Forum:CT:TOR and video game canon

Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:TOR and video game canon

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The result of the debate was Both Republic and Empire quests should be considered and The presumed canon resolution for Jedi/Smuggler/Trooper quests is the light side dialogue option, while the presumed canon resolution for Sith/Bounty Hunter/Agent quests is the dark side dialogue option 1358 (Talk) 17:16, February 22, 2012 (UTC)

With the game on shelves for a couple of weeks now, I think it's about time we have this discussion. How are we going to treat the player stories of Star Wars: The Old Republic? In the past it was easier. Whether Jedi Knight or Knights of the Old Republic, it was quite simple to identify the major plot points and operate on the thus-far universally true assumption that the light-side options are always the canonical choices and outcome of the game as a whole. TOR is a more complicated animal. Bioware has crafted a story-driven MMO where it appears that light side choices for Jedi/Republic as well as dark side choices for Sith/Empire are correct. Since this--particularly the Imperial side of the coin--is in direct contravention of how EU gaming canon has been treated in the past, how are we to proceed? Are all the Jedi/Republic plots and victories canon, while the Sith/Empire plots are relegated to the dustbin of BTS? Or should we be treating all character story plot points, both Republic and Empire, as correct canon? -- DigiFluid 19:17, January 5, 2012 (UTC)

Vote

Republic only

Only Jedi and Republic quests should be considered canon.

Both sides

Both Republic and Empire quests should be considered

  1. For a game with this many hours of gameplay and quests to be considered, I think it would be an absolute shame to throw out half the game based on a principle that was designed around a single-player game experience rather than a multiplay-centric one. Further to that, the only indication we've had so far about the resolution of the Cold War and the Republic/Empire divide is that the time period of the game is when the peace is broken. We have no indication so far as to how it will be resolved; if it's just a matter of the peace being broken and neither side 'winning', then we can't possibly justify one side's plot being more correct than the other. -- DigiFluid 19:17, January 5, 2012 (UTC)
  2. All quests need to be treated as canon, regardless of the player's alignment. The real question should be the assumed outcome. Please see my note below. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 19:27, January 5, 2012 (UTC)
  3. Per Trayus. Master Jonathan Training Room Friday, January 20, 2012, 17:52 UTC
  4. Per ^ – Tm_T@Wookieepedia:~$ 07:32, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  5. This should be a no brainer. ~SavageBOB sig 13:23, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  6. Meh Per something or someone somewhere. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 14:58, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  7. I kinda feel this goes without saying, but just in case. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 16:09, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  8. —Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 16:22, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  9. Per Bob.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 17:07, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  10. JangFett (Talk) 03:15, January 25, 2012 (UTC)
  11. Agreed. Corellian PremierRobotechAll along the watchtower 03:24, January 25, 2012 (UTC)
  12. Always good to have common sense down as policy. Bella'Mia 05:00, January 25, 2012 (UTC)
  13. Let me just slide in here. IFYLOFD (Floyd's crib) 01:50, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Main vote

I feel like the wrong question is being asked in this CT. We are obviously going to treat all available quests as canon unless given official word that this is not the case—that means that both Republic and Imperial missions are legitimate Star Wars lore. The real question is the outcome of these missions. Traditionally, this wiki has assumed that player characters in RPG games have taken the light-sided path; this has been the case with Jedi Academy and KotOR I and II. However, in all of these instances, the PC's primary story was that of a Jedi, and the game had a clear ending. This is not the case with TOR. In The Old Republic, Imperial characters, particularly the Sith, are intended to be dark-siders. All promotional material and developer releases indicate that these classes were made so that the character could embrace the dark side. Furthermore, the game doesn't have a clear dark-side ending that ruins other canon—Kyle Katarn doesn't displace Emperor Palpatine, the Sith don't destroy the Republic, and Jaden Korr doesn't fly off in a Star Destroyer. The war just keeps going.

So I think the real question is this: do we assume that all Imperial characters take the dark-side options in Imperial quests, or do we continue the tradition and assume light-sidedness for all characters? I would advocate that we assume dark-sided options for Imperial quests and light-sided options for Republic quests, but a third option would be to avoid posting quest conclusions at all and instead put both options in the BTS as possible outcomes. I don't like that, however, as it leaves the body of the article incomplete and therefore non-comprehensive. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 19:40, January 5, 2012 (UTC)

