"Hello again! Everything researched to your satisfaction?"

"Mmhmm. We couldn't get anything on where Revan went." Read, read, ugh this is so slow, she really needs to get around to actually learning to read so the spell will work properly... "It looks like the Mandalorians' motivations were fairly straightforward? So if they were a front, nobody ever found out about it."

"Huh, well. That's the danger of speculation. Sometimes you're just wrong."

Nod. "So, what happened with this war and Revan?"

"When we last left off, Revan decided that the Republic being conquered by the Mandalorians was not a thing he was okay with. Bias warning, I'm about to brag about my creator. It's totally justified. When Revan decided he was not okay with something, he was very clear about it. So of course he helped turn the entire war around by leading an army with a bunch of Jedi that decided to help, through some combination of Revan being ridiculously awesome, and some combination of you know, people dying en masse being, you know, bad. Which worked, by the way, the Mandalorians were successfully defeated. Yay, everybody's happy, the traditional structure of the galaxy is preserved, surely nothing can go wrong now that you have a young leader who has the complete and utter loyalty of just about everyone that follows them."

This gets some chuckling, and then a more serious nod.

"So Revan didn't recall his logic at the time of my creation, but he did have some vague impressions of his own emotions at the time. He recalls being - the term I want to use is afraid of something. Convinced that his job was not done. That there was some greater threat than the Mandalorians out in the Unknown Regions. So - there he went, with his best friend in tow, and when they came back they had decided that clearly the only way to save the galaxy was to conquer it. ... It's not quite as crazy as it sounds, because while the Republic is many things, 'efficient' is not one of them, and having a strong leader organizing it and neatening the place up would go a long way, but - yeah. It was a little bit crazy." Disappointed sigh.

Nod. "Yeah."

"He then tracked down an ancient factory called the Star Forge, retrieved his army of loyal soldiers that were still ready and waiting for him, and bam. Galactic conquest ensued. Revan was uh, very good at it. So good that if he hadn't of been betrayed by his aforementioned best friend, he might have actually managed it. But instead, he got betrayed by his best friend while the Jedi were trying to capture him.

"This is where things get a bit fuzzy, because Revan was not entirely sure about the exact circumstances that occur here. The story he was told by the Jedi council was that the betrayal's after effects included 'brain death,' and that in order to salvage him at all, they had to put a new set of memories into his head. Which is possible, he was hit pretty bad, but the Jedi council did conveniently give him a set of memories that were specially crafted to try to get him to be as loyal to the Republic and as easy for them to manipulate as possible, and they did really want to know the location of the Star Forge. Which, of course, maybe he could lead them to, if he were loyal to the Republic and easy to manipulate."

She makes a face, and glances around again before speaking. "The story I heard was that they decided to do that rather than kill them. Which is exactly the sort of behavior I'm worried about, really, especially if it's agreed to be wrong enough that they'd lie about it - I'd actually say that they did kill them, and were very rude about what they did with the corpse, even if it tuned out okay in the end."

"Hmm, no, I don't think they successfully overwrote his personality," says the holocron. "They might have tried to kill him, but they didn't manage it. He had some holes in his memories, but from what he could tell, he was still himself in some very fundamental ways. Some of the details of this are very personal, though."

Nod. "I care less about the part where they didn't succeed than the part where they tried at all, anyway."

"Oh, fair enough, it's pretty messed up and Revan wasn't at all happy about it. I just have to stick up for my creator. He was himself in the end."

"Oh, that's what I meant, sorry, about it turning out okay."

"It's quite all right. No offense taken. ... I'm not even sure I can be offended, no one's managed it yet."

"Well, I'm still going to try to avoid being the first."

"Thanks for that! Anyway. Before I continue with history, I have a question - you described Revan using 'they' pronouns, earlier. Would you rather I use those when describing Revan?"

She blinks in surprise. "Yes. Please. I've just about gotten used to that from humans but it's still not comfortable."

"Sure thing. I apologize for not realizing sooner, I'm usually better about noticing that sort of thing. But from now on I'll use they pronouns for everyone. Ready for continued story time?"

"Excellent. Thank you. Yes."

"You're quite welcome. From here on out I have much better information to go on and don't need to be as vague, because Revan's memories are no longer damaged. How much detail of what occurred would you like?"

She considers. "I don't think I know enough to answer that question. On one I can always come back later, but on the other, the more I know about things the better chance I have of realizing when I should come back." Further consideration. "It might help for you to know that when I say I don't know much, I mean I spent a day researching with my friend who can summon books - and we were a couple hours in before we worked out that Sith really are bad news and that wasn't just propaganda - and that's about it. I've been on Tython for less than a day, and you're the third person I've talked to here. Most of the things I don't know, I don't know that I don't know them yet."

"Hmm. How long has it been since the Jedi Civil War? Or, to be precise, how long has it been since I was made?"

"Around three hundred years, but that's... not really important for what I'm hoping to learn from you? I'm not going to make any decisions today, I'm planning on observing for at least a few months before I make any big decisions. But I'm in a position where... I don't want to see them doing something that I'd consider bad but they don't, and judge them the wrong way for it and leave people to get hurt where they wouldn't if I'd been more open-minded, but I also don't want to see them doing something that is, actually, a violation of the values they're supposed to be living up to, or something that I'm not familiar with that they think is okay and really isn't, and not realize that it's a problem. I don't mind learning history if it'll help with that, but it's not really what I'm worried about here."

The holocron considers this, then nods.

"So gloss over the details and focus on the philosophy and Revan's thoughts, is what I'm hearing. All right, fair enough. As long as you go listen to other people, too, I don't know everything.

"Revan was never really sure what plan the Jedi had for them after the attempted brainwashing, but the Jedi didn't get their perfect scenario. Instead, the ship Revan was on got attacked by Darth Malak, the aforementioned former best friend. Revan, just barely finished with the procedure of attempted brainwashing, fled on an escape pod to a nearby planet. There they weren't alone, there was another survivor from the ship they were working with, and they made friends on the planet, but they weren't in any position to be manipulated by the Jedi. The only Jedi around to manipulate them, Bastila Shan, had been captured in the wake of their escape pod crashing into the planet, and wasn't in any position to do it. Somewhat hilariously, Revan was the one to find and rescue them, and only after they'd been running around for weeks by themselves, unsupervised. The Jedi let it slide, because Revan was still loyal to the Republic, just like they'd tried to program, and Revan seemed perfectly nice and helpful and like the sort of person they'd wanted to aim for. So - they tolerated eccentricities. They tried to get everything back to plan, with what I can honestly say was only minimal success, and only because Revan thought it was a good idea on its own merits. In the end, the galaxy did get saved, so even if they didn't quite get what they were aiming for, they got what they wanted."

Revan's holocron rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Occasionally, Revan wondered what would have happened if they hadn't of acted like the Jedi had expected. If they hadn't of been completely on board with saving the Republic from Malak. They never got their answer, or at least they didn't before they made me. So, something to be aware of - Revan didn't know what would have happened if they'd stopped playing along. Even if the Jedi didn't try to brainwash them again, they had no reassurance that it wasn't potentially on the table. In a way, one could say they were being blackmailed. Revan didn't stand for it forever, of course, they later told the Jedi Council to, quote, 'take a magical adventure to the nearest quasar,' but in the early days, even though Revan had managed to avoid brainwashing, they did not have much choice."