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How old is our character?


Zhedzaban

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This question actually drove me batty for a time, only because I head-canon five of my toons as siblings. I considered them YOUNG - that their youth alone made their actions even more incredible, even. Plus, the story presents them as being new and student-ish, or just starting their careers, etc.

 

Shrug, I spent most of my own working career with the military. I figured I was growing 'older' when the new recruits starting looking like they were my own kids, rather than young men and women embarking on their own military careers, hehe. But since I worked so much with the military's social services programs, I learned quick what age groups marked the experience of the Soldiers and their family members that I was working with. Mind you, the average age of a new private in the Army is 19 and a second lieutenant is 23.

 

So those were the ages I went with when I considered my 'we yanked you into the academy ahead of schedule' Warrior (who is the eldest of my five siblings) and she's 19 years-old. Her Bounty Hunter half-sister is only several months younger, so she's 19, too.

 

But then I didn't want my younger characters to be too young, either. It would feel weird to me, to explore a romance using an 'underage' character. In other words, no. Friggin. Way.

 

That leaves my Imperial Agent, who's next eldest at aged 18. The youngest of my siblings are a pair of twins and they are half-siblings, again. So only weeks younger than my Agent. My Smuggler is 18 and so is his twin sister, my Knight. All this is at the start of the story. I tend to give them a bit more time from the class story to the opening of KotFE, though. I figure it's more like 12-13 years before Shadow of Revan starts up for my characters. So they're all in their early 30's when they meet up with Valkorian.

 

Mind you, some of my toons I head-canon being different aged. My Consular is very, very young. I actually see him as a smallish 15 year-old when the class story starts. But my Inquisitor is slightly older at 20. My Troopers are always even more older, if only because no one goes straight from boot camp into special forces. Seriously, soldiers have a bit of experience before they're even looked at for special forces! So my Troopers are typically in their late 20's, or pushing 30.

 

But that's only me. I think how you view the story and where your own character fits into it is totally personal to you. Whatever works or makes sense to you is fine, so you should only craft your character the way you think makes sense. And have fun!

Edited by Phyreblade
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The actual lead writer wrote the codex entries that said Lana was working on Hoth 21 years ago, which are actually canon. The comment on Twitter was off-the-record and casual. I would trust the former over the latter.

Boyd controls the story, more or less is what I meant. I'm not going to judge a character off of my opinion of a codex entry that doesn't even mention them by name, let alone is even certain it's them, but you're free to do whatever you want to do.

IMHO they don't mention her exact birth year, even though they drop those clues, for the same reason they don't specify it for Lord Zash or Senya, and for the same reason a lot of the romanceable female companions are very young: too many stereotypes and too much negativity toward women over, say, 35. Nobody cares if Darth Marr or Malgus are in their 60s, and some will still consider them attractive, but if they were to officially say Lana was, let's say, 45, there would likely be a lot of OH NOES SHE'S OOOLLLLLLDD or LOL COUGAR!! comments and people dropping them as LIs.

 

I've been playing BioWare games as long as I remember, and I'm sure you remember a little game series called Dragon Age. Every single female companion in it is older than the player character. Hell, Leliana was 26 compared to a city elf Warden who could be around, I don't know, 16 or so. More recently, MEA basically had the protagonist be my age, and every female in it almost a decade older. They clearly don't care about this kind of thing, and while I don't either, I hear Leliana is quite popular for someone who's just about 40 by the last we saw her. People still wanted her, and still talked about romancing her. All the same, Zash and Senya aren't romanceable characters whatsoever and their ages are very apparent, Lana would still be around 36 even with that said so your complaint doesn't even make sense, Kaliyo is 42 and this was mentioned, and to top it all off, short of Mako no romanceable female character is too shy of 35 at this point, and even the player is certainly closing in on that number nonsensical carbonite mechanics aside.

 

IMO, Lana's age isn't mentioned because not a lot of thought was put into her character when it was slammed together for SoR. Just a Sith who acts sort of like a Jedi sometimes, who impressed her colleagues and gets put into a position where she can meet the player, and that's it. Theron, on the other hand needed an extensive backstory because he's a Shan and has comics and books.

