Star Wars Galaxies: Journey Across Planets... A Tribute to Moraj (A True Beta Story)

First ill start with a background of Moraj, for not everyone knows who he was.
Moraj was a beta tester, and loved by the SWG community. He was a leader of the Newbie Welcome Wagon (NWW) on the SWG boards and also made SWG t-shirts (the t-shirt stand). On October 5th, 2002, moraj passed away in a car accident. I personally did not know him, but was deeply saddened when I heard of this loss to the community.

Board member [B]Mackle[/b] today posted his true beta story on his journey to the Moraj memorial. There is also a graphical version. Once again, my heart goes out to the family of Nathan (Moraj). Click here to read the full post.

Subj: Journey Across Planets... A Tribute to Moraj
Date: 6/20/2003 2:25:25 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: MBrian2001
To: MBrian2001

Nearly ten months ago, I began my journey in SWG beta. I logged in that first night not far from what is now Bestine (there were no cities back then), and spent many a month in the harsh sands of that desert planet. There are many stories from those days, but that is not what this story is about. This is about a homecoming.

Holocron had let slip the news a few days ago that there was a memorial to be found in the old grounds of early Beta I. The memorial was for a Beta I Shuttle I tester known on these boards as Moraj, captain of the NWW, owner of the most famous T-shirt stand in the galaxy, and a beloved member of the SWG community. At the time, I took the easy way out and just made a new character out of Bestine to go and pay my respects. It was a touching moment for me when I arrived at it, and I spent a few hours there just reminiscing with Lilwookie and Neko, who were also there, and over the course of the night others showed up and joined us.

Now that the days of beta are numbered, it came to me suddenly what I had to do. You see, I have a main character, my one and only "real" character, that I have been playing for months now. As characters go, he is a relatively unknown recluse on Rori, moon of Naboo, but as a tester, he is sent his fair share of bug reports and even found (and reported) an exploit or two. All and all, I liked his style, and knew that that was the character I would play at release, and so that was the character who had to make a journey to Moraj's Memorial. I had begun my experience in Star Wars Galaxies on the dunes near Bestine, and that is where they would end, and this is the character they should end with. It all seemed quite simple to me, really.

From my small home on the shores of a lake on Rori, a classy little place made by the budding architect near the city of Narmle who went by the name of Niroh, I knew I would have quite a trip ahead of me. As I left my home, I felt a twinge of sadness. I had had houses before in beta, but this was the first that felt like my home om SWG. On impulse, I checked the status of my house to see how long I had paid up my maintenance. Good for 12 days. I laughed to myself at that... seven days until release. It would be fine until the end. I switched the permissions to public, just in case someone wandering by wanted to step in out of the wilds of Rori for a moment of respite, or to use my Armor Crafting Structure. I stopped to put on my bone armor boots (that I had made myself, I'll add proudly) that lay beside the door, made sure I had everything I needed, then headed off towards Narmle.

On my way back to town, I came across a young Zabrak woman just breaking camp atop a large hill. As a Zabrak myself, we stopped to chat a bit about the beautiful view, and the color of the sky that night that let you know you were on Rori, and then headed off again. My first stop was at the bank, where I had to empty out my safety deposit, collect my nearly 4000 credits in savings, pick up all my resources, backup weapons, and survey tools, and then quit the bank. I was amazed by the amount of items I had collected those past few months. From there, I headed to the spaceport, where at the entrance I stopped to look at Rori one last time before I left, but didn't get too emotional. I knew I would be coming back here again soon, to start over, and to begin things for real.

From Rori I took a shuttle to Theed on Naboo, not a long journey by any stretch of the imagination, but as soon as I arrived I felt like I had landed in entirely different corner of the galaxy. There was people (I use that term lightly) everywhere, yelling, selling, bartering, laughing... it was a lot to take in for someone who had spent so long out in the wilds, as I had done. I headed back into the Spaceport and purchased my ticket to Bestine on Tatooine, my final destination, but hesitated as I started towards the hangar.

I just couldn't get myself to leave Theed without doing a little sightseeing one more time. I stepped outside the starport again and stood for a while just listening to the chatter of all the different lifeforms around me, and watched the never-ending parade of shuttles passing overhead. Again, a bit of whimsy came over me, and I ran towards a spot I had always loved about Theed, the great waterfall, and stood there for a while just looking out over the landscape. As my luck would have it, I had arrived in Theed just in time for an absolutely beautiful sunset. A short little dark green Rodian in camouflage stepped up beside me, and we shared a joke about taking the plunge over the side. After he briefly told me of his recent hunting trip to Lok, and suggested I go there when I get the chance, we wished each other well and parted ways.

