Order of Zildrog campaign

Around 3630 BBY the war against Zakuul ended with the Eternal Alliance toppling the Eternal Empire and acquiring its military assets, most importantly the Eternal Throne that controlled the Eternal Fleet. This made what started as a small-scale insurrection into one of the major galactic powers alongside the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire, both of which began preparing for a renewal of the open scale warfare between them. In the wake of the conquest Vinn Atrius, a former member of Empress Vaylin's Horizon Guard, witnessed the plight of his people and the heavy toll of the war, coming to resent the Alliance and its Commander, who brought an end to Zakuul's centuries of prosperity. Atrius became determined to take down the Alliance to avenge his people and began searching the GEMINI network for the means to do so. While browsing the data the Eternal Empire obtained on Iokath, he came upon the mentions of Zildrog, an ancient dragon deity from Zakuulan legends. The data indicated that Zildrog was in fact an Iokath superweapon with enough power to destroy entire civilizations and Atrius began to search for a way to find, awaken and control Zildrog. He formed a secretive Order of Zildrog to advance his goals and set up base of operations on an abandoned listening post, where Atrius was soon approached by GEMINI 16, a rogue unit who promised to share information on Zildrog in exchange for the destruction of the Eternal Fleet. GEMINI 16 acquired access to the security of the Alliance base on Odessen, allowing the Order to observe and record Alliance's every step for months ahead.

Atrius began by testing the Alliance's strength indirectly, funding small groups of criminals or political defectors across the galaxy and fueling them with manufactured anti-Alliance propaganda. Former Zakuul Battalion Commander Tassar, who had a zealous cult form around her, was assisted in intercepting an Alliance transport carrying samples for Doctor Juvard Illip Oggurobb. This allowed Tassar to discover Rakata Prime and the technology of the Infinite Empire, which she used to restart the Star Fortress program, supplementing it with Rakatan self-repairing technology to make the battlestations indestructible. A minor Dust Vipers gang operating on Tatooine was provided with intellegence that allows them to successfully intercept an Alliance patrol vessel and steal security data of the Alliance base. A moderately successful bounty hunter Elarea Aldraste was assisted in convincing a disparate group of Wild Space's most notorious villains to unite in the Crimson Fang organization and seize control of Port Nowhere, planning to use the station as their base of operations for anti-Alliance strikes. A mid-level White Maw thug Droub was provided help to solidify his position in the gang and eliminate potential rivals, setting up a smelting operation in the Firefrost Lavaworks on Hoth, an extensive operation for which he alone had neither ambition nor intelligence.

Jedi Master Adelade was anonymously sent precise coordinates which claimed to lead to one of the Force's greatest mysteries, but instead led to Gethul, an ancient entity hibernating under the surface of Makeb. Upon arrival, Adelade and her team fell under the sway of the monstrosity, forming the Cult of Gethul and planning to fully awake the creature. Republic General Amos Rike led a group of loyalists to displace the Alliance forces on Denova and seize control of the Denovan Baradium Mines, their actions assisted by conspirators within the Republic Military. Coruscant Security Force Commander Kallin, an outspoken anti-Alliance critic, was provided with a a plan for a false-flag operation, intending to bomb the Senate Tower and make it look like the Alliance was responsible.

A group of slicers altered a massive amount of data to falsely obtain funding from a Republic endowment for Doctor Alirra Semhess' work on experimental adrenals, while Doctor Rahser Poth received encrypted communications from an anonymous scientist that allowed him to develop RAK-5 serum. Renegade Sith Lords Adacin and Zanisk were able to set up base in the former Separatist stronghold on Ord Mantell and began attacking systems that have declared for the Alliance, an aggression that seeemed illogical given their earlier foresight and caution. Major Korven of the Imperial Intelligence, ostracized for using methods too extreme even by Sith standards, emerged as a leader of a rogue faction of Sith defectors operating on the Vanguard Station, who began targeting and destroying nearby Alliance outposts. In all cases, the Order of Zildrog covered its trails by using several front companies originating in the Outer Rim and transmissions via a unique encrypted algorithm. The Alliance was able to timely react and neutralize these new threats and was able to discern that they were organized from a single source, but remained unable to trace anything back to the Order of Zildrog, of which they remained unaware for many months.

