Lit Road to Ruin: The State of the Galaxy from TOR MMO to the NSW

In light of @Sinrebirth latest headcanon post, I thought this topic might be needed ti accumulate all known facts, names and bits in a rather "empty" era that is supposed to be a Golden Age of the Republic after the TOR MMOs Sith Wars and before fallen Jedi Darth Ruin kicks of the New Sith Wars.

Over the course of the EU we had plenty of hints to this era but it was never directly filled. Much like the PT era and clone wars before the PT. While TOR MMO is ongoing and future Legends material is unlikely or rare, we can compile all that is known and needs to beconsidered. Likewise we can speculate how long TOR might be running to touch upon this or not with major timeline jumps or not.

Some big questions first:

How final will be the end of the TOR MMOs wartorn era? Will it be like the Ruusan Reformation, with rather next to no survivors that can stirr trouble, hence the golden age? Will it be an eradication of the Sith or rather a rebranding of the surviving ones into a f.e. humanocentric Outer Rim based Paecian Empire as some fans favor? Will there be a secret or not so secret lineage of Sith from TOR to Ruin? Or will he start on his own free of ancient baggage? Will the Sith of the TOR era fall to the light? Get kinda accepted as states outside the Republic so long they do not war with it? Will the Sith rebrand and not call themselves Sith to overcome ancient stigma and warmongering of anti-Sith Jedi dogma? Hence is the Golden Age of the Republic not a galaxy spanning one but rather a reduced Republic that is at peace leaving/ignoring the Rim to the Sith or Paecians and other such factions and states like the Hutts? That might give Ruin or any Sith of his time interesting new footing if they seek to reunify the galaxy or help the Rim the Republic and Jedi ignored.

But before diving into speculation, what are the facts and cornerstones we need to base the answers on? Timeline events, characters, factions, etc. that we do know exist in that era or continue through this era to the later ones? Sourcebooks, atlas, rpg, guides, articles, retcons, games, plenty filled this era with hints at least we can build from. Lets compile!

Likewise, what from TORs heroes and era will be inspiring future generations like Revan and KOTOR did the TOR era? How and when does the Republic loose access to the Unknown Regions again? before the NSW? during for sure? After? Why?

 

Well, it seems like the Darth Ruin/NSW kicked off a Sith era where the Sith species never played a role, as opposed to the Old Republic era and earlier.

Maybe the old Sith species dies out by the time of Darth Ruin.

 

Darth Rivan and Darth Ruin are fanboys of Revan and Malgus

 

This is definitely an interesting era to consider.
The big question is what is the great distinction between the Old Sith wars and the New Sith Wars?
All the stranger now that we have the Great Galactic Wars in between.

I've always favored a Sith Extinction event at the end of the TOR period to allow for a cleaner break between the era's, though I admit it isn't technically a requirement by any means. Particularly with the whole Darth Desolous lurking around this time. I just feel having the Sith be gone or in the shadows during this period makes Ruin feel more prominent when he does arrive on the scene and launch a thousand years of conflict. Though it could work in other ways too I guess.

 

@ColeFardreamer

Great thread and I find this era interesting for a bunch of reasons

From a out of universe perspective the New Sith Wars was essentially the Old Sith Wars in that George's timetable for the Sith was actually a lot smaller, only 2000 years, and that eventually led to Bane

Of course Legends had the timeline go longer for the Sith (And the Sith Species) and was retconned into it by the Bane book.

I kinda agree that I would want a bit of a break between the TOR and NSW era.

 

I think, the extinction of the Red Sith is an important factor that needs to be looked at. For one, the Taung were already few when recruiting humans and other species and easily died out in conflict, the Red Sith as of TOR are many and even spread galaxywide like never before (at least to our knowledge). So them dying out due to conflict is highly unlikely. While I can see a Sith purge and the Republic and Jedi basically committing genocide like they did 5000BBY when they scourged the back then known Sith worlds after the Great Hyperspace War, like back then, a complete eradication due to such is also unlikely. Both though, conflict and purge may have played a huge part in rather significantly diminishing their numbers and visibility in the galaxy.

