questgiver on both sides but Harkun(the beginner overseer for Sith Inquisitor) takes this Up to Eleven...
 * And the Player character too of course if you choose to.
 * Jedi Mind Trick: It's a Star Wars game, this is being included, it's tradition.
 * And also lends itself to one of the funnier moments in the game, cited in the No Sell entry below.
 * The Juggernaut: One of the Sith Warrior Advanced Specializations is actually called this.
 * Karmic Death: Some Sith on Dromund Kaas have decided to hunt random Imperial citizens for fun. Light side characters can turn the tables on them by
 * Karma Meter: And no matter what your faction, you can make Light or Dark Side choices. Your decisions will also cause people to react to you differently in the future.
 * You can actually send your companions on "Diplomatic Missions" to change your alignment.
 * Kick the Dog: Oh, dear Lord, some of the Dark Side options are vicious - and are available to both Republic (see Hide Your Children above), and Sith.
 * Officer Sakoal tasks you to tracing a republic spy who has stolen vital data disks with the help of his traitor wife.
 * On Hutta for Agents and Bounty Hunters, there is a quest where
 * In the Sith Warrior's storyline, during your hunt for Jaesa Willsaam, an Alderaanian general working for the House of Organa have information that you need. However, she refuse to tell you anything unless you help her turn the tide of a battle under her command. Instead of doing that, you have the option to threaten to kill her officers one at a time until she talks. She calmly replies that they are soldiers that knew the risk when they signed up and still refuse to talk. However, as soon as you start force choking an officer, the general (who according to her codex entry, is famous for being a cold, calculating military commander) immediately cracked, reveling that the officer you are chocking is her lover and give you the information that you want, all the while on her knees weeping and begging you to spare him. The two dark-sided options you have is kill either one of the two lovers, even though she had already given you what you wanted and there is no benefit for you to do so.

"Male Sith inquisitor: There will be no survivors!"
 * Kill'Em All: plan for the Empire.
 * Kill Sat: The Imperial Agent skill Orbital Bombardment basically defines the trope.
 * The Firestar satellites on Balmorra.
 * The Hammer Station.
 * Killer Rabbit: An Imperial questline on Tatooine has players go up against a Force-wielding Jawa.
 * Klingon Promotion: Averted with the Sith for a change. While it does happen occasionally (Lord Zash and the player from the Inquisitor storyline are good examples), one needs to be clever about it, so it can't be traced back to you.
 * Knife Nut/Bayonet Ya: Imperial Agents, who even get an equipment slot for them.
 * Knight Templar: Certain Jedi are guilty and from the perspective of the Sith, this is what all the Sith are.
 * Played straight in the tie-in comics with Jedi Master Dar'Nala, who.
 * The Republic General Garza certainly qualifies.
 * La Résistance: The separatist movement on Ord Mantell is seeking to overthrow the corrupt planetary government backed by the Republic. And there is an armed resistance on Balmorra fighting a guerrilla campaign against the Imperial occupation with Republic support.
 * Lampshade Hanging: The Twenty Bear Asses trope is lampshaded heavily in a quest on Dromund Kass - when you turn in the parts, the administrator in the office gets fairly upset over the stench.
 * Large Ham: The Sith Inquisitor class.

"Daniel Erickson: ...we're not killing off any of the companions because everybody did. And then everybody cried. We saw it again and again and again and again in testing. People test as they're playing the system and they go... 'I wonder if they're going to let me do this. Oh no! My healer is gone forever!' "
 * Large Ham Announcer: Baron Deathmark, the Huttball announcer.
 * Laser Blade: Well duh.
 * Lawful Stupid: The Voss are a subversion. While they are willing to do absurd things to follow their Mystics' prophecies, the prophecies in question always turn out to be true and always benefit the Voss in the end.
 * To a certain extent. As the Sith Warrior finds out before visiting the planet, while the visions are perfectly accurate, the interpretation sometimes suffers. Sith Warriors can also recieve a Voss granted vision and then go on to prove it dead wrong when they
 * Leeroy Jenkins: Thana Vesh from the Imperial Taris quests seems to be an NPC version of this trope, given the amount of times she charges in ahead of your character only for you to find her at the mercy of the Republic, or, in one case, actually imprisoned. Thana being Thana, she always angrily tells you she had the situation under control or "Could have taken them" had you "not gotten in the way". Leeroy ALL over.
 * Lethal Joke Item: Kragga's Unyielding Helm, which can be modded and worn in battle no matter your class after defeating him on Hard or Nightmare difficulty. Yep, you can kill people in Player Versus Player combat wearing a giant purple bell that cover's your character's eyes.
 * Let's Get Dangerous: When the party is fleeing the Sith in Return, the two Troopers act as a distraction for the rest of the party. Smuggler looks back in time to see the hallway they were guarding get blown up, with the Troopers flung close to him. He gets a serious look on his face, and starts strolling towards the enemies pouring down at them. He then proceeds to blow them all away, with the surviving Trooper popping in towards the end.
 * Could technically be an example of Bullet Time, as it's shown he's firing very fast when the trooper joins in. Speed the video up and he's almost running at them.
 * Lightning Can Do Anything: The Sith Inquisitor is a mix of this and When All You Have Is a Hammer and Comedic Sociopathy. Any and all problems a Sith Inquisitor can be solved by just using the right amount of lightning. From Killing bosses, to dealing with conversation options, to healing. When in doubt, Shock Em.
 * Lightning Gun: Republic Troopers get an ability that makes any gun they are using into this. It allows them to give Sith Inquisitors a run for their money in the lightning department, as it repeatedly damages foes over a large arc.
 * Light Is Not Good: Republic players have both light and dark side options, but dark side is more Renegade as opposed to Paragon rather than full on evil.
 * Which is not excluding the possibility of pointless cruelty, if the player so chooses.
