Historical continuity errors?

[OldVengeance]

It's occurred to me recently that the game seems to make references to ancient wars between the Sith and Jedi that don't seem to match up to any conflict in Star Wars history.

 

Doesn't Khem Val mentioned fighting Jedi at some of the battles he participated in? I could be remembering wrong but I was almost sure I recall him saying it once. But how can that be? Tulak Hord was the Dark Lord of the Sith then. The Great Hyperspace War was the first contact between the Sith and the Jedi, and that was only 1300 years before the current date in the game. And since Naga Sadow was the Dark Lord of the Sith for the entirely of that conflict and he was immediately succeeded by The Emperor, then obvioulsy Tulak Hord far predated Sadow. Unless they've drastically retconed the Great Hyperspace War (which I doubt, the timeline still mentions the Republic hyperspace explorers stumbling upon Korriban), this doesn't seem to make sense anymore.

 

Similarly, in the story of Terrak Morrhage in the Consular storyline he was said to have fought the Jedi "thousands of years ago." Although the Sith Empire itself only goes as far back as 7000 years before the Battle of Yavin, which is only 3300 years prior to this game anyway. There isn't a great deal of time or him or Hord to fit into that timeline anyway, at least in the context of what Vivicar said.

 

is this the game inventing some new never before heard of war that isn't mentioned even in the game's own history or is it some story mistake? This sort of backstory only really feels like it makes sense if the game was set much later in the history of the Old Republic, like the Clone Wars or something. I didn't notice at first, then I remembered this far back in time there weren't as many ancient conflicts between Sith and Jedi that could be used as ancient lore.

Edited May 25, 2012 by OldVengeance

[Maaruin]

I've asked myself where to put Morrhage in history too. Most likely: errors. In both cases the one who wrote the class story was responsible. And it is possible that both authors didn't do enough research. (The Sadow'een on Hoth, at the other side of the galaxy? Yeah, of course.)

 

I would put Morrhage after the Great Hyperspace War. He could have been a Sith Lord like Freedon Nadd, who also lived after the GHW.

 

For Khem Val... I don't know. Maybe there were some isolated Jedi in the the region the Sith conquered before attacking the republic. Or maybe.... I just had an idea:

 

It isn't exactly known when Tulak Hord lived. There are no pictures of him. Kreia said he was a master with the lightsaber. (Sith didn't use lightsabers until after the GHW.) Lord Kallig lived at the same time as Tulak Hord and his species isn't sure. He could have been Human, Sith, Twi'lek, Rattattaki, Zabrak etc.

Could it be that Tulak Hord and Kallig were both fallen Jedi who followed Ajunta Pall into exile? They could have fought plenty of battles against the Jedi then.

 

I know, it's "fringe science", but that's also what Czerka thought about the Infinite Empire

[Eleutherius]

The mythological or historical inconsistencies in the lore of this game have been a bother to me as well, from very early on. The rampant and reckless retconning of the Star Wars canon has always been frustrating to me, and at the beginning I saw this game as having a good opportunity to fill many of the holes in this era of the lore. Sadly, it seems to have done the opposite, though not to an irreparable extent. I'd like to make mention of (ideally, have a discussion about) at least a few of these inconsistencies - I'll work my way up to the ones you mentioned, OldVengeance.

 

The first and most blatant of them was the use of the Bendu symbol as the emblem of the Sith Empire - obviously, an attempt to establish its similarity with the Empire in the original trilogy but one which was misguided, as the prequel trilogy makes it the symbol of the Old Republic prior to Palpatine's imperial revolution. I've read attempts to justify it, and I've seen the idea that a future merging of the two body politics is what leads to the adoption of the symbol by the Republic, but none of this makes very effective sense. I once read in this regard an analogy to Nazi Germany's adoption of the swastika, originally an Asian symbol of prosperity - an adoption which permanently changed the ideas associated with it. This analogy makes sense as a reason why the Empire adopted the Bendu symbol in the first place, I suppose, but not as an explanation of the Republic's adoption of it. In other words, it makes sense that the adoption of a positive symbol by a negative organization changes its meaning, but it doesn't work so easily vice versa. In this case the analogy would be more like Nazi Germany adopts the Buddhist symbol of prosperity; now, after America's won, it replaces the American flag with the swastika. Few people in America would be even remotely pleased with this, I think.

 

