Continuity & Canon

StarForgeRP brings original characters and collaborative stories into a persistent Star Wars: The Old Republic setting. SWTOR provides the external foundation, compatible Legends material adds context, and community roleplay creates its own lasting history.

Continuity preserves the connections between those stories: what happened, who was involved, what changed, and what later characters may encounter. This guide explains how to use established lore, develop original material, and handle uncertain or conflicting information. You do not need encyclopedic knowledge to participate.

Continuity connects the facts and circumstances of a setting across time. A character’s former employer, an abandoned settlement, a damaged relationship, or an unresolved discovery may remain important long after the original story ends.

Canon describes what a particular fictional continuity treats as authoritative. When discussing StarForgeRP, identify which source or setting you mean. Official SWTOR information, community-created history, and a character’s personal belief make different kinds of claims.

Something can be established within StarForgeRP without appearing in official Star Wars material. Conversely, appearing in an official publication does not automatically make a detail applicable to SWTOR’s period or StarForgeRP’s adopted history.

Established SWTOR Lore

Use directly relevant SWTOR narrative evidence as the primary external reference. Codex entries, dialogue, missions, cinematics, mail, and story-bearing item descriptions can establish information about the setting. Closely related official material can provide further support.

Consider what the evidence actually demonstrates. A character’s accusation establishes that the accusation was made; it may not establish that the accused person committed the act. Check context, perspective, and any later clarification before treating a statement as objective fact.

Supplementary Legends Lore

Compatible Legends material can help explain subjects that SWTOR addresses only briefly. Check that it fits the relevant period and does not contradict stronger SWTOR evidence.

A practice documented in a later era may have changed over time. Do not assume that a government, rank, technology, institution, or cultural custom existed in the same form during the Old Republic simply because it appears elsewhere in Legends.

Current Star Wars canon is a separate continuity reference. Shared names and concepts do not automatically transfer their full histories or characteristics into this setting.

StarForgeRP-Created Material

Established community material includes original characters, organizations, locations, relationships, events, and the consequences of roleplay. Its absence from official references is expected.

Check relevant StarForgeRP records before changing an unfamiliar detail. An unusual affiliation or local history may be intentional, with consequences already established elsewhere.

Original material should remain distinguishable from external lore when that distinction affects understanding. A community-created institution can belong fully to StarForgeRP without being presented as an official SWTOR institution.

Proposed StarForgeRP-Created Material

A newly suggested background, relationship, location, or event is proposed material until it is established for the shared setting. Compatibility with lore makes an idea workable; it does not prove that the idea has already become part of shared history.

When discussing additions, make clear which details are new. Do not describe another participant’s character as having accepted an obligation, joined an organization, formed a relationship, or taken part in an event unless that involvement has been established with them.

A possible connection can remain a roleplay opportunity.

Interpretation / Extrapolation

Interpretation draws a conclusion from available evidence without claiming direct confirmation. Explain its basis when other stories depend on it, and preserve uncertainty where several explanations remain possible.

Creating a new personal history or original event is creative development. It should not be presented as a discovery merely because existing lore makes it plausible.

Uncertain / Unsupported Information

Information may be unknown, disputed, concealed, incompletely documented, or unsupported by the sources available. These circumstances do not all mean the same thing, and none automatically means that a claim is false.

An unsuccessful search does not establish nonexistence. Equally, a gap in the record does not justify a confident assertion.

Current Setting establishes StarForgeRP’s present-day baseline. The Galactic Timeline provides historical sequence and identifies differing levels of date certainty.

New game releases do not automatically advance the shared present. A date adopted for StarForgeRP also does not independently establish an official date for the corresponding SWTOR events.

For earlier stories and flashbacks, establish when the scene occurs, which events have already happened, and what conditions apply. The date participants play a scene is separate from its date within the fiction.

Dates & Character Ages

Preserve dates that help explain significant experiences and consequences. Where only an event’s sequence is supported, do not assign an exact year merely to make the record look complete.

Calculate ages from supported birth information and the relevant event date. If birthday timing is unknown, use an approximate age or range. In BBY dating, larger year numbers come earlier.

New birth dates or personal-history dates developed for an original character should be identified as new material when proposed. Ages calculated from those dates depend on the same proposal; they are not separate evidence confirming it.

Major Events & Established Figures

Connect characters to history through experiences that explain their lives: employment, training, displacement, family responsibilities, service, recovery, or the effects of a wider crisis.

Give exceptional connections appropriate support and limits. Membership in an organization does not automatically grant access to its leadership, unrestricted resources, or responsibility for its major achievements.

Unusual backgrounds can create useful stories when their circumstances fit the setting and leave other participants meaningful choices. Character Creation Guide provides fuller guidance on developing those connections.

