Episode V - The Mitharan Strikes Back

FURRY BABIES

Kuki: Good morning Mith! How are you doing?

Mitharan: I’m awake [laughs]! It’s 8 am here. I’ve not been getting a lot of sleep lately with the pup and work.

Kuki: How's the pup doing?

Mitharan: A little better, sleeping through the night most of the time, but she still has got an excitable bladder. We’re very happy though! Ryne, our older dog (named after Ryne Sandberg, second baseman of the Chicago Cubs baseball team), has got mixed feelings. He’s old and achy. He likes playing around sometimes, but not to the extent the new one wants to.

Kuki: It’s May 4th, so happy Star Wars day! Someone within TRA told me you’re possibly TRA's biggest nerd and would probably be proud about it! That makes me wonder what you have planned for the rest of the day!

Mitharan: Originally the plan was to do some streaming with TRA, but one of my friends who is also a massive Star Wars nerd has just lost his job and got a daughter. So I’ll go over to his house and play some Star Wars boardgames together. We’ll probably play some LGC [ed. Living Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games] and some other stuff and finish off with playing Armada [ed. also FFG].

I would not say I’m necessarily the biggest nerd in TRA [chuckles]. Though I would not be shamed by that, I think it’s just that I don’t have kids, so I can spend all my money and time on it!

Kuki: When are you planning to park your X-Wing in the hangar to spend your days sterilizing milk bottles and changing nappies?

Mitharan: That won’t be happening! I have the nice furry babies and I'm good with that! Plus I live only about a mile from my brother and he has two kids. The oldest likes Star Wars but hasn’t seen the movies yet. He's four. I already called dibs that I can be the one to show him. I’m gonna stash away lightsabers around the house and give him his lightsaber when the movie finishes!

Kuki: What color is it gonna be?

Mitharan: His favorite color is sadly red! So it’ll have to be a dark side lightsaber!

SWEET HOME CHICAGO

Kuki: You’re from Chicago, right, but where exactly are you located?

I live in the west suburbs. I grew up close to the city but within the suburbs and have moved out a little. The city has really bad taxes and the county even more. I'm literally a block away from the Cook county. I'm as close as I can be while not paying the taxes.

Kuki: Like a proper rebel should. What’s your favorite thing about your area?

I love Chicago for food, culture, ... it's bigger than almost everything else. Seattle is nice, but small. Chicago, ... because Illinois is so flat, everything is spread out evenly in a grid, so it's easy to get around. Also, there’s always a concert, museum or something to go to.

Kuki: I was in Chicago in 2012 and actually really enjoyed it. It was the coldest winter in 20 years, which gave the trip a really nice feeling. We ran from building to building to avoid the ice cold wind, always happy to reach the next stop. The amazing part of that was there weren’t any queues. So you could just go somewhere, walk in, make your way to the top of Hancock building and have a drink in the sky lounge without anyone around. But what struck me most is how everyone was looking out for each other and there was a really nice feeling from the people there.

Mitharan: I was back visiting that winter too. It can be really pretty in wintertime. Me and my dad really like the cold. We went to the zoo with Christmas lights on ... We were also running from building to building, same as you.

Chicago has a bad rep for crime, but it’s very localized.

Kuki: Yeah it seemed all very nice to me, until I wanted to go to a bar called "Lee’s Unleaded Blues". The first two taxi drivers flat out refused to take me there, and the third one said "I’ll take you there, but you do realize the car will get shot?". In the end we called the place first and it was closed with the snow. Do you like blues, being from Chicago?

Mitharan: I appreciate it, I definitely like all the classic rock, hard rock, anything with a good guitar.

Kuki: You said Chicago has good food and I agree. A year after my visit to Chicago I went with the same friends to New York and Washington D.C. to recreate the experience but it failed miserably in comparison. Also regarding food it was really another world. Whatever type of food we went for in Chicago was outstanding in taste and quality. What’s your favorite?

