Continuity & Canon
Continuity & Canon
Embedded Files
**Title**
Continuity & Canon
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP uses established Star Wars: The Old Republic lore as the foundation of its shared setting while leaving room for compatible Legends material, community-created history, and clearly identified interpretation where the source material does not provide a complete answer.
Continuity exists to make collaborative roleplay easier to understand and build upon. It gives characters a shared past, establishes what has changed through earlier stories, and helps different players create within the same galaxy without requiring everyone to know every piece of SWTOR lore.
The purpose is not to turn lore knowledge into a test or prevent players from creating something new. It is to distinguish what the setting already establishes from what StarForgeRP has added, what remains uncertain, and where creative expansion has room to exist.
When an idea depends on established history, use the strongest applicable source, preserve uncertainty where the sources are unclear, and expand the setting without unnecessarily rewriting its foundations.
**Small Text / Caption**
Current StarForgeRP continuity anchor: 3621 BBY · Story anchor: Game Update 7.9 — Legacy Reborn · Date certainty: Reconstructed.
The **Current Setting** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/current-setting) is the primary reference for StarForgeRP's present-day continuity point and should be treated as the current source of truth if the setting advances. StarForgeRP's 3621 BBY placement is a reconstructed archive date rather than an exact BBY date directly established by SWTOR.
**Heading**
What “Canon” Means on StarForgeRP
**Standard Text**
On StarForgeRP, canon is most useful as a practical continuity question: what information should players treat as established when creating characters and stories?
StarForgeRP is built specifically around the SWTOR era. Material directly established by Star Wars: The Old Republic and closely related official SWTOR sources therefore receives priority when determining the state of the setting.
This does not mean that every other piece of Star Wars material is unusable. Older Legends sources can provide valuable information about species, cultures, planets, technologies, organizations, historical events, and other subjects that SWTOR does not describe in detail. The important question is whether that information is compatible with SWTOR and appropriate to the period being portrayed.
Likewise, material from much later Star Wars eras should not automatically be projected backward into the Old Republic. An institution, technology, political arrangement, cultural practice, or title known from a later period may have had a different form—or may not have existed at all—during the SWTOR era.
When there is a meaningful difference, StarForgeRP should identify it rather than treating all Star Wars material as interchangeable.
**Heading**
Continuity Hierarchy
**Standard Text**
When information comes from different layers of Star Wars or StarForgeRP continuity, use the following general order.
**Subheading**
Established SWTOR Lore
**Standard Text**
SWTOR game material and closely related official SWTOR sources form the primary foundation of StarForgeRP.
This includes established events, characters, factions, organizations, locations, political circumstances, technologies, cultural information, and other setting details directly supported by SWTOR or appropriate official material connected to it.
Where current SWTOR material directly establishes something, StarForgeRP should normally follow it even if older supplementary material gives a different account.
Established lore provides circumstances for roleplay. It does not require every character to interpret those circumstances in the same way.
**Subheading**
Supplementary Legends Lore
**Standard Text**
Broader Star Wars Legends material may be used when it adds useful Old Republic-era context without contradicting established SWTOR lore.
This is particularly useful when SWTOR names or depicts a subject without explaining it in much detail. Older reference books, novels, comics, games, and other Legends material may provide additional history or cultural context.
Age and applicability still matter. Information established thousands of years before the SWTOR setting may have changed by the time of StarForgeRP, while information from thousands of years afterward should not be assumed to describe earlier conditions.
When supplementary information is useful but its SWTOR-era applicability is uncertain, identify that uncertainty.
**Subheading**
StarForgeRP Continuity
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP Continuity includes characters, relationships, organizations, locations, events, discoveries, conflicts, agreements, and other developments established through the shared archive and collaborative roleplay.
Community-created material can become an important part of the setting.
A mercenary company may acquire a reputation. A settlement may be damaged and rebuilt. An organization may divide. An expedition may discover something important. Characters may form alliances, lose positions, create rivalries, change loyalties, or leave consequences that affect people who were never present for the original scene.
Once those developments matter to later roleplay, they become part of the history StarForgeRP is intended to preserve.
StarForgeRP Continuity should normally expand established lore rather than replace major SWTOR events, governments, conflicts, or protagonists.