Theron Shan, one of the Alliance's original founders, eventually heard rumours about the Order of Zildrog from his underworld contacts established during his Republic Strategic Information Service days. Unable to share his finding with anyone else because of GEMINI 16's surveillance, he searched for the Order on his own for months, eventually contacting Vinn Atrius under the guise of wanting to join the Order and bring the Alliance down. Atrius refused to listed to Shan, which led Theron to arrange a trap for the Alliance Commander to prove his dedication. Working on his own, Theron leaked the location of the Old Gods on Iokath to Eternal Alliance, Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic simultaneously. All three parties showed interest in the anonymous data and send teams to secure the superweapon, led by Lana Beniko, Supreme Commander Jace Malcom and Sith Empress Darth Acina respectively. All three parties converged on the superweapon around same time and fighting ensued, although Beniko and her team managed to escape notice and retreat to Fleet Spire, where they established a foothold. Lana informed Theron and the Commander of this development and the two of them traveled to Iokath system at the head of the Eternal Fleet.

When the Eternal Fleet dropped out of hyperspace, the Imperial and Republic fleets have not yet engaged each other. A signal from the planet's surface broke the connection between the Eternal Throne and the Eternal Fleet warships, leaving the Fleet dormant while the Commander and Theron proceeded towards the surface in a Zakuul starfighter. Meanwhile, Lana had apprehended Republic Captain Elara Dorne and Imperial Major Malavai Quinn, who had been send by their respective superiors to negotiate with the Alliance. Both sides laid their claims to the superweapon and urged the Commander to ally with them against their opposition. The Commander chose to ally with the Republic, to which the Empire immediately opened a retaliatory strike, marking the beginning of the War on Iokath. While Theron and the Commander ventured into a nearby weapons cache to retrieve Iokath weapons, Lana discovered that the information of the Republic matched the Alliance's data and concluded that an outside party was behind the events. Since the Eternal Throne's control over the Eternal Fleet could only be sabotaged by an Alliance member, she rightfully suspected a traitor in their ranks.

Meanwhile, the Imperials used the schematics to engineer a backdoor access to the superweapon and contacted the Alliance, taunting them about their inevitable victory. The Commander and Theron moved to prevent the superweapon activation but were too late, and Empress Acina activated the throne, awakening the Six Gods. The resulting energy surge killed her, but also disabled the signal that kept the Eternal Fleet ships in lockdown. The Commander rushed towards the superweapon complex while Theron stayed behind to delay the full activation of the superweapon. Inside the complex the Commander assumed another throne and faced Tyth, the first of Six Gods, who revealed the existence of the traitor just as the member of the Order sabotaged the throne. Shocked by pain, the Commander ordered the Eternal Fleet ships to fire on the giant droid, while knocked Tyth out of commission for some time. The Commander was brought back to the Fleet Spire to recuperate, where they discussed with Lana and Theron the best possible way to locate the traitor in their ranks. and giving them time to destroy the rest.

After the events on Iokath, Theron Shan contacted Vinn Atrius again, insisting that his contributions were vital to the Order's success. Atrius distrusted Shan and pointed out that the events on Iokath gained the Alliance a powerful ally, whose support was now denied to the Order of Zildrog. Shan pretended to understand his concerns and asked for a way to prove himself, for which Atrius asked him to secure a shipment of adegan crystals from Umbara. The crystals were transported on a hovertrain headed to the Umbara capital city and were guarded by Umbaran soldiers and Shadow Assassins. Theron arranged for a transmission from the train to be send with the same encryption algorithm that was used on Iokath, tipping the Alliance Intelligence about the traitor's whereabouts. Lana, Theron, and the Commander traveled to Umabara and boarded the train to intercept and apprehend the traitor. After dealing with the opposition, the three reached the empty cockpit of the train, where to the other's shock Theron revealed himself to be the traitor. He took a shot at Commander which hit Lana and another at the control panel which activated a force field, trapping locked Lana and the Commander inside the cabin.