The history of Revan and Malak is another one. As a lover of both KotOR I & II, it's easy for me (and I would hope others as well) to see that the beginning of TOR's plot stems from seeds planted by KotOR II, but the trees grown from those healthy seeds are often sickly and misshapen. Let's refresh our memories: according to Kreia, after regaining the memory of his true identity, Revan recalled also the reason for many of his strategically motivated decisions when battling the Republic in contrast to Malak's recklessly destructive tactics. Supposedly, this was because Revan had secret knowledge of the existence of the True Sith, an ancient and evil organization that existed beyond the Outer Rim, which was presumably (though not certainly, the idea was left open ended) either a the remnant or the forerunner of the the ancient Sith Empire defeated in the Great Hyperspace War. The Old Republic's backstory kind of, sort of shat on this premise which was originally one of the main reasons I was anticipating the story of The Old Republic. In the backstory of the Old Republic, Revan and Malak stumbled on the new Sith Empire (I guess, what the idea of the True Sith turned into) when chasing the remnants of the Mandalorian army. Then both Revan and Malak were mind dominated(!) by the all-powerful Sith Emperor (who was only a minor Sith Lord in the original Sith Empire?), given the title of Darth by the Emperor, and sent to Republic space to start conquering and act as the vanguard of the true invasion he was planning. But then they did some weird force ability to suppress their memories of the Empire and started using the Star Forge to conquer the galaxy for themselves! All of which failed when Revan was betrayed by Malak. This is just kind of silly. The idea in KotOR II was that Revan still knew of the existence of the True Sith or new Sith Empire, and that's why he was conquering the galaxy in a way would strengthen it; but Malak never did know, which is why after he turned to the dark side he was recklessly destroying the galaxy in his attempt to conquer it. Even much of KotOR I suggests this disparity in knowledge between Revan and Malak, such as the one where they come across the first Star Map on Dantooine: Revan is steadfast in the dark side, and in his intent, whereas Malak is still wavering but knows that after this there's no going back. Correctly, then, Malak never knew of the Sith Empire, whereas Revan knew the entire time and only forgot when his whole memory and identity were erased by the Jedi council and his own traumatic injuries. By now though we're all familiar with the image of Revan and Malak, already fully given to the dark side, approaching the Emperor with their red lightsabers drawn. How this one escaped the notice of the developers is beyond me, and is one of the most frustrating inconsistencies. Why would you bastardize the lore of the two games that gave birth to TOR in the first place? Come on.

 

I haven't had the time to play as an Inquisitor yet, but I did recently play through a good chunk of the Sith Warrior storyline (so far pretty awesome overall, I must admit). Even here, though, there are inconsistencies. It's well known that after losing the Great Hyperspace War, Naga Sadow took his Massassi warriors and went into self-imposed exile on Yavin IV until he was awoken by Freedon Nadd some several hundred years later. So why is it that at the end of the Korriban segment of the Sith Warrior story, when obtaining the Ancient Lightsaber in Naga Sadow's tomb, we see the physical remains of Naga Sadow (his skeleton), with his unique headgear and all? The very presence of Naga Sadow's tomb on Korriban, which was first in KotOR I, was something that needed to be retconned due to Naga Sadow dying on Yavin IV, but this was done in a way which actually made sense (for once): for the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, construction of the tomb or resting place of the Pharaoh was started as soon as his rule began or at least was overseen by the ruler himself, due to it being a massive and personal undertaking. Thus, it would makes sense that Naga Sadow's tomb began construction as soon as he ascended to the throne of Dark Lord, even though he was never actually buried there. But in TOR, we see his physical remains in his tomb on Korriban, something that's inconsistent with established lore. Also, the Ancient Lightsaber was apparently his, but more on lightsabers in a bit.

 

Moving on to the above concerns, like I said, I haven't played through the Consular or Inquisitor stories yet, so I can't say as much about these, but I remember reading about Khem Val when the game first came out and shared a similar concern/annoyance. If Khem Val was a minion of Tulak Hord, then there's NO WAY he came into contact with Jedi. You are correct, OldVengeance: Tulak Hord is supposed to have predated Naga Sadow quite a bit, as Marka Ragnos was Sadow's direct predecessor and if I recall correctly, he ruled for a hundred years or longer (can't remember exactly how long). The first Dark Lord of the Sith (according to KotOR I and those idiotic Star Wars encyclopedia they keep milking) was Ajunta Pall, one of the leaders of the Dark Jedi who fought in the final battle at Corbos and was subsequently sent into exile beyond the Outer Rim. After this, the Sith had no contact with the Jedi Order or the Republic until the Great Hyperspace War. This is known because in the Golden Age of the Sith arc of the Tales of the Jedi series of comics (which first introduced Korriban, the Sith species and the idea of an ancient Sith Empire, and which I personally love) the Republic did not at first believe in the existence of a Sith Empire at all, until Jori Daragon managed to convince Odan-Urr and Empress Teta to prepare for the invasion of Naga Sadow. Now as Tulak Hord was a Dark Lord of the Sith of this ancient empire, neither he nor his servant Khem Val could've come into contact with any actual Jedi. The only possibility is that he did come into contact with and battle against some Dark Jedi leftover from the Hundred-Year Darkness (assuming Tulak Hord's reign was not too long after Ajunta Pall's), but I think this can fairly be ruled out by the context of Khem Val's comment (which I do vaguely recall seeing myself). In my opinion, this inconsistency is fairly egregious.

 

I have another gripe with, or question about, this "new" Sith Empire in TOR: the largely human appearance of the entire Empire. The party line is that it's due to the red-skinned Sith diluting their bloodline with humans due to interbreeding with slaves, but in the original Sith empire, it was the opposite: the pureblooded redskinned Sith race were enslaved by the largely human Dark Jedi, who mated with them and produced hybrid offspring, but there were few enough human genes in the gene pool for the entire ancient Sith Empire to be almost entirely red-skinned by the time of Naga Sadow. How exactly did this new Sith Empire go from largely red-skinned and pureblooded to more white-skinned when the entire empire was red-skinned prior to the Great Hyperspace War?

