LFG Chaos; A History

[Mia Monroe]

In many discord discussions when plotting or planning often event comes up that people weren't present for but was fundamentally important for the culture and history across the board. There have been articles here and there that touch base on some things and the timeline does a great job of giving us a brief over arching story but often leaves the finer details off. For me, as someone who joined in early 2013 and had to leave after a few years I'm thirsty for finding out the details in what I missed and I know from being asked that newer members are interested in the history of things that happened so long ago.

What I'm proposing is huge, but many hands make light of a large load but essentially i'd like to put together, with help, some bitsize bits of history on Chaos. Everything from the first sith empire and republic war, right up to the enclave and its very unfortunate sandwich between the Sith Order and the Galactic Alliance.

I could be shooting way off base her for this being something people would be interested in helping put together and I have absolutely no idea at this point what it would look like or how it would work but I thought I'd float the idea and it it gets enough traction and work out the logistics after.

Thoughts?

 

[Valery Noble]

It's hard to include everything and I think you run the risk that if you throw too much into a timeline of any sorts, that people are way more likely to not dig too deep into it. For the same reason that most don't like reading huge walls of text. It's also important to have the folks who actually made/wrote the stories involved, and that can be tricky for the really old stuff.

Some timeline stuff exists already though.

Between summer 2021 and about April 2023, we had a war called "The Second Great Hyperspace War" on the board between a number of factions. We did build a bit of a timeline for that. I recently made the third part of it for the end of the war, but mostly from a GA perspective. It has links to the earlier timelines too, so it can help.

Major Faction - Galactic Alliance Timeline | SGHW Omnibus Vol. III

Galactic Alliance Timeline Volume III - End of the War This post covers a new chapter in the timeline of the Galactic Alliance. Following its inception and war against the Sith Empire, the Alliance and its allies found themselves in a new...

www.starwarsrp.net

 

[Jasper Kai'el]

There could be merit to it all. I feel like, especially for newer writers, it's very easy to get lost in details that you weren't present for. Y'know, it can be overwhelming when someone starts spouting history from seven OOC years ago at you IC that, realistically, most freshed faced writers don't fully understand, and not everyone is great about sitting their writing partners down and explaining what they're talking about. I don't much bother with the nitty gritty details of the overall plot, but there are some key events I wish I had been told about sooner when I first joined.

 

[Valery Noble]

One way to lessen the pain of this project might also be to focus on more recent things. It's admirable to try and timeline what happened 8 years ago, but it's not really going to come up in RP much, if at all, and it certainly doesn't have any impact anymore with how quickly things change. If it's more for the fun of it, you can still include it, of course.

But in terms of usefulness, more recent events will obviously add more, especially for new writers. They're also easier to include because the people who made or wrote in those stories are still going to be around to help.

 

[Amea Virou]

To quote that YouTube thing: The past is far behind us, the future doesn't exist.

I think with my time on the site since 2014 I've come to realize that everything that once and never was is board canon and yet never happened at all. It comes with a board as old as this and as fluid as it is where both people and threads come and go.

To summarize this history is like instantiating a variable based on current and utterly biased information. Were these events cool? Sure. Are they still relevant? Nope. Not even the Second Hyperspace War that Valery mentioned. The second you have it down it will be outdated because all these events are constantly shifting and changing in and out of existence depending on when and who you ask.

Arguably the big problem here is the fact that Chaos is huge and entirely fluid, like a Lovecraftian tentacle monster of innumerable plots that occasionally happen to intertwine. Making sense of that is a struggle, but if you want to go ahead I certainly applaud the dedication, although I strongly suspect the current Timeline graphics is just about the only best way of "encouraging" any and all history from being recognized.

 

[Mia Monroe]

All of these points are valid. No one (especially me) likes huge walls of text, but more manageable bitesize chunks that I could flit through at my own leisure? for sure. Again I'm spit balling , I don't know the perfect way to do this so this is all helpful.

And while I agree some of the OLD stuff is definitely less relevant, its still definitely worth having for reference. Are most of those characters and writers that shaped the board then still about? not really, were there still some very cool narratives that today's writers might want to draw on? for sure. Its not for everyone, but when you drop a name or mention and event and people go ' wut?' it would be nice to be able to point them towards a reference.

Then there's things like annihilation, that is absolutely crucial for newbies. Who broke that planet and why?

And then there the people who like a deep dive...

Maybe i'm looking at something like a chaos wiki lol

 

[Valery Noble]

Ultimately, this project will only go anywhere if it's something that you're really passionate about. It's way too much work, regardless of format, to complete if you're not really feeling it and motivated for it. If you are passionate about it, you should do it even if it's just for your own fun and what reference others can get from it.

There's certainly no harm being done, and it can be cool!

If you're doing it more for others though, I suggest not going back all those years. There are tons of cool stories every year, but nothing from those years ago is relevant to the RP now, and I don't think people want to read back old stuff for inspritation. Even in my own faction, I've noticed that the war that only ended 1 year ago (april 2023) doesn't mean that much anymore. A lot of our active writers are from right after it, and there's not really that much of a desire for them to want to look back. I even did a thread where my character covered some of the events of that war IC, and it was cute, but there was no huge interest either.

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Mia Monroe

A few years ago, I had a character named Errik Nimdok. He was a historian, and I wrote a couple of IC essays about certain board events that weren't really "events" - that is, they were unplanned incidents that had a significant impact both IC and OOC.