 * Limit Break: Heroic moments, which every class gets. Causes you to regain 2% of your total health every few seconds and immediately finishes the cooldown on certain Oh Crap abilities (usually your basic stun). Also comes with its own Theme Music Power-Up.
 * Sith Marauder and Jedi Sentinel also has abilities that can only be activated after you get 30 stacks of the gauge.
 * Limited Special Collectors Ultimate Edition: Two different ones: First, The Collector's Edition includes in-game items, a Statuette of Darth Malgus, and other items, costs $150 . Second, the Digital Deluxe Edition costs a more reasonable $80, and has just 5 in-game items. In addition, every player who pre-ordered, even those who just ordered the vanilla version of the game, received a special color stone to turn their weapon's effect yellow with a black core, and up to five days of early acces to the game, depending on when they pre-ordered.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: To help put this in perspective: All eight player classes get at least five unique companion characters, and their own branching storyline, that lasts for three acts. Then, add all of the end-game content, twelve "world quest" story-lines, and any future content... help with the character sheet is appreciated.
 * Lost Forever: As can be read in the blurb for the game, it was originally possible to get into situations like having your companion betray you, then needing to kill them. But this was removed.

"Republic Trooper Player Character: We'll call it "Operation: Machine Rescue""
 * Lowered Recruiting Standards: The Sith Warrior's initial quest giver comments that this policy was instated within the Sith Academy. In an inversion, your character is one of the elite who is there legitimately, while The Rival is one whose presence owes itself to the Lowered Standards.
 * This also results in the Sith Inquisitor, along with several other initiates, being pulled out of slave populations to be trained. In that case your Rival is one of the elite who was brought in to make sure one of the old bloodlines gets the position and is being given unfair advantages by the trainer in a mirror of the Warrior story.
 * Machine Worship: At least one of the workers maintaining the Works that power and maintain the City Planet Coruscant holds this view. Considering how long the planet has been like that, with buildings built on top of earlier buildings, it's not too surprising that he considers people "mere mortals," in comparison.

"Jedi: (waves hand) You will drop your weapons, and surrender to me.
 * Macross Missile Massacre: One of the weapons systems installed on the Humongous Mecha Killer Robot, Annihilation droid XRR-3, that guards the Eternity Vault on Belsavis. These missile have been shown Total Party Killing eight max-level players, at a GamesCom demonstration.
 * A Bounty Hunter's primary means of dealing damage (and healing) are rockets. Lots and lots of rockets.
 * Made a Slave: The Sith Inquisitor backstory. A little silly when you're playing a Sith Pureblood, the elites of the society.
 * The Man Behind the Man: Something the Sith Emperor is VERY good at, considering that he is the one who ordered Revan to start the Jedi Civil War, as well as convincing the Mandalorians to start the Mandalorian Wars. Not surprisingly, he does it to the Mandalorians AGAIN.
 * We have every reason to believe that the Sith Emperor engineered events in the Galaxy for over a MILLENIA to prepare for their return from Uncharted Space.
 * The leader of the Revanites is convinced that the Emperor is actually a centuries old Revan, or being controlled behind the scenes by Revan. Revan reveals
 * Master Poisoner: Imperial Agents in general, and the Sniper Advanced Class in particular. Snipers combine Poisoned Weapons with Critical Hits For Massive Damage.
 * Meaningful Background Event: As an Imperial Agent, while talking about, you can see Kaliyo in the background eavesdropping.
 * Passing comments are also made in many storylines hint at the events of other class's storylines.
 * Meaningful Name: This being Star Wars, naming conventions are, for the most part, hardly subtle.
 * Hylo Visz matches her story perfectly
 * On Alderaan, a minor side quest finds you walking in on a couple of arguing Imperial troopers. One of them is named Sergeant Pratt, and he is...well, sort of a whiny prat, as expected.
 * Mega Corp: The Czerka Corporation
 * Mind Rape: Watcher X (from the Imperial Agent storyline) can download memories directly from other cyborgs. Suffice it to say, that letting him do this is a dark-side choice.
 * Modern Stasis: Some criticism has been aimed at the fact the "Old" Republic isn't all that much different technology wise from the one featured in the prequels thousands of years later.
 * Their technology seemingly being more advanced than in the films is Justified by the Republic having a Dark Age in-between.
 * There are twenty thousand year old droids wandering around using the same kind of tech, and there are ancient computers around that look and act just like the contemporary ones except for age degradation. To be fair, these are from the Infinite Empire, which created stuff like the Star Forge.
 * There are examples on Tython that were made by the ancient Jedi and predate lightsaber technology. In the Jedi Counselor story you find out some of it is actually quite a bit more advanced than the game's standard.
 * Moral Dissonance: In the Imperial Agent storyline, someone tries to blackmail you by threatening to expose you and your team. The light-side option is to accept the blackmail and hide it from your co-workers, while telling them about it and hunting down a traitor is the dark-side option.
 * On Ord Mantell medical supplies are stolen by a Refugee from a military dispensary. Giving the meds back to the thief for her son and other refugees is seen as a Light Side choice, whilst returning the Meds to the dispensary (where they save wounded Republic soldiers) is seen as a Dark Side choice. Apparently soldier's lives are worth less...
 * More likely because the soldiers (most of whom firmly believe their lives are worth more and repeatedly throw their weight around with the locals) signed up for the conflict, knowing the risks, while the Mantellian civilians have no means of defending themselves and are suffering because they were simply caught up in the crossfire.
 * The Sith Inquisitor storyline on Balmorra features a mission from an Imperial Army colonel to rescue his Sith son. When you do this, he makes clear how low he thinks of his father because he's not Sith. You can decide to tell him about this when you turn in the quest, which is treated as a dark side action. Sure, it could be interpreted as telling him For the Evulz and that a white lie is preferable, but one is still left to wonder if the truth would be better for the poor good father in the long run ...
