Does JvS need a set timeline? Have your say.

Prepares himself a Soap Box.

So, as I was ranting in chat about this, a set timeline for JvS would be a wonderful thing for us as a community to officially recognise. Not only would it establish a bit of structure to our beloved sandbox, but what I had in mind wouldn’t restrict it as much as setting a firm starting year on the events presently taking place. Essentially, it would be saying that our characters live on in the Legacy Era, anywhere between the years 37 ABY to whenever since technically the Legacy era never ended thanks in part to Disney buying Star Wars. ( I thought it ended with the legacy comics, but the Publishing Era lists makes no mention of a solid end date. Publishing Era Source.)

Now, that’s not saying anyone would have to conform to this, but it would give newcomers a general idea of when to base the births of their characters, so that they could appropriately interact with our characters. I think we’ve all had enough of the Gent that was born during the Ancient Jedi Civil War, and who is now Seventeen and bore witness to the Rise of the Empire without going into carbonite. ( Which is where I believe the RP Advisors would be perfect for the job should this ever arise again, since I’ve yet to see a character like this since the earliest days of 1.5. )

That aside, the issue of addressing canon events taking place arises when we decide to choose a timeline. It’s unavoidable, but it’s something I believe we should get out of the way as fast as possible. Having written characters from all ends of the time spectrum and seen how others portray their characters when interacting with someone from the past or the future, it adds an interesting flavour to the story. I know when I used Darth Krayt as an example in chat, there were a few that had said “Darth Krayt? Never heard of her.” in response. So imagine if that previously mentioned character archetype walked into a cantina full of characters and told that story aloud. How many of the people there would laugh and consider the guy to be a drunkard stumbling in for a pick me up? I’m willing to bet that a vast majority of them would. You can claim that water is wet all you like, it’s up to the other to believe it so your words hold weight.

That being said, we would and could indirectly mention canon events, but would never be affected by them, nor change them. They’re a separate entity altogether. What we do within a set timeline, affects only JvS as a whole - one way or another - should a writer choose to acknowledge it in their stories. Thus, that’s why I believe that simply labelling JvS as a Legacy Era site would be beneficial to everyone currently here, not only because it includes every year that everyone is writing in - but it also gives Newbs a foundation upon which to build what many of us have done in the past with less.

Choosing the Legacy as the broad spectrum for the timeline would be perfect due to it being one of the wider areas of the timeline (covering between 37 ABY and 139 ABY, when the Legacy comics ended for Dark Horse. Yet that shouldn't make us stop there for the Legacy Era never truly ended, in our view most likely, the Legacy Era still ongoing and our community's timeline is a part of it.

With choosing this era, its the peak of everything in terms of canon technology, history and so forth. If we were to choose an early era, we would have to cut things here and there such as Pellaeon-class Star Destroyers, the One Sith, the Fel Empire, the Galactic Alliance and so forth. Placing ourselves in the Legacy Era doesn't really hinder nor force any changes on anyone nor the site as a whole. Most people use Pellaeon-class Star Destroyers, others have mentioned the One Sith or the Fel Empire at some point. It all works out for everyone.

^ yup.

Because this is how my head works, and where my thinking often leads me, my biggest issue with setting JvS later that Legacy, would be that many of us would now be using tech (weapons, ships etc.) well over 300+ years old. Now, I personally don't mind a little mileage on my freighter, but it does bring some interesting questions of reliability to mind.

Aside from that (admittedly very particular and specific) piece of thinking, I'm happy to have us play anywhere in the SW universe, at any time. For SponRP weekends, or closed SL's, I agree with Chill -- set it anywhere, and any TIME you want. But I think the open RP should be legacy-based, which allows for a certain recent-history viewpoint that characters can take regarding canon events.

For instance, I have played Fel's existence / back story to involve Imperial service, but not in any battle that would have changed or affected canon history (he wasn't at the Second Death Start, didn't fly alongside Vader, etc.) But that history lends a particularly 'grounded-in-canon' reality to Fel, for me. So Legacy is perfect as far as I'm concerned.

Been thinking on this awhile.

Couple thoughts that I think folks will come up with, starting with the most obvious one and the one that I think will hamstring a move on the part of the site's leadership, that being the potential stifling of creativity on the part of folks who may not want to write in a designated timeline. That's been the root argument of a large number of items of debate on this site since before I became a Whill, and that was five years ago. The discussions behind the scenes always come back to that in one way or another, and while it's a fair point and I dig the integrity it represents, eventually we have to make some realizations that creativity can be found within constraints. It's like nesting fractals - there exists infinite complexity in subdivided dimensions, and I think creativity works the same way. Give a prompt, get a response, and you never know what you're going to get.

The bigger point of a set timeline, to me at least, is the idea of giving the events of our little universe some weight. Countless cool things have happened on this site, and in the past any serious changes to the canon nature of things have been written off as a violation of site rules to preserve the canon nature of places in the Universe board, playing back into the idea of leaving all possible avenues of RP open for fear of, you guessed it, stifling the creativity of someone who may want to RP on an un-destroyed Alderaan or some other analog.