Edited by DudeinFlames
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People aren't going to be put off by a companion just because their stated age is "old," they're going to be drawn in or put off based on how the character looks and how old or young they look, sound, and act.

 

Also people were asking to romance DA2's version of Flemeth lol

 

Anyway, I see my Inquisitors as being the youngest. Maybe 16-17 at the start. Then my Knights and Consulars in their late teens-early 20's depending on the individual. I see my smugglers and agents in their mid 20's and my Troopers and Bounty Hunters as in their late 20's-early 30's at the start despite being called "kid" and such in the beginning.

Edited by Nefla
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Boyd controls the story, more or less is what I meant. I'm not going to judge a character off of my opinion of a codex entry that doesn't even mention them by name, let alone is even certain it's them, but you're free to do whatever you want to do.

 

Let's see. The codex entry is given to you after completing a Forged Alliance flashpoint where Lana is literally the only woman who is present, it's called "An Unexpected Ally" for Republic players, it says "someone matching her description" and it's accepted as her in all of the bio sites that cover SWTOR - but yeah, it's just conjecture. *eyeroll*

 

I don't particularly care how long you've been playing Bioware games, or what opinions you can rattle off about them. Read the thread where Lana's age is worked out...even there, people don't want her to be 40+ because she will be too old for their characters. End of discussion with you.

 

And ETA, I don't have any issue with Lana being in her 40s, in fact I think it's awesome - but that thread I mentioned, if it's tracked down, does have complaints - and I think there's even a stupid cougar comment in this thread.

Edited by IoNonSoEVero
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Let's see. The codex entry is given to you after completing a Forged Alliance flashpoint where Lana is literally the only woman who is present, it's called "An Unexpected Ally" for Republic players, it says "someone matching her description" and it's accepted as her in all of the bio sites that cover SWTOR - but yeah, it's just conjecture. *eyeroll*

 

I don't particularly care how long you've been playing Bioware games, or what opinions you can rattle off about them. Read the thread where Lana's age is worked out...even there, people don't want her to be 40+ because she will be too old for their characters. End of discussion with you.

I don't see what's wrong with Lana being 40. But then again, I'd hate it if Arcann was like 20.:rak_03: I'm glad he's not.:rak_06:

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I don't see what's wrong with Lana being 40. But then again, I'd hate it if Arcann was like 20.:rak_03: I'm glad he's not.:rak_06:

 

I don't have any issue with it, either. I actually prefer having characters in their 30s and 40s in the game, and I think it's right for Lana to be in her 40s. But I think there's a lot of sexism around the issue of women who aren't 25. People actually were complaining about it in that thread I mentioned, and I think we've even had a stupid cougar comment here.

Edited by IoNonSoEVero
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I don't have any issue with it, either. I actually prefer having characters in their 30s and 40s in the game, and I think it's right for Lana to be in her 40s. But I think there's a lot of sexism around the issue of women who aren't 25. People actually were complaining about it in that thread I mentioned, and I think we've even had a stupid cougar comment here.

Yeah, according to the internet women are off the market past 30.:p So I guess Lana being 40 is just horrible for them!

Edited by Eshvara
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Let's see. The codex entry is given to you after completing a Forged Alliance flashpoint where Lana is literally the only woman who is present, it's called "An Unexpected Ally" for Republic players, it says "someone matching her description" and it's accepted as her in all of the bio sites that cover SWTOR - but yeah, it's just conjecture. *eyeroll*

That's an appeal to popularity, but I'm fine with the codex mentioning Lana and that certainly being her. The point is, it's incredibly vague, and using it to make concrete statements is inane because it's a quick and vague reference.

I don't particularly care how long you've been playing Bioware games, or what opinions you can rattle off about them. Read the thread where Lana's age is worked out...even there, people don't want her to be 40+ because she will be too old for their characters. End of discussion with you.

Then why even bother responding before if you aren't going to actually discuss the points? What people do outside of the dev team is incredibly unimportant to the story of TOR. I don't care about what TOR fans have calculated for someone else's work. You guys are cool and all, but you have no more authority than I do to declare something correct or not. I could just as easily bring up things like Lana training with slaves to push the timeline back, and we could have a nice back and forth on the validity of those things, but just saying, "We determined this, and if you don't accept this, then you're wrong and I'm done with you," is silly.