Mitharan: See! I always say that about the U.S.! OK, we all speak English, but there’s probably more difference between some States than between countries in Europe! The UK is probably closer to Russia than New York is to Los Angeles [ed. Low and behold: straight line Lowestoft Ness - Kalinigrad is 781.71 miles or 1,258.04 km while Los Angeles to New York is 2,445.47 miles or 3,935.61 km!]. Scorer 2nd editor note: Thank you Kuki for including metric, actual measurement units.

For food, there are 3 things in Chicago that you can't get anywhere else. One: stuffed Pizza. It’s beyond deep dish pizza. I’m talking about the stuff that’s 2 inches [ed. 5.8 cm] thick. It’s more like lasagna than pizza!

Also in Chicago, you can get everyone else's food. Seattle for example has great seafood, you pay for it in Chicago, but you get it. It’s not like that the other way ‘round!

Kuki: What’s your favorite drink for a streaming night?

Mitharan: I usually stick with old fashioneds because they're simple and quick to make so you can get timely refills. I should probably be doing something that’s not 99% alcohol so I can remember the end of the stream [laughs]. A good mix is whiskey & ginger ale. The ginger ale helps cutting it out and not getting too shitfaced, and dilutes the whiskey nicely, without overtaking it too much. So that one I can recommend.

Kuki: What do you do in daily life?

Mitharan: I am a manager of a data center. It's my job to keep all the techs busy doing their work. My own job is to make sure the internet stays cold and on. We do building and facility stuff rather than data itself. So we’re dealing with the building temperature, power, chillers, generators, UPS systems etc. We do tests with loadbanks, which are basically gigantic toasters, to mimic the heat and load of the servers. We put about 30 of those in the place, heat them, and then make sure it stays ok, then cut the power and make sure the generator kicks in and keeps the toasters on.

Kuki: What’s your main hobby/interest outside of TRA?

Mitharan: I play a lot of tabletop: pathfinder, D&D [ed. Dungeons & Dragons], ... a lot of video games, typically anything with a good story or good mechanics. I like doing builds, designing how my character plays. I’m a min-maxer. Recently God of War: Ragnarok has been pretty good. I won’t speak about the whole series, but the new one was really well done and satisfying. His axe is like Mjolnir [ed. the hammer of the Norse god of thunder, Thor]. You can come up with good combos. You can create different builds that affect how the game is played. It also has a nice stagger mechanic, so it’s not just about getting down the health bar.

Kuki: That reminds me of Sekiro and Dark Souls, have you tried those?

Mitharan: I tried Bloodborne because a friend of mine really liked it, but it just didn’t pull me in. The story is way too obtuse. I understand this type of atmospheric storytelling works for some people, but I found there was nothing that drives me forward to ... let’s say just repeatedly getting my teeth kicked in by the same boss doesn’t really keep me going without knowing what I’m doing it for.

ZECHS JOINS THE REBELLION

Kuki: I found out you signed up with TRA as Zechs on October 1998. As far as I could check that’s the longest service record of all the currently rostered pilots, about 2 weeks ahead of Toad.

Mitharan: Zechs is still my login email and the account I use for all junk mail.

I must say I joined in 2000-ish. Somehow my DJO-profile got bumped up. I ended up with 2 accounts and when they merged them, something went wrong. Toad was definitely already there, I think he even was my Wing Commander, Starfury was already floating around also.

I must have been 14 years old at the time. I convinced my dad to get cable by telling him I’d help pay for the bill. I used to have a paper route, in very nineties fashion I brought them around on roller blades. Before the switch to cable, online playtime was very limited because you had to pay for every minute spent connected to the internet. With cable and unlimited access I started looking up how to play online.

Kuki: I was gonna say, in ‘98 I was still on dial-up and was allowed one hour of internet time a week by my parents. Cable in the early 2000’s was a big improvement! How did you find your way to the Alliance hangars?

Mitharan: I do genuinely not remember how I found TRA, it must have been through the zone [ed. MSN Gaming Zone]. I was always a Jedi and lightsider so I would have never have searched for something like dark jedi [ed. DJO = Dark Jedi Organization].

Kuki: You joined up for playing XvT? What type of events were you playing at the time?