**Subheading**
Interpretation / Expanded Material
**Standard Text**
Established sources do not answer every question.
Reasonable interpretation, extrapolation, reconstruction, or headcanon may be used when the setting leaves enough room for it, provided that it is not presented as confirmed SWTOR lore.
This might involve developing the internal culture of a community that SWTOR barely describes, reconstructing the likely circumstances around an uncertain date, creating an unaffiliated organization in an established region, or interpreting how a known galactic development may affect ordinary life.
Interpretation works best when it answers a useful roleplay question without unnecessarily declaring that an uncertain possibility is the only possible truth.
If the source material leaves something unknown, “unknown” can remain a valid answer.
**Heading**
The Current Continuity Point
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP has a shared present so that characters, organizations, locations, and ongoing stories can exist within the same general historical circumstances.
The present-day setting is maintained on the **Current Setting** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/current-setting) page, while the **Galactic Timeline** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/galactic-timeline) records the sequence of significant established and community events.
At present, StarForgeRP is anchored in 3621 BBY and incorporates established SWTOR story material through Game Update 7.9: Legacy Reborn. SWTOR identifies Legacy Reborn as the finale of the Legacy of the Sith storyline.
The continuity point is an archive anchor rather than a requirement that every roleplay scene occur on exactly the same date. Stories may take place earlier when their chronological position is clear.
A newly released game patch also does not need to enter StarForgeRP continuity automatically. New SWTOR story material should first be reviewed for its chronology, consequences, branching outcomes, and possible conflicts with existing StarForgeRP records before the shared setting advances.
**Heading**
Using Established Events in Character Histories
**Standard Text**
Major SWTOR events are part of the history surrounding StarForgeRP characters, but a character does not need to own an established event for that event to matter to them.
A character might have served during a war, survived an invasion, treated casualties after a battle, lost family during an occupation, investigated the aftermath of a crisis, profited from instability, transported supplies, encountered refugees, or simply grown up hearing stories about something that happened before they were born.
These connections usually create more room for roleplay than replacing the established person responsible for a major historical outcome.
Characters should therefore be able to participate meaningfully in the SWTOR setting without routinely becoming the secret cause of its most important canonical events.
Connections to major established SWTOR characters are not automatically inappropriate either. A soldier might plausibly have served in the same military structure as an established officer. A Jedi may have attended the same institution as a known Master. An intelligence operative may have encountered orders influenced by a prominent Sith.
The greater the claimed relationship or historical significance, however, the more carefully it should be checked against established continuity.
A brief professional encounter requires less justification than claiming to have been the lifelong secret mentor, spouse, indispensable deputy, or true architect behind the accomplishments of a major SWTOR figure.
**Heading**
Branching SWTOR Choices
**Standard Text**
SWTOR frequently allows players to make decisions that can lead to different character relationships, political circumstances, deaths, allegiances, or story outcomes.
A personal SWTOR playthrough does not automatically determine universal StarForgeRP history.
Where different outcomes do not affect shared roleplay, StarForgeRP does not need to decide between them. Leaving an outcome unspecified can preserve flexibility.
Where an outcome does matter to later characters, locations, organizations, or stories, StarForgeRP may establish a particular result for the purposes of shared continuity.
When that happens, the chosen outcome should be treated as StarForgeRP Continuity: the version adopted by this shared setting, rather than a claim that SWTOR itself recognizes no other possible outcome.
Two mutually exclusive outcomes should not be treated as simultaneously true simply because different players experienced both in their own game playthroughs.
**Heading**
Gameplay Is Not Automatically Lore
**Standard Text**
SWTOR is both a narrative setting and an MMORPG. Some things exist because they are useful or necessary for gameplay rather than because the fiction requires them to operate exactly as depicted.
Character levels, cooldowns, respawning enemies, repeatable missions, interface systems, inventory capacity, fixed map scale, rapid travel mechanics, combat balance, and similar systems should not automatically be interpreted as literal in-universe facts.
The same caution applies to equipment and cosmetic availability. An item being obtainable by a player does not necessarily prove that it is common, commercially available everywhere, historically appropriate in every context, or identical in significance to the object that inspired its appearance.
Story missions, Flashpoints, Operations, and other narrative content may represent events that occurred within the setting, but replaying them does not mean the same historical event repeatedly occurs.