 * There's a quest on Coruscant where someone asks you to steal a file that will prevent legislation that would cause the Republic to abandon the Jedi from passing. When you steal the file, someone else runs up to tell you that, sure, the idea of abandoning the Jedi is insane,, but darn it, that's how democracy works and it would be wrong to try to take matters into your own hand even if it help people (mind you, it's entirely possible the character in quesiton is a smuggler who flauts the laws of the Republic on a daily basis). The Dark Side option: Say you'd rather support the Jedi than follow the rules. The Light Side option: Agree to take a fake document back to your contact and tell him it's the document he sent you to get. Not an option: Returning to your contact and telling him you changed your mind, rather than actively screwing him over by lying to him.
 * More Dakka: Imperial Agent Snipers get an ability called "Suppressing Fire", in which they fire hundreds of rounds at an area over a short time... from a Sniper Rifle.
 * And of course, the Trooper Commando and their assault cannon.
 * Moral Guardians: A group of them are condemning the game for featuring homosexual relationships, claiming that they'll brainwash kids into pursuing homosexual lifestyles.
 * Note that the game doesn't feature homosexual relationships at this time.
 * Multiple Choice Past: Revan's motivations are further complicated by the backstory for this game. It really doesn't help that most of what we know about him is given by Unreliable Narrators. The tie-in novel Revan tells just what happened to him and the Jedi Exile after the events of Knights of the Old Republic.
 * More conventionally, previews of the character creation screen have shown that each player chooses from a plethora of them... namely by picking which class they want to be.
 * My Country, Right or Wrong: The main motivation of a Lightside Imperial Agent in their story. The people s/he's fighting often have a point that The Empire is evil, but s/he only cares about protecting it's citizens.
 * Mythology Gag: Many mentioned around the page already, but the Smuggler Progression video contains one in addition to the Shout-Out below. When chasing a fleeing imperial officer around a corner, the smuggler runs into a huge group of imperial soldiers and a sith. He then promptly flees back the way he came, chased by the imperials. (Fittingly enough, both of these are references to Harrison Ford characters.)
 * One NPC ingame mentions that there is a lot of confusion in the old texts as to Revan's gender, a nod to the Player's ability to choose his gender in both of Knights of the Old Republic games.
 * One of the lines the Jedi Knight uses during the space missions is "Who needs targeting computers?"
 * If you don't interrupt one of the buffs of the final boss of the Foundry Flashpoint in time, the game will dramatically declare that he has "become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"
 * A hostile NPC encountered on Alderaan declares that he would rather see the planet blown into space debris than fall under Imperial control.
 * The names given to Bounty Hunter's and Imperial Agent's themes in the Official Soundtrack are "Scum" and "Villainy" respectively.
 * Amongst the Cantina patrons in the Bounty Hunter starting town, there's a Wookiee and a protocol Droid playing cards. The Droid's arms have been ripped off and placed on neighbouring chairs.
 * In the Sith Warrior story, Darth Baras force chokes a subordinate to death and promotes another subordinate to fill his place in a scene that is taken nearly word for word from the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Vader executes Admiral Ozzel.
 * Never My Fault: On Tython if you're a Jedi character, there's a Padawan whose master sent him to meditate and try and lift a rock. When you come along he asks if you can do it, since he wasn't able to. His master then comes along and scolds him for relying on others to do his work for him instead of admitting to his weakness, which was the point of the lesson. The guy then claims you offered to help him and that he tried to decline, though you are able to protest and your calmness tells the Master that you're the one telling the truth, and the apprentice is sent to be an archive clerk. The guy then blames you for ruining his chances at being a Jedi.
 * Nice Hat: While most hats are...not that nice, Smugglers get quite a few that are.
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Imperial characters save 98% of the Imperial population from being wiped out by
 * Noble Demon: Light-sided Imperial characters are in most cases a bunch of Punch Clock Villains that want to protect their country or to slowly reform the Empire from within.
 * No Blood for Phlebotinum: The Republic and Empire fight over the Power Crystals needed to construct their Laser Swords, on Illum. And by fight, we mean with armies.
 * No Fair Cheating: During play-testing, many matches of Huttball descended into hogging and turtling around the ball. So, the ball is made of uranium, and if the Hutt spectators get too bored...
 * No Points for Neutrality: Averted, a first for BioWare games that include a Karma Meter. There will be specific rewards and gear for players who mix their decisions.
 * Noob Planet: Four of them - Tython for Jedi Knights and Consulars, Ord Mantell for Troopers and Smugglers, Hutta for Imperial Agents and Bounty Hunters, and Korriban for Sith Warriors and Inquisitors. Dromund Kass and Coruscant tend to get this treatment as well, since classes only gain access to their ship after leaving their capital world.
 * No Sell: Both the Smuggler and Bounty Hunter player characters prove to be immune to the Jedi mind trick, which leads to these exchanges:

Bounty Hunter Player Character: (waves hand) You, will realize what a complete idiot you are."

"Sith Sorceress: (waves hand) You want to attack the Jedi. Smuggler Player Character: I want to laugh at how ridiculous you look."
 * And this one:

"Daniel Erickson: "So you can actually say, Oh yeah, sorry I two timed you with that other person. But look! Presents!""
 * Not So Different: Jedi and Sith.
 * In broader terms, the Republic and the Empire are this. The space missions for each side are identical, both factions make heavy use of hired guns (smugglers and bounty hunters, respectively), and both are plagued with bureaucratic power struggles making it impossible to get anything done without the player character's help.
 * Novelization: Fatal Alliance, Deceived, and Revan later in 2011.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: During the Great Hunt when you and another Bounty Hunter are going after the same target, the other BH uses this to get close to the target. Revealing their identity could be a spoiler for anybody currently playing the game, so the BH in question is
 * Obvious Beta: The game's actually a lot less buggy then say, World of Warcraft was at launch. Still, it's pretty obvious Bioware thought of the endgame last—many zones are still incomplete.
