Secret Alderaan Stronghold Achievement Guide – The Thranta Also Rises

The secret The Thranta Also Rises achievement in Star Wars: The Old Republic has you investigate the curious circumstances surrounding the sudden vacancy of the Noble Estate in the Alderaan Stronghold. Completing this exploration-based achievement will grant you the Inheritor legacy title.

You can only do this achievement in your own Alderaan Stronghold, not in someone else’s or in a Guild’s Alderaan Stronghold – you can do some of the scans, but the special glowing blue items will not show up, nor will the Thranta nest be scannable.

This achievement is a bit finicky – sometimes the items don’t show up, sometimes you need to leave the stronghold and come back, or switch characters. I recommend unlocking the stronghold all the way if you are doing it in your own stronghold, leave after unlocking it and come back, then doing the scanning part, and then the finding of the hidden items, in that order, all in one sitting, as that is what worked for me. If you log off or switch characters you may need to start over and re-find them all for the achievement to work.

How to Get the Alderaan Stronghold

Unlocking the Alderaan Stronghold fully for yourself costs about 18 million credits. You will need to fully unlock all the rooms in the stronghold before you start, all 9 expansions.

Spoiler-Free Hints

• There are five things you need to scan around the stronghold – but your normal Macrobinoculars will not work, so you’ll need to find a different pair.
• There are four hidden items on the ground you will need to find. Two are hidden near the waterfall, one is deeply hidden up high in the same area and requires exploration, and the fourth can be one of multiple places in the area up the elevator of the stronghold outside.

Saliva-coated Macrobinoculars

You start this achievement by finding the “Saliva-coated Macrobinoculars” at the back of the Killik cave in the Alderaan Stronghold – they are glowing blue on the floor, right-click them to receive a special ability used to scan things around the stronghold. These are special macrobinoculars – if you use any other type of macrobinculars, you will not get the achievement.

To use these special macrobinoculars, left-click the red button that shows up on your temporary abilities bar, the ability will be called “Scanning for Datastream…” and the red icon may be located just above your normal abilities.

<- looks like this

Once you are in scanning mode, you can use your mouse without clicking to move the camera around in different deirections. The center of the scanner will be blue if you do not have anything scannable under it. You will be looking for yellow-orange glowing things to scan – some are big and some are small. You need to line up those glowing yellow items with the center of the macrobinoculars until the symbols in the center turn yellow-orange too, then left-click to zoom-in and scan the object.  You can zoom out again by right-clicking, if you want to scan another visible object. Once done you can press ESC on your keyboard to return to running around.

Scan the Killik Hive

The Killik Hive is scannabable only if the Killik room has been unlocked – it’s the big bee-hive shaped structures.

Scan the Waterfall

The waterfall is in the southern section of the map.

Scan the Thranta Nest

The Thranta Nest is up high near the waterfall. It is not scannable except in your own stronghold.

Scan the Entrance

The entrance to the castle of the estate needs to be scanned.

Scan the Training Grounds (Upstairs)

Up the elevator / or take the taxi, the combat area building needs to be scanned.

Hidden Items

There are glowing blue items hidden around the stronghold. Three of the four are always in the same spot, while the fourth moves around and could be in one of multiple locations.

Bones / Scattered Human Remains

The bones are hidden right in front of the waterfall, in the water. They are a bit hard to see. If you can’t click them, try clicking the ribcage in the very center instead of the bigger bluer bones on the outside.

Skeleton / Crumbling Note

The note beside the skeleton is located in the secret hidden cave underneath the waterfall.

Weathered Backpack

The Weathered Backpack is well-hidden near the waterfall – it’s up the nearby mountains as part of a mini jumping puzzle.

Here’s a closer look at the route:

The backpack:

I did have a bit of trouble right-clicking the backpack, it’s a bit finicky, try clicking it at a different angle if it doesn’t work.

Final Item – Quickly Scrawled Letter / Dented Personal Device / Worn Journal

The final item can be found in one of multiple place – you may have to check all of them. Fun fact, each of these locations has a different bit of lore attached to it and is technically a different item – so to get the whole story you would need to compare notes with other players, even after you’ve gotten the achievement!

The first location is beside the broken tree in the upper area of the stronghold, kinda near the taxi point.

The second is on the edge of some rocks, on the far south west of the upper area of the stronghold.

The third is the hardest – it is around the edge of where the Training Grounds building is – but you have to jump to it, and there are invisible walls in the way, making it quite difficult to do. I never got my journal to spawn there.

Once you’ve unlocked the Alderaan stronghold, found the Saliva-coated Macrobinoculars, scanned the five locations, and found the four hidden items, you’ll get the achievement!

Lore / Mystery

ANALYSIS: The noble houses of Alderaan have maintained properties like this since the colonization of the planet. Records about how this one became available, however, are shrouded in no small amount of mystery.

