Why do the Sith all speak with a British accent and the Republic all have Yank accents? What is that supposed to mean? And they are not even real British accents but Americanized ideas of them... Was there a reason for that?

Because Tarkin had a British accent in Episode 4. And seeing as how he was played by Peter Cushing...Oh, and some the people on Alderaan have British accents.

Though simply it's just another line between the Empire and the Republic/Rebels in the SW universe.

Why do the Sith all speak with a British accent and the Republic all have Yank accents? What is that supposed to mean? And they are not even real British accents but Americanized ideas of them... Was there a reason for that?

In the trooper storyline, the imperial accent is reffered to as pure Drommund Kass

In the trooper storyline, the imperial accent is reffered to as pure Drommund Kass

Yes.

In general, people associated a Vaguely British Sounding Accent (RP and all its many derivatives and variants) with the Galactic Empire because of Tarkin. The difference went down for many fans' headcanon as a Coruscant (eventually just "Core Worlds") accent, with American English sounding like a Corellian accent. It wasn't a political divide - Obi-Wan Kenobi's accent was clearly British, as were those of other Jedi that showed up in the prequels - but a cultural one. This would obviously be an oversimplification, but it gained significant credence as later Star Wars EU authors played up the cleavages between Core culture, Rim culture, and the whole Corellian-dominated section of the galaxy. Language and accent is commonly an aspect of culture, so to go along with these different cultures we had different accents. So.

SWTOR basically turned that on its head. The Sith Empire obviously has nothing to do with Palpatine's Empire; Palpatine's Empire was a corruption of the Republic, and it was three and a half millennia distant. It also has nothing to do with Core/Rim cultural divides, especially since Dromund Kaas and the rest of Sith Space are out in this tiny corner of the Outer Rim itself and don't even control any parts of the Core. The reason Sith and Imps speak in their various kinds of British accent is not for any reason connected to lore, therefore. It's more mundane. The devs wanted to make the Sith Empire seem like Palpatine's Empire to keep everything in terms of a Star Wars that even casual fans could understand quickly. So they went with tropes that they thought people associated with Palpatine's Empire for the Sith Empire: the design of their spaceships, the cut of their military uniforms, even the emblem.

This wouldn't really have been a problem except some of the actual quests took that even further. The description of Elara Dorne's accent as "pure Dromund Kaas" looks bizarre to anybody with even a passing familiarity with Star Wars lore - it's by and large the same accent that Bastila Shan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ki-Adi-Mundi share. Now, of course, Sgt. Jorgan could be wrong in that description, but it's not the only instance of that showing up. The Agent, Warrior, and Inquisitor all change their voices when attempting to pass as "not Imperial" in various contexts (e.g. the Foundry flashpoint, or the Agent's undercover mission on Nal Hutta). Clearly we're meant to think that that accent really is restricted to the Sith and the Imps. And if that's the case, how could it be the "Core accent" three hundred years before and three thousand years after the game?

Just another one of those little oddities of continuity that can be annoying about SWTOR.

The devs wanted to make the Sith Empire seem like Palpatine's Empire to keep everything in terms of a Star Wars that even casual fans could understand quickly. So they went with tropes that they thought people associated with Palpatine's Empire for the Sith Empire: the design of their spaceships, the cut of their military uniforms, even the emblem.

^ This.

I really, really doubt they'll end up doing anything so drastic, but between the emblem and accent of the Sith Empire both later being such prominent parts of the Republic, I like to wonder if maybe this war doesn't end the way everyone assumes it will

It's one of those things that doesn't really bother me that much from a lore perspective though. It's not like Galactic Basic and English are actually the same language, so the accent itself would be as much a translation convention as the underlying language. For purposes of "translating" during this period, "British accented English" = "DK accented Basic", during the movie time-frame the translation becomes "British accented English" = "Coruscanti accented Basic".