Theron then laid out his fake motivation, presenting himself as seeking the Alliance's downfall since the death of Valkorion to finally bring peace to the galaxy. Saying his goodbyes, Theron detonated several train rings, causing the train to collide with a nearby mountain range, while he himself escaped on a speeder bike. The Commander and Lana bailed out before the crash and chased after him on foot, but Theron had support of the Umbarans and managed to secure a large part of the adegan crystals shipment, loading it onto his shuttle. The Commander and Lana caught up with Theron just as his shuttle took off, leaving them empty-handed. Upon their return to Odessen, the Commander broadcasted a message to Theron across the HoloNet while Lana set to use every resource at the her disposal to locate his whereabouts.

Impressed with his dedication to their cause, Atrius and the others reached a decision to welcome Theron Shan into the Order of Zildrog. Using his unique infiltration skills, he was tasked with finding a holomap with coordinates to Zildrog's location, although GEMINI 16 warned Atrius not to trust Shan. Theron received specifications from the GEMINI and passed them to Pova, a spy operating on Nar Shaddaa. For a substantial fee, Pova was able to match the specs to a device stolen by Chiss agents from the Sith Emperor decades ago as a collateral in case their deal with the Empire went south. The team was led by a Chiss Expansionary Defense Force member of House Inrokini, whose granddaughter Zenta was now the Syndic of the House. Zenta resided on Copero, and Pova visited one of the planet's resorts to confirm the readings from several kilometers away.

Having his lead, Theron headed to Copero and convinced Zenta to provide him refuge in exchange for providing her Alliance secrets. Zenta's brother Valss was Force-sensitive and received a vision of Shan's victory, which led him and several of Zenta's best fighters to join him. Theron sliced into Zenta's personal datapad to reveal the map's location in the ancient ruins and abandoned the Syndic. At the same time his presence on Copero became known to Aristocra Saganu of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force, who declared Zenta rogue for harboring the traitor. Unable to act on this information for fear of striking a political war, Saganu personally traveled to Odessen to reveal his knowledge to Lana Beniko and the Alliance Commander and asked the Alliance to quietly deal with the traitor, sending Human Ensign Raina Temple along to keep an eye for Chiss Ascendancy interests. Saganu personally delivered Temple and the Commander to Copero, where they fought Zenta's soldiers and eventually apprehended the Syndic herself. Defeated, Zenta explained that she had been duped by the Shan just like the others and revealed to the Alliance that he joined a group searching a powerful superweapon, providing them with the map's coordinates so they could stop him.

The Commander and Temple rushed to Zenta's coordinates, but by the time they arrived Theron and Valss have already received the information they were after and destroyed the holomap. Valss stayed behind to buy the others time and was killed, while Theron escaped in a Zakuulan shuttle. However, the Alliance recovered the remains of the holomap and Lana had put her best engineers into reassembling it. Meanwhile Theron transmitted the coordinates to Atrius, while intentionally leaving the channel open so that the Alliance could intercept their talk and learn of the Order's existence.

Using the map information, the Order learned that Zildrog was located on Nathema, a world to which the Force had returned in the aftermath of Valkorion's death. The Order moved its base of operations there, taking everything they could from the listening post with them and tasking Theron with wiping all data and destroying the rest. However, now ready to spring his trap, Theron left encrypted backups of the data and leaked a message with the word "Zildrog" to the Alliancew, which the Commander and Lana went to personally investigate. Making their way onboard the abandoned listening post, Lana and the Commander watched the holomessages that revealed to them the Order's key figures and their motivation. The last data entered before their arrival contained a set of coordinates on Nathema and was encrypted with a unique method that Theron and Lana developed together on Rishi during the Revanite crisis. Forced to flee after the self-destruct mechanism was activated and completely obliterated the station, Lana and the Commander returned to Odessen just when the work of restoring the Copero holomap was finished, confirming the validity Theron's information.

