The Temptation of Eve

History has been made:  I have acquired Dark Side points on my second agent.

Up to this point, none of my characters have made Dark Side choices.  My Consular, of course, as a Jedi, felt it her duty to follow the Light, and my first agent had a quiet conscience in her which sometimes made her relationship with her Empire leaders somewhat tenuous.

But there was one scenario with my first agent in which I almost chose the Dark Side.  (Class story alert!)

It involved Watcher X.

Watcher X is somewhat mysterious and dangerous, even though he is working on our side.  He is obviously familiar with everything relating to agents, as indicated by the standard routines he cites when we first meet him.  (Hardly surprising, given his background.)  He freely admits he is only helping Intelligence because he'll be punished if he doesn't (his programming), which means, of course, his trustworthiness is in question.  (The adage "Never trust a snake" comes to mind.)

Toward the close of my interaction with Watcher X, he escaped from his Intelligence-imposed prison cell and presented Kaminoko with a choice:  naturally, she could come after him, as would befit a loyal Imperial Agent, or she could let him go, and he would give her information she would not be able to get from other sources.

"You sure know how to tempt a girl."

With Hikarinoko, I pondered, agonized, and then chose the Light Side, ending up having to kill Watcher X, which was actually rather heartbreaking, as I considered him something of a sympathetic character.  This time, since I was trying to see how the story might change if I made different choices, I followed the example of Mother Eve and chose transgression in pursuit of knowledge.1

Kaliyo chewed me out, and I felt dirty.

But as in life, once a choice is made, you've got to live with it.  With a slight hollowness in my stomach, I returned to my ship, told bald-faced lies to Watcher 2, which made me feel even more dirty, and headed out to Tatooine.

Watcher X did not lie.  When I checked my mail the next day, there were three which looked at first glance as if they were spam, given the garbled nature of their subject lines.  (The effect was aided by the fact that the message above them really was spam.)  They were sent via a nonstandard code from Watcher X, with juicy tidbits about Watcher 2, Kaliyo, and so forth, with promises of more later.

They were definitely things to make you go "hmmm".  I wonder if he'll follow through with his promise.  I wonder if it will be worth it.

1 The Biblical story states that the serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  She didn't transgress the law simply in pursuit of tasty fruit; she did it in pursuit of knowledge.  "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die; For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.  And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat . . ." (KJV Genesis 3: 4-6)