Escape from Iokath

Following the assault on the Gravestone by Eternal Empire Empress Vaylin, both Alliance and Zakuulan forces were captured on Iokath by ARIES and had to fight his army of droids to regroup and reclaim their starships to escape from Iokath. Alliance forces regrouped with each other after Theron Shan restored their communications and managed to remotely pilot a shuttle left in the hangar of the Gravestone. Eternal Empire forces suffered heavy losses from the hostile droids of Iokath, but after Vaylin found her men and rallied them behind her, they were able to find and release captured Eternal Fleet warships. SCORPIO, herself an Iokath creation who had betrayed both Vaylin and the Alliance after working with them in the past, uncovered the history of Iokath and revealed ARIES, the only self-aware droid on the planet, as their biggest threat, capable of killing everyone. After ARIES lowered a planetary shield that prevented any vessel from escaping, the location of ARIES base was revealed to both SCORPIO and the GEMINI captains, and the Alliance stormed the base to confront ARIES, while the Eternal Fleet bombarded the fortress from above. SCORPIO arrived to help the Alliance Commander and Vette defeat ARIES, and was repaid by allowing her consciousness to merge with Iokath. Soon afterwards, the capacitors on ARIES' superweapon overloaded, and covered the entire world in a pulse of deadly radiation. The Gravestone just barely managed to escape to hyperspace, as did Vaylin with the majority of the Eternal Fleet, but Iokath itself became inaccessible for the time being.

Prelude
Iokath, a massive self-sustaining ecosphere that completely engulfed an entire star, remained unknown and invisible to the larger galaxy ever since the Iokath species wiped itself out in a civil war. The only remaining sentient inhabitant remaining on the technological wonder was ARIES, a hyper-intelligent droid who used other droids as slaves to remade the world in his image. Only a few visitors stumbled upon Iokath over more than three thousand years, and none have survived to escape. During the revolt against the Eternal Empire SCORPIO, herself an Iokath creation with her memories of it removed, managed to unlock the origin of herself, the Gravestone and the Eternal Fleet and brought all of those vessels to Iokath. The Eternal Fleet was crewed by the GEMINI captains and a large number of Eternal Empire personnel, while the Gravestone brought key figures of the Alliance that opposed Zakuul and its Eternal Empress Vaylin. As the vessels approached and entered Iokath, ARIES activated a superweapon that emitted a bright light and knocked everyone aboard the ships unconscious. He then arranged and placed them across Iokath surface to test in various combat scenarios, isolating Vaylin and SCORPIO as the most dangerous ones.

The escape
One by one, Alliance and Eternal Empire personnel awoke on the surface of Iokath separated from each other. Some were assisted by Iokath remotes, and all came under attack by Iokath droids of various design, repurposed by ARIES to show aggression towards any foreign entity. ARIES observed the test results, seeking whether anyone was strong enough to inherit the control of Iokath and appearing as a Human hologram at various technoliths. Zakuulan forces were far more numerous, but suffered heavy casualties amongst both the Knights of Zakuul and Eternal Fleet officers. Meanwhile, Alliance member Theron Shan managed to use his cranial cybernetic implant working and contacted other Alliance members, directing everyone to a structure called the Tributary. Along their way there, many Alliance members encountered Zakuulan forces, with Koth Vortena meeting an officer who wanted to surrender before being killed by droids, Kaliyo Djannis scoring twenty-six and a half kills, and Torian Cadera and Alliance Commander coming across a group of Knights who were all killed by the scour swarm droids. After all Alliance members have gathered together, their position in the Tributary soon came under attack from purifier droids. Theron shot the force field console, trapping the droids outside, and forcing the Alliance to find another way out. The Alliance Commander and Vette went ahead to explore, coming across and disabling a colossus droid, with the rest of the Alliance close behind. Theron soon realized that even though he was unable to locate the Gravestone, he could still use his implant to remotely pilot the shuttle that was left in its hangar. To provide themselves with a distraction from the droids outside, the team repaired the colossus droid, allowing the Commander to use it against its much weaker, but more numerous brethren. While the Commander held off the droids in the Tributary Grounds, Theron found his shuttle, remotely piloted it to the Tributary roof, waited for everyone to get onboard and took off.

SCORPIO was likewise imprisoned in an unknown location, but managed to find a connection node in her cell and access Iokath's massive planetary network. Using ARIES' preoccupation with other prisoners to escape her confinement, SCORPIO used his own trick to leave holographic disguise in her place, so that by the time ARIES determined her too dangerous and blasted her with laser fire, she was already far away. Eventually deciding that none of the new arrivals were worthy of inheriting Iokath, ARIES decided to bring the combat simulations to an end. He activated a massive energy shield that would destroy any vessel attempting to leave Iokath and started recharging his superweapon, intending to use it on lethal setting this time. However, his multiple holo-transmissions allowed SCORPIO to pinpoint his location at the ARIES base in Iokath's southern hemisphere and transmit it to the Alliance forces, asking them to stop ARIES before he could destroy them all.