This wouldn't really have been a problem except some of the actual quests took that even further. The description of Elara Dorne's accent as "pure Dromund Kaas" looks bizarre to anybody with even a passing familiarity with Star Wars lore - it's by and large the same accent that Bastila Shan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ki-Adi-Mundi share.

Please don't forget that this thing is mainly lost in all other language versions of SWTOR - and the movies, if they are dubbed, too (like here in Germany).

The Agent, Warrior, and Inquisitor all change their voices when attempting to pass as "not Imperial" in various contexts (e.g. the Foundry flashpoint, or the Agent's undercover mission on Nal Hutta). Clearly we're meant to think that that accent really is restricted to the Sith and the Imps.

A point which no-one has yet brought out before is the possible similarity to

- Greek at the time of the Romans

- French during the time of Napolean

- English nowadays

as being the "upper class language".

During Roman times, and many centuries later in the lade Medieval times / early Renaissance times, there were Greek and French languages known as THE languages of the world ! Who wanted to belong to the upper classes has to speak those - and it was a sign of being well-educated, as well.

The accent thing might be a similar thing - although it is only an accent.

Another thing not mentioned yet is the assumption of

British Accent in Stasr Wars -> Military in Star Wars.

In the *original* ideas of Star Wars, the Empire was conceived as an fashist / fascist state. It went so far that the original "Star Wars" logo contained German letters in the end, meant to be an expression of that.

I wouldn't be surprised - after what I've learned during the last decades - if George Lucas had imagined all Imperials to speak with an German accent instead.

But - he chose two top notch actors : Sir Alec Guiness and Peter Cushing - which were really excellent actors ! (The autobiography by Sir Alec Guiness is a good resource on stage acting in the first half of the last century !)

And - they were British, thus speaking British accents. And George Lucas didn't want to change that (or he would have done it, like with Darth Vader - have you ever heard David Prowse acting as Darth Vader BEFORE his voice was dubbed ?).

Just another one of those little oddities of continuity that can be annoying about SWTOR.

Consider this, the Sith Empire we see in SWTOR are the remnants of the ancient Sith Empire responsible for the Great Hyperspace War. Who in turn were a product of the exiled Dark Jedi of the Second Great Schism. Its highly unlikely that the Massassai spoke basic yet the Sith of the Hyperspace War and wars to follow do. So its only logical to assume that the Dark Jedi brought their language with them, and with it the accent.

Indeed I would speculate that centuries prior to the Great Hyperspace War the majority of the galactic basic speaking galaxy spoke with a Coruscanti accent. Including the majority if not the entirety of the Jedi Order. After all the Human race originated from Coruscant and not Corellia, so the Coruscanti accent would initially be the most prevalent.

So, we can speculate that the Dark Jedi who arrived on Korriban spoke with an Coruscanti accent and spread this accent across the entirety of the Sith Empire. However two millennia passed before the Great Hyperspace War, and over that period the Corellian accent may have emerged and become prevalent, however the Coruscanti accent would have remained. Jump forward another millennia and a half and we have the majority of the Republic based galaxy speaking with a Coreillian accent and we have the descendants of the ancient Sith Empire, an Empire formed from pure Coruscanti Sith, speaking 'pure Dromund Kaas'. And so we have the English/American distinction.

I doubt BioWare thought it out in such a way, but it works nonetheless.

EDIT: Why does nobody excluding Aldeeranian nobles in the Republic seem to speak Coruscanti? Well culture changes, and over a few centuries its possible that the Coruscanti accent simply began to die out - before reemerging again during the Golden Age of the Republic. Heck one could even speculate that consequence of the Great Galactic War 'pure Dromund Kaas' speaking people integrated with society. Regardless of whether the Sith Empire win or lose I'd assume the Republic aren't going to commit mass genocide on their population.

Hello everyone.

I remember reading a good article on Wookieepedia on this, so thought I would share:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Basic_Standard

The devs wanted to make the Sith Empire seem like Palpatine's Empire to keep everything in terms of a Star Wars that even casual fans could understand quickly. So they went with tropes that they thought people associated with Palpatine's Empire for the Sith Empire: the design of their spaceships, the cut of their military uniforms, even the emblem.

