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Hyperspace Beacon: Human High Culture
BioWare games are notorious for interweaving allegories on racism in their plotlines. If you take Mass Effect, for example, Navigator Pressly was a human who had major issues with aliens -- especially Turians. Inversely, the Citadel Council was definitely prejudiced against humans because the human species was rather new to Citadel space and rising to power too quickly by the Council's standards. These undertones help give the Mass Effect story depth and real-world relevance. Although it's not an overt plot point in the Star Wars series of movies, speciesism does sometimes play a heavy hand in the Expanded Universe. In the Galactic Empire, this is known as Human High Culture. In the high political offices of the Galactic Empire under Emperor Palpatine, humans were regarded as superior to other species of the galaxy. Humans were, after all, most numerous, and they also did not originate from a single planet like most species. But the roots of the Human High Culture date back further than the events in Star Wars: The Old Republic. They may date all the way back to the first Dark Jedi to rule over the Sith people on Korriban. With this idea of Human High Culture in mind, I would like to talk about the species available to the SWTOR Imperial classes. In the May edition of PC Gamer UK, an over-ambitious reporter incorrectly announced a list of species and class combinations. What I would like to do today is make my own list based on what I know of Star Wars lore and announced species in the game. Continue after the break as I compile the list.
Hyperspace Beacon: The bald and the blue
As some of you may be aware, I love the whole idea of roleplaying and storytelling in an MMO setting. Also -- which should be more than evident -- I am a huge fan of the Star Wars franchise. As a roleplayer, I always like the idea of being able to do whatever I want in an MMO -- truly creating my own story. I like it when a developer gives me the blocks, and I stack them the way I want to. I build my castle the way I envision it. So you can imagine when I heard there were class restrictions on races in Star Wars: The Old Republic, I said (and I quote), "LOLOMGWTGDairyQueen-LOLOMGBBtheQ!™" I thought it was a really, really bad idea. How was I going to make my pink, cybernetic, Nightsister Wookiee? Then I realized that particular Wookiee would totally be unimmersing, which is exactly what I despise about a good chunk of MMOs. So after dealing with my temporary bout with insanity, I realized immersion was more important than my desire to play with blocks, but I still wanted to make these characters the best they could be. Now it was time to find out as much as I could about the species I will be able to play. Follow me after the break to see what I found. ™ LOLOMGWTGDairyQueen-LOLOMGBBtheQ! is the trademarked (not really) catch phrase of Morte of the Oxhorn Brand Machimina