Mitharan: My first WoW [ed. Week of War] was a week after I started or something like that. I was just jumping in and playing whatever was online. TIE fighters, lasers only it would have mostly been for me. Adding shields was one extra thing to figure out how to work around and manage. TIE fighters and Interceptors were only lasers. So you only had to manage that.

Kuki: What can you tell me about the Hellfire Training Award?

Mitharan: I’m trying to remember... Around that time, the Squad Leader or XO of Grey, Dullin was putting on a training event, a lot like we do now but very specifically structured. Not sure why it was an award instead of a ribbon, maybe it was easier to arrange with DJO. My ability in XvT was never the top, I could hold my own at moments, but let’s just say I knew when some clubs I will not necessarily name were flying, I knew to avoid it.

FROM TURN WARS TO PINBALLING

Kuki: With the launch of Squadrons custom games you were decorated with the Blue Honor Award for flying 78 games in DJO Cup CXXVI. Three months later you placed first in War that Lasts a Week with a KD of 3.14 over 40 games. That’s monstrous! How was flying in those early events?

Mitharan: We tried our best! It was all dogfighting in the early ones. We tried to recreate the old days of XvT. Especially that first one, it could still be tough to find games. It was about grinding out the games, playing with whoever was on, trying to find the right times [ed. activity wise]. The one where I got 78 games in, we were flying for at least 5 hours a night.

In Squadrons you can't be carried. When your team mate sucks, you're gonna lose. As time went on, it got... Battlestats gives you points for the amount of games, so you don't have to necessarily be the best. Playing a lot can also get you there. At some point certain people were purposefully dodging TRA.

As to flying style, we had boost and drift down, but most were not yet good at boost gasping. So there were more turn wars. Boost and drift was used to break the turn wars instead of just how you fly. I actually don’t think I have improved, I probably got worse at dogfighting. Also because I was a farmer for so long in fleet battles. I can stay alive in dogfight but I can't kill you though [laughs].

Kuki: Did you enjoy that way of flying more than how you fly now in competition?

A bit of a mix would have been great. I'm not gonna say pinballing killed the game, but it did create a high entry level in an already small player base. The skill gap is so big we scare away new players and lose out on population.

We should be flying like planes, because that's how Star Wars was supposed to be. Lucas based everything off of WWII.

Kuki: What’s your favorite TRA memory?

Mitharan: I had just started streaming, but didn’t have VODS turned on so I didn’t save it, but we had an SPL [ed. Squadrons Premier League] match against IG, and in our NR [ed. New Republic] game it was standing 29-29. We were all stressing the hell out, Narcyst is in his murder support... I am disabled, I get out of it, I get disabled again and start drifting slowly into a rock. I’m mashing all my buttons frantically thinking "don’t let me be the final kill" and then Ari [ed. Dirty Ari] gets the final kill and we win. We were all just screaming out loud as we won!

Kuki: Do you have any good moments from your Twitch you want to share?

Mitharan: [Laughs] Not really. It's one of those things I do for fun, I put it on and then forget that it's there. I also do it just because I wanna keep Squadrons on Twitch and I use it as a recruiting tool. Whether it works is a bit of mix and match. It takes so long to get followers. Last night I was streaming Diablo II with Tua [ed. Mith’s girlfriend]. We played a lot of D3 together, but she never played II which is far superior. So when looking for something to do together we started the Diablo II Resurrected mod. When the stream ends I always go and find some Squadrons players and force everyone to watch at least 5 minutes of Squadrons [laugs].

Kuki: What do you currently enjoy most about TRA?

Mitharan: The community. Being able to hang out on discord, fly, hang out with you guys, even if it's queue simulator, it's fun to hang out and shoot with you guys. I would definitely not be doing so much SCL [Squadrons Champions League] etc. if it was not to keep the game going for the sake of TRA.

At the moment I think comp is more fun than public queue. For the most part you're in a somewhat balanced group skill wise and there is relatively no downtime. One of the reasons I enjoy 3PO league a bit more is that people take it less seriously. Everyone can just go back and have fun. At the height of Squadrons, public queue with decently balanced games, that would be the ideal because you would also have the randomness.

