WMG / The Force Unleashed

In the Force Unleashed II, it will be revealed that Starkiller has been a clone since Vader stabbed him through the back in the first game.

• In the novel, the question of how Starkiller came back from the injuries Vader inflicts on him (stabbing him through the back then throwing him into space) is brought up a few times but never given a straight answer. Galen no longer has his scars and remarks near the end that he was built "tougher" after being healed. Earlier when he was escaping from the Empirical after Vader gives him his marching orders, everyone was calling him Subject 1138. In the cloning tank teaser site for the second game, the scientist monitoring the Starkiller clone says that "Subject 1138" has returned to the cloning facility. Given the extend of his injuries, the mystery of how they were healed (a mystery that isn't glossed over in the novel), and that Galen was revived a whole six months after he was injured, I'd say it's pretty damn likely Vader was forced to clone him to bring him back and is now trying to make a Starkiller who is easier to control. How else could Vader have made a Starkiller clone in time for the second game (taking place only a few months after the first) if he didn't already have a few on hand from before?
  • Didn't happen.
  • Well, nothing happened in regards to whether Starkiller is a clone or not. We never got a straight answer.
  • One of the cutscenes you can unlock by completing challenges implies, but does not confirm that this may be what happened.
    • One of those cutscenes shows a dead Starkiller in his default-training gear, the costume he wore when Vader stabbed him halfway through the first game. If Vader doesn´t redress the people in his corpse collection in their default-costumes he should have worn white hero robes. I wouldn´t be surprised when this theory turns out to be true.

Starkiller was already cloned, several times.

• Expanding on the above theory. Starkiller has been cloned several times since before the first game even started. Starkiller has likely died several times and each time Vader awakens a fully grown dormant clone to replace him. A likely twist in in TFU 2 is Starkiller finding all the replacement clones Vader has stashed away in hibernation until this Starkiller dies.
• So Starkiller is a Venture Brother?
  • This has happened before in Expanded canon, so there is precedent. This happened to Bevel Lemelisk; one of the main designers of the Death Star.

The series is a campaign played by the Darths & Droids players.

• It was meant to be a stealth espionage campaign. Then the GM made the mistake of letting Pete play a Jedi.
  • So, that would mean:
    • Annie is playing Juno. The character with the deepest background and most emotional turmoil. Plus, her Belligerent Sexual Tension with Pete's Jedi, which seems to be a hallmark of her characters.
    • Jim is playing Rham Kota. His "brilliant" plan to randomly attack Imperials until Vader shows up, then take him out. When Pete went ahead and "killed" him, he talked with the GM and arranged to be blinded instead, so he could sit back in the spaceship and pester Pete with "brilliant" plans over the comlink. The GM agreed because, hey, pestering Pete.
    • Sally is PROXY. She liked playing C-3PO so much, she wanted to play someone like Threepio, but cooler. Pete walked her through the droid construction rules. He was very disappointed when she took the flaw "Programmed to kill one specific being," instead of something like "Bad at Dance," until she pointed out that her target was Pete, and she'd be so thoroughly unable to kill him that it would never come up in play. Pete had never been more proud of her.
    • Ben is Bail Organa. Again missing for a few sessions, he showed up, took over that character, and tried to nudge the story back on track by suggesting clandestine meetings and sabotage of Imperial facilities. Then Pete decided to yank a Star Destroyer out of the sky.

The Starkiller in TFU2 is the original, and after the Dark Apprentice was finished, Vader set Starkiller loose, as part of a plan.

• Basically, if the real Starkiller manges to do as Vader hopes, Vader throws the fight, and waits to see what happens...He probably ordered the Dark Apprentice to intervene should Starkiller decide to kill Vader, and ordered him to sneak in if he was captured.
  • The novel more or less gives this some basis in fact, as Starkiller has a vision of the Dark Side ending. As for the Starkiller that the Dark Apprentice saw, it was an unconcsious Starkiller, revived as part of Vader's gambit to find the hidden Rebel base.

Starkiller, Kota, PROXY and maybe Juno were all on Alderaan when the Death Star destroyed it.