Interbreeding seems to be a valid reason for the widespread red Sith to mingle with other species instead amongst each other and hence creating halfbreeds or no longer pure Red Sith species members if procreation is successful at all. Keshiri, Zeltron, etc. could be examples of how the Sith species through interpreeding or mixing their genepool got diversified into other redskinned species over the course of time.
Besides we know more Sith species colors than just red! We had Massassi that are red but also greenish and gray-ish ones. We had a yellow-ish priest caste too according to the Book of Sith. With the Massassi gone to the Unknown Regions or extinct if their backstory separate from the Sith still holds up, other castes may have shared a similiar unique fate that lessened or weakened the Sith Species as a whole. The Sith are as diverse as humanity with many colors and even subspecies probably like near-Sith? Or did human Sith get more and more popular ever since Valkorion and various experiments from cloning, bodyhopping and else are the reason many Sith sought human bodysuits for their spirits instead of the despised Red Sith species ones? Or was it that human and other alien species Sith got more prominent the more the Sith recruited resulting in the Sith species itself only remaining a minor percentage among all TOR Sith given their huge expansions in next to no time?
A disease or dna targeted extinction approach could be unleashed by the Republic even if the Jedi dislike such Alpha Red like scenarios.

Remind me again where the Hapan date stems from, I thought it was closer to 4000 than 3100BBY? Also we might need some big cornerstone timeline dates for current TOR story to start with I think.

When do you all expect TOR to end and why? Sure its ongoing but how close to the NSW 2000BBY mark? Will it ever leave its popular characters to jump ahead to a new era of TOR using old TOR as backdrop and past setup? Or will TOR die with the current characters reaching their age limits? (Given their legacy system of family trees failed epically).

I am all for the Paecian Empire being a leftover of former Sith domains as humanocentric Outer Rim Empire... albeit not run by Forceusers. For diversity's sake I'd like Forceusers only as attack dogs with non-Users as their leaders that control the Forceusers via Ysalamiri or other such tricks and tech. Would be a nice new-ish twist and maybe give precedence to where Thrawn got his ideas from later!

Also I'd like to draw a bridge between some later EU eras and this unexplored one by bringing in some Unknown Regions horrors as well as ancient tech and cultures that the NJO to Legacy era teased and touched upon to explain how Republic and Sith let go of the Unknown Regions and rather re-sealed it off. TOR's Killik tease on Alderaan as well as Mnggnal-Mnggnal etc. could be involved, maybe some Mother machine, Rakatan Archipelago and co going by WOTCs and FFGs story hooks that could be applied to distant past eras too. There actually are lots of rpg story hooks that free of a fixed era could be used to fill "empty" eras easily if one wanted to!

Also Phanius attacking Yavin and Ziost is interesting, for that implies they are settled at that time or rather actively guarded by Republic/Jedi so he has to free them. Unless he attacks indigenous settlers there only which may work but be less epic. Or if leftover Sith why would he attack them? Would Phanius kinda hunt for leftover Red Sith and purge them himself as a humanocentric Sith himself then? That'd be a late extinction event for the Red Sith... could even feature Red Sith that after a Golden Age of peace are calm and not hostile to Jedi and Republic or rather work for/with them (like in old Dawn of the Jedi times!!!) and see human Sith thus attack and wipe out peaceful benevolent Red Sith of which some actually could be Jedi even by then!!! Well Yavin IV and Ziost as Red Sith worlds formerly at least make me curious. The Sith Tribes Phanius unites then could be human Sith tribes, not red sith ones. If Sith Tribes survived till that time, which speaks against any extinction event earlier, then those could be Sith pirates and groups likewise that lost its teeth with the fall of the Dark Lords and only re-united are a force to be reconned with. There could even be other Sith tribes around that are harmless, be it true Revanites that survived as an order, or other factions the Jedi or Republic either left alone or considered not as bad as those they eradicated.

Makes me wonder if Dark Staff timetravel actually lead to some NSW timewars and rewriting of history or if it only allowed some timejumps forward instead of backwards?