SWTOR itself sometimes explicitly separates gameplay access from narrative status. Game Update 7.9, for example, allows players to use certain companions that are described as narratively unavailable because of story progression or earlier choices.
Use game mechanics when they help represent a character or scene. Use lore and story context when determining what actually exists within StarForgeRP continuity.
**Heading**
Community-Created Continuity
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP should have room to create things that SWTOR never specifically documented.
Players may introduce original characters, families, crews, businesses, military units, criminal groups, research teams, settlements, local traditions, minor political disputes, archaeological projects, independent organizations, personal histories, and other material that fits reasonably within the setting.
Original does not mean unimportant.
A community-created organization may become influential within a city or region. A campaign may permanently alter a settlement. A character may become well known within a profession. A local conflict may affect trade, security, politics, or relationships for years.
The useful boundary is scale.
Community-created stories can have serious consequences without requiring every story to change the fate of the Galactic Republic, overthrow the Sith Empire, destroy a major established world, secretly control an established galactic organization, or replace the central events of SWTOR.
Local and regional history is still history.
**Subheading**
Let Consequences Remain
**Standard Text**
Persistent continuity means that roleplay can change the setting.
When a development remains relevant after the original scene ends, update the records that future players may need.
A changed allegiance may belong on a character dossier. A damaged base may require an updated Galaxy entry. A newly formed rivalry may connect two characters. The conclusion of a campaign belongs in its Roleplay record. A development affecting multiple people, organizations, or locations may deserve an entry on the Timeline.
Not every scene needs to become a historical event.
Preserve what future roleplay needs to remember.
The **Roleplay Guidelines** (https://www.starforgerp.com/guide/roleplay-guidelines) provide the broader expectations for collaborative storytelling, agency, conflict, and consequences.
**Heading**
Player Knowledge & Character Knowledge
**Standard Text**
Something being true in StarForgeRP continuity does not mean every character knows it.
The archive is primarily a player-facing resource. It may document private motivations, secret affiliations, hidden relationships, classified operations, obscure historical information, criminal activity, or other details that characters within the setting would have limited access to.
When roleplaying, consider what the character could reasonably know.
Where were they when the event occurred? Was it publicly reported? Does their organization have access to relevant intelligence? Were they told by someone who would know? Could they have researched it? Are they relying on rumor, propaganda, incomplete records, or second-hand information?
Characters may disagree about what happened without StarForgeRP itself being unclear about the underlying event.
Mistakes, rumors, secrets, propaganda, and incomplete information can all create useful roleplay.
The same principle applies to character pages. Information recorded in a dossier does not automatically become public in-character knowledge; the **Character Dossier Guidelines** (https://www.starforgerp.com/guide/character-dossier-guidelines) should govern how character information is presented and interpreted.
**Heading**
Dates & Chronology
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP primarily uses BBY — Before the Battle of Yavin — as its common archival dating system so that events from different periods can be compared consistently throughout the site.
SWTOR's official Galactic History instead uses BTC and ATC — Before and After the Treaty of Coruscant — and identifies the Treaty as the central reference point for that system.
BTC or ATC dates may therefore be included where they are particularly useful for SWTOR-era context, while BBY remains StarForgeRP's primary archive format.
Not every SWTOR event has an explicitly established BBY year.
When only the order or approximate period of events is known, StarForgeRP should preserve that uncertainty rather than inventing an exact date.
Continuity source and date certainty should also remain separate. An event can be unquestionably established by SWTOR while its exact year remains uncertain.
The **Galactic Timeline** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/galactic-timeline) uses the following date-certainty terms where needed: Confirmed, Approximate, Reconstructed, and Uncertain.
**Heading**
When Sources Conflict
**Standard Text**
Not every source will fit together perfectly.
When two sources appear to conflict, first determine whether they are actually describing the same time, place, institution, or circumstance. A later condition may simply have changed from an earlier one.
If a genuine conflict remains, information directly established by SWTOR should normally take priority over supplementary Legends material for StarForgeRP.
Among SWTOR-related sources, more specific or current information may clarify or supersede an older general description. When the available evidence still does not support a confident conclusion, explain the disagreement or preserve the uncertainty rather than forcing a solution.
Do not quietly combine contradictory accounts into a new version that no source actually supports.
