Hiii it's me in your inbox again! Slightly reductive maybe and I get you already have plans for him and may not want to talk about them if they overlap here but anyway: if Saren was a companion, what would be his personal questline about? What would it put focus on re: themes etc, or maybe what would be the different paths one could take with it? (I'm not calling it just "good" and "bad" endings because lets be honest, the best written questlines are ones where there is no clear answer.)

i love this question and it only took me a while to answer cause i was rlly thinking about it.

i can definitely conceptualise a character arc within the scope of a companion quest without stepping over any of his existing narrative. he has pleeenty of themes i can explore.

below the cut

focus & themes.

• the nature of memory. how much of Saren’s identity is built on the absence of memory? what happens when fragments surface? Are they even real, or are they phantoms created by trauma and the warp?
• control vs. chaos. Saren is all about control. this quest forces him to confront an event of ultimate chaos (the warp tear that took his family/friends perhaps) and the uncontrollable nature of his own fragmented past.
• value & obsession. what is the true value of knowing a past that is likely only pain? Can Saren resist the curiosity to uncover it, or will it consume him? spoilers, he ultimately sees the value in reinvention and lets it go, as is his nature ultimately. he can likely still be heavily influenced with a higher approval/friendship level on what his priorities may be ordered like and whether or not you’re also “dating” his freaky ass.
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• i think the ‘good’ ending would be a relatively compliant Aura who actually assists the player without obstruction as long as he sees value in it. the 'bad’ result would likely result in needing to kill him or find him sabotaging and being openly hostile to the player and their ideals. awful.

bonus romance questline.

• nature of romance.
• it would be a dangerous, high-stakes game of manipulation, power, and intense intellectual sparring, with rare, almost shocking moments of vulnerability from Saren if the player truly gets under his skin. he’d be drawn to a Lord Captain who is intelligent, powerful, perhaps morally ambiguous themselves, and above all, not boring.
• dynamics.
• he would constantly test the player, trying to “collect” them, to understand their every motive, to possess their loyalty absolutely. the player would need to be incredibly savvy to navigate this, either meeting his games with their own, finding ways to genuinely disarm his defenses (rarely), or becoming a willing, powerful partner in his grand designs.
• quest impact. the personal quest would be central. helping him confront (or avoid) his past would be a major bonding (or breaking) point. a player who helps him find a measure of control over his narrative, or who stands by him during a moment of revealed trauma, might earn a unique, possessive form of Saren’s “affection.” true vulnerability from him would be the ultimate “reward,” signifying he sees the player as something more than just another piece in his collection – perhaps an equal, or at least, the most prized part of it.