Meanwhile Empress Vaylin, who awoke alone in her cell, experienced a visit from ARIES, who appeared in the hologram of her late brother Thexan. Vaylin instantly became suspicious when she could not feel her brother through the Force and quickly realized the deception by feeding "Thexan" a lie about her past which he did not correct. Demanding to know who was impersonating her brother, Vaylin Force-pulled together a bunch of wall panels into a projectile and threw it at "Thexan", smashing a wall and revealing a way out of her cell. Vaylin soon came across the remains of Eternal Fleet crews and rallied her forces to retake the Fleet from ARIES. Together they found the control console, from which one of the GEMINI captains released the docked Eternal Fleet warships. However, as the ships prepared to leave, they began smashing into ARIES' energy shield and Vaylin ordered to find and disable its source. A purifier drone landed a lucky shot on Vaylin, who responded by trashing it, rendering the droid harmless. She then brought the droid with her to one of the warships, where her loyalists reported her that half of the Eternal Fleet has been recaptured, while the remaining ships could be towed with the tractor beams. The GEMINI captain connected to the purifier drone to access its information about ARIES, which revealed that ARIES was about fire his weapon that would destroy organics and the GEMINI droids alike.

Reaching ARIES base in this shuttle, Theron dropped the Commander and Vette off to deal with ARIES, while the rest departed to reclaim the Gravestone, now knowing its location based on the shuttle's last coordinates. They managed to snatch the ship right out from Vaylin's nose, but were chased by the Eternal Fleet warships. The Commander and Vette stormed the base and attacked ARIES, even while the Eternal Fleet laid fire to his base and the superweapon capacitors threatened to overload. Eventually, after ARIES faked defeat and attempted to backstab the Alliance Commander, he himself was shot in the back and destroyed permanently by SCORPIO. She then lowered the energy shield and urged the Commander to escape before the capacitors on ARIES' superweapon overloaded and covered the entire world with a pulse of deadly radiation. SCORPIO announced her intention to upload her consciousness into the planetary network, becoming one with Iokath, and since this would prevent her from threatening the Alliance or the galaxy again, the Commander allowed her to proceed and SCORPIO thanked them before forever leaving her droid body forever. The Commander and Vette rushed outside, where they were picked by the Gravestone at the last minute. With the planetary shield down, the Eternal Fleet had the opportunity to escape, but Vaylin insisted on killing her enemies first and ordered the purifier drone to override the GEMINI captain's programming, restoring it to the default setting. The superweapon then exploded, which prompted Vaylin to flee into hyperspace with the majority of the Eternal Fleet, while leaving behind several warships to pursue the Gravestone, which itself just barely managed to escape to hyperspace with everyone aboard.

Aftermath
The radiation from the exploding superweapon covered the entirety of Iokath, damaging the GEMINI units on the remaining Eternal Fleet warships, and causing them to lose contact with their sisters in the GEMINI frequency. Furious at their failure, Vaylin became determined to have the GEMINI captains obey her without question, as they did before SCORPIO granted them free will. Vaylin brought the purifier drone back to the Zakuul and plugged it into the Eternal Throne, from where the droid restored every GEMINI unit to their default setting. Despite the loss of her advisor and some of the Fleet personnel, Vaylin viewed regaining full control of the Eternal Fleet as a victory, immediately sending it to attack Alliance outposts and patrols.

Just before the Alliance escaped, SCORPIO transmitted them the schematics for upgrading the Gravestone with Iokath technology. She later send the Commander one final message, indicating that she was making home within Iokath's massive planetary network. The Alliance leadership safely returned to Odessen, where the Gravestone was dry-docked to install the new upgrades. In the end, Alliance forces have regained control of their most powerful weapon without suffering a single casualty, while SCORPIO was out of the picture and unable to threaten the Alliance again. Additionally, the Alliance Commander became aware of a secret phrase that would trigger Vaylin's mental conditioning right before everyone was captured by ARIES, giving the Alliance an edge against the Eternal Empress.

Alliance scouts were deployed to Iokath system, but the radiation levels were still dangerously high, disruption navigation and comm signals and making any exploration impossible. By the time the radiation levels subsided, Empress Vaylin was already dead and the Alliance had conquered Zakuul, transforming itself into the Eternal Alliance. A secret group known as the Order of Zildrog learned the location of another superweapon known as the Six Gods on Iokath and leaked it to the Eternal Alliance, Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. All three parties arrived on Iokath and converged on the superweapon at the same time, leading to the Battle for Iokath.

Behind the scenes
The number of Alliance personnel present may differ depending on player's previous Dark Side choices. During Knights of the Fallen Empire Chapter XIII: Profit and Plunder player may get an option to kill or exile either Aric Jorgan or Kaliyo Djannis, depending on choices made during previous Chapter XII: Visions in the Dark. Likewise, during Knights of the Eternal Throne Chapter III: Dark Reunions player may get an option to kill Koth Vortena, depening on choices made during Fallen Empire Chapter X: Anarchy in Paradise.

At the end of Chapter V: Ascension player can either allow SCORPIO to merge with Iokath as a Light Side choice or kill her for past betrayals moments before she obtains freedom as a Dark Side choice. In the latter case, the Alliance will still obtain schematics for Gravestone upgrades from other information sources that were collected on Iokath.