Thoughts on 5.10: The Good, the Bad, and the Eeehhhhhs [Full Spoilers]

Fun fact: since Manaan was used to represent Copero, Ossus is the first actual new planet seen from space since Umbara.

Happy new year!

Now that that's out of the way, it's finally time for me to turn my attention to going over as much of what came with 5.10 as possible. Since this was a fairly major story patch, the most significant we've had since 5.0's nine Eternal Throne chapters, I decided to enact my "one-month spoiler-free" safety window, hence why it's taken me so long to get around to posting this.

Of course, as is the way of things, this 'safety protocol' was rendered somewhat nullified as BioWare promptly began churning out full spoilers for the appearance of a certain character on their website and social media channels. I can't say I blame them, as this move will undoubtedly attract several long-gone veterans just for this update alone.

Anyway, on with the stuff. 

2018 Companion Reunions: Volume 4 [Jedi Under Siege and Nathema Conspiracy Spoilers]

These pictures being in ascending-height order is completely unintentional.

Well, 5.10 has come at last and with it the final four reunion moments in 2018. With this patch we had the first companions since Raina Temple whose appearance requires completion of more than just Yuun's Alliance Alert, certain chapters of Fallen Empire, Eternal Throne in its entirety, or the Iokath storyline.

All Republic players get to interact with Archiban "Doc" Kimble and Nadia Grell on Ossus, but only their respective former allies get to reclaim them as companions in a subsequent Alliance Alert. The Imperials aren't afforded such luxuries for Jaesa Willsaam and Khem Val, but that's due to some very specific "what-if" moments that would always have been exceptionally problematic to deal with for these companions should they have been made available to all.

In this post I will not be referring to any particular outcomes from either perspective of the 5.10 story. However, I will be making passing reference to what the Imperial characters are doing when they come across their respective companions. There are, however, far more overt spoilers for The  Nathema Conspiracy since there's a certain outcome which needs to be touched upon.