 * Some of the patches they released could've used some time on whetstone. Example: as of 1.1.3, using mouse button 5 on any icon caused the game to crash. Quickly fixed as of 1.1.3a, but you'd think they'd have caught something that nasty during testing...
 * Oh Crap: Malgus gets one a split second before the soldier he's grappling with sets off a grenade at point blank range.
 * Older Than He Looks: T7-01 is several centuries old, and has never been memory wiped.
 * Omnicidal Neutral:
 * One Degree of Separation: Seen with several of the companion characters. For example, Kaliyo (Imperial Agent) had a fling with Doc (Jedi Knight), while Vette (Sith Warrior) spent some of her childhood with Risha (Smuggler).
 * Only in It For the Money: The Bounty Hunter class storyline in a nutshell; they aren't actually members of the Sith Empire. Applies to the Smuggler class to some degree, how much so obviously depends on a player's choices.
 * Opening Scroll: Twenty-four of them, one for each of the eight classes, each of whom have a trilogy.
 * Our Zombies Are Different: Rakghouls.
 * Penal Colony: Belsavis.
 * Pet the Dog: Light-sided Imperial characters will have lots of opportunity to do good things on behalf of the Empire.
 * Planetville: Coruscant is the most obvious example.
 * There are a number of planets that you can only visit in flashpoints, making them more like this then the main planets, because the main planets actually do have different locations.
 * Pistol-Whipping: What Smugglers do, before they shoot someone execution style. Troopers also have the Stock Strike ability.
 * Putting on the Reich: Just like Palpatine's Galactic Empire from the original movies, the Sith Empire shares a lot in common with the Nazis. Including their grey and black uniforms, the crimson flag, a powerful secret police force, widespread racism against all not pure blood Sith and humans, and that their aim for starting the war in the fist place was to regain historical Sith territory that they lost at the end of the The Great Hyperspace War (Lebensraum).
 * Pointy-Haired Boss: Some Imperial Intelligence missions result from the nominally superior Sith screwing up. For example, right at the start, you are sent to curry favour with a hutt's lieutenant so he influences his master to ally with the Sith. You manage to do it, the guy thinks (?) you're his best friend and asks you to meet his family. Cue Keeper calling you and telling you that oops, some pointy-haired Sith
 * Light Sided Agents can turn this into a borderline CMoH though.
 * Poison and Cure Gambit: A Mandalorian commander on Tatooine challenges you to take on his people's rite of passage: to take a vicious sandpeople-made poison and run out to their camp for the cure. Should you accept the challenge, you have 15 minutes to obtain and take the antidote or die trying.
 * Poisoned Weapons: Involved in many of the Imperial Agent's attacks. The Sniper Advanced Specialization ability tree is all about this. Combined with Critical Hits, of course.
 * Politically-Correct History: In the Republic Taris is remembered as a prosperous city world that was destroyed by a Sith Lord. The fact that it was a xenophobic segregated shithole mostly dominated by organized crime is almost completely forgotten.
 * Politically-Incorrect Villain: The Sith Empire is extremely racist and considers humans to be superior to all alien species, even those that can be considered more Near Human than alien. Those of partial Sith descent are treated like nobility, partially due to their inherent Force sensitivity.
 * Pragmatic Villainy: Often taking the lightside path will lead to better results, or the darkside path is pointless and counterproductive to your goals. Players who wish to be fully darkside will have to grasp the Villain Ball tightly.
 * Prestige Class: Every class chooses between two Advanced Specializations around level 10. Each one opens up two unique skill trees, and one that's shared between the pair.
 * "Previously On...": The Loading Screens are utilized to catch the player up on their personal storyline, in case they haven't played that character recently, or just got absorbed in the game's other time consuming features.
 * Proud Warrior Race: What the Sith Empire has become, the ones that aren't Stupid Evil anyway, ranging from kill crazed war mongers to Noble Demons.
 * Psycho for Hire: A recurring theme for the Bounty Hunter class' Dark Side options. Early in their storyline, they can  Did we mention this game is rated T for Teen?
 * Punch Clock Villain: Several minions and mercenaries will walk away if you just ask them to and abandon their now desperately alone former boss because they're just not paid enough to face the likes of you.
 * It seems that a lot of Imperials are this. Many soldiers, Imperial Reclamation Service staff and agents aren't evil personalities, just people doing their jobs.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: To greater and lesser degrees, most classes' companion crews are this. Jawa tank? Kilik joined diplomat? Incredibly patriotic droid? Check check check!
 * Rail Shooter: The game's space battle feature is of the Third Person Tunnel Shooter variety.
 * Rainbow Pimp Gear: The developers have tried hard to Avert this. Besides strict adherence to each class' theme, there is a liberal usage of Full Set Bonuses. In Patch 1.2, the developers further averted this by adding the option to make visible armor pieces match the color scheme of the chest piece.
 * The Real Remington Steele: Early on in the Imperial Agent's class quest, the player steals the identity of a pirate called the Red Blade. The real Red Blade eventually learns of this and is not amused.
 * Reconstruction: If you view it as a direct sequel of Knights of the Old Republic 2, this game very much brings Star Wars back to its space fantasy roots.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: The color scheme for Sith and Republic, especially in starships and bases.
 * Redshirt Army: Some of the space battles start off, with the player being part of a fighter formation and... yeah. What's funny about this, is that Republic Trooper players will see extremely expensive armed transports, crewed by Special Forces, slagged on a regular basis.
 * Pretty much any army or squadron sent ahead of you on a mission will end up as one of these, either already dead or minutes away from being slaughtered. There's a reason why they need player help so much.
 * Redemption Equals Death: In the Trooper storyline, this is a potential fate for.
 * Also the ex-slaver Shafu from T7's backstory.
 * Relationship Values: All of the game's companions (at least five for each class) have these. The relationship can be affected through dialogue, and with gifts.
 * Also the ex-slaver Shafu from T7's backstory.
 * Relationship Values: All of the game's companions (at least five for each class) have these. The relationship can be affected through dialogue, and with gifts.

