Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Treaty of Coruscant
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
For some players, the lore, or the story, behind a game is crucial to their enjoyment. Creative minds work quite hard to make sure the lore is entertaining and, in the case of Star Wars: The Old Republic, symbiotic with existing background lore. Check out MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton's thoughts about a recent discussion on the SWTOR forums about the Treaty of Coruscant. Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments below.
Last week, Daniel responded to a thread discussing why the Sith Empire signed the Treaty of Coruscant when they’d successfully sacked the Republic capital in a sneak attack, taking out the Supreme Chancellor and the Jedi Temple, among other things.
Read more of Michael Bitton's SWTOR: The Treaty of Coruscant.
)
Comments
As amusing as lines of thought like this are, ultimately the answer will be whatever nonsensical reason the author(s) of the fiction want to justify. Any concept of rational progression or even of keeping to established "canon" of the universe was tossed out the window years ago.
The reasons mentioned are plausible, but if they want the reason to be that the Sith Empire just wanted control of the one-eared fluffy force-bunny population on one of those insignificant border worlds then that is what it will be.
I'm guessing some kind of SIth artifact or just general evil powerful machinery is on some or all of those planets. Star Forge/Death Star, anyone?
This
not being able to go to coruscant as a sith player is just bad design. a city of a trillion people and somehow they can keep all the sith out. Just shows you how you will be lead around by the nose in this game and wont be able to do your own spontaneous exploring.
that just stupid to think sith would be able to go there.... was there alot of americans walking around berlin or germans hanging out it washington DC during ww2?...No. dont make stupid points just to prove your incorrect ones.....
I think the reason is very similar to what was seen in KOTOR 1...
These insignificant systems contain something really significant in the end, something like TOR's version of the Galaxy maps / Star Forge, which the Empire is trying to get hold of in order to secure a much bigger and more complete victory in the end.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Hope its not a Death Start / Star Forge story line... Seems it would be getting long in the tooth by now...
Something important, yes. But please, no large space station!
Actually, it is very good design, from a story point of view. The Treaty of Coruscant is in place and, while it does not prevent the out-of-the-way *wink, wink - nudge, nudge* battle between Republic and Sith, it does prevent open warfare from starting up again. If the Sith players were allowed to go to Coruscant , one of the first things they would do would be to start attacking and killing people. This would lead to a breaking of the Treaty and thus back to war. I would say that half of the reason that the Sith are unable to go to Coruscant is because The Emperor has declaired it off-limits under penalty of death (or worse) and put out forces/spies/etc to enforce that edict. The Emperor has a plan and he will not have it screwed up just because some minor Sith Lord and his buddies are feeling "peckish" and want to go bloody some Republic noses.
I have a healthy amount of respect for Erickson, and I really hope he can pull this stuff together. At the moment, however, it sorta seems like the 'story-driven' TOR has more holes in its backside than your average piece of deli swiss cheese.
Playing: FFXIV, EVE
Why would anyone offer peace at such a point? It must be of some advantage to them. What are the advantages of peace? Trade flows more freely, beings flow from place to place more freely. I'll line up with the theory that goes with the Sith wanting to get somewhere or something they couldn't easily get to with fleets and planets on high guard.
PS I'm sure there were agents of the British and US in Berlin as were German agents in the US during WWII.
There were indeed, however neither agents would have done anything outside of the cultural norms in the US or in Germany, doing so could have caused great damage. In an MMO you'll have a hard time having players respect games lore and not run around, red lightsaber a blazing, in the middle of an enemy’s territory.
If they let the Sith on Coruscant, it would have to be either in disguise or on a part of the planet outside of any obvious place that a citizen or government personnel of Coruscant would notice them (and that means confining them to the slums or so forth).
Lastly, certain aliens, i.e. the Sith race, just don't make sense running around coruscant. That's like the Dalai Lama showing up in the middle of China. . . it's not going to end well.
I digress, to get back on the subject:
The Sith Emperor probably has knowledge of something going on in the "near" future that he is reacting to. Perhaps he's seen some force users or secrets of the deep republic coming out, of a place he currently could never reach, and defeating him or very important resources. Thus he is fishing them out into the open.
He might have to wait for the "time" to be right for him to take advantage of a discovery in the force that will let him destroy any notion of future force sensitives to destroy him.
Maybe he's on the verge of becoming immortal and has to wait for certain events to take place (systems aligning, black holes, etc.).
Finally what I have my money on: The true Sith Lords of the past are preventing him. . . Recall that in the Holocrons, the Jedi Master points out how the old Sith Lords were rendering aid to Exar Kun and were likely NOT in support of the current Sith Emperor. Maybe the now "Gods" of the dark side are the ones who've got the plan, and the Emperor is just forced to go along with it. . . for now.
Top Ten Most Misused Words/Phrases in MMO Industry...
Well, the Sith seem well capable of hiding in plain sight and exercising patience and restraint, so it's just a case that the developers didn't want them there. But you do need to write up *something* to justify it in order to satisfy the story-driven crowd. It doesn't matter what rationale you use to maintain order, if players are given a choice, they will largely go for full-scale chimpfests.
Being a military historian, I can see another reason for the treaty - a bigger threat within the Sith Empire. We have been given a hint that the answer lies within a new novel about a new Sith Lord. If, somehow he, or another Sith Lord, found a way to muscle his/her way into total control, the other Sith Lords might well want to stop hostilities with the Republic until the threat within is dealt with, and they needn't fight two wars. They then use whatever it is that gave this new sith Lord such amazing power against the Republic. The insignificant systems may just be a red herring.