A great addition, and a great question. It crossed my mind as well, when writing the original question, but I thought it would be preferred/necessary to establish how we're treating class stories broadly before delving into the specifics of how they're resolved.
I'm of like mind with you on this in that we ought to assume light/dark as per the side that the class belongs to.
Maybe we should add a second vote to this thread concerning how quests are resolved. Ie: "IF all class stories are considered canon, THEN we should treat the end results of said quests such that Jedi/Republic pick light side options and Sith/Empire pick dark side resolutions. Agree/Disagree." Or maybe the question should be posed separately, I don't know. -- DigiFluid 19:59, January 5, 2012 (UTC)
I agree that Republic/Jedi-sided characters should have assume light-side choices, and the opposite for Sith/Empire-sided ones. I'd say another vote is in order. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 23:13, January 5, 2012 (UTC)

Side quests

Something else I think we should open to discussion is the status of TOR side/non-main-story quests with regards to canon. While some are certainly frivolous and just exercises in...whatever Bioware felt like making us do at that particular time, there are others which add a great deal of depth and texture to the EU at large. But since these are considered side quests and not part of the main story, I think we should discuss how we're going to treat them. I would love to treat them as canon, but I also hesitate at the thought. Since they're player driven, and by their very nature can't be easily slotted into the main class quests, it'll be pretty much impossible to add these into class character pages without either a separate section (say, "other adventures") or sheer guesswork. There is enough to them, though, that it'd be a terrible loss to ignore their content outright. Definitely looking for thoughts and opinions on this one. -- DigiFluid 19:17, January 5, 2012 (UTC)

  • All quests are going to be treated as canon regardless of whether or not they are "main" or "side". The only thing that is questionable is the outcome. As far as the class character articles are concerned, they should only contain information on the primary story path and any additional class-specific quests. All other missions should be covered in separate articles, whether they be an event article for the actions taken, or a biographical article for the quest-giver and involved NPCs. In those articles, the player character should only be referred to as "an agent of the Sith Empire" or "an operative working on behalf of the Republic" or somesuch. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 19:26, January 5, 2012 (UTC)



Vote Round 2: Light vs. Dark

Consensus above seems to be that the original issue was a foregone conclusion--that all class story quests should be considered canon regardless of whether they're for Republic or Sith Empire. If this changes, we can continue to discuss.

The other prevailing opinion in the opening of this discussion is how we ought to consider the resolution of class quests in SWTOR. To that end:

By side

The presumed canon resolution for Jedi/Smuggler/Trooper quests is the light side dialogue option, while the presumed canon resolution for Sith/Bounty Hunter/Agent quests is the dark side dialogue option.

  1. This is the best path, IMO. It both makes sense in the context of the game's storytelling, and it's the most workable option for the purposes of writing. -- DigiFluid 21:35, January 19, 2012 (UTC)
  2. I like it because it finally gives the empire/sith some video game continuity and seems the most reasonably. Darth Needham 02:10, January 20, 2012 (UTC)
  3. Per my reasoning above. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 02:11, January 20, 2012 (UTC)
  4. Per Trayus. Jonjedigrandmaster (Talk) 16:21, January 20, 2012 (UTC)
  5. We've never had this kind of situation before. We've had player characters who worked for the bad guys, but the only plot choices there were whether a particular mission was 100% complete, not an actual decision about the outcome. In the absence of an official statement, this seems the best way to go. Sith are "evil," so we assume they make "evil" decisions until Leland or some other high muckety-muck says otherwise. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 16:28, January 20, 2012 (UTC)
  6. Per Culator. We can just keep doing it the way we did it for KOTOR and the others like that. Write the article as a hundred percent game completion, be that good or evil hundred percent completion.—Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 16:43, January 20, 2012 (UTC)
  7. Per Culator. —MJ— War Room Friday, January 20, 2012, 17:55 UTC
  8. graestan(talk) 18:16, January 20, 2012 (UTC)
  9. ...until we have reason to go case-by-case. – Tm_T@Wookieepedia:~$ 07:32, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  10. With the HUGE caveat that this is only a stopgap measure until we hear something official on this. ~SavageBOB sig 13:23, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  11. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 14:53, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  12. Per Bob again.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 17:08, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  13. JangFett (Talk) 03:16, January 25, 2012 (UTC)
  14. IFYLOFD (Floyd's crib) 01:51, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Light side only

In keeping with how video game canon has been up to this point, all class quests should be assumed to have ended with the light side option.


Case-by-case

Every single plot-related article should be discussed to death before we can write parts of articles.