"Jace Malcom: "For centuries, Alderaan stood as a beacon of hope in the Republic. But the Empire came, and with one savage strike, brought Alderaan to her knees. Now, time is running out as few are left to face the enemy. For those that remain, there is but one choice. We must fight—to victory, or death—for the Republic! […] While the sacrifices are heavy, we fight knowing that a single spark of courage can ignite the fires of hope, and restore peace across the galaxy.""
 * Rooting for the Empire: Although the game presents the possibility of good and evil characters in both factions, there is still a group of people on the official forums that believe the Sith to be better than the Jedi because they believe the Jedi to be too strict and hypocritical, even though the same could be said about the Sith. This has lead to debates about the Light Side and the Dark Side that are treated like serious philosophical arguments.
 * The novel "Fatal Alliance" revealed one truth about the Sith of this era. As some know, the Jedi policy of taking children from their families for training was controversial both in-universe and in fandom. Well, the Sith of this era do the same. Such Sith basically lose their claim of being the way of "free" Force-users and aren't better than the Jedi Order in restricting every born Force-sensitive. Except it's lethal.
 * Of course, there are many people who root for the empire for completely unrelated reasons, like evil being cool, their various fashions, sexy Evil Brit accents, the pleasure of getting to wield Force Lightning both inside and outside of combat, because all of their class story-lines play with or Subvert The Hero archetype that RPG's always force players into, and just because they like the Imperial companions. More Imperial than Republic guilds are registered for a reason...
 * There's also the fact that one can play a light-side Imperial or Sith, which many find more interesting than playing a good guy who belongs to the faction where you'd expect to find them.
 * There is a strong argument that most of what is wrong with the Empire lies with the Sith. Thirty minutes on Ord Mantell is usually enough to nip any Good Guy/Bad Guy discussions in the bud.
 * Rousing Speech:

"I am Yadira Ban, Padawan of the Jedi Order. I was sent to protect the General, and you will not pass!"
 * Running Gag: The Sith Inquisitor's conversation choice of "Shock him".
 * Sadistic Choice: The ending of Act I for the Imperial Agent, where you have to choose between
 * In Act Three of the Trooper storyline, you are forced to choose between saving
 * Samus Is a Girl: The Imperial Agent story
 * Save Scumming: By hitting Escape, a player can quit and restart any conversation they are in. This allows you to switch Light/Dark Side choices, test companion affection changes, or just preview dialogue. Nevermind the fact that you're Save Scumming in an online game.
 * Save the Villain: When you have an enemy concerned and defenseless, Usually the light-sided option is for you to either take them as a prisoner or let them go.
 * Sawed-Off Shotgun: The preferred weapon of the Smuggler's Scoundrel Advanced Specialization is the Star Wars version of this, a "scatter-gun".
 * Scenery Gorn: At the end of Chapter 1 for the Jedi Knight (~level 32), you  It's pretty in the most horrible way imaginable.
 * The Imperial space mission "Skaross Fortification" has you defending a space station from bombers. After one run by the battle, you swing around to see that, right behind where you started, is an entire planet in the process of falling apart at the seams. All rendered in gorgeous detail, of course.
 * Taris, pretty much everything.
 * Scenery Porn: You can watch it through a shaky, handheld camera of some guy playing through at PAX and Tython still looks jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
 * According to the Developers, the entire landscape is completely handcrafted, down to the lighting. So, if it's not Scenery Gorn, it's this.
 * Schmuck Bait: What's this Interesting Skull surrounded by dead jawas in the Tatooine desert? Why don't you click it and find out. For similar reasons, don't click the Mysteriously Slain Jedi surrounded by trooper corpses on Taris.
 * Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: A Knowledge Broker on Nar Shadaa manages to hack the entire holonet. Considering how many more people live in the Star Wars galaxy, compared to just earth...
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: The Infernal One, main antagonist for the Eternity Vault raid-we don't know that much about him other than that he's a Rakata Sith and apparently a genius at droid-making (the opening boss of the raid nearly wiped the characters in the Developer Walkthrough). Oh yeah, and the Eternity Vault was made by the Rakatan Empire, which begs the question-what kind of person would scare the builders of the Star Forge enough to put him in there? And what's more, how did he get control of it? And why didn't the Rakatans use their traditional can for criminals?
 * Sequel Escalation: The cinematic trailers revealed so far seem to indicate that BioWare are trying to top the films in terms of outlandish Jedi duels and never-before-seen situations. We've seen so far:
 * An army of Sith warriors.
 * A Jedi using a two-bladed-lightsaber-and-normal-lightsaber combination.
 * Outdone by The Clone Wars, where a General Ripper Jedi dual-wields Double-Bladed Lightsabers.
 * A lightsaber strike deflected by a thrown lightsaber.
 * Republic soldiers taking on Sith and actually winning.
 * A lightsaber being blocked with one's hands.
 * Corran Horn did it first. It's also basically the same rare Force Ability that allows Yoda to absorb the energy from Count Dooku's lightning in Attack of The Clones.
 * Not to mention the increasingly deteriorating appearance of Darth Malgus. The way he looks in the "Coruscant" trailer is a result of the battle in the "Alderaan" trailer (which is itself a vendetta by Satele Shan after what happened in the "Korriban" trailer).
 * Serious Business/Fan Dumb: This is an article that spends several pages going through a short post by the Lead Systems Designer word by word, sentence by sentence in order to gleam as much information as possible. Down to the degree of "...by using the word 'several', Georg is implying...'. Unfortunately for them, said designer himself has noted that he isn't implying anything. He was just being nice and spent a few minutes during lunch to answer some questions. When he says 'several', he really just meant several. No hidden messages or implications.
 * Sex Is Evil: The Jedi Code forbids Jedi from engaging in romance. As a result, Jedi player characters gain slight amounts of dark side points just for flirting with people. Ironically enough this is also subverted: the Jedi don't have any real problem with emotionless sex as it tends to produce rather powerful Jedi. It's the emotional attachments that come with it that are a problem. The current Grand Master even has a son.
 * Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains: Should one keep on choosing Light Side options while playing an Empire character, one ends up firmly planting somewhere on here, with varying degrees of Noble Demon.
 * Shoot the Dog: Dark Side Republic Troopers, or just ones who want to get on General Garza's good side, will do this all the time. Also, it seems like everyone who isn't corrupt, or consorting with the empire, does this.
 * Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: All pistols and rifles have a range of only 30 meters. A dedicated sniper gets this extended... to 35 meters. For comparison, a Sith Sorcerer can shoot lightning for up to 60, which in real life is still in pistol range for a decent marksman.
 * Shock and Awe: Is the speciality of the Sith Inquisitor class, although the Trooperr uses it to a lesser degree too.
 * Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The fate of the Promised Ones on Taris.
 * Shoulders of Doom: Darth Malgus, the Sith Lord in all three trailers, has bitchin armor all around, but to no one's surprise his shoulders are big enough to land fighters on. Revealed art also seems to point to Sith Warriors in general rocking these on their armor.
 * Shout-Out: In the character progression video for the smuggler, the smuggler finds himself, in a desert area, facing off with a Sith, who ignites his lightsaber and goes through a complicated and impressive routine. The smuggler pulls out his gun and just shoots the guy dead. Can easily double as a Crowning Moment of Funny. Also, for Imperial players, the mission in which they retrieve Revan's mask contains a scene straight out of the beginning of The Lost Arc.
 * Several of the server names are from the KotOR prequel comic. Also, the central hub for Republic players is named Carrick Station, apparently due to events in continuation/sequel comic, War.
 * One of the Sith Inquisitor's Badass Boasts -- "If it bleeds, I can kill it!"
 * One of the Imperial Quests on Belsavis is reawakening a rebellious Cathar prince from a long stasis. The title? "Once And Future"
 * May be a coincidence or just a rather obscure shout-out, but one of the former Champions of the Great Hunt is The Defenestrator.
 * On Alderaan, those in the Order of Extermination give up all ties to their noble house to fight the Killiks, and primarily against the Black Hive, which has recently resurfaced after centuries underground to take over the surface.
 * The Kaon Under Siege Flashpoint added in the Rise of the Rakghouls update resembles a zombie apocalypse, complete with hunters, smokers, boomers, witches and at least one tank.
 * On Tatooine, Bounty Hunters encounter an Exchange sex trafficker called the Lady of Pain.
 * There are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of shout outs to Star Wars itself, from vague to obscure.
 * As one example, to reach one Datacron you need to jump into an active incinerator, find a control panel, and input the correct code to open the door and get out before you're burned alive. The code? . This is the unit number of the Trash Compactor Luke and Crew almost got crushed in in A New Hope.
 * One Flashpoint boss casts a buff on himself that causes him to do double damage. When he casts it, a message pops up saying that the boss "Has become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"
 * On Hutta, you can find a droid and a Wookiee sitting and playing a game. The droid has lost both his arms, and his head is sideways. Clearly he didn't realize he should let the wookiee win...
 * If you go to the Zoist Shadow, the imperial launchpoint for some operations, you can find a black-clad sith warrior on the bridge surrounded by a group of bounty hunters including a trandoshan, a mandalorian, assassin droids...
 * The jedi padawan fought during Black Talon is a Twi'lek named Yadira Ban. In KotOR 1, Revan is able to turn a Twi'lek sith named Yuthara Ban to the light.
 * On Tatooine, Republic players can get a quest from a Jawa who worries about a Jedi friend who ran out into the desert with some sort of madness. You eventually find out that she ran out to kill as many Sand People as possible in revenge for the death of a close friend. Since you find this out through a holorecording on her corpse, it's pretty clear that she was noticably less successful than Anakin would be...
 * Belsavis is a prison planet, used by an ancient galaxy-spanning civilization to lock away unimaginable horrors.
 * The penultimate Bounty Hunter class quest is called Number One With A Bullet, which is the name of a 1987 movie starring Billy Dee Williams a.k.a. Lando Calrissian.
 * Slave Collar: Sith Warriors can put one of these on their companion, Vette. This comes with a shock function, for when you're tired of her sassy remarks.
 * Slave Mooks: Several of the Ord Mantell separatists, are only fighting due to threats, and being forced to consume stims that keep them from thinking straight.
 * Slave Race: Twi'leks and Zabraks for the Sith Empire (unless they have Force talent).
 * Smug Snake: Meet the Bounty Hunter's nemesis, Tarro Blood, the most smug, cowardly, dishonorable Mandalorian ever.
 * Jedi Master Corin Tok is a rare heroic version of this trope. A
 * Gyl Rosen from the end of the Sith Inquisitor's first act; a Nar Shaddaa crimeboss now in possession of the Inquisitor's ancestor's lightsaber. When you go to retrieve it from him, he rather arrogantly tells you that you are going to listen to his offer, and that he is backed by four of the toughest mercs on Nar Shaddaa; "They make the Sith look like schoolteachers". He then tells you that you either become his "personal Sith" and work for him, or you pay him three million credits for Lord Kallig's lightsaber.
 * Space Cold War: The whole game is the Cold War, with both sides constructing planet-destroying superweapons and supporting numerous planetary conflicts, secretly or openly. The biggest difference is that both sides want a hot war.
 * Space Western: Smugglers, with their Badass Longcoats, cowboy hats, and revolver-looking blasters.
 * Spikes of Villainy: The concept art for the Inquisitor class high-end armor.
 * Spirit Advisor: The Sith Inquisitor occasionally receives guidance from the spirit of their ancestor.
 * Staged Populist Uprising: A Republic storyline centers on an uprising on a prison planet. The rebels are descendents of convicts and are quite angry that they are treated like prisoners themselves. However,
 * Sticks to the Back: Any two handed weapon used by characters, along with the non-light saber blades. Pistols and lightsabers use hip glue.