From there, I headed towards the majestic Theed Palace, and stopped as it came into view. Wow. Gets me every time. I spent some time in there just wandering around, looking up at the ceilings, down at the tiled floors, admiring the collection of artwork displayed there, and found myself slowly working my way towards the tower that hung out over the cliff. As I crossed the bridge to the tower, I chatted for a bit with some other folks I met there, obviously tourists like myself, and then spent a few moments by myself taking pictures, like any tourist would do. As I crossed the bridge again, one of the people I had just spoken to earlier shouted to me. Meghan Morningside was her name. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find her. "Look up and to your left!" she shouted to me.

Finally, after some more searching, I was barely able to see her head over a wall out on a balcony far above me. After shouting back and forth to each other, she and her companion set off some fireworks, which exploded in the sky over the city. I wondered to myself how many people had just seen that... 100? 200? 500? It didn't take long for the group of us to come to an unspoken understanding, as a crafter myself, I could make up quite a few different types of fireworks, so we were going to put on a display. For a good five minutes, fireworks exploded over the Theed palace, the home of the Queen, all in different styles and different colors, each eliciting "oohs" and "aaahs" from the crowd below us. As we were a good distance apart from each, the bursts of color from different directions seemed choreographed, like a Boonta Eve celebration back on Tatooine.

Eventually, my new friends had to get back to their exploring, and I had to get back to my journey, so said our goodbyes. I headed back to the Theed Spaceport, and barely stopped at all on my way there. Sure, I took a few more pictures along the way, but when you see Theed, you will too, and then you will know what I'm talking about now. Once back in the spaceport, I stopped for a moment to make sure I had my blaster with me. I was heading to Tatooine after all. A Gungan and a Trandoshen stood talking nearby, and as I watched them gesture wildly at each other, the Gungan just turned to me, put his hands on his hips, and gave me this "You want something?" look. I got a good laugh at that, but his point was made, so I headed to the main hangar.

As soon as I entered it, I stopped and stood in awe of an X- Wing parked just inside. It took me a couple of minutes before I even noticed that my Shuttle to Tatooine was boarding, and I had to run across the whole hangar to catch it in time. It was a big number, maybe twice the size of the shuttle I had taken from Rori to Theed. I handed my ticket to the droid who collected them, and got on just in time.

Next thing I know, there I was back on Tatooine. Standing in the Bestine Starport, I was immediately comforted by the sand under my feet, the brown everywhere, the comfortable feeling of familiarity. I looked down at my feet, and saw a corpse. There was another a few feet away. And another about twenty paces off.

Ahhhh... home again. I equipped my blaster.

Now, let my make one thing clear, this isn't one of those useless blasters all the kids on Corellia are carrying. This was a modified D18 MK 0.8 Pistol made by Grend himself, with a scope, barrel extension... with the works, basically. This was a WEAPON used for serious business. This blaster had gotten me out of more trouble then I could fit in a space opera, and had done more to help me become a Smuggler than anything else besides my own wits.

I looked through some old pictures I had taken back when I first arrived on Tatooine those many months ago, and checked the coordinates. Pulling out my datapad, I made a waypoint to where I guessed the memorial would be. Just then, like it was planned for my arrival, a huge sandstorm kicked in, leaving me barely able to see where I was going. Nice timing, I thought to myself.

After taking a wide berth around a couple of stormtroopers and a guy who looked to be their commanding officer, I prepared to make a move out of Bestine. As I neared the edge of the city, still smiling to myself to be back where it all began, and looking forward to seeing some old friends, some crazy bandit steps out from the shadows beside a building.

I suppose he took me for an easy mark, because he had the guts to take a shot at me. I spin around and quickly hit him twice, dead on, in the chest, and watched him crumple to the floor. I strolled on over to his corpse, walking real slow, like I used to back in my combat days, and checked his corpse to see if he had anything on him. Six credits... hehe, figures. As I'm standing there, it occurs to me that I have been back on Tatooine for no more than five minutes, and have already killed a man. There is just something about this place.

I head out of town, past all the womp rats, and before long see my waypoint up ahead of me. As I approach it, I see a flag slowly blowing in the breeze.

The Moraj memorial. Captain Moraj. I think to myself that the people who put this memorial there, and you all know who they are, are a really awesome group of human beings for putting that here, and even a hardened Zabrak like myself had to admit it. This is a truly great thing, and a truly fitting memorial. I examined it, read the lovely inscription Holo and the gang have put there, and was almost brought to tears. I sat down, pulled out my pack, and counted how many fireworks I had left.

Twenty-one.

Fitting.

I set them off, one at a time, and then sat back down and looked up at the stars, and the ships flying overhead on there way to who knows where. Someday, I thought to myself, I would be up there with them.

I decided to wait there for a while, to see some of the old faces show up. I knew they would show up, and show up they did. More are coming every hour, and every day. I'm betting they will keep coming to, right up until the end.

I don't know where I be when they bring SWG up for the whole world to see tcome release day, but I know where I'll be when they take it down.

Thanks to the dev team, and thanks to everyone in the SWG community. This has been one helluva trip. See you in Star Wars.