All things SWTOR!
Worldbuilding Wednesday: Resources/Methods
Something I would love to pick people's brains about is the use of existing resources for wordbuilding or, conversely, the decision to ignore existing resources and make your own, especially when it comes to alien cultures. For a lot of the playable species in SWTOR, finding information on Wookipedia or other such resources can be kind of a grab-bag--"official" information on a species or culture might be sparse, or there might be a bunch of it but it's full of contradictions and retcons, or maybe you just plain don't like it. On the other hand, rejecting existing information and making up your own headcanon for alien cultures gives you a lot of freedom, but can be an intimidating and uncertain process (at least, it can if you're me). So what do you do?
In theory, I like a sort of middle-ground approach: see what existing information is out there, use it if I can, make up something of my own if I have to. But--perhaps I'm still fairly new to worldbuilding in the SWTOR universe--I find that in practice I'm really insecure about striking out on my own and prefer to fall back on either what I can find on Wookiepedia, or worldbuilding and roleplaying resources that have been created by other players.
So, questions I'm throwing out for anyone who wants to answer them: what's your approach? Are there other resources besides Wookiepedia you like to use when looking for existing information? Are there any player-created resources you're particularly fond of? If you prefer coming up with your own headcanon to using existing information, how do you tend to go about it? Basically, worldbuilding: HOW?




So for a long time, I was very "I must stick to canon, never ever go off script, all my ideas must fit within canon, those people are paid to write for a reason, I'm just a lowly fic writer."
And then one day, honestly, it was just like a switch flipped, and I went "wait, why the hell do I think that? I'm busting my ass on this story. I'm coming up with all kinds of things that still fit in the universe. So... wtf self?"
So when I do worldbuilding, I'll check Wookieepedia to see what's there and if there's something useful I'll use it, but I've got no problem coming up with things on my own, though I do like to make sure they fit within the universe itself (obviously).
For example, I was working on my timeline for my story, and it dawned on me that using the Republic's calendar and the Republic's time delineation was ridiculous. The Sith Empire has been isolated for a thousand years, there is no reason they'd be using the Republic's calendar (based on Coruscant), and no one in universe is marking time with BBY. So I looked at Coruscant's calendar to get ideas, researched Dromund Kaas's rotational period, and set about making my own. The day names were kind of pulled out of my butt, but each of the gala weeks needed to make sense for the Empire; the only one they share with the Republic is Life Day, and that's proliferated so much that there's an "official" name for it that literally no one uses (I think that's mentioned in one of the codexes? I don't remember offhand), but I can't get rid of Star Wars Christmas. XD Time is considered marked by the founding of the Empire by Vitiate, and while I considered changing it after Ziost, I reasoned that the Council (which is full of reasonable Sith, no matter what the game continuously says about how they're all crazy and murderous) would want stability for the Empire after Ziost and thus would choose to continue marking the years from when the Empire was founded. Thus, Act 3 of the vanilla game took place in 3641BBY, which is 12ATC as the Republic marks it, and 1339 as the Empire measures it.
Other things are me fixing things that make my eye twitch (Bioware's completely unable to copy/paste military rank insignia with any sort of uniformity, so I tweaked the ranks myself, keeping their appearance consistent with what we see in game), or cultural things that don't have any in-game information to go off of (because of course the Empire is given no culture at all).
This got super rambly, I hope it answered your question! xD
I "consult" canon. See what's there and try to make things that would "fit". But not always because, lbh, sometimes canon is dumb. As far as inspiration and source material.... I look at the real world. So...
Don't forget your most important resource: You.
What are you passionate about that's not Star Wars? Bring that into your world. Whether it's fancasting stars from your favorite TV show as your character's best friends, or giving a character an interest that you have and something you know a lot about, or some era in history you've studied and love.
It's a huge galaxy and there's plenty of room to expand. Do you like to garden? Maybe your Jedi meditates while tending her plants. Love to cook? Nothing preventing your Sith from being a passionate foodie. Maybe your Bounty Hunter has an encyclopedic knowledge of the varieties of caff.
I guarantee you have some passion that makes you you that you can use. And something you know you want to learn that you could use, too.
This is a really good point! I was just thinking last night about how I don't have a lot of specialized knowledge that strikes me as extremely useful for worldbuilding, like I don't know much about linguistics or anthropology or the finer points of space travel--but hey, I have a library science degree, and if the classes I took to get that library science degree taught me one thing it's that the principles of good librarianship are basically the same even if we're talking about, say, an archive of holographic records kept by Jedi in a galaxy far, far, away*. So that's knowledge that wouldn't have immediately struck me as very applicable to SW worldbuilding, but hey, it could be!
*We're not going to talk about Jocasta Nu in Attack of the Clones telling Obi-Wan "if this thing isn't in our records it means it doesn't exist" and how that gave me rage fits even when I was a teenager who hadn't figured out I wanted to be a librarian yet, because that's a whole other rant, but, y'know, the point stands.
Married to a librarian, I totally get it, lol!!
Personally, in terms of SWTOR, I flip through the novels and comics but the SWTOR: Encyclopedia is my go-to most of time. Much of it is basically summarized content from the game but there are nuggets of information in it that aren't mentioned in the game which brings up questions and merit further exploration. If there are continuity issues or OOC moments provided by "canon",
(Darth Gravus's death, Teneb Kel's face-heel-turn as Thanaton, etc), then I try reconciling them via headcanon so nothing is really tossed out. That's just me though.I look at Wookieepedia, assorted Star Wars roleplaying game books that I've collected over the years, the SWTOR Encyclopedia, and what other people have come up with. Canon - as you've noticed - has a lot of holes in it, and has a bad tendency to contradict itself. Not only are there a lot of species that there's next to no information on, but a whole lot of other pretty basic things are kind of... well... ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Travel times? The movies are solidly speed of plot and sometimes suggest truly bizarre travel routes (at least if any of the galaxy maps have canon planet locations). Medical care? Full of holes and questions. And don't get my started on the Sith Empire apparently canonically being nothing but a bunch of inhospitable worlds. They've got to be growing food SOMEWHERE, damn it!
If I can't find anything (or anything that makes sense), I just start making up things that seem in keeping with the universe. And sometimes brainstorm with other fans who are trying to solve the same problems.