**Subheading**
When New SWTOR Lore Conflicts With StarForgeRP
**Standard Text**
Because SWTOR is an ongoing game, future official material may occasionally establish something that StarForgeRP previously left open or interpreted differently.
A new update should not cause existing roleplay to disappear without consideration.
First determine whether the new material truly contradicts the existing record or merely adds context. Where both can reasonably coexist, prefer the interpretation that preserves established roleplay.
If a genuine contradiction cannot be reconciled, SWTOR should normally become the foundation for future shared continuity. The affected StarForgeRP material can then be revised as narrowly as practical, with an explanatory continuity note where the change would otherwise be confusing.
Past roleplay should not be silently erased merely because an assumption later became outdated.
When a correction would substantially change another player's established character, organization, relationship, or story, the affected participants should coordinate the revision rather than having one person's continuity rewritten without them.
**Heading**
Later-Era Star Wars Material
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP is an Old Republic-era setting.
Information from the High Republic, Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War, New Republic, or other much later periods may sometimes provide useful comparison, but it should not automatically be treated as evidence for conditions thousands of years earlier.
Be especially careful with:
**List**
* governments and political borders* military structures and ranks* Jedi and Sith institutions* Mandalorian political conditions* corporate or criminal organizations* technology and equipment* settlement names and planetary governments* cultural practices* species demographics* titles and terminology* historical reputations* whether an organization even existed yet
**Standard Text**
A planet, species, culture, or institution may exist in both periods without remaining unchanged between them.
When later material is the only available source, use it cautiously and identify any extrapolation necessary to apply it to the SWTOR era.
**Heading**
A Practical Continuity Check
**Standard Text**
You do not need to conduct exhaustive research for every character detail or casual roleplay scene.
Additional checking becomes most useful when a concept makes a significant claim about established history or the wider setting.
Before establishing something important, consider:
**List**
* Does the species, organization, government, tradition, technology, or institution exist during the relevant period?* Does the character's age and history fit the chronology?* Was the planet or location in the condition the story assumes?* Does the character's rank, authority, training, wealth, equipment, or access make sense for their circumstances?* Does the concept depend on a later-era development being projected backward into SWTOR?* Does it contradict a major established SWTOR event or an existing part of StarForgeRP continuity?* If the answer is not established, is the material being presented clearly as interpretation or StarForgeRP-created continuity?
**Standard Text**
Unusual concepts are not automatically continuity problems.
A rare species, unconventional upbringing, obscure Force tradition, unusual profession, independent organization, or exceptional personal history can work well when there is enough context to explain how it fits.
The goal is not to make every character ordinary.
The goal is to make their place in the shared setting understandable.
**Heading**
When the Lore Does Not Give an Answer
**Standard Text**
Do not invent certainty simply because the archive would be tidier with an answer.
If established sources are silent, contradictory, or too vague to support a firm conclusion, StarForgeRP can leave the question open, identify a reasonable interpretation, or make a deliberate community continuity decision when later stories genuinely require one.
Different questions require different amounts of certainty.
The exact childhood custom of an otherwise undocumented village may be safe to expand creatively. The identity of a galactic ruler, fate of an established world, result of a major SWTOR storyline, or existence of a supposedly unique artifact deserves considerably more care.
When possible, preserve room for future information.
Continuity should support new stories rather than require StarForgeRP to answer every mystery before anyone can roleplay around it.
**Heading**
Continuity in Practice
**Standard Text**
A useful StarForgeRP continuity decision should make the shared setting easier to understand without making it unnecessarily smaller.
Use established SWTOR lore for the foundations.
Use compatible Legends material where it adds context.
Let StarForgeRP characters and stories create consequences of their own.
Identify interpretation when the source material leaves gaps.
Preserve uncertainty when there is no reliable answer.
Most importantly, remember what continuity is for: allowing stories to inherit history.
Characters should be able to encounter places changed by earlier campaigns, meet people whose relationships have developed over time, inherit problems created by past decisions, discover consequences they did not personally cause, and contribute developments that later roleplay may remember in turn.
The galaxy does not need to revolve around one character for that character to leave something behind.