Kuki: You’re GDC [Gaming Division Commander] of the Jedi Elite, what would you like to share about that?

Mitharan: The Jedi Elite has always been the best of TRA. TRA was always an open enrollment club like now. There were a lot of elite clubs where you had to have proven your worth to be let in. TRA: you can fly. But within that, it was nice to have a little more of a club of people we consider good. It was a way to honor our good pilots, while maintaining the club open enrollment. As time goes on, the skill is still important, but it's become more than just that. It’s also the attitude to help and train people, … all the qualities of a good jedi. Angel was running it with Cosmic when Squadrons started up. She’s disappeared now sadly. When Cosmic took over the XO role for High Command, he wanted to step down from the JE leadership and they picked me. It probably had to do with my activity level at the time. Cosmic and me, when I reached 78 games, he breached 100. The two of us were probably the most active for a long time.

It's something, as a kid who flew XvT and sucked, to be picked and let into the JE, ... kid Mith was squealing with excitement!

When they were doing a new round of recruits with Squadrons’ release, I had a feeling I might be picked, because Angel and a few others kept spectacting everybody's games. As for being picked to lead, there is the public reason on the comlinks, but I was not approached until that was posted publicly. I found out with everybody else.

AFRAID OF DARTH VADER

Kuki: When you joined TRA I must have been around 11 or 12 years old and I had just watched the Original Trilogy. When did you see your first Star Wars movie?

It definitely was A New Hope. I don't remember the first time I've seen it. We had the old VHS's. I’m sure my parents showed it to me. I do remember I was young enough to be afraid of Darth Vader!

Kuki: My 3 year old is currently crazy about Darth Vader and the Emperor, but I wonder how long that would last if he would be allowed to see the movies!

Mitharan: [Laughs] What really got me into Star Wars though were two of my uncles. The first one got me the first four books of the Young Jedi Knights series about Jacen and Jaina. At one of my brother's baseball games (he’s the sportsy one), I was sitting, reading one of those books and ignoring the game. My second uncle saw that and told me "I have a crap ton of Star Wars audio books". He handed me a complete case full of them. That was about everything I read during my whole childhood.

Kuki: What’s your favorite Star Wars movie?

I gotta go with Empire, but who would watch just Empire? The original three are so clearly a trilogy … If you’re gonna watch one, you’re gonna watch the other two at least within the week!

Kuki: I wanted to go see the 40th anniversary rerelease of Return of the Jedi. In the end I didn’t get around to it, but if I did I would also have watched the other two before going.

Mitharan: As much as we criticize Lucas for some of the bad stuff he has done, it was still nice to be able to see the Special Editions on the big screen for those of us who never got the chance before.

Kuki: What’s your favorite Star Wars movie moment?

Mitharan: Individually I’m gonna go with the end of [ed. Return of the ] Jedi, because it's the best lightsaber duel in any of the movies. The way they do the transitions between the lightsaber duel, the space battle and the ground battle is just ... each moment has separate emotions tied to it, the family drama with Luke trying to redeem Vader, the ground battle is just a good action set piece…

I feel the EU [ed. expanded universe] has more moments that make me happy though!

THE LEGACY OF THE FORCE

Kuki: It seems Disney did not agree with you. What is your favorite EU moment?

Mitharan: One of the later books in the Legacy of the Force series with Jacen falling to the dark side, when Luke confronts him as he's captured Ben and is torturing him... There’s this whole monologue of what’s going through Jacen's head: "Luke is old, narrowminded, I’m better because I use all sides of the force, light and dark", but then Luke beats the absolute crap out of him. The only reason he doesn’t kill him, is that his son is watching. He knows if he does it, it would be revenge for Mara and he’d enjoy it too much and he cannot let his son see that.

Kuki: Who’s your favorite Star Wars character?