 

Concerning the idea of there being no lightsabers in the Sith Empire, originally that was the idea, and the art in the the Tales of the Jedi comics reflected this - the idea was that what originally the Great Schism which led directly to the Hundred-Year Darkness and the exile of the Dark Jedi to Korriban and thus the foundation of the Sith Order and the ancient Sith Empire preceded the age of lightsabers, and Sith Lords did not have access to them, indeed, until after the Great Hyperspace War. We never see Marka Ragnos or Naga Sadow or Ludo Kressh, or any other ancient red-skinned Sith wielding a lightsaber for this very reason. But I think it was Kreia's comments on Korriban in KotOR II that introduced the idea of Tulak Hord having the greatest skill with lightsabers of any Dark Lord in the ancient Empire. Thus, once again, a retcon had to occur: lightsabers were in fact brought to the ancient Sith by the Dark Jedi, and thus were available prior to the Great Hyperspace War, but were simply not as commonly used by the time of Marka Ragnos and Naga Sadow as the more primitive swords and battleweapons of the Sith. TOR (and even the new Dawn of the Jedi comics, from what little I've seen) reinforces this idea by pushing the discovery or invention of lightsabers back to a much earlier period of galactic history, around the time of the foundation of the Jedi Order on Tython or even earlier (I can't recall exactly when this was - around the same time as the foundation of the Old Republic? Hopefully someone can clarify this futher). This one doesn't bother me too much, but the "historical" tension in these ideas will only get worse if the people creating lore-defining products continue to impose their ignorance on canon.

 

Having not played the Consular story yet, I don't know anything about Terrak Morrhage. Could someone kindly give an (ideally spoiler-light) eplanation of his character?

 

There are a few others I've noticed too: Overseer Ragate in the Sith Academy on Korriban claims the Rite of Blood and Bone has been performed by Dark Lords for 10,000 years (pushing the foundation of the ancient Sith Empire farther back than most sources suppose). And on Taris, in-game, there are contradictory treatments of the rakghouls, one of which if I recall contradicts the established lore in the KotOR comics: one quest says they were created by an infection poison, another says they were a product of dark side Sith alchemy; if not a contradiction it's at least an inconsistency or unanswered question. The treatment of the Mandalorians is another one. At the end of the day, I think the majority of these are ERRORS which occurred due to lack of research or simply the negligence of the writing team -- perhaps the oft-used proverb that too many cooks spoil the broth is applicable here -- and they need to be fixed. As a lover of Star Wars, the mishandling of its lore (not only by TOR but by those damned enyclopedias) is extremely frustrating to me, and silly, uninspired, unnecessary and obnoxious retcons are making the greater Star Wars universe not only more and more inacessible but also more and more childish.

 

I apologize for the enormous post but I'd really like to get a discussion going on some of these issues.

Edited May 27, 2012 by Eleutherius

[OldVengeance]

While I had also noticed most of the points you made about TOR contradicting lore of the past, the sad fact I've just come to expect that from the writing at this point. To be honest it started in Kotor I.

 

Here I was mostly concerned with the fact that some of the quests seem to contradict the lore they did stick with for the game. There just seem to be vague references to battles between jedi and sith that don't correspond to anything anywhere on the timeline Bioware went with and published on the website or the named wars the characters will talk about in the storyline.

Edited May 27, 2012 by OldVengeance

[Maaruin]

I'll try to find explanations for all these inconsitencies. I know there are no official ones, but some might make sense.

 

The first and most blatant of them was the use of the Bendu symbol as the emblem of the Sith Empire - obviously, an attempt to establish its similarity with the Empire in the original trilogy but one which was misguided, as the prequel trilogy makes it the symbol of the Old Republic prior to Palpatine's imperial revolution. I've read attempts to justify it, and I've seen the idea that a future merging of the two body politics is what leads to the adoption of the symbol by the Republic, but none of this makes very effective sense. I once read in this regard an analogy to Nazi Germany's adoption of the swastika, originally an Asian symbol of prosperity - an adoption which permanently changed the ideas associated with it. This analogy makes sense as a reason why the Empire adopted the Bendu symbol in the first place, I suppose, but not as an explanation of the Republic's adoption of it. In other words, it makes sense that the adoption of a positive symbol by a negative organization changes its meaning, but it doesn't work so easily vice versa. In this case the analogy would be more like Nazi Germany adopts the Buddhist symbol of prosperity; now, after America's won, it replaces the American flag with the swastika. Few people in America would be even remotely pleased with this, I think.

 

Maybe the Bendu symbol and the other republic symbol were both in use long before the Sith Empire, with the Bendu being a very common symbol throughout the galaxy.

America has two national symbols: the star(s) with blue background, the other is the eagle. The eagle is a very common symbol and was used in Nazi Germany too.

 

The history of Revan and Malak is another one. As a lover of both KotOR I & II, it's easy for me (and I would hope others as well) to see that the beginning of TOR's plot stems from seeds planted by KotOR II, but the trees grown from those healthy seeds are often sickly and misshapen. Let's refresh our memories: according to Kreia, after regaining the memory of his true identity, Revan recalled also the reason for many of his strategically motivated decisions when battling the Republic in contrast to Malak's recklessly destructive tactics. Supposedly, this was because Revan had secret knowledge of the existence of the True Sith, an ancient and evil organization that existed beyond the Outer Rim, which was presumably (though not certainly, the idea was left open ended) either a the remnant or the forerunner of the the ancient Sith Empire defeated in the Great Hyperspace War. The Old Republic's backstory kind of, sort of shat on this premise which was originally one of the main reasons I was anticipating the story of The Old Republic. In the backstory of the Old Republic, Revan and Malak stumbled on the new Sith Empire (I guess, what the idea of the True Sith turned into) when chasing the remnants of the Mandalorian army. Then both Revan and Malak were mind dominated(!) by the all-powerful Sith Emperor (who was only a minor Sith Lord in the original Sith Empire?), given the title of Darth by the Emperor, and sent to Republic space to start conquering and act as the vanguard of the true invasion he was planning. But then they did some weird force ability to suppress their memories of the Empire and started using the Star Forge to conquer the galaxy for themselves! All of which failed when Revan was betrayed by Malak. This is just kind of silly. The idea in KotOR II was that Revan still knew of the existence of the True Sith or new Sith Empire, and that's why he was conquering the galaxy in a way would strengthen it; but Malak never did know, which is why after he turned to the dark side he was recklessly destroying the galaxy in his attempt to conquer it. Even much of KotOR I suggests this disparity in knowledge between Revan and Malak, such as the one where they come across the first Star Map on Dantooine: Revan is steadfast in the dark side, and in his intent, whereas Malak is still wavering but knows that after this there's no going back. Correctly, then, Malak never knew of the Sith Empire, whereas Revan knew the entire time and only forgot when his whole memory and identity were erased by the Jedi council and his own traumatic injuries. By now though we're all familiar with the image of Revan and Malak, already fully given to the dark side, approaching the Emperor with their red lightsabers drawn. How this one escaped the notice of the developers is beyond me, and is one of the most frustrating inconsistencies. Why would you bastardize the lore of the two games that gave birth to TOR in the first place? Come on.