  1. How will Wookieepedia determine a sweeping lightside/darkside consensus? If a quest path awards DSP then it is Darkside and if it awards LSP then it is LS? OK, that is straight forward. But what happens when a quest has more than one successful result that awards a particular brand of LSP/DSP? SinisterSamurai 09:31, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't think there are any quests that have, say, two dark side options (options that award DSPs) in a single dialogue choice, or vice versa. Are there? ~SavageBOB sig 22:28, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
      • I don't think I've come across any, so I don't know that this would be an issue. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 23:00, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
        • Tsk tsk, BioWare. How disappointingly binary. SinisterSamurai 00:34, January 26, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion for Round 2

One problem with the automatic assumption is that Bioware may eventually decide "Hey, the Sith Warrior was actually light side (or as light side as a Sith can be)". I would, personally, advise writing the character arcs out in as neutral a manner as possible. For example, instead of "killed everyone with an orbital strike" (dark side) or "went in personally to save as many civilian lives as possible" (light side), we'd phrase it as "The enemy base was neutralized", or do so as much as can be done neutrally. Perhaps we can have an all-else-fails default, like Dark Side for Imperial and Light Side for Republic, but the majority of the article should be written neutrally, then in different sections, one "Light Side" and one "Dark Side" (or really any section focusing on divergent branches), at least until we have a better idea of what is more inclined to be considered "canon". There's also the option of just having two different articles, IE, Havoc Squad Commander (Light Side) and Havoc Squad Commander (Dark Side), but that becomes extremely clunky and difficult, requiring multiple articles. Just my two cents into how to deal with this. LukeDanger 22:02, January 20, 2012 (UTC)

  • More food for thought: What about flashpoints that can be played by either faction? Sure, the participants can be generic spacers or whatever, but do we describe the outcome as full LS, full DS, or just leave it ambiguous as suggested above? DD97Which bear is best? 17:05, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
    • If they can be completed by either faction the outcome should remain ambiguous. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 21:14, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Trayus. That's a harder one to resolve, and since we can't pick our own canonical answer, it's best to be ambiguous. -- DigiFluid 14:36, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

So, now that it appears we'll be assuming dark-sidedness for Imperial, we need dark side assumption templates. I've created {{GameDS}} for main class quests and {{GameDSmechanics}} for Empire side quests. Just a heads up. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 21:19, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

Cheers! -- DigiFluid 14:36, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
  • My only concern for something like this is smugglers and bounty hunters. I agree that it's naturally the most likely outcome that the Sith will be dark and the Jedi light, but smugglers and bounty hunters are both "rogue" classes that could swing in either direction due to their nature as independent contractors. Bella'Mia 05:00, January 25, 2012 (UTC)
    • To be fair, the game does allow for light-side Sith or dark-side Jedi, too, but I see what you're getting at. I think "light for Republic" and "dark for Empire" may be all we can really do, though, until Bioware or LFL or Leland Chee or someone comes out and gives us more guidelines about what they consider the "canonical" course for any class, let alone the gray-area ones that you mention. (Oh, and troopers and Imperial agents could also conceivably be neutral in that they are not Force-using classes, so there's them to consider too.) ~SavageBOB sig 13:20, January 25, 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, how long does a CT vote remain open before the voting closes and it's adopted as policy? I'd like to start using Trayus' new tags, but I guess we should wait until the vote closes. (And yes, I realize it's only been up for 5 days ;)) -- DigiFluid 14:39, January 24, 2012 (UTC)

Well I defied my own good sense. I stuck them onto the Unidentified Sith Warrior (Cold War) page, hoping that they'd halt an on-going edit war with someone who hasn't bothered to read this discussion despite repeated urging to do so. -- DigiFluid 23:54, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
With the differences of the plot, and literally no way to know which one is canonical, both stories should be written out in the article for each class.
I vote for either two articles or two sections in each article detailing the different class choices. 62.199.202.65 16:21, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Nomenclature discussion

I've been meaning to poll the community about this, so this seems like an appropriate place to tack this on: What should we be calling these player characters? With Galaxies, there wasn't a class-specific storyline, so everything was done by "the spacer." Here we have eight unique storylines. We've already moved the Sith Inquisitor to Kallig because of his ancestor's line "You are Lord Kallig now." For similar reasons, the Imperial agent is Cipher 9, and the Jedi Consular is the Scorekeeper's Herald. But that leaves us with five "unidentifieds." I'm not trying to mandate anything yet, because I haven't played (or watched on YouTube) very much, but does anyone have any ideas? -- Darth Culator (Talk) 16:09, January 23, 2012 (UTC)