Branching SWTOR Outcomes

SWTOR includes choices that change story outcomes. Different playthroughs can therefore produce histories that cannot all apply to the same shared circumstances.

Check whether StarForgeRP has established the relevant outcome before relying on a particular allegiance, relationship, death, survival, or political decision. Preserve the distinction between the branch adopted for community continuity and other possibilities available in the game.

If shared roleplay needs an answer that has not been established, clarify the choice with the affected participants before building dependent events around it. Where the difference has no meaningful effect, the outcome can remain unspecified.

Gameplay Mechanics & Setting Facts

Game systems help represent the setting, but they do not independently define its limits. Playable options, equipment availability, character levels, combat balance, and repeatable encounters are insufficient evidence for universal claims about the galaxy.

A game character’s abilities or possessions also do not automatically establish the roleplay character’s training, authority, accomplishments, or access to rare resources.

Use narrative evidence to understand the fiction and game systems to portray it where practical.

Character Knowledge & Recorded Claims

A public reference page may contain information that remains private or undiscovered within the story. Ask how a character learned something, what their source could know, and whether that account is reliable.

Separate an event from the accounts of it. A genuine document can contain false information; a sincere witness can misunderstand what happened. A rumor may be established as something people repeat while its underlying allegation remains unproven.

Preserve boundaries around secret identities, hidden affiliations, restricted information, and future revelations. Established circumstances leave participants control over their characters’ responses.

Develop original material through understandable connections: where it belongs, how it arose, whom it affects, and what opportunities it creates.

Personal and local developments can carry lasting significance. A damaged friendship, disputed inheritance, research project, or struggling business can give several characters meaningful choices without changing galactic history.

Keep capabilities, resources, influence, and achievements proportionate to the circumstances established for the subject. Coordinate developments that affect another participant’s character or shared material.

Adapting Characters from Other Settings

Begin with the qualities that define the character, then examine the history inherited from their previous setting. Check dates, affiliations, titles, resources, accomplishments, and relationships against StarForgeRP’s existing circumstances.

Identify which details fit, which need adaptation, and which remain unresolved. A revised background should not silently change another character’s history or import an incompatible outcome into shared continuity.

Preserve important connections where they can fit coherently, and discuss consequential changes with the people whose material they affect.

Preserving Lasting Consequences

Record enough for future participants to understand what changed. Useful details may include the people involved, significant timing, the outcome, continuing obligations, and questions left open.

Keep the fuller account with the character, place, organization, or story it explains. Related records can summarize the relevant consequence and direct readers to that account.

The Story Archive connects concluded roleplay to the history it leaves behind. A concluded story can still create future opportunities, and unresolved consequences need not disappear when a mission ends.

Routine scenes do not all require permanent records. Preserve what later stories are likely to need.

Check Whether Accounts Actually Conflict

Compare the subject, period, location, scope, and point of view. Different descriptions may concern different circumstances: a former affiliation and a current one, a damaged facility and its later reconstruction, or an allegation and the event behind it.

For external lore, seek directly relevant SWTOR evidence before relying on supplementary accounts. Check the underlying source where possible; several summaries repeating it do not provide independent confirmation.

For community history, look for explicit corrections, intentional revisions, event sequence, and consequences recorded on related pages. Investigate an unusual detail before treating it as an error.

New Evidence & Intentional Revisions

Consider whether new evidence concerns StarForgeRP’s adopted period or events beyond its story boundary. Later developments may leave earlier scenes entirely intact.

When a genuine conflict remains, identify the incompatible claims and what each rests upon. Distinguish a factual correction from a deliberate revision of established continuity—a retcon—and consider which connected stories would be affected.

Keep changes as focused as practical. Do not silently combine incompatible accounts, substitute a new history, or assign another participant’s character a different past. Follow the applicable contribution and editorial provisions when substantial changes are needed.

When No Answer Is Necessary

Leave a question open when shared play does not require its resolution. Characters can investigate incomplete evidence, disagree about an explanation, or live with uncertainty.

Match the depth of checking to the claim. A personal preference usually requires less investigation than a new institutional authority, consequential historical connection, or change affecting another participant.

• Does the idea fit the relevant period and StarForgeRP’s adopted setting?

• Which parts are established, interpreted, newly proposed, or unresolved?

• Do the dates, ages, affiliations, and surrounding circumstances agree?

• Have related records established connections or consequences that matter?

• Does the idea depend on gameplay mechanics or assumptions from another era?

• What could the character know, and how could they have learned it?

• Would it assign another participant’s character an unestablished history or outcome?

• What lasting changes should future stories remember?

• Which questions can remain open?