And ETA, I don't have any issue with Lana being in her 40s, in fact I think it's awesome - but that thread I mentioned, if it's tracked down, does have complaints - and I think there's even a stupid cougar comment in this thread.

 

Compared to how many other comments? No one cares, for the most part. We never have, the BioWare fandom that is. If it looks good, people will want to pretend to have sex with it. Which is why all those clearly older women you brought up still have fans. If they wanted to make Lana above 40, they could have, and she'd still have just as many fans, not that her age would matter when she has space magic powers to counteract any problems that came with age. The truth is, you like Lana being 4(_), so you accept that conclusion. Which is fine. What isn't, is telling me I should ignore developers and take a fan made calculation as gospel for BWA's fictional product. No thanks.

Edited by DudeinFlames
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When we start the game i always assumed our character was a 20ish year old padawan/apprentice/recruit. My feeling is that the game has been going 6 years now and if we add to that the 5 years in stasis then our character is now in their early 30s.

 

Does that sound about right? Has anyone worked out an exact timeframe for our characters? Rightly or wrongly, I always assumed all the classes are the same age.

 

The Force users are all young.

 

Trooper is mentioned as being young and is relatively fresh out of the academy. So early 20's.

 

The Bounty Hunter is probably late 20's to early 30's. Only older people refer to him as young.

 

Despite referring to everyone as "kid", the Smuggler is supposedly a little older than Jiik from the Coruscant story (who seemed fairly young). So mid to late 20's probably.

 

The Agent is a wildcard. I'd assume young like the trooper as they both recently graduate top of their class, but seeing as he is an intelligence agent he may have been doing something else prior as a regular chiss soldier or something like a Chiss FBI agent. Wasn't there an option on Voss to state you were a cop or something like that on Csilla? And Chiss age very well and can't get out of shape (at least pre-Disney) so he could be older than he seems. Or even younger as a 10-13 year old chiss is physically and emotional equivalent to a 20 year old human.

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You seem to think that "during the Treaty of Coruscant" refers to any time between the signing and the start of the Galactic War. That is incorrect.

Sorry, but s/he seems spot-on correct. "[D]uring the Treaty of Coruscant" -- in the context of that Codex entry -- pretty clearly reads as "during the time the Treaty was in effect," i.e. any time from the signing until the start of the Galactic War. It's just another way of saying "during the Cold War."

 

While no SIS database appears to mention Lana Beniko by name, further scrutiny might offer a glimpse into the psyche of this unusual Sith Lord. As detailed in an incident report, a skirmish on Hoth between Republic and Imperial forces during the Treaty of Coruscant ended abruptly when an unidentified female Sith Lord leapt into the midst of the battle, demanding an immediate ceasefire–and an explanation for the fight. When an Imperial officer suggested she wouldn’t understand the nuances of military conflict, he lost his right hand to a lightning-fast lightsaber strike. The Sith, whose reported appearance closely matches that of Beniko, then told everyone to return to their bases and not reengage. The command was promptly obeyed by all, and the Sith Lord was purportedly never seen by Republic forces again.
Edited by DarthDymond
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Ehh, not sure. Most of my characters are inquisitors/consulars. Desperate for force users, Empire must have been open-minded about age, considering it opened the Academy doors to aliens. Could be anything between 14-30. I presume they'd seek younger apprentices for people of younger are( believed to be) quicker learners and more impressionable.
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Age is pretty variable. You can headcannon your character to be whatever age they want. But they're 11-12 years older by Iokath than they were at level 1.

 

Companions less so. They all have concrete ages (and almost all the female LI ones are exactly 30 in KOTFE).

 

Is this true? "They all have concrete ages"? We know the exact ages of the characters like Dramath, Arcann, Acina, Lana, SCORPIO, Senya, Scourge, Shae Vizla, Nico Okarr, Broonmark, Dazh Ranos, Blizz, T7-O1, HK-55, Hk-51, Treek, M1-4X, Khem Val, Koth, Veeroa Denz, K'krohl, Choza Raabat, Z0-0M, Hemdil Tre, Leyta, Rokuss? If so, then tell me their ages. If not, then how can you claim that as long their ages are unknown?

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Is this true? "They all have concrete ages"? We know the exact ages of the characters like Dramath, Arcann, Acina, Lana, SCORPIO, Senya, Scourge, Shae Vizla, Nico Okarr, Broonmark, Dazh Ranos, Blizz, T7-O1, HK-55, Hk-51, Treek, M1-4X, Khem Val, Koth, Veeroa Denz, K'krohl, Choza Raabat, Z0-0M, Hemdil Tre, Leyta, Rokuss? If so, then tell me their ages. If not, then how can you claim that as long their ages are unknown?

 

Yeah, I'd like to know too.:rak_03:

Edited by Eshvara
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Is this true? "They all have concrete ages"? We know the exact ages of the characters like Dramath, Arcann, Acina, Lana, SCORPIO, Senya, Scourge, Shae Vizla, Nico Okarr, Broonmark, Dazh Ranos, Blizz, T7-O1, HK-55, Hk-51, Treek, M1-4X, Khem Val, Koth, Veeroa Denz, K'krohl, Choza Raabat, Z0-0M, Hemdil Tre, Leyta, Rokuss? If so, then tell me their ages. If not, then how can you claim that as long their ages are unknown?

 

Yeah, I'd like to know too.:rak_03:

 

Ignoring a couple of outliers, such as SCORPIO or Lord Scourge, the codex entry of every companion from the class stories has a concrete age listed. No one talks about the cardboard cutouts from KOT_ when they say companions. They mean companion companions.

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Ignoring a couple of outliers, such as SCORPIO or Lord Scourge, the codex entry of every companion from the class stories has a concrete age listed. No one talks about the cardboard cutouts from KOT_ when they say companions. They mean companion companions.

As far as I know, that's only the case for a few like Ashara Zavros (who is specifically described as being twenty years old at the time you encounter her) - I spot-checked the Codex entries for the "real" companions on the characters I played today (BH, Warrior, Knight, and Inq.) and hers was the only definite age I saw listed for any of them.

Edited by DarthDymond
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Ignoring a couple of outliers, such as SCORPIO or Lord Scourge, the codex entry of every companion from the class stories has a concrete age listed. No one talks about the cardboard cutouts from KOT_ when they say companions. They mean companion companions.

I mainly want to know Arcann's age.:rak_03: I think he's at least 5 years older than Vaylin as in her cutscenes she seemed like she was 5-6 while they seemed 10-11 as children.

Edited by Eshvara
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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I worked it out like this...

 

Republic: JK 24, he spent some time helping younglings with their sabers before Tython. Trooper 28, spent time as a grunt before joining SpecForce. Twin Male Smugglers 26, robbing from the rich and corrupt to make the galaxy a better place. JC the baby... 19, she's the oldest soul though.

 

Imperials:

 

Male Operative 30, he was a soldier fixer and a minder before getting Cipher training. Male SW 23, did basic military training. Female Operative 21, went straight into intelligence.

 

So by Umbarra JK would legally be 36, Trooper 40, Smuggles 38, and JC 31.

 

Imps: Male Agent 42, SW 35, Fem Agent 33!

Edited by JakRoanin
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I always head-canoned it like this:

 

Jedi Knight on Tython, 20.

Jedi Consular on Tython, 18.

Smuggler on Ord Mantell, 20.

Trooper on Ord Mantell, 23.

 

Sith Warrior on Korriban, 20.

Sith Inquisitor on Korriban, 16, I've found that out of all classes, she is the one most called child and treated like one.

Imperial Agent on Hutta, 20, I don't know how Imperial Intelligence would justify anyone below 18 being trained in seduction. But then again, Sith Empire.

Bounty Hunter on Hutta, 22, he sounds a little rougher, so I just assumed he'd be a little older.

