Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Chaos: Canon or Legends!

Hello there!

General Kenobi?

Right, serious mode, okay.

A few days ago, I was having a discussion with a few people about Chaos, and if Chaos follows Canon or Legends. This lead to a lot of discussion about how both can exist simultaneously, if we just edit a few details from the new Canon stuff. But obviously not everyone likes that, some people will argue that Canon says Han and Leia only had one kid, in Ben Solo, so how do we get away with talking about Jacen and Jaina.

Chaos is set in like, 800 odd ABY, probably closer to 900 ABY now. A lot of these canon/legends stories are just that, legends in the galaxy. Yet people still roleplay reading the story of Luke Skywalker, obviously being a galaxy wide hero. Do we read the Legends story, the battles against Abeloth with the One Sith (Lost Tribe of the Sith) or that Canon story where Luke buggered off for a few years then died on that rock island I can never spell.

But obviously, people and stories aren't the only difference.

Lightsaber crystals, here we go. Canon lightsaber crystals annoy me, all of the crystals being based off of the Kyburr crystal annoys me. I love legends explanations of lightsaber crystals where like, loads of different crystals exist and each one does it's own thing that's different to this other crystal. I love legends lightsaber crystals, and I always tend to write legends lightsaber crystals over canon crystals.

I also know that legends opens up way more force powers to Canon.

I started writing on Chaos before new Canon was even a whisper, god I've been here a while. I started writing here when Legends was just the expanded universe and when Lucas Films classed most of it as Canon. What a weird time. To me, I've grown up with Legends and I've always written Legends, too this day a lot of the things I write are heavily influenced by Star Wars Legends over this new, honestly rubbish, Canon.

This begs the question though.

Do y'all write based off of Star Wars Canon or Star Wars Legends? Do you mix and match? If so, how?! I guess I started this just to try and get a general discussion on Canon vs Legends and how they can both be included into writing, I guess.
 
As someone who's fond of detail, I usually go with the Legends source - nine times out of ten it'll have more information to play around with.

As for what actually took place back then, my oldest character is ninety-seven, so none of them really know for sure, what with them having to go trawling through centuries of propaganda, misinformation, mythologisation, and generally unreliable records keeping.
 
AMCO AMCO

I agree, no-one knows for sure what actually happened back then, and we can always say propaganda, misinformation, mythologisation, and generally unreliable records keeping to get ourselves out of a pinch.

I'm glad your first sentence exists though, because I'm pretty much the same, as I said in the opening post. I'm very much a fan of detail and all the little details, so having legends means I get to enjoy the little details!
 
Bunker-level Normal
I treat it like Arthurian or Greek legends. It's a mythology, it may have happened exactly that way or not, but it's so obscured by misplaced history and time that it really doesn't matter. Even if there wasn't a Luke Skywalker, there was someone like him (or many someones like him) who served the same purpose. So if my character is emulating the real history or just the legend, it effectively makes for the same outcome for them.

IOW, I figure we're all Don Quixote trying to re-enact lost glory and more romanticized times. Where's the nearest windmill?!

(That said, Legends more often than not.)
 
Well-Known Member
I generally link which ever wookiepedia article has more information, which 9/10 is going to be legends, but not due to any inherent bias of mine. Legends has just existed longer, so by that virtue get used more.

However, I'm more a fan of custom stuff unique only to Chaos and Chaos history. We're centuries away from either canon, and how often did events which transpired hundreds of years before the movies actually take a place in the spotlight? Basically none. I have the same view about Chaos. Stuff that happened before the darkness are relatively irrelevant to us and our characters, unless you have a very niche character concept or one of the hundred characters which actually came from those periods and found their way to our current timeline.
 
Legends. My oldest character is roughly 4,700 years old, but House L'lerim also dates back to the time of the Old Republic. In the case of Xanesh, too, I am forced to build on the old EU (not as if it bothers me), for they were born and lived under the reign of Vitiate, and died decades after Vitiate’s final destruction.

The EU (I like the term EU better than Legends) is much wider (more creative) and easier to find the right data, information and figure out what you want. The Canon is still an awful little and knows almost nothing.

Although, in fact, I believe everyone uses what they love/want, and it is very good to see that Chaos is full of many unique ideas. :)
 
Interesting question!

As others have said, given how many centuries its been since most of the events of Canon or Legends, these events probably won't have a huge effect on Chaos. Time has passed, people have moved on, and it's just not as relevant as it would be if we were all roleplaying in, say, 50 ABY or 100 ABY.

But I will give you this, because I had to ask the same question of myself when it came to playing as Nimdok here, an archaeologist who goes out and finds artifacts from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. I decided to play it as if no one knew the truth. Real life history, especially when it comes to ancient times, is often based on the work of historians who either wrote at the time based on hearsay and personal experience (memory is faulty) or had limited source material to draw from. Many historical sources contradict each other when it comes to events, people, places, times - and yes, whose child was whose. In a galaxy as large and fraught with strife and conflict as Chaos is, contradicting historical sources are inevitable.

TL;DR pull from both if you can, Legends usually has more material and tends to be better thought out than Canon, but operate on the assumption that either could be true.

If your character finds a crystal that only exists in Legends, perhaps it was thought to be a myth but turned out to be real. If you ever get into a discussion with Nimdok and Jacen Solo is mentioned, go ahead and have your character say, "I thought his name was Ben Solo." Nimdok will shrug and reply, "Sure, maybe he was. Those two sources are similar enough that they were probably based on the same real person, a son of the Solos who fell to the Dark Side. I'm of the opinion that the Knights of Ren just wanted a cool origin story for their order, but who knows?"