Lana and the Commander headed to Nathema top stop the Order while Hylo Visz mobilized the Eternal Fleet in orbit of Odessen in cases they needed to mobilize. Meanwhile, the Order excavated Zildrog in the ruins of an ancient Sith Temple, assisted by their allies with personal vendettas against the Commander. While Lana and the Commander battled Nathema Zealots, Theron slipped away from the Order and rejoined them at the rendezvous coordinates, where he revealed his true intentions and asked for understanding and forgiveness. The three of them then rushed to stop the Order, but GEMINI 16 noted their presence and began the ritual meant to awaken Zildrog ahead of schedule, while another member of the Order send an Ancient Guardian Droid to stop the Alliance. The GEMINI deceived and betrayed some of their allies, locking them inside energy transfer chambers to be used as fuel for Zildrog's awakening. Having prevailed over the machine, the Alliance reached Zildrog's location and Theron immediately shot Atrius. GEMINI 16 then trapped the three in a force field and revealed that Zildrog was already awakened. Zildrog then used his connection to the to remotely take over the Gravestone which was parked on Odessen.

While the crewmembers evacuated in the escape pods, Zildrog took the Gravestone into Odessen's orbit and proceeded to repeatedly fire the omnicannon at the Eternal Fleet, which sat defenseless in the abscence of orders from the Eternal Throne. Hylo Visz contacted the Commander, Lana and Theron and informed them of what was happening, but they were completely unable to do anything to stop Zildrog from completely annihilating the Eternal Fleet. Zildrog then targeted Odessen itself and began to recharge before the next attack, dropping the force field and forcing GEMINI 16 to engage the Alliance directly. Lana, Theron and the Commander battled and destroyed the GEMINI droid, and Theron attempted to shut Zildrog down, but was suddenly stabbed in the back with a lightsaber pike by Vinn Atrius. Desperate to have his vengeance, Atrius ordered Zildrog to enhance him with its power, after which he attacked Lana and the Commander with his new increased strength. The two of them defeated Atrius and destroyed Zildrog, but the last act also triggered the self-destruct of the Gravestone and disabled the Eternal Throne. The Commander decided Atrius' fate while Lana tended to Theron's wounds, determining that he needed to be immediately brought to Odessen for treatment.

Hylo Visz send a shuttle after them, and returning to Odessen, Lana reported to the Commander that Odessen suffered minimal damage with no casualties to Alliance personnel. However, the Gravestone and the Eternal Fleet, two of Eternal Alliance's strongest weapons were gone, and with them any advantage the Alliance had over Republic and the Sith Empire, who redoubled on their preparations for the inevitable renewal of open hostilities. Additionally, with the Alliance's original goal of toppling the Eternal Empire accomplished, many of its members choose to leave and rejoin their respective factions. Although the factions that were associated with the Order of Zildrog offered their formal apologies, this blow showed that the Eternal Alliance was not invincible, causing Lana and the Commander to look into potential allies in the upcoming conflict.

Although the Order failed to destroy the Alliance, kill its Commander or scorch Odessen, it nevertheless dealt it a serious blow. Vinn Atrius' actions also directly led to the destruction of multiple Iokath superweapons that were used by Vitiate to achieve Zakuul's technological superiority. Zildrog, the Eternal Fleet, the Gravestone, the Eternal Throne and every single GEMINI droid were destroyed within a single day, rapidly shifting the balance of power. The new ruling council of Zakuul also used this as an opportunity to break away from both the Alliance and their former colonies, becoming an independent world.

The campaign led by the Order of Zildrog is a storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic, which spans from the end of Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion to Update 5.9, although the involvement of key figures and their motivations are not revealed until the very end. The presence of a new unified threat is first hinted at in the Codex entries associated with the Uprisings and is confirmed during the return to Iokath in Update 5.2., while the arc dealing with Theron Shan's seeming betrayal spans the "Crisis on Umbara," "A Traitor Among the Chiss" and "The Nathema Conspiracy" flashpoints. After the destruction of Zildrog, player can take Vinn Atrius prisoner or send him back to Zakuul to be dealt with by his own people for Light Side points or kill him on the spot for Dark Side points. The player then has to either abandon Theron Shan to die for Dark Side points or take him back to Odessen to heal for Light Side points. The latter case is followed by a neutral neutral choice to welcome Theron back into the Alliance or to permanently banish him.