 

@ColeFardreamer

Not sure if this has anything to with what you mentioned but in the Skywalker: A Family at War Novel (Which while canon) mentioned something interesting that could talk about this. Which was...

Spoiler

The Death Star was based of ancient Sith tales

Not sure if that had anything to do with anything but it's a fun thing to point out.

 

Spoiler

That reference probably is due to other canon sources mentioning "ancient kyber based weapons of the Sith Wars" as inspiration for the Death Star, which may be tied to the Rakatan sunenergy powered Starforges and likewise possibly.

 

True

For me though the real question when it comes to The New Sith war is simply....what eventually happens to the Empire Vitiate founded? How much does it eventually collapse.

 

Well we know the Sith Empire become defeated and forgotten the Sith territorry become part of the Republic again until Ruin came and leave the Jedi Order he search for Sith Clans to resurrect the Sith Empire from SWTOR during this time thanks to the war technology became obsolete and old again just like happen with PT technology in the time of the OT

 

Re-checking sources, you are right. 4000 years ago was when the Lorell Raiders started settling the cluster and they were active for centuries, only then the women took over, active themselves as fearsome Queenmothers with Battledragons before closing the borders due to galactic conflict spilling to them.

So closer to 3000 makes sense for closing the borders. That leaves the Lorell Raiders being ended though some time during or after TOR, which is interesting and could be used in future TOR MMO materials maybe? They could even use and show us fierce Hapan females thereafter as a followup before the cluster goes into lockdown due to either a TOR era conflict or a later conflict after TOR!

 

hmmm another thing to consider is if any of the Old Ones had a role in this era

 

SWTOR isn't considered to be part of the Old Sith Wars? Really seems like the capstone to those conflicts to me. Whether it was a good idea or not, the SWTOR timeline has made it so that Vivtiate and his empire(s) have played a subtle yet key role in all of the sith conflicts of the TOTJ and KOTOR era, so his death and the final collapse of his empire seems like a clear breaking point between the two sets of conflicts.

 

Agreed I do think that we need a definitive ending point to SWTOR as sorta.....Okay that the end of that era.

Now we get into the New Sith War and honestly that war should be more tied in with The Saga (At least of that time) since the New Sith War leads to Bane and what not?

(Even if you consider Plageuies the overall end of the Old Republic era)

 

The Sith are confirmed extinct by 1000 BBY I think. So unless something dramatic happens over that time the NSW are most likely devoid of any Sith (species)

 

One of these days humanity will be as extinct as Taung and Sith species and their traditions and believes will be carried on by other species... their mark on the galaxy remains. Like with the Rakata and other precursers before Humans, Taung, Jedi, Sith, etc. took over from these previous conflicts, Forcewielders and galactic rulers.

 

Isn't ToR still going on, in which case it's still subject to change?

The question I would have is this: do any of the ToR story and plot developments that happened AFTER the official 2014 discontinuation of" Legends" still apply to "Legends"?

As an aside, I've long felt that having the ancient Sith Empire and species return in ToR cheapened a lot of what had previously been established in the EU. Ragnos' bold proclamation about how "the Sith will never die" thanks to Kun reviving them after they had been gone, etc. Not to say that ToR is the only thing Sith that got glommed onto the EU in the final years, not by any measure.

 

Yes TOR is still ongoing

Yes TOR is still "Legends"

 

So at the very least this one part of the EU is still alive in terms of new canonical developments being added to it? Huh. I don't actually doubt that, though I can't recall seeing an official (Disney?) source outright saying so.

 

It's still the only thing in Legends...Trust me.

 

I'm not sure that post-reboot that Lucasfilm keeps a "Legends continuity." I don't think it has even been made clear that the term Legends applies to what was part of the old EU pre-reboot canon - as fans we have used that term to talk about the old continuity. After all, I believe Infinities is considered Legends, even though it was not canon to the pre-reboot continuity. If that is the case, ongoing TOR updates, while not "Canon", might not be considered "Legends" either. If Lucasfilm doesn't keep a continuity for Legends material, it is really fully up to fans what is part of that continuity and what isn't.

NOTE: liberal use of words and phrases such as if, I believe, not clear, etc.