Greetings, sentients! This blog will be devoted to all things related to the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, but I reserve the right to digress into general Star Wars territory as well.
The origin of this blog came on a patch day some time ago, during which I perused my screen shot folder to kill some time. I came across this snapshot from the famous HK-55 montage in chapter 4 of Knights of the Fallen Empire and decided to decode the Aurebesh. Click on the thumbnails below to see the results.
I was curious to see how much thought went into the alien text that filled the screen. The meaning of the prominent parts was pretty obvious, but I was pleasantly surprised that the Terminator-esque readout was consistent and logical within the context. I’d often stopped and taken a moment to translate some of the signage spread around the game worlds and I thought maybe some other folks out there might be interested too.
Now, I know that I’m not the first to undertake such a project, and I’m not sure how much interest there is in discovering that healing stations in flashpoints are marked “Health” and a neighborhood watch sign on Corellia reads “Watch.” So I began recreating the signs in English to help give us here on Earth a better sense of what it might be like to encounter these graphics and monitors like our characters do. It’s also afforded me an opportunity to focus on one aspect the game’s brilliant design which the talented artists at Bioware have created for us to explore.
As for who I am and why you should care, well, I can only address the first question. I’m one of those old fogeys who, primed by Jack Kirby comics and Star Trek re-runs, was the perfect age back in 1977 for Star Wars to burn itself into my brain. And my fondness for it has never left. From the comic books, action figures and novels of my youth to the pen and paper RPG and computer games of more recent times, I’ve never stopped being a fan.
A former World of Warcraft junkie who burnt out during Mists of Pandaria, I have played SWTOR since launch and have at least dabbled in every aspect of the game. Aside from the setting, I find the relaxed pace of SWTOR a nice fit for my MMO jones.
Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you’ll pop on by and see what’s new in the worlds and words of Aurebesh.