Mitharan: Wedge! Easy. X-wing pilot is the dream job. I love fighters and g-forces and all that. You mix in Star Wars and the X-wing is awesome! He's the best pilot, not a jedi, so he can do what he wants. He's just good, he doesn’t have the force, so he cannot rely on that. And then you have the Rogue Squadron books... There’s one book later in the series that has another really good scene where a Y-wing pilot is talking to herself "You’re a better pilot than the jedi, because they’re relying on the force, but you have nothing else but pure piloting skill" and then later you find out that's Wedge’s daughter and that’s the advice he gave her.

Kuki: What EU stuff would you recommend to fellow TRA members?

Mitharan: The Thrawn trilogy is the most logical. The Empire is retreating, Leia is pregnant, all the leaps are ones you could see coming. At that point the rebels have lost Coruscant again, ... but you don't have to know anything to follow it. It’s also Timothy Zahn, so it has some of the best of writing. And Mara is also in my top 5 favorite characters.

Kuki: So we have Wedge Antilles, Corran Horn, Mara Jade and who are the remaining two?

Mitharan: I always go "these are definetely in my top 5" but I never actually think of listing the full top 5! Wedge, Corran, Mara, Luke redeemed himself in my eyes and moved back up. He was the main character and I don’t wanna make him my favorite because he’s supposed to be. But later on I loved his interpretation of the force. Playing Dark Forces or KOTOR [Knights of the Old Republic] you always have light side versus dark side and that annoyed me. The force is the force, how you use it is dark side or light side. You use force lightning to zap someone? Dark side! You use force lightning when someone’s dying to defibrillate his heart? Not dark side [laughs]!

Luke talks about Jacen falling to the dark side, and his response is "the force doesn’t have a light or dark side, but we do and we have to choose." I was like "Finally! Someone said it!".

Kuki: The Legacy of the Force series was good! Made it only harder when the sequels came out! Speaking of the Expanded Universe, you wrote the winning story for the TRA Squad Story Contest in 2001. Any chance you can share your piece with us?

Mitharan: I actually don't have it. I'm not sure where it ended up. I was surprised that didn’t somehow get stuck in the Knowledge Base [see old TRA Website]. I had been writing a bunch of them, because I had a creative writing class in high school. I've been writing fan fic stuff with our pilot names and all that, a bit like Twigs, and submitted that as home work for school haha! I don't remember what this one was about. That’s downside of using Yahoo for an email address, it doesn’t save stuff forever. There's a lot of old emails I went back to find but were deleted by Yahoo.

Kuki: What’s your favorite real life Star Wars memory?

Mitharan: I don’t have a whole lot, probably cosplay with Tua on convention. She went as her Sith character from The Old Republic [ed. Star Wars MMORPG] and I as a jedi. She went full out with make- up and latex prosthetics over the eyebrows etc. It was a warm day though, and she got so hot the paint actually started running off. But it made for some good pictures!

Kuki: You have a weekly TOR night. What’s your top 3 Star Wars video games?

Mitharan: X-wing vs TIE Fighter should definitely be in there for all the memories and social aspect. I'd say it's tough for me on KOTOR [Knights of the Old Republic] between I and II. The first one obviously got the good stuff for the story and laying the groundwork. However Obsidian just did a good job of refining it in the sequel and the actual game is much better. It’s a shame the KOTOR remake got cut, because I'd really like to see how that game would translate to improved game systems and modern world. Third I would pick Jedi Outcast. I know you had a lightsaber and the force in the previous one, but it was the first time you were doing the force moves like actually picking up the stormtrooper and swinging them around with the force, which is such an amazing feeling.

Kuki: You spoke before about the views of there being no light and dark side to the force and that nuanced view is also something I enjoyed in the writing of KOTOR II. Kreia, the mentor figure, teaches about that and she’s a really well written character. Now that I think of it, maybe she might not be the best role model behavior wise though [laughs].

Mitharan: I always say: "Obsidian is the best studio for fixing someone else's game". They did it with Neverwinter Nights 2, with Fallout: New Vegas, with KOTOR II ...

Kuki: That’s very accurate. So what are your favorite non-Star Wars video games?