• It would explain why there are no super-powered Jedi, or robots capable of imitating a human during the original trilogy, as well as contribute to Ben's powerful force heebie-jeebies when Alderaan was destroyed.
  • It would also explain why the Empire decided to blow up an entire planet for teh evils, they knew Starkiller was on the planet, and a killsat strike was The Only Way To Be Sure.
  • Kota notably appears in Elite Squadron as a supporting character, but strangely disappears from the plot shortly before the Battle of Yavin. Perhaps he was on his way there when he last briefed X2?

Starkiller possessed his clone

• Palpatine did the same thing with his clones. And one of the downloadable costumes for the first game was Starkiller as a Force ghost. It would explain any inconstancy with the clone. Galen's also much more inexperienced than Palps, so that may account for why the memories aren't there.
  • IMHO, Vader was telling the truth when he reconstructed Starkiller on the Empirical after he was stabbed and thrown into space. Then, when Starkiller released all of his Force Energy in the explosion that bought the Rebels time but killed him on the Death Star, Vader used Sith Magic to force (if you'll pardon the pun) part of Starkiller (the part with his powers and some of his useful memories) into either a growing clone of Starkiller or his original body (most likely the former), but Starkiller's spirit was so strong that the piece Vader "discarded" came back to him, and just needs time to reorganize itself into Starkiller 2.0. This is why Palpatine's clones (and Starkiller) don't go insane - the insane essence of the clone is destroyed, replaced with Starkiller/Palpatine's. (Palpatine possessing his clones is canon - the power, called the ritual of essence transfer, is first mentioned in Darth Bane Dynasty of Evil). Just my theory, but it explains why Starkiller .
  • Some Force-users are also just especially talented in a particular aspect of the Force. For example, the Halcyon family tend to be really good at illusions and energy absorption. Maybe Starkiller just has that kind of affinity for essence transfer, and his soul migrated into a clone without even realizing it.

The Bad Ending is the canonical one.

• Just think about it; Why haven't we seen any of these characters in the original series? Because the entire cast of the Force Unleashed 2 died on that pier, slaughtered by the Dark Apprentice. Vader writes off the whole project, and eventually disposes of the Dark Apprentice at some unspecified point in the future. Continuity is thus sustained
  • The whole game was a plan by Vader; He releases the (clearly flawed) Starkiller clone- I mean, Vader wasn't even trying when he said he'd execute him- to lure General Kota and a significant portion of the Rebel Alliance onto Genosis. The Dark Apprentice kills everyone; Vader doesn't need any more clones of Starkiller, because he now has one that is totally loyal to him. The Dark Apprentice is most likely destroyed, or simply goes missing, in one of Luke Skywalker's Expanded Universe adventures, preferably written by Matthew Stover. Or he simply wasn't meant to have a long lifespan.
    • That...actually kind of makes sense.
    • I sign this under the condition that there will be no third game.

The third game is played from the point of view of Dark Apprentice.

• It will show him trying to find the rebelbase where Vader is brought to.

The third game is played from the point of view of several Dark Apprentices.

• The apprentice went with Boba Fett and the Slave One after the Rogue Shadow in the good ending and fights through the rebel base with maxed out force powers, rescues Vader but will be killed in the attack. The rest of the game will starr a new stable clone from the improved cloning project who starts out with little force powers (like in TFU1). Maybe there will even be an optional co-op campaign with two clones like in a more mature LEGO Star Wars game.

Starkiller witnessed the death of Ahsoka Tano.

• Think about it. Anakin is the type who would want to "take care" of his ex-Padawan himself - turn her if he can, kill her if he can't. It's Personal with him, especially with anyone he actually came to care for (see Obi-Wan for an example). Galen witnessed the fight, was too young to really understand what was going on...but was impressed enough by her to adopt her unorthodox lightsaber style.
  • Jossed, as we know Ahsoka survives past The Original Trilogy. Doesn't mean that Starkiller wasn't inspired by her, though.

The "Vader" that Starkiller captures in TFU2 is actually a PROXY-type droid.

Vader realized the utility of having an army of Starkiller clones, so it's not impossible that he would also consider mass-producing PROXY droids with the intention of making them into sleeper agents. In this case, one of them impersonated Vader for the final battle of TFU2, so that no matter whether Starkiller chose to kill or capture it, Vader himself wouldn't be at personal risk. If-and-when The Force Unleashed 3 comes out, the first mission will involve this PROXY droid managing to work its way out of rebel security and creating subterfuge.

