story of SWTOR

Many who play Star Wars: The Old Republic feel disoriented and confused when they first log in and Han Solo isn’t there to shake their hand. This uneasy feeling that you’re not exactly where you think you are takes over very quickly as you realize the game is nothing at all like the movies, which is completely true, as it happens roughly 3,500 years before the events in the movies. The story, interestingly enough, has little or nothing to do with the movies, so the biggest thing to remember is to forget they even existed.

Why? Well, the way “lore†works in the Star Wars universe is that the movies are the end all go to resource for what really happened. Everything else is peripheral to the movies. There is actually a big movement internally by Lucas Licensing to tag plot elements with how canon they are. Since there are so many different authors and companies working with licensed material there is a lot of overlap, but the general idea is that the plot of the games we’re playing now fits into the continuity, up and until Lucas decides to do something with it. A lot of elements don’t, but are there for either gameplay purposes or some other reason.

So understanding that, let’s start at the beginning of this story.

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Even Further Away
Our story begins with “The Great Hyperspace War†which happened in 1357 BTC or 5,000 BBY (mystical moon dates, BTC is “Before the Battle of Coruscant†or shortly before the game starts and BBY is “Before the Battle of Yavin†which is the movies). The Sith Empire was founded roughly 2,000 years beforehand by a group of Dark Jedis that were cast out by the Republic. They found themselves on Korriban, where a native tribal species known as the Sith resided. This is where much of the “Sith Worship†begins as the Dark Jedi were much more technologically advanced and cooler than the native Sith and were seen more as gods than men.

They all sat on their planet and nearby worlds for about 2,000 years having forgot about the Dark Jedi, the Galactic Republic, and other assorted things. The Galactic Republic too had forgotten about them. It wasn’t until two Galactic Explorers, Gav and Jori Daragon, landed on Korriban during the battle between Naga Sadow and Ludo Kreesh (which were fighting over who’d take over after their recent Dark Lord had passed) that this all came into play again. Ludo Kreesh wanted to slay the two explorers, but Naga Sadow staged their escape and took them to his fortress, using it was a way to galvanize the Sith Lords against the Republic.

A long string of events happened and Naga Sadow got his way. He retired to a sphere orbiting a star and entered battle meditation where he led the Sith’s forces against the Galactic Republic. His campaign was successful, until Gav Daragon returned and damaged his sphere, giving the Republic an edge. More events transpired and the Sith were utterly defeated as they broke out fighting one another toward the end. The Galactic Republic sat out to purge all of the Sith’s worlds and remove any remaining trace of their existence while the Sith scattered and one group eventually found Dromund Kaas where they worked to rebuild their great empire.

Knights of the Old Republic
The Sith, having been defeated, founded Kaas City as a place to sit and lick their wounds. The actual planet was first introduced in Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, a game released in 1998, and subsequently used for adventurers by Luke Skywalker and as a basis for our game. Anyway, they sat on this planet and began rebuilding their empire, their fleet, and much more. Over the span of roughly 1,000 years they sat and waited, until the events of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

If you haven’t played at least the original game then you can stop here and go play it if you wish, otherwise I’ll provide a brief spoiler of what transpires. Revan and Malak, two Jedi Knights turned to the Dark Side by events in the Mandalorian Wars, found their way to Dromund Kaas. There they met with the Emperor who put into motion the plan to capture an ancient device known as the Star Forge and with it begin decimating the Galactic Republic. They went on a whimsical adventure to recover the Star Maps, found the Star Forge, and created a giant galactic fleet to take on the Republic.

A huge Jedi Civil War started as many of the Jedi were turned to the Dark Side and the Sith Academy on Korriban was restarted by Revan. Another long string of events occurred and during a fight with a Republic boarding party, Darth Malak fired on the Bridge of Revan’s ship. He escaped and had his memory wiped by Bastila Shan and was implanted into Republic society with a fake name and as a Republic soldier. During the Battle for Taris Revan escaped to the surface as the Endar Spire was destroyed by Sith forces.

