Escape from the Coil

During the War against Zakuul, the droid Z0-0M, posing as the legendary spy known as "the Shroud," wanted to destroy the Alliance base and had the droid HK-55 captured for the information in its memory banks. Attempting to erase HK-55's memory, she inadvertently wiped her own, after which she helped free him and aided him in escaping.

Prelude

After the Outlander's HK-series assassin droid was destroyed during the Battle of Asylum, his chassis was recovered by the Alliance, whose chief scientist, Dr. Juvard Illip Oggurobb, rebuilt HK-55 at his laboratory on Odessen. Oggurobb made some modifications to HK-55's chassis, but his memory core was not recoverable, resulting the complete loss of the droid's memory prior to his reactivation.^[6] The leader of the Shroud's syndicate, replicator droid Z0-0M, who had killed the original Shroud and assumed his identity, wished to destroy the Alliance base on Odessen.^[5]

She had HK-55 kidnapped and taken her to base called the Coil, where she created its perfect replica to use as her puppet. Having copied HK-55's memory core, she also had obtained access codes to the Alliance base and sent an actor playing the role of the original Shroud to plant explosive devices inside. However, when Z0-0M attempted to wipe HK-55's memory, a malfunction caused an electrical surge that erased her own instead, turning the criminal mastermind into a friendly and innocent droid with no memory of her identity.^[5]

Escape

HK-55 reactivated in an unknown location, restrained to an interrogation table. He was greeted by an excitable droid who introduced herself as Z0-0M or "Zeeyo" and released him at his request. A holographic message from the actor playing the Shroud revealed the identity of its captor before summoning battle droids and mercenaries to subdue HK-55. Zeeyo chose to defend HK-55, declaring him her friend, and discovered that her chassis contained an impressive array of weapons. Fighting their way through the volcano level of the Shroud's base, the Coil, HK-55 and Zeeyo discovered the Shroud's holorecordings, detailing his unrelenting hatred for the Outlander for ruining his plans of galactic conquest. They also came across a museum of droid heads that the Shroud had replicated, including a copy of HK-47's head, where they had to fight X-TR0.^[5]

All the while, Zeeyo was experiencing periodic reboots that regularly wiped her memory, which HK-55 theorized was caused by an electrical surge. An encounter with the janitor Jollo allowed them to progress to the underwater level of the Coil, where they found captive Zakuulan Exarch Malforia. During their confrontation with Malforia, Zeeyo discovered that she was a replicator droid, capable of changing her appearance to resemble anyone she had just met. HK-55 and Zeeyo ascended from the underwater portion of the Coil to the asteroid in space via a skyhook and fought AB-6H Guardian Droid to reaching the hangar, where they came face-to-face with the HK-55 duplicate.^[5]

The duplicate HK-55 declared Zeeyo the Shroud's property, showing them a holorecording of Zeeyo talking to the Shroud, revealing that she was responsible for capturing HK-55 and was planning on wiping his memory with an electrical surge, only to accidentally get affected herself. HK-55 and Zeeyo fought against his duplicate, but upon critically damaging the replica HK-55, the base initiated its self-destruct, and the computer requested the deactivation code. Zeeyo pleaded with the duplicate HK-55 to stop the self-destruct, but he merely replied that the computer wasn't talking to him before expiring. With time running out, HK-55 and Zeeyo defended their escape ship from the mercenaries attempting to take it, before escaping the explosion that destroyed the base.^[5]

Aftermath

Upon returning to Odessen, HK-55 and Z0-0M confronted the Shroud, but the Human acted nervous and claimed that Zeeyo was the real Shroud. As he explained, he was the fifty-first person to be surgically altered to resemble her Human male guise, and coached using the very holorecordings the droids discovered at the Coil, as the true Shroud never put herself at risk. No longer wanting to destroy the Alliance base, Zeeyo stepped up to her subordinate and demanded that he stop the detonation countdown. The bomb computer recognized her voice as the true Shroud, and deactivated all the bombs. After HK dealt with the impostor, he spoke with Z0-0M about her future, moments before Lana Beniko, Theron Shan, and the Commander arrived to find two unknown individuals alongside HK-55 in their War Room. The droid expressed fatigue and promised to explain the situation.^[5]

Behind the scenes

During Knights of the Fallen Empire Interlude chapter "Shroud of Memory," the player controls HK-55 instead of their regular character. Their decisions are interpreted through the lens of the programming assigned by the player's character to HK-55 in the previous quest "Arma Rasa." Depending on the dialogue option selected, HK-55 may find his programming explicitly overriding the selected choice or find a creative way to implement it, such as shooting at the pants when his programming prevents him from harming organics. As HK-55, the player must decide to kill or spare Jollo, who in the latter case would go on to join the Alliance, and Exarch Malforia, who if spared would then die regardless, sucked into the vacuum of space.^[5]

Appearances

• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Eternal Throne (First appearance)

Notes and references