Or something along those lines. :p
 

TheReal_McChicken

Occasional Roleplayer
Kinda fusion of both/whatever you want. There's really only a few times they explicitly contradict each other in the vast history of the SW universe (namely the sequel era). I wholly agree with everyone who says that they typically use the EU sources because its so much more fleshed out, I mean... it had a 3 and a half decade head-start on Disney...
 
We're 800 years past any 'canon', regardless of whether it's Legends or New Canon. Plus there was a 400 hundred years dark age in between, meaning that a lot of knowledge about the past was probably lost. This can easily lead to conflicting narratives...especially since space is bloody huge and thus a great many planets would have been untouched by many of the big events of the past. Moreover, what happened thousands of years ago simply isn't that relevant for anyone outside of select circles, like historians, archaeologists or people looking for this or that super artefact. Many far-away events would have faded into the realm of myth.

I had a lot of fun developing a custom planet where, due to centuries of isolation, people developed some really weird views about what happened during the Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War etc. Due to my personal stance on the sequels, I largely follow Legends, but ultimately it's not that important for my characters and I'd rather use my own ideas to develop them instead of retread old ground. Elpsis knows that centuries ago there was a conflict called the Clone Wars, at the end of which Palpatine turned the Republic into the Empire and purged the Jedi. But her knowledge of it is not super detailed. And she doesn't know anything about Exar Kun or Revan because that was almost 5000 years ago and doesn't affect her at all.
 
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Elpsis Kerrigan Elpsis Kerrigan

Oh, don't get me wrong, I do absolutely agree with that. I said it myself in the opening post, we're way past any canon. It's also the same as I said above at the end of the day, "we can always say propaganda, misinformation, mythologisation, and generally unreliable records keeping to get ourselves out of a pinch".

The stories and legends are just that, legends. Legends get twisted and told eighty different ways so we can say as much for Star Wars lore.

This is more aimed at your lightsabers, force powers and things like that, those small things that legends expanded on but that canon never really did (or really badly ruined, looking at you disney and lightsabers). Obviously you've said yourself, you chose legends, I presume because it had those details in it that canon doesn't.

And yes, space is bloody huge!
 
Caden Evesa Caden Evesa

Oh, I wasn't doubting that. Just explaining my personal outlook on it, but thanks for clarifying.

Regardless, when it comes to Force stuff, I draw a good deal on Legends because there's a lot to work with there. Well, the Force is everything and the kitchen sink in it. But I've come up with stuff that goes a bit beyond it (e.g. several of my FU chars are elementalists and elemental powers exist in Legends, but are not expanded on that much).

Granted, some stuff we see in Legends in that regard appears in the sequels (e.g. healing that looks a lot like Dark Transfer as well as Force projection illusions), but - without wanting to get into a Legends vs. sequels debate and derail things - for me personally they did not really any new stuff I found that interesting...except crossguard lightsabres. Kylo's was silly, but I actually like the idea because, good heavens, standard lightsabres have no hand protection. Hence my FU chars tend to use one with crossguards now.

Whichever continuity other people want to base their stories and toys on is fine by me.
 
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I tend to lean more towards Canon, as I find it simpler to keep track of and more open to interpretation as it hasn't been as fully explored as Legends yet. I'll certainly cherry-pick some things from Legends, especially as some have said before, there's simply more information out there since it's been around longer. That being said, I'm influenced by my own personal biases regarding Legends/EU, as even before the general EU wipe and everything was given a singular category of canon (one thing I see a lot of people forget or simply didn't know is that there were levels of canon, since some things were contradictory even back then), I wasn't a huge fan of a lot of it, especially the post-ROTJ stuff.

When it comes to my character, an archaeologist and explorer, I tend to just make stuff up, or just vaguely interpret a Legends/EU source. After all, the point that's been made here before rings true for me: we're so far removed that no one really knows what happened. Plus, in general, the films only cover a roughly sixty-year span out of a galactic history that stretches for tens of thousands of years. We don't have to keep coming back to the same relatively small window of time for all of our references and stories, as important as they may have been in the grand scheme of things.

Even in Legends/EU, not everything has been explored in detail - there's plenty of room for other important/exciting stories to have happened, and we can discover those and make those up instead of having to consult the Wookieepedia for everything and treat it as gospel.

It's important to go with what you like and what makes it the most fun for you, but also to not berate/belittle other people for liking a different version or interpretation.
 
Cassius Droma Cassius Droma

"It's important to go with what you like and what makes it the most fun for you, but also to not berate/belittle other people for liking a different version or interpretation."

That's the line. That right there. That's the perfect line.

That's the line because it's true.

I agree with a lot of what you said as well as a lot of what else has been said in this thread. At the end of the day, I purely put this up for just a general discussion and to try and see both people's viewpoints. I'm actually really glad you've posted because you've actually shown me why some people prefer canon, allowed me to understand, and for that, I thank you.

I actually didn't know there were different levels of legends canon, I know that now as well :p
 

Thera Mayeen

Guest
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Memes and gifs aside, both is def the way I go. A LOT of Legends and Canon as far as locations and world-building are similar enough that many of the things can coexist.

The events are far less important to me though because as has probably been said here...We're 700+ years post the last Legends material timeline-wise (The Star Wars Legacy Comics). We're at the point where Anakin Skywalker and General Kenobi are names said with the same reverence as the Macbeth and King Arthur. The Jedi Council are as ancient and whispered about as the Knights of the Round Table. They make for good stories to tell the Padawans, but holding their feats as absolute fact is irresponsible. We can all agree the Death Star happened, because we had to rebuild Alderaan, but can we REALLY the second death star was where Palpatine died? Maybe. Maybe he actually died on Byss or that other Sith World that's been lost to time.

so just write without taking those wookie facts into account...and you'll be fine.
 

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