Her name was Naresha.

When Knights of the Old Republic came to an end, and the redeemed Jedi Knight Revan stood before a cheering crowd of victorious Republic soldiers, I couldn't fathom what could possibly come next. The Star Forge had been destroyed, Darth Malak's reign had come to an end, and Revan and Bastila now had an entire future to look forward to. Bioware's epic tale had come to a gripping conclusion.

But I never would have guessed that it would end there.

I finished the game over four years ago, and for months afterward, I scoured the internets for any hint or rumor of a true sequel to KotOR (that incident with Obsidian Entertainment doesn't, doesn't count). Once a week, I would look over the biggest fan/mod page available to hear what was going on with Bioware and why they weren't making this thing!

Eventually, I would give up on any prospect of seeing the continuation of Revan's story. It was a slow death for me.

To keep the memories alive, I started working on a KotOR fanfic called Revan's Shadow, the story for which I had quietly been working on ever since I first finished the game. About one year and 90,000 words later, I'm fast approaching the publication of the last chapter. Thinking it might be fun to throw around a bunch of little references, I start looking over the Knights of the Old Republic page on Wookieepedia. And, to my surprise, there's an actual entry for KotOR 3.

"No way," says I, and immediately click on the link. What I find is information yanked from a recently published book on LucasArts called Rogue Leaders, and what I read absolutely breaks my heart.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 is a canceled video game in the Knights of the Old Republic series and is a follow up to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. According to designer John Stafford, "we got quite a bit of traction... we wrote a story, designed most of the environments/worlds, and many of the quests, characters, and items." However, when the game was close to starting development, LucasArts hit a difficult period in the company's history which led to the project being canceled.

I was devastated. Here, after four years of waiting, I was finally being told that not only had a sequel been in production, but that it had been CANCELLED as well. And they were basically saying, "Hey, we totally got everything ready and were THIIIIS close to making that game but...man...you know...shit happened." It was a terrible letdown. I can still imagine all that the game could have been. All that it could have accomplished and I hang my head in disappointment.

This should have been the game that we got instead of this MMO that Bioware is set to make a bunch of internet-money on. Maybe someday. If Sysyphus' punishment is to always push a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down when it reaches the top, then my eternal punishment will be to forever cleave to a small fragment of hope that we'll see Revan's story continued in some way.

And hopefully not in shitty comic form again.

Enjoy the picture I've posted above, because it is all that remains of the game that could have been Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3.

/cries