 

I don't know that much about Kotor I. So no comment on that.

 

I haven't had the time to play as an Inquisitor yet, but I did recently play through a good chunk of the Sith Warrior storyline (so far pretty awesome overall, I must admit). Even here, though, there are inconsistencies. It's well known that after losing the Great Hyperspace War, Naga Sadow took his Massassi warriors and went into self-imposed exile on Yavin IV until he was awoken by Freedon Nadd some several hundred years later. So why is it that at the end of the Korriban segment of the Sith Warrior story, when obtaining the Ancient Lightsaber in Naga Sadow's tomb, we see the physical remains of Naga Sadow (his skeleton), with his unique headgear and all? The very presence of Naga Sadow's tomb on Korriban, which was first in KotOR I, was something that needed to be retconned due to Naga Sadow dying on Yavin IV, but this was done in a way which actually made sense (for once): for the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, construction of the tomb or resting place of the Pharaoh was started as soon as his rule began or at least was overseen by the ruler himself, due to it being a massive and personal undertaking. Thus, it would makes sense that Naga Sadow's tomb began construction as soon as he ascended to the throne of Dark Lord, even though he was never actually buried there. But in TOR, we see his physical remains in his tomb on Korriban, something that's inconsistent with established lore. Also, the Ancient Lightsaber was apparently his, but more on lightsabers in a bit.

 

Only explanation: Naga Sadow's headgear was not unique. There was someone, maybe one of his generals or brothers buried there two. So maybe it was not uncommon for the Sith to have people close to you buried in your tomb.

 

And I think the lightsaber was placed there for the Sith Warrior trails. I doubt he would be the first one who gets the trail to retrieve a lightsaber from the tombs. (And Naga Sadow's tomb is the last trail for every acolyte, I think it's said in the Codex.)

 

Moving on to the above concerns, like I said, I haven't played through the Consular or Inquisitor stories yet, so I can't say as much about these, but I remember reading about Khem Val when the game first came out and shared a similar concern/annoyance. If Khem Val was a minion of Tulak Hord, then there's NO WAY he came into contact with Jedi. You are correct, OldVengeance: Tulak Hord is supposed to have predated Naga Sadow quite a bit, as Marka Ragnos was Sadow's direct predecessor and if I recall correctly, he ruled for a hundred years or longer (can't remember exactly how long). The first Dark Lord of the Sith (according to KotOR I and those idiotic Star Wars encyclopedia they keep milking) was Ajunta Pall, one of the leaders of the Dark Jedi who fought in the final battle at Corbos and was subsequently sent into exile beyond the Outer Rim. After this, the Sith had no contact with the Jedi Order or the Republic until the Great Hyperspace War. This is known because in the Golden Age of the Sith arc of the Tales of the Jedi series of comics (which first introduced Korriban, the Sith species and the idea of an ancient Sith Empire, and which I personally love) the Republic did not at first believe in the existence of a Sith Empire at all, until Jori Daragon managed to convince Odan-Urr and Empress Teta to prepare for the invasion of Naga Sadow. Now as Tulak Hord was a Dark Lord of the Sith of this ancient empire, neither he nor his servant Khem Val could've come into contact with any actual Jedi. The only possibility is that he did come into contact with and battle against some Dark Jedi leftover from the Hundred-Year Darkness (assuming Tulak Hord's reign was not too long after Ajunta Pall's), but I think this can fairly be ruled out by the context of Khem Val's comment (which I do vaguely recall seeing myself). In my opinion, this inconsistency is fairly egregious.

 

What do you think about my idea that he was the direct sucessor of Ajunta Pall and also one of the exiled Dark Jedi?

 

I have another gripe with, or question about, this "new" Sith Empire in TOR: the largely human appearance of the entire Empire. The party line is that it's due to the red-skinned Sith diluting their bloodline with humans due to interbreeding with slaves, but in the original Sith empire, it was the opposite: the pureblooded redskinned Sith race were enslaved by the largely human Dark Jedi, who mated with them and produced hybrid offspring, but there were few enough human genes in the gene pool for the entire ancient Sith Empire to be almost entirely red-skinned by the time of Naga Sadow. How exactly did this new Sith Empire go from largely red-skinned and pureblooded to more white-skinned when the entire empire was red-skinned prior to the Great Hyperspace War?