The Alliance That Never Was: An Account of the Elder Compact and Its Aftermath

The Alliance That Never Was: An Account of the Elder Compact and Its Aftermath by Errik Nimdok, Professor of Jedi/Sith History, University of Alderaan *** At Polaris Court on Naboo, representatives from the three so-called “elder nations”...

www.starwarsrp.net

War Is Hell: An Autopsy of the NJO War Crimes Scandal

War Is Hell: An Autopsy of the NJO War Crimes Scandal by Professor Errik Nimdok, University of Alderaan *** Author's Note As a historian, I strive to avoid bias, to tell all the facts, and to keep any personal feelings on the matter...

www.starwarsrp.net

I loved doing these, but I stopped because I no longer had the time to write a full-length essay, I lost interest in the character (I ultimately decided to kill him off; Jacen is his son), and because I ran into problems with people OOC who thought I made their character(s) or faction look bad. By simply stating facts, lmao.

Making a complete timeline of the entire board would probably be impossible at this point, as the board is 10+ years old and many of the people who participated in these events are no longer here to share their stories. A faction timeline or timeline of recent major events (dating back 2-3 RL years, maybe?) would be more feasible. But if you do want to know about board events from 2020 to the present, that is when my watch began.

 

[Elias Edo]

Mia Monroe This likely isn’t as comprehensive as you’re seeking, there’s this:

Timeline

www.starwarsrp.net

 

[Romi Jade]

In many discord discussions when plotting or planning often event comes up that people weren't present for but was fundamentally important for the culture and history across the board. There have been articles here and there that touch base on some things and the timeline does a great job of giving us a brief over arching story but often leaves the finer details off. For me, as someone who joined in early 2013 and had to leave after a few years I'm thirsty for finding out the details in what I missed and I know from being asked that newer members are interested in the history of things that happened so long ago.

What I'm proposing is huge, but many hands make light of a large load but essentially i'd like to put together, with help, some bitsize bits of history on Chaos. Everything from the first sith empire and republic war, right up to the enclave and its very unfortunate sandwich between the Sith Order and the Galactic Alliance.

I could be shooting way off base her for this being something people would be interested in helping put together and I have absolutely no idea at this point what it would look like or how it would work but I thought I'd float the idea and it it gets enough traction and work out the logistics after.

Thoughts?

Love me some lore, and definitely believe it influences things going forward, or that it should in some way anyway because it has honestly. There’s still folks floating around from way back like myself (2013) who wouldn’t mind helping track stuff down. I tend to reference a lot of chaos-centric stuff in my current stuff so let me know however I could help.

If only something for people to reference and help craft something new if they wanted.

 

[Vazela]

It would be a difficult thing to accomplish considering that at some point in the 2010s the website suffered an event that we old gens refer too as the Lost Tapes. Thousands of threads, submissions and biographies all lost. I can't remember why or how it happened but a significant portion of things will never be recovered, unfortunately.

However, as a veteran of the great speed dominion of 2014, which saw the Aeten II come into the clutches of the Sith Empire I would love to regale what it was like to have 30+ Sith going apeshit on Skype dutifully coming up with the most detailed, absurdly put together thread in the websites history.

 

[Mia Monroe]

It would be a difficult thing to accomplish considering that at some point in the 2010s the website suffered an event that we old gens refer too as the Lost Tapes. Thousands of threads, submissions and biographies all lost. I can't remember why or how it happened but a significant portion of things will never be recovered, unfortunately.

However, as a veteran of the great speed dominion of 2014, which saw the Aeten II come into the clutches of the Sith Empire I would love to regale what it was like to have 30+ Sith going apeshit on Skype dutifully coming up with the most detailed, absurdly put together thread in the websites history.

I was here for those dominions and yhe days of skype.

Good times

I haven't forgotten about this project its still on my radar but have had to park it for the moment with the Mandalorian Protectors growing at speed so will definitely circle back to this

 

[Sycorax Laveaux]

However, as a veteran of the great speed dominion of 2014, which saw the Aeten II come into the clutches of the Sith Empire I would love to regale what it was like to have 30+ Sith going apeshit on Skype dutifully coming up with the most detailed, absurdly put together thread in the websites history.

I would love to hear this story, lmao.

 

[Matsu Ike]

So much lore over the years and oh the skype days were fun with some of the thread planning.

THose speed dominions could get crazy

 

[Vazela]

I would love to hear this story, lmao.

We saw that the Republic (I think?) had just posted a dominion for Aeten II. Back then you had to have a system/planet in the sphere of influence close to another planet in order to do a dominion. Anyway, in the Skype group for the Sith Empire someone posted the link, and we all said in unison, "f*ck that". 5 minutes later our own thread was up and after an hour we had 50+ posts done to like 10 of theirs.

I can't remember who said it but it's stayed with me for years because it was so absurdly funny. I'm paraphrasing but it went something along the lines of, "I don't care if we have to stay up for 24 hours we're not letting them have stygium crystals!!!!"

 

[Fiolette Yvarro]

I remember the big speed dominions between First Order and the Galactic Alliance, the one that launched the 30 day long rebellion of Kaeshana. I'm pretty sure because of that rebellion rules were changed.

 

[Allyson Locke]

i thought we called the losing of the threads "the great purge" - guess my lingo is amiss