I read that including the Chiss into SWTOR as a playable race caused timeline issues and that the lore had to be bent to make it make sense. What exactly were those issues?

namely that the chiss where pretty isolationist up till like 30 years after endor. however it's easy to get around. plenty of info gets lost and forgotten over 3000 years.

I just assume the chiss got burned by the imps. and thats why they retreated into isolation.

namely that the chiss where pretty isolationist up till like 30 years after endor. however it's easy to get around. plenty of info gets lost and forgotten over 3000 years.

 

I just assume the chiss got burned by the imps. and thats why they retreated into isolation.

Hmm, I see. But yeah in 3000 years a lot can happen. Maybe in that timespan something happened that made them isolate themselves more and more. And the Thrawn trilogy wasn't 30 years after Endor, was it? So we have at least an example of a Chiss that worked with the Empire even though his race mainly kept themselves isolated from the rest.

Thrawn is an unusual example. He's an exiled Chiss, and was a Grand Admiral after rising in the Imperial ranks as an adoptive Imperial, not as a representative of the Chiss. The Chiss on Hoth are part of the Chiss Expansionary Defence Force, which Thrawn was a member of and was exiled from for violating Chiss custom against preemptive strikes. I haven't seen anything to indicate an origin for player character Chiss, so they could be exiles, diplomats or members of the Expansionary Defence Force.

The Chiss as written in Outbound Flight, set during the Clone Wars, know about as much about the galaxy outside the 'Unknown Region'/Chiss space as the rest of the galaxy knows about them. It seems pretty unlikely that a species like the Chiss would forget even 3000 year old history, hence bending canon for the in-game Chiss. Plenty of what's in the Zahn books has been contradicted by further canon anyway, though; that's the magic of the EU.

Thrawn is an unusual example. He's an exiled Chiss, and was a Grand Admiral after rising in the Imperial ranks as an adoptive Imperial, not as a representative of the Chiss. The Chiss on Hoth are part of the Chiss Expansionary Defence Force, which Thrawn was a member of and was exiled from for violating Chiss custom against preemptive strikes. I haven't seen anything to indicate an origin for player character Chiss, so they could be exiles, diplomats or members of the Expansionary Defence Force.

 

The Chiss as written in Outbound Flight, set during the Clone Wars, know about as much about the galaxy outside the 'Unknown Region'/Chiss space as the rest of the galaxy knows about them. It seems pretty unlikely that a species like the Chiss would forget even 3000 year old history, hence bending canon for the in-game Chiss. Plenty of what's in the Zahn books has been contradicted by further canon anyway, though; that's the magic of the EU.

Ah ok, didn't know a lot of that. All I read about Thrawn so far was the Thrawn trilogy. It does seem a bit unlikely that they would forget so much about the rest of the galaxy. But then again, I haven't seen many Chiss so far, they seem to be rare.

It seems pretty unlikely that a species like the Chiss would forget even 3000 year old history, hence bending canon for the in-game Chiss. Plenty of what's in the Zahn books has been contradicted by further canon anyway, though; that's the magic of the EU.

Well, it also seems unlikely that no one around the time of the clone wars would go "Hey, these new republic warships look kind of familiar, where have I seen them before? Oh, that's right, the old sith empire used to use ships just like these".

Star Wars and the passage of time within the universe has always been weird...

Well, it also seems unlikely that no one around the time of the clone wars would go "Hey, these new republic warships look kind of familiar, where have I seen them before? Oh, that's right, the old sith empire used to use ships just like these".

 

Star Wars and the passage of time within the universe has always been weird...

It's not the passage of time that's weird. It's that none of them who write for Star Wars really care about continuity. I'd say even George Lucas doesn't care about continuity. All that matters to any of them is "Does it make money? Does it sound good?"

Everyone who writes for Star Wars wants to put their own spin on things, wants to make their mark, and they'll change anything and everything as they see fit/can get away with. TOR is no exception to this rule.

It's not the passage of time that's weird. It's that none of them who write for Star Wars really care about continuity. I'd say even George Lucas doesn't care about continuity. All that matters to any of them is "Does it make money? Does it sound good?"

 

Everyone who writes for Star Wars wants to put their own spin on things, wants to make their mark, and they'll change anything and everything as they see fit/can get away with. TOR is no exception to this rule.

I think it's also hard in such a big universe to never have anything that contradicts something else.

It's not the passage of time that's weird. It's that none of them who write for Star Wars really care about continuity. I'd say even George Lucas doesn't care about continuity. All that matters to any of them is "Does it make money? Does it sound good?"

 

Everyone who writes for Star Wars wants to put their own spin on things, wants to make their mark, and they'll change anything and everything as they see fit/can get away with. TOR is no exception to this rule.

Sadly, this.

Yeah, if you read Outbound Flight, Thrawn's contact with certain humans was essentially "first contact" outside the Unknown Regions. That is how it was written at the time, at least.

I always like to post Timothy Zahn's response about this:

"Ours is not to reason why..."

 

If I had to hand-wave this one, I'd probably say that over the thousands of years between SWTOR and HttE the Chiss pulled back to their own territory and the records of them were lost.

 

From another point of view, of course, the fact that the game designers thought the Chiss popular enough to include is a wonderful compliment. However we have to work things to make the the continuity shake out, it's an honor to have Thrawn's people kicking butt and taking names.

 

Now if only someone could get them to ask me to write a side adventure ... <G>

I suppose, with everything that did happen in the next 3000 years, that old records could have been lost, purposely destroyed, forgotten. If we accept Chiss in TOR we do just have to accept that. Knowing how isolationist the Chiss are, I can see them eradicating any information of past alliances (though perhaps the information still exists somewhere). And on the Empire's side, there was a really good post here some time ago that explained pretty well how all that info could have been lost, but alas, I can't find it.