Mitharan: [ed. The Legend of Zelda] A Link to the Past will always be one of the best games. I play the randomized version of it still now. I played a lot of Borderlands II. Tua and I were long distance for a few years and that we played together. The humor, the writing of the villain are just really good. Some of the newer ones: Spiderman, God of War, Sony has done a great job with allowing their first party studios to make art. Rather than focusing on microtransactions or live service, they just had them make really good games.

Kuki: What was your first Star Wars sim?

Mitharan: I played X-Wing at a friend's house a lot. I didn't get it myself until the collector's edition with X-wing Alliance, but I had the original TIE Fighter. That was my first that I played on my own a lot.

SHIP TALK

Kuki: What’s your favorite Rebel ship and why is it the X-wing?

Mitharan: Because it IS the X-wing and it's just the best! [Passionate] It does everything! It's so recognizable even for non-Star Wars nerds, it has the right amount of firepower, it looks cool and on top of that it's what Rogue Squadron's flying and if they fly it, it's the best!

That being said, for capital ships I love the Neb B [ed. Nebulon B]. It has no other analogue in anything else. It's just there and does its job and it's cool.

Kuki: That’s the one on which Luke and Leia are staring out the window at the end of Empire, right? I really love that scene, I think it has a really unique feeling and that’s how the Nebulon B stayed imprinted on my brain (before Squadrons).

Mitharan: Yep, that’s the one.

Kuki: What about on the imperial side?

Mitharan: Probably the Interceptor again at this time. It’s like a TIE Fighter but meaner.

Kuki: What’s your most hated ship in SW Squadrons?

Mitharan: I mean, the worst to fly would be probably the B-wing. It's the epitome of "you have to boost drift". Other than that it's just awkward and doesn't serve a role. OK, the Reaper is easy to hit, but it does its job. You have no other ship for that function, so you take the pancake. The B-wing has alternatives. The A-wing is also useless, but if you learn how to fly it, it’s still fun. Even if it's bad at its job.

Kuki: I know you own a magnificent Lego UCS Red 5 X-Wing and Slave I. Do you have any other Star Wars collection items?

Mitharan: I also have the UCS B-Wing. Other than that I have Sith and Jedi Holocrons and books (collector ones).

All my Armada stuff is up on the wall. That's my dining room (old version).

The lightsaber on the left is mine and Tua’s is on the right. I’m working on my custom one now. I got some of the parts, but not everything yet. If I can I’ll make the blade green with a silvery shine on it like Corran's. I always get the RGB LED ones, where you can customize the colors, so I’ll need to see what’s possible.

I’M BLUE DA BA DEE DA BA DAA...

Kuki: Is there anything left you would like to say to your fellow TRA members?

Mitharan: At the end of the day, TRA is more than Squadrons. You see all these people that have been around for 20 years. I wanted a blue squadron tattoo, for longer than Squadrons has been around. The memories trump whatever game we are playing. The people who only stick around for a week or two completely miss the point. We're awesome and we're friends and we’re not going anywhere.

Kuki: Oh that reminds me of a question I got for you from another TRA member! Obviously Blue is the best squad, but the question was "Why does he love blue so much if he was always in grey?" [Scorer note: That was me asking-trolling :v].

Mitharan: [Laughs] I started in blue. I was made an officer in blue. I only left when we were supporting Freespace II, to lead white squad for that, but it didn't work out. The friends I made were the XO and Squad Leader of grey, so when white folded I went to grey. When Squadrons launched I was in grey, but there was no blue squad. Being in grey when there isn't another option doesn't count!

Kuki: Ok! I think that brings us to our conclusion! Thanks for waking up early and taking the time for this interview!

Mitharan: Thanks for doing this! I enjoy reading the interviews on the website and I think it’s one of those things that will be good for posterity. In 10-20 years when we're finally all playing Squadrons II, I think it ’ll be fun to have a look back at these interviews and have a laugh.

Kuki: Yeah I’m also enjoying these chats and I think it’s nice to get to know the other pilots and learn some new stuff about everyone! Thanks again and maybe see you tonight for some May the 4th pew-pew or else one of the next!

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