G0-T0

To oversee and aid in the planetary reconstruction of the planet Telos IV, the Galactic Republic spent a great deal of credits to design a technical droid to handle the immense data that was produced daily: climate changes, shield management reports, etc. This droid was known as G0-T0. Known to few, however, was that the droid also had a secondary duty: to aid in the reconstruction of the Republic, which was wounded from the aftermath of the Jedi Civil War. To accomplish this task, it had two directives:

• Produce options to rebuild the Republic.
• Follow all the laws of the Republic.

Working for quite a long time to accomplish its duties on Telos, the droid found itself unable to follow both of its prime directives. Every practical option that would help rebuild the Republic would require breaking a law of the Republic. At that moment, the droid "broke." Choosing to follow only the first directive, the droid began to enact plans to save the Republic, regardless of their legality.

Eventually building a jet-black orb of a body, G0-T0 began to set up as a smuggling ring on the moon Nar Shaddaa. Since few would believe a droid could run an elaborate smuggling operation, G0-T0 used a hologram emitter to create the identity of "Goto." Instead of being the smuggling operator itself, G0-T0 would simply be Goto's liaison. G0-T0 set up the hologram by reusing a number of holovid gangster clichés. Taken together, the illusion was so effective that few, if any, knew of Goto's true existence, although Meetra Surik guessed it.

G0-T0's actions, while illegal, did aid the Republic in rebuilding itself. Its smuggling ring caused the deaths of destabilizing persons or organizations, developed unofficial profits for entire sectors, and strengthened Republic worlds that would otherwise have been poor and ignored. Believing also that the major source of the Republic's problems revolved around the Jedi/Sith conflict, it also enacted bounties for live Jedi and Sith. Many bounty hunters, who misinterpreted the bounty, simply killed Jedi and Sith instead of capturing them, failing to realize that they were worth nothing to G0-T0 dead. It was searching for a live Jedi or Sith to aid him in preserving the Republic. At some point he also discovered the HK-50 manufacturing facility hidden on Telos and reactivated it, disseminating the new model assassin droids throughout the galaxy searching for the Jedi.

Eventually, Meetra Surik was captured under the Jedi bounty. Goto spoke with Surik briefly on the bridge of his yacht, which orbited Nar Shaddaa, requesting the Jedi's help in the preservation of the Republic. They were interrupted by the ship's alarm, which had been set off by Surik's companions, who had invaded the ship seeking to rescue Surik. After succeeding in this and in gaining control of the droid-operated ship, they deactivated its cloaking device, allowing it to be destroyed by the many enemies of Goto, who had been unable to locate the mysterious ship before. G0-T0 presented himself to Surik on the Ebon Hawk, but as Goto's "gift"—not Goto himself. He requested Surik's aid in stabilizing the planets Telos, Dantooine, and Onderon. G0-T0 found himself increasingly annoyed by another spheroid droid aboard the Hawk: Bao-Dur's tiny remote droid. G0-T0, in a response, disabled the Remote and reprogrammed him for his own agenda.

G0-T0 used his modifications to the Remote on the planet of Malachor V. G0-T0 guessed that Bao-Dur's Remote was intended to recharge the Mass Shadow Generator on the planet, destroying it entirely. The smuggling robot felt that the planet contained too many priceless artifacts to destroy, and attempted to stop the Remote from activating the weapon by locking the Remote from moving due to G0-T0's modifications. However, HK-47 and his new allies, HK-50 droids, foiled G0-T0's plans and destroyed him. When Surik gave Bao-Dur's Remote the signal to activate the Mass Shadow Generator, Surik escaped with her companions on the Ebon Hawk while Malachor V was obliterated. G0-T0's photoreceptor was recovered, however, and by the year 3642 BBY, was stored in the vaults of the treasure ship King's Ransom, which belonged to the true Sith Empire. The photoreceptor was then stolen along with various other treasures by a smuggler working as a Republic privateer. G0-T0 also had a secret lair on Onderon—which was guarded by several traps—that was discovered during the Cold War.

During the Third Galactic War, the Eye of G0-T0, as the photoreceptor was now known, was purchased at an auction by an individual known as The Curator. The Alliance Commander and Lane Vizla created a replica of the Eye in order to force a meeting with the Curator. However, the droid enthusiast noticed the forgery had three compressor valves, while the Eye of G0-T0 was meant to only have two, causing him to call his droid guards on the Commander.