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Would it make sense for my Jedi Consular to be around 7 years old when she was taken by the Jedi? I know it's ultimately up to me but I want things to make sense. She was 17 when she started her adventure on Tython and should be 28 (Not sure if I should count the years in carbonite or not) by the time of the Iokath story. I feel pretty weird about this when I found out how old Nadia is. She is apparently older than my character yet her padawan? Do Jedi even do this type of thing? Edited by Ackerprincess
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For me personally, I always pictured my force user toons, (consular, knight, and inquisitor) as being really young, my inquisitor being the youngest at 16 when she was brought to korriban, then my female consular and female knight being 17 when they arrive on tython. My warrior I picture being 19.
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Would it make sense for my Jedi Consular to be around 7 years old when she was taken by the Jedi? I know it's ultimately up to me but I want things to make sense. She was 17 when she started her adventure on Tython and should be 28 (Not sure if I should count the years in carbonite or not) by the time of the Iokath story. I feel pretty weird about this when I found out how old Nadia is. She is apparently older than my character yet her padawan? Do Jedi even do this type of thing?

 

Well I mean what age you set for your toon now is up to you, but the Consular has been in training since at least the age of four. The very first conversation, Yuon Par mentions that the PC was stronger in the force at age 4 than she was at 14.

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Despite referring to everyone as "kid", the Smuggler is supposedly a little older than Jiik from the Coruscant story (who seemed fairly young). So mid to late 20's probably.

 

Like someone else said:

Not really, because in most cases, it seems like the speaker is using it as more of either an endearment or as a way of being condescending than actually commenting on the age of the character.

 

"Kid" is just a nickname. It's NOT the law of the Universe nor should it be treated as such. Just because Smuggler refers to some characters as "kid" doesn't make them older than Darmas Pollaran. Smuggler also refers to Darmas as older than them. Bounty Hunter (Grand Champion of the Great Hunt) also refers to some characters as "kid" such as Torian Cadera. Torian was born on 3660 BBY according to the Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia placing him as Age 17-18 by the time you meet him. Hunter also calls Mako "little girl" who is also the same age as Torian.

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Honestly, Smuggler always struck me as the oldest one of the bunch. Not by much, of course, let's say if other characters are around 20-21, Smuggler would be 27-28 like Han Solo in Ep IV.

Smuggler's overall demeanor (based on their dialogue options, regardless of DS/LS inclinations) creates the impression of somewhat experienced person who's already seen their share of galactic stuff prior to the beginning of their main story, whereas Trooper/Agent/Knight/Consular are fresh out of training, SI was former slave and SW begins as merely a talented acolyte. Can't recall anything about the Hunter though..

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Since I like to do RP with my characters, I've created backstories for most of them (the ones I really enjoy playing anyway). Based on their appearance, the majority are entering their storyline in their early 20s (22-24). Almost all my characters are descendants of characters from the KOTOR 1 & 2 or are related to characters from the Dark Horse comic series. My youngest character is actually the daughter of one of my Jedi Consular's and she started at age 19.
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When we start the game i always assumed our character was a 20ish year old padawan/apprentice/recruit. My feeling is that the game has been going 6 years now and if we add to that the 5 years in stasis then our character is now in their early 30s.

 

Does that sound about right? Has anyone worked out an exact timeframe for our characters? Rightly or wrongly, I always assumed all the classes are the same age.

 

There is no canon age. If you want to know mine(during Class Story):

 

Knight: Some 45. If you saw him, you'd understand. He also begins as a Master that was in self imposed exile(I came up with this prior to TFA). Look, the story's Mary Sue enough, why not go the full way?

 

Consular: Some mid 30s.

 

Trooper: 28-32(undecided)

 

Smuggler: 36

 

Warrior: 100? Idk how long Sith Redskins live...

 

Inquisitor: He's just an idea at this time, so idk

 

Bounty Hunter: Idk how long Zabrak live. But what'd amount to 40s in human years.

 

Agent: Don't care. If I were to make one...some 24-28. Would be nice mirroring if both Agent and Trooper had the same age heh.

 

If I were to hazard a guess what they were going for is ages 22-32 for all characters. I kinda doubt they designed any class to be over 32 and under 22 tbh.

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