Closing Notes:

This story took me five years to write.

It started in 2005 as my way of keeping a story that I loved dearly from fading away completely. Bioware's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic changed my life in more ways than a video game rightfully should. It showed me what excitement there is to be had from fantastic and involving storytelling, and as a high school student thinking that all stories were like Great Expectations and Jane Eyre, this was paramount to my growth as a writer—which I had only decided I wanted to be after playing KotOR.

I still have this 20,000 word document that I had written all those years ago in my vain attempt to write a Star Wars novel. My dream at the time had been to write the first SW book based entirely on Darth Revan. I researched the guy for hours, I played the game again just to pick up on minute details here and there, and I even carried around his Wikipedia article in my backpack to read over at school.

Yeah... yeah, I know. I was obsessed. I make no excuses.

Eventually, my love for the story fell away when the obligations of college kicked up, but I still always held Darth Revan as my muse. And it wasn't until last year, 2009, that I finally decided that I was going to write this thing no matter what. Reading Matthew Stover's Star Wars: Shatterpoint (thanks to a suggestion by Mister Buch), helped me realize that I could tell a dark story within the Star Wars universe, and it didn't have to be as lighthearted as the movies. It was the perfect catalyst to get this project going.

So here it is, almost a year since I started the thing. Am I happy with the way it turned out? Certainly. This is five years' worth of notes and musings coming together. But what you're reading is literally half of the story that I had originally outlined. For every chapter that I wrote, I usually had one or two other chapters that I cut out for brevity. I knew some people wouldn't want to read a story this long on this site, and I was DEFINITELY sure there were even more who wouldn't want to read a story twice as long.

This story is my dream project. It represents so much to me: a closing door, in some ways. If you haven't reviewed it yet, please do, or favorite it, or tell a friend about it. I'm going to be very selfish here, like I've never been before. I've been working on this for too long!

I've gotten a few hundred hits per chapter (which is a lot for me, especially for how long the thing is) so even though I can't thank most of you by name, I just wanted to tell you all how appreciative I am of the support, the many reviews, and the advice I've received along the way. After this, I'll be going back to make proper edits soon.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed during the writing process:

Mister Buch (For his expert advice every step of the way, and for the inspiration I needed to get this started. A true friend, indeed.)

rutger5000 (This guy has been an encouragement for literally every story I write. Thank you very much!)

SixxHunter101 (Who somehow stuck around through the entire story. Thank you for your helpful/polite reviews, sir.)

1qwerty

Dusel

Brona19

6tailedninja

GinsengH

spruce56

alguLoD

Dr Grimm

Succeeded

Crytyk

aenzo

Darth Sayn

el robo

one of the lost

we will see

Vile Twitch

Ridersheart

BrokenAvenger21

nxkris

Swordsman of Shadow

Effiron

Arcian

WorldsNo1Actress

Vanilla Vanish

Jen

Aino

Dan

Matau25

Elwin Ransom

ayesha

pinkpadme

Hachichiyyin

And I'll throw up the names of any more people who've been reading but haven't gotten around to reviewing. This is pretty much the only way I can show my appreciation!

So, I'll leave it at that, for now. This doesn't mark the end of my love for KotOR, but it does put a great many things to rest within my mind. For the longest time, all I ever wanted to do was write this story. Thank you for allowing me to do that, and a special thank you to Matthew Stover for his work in the Star Wars EU, and Drew Karpyshyn, David Gaider, and the folks at Bioware for creating this game. As HK would say, it would be a far lesser galaxy without it.

May the Force be with you all,

-knight

Edit (5/2/12): Okay, I feel really stupid. It should absolutely be said (and wasn't) that a lot of this story is based, in large part, on the story that Chris Avellone and the rest of Obsidian Entertainment created for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The characters of Revan, the Exile, Malak, and their respective backstories were all derived from Obsidian's game. This was an important project to me, and KotOR 2 is an important story to me, but that wasn't said. So, thank you Obsidian for the memories, for the Exile, and for making Revan a character worth cherishing.

And I'm sorry BioWare didn't feel the same way.