 

In the timeline video "Rebirth of the Sith Empire" there are already lots of humans. My explanation: When the Sith conquered the Star Systems around Korriban, some of them were inhabited by humans. Some humans moved to Korriban for job opportunities etc.

 

Concerning the idea of there being no lightsabers in the Sith Empire, originally that was the idea, and the art in the the Tales of the Jedi comics reflected this - the idea was that what originally the Great Schism which led directly to the Hundred-Year Darkness and the exile of the Dark Jedi to Korriban and thus the foundation of the Sith Order and the ancient Sith Empire preceded the age of lightsabers, and Sith Lords did not have access to them, indeed, until after the Great Hyperspace War. We never see Marka Ragnos or Naga Sadow or Ludo Kressh, or any other ancient red-skinned Sith wielding a lightsaber for this very reason. But I think it was Kreia's comments on Korriban in KotOR II that introduced the idea of Tulak Hord having the greatest skill with lightsabers of any Dark Lord in the ancient Empire. Thus, once again, a retcon had to occur: lightsabers were in fact brought to the ancient Sith by the Dark Jedi, and thus were available prior to the Great Hyperspace War, but were simply not as commonly used by the time of Marka Ragnos and Naga Sadow as the more primitive swords and battleweapons of the Sith. TOR (and even the new Dawn of the Jedi comics, from what little I've seen) reinforces this idea by pushing the discovery or invention of lightsabers back to a much earlier period of galactic history, around the time of the foundation of the Jedi Order on Tython or even earlier (I can't recall exactly when this was - around the same time as the foundation of the Old Republic? Hopefully someone can clarify this futher). This one doesn't bother me too much, but the "historical" tension in these ideas will only get worse if the people creating lore-defining products continue to impose their ignorance on canon.

 

Well, if Tulak Hord really was a Dark Jedi, he could have used a lightsaber. The knowledge about the construction of lightsabers became lost after him.

 

Having not played the Consular story yet, I don't know anything about Terrak Morrhage. Could someone kindly give an (ideally spoiler-light) eplanation of his character?

 

 

Terrak Morrhage was a Sith Lord (sorcerer probably) who created a plague which drove the Jedi it infected to the Dark Side. The Jedi developed a technique which made it possible to shield the infected from his influence.

His tomb is located on Malachor III.

 

 

Possible explanation: He was a fallen Jedi and self-proclaimed Sith Lord, similar to Freedon Nadd.

 

There are a few others I've noticed too: Overseer Ragate in the Sith Academy on Korriban claims the Rite of Blood and Bone has been performed by Dark Lords for 10,000 years (pushing the foundation of the ancient Sith Empire farther back than most sources suppose).

 

Not if it was a native Sith ritual.

 

And on Taris, in-game, there are contradictory treatments of the rakghouls, one of which if I recall contradicts the established lore in the KotOR comics: one quest says they were created by an infection poison, another says they were a product of dark side Sith alchemy; if not a contradiction it's at least an inconsistency or unanswered question.

 

I think it easily could be both. A poison created by Sith alchemy.

 

The treatment of the Mandalorians is another one.

 

I don't know what you mean exactly, but since the Mandalorians are only loosly connected normally, every Clan could be different.

 

At the end of the day, I think the majority of these are ERRORS which occurred due to lack of research or simply the negligence of the writing team -- perhaps the oft-used proverb that too many cooks spoil the broth is applicable here -- and they need to be fixed. As a lover of Star Wars, the mishandling of its lore (not only by TOR but by those damned enyclopedias) is extremely frustrating to me, and silly, uninspired, unnecessary and obnoxious retcons are making the greater Star Wars universe not only more and more inacessible but also more and more childish.

 

I apologize for the enormous post but I'd really like to get a discussion going on some of these issues.

 

I agree, probably most of these are errors.

[Ranadiel_Marius]

Re Naga Sadow's body: This one can just be explained as some Sith Lord and/or servant of Naga Sadow putting a body there to represent Naga Sadow as they wanted a symbol of him there. Alternatively someone just decided to move his body from Yavin IV to Korribon for some reason following Freedon Nadd's rise. Why? I dunno people are weird. *shrug*

 

Side note for Eleutherius, I have a strong feeling you are going to hate the SI Belsavis attempted lore. Arguably the retcon it tries to make has already been stealth retconned away making it completely pointless, but I still strongly suspect you are going to despise it.

[Eleutherius]

While I had also noticed most of the points you made about TOR contradicting lore of the past, the sad fact I've just come to expect that from the writing at this point. To be honest it started in Kotor I.

Sadly, so have I. And hah, yeah, I'm aware it started in KotOR I, which is why I mentioned the thing about Naga Sadow's tomb, but I feel like back then it was more minor and more easily explicable. I don't know if this will make sense but when the KotOR games made continuity errors they seemed more humble in nature, as if small details were missed or misunderstood; on the other hand, when TOR makes mistakes it does so brazenly or as if it's revealing some great secret of Star Wars lore.

 

Here I was mostly concerned with the fact that some of the quests seem to contradict the lore they did stick with for the game. There just seem to be vague references to battles between jedi and sith that don't correspond to anything anywhere on the timeline Bioware went with and published on the website or the named wars the characters will talk about in the storyline.

Yeah I feel you. Are you talking mostly about Khem Val here or did you have others in mind as well? I've only played JK and SW so far and there hasn't been much of this in these storylines, fortunately.