<link>http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8204/8245379178_45a58cec29.jpg</link>;
While I think speculation on the lore will be way off, I do hope that there is some reasonable logic tying everything together!
If there is no unknown threat to the Emperor and your forces are militarily superior and able to create a diversion to capture your enemies capitol; then I would suggest most of the treaty is misdirection. You do not care, or need to take the territory to achieve your goal and you have already captured your prize. Adding small systems of no importance to the treaty would drive Republic intelligence crazy trying to figure out what the Empire was up to. Obviously, there would need to be enough smoke to cloud the issue. Also, if the military force facing you is too powerful the opposition will go underground. Stopping before that point gives the ability to consolidate and identify all targets.
I am sure there are other scenarios…
I will see the capital city of the Republic on my Republic toon, I will see the Sith capital, on my sith toon, pretty easy to see the whole game, I like this, /shrug
If we assume it is all logical and not totally taken out of the blue, a few things can be deduced. Essentially I see three plausible rasons:
a) The Sith Empire isn't as unified as it pretends. While being strong, the Emperor might not be so in total control as he wishes. So by keeping his own followers busy with a yet dangerous foe, he assures that everyone rallies behind him. Simply said. So there is an internal threat. While this is possible, I am not so sure. It's not the way of the Sith to allow disobedience. The typical way of the Sith would be to sack the Republic and crush the internal opposition with swift violence. So while possible I don't see it as so likely.
b) There is an external foe to BOTH Empire and Republic, and dismantling the Republic at this point would weaken the possible common alliies. Some outside force, like the Vong or in terms of Star Trek, the Borg. Possible, but not very likely. It would have a bad deus ex machina feeling.
c) The Emperor desires to have or achieve something. This something is both important to him, important enough to give away short ranged gain. Keeping Coruscant and forcing harsh terms on the Republic would be a short term win. But there would still be risks. So whatever the Emperor thinks to gain, it must be VERY powerful and precious, assuring either total victory, or being of a more personal nature. Like maybe something to prolong his life? Or some forgotten knowledge. This "thing" he wants to attain must be quite vulnerable. Something that needs to be hidden or kept unaware from the Republic for now. It must be something with these planets. Maybe something or someone is there. Keep in mind, the Empire prepared for this many years. So it is not about some temporary gain. It is about some long term goal, and that is for now something more important that weakening the enemy at all cost. Which means the Emperor has his attention somewhere else, for now. What it is, can't be said with this information tho.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
There may very well be reasoning behind all of this. But most of what we are seeing is stuff that is rather publicly available with a minor reasearch roll. But the true darkness and powers behind everything may not and most likely will not be revealled to much later if ever really. The complaints of the "holes" in some of the sories are pointless.. This is being developed for an ongoing MMO game. If they gave away the whole shebang now and let us all in on the secrets it would sort of spoil the game. I like how they keep the guessing in the story and leave things out... Why WOULD the emporor agree to not allow Sith on the planet.. For all we know he could in the end have a Bomb waiting to take the whole place out and he wants all his team ready and able to take out whatever remnants are left after that. When dealing with an ongoing and developing plot there will be things at only the true gods (in this case the developers who are creating this world) will know all about.
Nice. After all that gameplay info, they gave us storylovers something to chew on.
This is fun and thanks to Bioware for it, keeping our interest high while we wait. Win - Win. OK then. During WW2 Adolph took the 'minor' systems , half of Poland, Norway,Denmark,Belgium and Holland. He invaded France and took the capitol. However, his main goal was to defeat, not just the island of Britain but the British Empire. London and the British Empire was the enemy he primarily wanted to defeat and definately was not the goal of his aggression - it was the Soviet Union! (The creep actually preferred alliance with Britain but the Sith Emperor has more ambitious goals)
Taking Coruscant and forcing the treaty merely reduced the threat from the Allies while the Sith Empire built up and was getting prepared for some other major enemy, possibly with the aid of some portion of the Republic (Do I sense a major Expansion in the future?).
Also there is no reason to suppose that the Sith Emperor would not take full advantage of the temporary occupation of the planet Coruscant to seriously infiltrate forces that would then be able to act within the city-planet against Republic efforts. (Loads of possible missions on Coruscant for players.
So thats an idea - a major expansion (third faction) and player missions on Coruscant. Good planning for our game, looking forward to all of it.
Maybe the reason they stopped was because war was taking a toll on the emperor. Emperor Palpatine did this in the original star wars. When the 2nd death star blew up and he died the empire still had a stronger space force there. However, the Emperor had used the force to give "courage" to all of his units through the dark side and when he died they lost that. So maybe this emperor was lossing his grip on his men and knew that if it kept up he would be harmed and the Republic would gain the upper hand.
In My World It's Kill Or Be Killed
i guess you never heard of spies, diplomats or espionage then. whats stupid about it theres no way they can stop bounty hunters or people who are aligned with the sith from entering coruscant. whats stupid is that just because bioware write a bit of lore on the fly that you swallow it up. what about fantatical uprising in the city or people with different political views. in star wars lore before this mmorpg there is sith and bounty hunters in coruscant so its not all that stupid now is it.