  • The trooper is the commanding officer of Havoc Squad for most of the game, so Havoc Squad Commander (That War After the Cold War, perhaps? Do we have a name for the new war, yet? DD97Which bear is best? 16:59, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
Great Galactic War II: Electric Boogaloo? ;) In seriousness though, I'm thinking that it'll be revealed in the upcoming fourth TOR novel, which is apparently to be set after the time period that the game spans (since, apparently, the peace is broken by the end of the game). And hopefully it's more in tune with Revan (which Karpyshyn also wrote) than Deceived and Fatal Alliance in which NOTHING F'ING HAPPENED. -- DigiFluid 07:24, January 28, 2012 (UTC)
  • And aren't the Jedi apprentices to spcific masters? I haven't played those classes yet, but I've sat in on some class quests. So-and-so's final apprentice? DD97Which bear is best? 17:13, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
  • All I can speak to at this point is the smuggler, who really has few if any distinguishing features. He or she is the captain of a ship, but I don't think it even has an official name... I'll let you know if anything further developed as I progress further into the story, though. I also wanted to comment on "the spacer" of SWG. I think that term will still apply in many cases, specifically when describing missions that are available to many classes. These are generally the non-story quests that you can pick up throughout the world. An example is working with the Gree droids on Coruscant to solve various infrastructure problems; Jedi can do this, smugglers, can do this, and troopers can do this. For these missions, in our articles, I still think it's safe to use "a spacer." So, "A spacer helped solve various problems with Coruscant's infrastructure at the behest of a group of droids belonging to the Gree..." For class quests, of course, we should use more specific terminology. ~SavageBOB sig 21:18, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
    • I have a bit of a problem with the "spacer" term for TOR. It worked for Galaxies because, despite having a specific profession, the individual players could align with whoever they want, or not align at all. However, in TOR, it's either the Empire or the Republic, and your class is your whole existence. For that reason, as I stated at the bottom of the Senate Hall here, it would be better to state that these side quests were completed by "an agent of the Republic" or "interests working for the Sith Empire". The term spacer is too specific, and would exclude some of the classes in the game. From our own article: "Spacer, or mariner, was a slang term that referred to those who made their living flying across space, including pilots and crew." While that may be accurate for a smuggler or even a bounty hunter, I hardly think that applies to a Sith, Jedi, Imperial Agent, or trooper. If we can just use the vague "agents" or "operatives" and the faction which completes the quest, then we can avoid the usage of an inaccurate term like "spacer". And for quests that are available to both factions (like operations), we can state that "forces from one of the two warring factions" completed the mission. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 21:36, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
      • I always just assumed "spacer" meant someone who traveled through space. I'll check to see where I got this notion from, but if it's true, "spacer" works for all the classes past Level 10 or so. But I like your idea of "operative" or "agent" or "someone working for the Republic/Empire" as well. As for Operations, are those the same as Flashpoints? I think the FP have different storylines depending on whether you're Republic or Empire, like the Hammer Station one for instance, though I could be wrong. ~SavageBOB sig 23:35, January 23, 2012 (UTC)
      • Just a follow-up: I checked the CSWE, and "spacer" does indeed mean someone who earns their living by traveling through space, not just someone who regularly travels through space for any reason, as I thought. Thus, for generic missions open to all characters from a particular side, "an agent" or "an operative" or "someone working for X" is probably best. ~SavageBOB sig 12:54, January 24, 2012 (UTC)
  • I can suggest "Ace (Cold War smuggler)" for the smuggler, as it's his call-sign in the Republic Fleet Aegis, or whatever it is he's a part of. DD97Which bear is best? 06:23, February 6, 2012 (UTC)

Multiple light-side or dark-side options in a single choice

  • This pertains to the discussion above, under "case by case": I actually did come across several conversation choices while playing last night where my smuggler character was faced with more than one option simultaneously that granted dark side points. One example is the (quest spoiler) quest "Eco-Terrorists," where you have to track down a woman and can then either let her go (light side), punch her (dark side), or kill her (dark side). There are two important points here, though: in this and other quests that I noticed last night, there was only ever one light side option, and as the smuggler is a Republic character, by the terms of this CT, there would be no problem, since we would assume he chose the (only) light side choice. Second, at least in the "Eco-Terrorist" case, one dark side option grants 50 dark side points (punching), while the other grants 100 (killing). If we come across any Republic quests that give two light side options, or any Empire quests that give two simultaneous dark side options, we may need to amend this CT later to indicate that we consider the option that gives the most light side or dark side points. And if we encounter any quests where there are two light side (Republic) or dark side (Empire) options simultaneously that give the same amount of light side or dark side points, I don't know what we should do. But these are all ifs; as I said, the smuggler having only one light side choice but two dark side does not break the terms of this CT. ~SavageBOB sig 15:06, January 26, 2012 (UTC)
  • Just to followup: there are also certain conversation choices where one option will grant light side or dark side points, but the others don't grant anything. In this case, do we assume the Republic characters choose the light side choice (not the neutral ones) and the Empire characters the dark side choice (not the neutral ones)? ~SavageBOB sig 15:12, January 26, 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.