 

Maybe the Bendu symbol and the other republic symbol were both in use long before the Sith Empire, with the Bendu being a very common symbol throughout the galaxy.

America has two national symbols: the star(s) with blue background, the other is the eagle. The eagle is a very common symbol and was used in Nazi Germany too.

Yeah, I suppose this is a possibility. I think only time will tell, though -- I'm hoping that eventually enough of the story gets told to at least give this one an official explanation. Although, it's hard for me to imagine Bioware eventually setting their foot down and saying that either the Republic or the Empire officially wins the war in the foreseeable future of the game. What I'm afraid of is that this one will be left to the encyclopedias to provide some prosaic retcon.

 

Only explanation: Naga Sadow's headgear was not unique. There was someone, maybe one of his generals or brothers buried there two. So maybe it was not uncommon for the Sith to have people close to you buried in your tomb.

 

And I think the lightsaber was placed there for the Sith Warrior trails. I doubt he would be the first one who gets the trail to retrieve a lightsaber from the tombs. (And Naga Sadow's tomb is the last trail for every acolyte, I think it's said in the Codex.)

I think you're right to say that it does make sense as an explanation but I think it's one which is ultimately a retcon. Since it's Naga Sadow's tomb and the headgear looks exactly like his, it's hard for me to accept the idea that the skeleton you see was not originally intended to be his.

 

About the lightsaber, though, I think you're totally right and that fact slipped my mind. Nice catch on that one. But if this so, then there are other problems. After Baras says that the lightsaber is old and powerful, he says that it's housed where few Sith have ever set foot. If every acolyte goes there to complete their trials then how are there so many Sith? It would make more sense, I think, if the last trial for every generation of acolytes were different, and this happened to be the last trial for the SW's generation. I'll have to doublecheck the codex on this one, though.

 

What do you think about my idea that he was the direct sucessor of Ajunta Pall and also one of the exiled Dark Jedi?

I think it's totally solid, dude. It's what I've believed ever since the idea that Tulak Hord was a master of the lightsaber was presented in KotOR II and really it does make good sense. Or, even if not the direct successor, the third in line or something -- Ajunta Pall does imply that he was betrayed and killed by a fellow Sith Lord, if I recall. So along these lines, would you want to say that Khem Val participated in the fight with the Dark Jedi before they were exiled?

 

Without knowing how much more of Tulak Hord and Khem Val's background the Inquisitor storyline reveals it's still hard to know just what to think. I think your other explanation -- that there were pockets of settled Jedi on the worlds conquered by Tulak and Khem and thats what Khem refers to -- is viable as well, but I'm with OldVengeance in thinking that unless Khem participated in the Hundred-Year Darkness he couldn't have experienced any massive conflict with the Jedi Order as a whole.

 

In the timeline video "Rebirth of the Sith Empire" there are already lots of humans. My explanation: When the Sith conquered the Star Systems around Korriban, some of them were inhabited by humans. Some humans moved to Korriban for job opportunities etc.

This makes sense, but is inconsistent with past sources (Tales of the Jedi comics mainly, but can you blame me? They introduced the idea of a Sith species in the first place), which show the ancient Sith Empire at the time of Naga Sadow being almost entirely red-skinned. I thought about this one a lot and it made sense to me that the new SIth Empire did what you said, and started conquering surrounding star systems after settling on Dromund Kaas which led to a large population of human slaves. Yet, I would wonder, what planets or parts of the galaxy were conquered before the invasion of the Republic that had not been by the old Sith Empire? Korriban, Dromund Kaas and Athiss (I think) were all a part of the Empire before the Great Hyperspace War. I do think this one can be explained but I also remember in the video you mention (it talked about Odile Vaiken and stuff right?) it being implied that the Empire consisted largely of humans shortly after it landed on Dromund Kaas, in which case your explanation is more applicable, yet still inconsistent for me. But maybe I'm just being too nitpicky.

 

Well, if Tulak Hord really was a Dark Jedi, he could have used a lightsaber. The knowledge about the construction of lightsabers became lost after him.

Yeah again I think what you say here is solid. Does it say anywhere though that the knowledge of lightsabers was lost after Tulak Hord? I don't recall but I support the idea.

 

Possible explanation: He was a fallen Jedi and self-proclaimed Sith Lord, similar to Freedon Nadd.

Makes sense to me. Another thing the Tales of the Jedi did was introduce Freedon Nadd and Exar Kun, and I think it was implied there that this sort of thing had happened not frequently, but certainly more than once. So it's a solid possibility unless Terrak claims at some point to have been a part of the ancient Empire.

 

Not if it was a native Sith ritual.

This was the explanation I thought of as well. I think she said that "Dark Lords" -- implying Dark Lords of the Sith, which title didn't come into being until after the Dark Jedi landed on Korriban -- had been doing it for over 10,000 years. But honestly this one is so minor and the explanation fits so well that it doesn't really bother me at all, it's only a straw on top of everything else I think.

 

I think it easily could be both. A poison created by Sith alchemy.

Sadly, I haven't actually had a chance to read the KotOR comics which (this all according to Wookieepedia) introduced an exiled Dark Jedi then Sith Lord named Karness Muur, whom it deals with fairly extensively and was supposed to have created the rakghouls with dark side sorcery. Having not read these comics I can't make a definitive judgment here by any means but I do know that rakghouls themselves were first introduced in KotOR I as having a mysterious background. But I like your explanation: a poison created by Sith alchemy. It makes perfect sense, actually. My only problem was that on Taris (Republic side) one sidequest asserted that they were pure manifestations of the dark side whereas another asserted they were the result of a poison experiment by Czerka or some other evil biochemical corporation operating on Taris at the time of Revan -- which you then retrieve and develop a vaccine from, giving it some level of credibility. It just felt incohesive to me and like the writers really weren't working together on this one. Like I said I haven't read the KotOR comics so there may be further revelations there but I do like your idea a lot.

