Star Wars is one of the most expansive sagas of all time, but the history, background, and dynamics of the universe are much more expansive than what’s shown in the movies. Diving into the Legends canon as well as the official Star Wars storyline, this series hopes to flesh out the Star Wars galaxy and augment any effort to delve into it, whether it be for game masters, tabletop role players, or fan fiction aficionados.
For the first installment of this series, it’s important to start at the beginning – in this case, the start of recorded Star Wars history in an era that can be summed up as the Birth of the Republic. The conflicts in this era are many and brutal, especially considering the limited technology available – in fact, most of this period predates even the “more civilized age” in which the lightsaber was first popularized, and encompasses all of the millions of years of galactic history prior to around 7000 years before the battle of Yavin.
Before the Republic
The very first records of civilized existence indicate the presence of an enormous galactic civilization known as the Celestials or, less commonly, Architects. This race is as powerful as it is mysterious – the Celestials were a species that not only seeded the galaxy with technology, uplifting primitive races and leaving behind gigantic artifacts after their unexplained departure, but also formed the backbone of what came to be called the Force. The Celestials’ empire eventually backfired – the Rakata, a savage and warlike species the Celestials uplifted, proved strong in their hatred and greed, and waged a bloody war that drove the Celestials to create a hyperspace barrier that even now slows travel to the Outer Rim. No one knows what happened to the Celestials in the end – did they merge with the Force to guide it? For that matter, did they truly create the Force or did they merely coexist with it? Where did they go? These questions have puzzled scholars for millennia, and will likely do so in perpetuity.
The Rakata are somewhat less mysterious. The Rakata, using stolen Celestial technology, waged a war of domination over the galaxy, expanding through the Outer Rim and more. One notable check on their power was the mechanism of their hyperdrive technology, which relied on using large concentrations of Force energy to pull the massive ship through hyperspace and permit the beginning of the inevitable invasion. The Rakata had one great strength, which ended up becoming their ultimate downfall: the dark side of the Force. Whether through their reliance on dark side energy specifically or through a more mundane biological issue, the Rakatan Infinite Empire eventually succumbed to a sort of “Force plague” that stripped the infected Rakata of their powers. As their subjugated tributaries smelled weakness, the empire was torn apart, leaving only relics, legends, and a few scattered settlements still intact.
Birth of the Republic
This all sets the stage for the rise of new orders in the galaxy that will control the course of galactic history – the founding of the Jedi on Tython and their union with the also newly-formed Galactic Republic thousands of years later, the discovery of the Sith and the ascension of the dark side, and the cultures – Mandalorians, for instance – that would change the galaxy forever. These factions are initially isolated, insulated from each other by the vast depths of hyperspace, though with the increase in technological potential came the ability to wage unending war upon one another. One particularly notable set of conflicts was the series of wars between the budding Republic, based on Coruscant, and the equally-rich yet not as influential planet of Alsakan, attempting to determine the eventual seat of power in the universe. Another series of conflicts came at the behest of the Pius Dea, a faction of ideological fanatics that quickly gained power in the Republic, gained influence amongst its worlds, and effectively declared a crusade of supremacy over non-human races, a faction eventually defeated by BoSS – the Bureau of Ships and Services, which lasted tens of thousands of years – seeding their navicomputers with false hyperspace coordinates, leading to their cathedral ships wandering forever into the void.
Campaign and Story Ideas
Running campaigns in the era of the Celestials is no doubt one of the most challenging – yet free – setting decisions a GM can make. The era is virtually entirely shrouded in mystery and superstition, and it relies more on legend and archaeology than actual historical records. Players could be an uplifted – even enslaved – race under the Celestials, or be one caught between the Celestials and the Rakata. Even more interesting, though, is the concept of a Celestials-era campaign being a flashback or prologue for a more modern campaign – players could be asked to recover a Rakata artifact, or stop a Celestial’s Force spirit from running amok; players could try to recover a superweapon of the Architects, or be challenged to investigate new and fantastic Force concepts and theories.
Running campaigns set closer to the Republic era, such as the time period of the Alsakan Conflicts and the rise of the Pius Dea, allows game masters to far more easily tap into the fantasy elements woven into the original Star Wars narrative. In this era, the Force is being discovered, with elite warriors calling upon it to lead and aid them in battle; combatants are forced to close with their opponents, and combat is forced to be large-scale instead of the hit-and-fade tactics of the later galactic eras. Players in such a campaign would likely be elite scholars or warfighters, called upon to take the field and lead forces into grand, sometimes multi-continental battles, or perhaps proselytize or convert rival or more technologically primitive societies to the players’ side.
Most notably of all, the technology is one of the most malleable and compelling elements of the era. This time period experiences technology both awe-inspiring (such as the Star Forge, a Rakatan relic capable of stripping a star of materials and churning out, virtually of its own accord, countless machines of war) and simple (the spears, slings, and swords of ground combat). Blasters are only now being developed in the form of beam tubes, musket-like rifles with a backpack-sized power pack capable of holding a mere 100 shots; lightsabers are only barely thought of, taking the form of a somewhat weak laser sword linked via cable to a belt-mounted power pack. In their place, Force-imbued swords hold the warriors’ attention, weapons forged with Force energy imbued into them, sometimes through forging crystals (much akin to lightsaber crystals) into the blades. Mystics and blade-fighters are dominant, militias armed with beam tubes dueling each other as starships with a scant few, though enormous, cannon burn through each other’s hulls overhead. This era most encapsulates the fantasy of a galaxy far, far away, and in it, game masters, players, and characters can find untold mysterious to explore and combatants over whom to triumph.
D.T.S.
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- The Praxeum: Legacy Era - April 10, 2017
Great article!