 * Sword Beam: A Jedi Sentinel ability.
 * Stab the Sky: The Jedi Consular does this after building her or his first lightsaber.
 * State Sec: Imperial Agents.
 * The Republic has the Geno-Haradan, who give Bounty Hunter players some trouble.
 * Stealth Hi Bye: A power, confirmed for the Sith Warrior, as seen in the class' progression video, being used to Invisibility Flicker.
 * Smugglers also get an (in-combat) area-of-effect ability called Smuggle, allowing them to smuggle groups of players.
 * Similarly, Jedi Shadows have a similar Invisibility Flicker ability though Force Cloak.
 * Stupid Good/Stupid Evil : Most of the Light Side options are simply being patient and reasonable, and Dark Side cold pragmatism. The requirement to have a decision in most quests means there are plenty of these too however, which makes a full LS/DS run rather difficult. The game knows they’re stupid decisions as well, as you will get called on most of them.
 * But don't worry too much about witnesses angrily calling you out on killing people, because most of the time you can callously murder these too.
 * Background Sith characters seem to default to Stupid Evil, which is a running problem for non-Sith Imperial characters For example,
 * Sticky Bomb: Republic troopers get these. Watching enemies flail around, trying to remove them, never gets old.
 * Several types of enemies, and companions also have this ability.
 * Super Serum: Used by a Nar Shaddaa terror cell in the Imperial Agent's storyline. It's known side-effects include a 100% chance of dying.
 * Take Cover: A specific ability to the Smuggler and Imperial Agent classes, both of whom have several abilities that can only be used from cover. Both have Deployable Cover, just in case.
 * Applies, in a less significant way, to all players: Here, other classes are seen protecting themselves from a Macross Missile Massacre by hiding behind turret platforms.
 * Take That:
 * Doubling as a Mythology Gag, character creation states that the Smuggler class "is always ready to shoot first, stealth up and sneak away after."
 * Talking Is a Free Action: While in a conversation PCs go into a kind of stasis where they cannot be attacked and abilities with durations are frozen. Since there is no time limit on selecting dialog in single player conversations a PC could remain frozen like this as long as they like.
 * Talking to Yourself: Satele Shan speaking with the the female Trooper.
 * Teacher's Pet: Ffon to Overseer Harkun, so very much. You will wish them both dead every time Harkun tells you that your Sith Inquisitor will never amount to what Ffon does.
 * The Computer Shall Taunt You: Playing as a Bounty Hunter, you get an assignment to kill a Sith. When you get to her, she says she's disappointed that it was just some bounty hunter who was sent after her, not even a Mandalorian! If you ask her why, she says that obviously she's going to make short work of you, since she's this badass Sith and you're just some chump who can't even use the Force. Maybe another Sith could beat her, or possibly a really lucky Jedi, but not the likes of you.
 * The Dulcinea Effect: Unsurprisingly, players are offered the chance to follow this course of action with various quests on more than a few occasions.
 * The Starscream: Some of those in the Empire suffer from this, with their primary goal being self-advancement, with the Empire itself coming in a distant second. This is highlighted thoroughly during the Bounty Hunter's quest line on Balmorra in the low 20s. The Imperial they're getting close to edges pretty close to the Too Dumb to Live category.
 * Theme Music Power-Up:
 * Each class has an ability (which can only be used with an active companion) which allows them to regenerate health and resets the cooldown on one of their abilities (usually a stun). It's meant to be used if you are in danger of losing a fight and causes a special theme to be played when it is used.
 * The track that was eventually revealed to be the main theme plays in the Hope trailer, when Satele sends Malgus flying into a boulder.
 * In the finale of the Jedi Knight's Chapter 3, the main theme plays
 * In The False Emperor Flashpoint, the game's main theme starts to play once
 * Three Act Structure: Each of the eight class story-lines follow this.
 * Too Dumb to Live: When Darth Jadus tells you to bow, you should listen.
 * Major Bessiker on Balmorra in the sith inquisitor class quest. He basically orders the player to go rescue his son or the player will not get the required anti-toxin remedy. His son himself fits the trope, a sith apprentice who orders you to free him "so he can go claim a rare artifact of power whose map he holds." No points for guessing that it all ends in blood.
 * To Win Without Fighting: The Jedi Consular and Imperial Agent both get a lot of opportunities to end confrontations without bloodshed. Even when it fails it often gives you an advantage in the ensuing fight.
 * On a rare and rather silly occasion, the Sith Warrior can avoid a fight by threatening to eat a band of mercenaries after he kills them.
 * True Companions: Darth Silthar's branch of Imperial Reclamation Services.
 * Unholy Matrimony: Malgus, the local Noble Demon of the Sith Empire, and Eleena Daru.
 * Unequal Pairing: Jedi Consulars, Jedi Knights, and Sith Warriors can all romance their attractive female apprentices.
 * Hell, the Sith Inquisitor fits in here to with Ashara, and both the Trooper and Imperial Agent have at least one romance option with an explicit subordinate in rank. This may be due to the PC usually being the official leader of the little band, but it's hard not to think someone in Bioware has a certain fetish...
 * Unflinching Faith in the Brakes: Malgus doesn't even bother looking when . Though as a Sith, it is reasonable to assume he'd sense if it was going to actually strike him anyways.
 * Ugly Guy, Hot Wife:
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change: You'll find yourself playing Star FOX during space combat sequences. They aren't mandatory, but they do give you Experience Points.
 * Unreliable Narrator: The History videos are explicitly pieced together from incomplete information, and some things are pure supposition on the narrator's part. This keeps things like Revan's true motives and ultimate fate nice and vague for in-game development.
 * Vendor Trash: Very common. The item descriptions make no attempt to hide it either. Players can, however, send a companion on a one-minute mission to sell these to a vendor.