 

I don't know what you mean exactly, but since the Mandalorians are only loosly connected normally, every Clan could be different.

Yeah that sounds right, and there's really not too much of a problem here, which is why I mentioned it in passing, but still a lot of stuff that may be inconsistent or at least unexplained for me. Like OldVengeance said it actually started with KotOR I here: the Tales of the Jedi made the Mandalorian crusaders who were allied with Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma entirely of the Taung species. Then KotOR made them mostly human. This was supposedly retconned by the KotOR comics into the idea that the Neo-Crusaders recruited humans and other aliens into the Taung remnant of Mandalorian warriors for their massive battle against the Republic. I'm ok with this so far. In KotOR II, though, Canderous Ordo becomes the new Mandalore and starts reuniting the scattered Mandalorians, who have become mercenaries after their defeat in the Mandalorian Wars, to help defend the Republic against the True Sith threat that Revan went out to fight. Then in TOR they're allied with the Empire (which is supposed to be the True Sith). I remember there was some stuff about Imperial manipulation and a puppet Mandalore but what happened to Canderous Ordo's legacy? Suddenly despite his efforts (in KotOR II you can actually go around the galaxy and defeat and recruit all the scattered Mandalorians you see standing around if Canderous is in your party) two hundred(?) years later the Mandalorians are all scattered mercenaries again. Perhaps there's some in-game explanation for this but I haven't seen it yet.

 

I agree, probably most of these are errors.

I think so too. For the most part, I like TOR a lot and I think it had and even still has a lot of potential to shed valuable (operative word here) light on the lore of this era, which (if you couldn't tell) is one of my favorites as far as Star Wars goes. I do feel though that it wasted a lot of that potential due to lack of effort or unity on the part of the writing team and like OldVeangeance I've almost come to expect it. But the benefit of it being an online game is that this stuff can, if BioWare will deign to take notice of my cries, be fixed and improved.

 

Side note for Eleutherius, I have a strong feeling you are going to hate the SI Belsavis attempted lore. Arguably the retcon it tries to make has already been stealth retconned away making it completely pointless, but I still strongly suspect you are going to despise it.

Oh man, now you have me worried. You've guessed pretty accurately that I despise a lot retcons so I'm almost afraid to find out what happened with this.

Edited May 27, 2012 by Eleutherius

[Maaruin]

I think you're right to say that it does make sense as an explanation but I think it's one which is ultimately a retcon. Since it's Naga Sadow's tomb and the headgear looks exactly like his, it's hard for me to accept the idea that the skeleton you see was not originally intended to be his.

 

Yeah, probably he was supposed to be Naga Sadow. By the designer who created the tomb or this chamber. He might haven't done enough research or he assumed the players would expect it that way.

 

About the lightsaber, though, I think you're totally right and that fact slipped my mind. Nice catch on that one. But if this so, then there are other problems. After Baras says that the lightsaber is old and powerful, he says that it's housed where few Sith have ever set foot. If every acolyte goes there to complete their trials then how are there so many Sith? It would make more sense, I think, if the last trial for every generation of acolytes were different, and this happened to be the last trial for the SW's generation. I'll have to doublecheck the codex on this one, though.

 

If I understand the trials correctly, the first trials are given by an overseer and the later trials by the Sith Lord who is searching for an apprentice. Since Baras is a Darth, he might try to find some extra hard trials. If you watch how he gives the quest in this

, it really makes sense if you assume the trail was prepared on his order.

 

Naga Sadow's tomb seems to be the last trial for everyone, but not everyone has to go into this secret chamber.

 

I think it's totally solid, dude. It's what I've believed ever since the idea that Tulak Hord was a master of the lightsaber was presented in KotOR II and really it does make good sense. Or, even if not the direct successor, the third in line or something -- Ajunta Pall does imply that he was betrayed and killed by a fellow Sith Lord, if I recall. So along these lines, would you want to say that Khem Val participated in the fight with the Dark Jedi before they were exiled?

 

That's what I want to say. According to Wookiepedia Dashades were employed as combat instructors for Jedi, but it doesn't specify the timeframe.

 

This makes sense, but is inconsistent with past sources (Tales of the Jedi comics mainly, but can you blame me? They introduced the idea of a Sith species in the first place), which show the ancient Sith Empire at the time of Naga Sadow being almost entirely red-skinned. I thought about this one a lot and it made sense to me that the new SIth Empire did what you said, and started conquering surrounding star systems after settling on Dromund Kaas which led to a large population of human slaves. Yet, I would wonder, what planets or parts of the galaxy were conquered before the invasion of the Republic that had not been by the old Sith Empire? Korriban, Dromund Kaas and Athiss (I think) were all a part of the Empire before the Great Hyperspace War. I do think this one can be explained but I also remember in the video you mention (it talked about Odile Vaiken and stuff right?) it being implied that the Empire consisted largely of humans shortly after it landed on Dromund Kaas, in which case your explanation is more applicable, yet still inconsistent for me. But maybe I'm just being too nitpicky.

 

I found a map of the old Sith empire. I'm not sure if it is accurate, though (position of Dromund Kaas).