For the sake of brevity, Revan regained his memories and returned to the Star Forge where it was destroyed along with Darth Malak. From there the story can be learned through books and more, but the basic idea is the Republic was weakened from battle and while the Emperor’s plans were thwarted, they were at least accelerated thanks to the damage done.

That takes us to our modern time, where The Great Galactic War begins. The hidden Sith Empire moves from Dromund Kaas and begins the invasion of Galactic Space, sacking Coruscant and, by all means, pretty much destroying a large portion of the Galactic Republic. The Treaty of Coruscant was then signed and began the Cold War that the game takes place in now.

The Death Star
So, where does all of this fit in with the movies we know and love? Well, outside of the pop culture references, not much of anywhere. The movies explore the events that happened around The Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the first Death Star. It’s more of a dystopian future of what we see now, where the Empire actually wins and by Empire, it has almost nothing to do with the Empire we know now.

See, I bet you wonder why the citizens of this (SWTOR) Empire love and adore it. Well, that’s because this Empire, while evil, isn’t exactly a terrible thing. The Sith themselves are a bit out of their minds, but it’s still a functioning government that is generally good to its people. It’s rather oppressive, sure, and the entire plot resembles WWI (including the similarities between the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Coruscant) but there are plenty of people who are trying to reform their society that’s gone out of control with the amount of land they’ve conquered.

On the flip side, the Empire from the movies is an Empire ran by a single Sith Lord, its military made up more of clones than actual adoring fans, and is the direct result of a major power grab by Darth Sidious (Palpatine), apprentice to Darth Plagueis (who he killed in his sleep). These Sith, long after the fall of the Sith we know now, were more or less fallen Jedi vs. part of the actual race of Sith and the Sith Empire. Darth Maul was not Sith, he was a Zabrak, if you were curious on that point.

There, the Empire was essentially a replication of the Old Sith. If we think about it out of context, the Old Sith is a replication out of the movies, but let’s not go too far down that dark path. Anyway, the primary difference is that the Empire out of the movies was created by one man who wanted to rule them all while the Empire in the game is an actual society that has its own leaders, planets, army, and people with differing views than the Galactic Republic.

Things to Understand
Knowing the back story doesn’t answer some of the odd questions like “how can you have a Dark Side Jedi or Light Side Sith?†Well, these are both easy and difficult to answer. First, breaking the third wall, we have to understand that only one story will be written as the official history. In KOTOR, Revan could have not destroyed the Star Forge and used it to take over the galaxy; in addition to be female and make a lot of crazy choices, but those were not accepted as the canon ending. So while you could play the game and get those endings, it doesn’t mean that is the ending you’ll see.

So, by all means, you could go around as a Sith Warrior and plant flowers all day and in the end, the powers that be may decide your true story was to go and destroy an entire Republic fleet. That doesn’t mean you have to accept that version of the story, but it does explain why you have the choices to.

In a more in-universe answer to the question, your character doesn’t draw power from the Dark Side or Light Side, which means that while you might get upset, you don’t necessarily start giving into those feelings. In KOTOR, your alignment would affect the cost of certain skills, but such a system would hamper the fun in an MMO.

That’s the same excuse you could use for a lot of issues throughout the game. Why does no one care if you do this or that? Well, it’s an MMO and it’s hard to program in thousands of quests while giving each one synergy with another. Likewise, it’s obvious that 99% of the quests you complete are more or less background stories that have no meaning on the overarching goals.

I hope you’ve found this look at the story so far interesting and it arms you with the knowledge to not freak out when Darth Vader doesn’t roll in to congratulate you for leveling up. There is so much more to this story that a simple primer could not even accomplish. Books upon books and games too that bring all of this together. If you’re interested in the backdrop for SWTOR, I suggest playing through KOTOR 1 and then picking up the accompanying Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan book. While many fans don’t care for it too much, it provides the closing bits for Revan’s story. Then pick up Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived and Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance for more of a current day backdrop (and a better understanding of why Darth Malgus stands there issuing orders all day on holo calls).

What’s your favorite part of the story? Let us know in the comments section below.