ANALYSIS: According to the estate’s histories, this structure is said to be all that remains of a lost people who occupied the area long ago. Speculated to be the site of the earliest recorded attempts at thranta domestication.

ANALYSIS: The Local thranta populations have been on the decline for generations. They are a rare breed indeed, and as such are protected under official edict of the crown.

ANALYSIS: Local legend states that a trio of lake nymphs advised all passerby to avoid resting at this spring, or pursuing the end of the water’s fall.

ANALYSIS: While their species is native to Alderaan, and has been the doom of some of this world’s greatest houses, something seems different about these local Killiks that can’t quite be named.

Worn journal on the estate’s grounds: “After refusing their offers, these ‘thranta watchers’ have become more and more desperate to gain access to my lands. While suspicious, I will hear them out one last time. We have agreed to meet near the falls.”

Paper found on the estate’s grounds: “Submitting this record for legal proceedings – the ‘thranta watchers’ have set up a hidden camp somewhere in the plateau. Based on the reports my observers have given to me, they’re not what they seem.”

Bones found at the base of the waterfall, in the water: These bones show signs of having fallen from a great height, but what is this sharp notch in one of the ribs?

Backpack found hidden in the mountains plateau: Dried blood stains this aged pack, which contains a strange collection of items: an empty macrobinoculars case, a physical copy of ‘Wayfarer’s Guide to Thrantas’, and a very angry looking knife.

Skeleton found lying in a hidden cave behind the waterfall: Looking over the corpse, you struggle to imagine just what an individual would need to do to achieve a death by thranta bites. A hastily drafted note lies here, written in something foul: “If there is a hell, damn the old man to it. And the killiks! Who takes lenses?”

Saliva-coated Macrobinoculars found in Killik Cave: The killiks obviously took these macrobinocular lenses from someone, but why are there “exfil” [exfiltration – covert extraction of data] – tag marking protocols integrated into them?

Datapad found deeply hidden in the estate’s grounds: “This message will serve as my final words in this life. Heed them well, they are all I have left to give. The ‘Thranta-watchers’ are not to be trusted. Whatever they tell you, whatever they offer, walk away.

Story/Lore Notes:

• I still don’t know who the previous owner is, or why they were killed by the “Thranta-watchers” – but there doesn’t seem to be any more hints or clues.
• Here is my interpretation of the notes and items: The previous estate owner, an old man, received a request from the Thranta Watchers group to watch the Thrantas on his land, but refused. The Thranta Watchers persisted, and although the owner had refused, the Thranta Watcher set up a hidden camp on the plateau, which was seen by the former owner’s observers, the local killiks. The killiks, while observing, went through the Thranta Watcher’s bag, and stole his macrobinculars, taking them back to their nest. This is what the unnamed difference is – the killiks worked with the former estate owner, rather than being his doom like many of the other noble houses. The macrobinoculars have a special “exfil” protocols integrated, and are used for covert extraction of data – not something that would be useful for someone simply watching Thrantas, which is why the former owner was suspicious. His suspicions growing, he left a warning note that the Thranta Watchers are not to be trusted, sensing his impending death (this note is written as if he was actively dying – but if he was, how would the note have gotten so far from where he died at the base of the falls?). At the top of the falls, the Thranta Watcher stabbed the former owner to death, who then fell to the base of the falls. This violence, or the death of the former owner, aggravated the Thranta nest near the waterfalls, leading the Thrantas to viciously bite the Thranta Watcher, who fled to his camp, dropping his bloody backpack there. Slowly bleeding to death, in an effort to find refuge from the angry Thranta, he fled to the secret cave under the waterfall, scribbling his last notes in blood, and died.

Achievement Notes:

• I tried doing this isn’t a guild stronghold on a public listing stronghold with no luck – the blue items were not there, and the thranta nest scan was not there.
• I have the Killik Hive purposefully not unlocked on my stronghold, and was not able to get this achievement at all even doing all the other steps and finding all the items. I had to go to another server and fully unlock the stronghold there to get the achievement.
• As far as I can tell, using your personal Macrobinoculars instead of the Saliva-coated Macrobinoculars does not work.
• I am unsure what causes the final hidden item to move around. I’ve seen it speculated that it is time.
• One of the locations of the hidden item near the training grounds used to be easier but an invisible wall was added – I’m not sure why that was done, but it makes it a pain. XamXam on MMOBits made a guide about this and another player on the forums suggested an alternate route due to the invisible walls.
• Another player posted that they did all the steps, but it didn’t work, and they believe it may be because they had a few rooms not unlocked in the stronghold.
• I’ve seen past players saying they could get it in other people’s strongholds – but I couldn’t force this to actually work, as the blue items were missing.
• I tried getting to the Thranta nest but there are too many invisible walls.
• When you log off in this stronghold, the game always places you back at the spawn point when you load in.