 

The timeline video was about Odile Vaiken and it said and showed that Vaiken fled from Korriban, together with other Humans and Sith. So yeah, inconsistency with the comics, but not that hard to fit it together.

 

Yeah again I think what you say here is solid. Does it say anywhere though that the knowledge of lightsabers was lost after Tulak Hord? I don't recall but I support the idea.

 

It's never said, but since even Dark Lords Marka Ragnos or Naga Sadow didn't use lightsabers, I think it's the best explanation.

 

Makes sense to me. Another thing the Tales of the Jedi did was introduce Freedon Nadd and Exar Kun, and I think it was implied there that this sort of thing had happened not frequently, but certainly more than once. So it's a solid possibility unless Terrak claims at some point to have been a part of the ancient Empire.

 

I'm not sure if it really says "thousands of years ago" (like the OP said), if it does, it is a minor error and I just understand it as "hundreds of years ago".

 

This was the explanation I thought of as well. I think she said that "Dark Lords" -- implying Dark Lords of the Sith, which title didn't come into being until after the Dark Jedi landed on Korriban -- had been doing it for over 10,000 years. But honestly this one is so minor and the explanation fits so well that it doesn't really bother me at all, it's only a straw on top of everything else I think.

 

I think she

"acolytes".

 

 

Sadly, I haven't actually had a chance to read the KotOR comics which (this all according to Wookieepedia) introduced an exiled Dark Jedi then Sith Lord named Karness Muur, whom it deals with fairly extensively and was supposed to have created the rakghouls with dark side sorcery. Having not read these comics I can't make a definitive judgment here by any means but I do know that rakghouls themselves were first introduced in KotOR I as having a mysterious background. But I like your explanation: a poison created by Sith alchemy. It makes perfect sense, actually. My only problem was that on Taris (Republic side) one sidequest asserted that they were pure manifestations of the dark side whereas another asserted they were the result of a poison experiment by Czerka or some other evil biochemical corporation operating on Taris at the time of Revan -- which you then retrieve and develop a vaccine from, giving it some level of credibility. It just felt incohesive to me and like the writers really weren't working together on this one. Like I said I haven't read the KotOR comics so there may be further revelations there but I do like your idea a lot.

 

I think the writes didn't work together good enough too. But also: not everything an NPC says might be correct. They might exaggerate a little (dark side manifestations) or have their conspiracy theories ("Czerka did it!").

 

Yeah that sounds right, and there's really not too much of a problem here, which is why I mentioned it in passing, but still a lot of stuff that may be inconsistent or at least unexplained for me. Like OldVengeance said it actually started with KotOR I here: the Tales of the Jedi made the Mandalorian crusaders who were allied with Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma entirely of the Taung species. Then KotOR made them mostly human. This was supposedly retconned by the KotOR comics into the idea that the Neo-Crusaders recruited humans and other aliens into the Taung remnant of Mandalorian warriors for their massive battle against the Republic. I'm ok with this so far. In KotOR II, though, Canderous Ordo becomes the new Mandalore and starts reuniting the scattered Mandalorians, who have become mercenaries after their defeat in the Mandalorian Wars, to help defend the Republic against the True Sith threat that Revan went out to fight. Then in TOR they're allied with the Empire (which is supposed to be the True Sith). I remember there was some stuff about Imperial manipulation and a puppet Mandalore but what happened to Canderous Ordo's legacy? Suddenly despite his efforts (in KotOR II you can actually go around the galaxy and defeat and recruit all the scattered Mandalorians you see standing around if Canderous is in your party) two hundred(?) years later the Mandalorians are all scattered mercenaries again. Perhaps there's some in-game explanation for this but I haven't seen it yet.

 

I think after Canderous Ordo died, no new Mandalore took his place. (AFAIK Mandalors are only needed it they call for war. Since they had been allies with the republic, they just became mercenaries again until a new mandalore called.)

I also think in Torian's companion storyline this is explored a little further, but I didn't play BH.

 

I think so too. For the most part, I like TOR a lot and I think it had and even still has a lot of potential to shed valuable (operative word here) light on the lore of this era, which (if you couldn't tell) is one of my favorites as far as Star Wars goes. I do feel though that it wasted a lot of that potential due to lack of effort or unity on the part of the writing team and like OldVeangeance I've almost come to expect it. But the benefit of it being an online game is that this stuff can, if BioWare will deign to take notice of my cries, be fixed and improved.

 

I think "lore freaks" like us suffer a little under the fact that Bioware wanted to give this game a movie feeling. (Imperial accents... I can't think of any way how it could become the coreworld accent.)

[Ranadiel_Marius]

Oh man, now you have me worried. You've guessed pretty accurately that I despise a lot retcons so I'm almost afraid to find out what happened with this.

 

I'm going to give you the "retcon" in spoilers and you can choose whether or not to read it or not.

 

 

In the SI Belsavis storyline it is "revealed" that a rakatan machine that calls itself the Mother Machine is responsible for creating a number of nonhuman species(Zabrak, Twi'lek and Rattattaki....probably spelled something wrong there) as part of an attempted Rakatan experiment to study force sensitivty so that the Rakatans could restore their connection to the force......so yeah.

 

However this has basically already been shown to be false in the Dawn of the Jedi where there are Twi'leks on other planets already before the Infinite Empire has fallen, meaning the force loss hadn't started yet. So basically the Mother Machine was retconned into being just crazy and/or stupid within a few months of the game's release. Hurray for a universe with many people working on it at the same time!