I'm having some trouble coming up with a few things right now...

The first is how to create an "invisible container" or possibly an invisible dialogue to allow a character to take an item from a background element of a module... in this case, the escape pods on Taris.

The other thing I can't seem to figure out is how to get recruitables to initiate dialogue with things like "Canderous has been quiet ever since Taris..." or whatever, and how to see to it that these characters won't repeat the same dialogue over and over again. I'm not sure if it's a scripting function or not.

Anyone got some advice on how to get this to work?

1. To create an invisible placeable, just make a .utc file as usual and set the appearance to invisible (look at the .2da file to find the reference for an invisible placeable)

2. In Kotor 1, the game uses triggers to make the npcs initiate dialogues at certain locations.

3. To make sure the character does not repeat the same dialogue over and over, you'll have to use conditional scripts. You can check various things such as who is present, what level is the PC, does pc has a certain item in his inventory, the skills, feats, force powers, where you are in the plot (the latter is done using variables), etc.
Check this thread: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=153890)