• That can't work. Droids cannot use The Force, no matter how good their technology. Even assuming that this PROXY clone could emulate Vader's force powers, it could never mimic Vader's Force presence, which Starkiller of all people would be able to recognize.
• The droid had a built-in device that clouds the minds of force sensitive. Everybody just assumed that Vader was masking his presence to try and catch them off-guard.

If Force Unleashed 3 ever gets made, one boss or mini-boss battle will be against a terentatek

• THAT might be the most awesome thing ever.

Galen is as strong in the Force as Emperor Palpatine.

Galen is shown to be stronger than Vader but could only draw with Palpatine. Both of them were on equal footing, despite Galen's young age and healthy body, because Galen just spent a lot of energy beating up Vader. Anakin or Luke could have beaten Galen in a fight if they were healthy and fully trained.

• The Star Destroyer he pulled out of orbit argues otherwise.
  • I'm not saying Galen is some low level weakling, he's a badass. But Luke moved a BLACK HOLE. When Galen does that, I concede.
  • Bear in mind that pulling a Star Destroyer from orbit isn't pure brute force. Once Galen destabilized its orbit, gravity was helping him out.
• Galen is stronger than Vader because the cyborg process greatly weakened Vader's Force abilities. Anakin in his prime would still be stronger than Galen, and Palpatine admitted that Anakin's potential exceeded his own.
  • Just in sheer raw potential, I'd peg Starkiller as right about on par with Anakin. But Anakin would have one big advantage over Starkiller, in that he had proper, formal training, from multiple Masters. Starkiller, on the other hand, has mostly self-taught skill, backed only by a metric crapton of raw power and undirected anger.

Rahm Kota is Mandalorian

Think about it. The code for unlocking him is MANDALORE, his General Ripper attitude falls in line with their Proud Warrior Race Guy shtick, his armor looks Mandalorian and according to the backstory, he fought in the trenches of a civil war in his (suspiciously unspecified) homeplanet. And his age matches with the date of the Mandalorian Civil War...

• What self-respecting Mandalorian would ever allow one of their own to become a Jedi? I mean it's canon that they hate each others guts.
• I like this. It would also explain his distrust of the clones.

Shaak Ti faked her death

Given the countless times she has escaped death before there's no doubt she had everything planned out prior to her encounter with Starkiller.

The third game's first level would have been played as Darth Vader, like in the first game

At the end of TFU2, Vader is captured and the rebels are taking him to their secret base. That seems like a pretty bad idea in and of itself, but it's even more so considering the existence of the Dark Apprentice. In the Dark Side ending, the Dark Apprentice reveals himself by deactivating his personal cloaking device and kills Starkiller. In the Light Side ending, he does not appear at all. But that doesn't mean he's not there! It is shown in one of the bonus cutscenes that prior to the final confrontation with Starkiller, Vader instructed the Dark Apprentice to not reveal himself unless absolutely necessary. In the Dark Side ending, Starkiller is about to kill Vader, so the Dark Apprentice reveals himself. In the Light Side ending, he doesn't need to do that, so he just remains invisible and simply walks aboard the ship that the rebels use to transport Vader. As soon as the ship arrives at the hidden rebel base, the Dark Apprentice frees Vader, at which point the player assumes control of Vader and murders everybody.And at the end of the level we get to duel Starkiller while playing as Vader.What a shame it's never going to happen.

The second half of the second game is an illusion.

Halfway through the second game, Starkiller visits the Dark Side cave on Dagobah and has a vision, which sets in motion the second half of the game. Then, when you get to Kamino, there's that creepy section where you're travelling through a dark corridor, voices are calling to you, the environment shifts in strange ways, and Darth Vader attacks you out of nowhere before vanishing again. Even during the first time this troper played it, he was convinced that it was All Just a Dream. Following the capture of Vader, the vision revealed dire consequences for Starkiller's actions (essentially meddling with the established continuity) and he decided to back down and go into seclusion, perhaps pursing a less. . . destructive course of letting Juno know he (maybe) was still alive. He changed his name, downplayed his Force Sensitivity, and became one of the other canonical Force-Sensitives Luke picked up to join his new Jedi Academy, years later.

At the beginning of the Force Unleashed II, Vader's Lambda shuttle broke down.

Which is why he takes his TIE Advanced x1 to Kamino.