**Button / Link Text**
**Button Name:** View Current Setting
**Link Page Name:** Current Setting
**Page URL:** https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/current-setting
**Button / Link Text**
**Button Name:** View Galactic Timeline
**Link Page Name:** Galactic Timeline
**Page URL:** https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/galactic-timeline
**Button / Link Text**
**Button Name:** Read Roleplay Guidelines
**Link Page Name:** Roleplay Guidelines
**Page URL:** https://www.starforgerp.com/guide/roleplay-guidelines
Continuity & Canon
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP uses established Star Wars: The Old Republic lore as the foundation of its shared setting while leaving room for compatible Legends material, community-created history, and clearly identified interpretation where the source material does not provide a complete answer.
Continuity exists to make collaborative roleplay easier to understand and build upon. It gives characters a shared past, establishes what has changed through earlier stories, and helps different players create within the same galaxy without requiring everyone to know every piece of SWTOR lore.
The purpose is not to turn lore knowledge into a test or prevent players from creating something new. It is to distinguish what the setting already establishes from what StarForgeRP has added, what remains uncertain, and where creative expansion has room to exist.
When an idea depends on established history, use the strongest applicable source, preserve uncertainty where the sources are unclear, and expand the setting without unnecessarily rewriting its foundations.
**Small Text / Caption**
Current StarForgeRP continuity anchor: 3621 BBY · Story anchor: Game Update 7.9 — Legacy Reborn · Date certainty: Reconstructed.
The **Current Setting** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/current-setting) is the primary reference for StarForgeRP's present-day continuity point and should be treated as the current source of truth if the setting advances. StarForgeRP's 3621 BBY placement is a reconstructed archive date rather than an exact BBY date directly established by SWTOR.
**Heading**
What “Canon” Means on StarForgeRP
**Standard Text**
On StarForgeRP, canon is most useful as a practical continuity question: what information should players treat as established when creating characters and stories?
StarForgeRP is built specifically around the SWTOR era. Material directly established by Star Wars: The Old Republic and closely related official SWTOR sources therefore receives priority when determining the state of the setting.
This does not mean that every other piece of Star Wars material is unusable. Older Legends sources can provide valuable information about species, cultures, planets, technologies, organizations, historical events, and other subjects that SWTOR does not describe in detail. The important question is whether that information is compatible with SWTOR and appropriate to the period being portrayed.
Likewise, material from much later Star Wars eras should not automatically be projected backward into the Old Republic. An institution, technology, political arrangement, cultural practice, or title known from a later period may have had a different form—or may not have existed at all—during the SWTOR era.
When there is a meaningful difference, StarForgeRP should identify it rather than treating all Star Wars material as interchangeable.
**Heading**
Continuity Hierarchy
**Standard Text**
When information comes from different layers of Star Wars or StarForgeRP continuity, use the following general order.
**Subheading**
Established SWTOR Lore
**Standard Text**
SWTOR game material and closely related official SWTOR sources form the primary foundation of StarForgeRP.
This includes established events, characters, factions, organizations, locations, political circumstances, technologies, cultural information, and other setting details directly supported by SWTOR or appropriate official material connected to it.
Where current SWTOR material directly establishes something, StarForgeRP should normally follow it even if older supplementary material gives a different account.
Established lore provides circumstances for roleplay. It does not require every character to interpret those circumstances in the same way.
**Subheading**
Supplementary Legends Lore
**Standard Text**
Broader Star Wars Legends material may be used when it adds useful Old Republic-era context without contradicting established SWTOR lore.
This is particularly useful when SWTOR names or depicts a subject without explaining it in much detail. Older reference books, novels, comics, games, and other Legends material may provide additional history or cultural context.
Age and applicability still matter. Information established thousands of years before the SWTOR setting may have changed by the time of StarForgeRP, while information from thousands of years afterward should not be assumed to describe earlier conditions.
When supplementary information is useful but its SWTOR-era applicability is uncertain, identify that uncertainty.
**Subheading**
StarForgeRP Continuity
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP Continuity includes characters, relationships, organizations, locations, events, discoveries, conflicts, agreements, and other developments established through the shared archive and collaborative roleplay.
Community-created material can become an important part of the setting.
A mercenary company may acquire a reputation. A settlement may be damaged and rebuilt. An organization may divide. An expedition may discover something important. Characters may form alliances, lose positions, create rivalries, change loyalties, or leave consequences that affect people who were never present for the original scene.