Befitting a planning droid, G0-T0 held efficiency in high value. Due to this, he found his directive to rebuild the Republic distasteful. In G0-T0's view, the Republic was an inefficient system bloated with bureaucracy and built on bad decisions, and an optimal solution in his opinion would have been to scrap the entire government and enact a new one. However, he was forced to follow his directive to help maintain the continued existence of the Republic. The same desire for efficiency and for rebuilding the Republic was also why G0-T0 took an interest in the Jedi Exile. As history showed several instances of even a single Jedi being capable of causing great changes on an interstellar scale, G0-T0 considered the Jedi Exile a valuable asset to have on his side.

Once free from following the laws of the Republic, G0-T0 displayed a decidedly amoral personality. He had no problem having people killed if they stood in the way of his plans, and referred to it as "deleting" people. In fact, he came to enjoy his position as a crime lord, free of following Republic bureaucracy and seeing his actions have fast and clear effects.

G0-T0 displayed an understanding of psychology uncommon for droids. Knowing that most organics considered droids inferior and were unlikely to take orders from one, he constructed the persona of Goto to work around this issue. He modeled its personality after holovid villains, and was surprised at how well that worked. G0-T0 also had a new body built for himself, and placed special emphasis on giving it an intimidating appearance.

G0-T0 was created by Obsidian Entertainment as one of the companions for the 2004 Xbox and PC video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Like most companions, he was written by Chris Avellone. He is voiced by Daran Norris.

The name "G0-T0" and the droid's alter ego of "Goto" are presumably a reference to the infamous GOTO programming command, which, if misused, can result in "spaghetti code" that is difficult to debug and maintain. This led some fans to speculate that G0-T0's dark side alignment (with a score of 30) within the game is a reference to the "GOTO is evil" belief expressed by proponents of structured programming.

G0-T0's appearance in the game was noticeably similar to the IT-O Interrogator droid from Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, although G0-T0 sports a red bulb in the upper half of his body as opposed to the IT-O's bulb in the lower half. In The New Essential Guide to Droids, G0-T0 is depicted upside-down, bringing the droid's look even closer to IT-O. Notably, G0-T0's eye is that of the HAL-9000 supercomputer from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, only the reflections of the ceiling lights from the ship in the movie have been placed at the bottom of the eye.

To the chagrin of some players, the result of the G0-T0/Remote conflict is not shown onscreen. If the player chooses to progress through the game in accordance with the light side, it is assumed that G0-T0 fails in his attempt to destroy the Remote, and thus the planet is destroyed by the Mass Shadow Generator. However, if the player chooses the path of the dark side for Meetra Surik to walk, the planet remains intact.

Some of this outcome may have been elaborated in levels set in the HK Manufacturing Plant, which were left out of the game's final cut. G0-T0 does admit that he hired the HK-50 assassin droids to hunt Surik, and HK-47 reveals the droids will not stop the hunt until their factory is destroyed. Ironically, this also reveals that, in spite of his claims Surik's actions at Peragus "broke" the galaxy, G0-T0 himself can largely be blamed for having just as big a role in the destruction of the Peragus mining facility, as the chain of events kicked off by the HK-50 aboard the Harbinger—which led to the facility's sabotage by the HK and contributed largely to its destruction—was all caused by G0-T0's sending the HK-50 units after Surik in the first place. In the deleted levels, HK-47 was supposed to come to an agreement with HK-51 droids, the successors of the HK-50s, so that these droids would destroy G0-T0 during the finale's G0-T0/Remote standoff. Later, The New Essential Guide to Droids reintroduced this particular cutscene into canon, although HK-51s were replaced with HK-50s. It is unknown what would have happened to G0-T0 in the non-canon dark-side ending of the game, except that the Mass Shadow Generator would not have been activated. Many fans speculate from the sound files left in the game disk that in the non-canon dark-side ending, HK-47 arrives with the HK-51 droids and they destroy the Remote instead, or GO-TO uses his ability to re-write HK-47's programming to destroy Remote.

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Prima Official Game Guide
• The New Essential Guide to Droids
• Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition Core Rulebook
• Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia