Obsidian Forum Community > The canon debate

Darth Jebus

Mar 15 2005, 05:50 PM

With regards to the original KOTOR, here's what the official site said about it:

QUOTE

A galaxy as ancient as ours is filled with inexplicable wonders and secrets lost to the ages. Long before the Galactic Republic held together the scattered worlds of the galaxy, the Rakatan Empire held many systems in thrall. The Rakata were incredibly advanced, but their warlike and aggressive spirit was their undoing. Their crowning achievent was the Star Forge, the ultimate war machine.
The Star Forge was an enormous space-station/factory that harnessed the power of an entire star. Within its hull was a vast, intricate network of automated machines designed to mass-produce weaponry, droids, and starships. However, it was more than merely a metal construct. Its shadowed cavities were infused with the dark side of Force, endowing it with evil, breathing life.

The Rakata home world orbited the sun to which the Star Forge was linked. On this planet the Rakata built a temple that housed a generator for a defensive field around the Star Forge. The field disrupted any electronic equipment that approached the Star Forge, causing ships to be caught in the gravitational field of the Rakatan planet. The Unknown World, as it was called, was littered with the wreckage of thousands of years of ships unlucky enough to stumble upon the Star Forge.

During the ancient wars between the Sith and the Republic, the Sith Lords Darth Revan and Darth Malak followed ancient clues to locate the Star Forge, and tricked the remaining Rakatans to take control of the station. Malak wielded the Forge to produce an unending supply of Sith fighters and other combat material. He used captive Jedi to help fuel his power within the heart of the Star Forge.

The Republic used a captive Revan to piece together clues as to the Star Forge's location, and eventually discovered the Unknown World. Republic forces attacked en masse, and despite devastating losses, were able to defeat Malak and the Star Forge.

So there it is. In plain English. The LS version of KOTOR is canon. And it appears that male Revan and the romance with Bastila is canon as well, since Carth's entry makes no mention of Revan.

Since we've been back and forth with this on these boards, what is canon and what isn't, I just thought I would ask, what constitutes canon and what doesn't exactly? And does this mean that K2 is mostly considered Infinities?

I mean beyond just the databank having a listing for them. Because the databank says alot of things. I mean, before KOTOR it was pretty much canon that there were no Darths in the galaxy before Darth Bane. Then KOTOR comes along and changes all of that.

So, does this mean that Lucas has acquiesced a bit and changed Star Wars so that there was a Darth before Revan? Or maybe Revan was the first Darth???

This really kind of throws the whole Star Wars universe out of whack when you think about it. Although, I don't think Lucas really cares much about the EU and he can just change it as he sees fit. But for some reason I get the feeling he is well aware of KOTOR because of it's success and how it did more for Star Wars than the prequels ever did. In fact, alot of people have said KOTOR restored some respectability to Star Wars.

At any rate there seems to be some inconsistencies with the Universe.

Any thoughts on this and how this effects K2 and a possilbe K3?

ShadowPaladin V1.0

Mar 15 2005, 05:54 PM

I can see the LS ending sort of. But nothing on Revans gender, although that could be because it's 2am...

GhostofAnakin

Mar 15 2005, 06:02 PM

Until the issues you brought up are actually explained by Lucasfilms, then I still say that the database and canon and continuity is a bit of a haphazzard joke. So it's rather difficult to say whether stuff to do with KOTOR is officially a part of canon.

Jellybelly

Mar 15 2005, 06:10 PM

The movies are canon. It's that easy.

Yst

Mar 15 2005, 06:22 PM

And here I was expecting the canon version to be a female dark side Revan having a sexy little romance with Carth and then arbitrarily killing him before taking over the Star Forge. Nuts.

Gorth

Mar 15 2005, 06:22 PM

Yup, according to the flanneled one himself, if it's in a feature movie, it's canon, otherwise not.

Of course, with his habit of changing the already released movies, old canon might be replaced with new canon at a later date

stop_him

Mar 15 2005, 06:37 PM

Don't know and don't care either way.

Why make a game where we can select the Revan's sex, if the decision was never meant for us to decide?

It's bull****, but if that's what L.A. wants, then next time, they should just make sure that the player is only allowed to select a heterosexual white male so as not to leave how we invision Revan (or any other PC) up to our own imaginations.

Single, heterosexual, Anglo-Saxon white male PC's all the way! To diverge from this canon would skew the limited realities of players everywhere!

(Human imagination is indeed limited.)

Drakron

Mar 15 2005, 06:56 PM

The Database just put KotOR material because they were spammed for it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that as EU have to adapt to the movies it does not when its other EU that comes along and decides that was already done was wrong and goes around re-writting Star Wars history.

I personaly dont give a damn... I am not saying that I do not get somewhat anoyed when they get some EU and TSL story managed to piss me off in so many levels (a lot over the "Cult of Revan" going on, it was sad the game ends up to be around some NPC that never shows) that EU consistence is the least of the things that bothers me.

213374U

Mar 16 2005, 04:26 AM

I don't know what's all the fuss about. The game isn't going to be canon anyway, so who cares if they choose a particular story for it? If you don't like the "official" story, then play it differently. Do you need LA's approval or what?

And it's been done before, people. In DFII:JK you could choose to go DS and rule the galaxy, but for JKII they chose to have Kyle Katarn be a lightsider. It's no big deal.

Plano Skywalker

Mar 16 2005, 06:38 AM

Basically , the whole idea of "continuity" or "canon" is there largely to satisfy the fan base. GL cares about his movies. But we are at a point now where there probably does need to be an official continuity clarification every 5 years or so.

I personally do not buy into the idea that a movie novelization outweighs a magazine, a magazine outweights a comic, a comic outweighs an EU novel and an EU novel outweighs a video game. That model may have worked at one time but when you have TEAMS of veteran LA people working on a 40-hour game like KOTOR and KOTOR II, WHY SHOULDN'T THAT TRUMP ALL BUT THE MOVIES?

So there is your answer: the Official Star Wars Continuity Compendium of 2010, 2015, etc.

Plano Skywalker

Mar 16 2005, 06:45 AM

Oh, yeah, and like others have alluded to, Star Wars is, at its core, a good old Errol Flynn swashbuckler set in space. It is not "true science fiction" like Isaac Asimov or Star Trek, for instance.

The "canonical story" is always going to be the LS heterosexual male rescuing the damsel and saving the galaxy.

><FISH'>

Mar 16 2005, 07:19 AM

WTF HELL DOES CANON MEAN?!

Plano Skywalker

Mar 16 2005, 10:06 AM

QUOTE(><FISH'> @ Mar 16 2005, 11:19 AM)

WTF HELL DOES CANON MEAN?!

For our purposes here, it means "official". For instance, if you had a fanfic and a magazine talking about the same thing and they contradict each other, the magazine would be "canon" and the fanfic would be incorrect. That is a simplistic illustration but it should suffice.

Lady Alenuska

Mar 16 2005, 10:17 AM

And I thought Trekkies were bad.....

Haitoku

Mar 16 2005, 03:02 PM

CODE

So there it is. In plain English. The LS version of KOTOR is canon. And it appears that male Revan and the romance with Bastila is canon as well, since Carth's entry makes no mention of Revan.

This is just stupid. It cheapens the hole point of Kotor and reduces everything else to a what if scenario...

Everyone, just do yourself a favor and ignore the datebase.

Gorth

Mar 16 2005, 03:49 PM

QUOTE(Haitoku @ Mar 17 2005, 11:02 AM)

Everyone, just do yourself a favor and ignore the datebase.

What database ?

Laozi

Mar 16 2005, 04:00 PM

QUOTE(Haitoku @ Mar 16 2005, 06:02 PM)

CODE

So there it is. In plain English. The LS version of KOTOR is canon. And it appears that male Revan and the romance with Bastila is canon as well, since Carth's entry makes no mention of Revan.

This is just stupid. It cheapens the hole point of Kotor and reduces everything else to a what if scenario...

Everyone, just do yourself a favor and ignore the datebase.

It would be a shame if a Lucas arts product had its integrity compromised

Rosbjerg

Mar 16 2005, 04:05 PM

QUOTE(Gorth @ Mar 17 2005, 12:49 AM)

QUOTE(Haitoku @ Mar 17 2005, 11:02 AM)

Everyone, just do yourself a favor and ignore the datebase.

What database ?

The Database

Yst

Mar 16 2005, 04:11 PM

QUOTE(Lady Alenuska @ Mar 16 2005, 02:17 PM)

And I thought Trekkies were bad.....

Heh. Trekkies and Star Wars fans are in the same situation, at this point.

That is, they're forced to decide whether the latest works of the franchise itself are adequately tolerable to be considered canon.

There are Trekkies who don't treat Enterprise as canon, and there are Star Wars fans who are Original Trilogy purists.

213374U

Mar 16 2005, 05:20 PM

Heh. I wonder why the hell you people are so concerned about what other posters or LA itself thinks about continuity, and even your own games. It's as if you needed approval or something. For what it's worth, you have my approval to play as a Hutt Jedi that decides to go on a journey to find his mojo and happens to save the universe along the way.

Laozi

Mar 16 2005, 05:47 PM

QUOTE(Yst @ Mar 16 2005, 07:11 PM)

Heh. Trekkies and Star Wars fans are in the same situation, at this point.

That is, they're forced to decide whether the latest works of the franchise itself are adequately tolerable to be considered canon.

There are Trekkies who don't treat Enterprise as canon, and there are Star Wars fans who are Original Trilogy purists.

Stinkin Trekkies <_<

Wodan

Mar 16 2005, 10:53 PM

The story is however you made it, and that was the beauty of Kotor 1&2. However for ease of story telling on a website like that it's just easiest to go with the basic playthrough choice: Male & good guy.

Lets face it, the KotoR storyline takes place when the old republic should be rebuilding and recovering from all the horrible wars it just had, and that's exactly what is happening. If they were to make two super powerful jedi like Revan and the Exile both Sith that rampaged over an already failing republic, then there'd be no old republic left to fall in Palpatine's time.

KotoR 1&2 set the stage for a grand battle between Jedi & the Sith, the rebuilding of the republic, and the "new" Jedi order that will last 4000 years (one without idiots in it like Vrook).

Infact I think that was one of the cut scenes in KotoR2, the Exile instructing his students to dump anyone Vrook-like down a garbage shute. :D

Leia Emperius

Mar 17 2005, 02:21 AM

QUOTE(Laozi @ Mar 16 2005, 06:47 PM)

Stinkin Trekkies <_<

Hey now, Star Trek and Star Wars can coexist peacefully.

I agree with the mindset that if it wasn't in the films, it's not canon. Therefore, much of the Database shouldn't be taken as gospel and the same goes for whatever they choose to write about the Kotor universe. Obviously they can't have 4 different entries for each scenario and character, so some shortcuts are bound to be made. Unless George Lucas arbitrarily decides that he's going to allude to Darth Revan in Episode III and decide once and for all what alignment and sex she/he was, Darth Revan will remain whatever we want him/her to remain.

Jedi Master D Murda

Mar 17 2005, 10:50 AM

QUOTE(Wodan @ Mar 16 2005, 10:53 PM)

The story is however you made it, and that was the beauty of Kotor 1&2. However for ease of story telling on a website like that it's just easiest to go with the basic playthrough choice: Male & good guy.

Lets face it, the KotoR storyline takes place when the old republic should be rebuilding and recovering from all the horrible wars it just had, and that's exactly what is happening. If they were to make two super powerful jedi like Revan and the Exile both Sith that rampaged over an already failing republic, then there'd be no old republic left to fall in Palpatine's time.

KotoR 1&2 set the stage for a grand battle between Jedi & the Sith, the rebuilding of the republic, and the "new" Jedi order that will last 4000 years (one without idiots in it like Vrook).

Infact I think that was one of the cut scenes in KotoR2, the Exile instructing his students to dump anyone Vrook-like down a garbage shute. :D

Palpatine's Republic only last about 1000 years prior to EpII when, I think, he says "I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two"

QUOTE(Leia Emperius @ Mar 17 2005, 02:21 AM)

QUOTE(Laozi @ Mar 16 2005, 06:47 PM)

Stinkin Trekkies <_<

Hey now, Star Trek and Star Wars can coexist peacefully.

Never!

Darth_Kurdt

Mar 17 2005, 01:30 PM

Will do, although one of the reasons this game franchise is so good is because it's star wars, and you can thrash people with a lightsaber and master force tricks. I don't know about anyone else but Jade Empire uses the same engine and I don't feel half as compelled to play it. Don't get me wrong I'll still buy it but it will feel like there is something missing with it not being in the star wars universe

DeathScepter

Mar 18 2005, 12:24 PM

i do knowthat Star Trek and Star Wars can coexist peacefully.

I should know. I would be in a mental ward already if they cant

Hunter_of_Chaos

Mar 18 2005, 12:26 PM

QUOTE(DeathScepter @ Mar 18 2005, 12:24 PM)

i do knowthat Star Trek and Star Wars can coexist peacefully.

I should know. I would be in a mental ward already if they cant

Oh, a halfbreed

Ohma

Mar 18 2005, 12:46 PM

There are more of us than you shall ever know Hunter.

:ph34r:

Darth Dan

Mar 18 2005, 01:46 PM

:Shhh...they cannot know...they can never know.... :ph34r:

ShadowPaladin V1.0

Mar 18 2005, 01:53 PM

QUOTE(Darth Dan @ Mar 18 2005, 01:46 PM)

:Shhh...they cannot know...they can never know.... :ph34r:

It's probably something you have to keep quiet, like being a tranvestite or something

Ohma

Mar 18 2005, 02:00 PM

Wait, sence when did I have to hide my transvetite...ness?

Laozi

Mar 18 2005, 02:02 PM

I think its transvestitude

Hunter_of_Chaos

Mar 18 2005, 02:02 PM

QUOTE(Darth Dan @ Mar 18 2005, 01:46 PM)

:Shhh...they cannot know...they can never know.... :ph34r:

OMG its a conspiracy, the trekkies are infiltrating the SW fans under cover.
constructing their plots and intrigues in secret like Palpatine.

There thining our ranks from the inside, and we dont even know about it.
:ph34r: its a secret war...a war of conversion :ph34r:
and before we know it SW fans all around the globe will start disappearing or converting,
and the trekkie empire will be born.... :ph34r:

Ohma

Mar 18 2005, 02:08 PM

Or both Star Wars, and Trek will combine to become "Star Wars Trek: A New Voyage of the Deep Space Clones Strikes Back"...er...what I meant to say was...

OMFG LOOK 73H PATCH IS OUT!!

*runs away*