Once those developments matter to later roleplay, they become part of the history StarForgeRP is intended to preserve.
StarForgeRP Continuity should normally expand established lore rather than replace major SWTOR events, governments, conflicts, or protagonists.
**Subheading**
Interpretation / Expanded Material
**Standard Text**
Established sources do not answer every question.
Reasonable interpretation, extrapolation, reconstruction, or headcanon may be used when the setting leaves enough room for it, provided that it is not presented as confirmed SWTOR lore.
This might involve developing the internal culture of a community that SWTOR barely describes, reconstructing the likely circumstances around an uncertain date, creating an unaffiliated organization in an established region, or interpreting how a known galactic development may affect ordinary life.
Interpretation works best when it answers a useful roleplay question without unnecessarily declaring that an uncertain possibility is the only possible truth.
If the source material leaves something unknown, “unknown” can remain a valid answer.
**Heading**
The Current Continuity Point
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP has a shared present so that characters, organizations, locations, and ongoing stories can exist within the same general historical circumstances.
The present-day setting is maintained on the **Current Setting** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/current-setting) page, while the **Galactic Timeline** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/galactic-timeline) records the sequence of significant established and community events.
At present, StarForgeRP is anchored in 3621 BBY and incorporates established SWTOR story material through Game Update 7.9: Legacy Reborn. SWTOR identifies Legacy Reborn as the finale of the Legacy of the Sith storyline.
The continuity point is an archive anchor rather than a requirement that every roleplay scene occur on exactly the same date. Stories may take place earlier when their chronological position is clear.
A newly released game patch also does not need to enter StarForgeRP continuity automatically. New SWTOR story material should first be reviewed for its chronology, consequences, branching outcomes, and possible conflicts with existing StarForgeRP records before the shared setting advances.
**Heading**
Using Established Events in Character Histories
**Standard Text**
Major SWTOR events are part of the history surrounding StarForgeRP characters, but a character does not need to own an established event for that event to matter to them.
A character might have served during a war, survived an invasion, treated casualties after a battle, lost family during an occupation, investigated the aftermath of a crisis, profited from instability, transported supplies, encountered refugees, or simply grown up hearing stories about something that happened before they were born.
These connections usually create more room for roleplay than replacing the established person responsible for a major historical outcome.
Characters should therefore be able to participate meaningfully in the SWTOR setting without routinely becoming the secret cause of its most important canonical events.
Connections to major established SWTOR characters are not automatically inappropriate either. A soldier might plausibly have served in the same military structure as an established officer. A Jedi may have attended the same institution as a known Master. An intelligence operative may have encountered orders influenced by a prominent Sith.
The greater the claimed relationship or historical significance, however, the more carefully it should be checked against established continuity.
A brief professional encounter requires less justification than claiming to have been the lifelong secret mentor, spouse, indispensable deputy, or true architect behind the accomplishments of a major SWTOR figure.
**Heading**
Branching SWTOR Choices
**Standard Text**
SWTOR frequently allows players to make decisions that can lead to different character relationships, political circumstances, deaths, allegiances, or story outcomes.
A personal SWTOR playthrough does not automatically determine universal StarForgeRP history.
Where different outcomes do not affect shared roleplay, StarForgeRP does not need to decide between them. Leaving an outcome unspecified can preserve flexibility.
Where an outcome does matter to later characters, locations, organizations, or stories, StarForgeRP may establish a particular result for the purposes of shared continuity.
When that happens, the chosen outcome should be treated as StarForgeRP Continuity: the version adopted by this shared setting, rather than a claim that SWTOR itself recognizes no other possible outcome.
Two mutually exclusive outcomes should not be treated as simultaneously true simply because different players experienced both in their own game playthroughs.
**Heading**
Gameplay Is Not Automatically Lore
**Standard Text**
SWTOR is both a narrative setting and an MMORPG. Some things exist because they are useful or necessary for gameplay rather than because the fiction requires them to operate exactly as depicted.
Character levels, cooldowns, respawning enemies, repeatable missions, interface systems, inventory capacity, fixed map scale, rapid travel mechanics, combat balance, and similar systems should not automatically be interpreted as literal in-universe facts.
The same caution applies to equipment and cosmetic availability. An item being obtainable by a player does not necessarily prove that it is common, commercially available everywhere, historically appropriate in every context, or identical in significance to the object that inspired its appearance.
Story missions, Flashpoints, Operations, and other narrative content may represent events that occurred within the setting, but replaying them does not mean the same historical event repeatedly occurs.
SWTOR itself sometimes explicitly separates gameplay access from narrative status. Game Update 7.9, for example, allows players to use certain companions that are described as narratively unavailable because of story progression or earlier choices.
Use game mechanics when they help represent a character or scene. Use lore and story context when determining what actually exists within StarForgeRP continuity.
**Heading**
Community-Created Continuity
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP should have room to create things that SWTOR never specifically documented.
Players may introduce original characters, families, crews, businesses, military units, criminal groups, research teams, settlements, local traditions, minor political disputes, archaeological projects, independent organizations, personal histories, and other material that fits reasonably within the setting.
Original does not mean unimportant.
A community-created organization may become influential within a city or region. A campaign may permanently alter a settlement. A character may become well known within a profession. A local conflict may affect trade, security, politics, or relationships for years.
The useful boundary is scale.
Community-created stories can have serious consequences without requiring every story to change the fate of the Galactic Republic, overthrow the Sith Empire, destroy a major established world, secretly control an established galactic organization, or replace the central events of SWTOR.
Local and regional history is still history.
**Subheading**
Let Consequences Remain
**Standard Text**
Persistent continuity means that roleplay can change the setting.
When a development remains relevant after the original scene ends, update the records that future players may need.
A changed allegiance may belong on a character dossier. A damaged base may require an updated Galaxy entry. A newly formed rivalry may connect two characters. The conclusion of a campaign belongs in its Roleplay record. A development affecting multiple people, organizations, or locations may deserve an entry on the Timeline.
Not every scene needs to become a historical event.
Preserve what future roleplay needs to remember.
The **Roleplay Guidelines** (https://www.starforgerp.com/guide/roleplay-guidelines) provide the broader expectations for collaborative storytelling, agency, conflict, and consequences.
**Heading**
Player Knowledge & Character Knowledge
**Standard Text**
Something being true in StarForgeRP continuity does not mean every character knows it.
The archive is primarily a player-facing resource. It may document private motivations, secret affiliations, hidden relationships, classified operations, obscure historical information, criminal activity, or other details that characters within the setting would have limited access to.
When roleplaying, consider what the character could reasonably know.
Where were they when the event occurred? Was it publicly reported? Does their organization have access to relevant intelligence? Were they told by someone who would know? Could they have researched it? Are they relying on rumor, propaganda, incomplete records, or second-hand information?
Characters may disagree about what happened without StarForgeRP itself being unclear about the underlying event.
Mistakes, rumors, secrets, propaganda, and incomplete information can all create useful roleplay.
The same principle applies to character pages. Information recorded in a dossier does not automatically become public in-character knowledge; the **Character Dossier Guidelines** (https://www.starforgerp.com/guide/character-dossier-guidelines) should govern how character information is presented and interpreted.
**Heading**
Dates & Chronology
**Standard Text**
StarForgeRP primarily uses BBY — Before the Battle of Yavin — as its common archival dating system so that events from different periods can be compared consistently throughout the site.
SWTOR's official Galactic History instead uses BTC and ATC — Before and After the Treaty of Coruscant — and identifies the Treaty as the central reference point for that system.
BTC or ATC dates may therefore be included where they are particularly useful for SWTOR-era context, while BBY remains StarForgeRP's primary archive format.
Not every SWTOR event has an explicitly established BBY year.
When only the order or approximate period of events is known, StarForgeRP should preserve that uncertainty rather than inventing an exact date.
Continuity source and date certainty should also remain separate. An event can be unquestionably established by SWTOR while its exact year remains uncertain.
The **Galactic Timeline** (https://www.starforgerp.com/timeline/galactic-timeline) uses the following date-certainty terms where needed: Confirmed, Approximate, Reconstructed, and Uncertain.
**Heading**
When Sources Conflict
**Standard Text**
Not every source will fit together perfectly.
When two sources appear to conflict, first determine whether they are actually describing the same time, place, institution, or circumstance. A later condition may simply have changed from an earlier one.
If a genuine conflict remains, information directly established by SWTOR should normally take priority over supplementary Legends material for StarForgeRP.
Among SWTOR-related sources, more specific or current information may clarify or supersede an older general description. When the available evidence still does not support a confident conclusion, explain the disagreement or preserve the uncertainty rather than forcing a solution.
Do not quietly combine contradictory accounts into a new version that no source actually supports.
**Subheading**
When New SWTOR Lore Conflicts With StarForgeRP
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Because SWTOR is an ongoing game, future official material may occasionally establish something that StarForgeRP previously left open or interpreted differently.
A new update should not cause existing roleplay to disappear without consideration.
First determine whether the new material truly contradicts the existing record or merely adds context. Where both can reasonably coexist, prefer the interpretation that preserves established roleplay.
If a genuine contradiction cannot be reconciled, SWTOR should normally become the foundation for future shared continuity. The affected StarForgeRP material can then be revised as narrowly as practical, with an explanatory continuity note where the change would otherwise be confusing.
Past roleplay should not be silently erased merely because an assumption later became outdated.
When a correction would substantially change another player's established character, organization, relationship, or story, the affected participants should coordinate the revision rather than having one person's continuity rewritten without them.
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Later-Era Star Wars Material
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StarForgeRP is an Old Republic-era setting.
Information from the High Republic, Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War, New Republic, or other much later periods may sometimes provide useful comparison, but it should not automatically be treated as evidence for conditions thousands of years earlier.
Be especially careful with:
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* governments and political borders* military structures and ranks* Jedi and Sith institutions* Mandalorian political conditions* corporate or criminal organizations* technology and equipment* settlement names and planetary governments* cultural practices* species demographics* titles and terminology* historical reputations* whether an organization even existed yet
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A planet, species, culture, or institution may exist in both periods without remaining unchanged between them.
When later material is the only available source, use it cautiously and identify any extrapolation necessary to apply it to the SWTOR era.
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A Practical Continuity Check
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You do not need to conduct exhaustive research for every character detail or casual roleplay scene.
Additional checking becomes most useful when a concept makes a significant claim about established history or the wider setting.
Before establishing something important, consider:
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* Does the species, organization, government, tradition, technology, or institution exist during the relevant period?* Does the character's age and history fit the chronology?* Was the planet or location in the condition the story assumes?* Does the character's rank, authority, training, wealth, equipment, or access make sense for their circumstances?* Does the concept depend on a later-era development being projected backward into SWTOR?* Does it contradict a major established SWTOR event or an existing part of StarForgeRP continuity?* If the answer is not established, is the material being presented clearly as interpretation or StarForgeRP-created continuity?
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Unusual concepts are not automatically continuity problems.
A rare species, unconventional upbringing, obscure Force tradition, unusual profession, independent organization, or exceptional personal history can work well when there is enough context to explain how it fits.
The goal is not to make every character ordinary.
The goal is to make their place in the shared setting understandable.
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When the Lore Does Not Give an Answer
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Do not invent certainty simply because the archive would be tidier with an answer.
If established sources are silent, contradictory, or too vague to support a firm conclusion, StarForgeRP can leave the question open, identify a reasonable interpretation, or make a deliberate community continuity decision when later stories genuinely require one.
Different questions require different amounts of certainty.
The exact childhood custom of an otherwise undocumented village may be safe to expand creatively. The identity of a galactic ruler, fate of an established world, result of a major SWTOR storyline, or existence of a supposedly unique artifact deserves considerably more care.
When possible, preserve room for future information.
Continuity should support new stories rather than require StarForgeRP to answer every mystery before anyone can roleplay around it.
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Continuity in Practice
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A useful StarForgeRP continuity decision should make the shared setting easier to understand without making it unnecessarily smaller.
Use established SWTOR lore for the foundations.
Use compatible Legends material where it adds context.
Let StarForgeRP characters and stories create consequences of their own.
Identify interpretation when the source material leaves gaps.
Preserve uncertainty when there is no reliable answer.
Most importantly, remember what continuity is for: allowing stories to inherit history.
Characters should be able to encounter places changed by earlier campaigns, meet people whose relationships have developed over time, inherit problems created by past decisions, discover consequences they did not personally cause, and contribute developments that later roleplay may remember in turn.
The galaxy does not need to revolve around one character for that character to leave something behind.
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