This is one of the worst things the developers did for this game.Story ,lore ,immersion ,all these things went to hell to satisfy some retarded market based commercial ideas in order to draw more casual Star Wars fans,which didn't work anyway.

The idiots that decided to make trooper armors,imperial uniforms and ship models similar to those in the movies should change career to selling iPods ,GSMs or some other garbage.

It's like making a movie about the Napoleonic Wars but with bolt action rifles because of the idea that it would draw more customers.... nevermind the idiotic disregard of history and lore.

Idiotic...

To this day ,i have to lie to myself that Palpatine used this sith Empire's models and designes for nostalgic reasons(some kind of admiration towards ancient sith culure he had -supposedly) , in order to cope with all this .

To this day ,i have to lie to myself that Palpatine used this sith Empire's models and designes for nostalgic reasons(some kind of admiration towards ancient sith culure he had -supposedly) , in order to cope with all this .

But anyway I like the Imperial feel, any other theme would have just seemed wrong. Even the original KOTOR games drew heavily on established Star Wars themes on the Empire and the Republic.

But anyway I like the Imperial feel, any other theme would have just seemed wrong. Even the original KOTOR games drew heavily on established Star Wars themes on the Empire and the Republic.[/color]

Yet they were not copy-paste.They were perfectly balanced.SWTOR should have done something similar.

I would imagine the perfect models for uniforms and ships(1) for this timeline would be a combination of Great Hyperspace war ,Jedi Civil War and the models/themes as they are now.

(1) Obviously the republic ships are fine.talking about the imperial ones.

* * *

http://media.moddb.com/images/articles/1/87/86590/auto/Sf-battle.jpg

Check out Malak's ships next to the Star Forge.They don't give me the quiet and persistent presence of the movies's influence in my consciousness, that this Sith Empire's ships do.And they are still Star Wars and they are still awesome .I despise the smell of the movies present in SWTOR.

Yet they were not copy-paste.They were perfectly balanced.SWTOR should have done something similar.

I would imagine the perfect models for uniforms and ships(1) for this timeline would be a combination of Great Hyperspace war ,Jedi Civil War and the models/themes as they are now.

Here is an Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

Here is a Harrower-class Dreadnought.

They are notably different, because BioWare has taken the original design and given it some ancient and more insidious themes with the sharp edges etc. making it seem more like a Sith warship than an Imperial vessel.

The same can be said of the Moffs, a title I would point out that has been around since pre-Republic eras. And the Sith Troopers (who look nothing like Imperial Stormtroopers) also have a unique feel.

 

They are notably different,

And notably similar.If i didn't know SWTOR existed i would say that this ship is from Palpatine's Empire.

The Imperial Troopers are fine,although i am having mixed feelings about the helm.

The Republic high level trooper armor is not fine.

This is fine and in order: http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2011/05/trooper-progression.jpg

But this, http://www.republictrooper.com/wp-content/gallery/screen-shots/ss01_full.jpg

while being perfectly awesome and cool looking,from an aesthetic pov,still has too much clone trooper and SW movies vibes.It shouldn't be something a republic trooper should wear 1700ys before the New Sith Wars,2700 ysbefore Bane and 3700ys before the movies.

It's a moot point now.And i am used to all this.But when i used to overthink it , first few months after swtor came out,it made me furious.

I was replayi9ng Esseles a few days ago.

What I noticed - and this time I tried to listen - was, that the imperial Moff didn't have any British accent - it would have been difficult in the German-language version of SWTOR anyway.

But what he had was an exalted voice/tone of high society class members. Those which - according to the cliché - would use to put themselves apart from the lower classes.

I found this interesting - does this mean that imperials in the game try to be members of a higher social class ? Or are they perhaps all members of a higher social class ?

That what I was thinking, then.