My counterargument to this is that while it does eliminate the possibilities of some of these ordeals, on the flipside it gives our canonicity some meaning. I mean, if we say the Universe is as it is in canon then nothing we've written over the past eight years has made a lick of difference. I say we give the site's users a chance to change that; not in the sense of blowing up planets or exterminating populations or changing the canon spirit of a planet (i.e., cleansing the canon dark side taint of Ambria or corrupting Ossus to be a darkside nexus or making a factory-world out of Dagobah) but letting the work of JvS's writers show through in the canon nature of the site. The catch here is that this complicates matters for a new writer coming to the site, and where they might think "Hey, Mandalore, I should check that out and see if the Oyu'baat is still around!" only to find that maybe that isn't the case, and all of a sudden they feel alienated.

A possible solution would be a group of volunteers who approve and chronicle canon changes to locations in galaxy - a Galactic Preservation Society, if you will. I know the last thing JvS needs is another committee but as is it's the first thing that comes to mind.

Anyway, those're my thoughts on it. I think the idea of a set timeline would do a lot in the way of cohesive storybuilding on the site and do a lot to provide a bit more unified narrative across the board. We always talk about how the RP boards are one big story, but the reality is that we've imposed upon it a forced compartmentalization. A set timeline would be the first step in truly making that story a single, coherent thread and really up the game of JvS.

Also regarding the stifling of creativity, it should be kept in mind that all 25 people who voted in Chill's thread (assuming no one used alts), voted for the legacy/post-legacy options. Not a single person voted earlier than that, which means that at the very least, most of us already write in the same or nearly the same timeline anyway (with the difference being merely a matter of semantics).

I haven't even seen anyone referencing current events earlier than that since well before the move to 2.0.

Which is a major plus towards making this proposal a reality. Seeing as it won't inconvenience anyone, shouldn't be too hard to implement.

And thankfully we do have the Closed RP SLs which can alternate the timeline without disrupting the ongoing timeline of the website. So it shouldn't hinder creativity in the slightest.

In fact, with Legacy/Post-Legacy being the choice, we are at the peak of canon history, technology, and so forth, ensuring that we have access to everything many of us use regularly such as Pellaeon-class Star Destroyers, the New Republic and Galactic Alliance ships, One Sith has come and gone (according to some people) and so forth.

A set time period, as in what era JvS generally takes place in, yes.

A set timeline, as in a set year that progresses based on a certain amount of RL time that people have to adhere to? No. I know no one's advocating for this, but I wanted to get it out there anyway.

I'm definitely very in favor of setting an era, and basically just calling JvS a "Legacy-era" site. However, considering the recent "canon" developments, I think we might have to go further than just an era, especially if we get new writers in the future who are hyped up on the new movies, who might be very confused on some history that most writers here go by. Basically, we'd need to specify in an easy-to-see location that this site takes place based on the events of the Expanded Universe, or "Legends" I guess (blegh), and that the new films as well as anything contradictory with EU canon don't count. Certainly, aspects of the new "canon" can be used—such as items, weapons, droids, ships, even the Knights of Ren perhaps—but not entire events. At the same time also specifying that JvS itself already muddies EU canon a bit...

This'll be tricky, but something that's probably necessary as well; an easy-to-access note that we could direct confused newcomers to.

I believe all of you kow this, but the new canon starts off at 30 years after the Return of the Jedi. Which, according to the timeline, would set this 'new canon' at 34 ABY (Battle of Endor was 4 ABY). The Legacy Era of the Legends or EU canon starts off at 37 ABY and extends 139 ABY (and beyond). Now if we were to examine this 'new canon' once more, it falls into the New Jedi Order Era of the Legends canon, which lasts from 25 ABY to 37 ABY. Just saying this to help set the mindset.

The real problem we have here is incorporating the new canon without disrupting the old canon of this website, since we are going with the Legacy Era and thus sticking with the Legends canon. We could incorporate technologies such as the new Stormtrooper appearance (which I believe Gideon has adopted) and this new class of Star Destroyer and TIE Fighter we have witnessed in the trailers. There is an image of a new Resistance starfighter which was seen in the recent trailer in a landed position. Internet speculates possibly a new X-Wing or Y-Wing model or a whole new line of starfighters on its own. These sort of adoptions could be easily performed without little, or any, problems to the standing timeline of this site.

It would be hard to mix the First Order and Resistance with that of the established Legacy Era beyond incorporating small things that I mentioned before. That's something I fear that will be very tricky to do beyond small details we could easily adopt into this site's lore and pool.

My best estimation is that it will come down to a case-by-case situation where whenever something new is announced/confirmed and we got plenty of detail about said item, we can decide whether it would be easy to incorporate or not. In my views, given how early this new timeline is, its just best we address incorporating 'new canon' on a case-by-case basis. We get enough information, we discuss it, determine if its worth incorporating, make our yays or nays, decide to incorporate or not. And this could depend on many situations. The new Stormtrooper appearance is easy to adopt without any discussion. Maybe a discussion would be necessary for the new space craft when more details are available to us.

Huh, never knew that. I know there are books on their way that will help explain this new canon coming this December.

And I can agree with this. Let's worry about it later.