 * Vibroweapon: Many of the non-player character carried Melee weapons are these, and the force-using classes use them until they finish the first planet. Just like in Knights of the Old Republic, they have a cortosis alloy weave, in order to stand up to Lightsabers.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: While Republic player' Dark Side options are about the temptation of putting pragmatism ahead of their ideals, Imperial Dark Side options are usually straight up cruel. Bounty Hunters can often cut people's heads off, and Sith Inquisitors can often shock people during conversations. All in good fun. For more details and examples, look at the Kick the Dog entry above.
 * Some of the NPCs you deal with are so irritating as to make the Dark Side options regarding them very appealing. For example, spend most of the Imperial questline on Taris getting insulted by Thana Vash, and then just try to resist the temptation to  when you get a chance.
 * Villainous Demotivator: What's the best location to display someone frozen in carbonite? Why, right next to where the player's companions make things for them, of course!
 * Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Ghost Cell can use advanced holographic technology to achieve this.
 * War Arc: The basic summary of the game's story. It's Republic and the Jedi versus the Sith, the Chiss and the Mandalorians; mercenaries and criminals profit from both sides.
 * We Have Reserves: The standard Sith response to most problems is to throw people at it until it goes away. And by "people" we mean "Imperials and slaves", of course.
 * Wetware CPU: A Mad Scientist on Dromund Kaas puts the brains of Imperial soldiers in droids.
 * Wham! Episode:
 * The Imperial Agent's story has a number of these:
 * The end of Chapter 1:
 * The beginning of Chapter 2:
 * The aftermath of Taris:
 * The end of Chapter 2:
 * The end of Belsavis:
 * The end of Voss:
 * The end of Chapter 1 for the Jedi Knight, as described under Scenery Gorn.
 * The end of the Knight's Chapter 2 as well, at least for those who haven't read Revan:
 * Playing as an Imperial, this may pop up once you realize who the Jedi running the Foundry is (provided you haven't read the books, of course). Also, who his underling, and thus one of the Flashpoint Bosses, is.
 * What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: This is what spurred the  and motivated their plans.
 * What Measure Is a Mook?: Killing NPCs you converse with often gives you Dark Side points, but as for the Mooks defending those NPCs? Oh, go ahead and slaughter them all, the game won't punish you for it.
 * What the Hell, Hero?:
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: Most of a Sith Inquisitor's problems are solved by blasting the problem with lightning.
 * Inside of cutscenes, a Sith Warrior has a similar reliance on Force Choke, with the occasional telekinetic wall-slam for variety.
 * Whole-Plot Reference: It's BioWare and it's an MMORPG, so quite a few of the quests fall under this heading.
 * The Tatooine quest chain "Ghosts of the Desert," in which an Imperial archaeological team Dug Too Deep and unleash a bodiless collective that turns its hosts into Ax Crazy maniacs, is mostly a Shout-Out to John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars.
 * With This Herring: Justified for the Force users on both sides since their plots start so early in their careers they aren't even using real lightsabers yet, and the Bounty Hunter starts off as more or less a greenhorn with a blaster. On the other hand, no explanation is given for Republic Special Forces troopers start the game in a T-Shirt with a worse weapon than the starting enemies use instead of the armor all your squadmates have.
 * Could be standard issued equipment for most of the rest of the Republican army, and since you were deployed right out of the Academy you hadn't been issued your specific squad's gear yet.
 * Also justifiable for the Agent; you start off in a deep-cover operation on Hutta, so it makes some sense that you wouldn't bring along a lot of ostentatious - and identifiable-as-Imperial - gear (though you'd think Jheeg would at least try to give you some armor that looks more, well, red). The Smuggler ends up also being a bit of a question-mark, though - if they can afford a ship at the start of the game, you'd think they'd at least have a full set of gear.
 * It's likely for Smugglers that before the game, they weren't actively involved in fighting the war, and had no need for much gear beyond clothing and a blaster. Besides
 * Wolverine Claws: The Bounty Hunter progression video shows one of them killing a Jedi with these, coming from his armor. This isn't the first Star Wars game to give us this attack.
 * Worst Aid: Bounty hunters can heal allies... by shooting rockets at them.
 * Wretched Hive: Ord Mantell, Hutta and Nar Shaddaa.
 * Writing Around Trademarks: Due to legal issues surrounding the name "Sunrider", Nomi Sunrider has become "Nomi-Da-Boda", which also doubles as a Continuity Nod / Shout-Out to her descendant, Vima-Da-Boda.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: The Sith Emperor has manipulated virtually every faction and major event over the course of a millenia in order to prepare a way for the Revenge of the Sith.
 * Though he technically WASN'T Responsible for the Great Sith War. Dural actually comments on this and asks what it means for the Sith if the spirits backed Kun rather then the emperor.
 * Since he's old enough to have known them personally, it might be something basic and personal. He may owe them money, or they might just think he's "kind of a dick".
 * Darth Vowrawn's codex entry seems to imply that he is a master of this.
 * X Meets Y: The Imperial Agent is described as a mix of Grand Moff Tarkin and Sam Fisher.
 * You Shall Not Pass:
 * From the Black Talon (Imperial Flashpoint), after the players launch a boarding action:
 * From the Black Talon (Imperial Flashpoint), after the players launch a boarding action:


 * Satele's Master in the game's opening sequence (also known as the Return Trailer).
 * You Have Failed Me Darth Baras's disposal of a particular stupid minion matches Darth Vader's scene to the letter, including tele-choking and promoting a random bystander.
 * In the first Imperial flashpoint, you can execute the Captain for refusing to attack a (stronger) Republic vessel.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Dark Side option for dealing with Thana Vesh at the end of the Imperial Taris questline. Given her interactions with your character, it's hard to imagine anyone actually letting her live.
 * Unless your character is a balls-to-the-wall insane sith.
 * Zombie Apocalypse: The Kaon Under Siege Flashpoint with the Rakhghoul virus causing the apocalypse.