This Week in Aurebesh

This week we return to CZ-198 to look at some more of the unique displays created for Czerka’s secret moonbase, focusing on signs found in the the flashpoint Czerka Core Meltdown.

At the entrance of the area, visitors are greeted with a helpful map, which indicates their position and annotates the major sections of the research facility that makes up the flashpoint.

Aside from the areas of note, this sign is of interest because it demonstrates one of several ways the Aurebesh handles upper and lower case letters. Formal Aurebesh makes no allowance for case, but several of the official and unofficial Aurebesh fonts handle capital letters in different ways. If you’re playing at the time this is posted, you may have noticed an image in SWTOR’s launcher promoting the Nar Shaddaa Nightlife event that contains Aurebesh letters that seem to be mirrored. That’s because the image was created with a font that uses reversed Aurebesh glyphs when generating upper case letters. The font used in this CZ sign, however, simply renders capitals as larger than lower case letters. Neither version is correct. It’s just a matter of the various font creators finding different solutions to fill the gaps in the Aurebesh font family.

Venturing deeper into the flashpoint, visitors will come across two signs outside the facilities Biomes that contain two of the flashpoint’s boss encounters. One biome recreates the environment of the desert world Tatooine, and the other replicates the swampy interior of Dromund Kaas.

Each sign includes information on the planets in question. The resolution of the letters is not very high, making the text somewhat challenging to read. Moreover the text on the Tatooine sign is fragmentary. However, the content of these signs was derived from swtor.com’s holonet entries on Tatooine and Dromund Kaas, and you can read the complete entries on each planet there.

The text in both planetary signs seems to have been pasted into the text box with the hyphenation option active, so some words are broken up across lines. I have maintained the original hyphenation in my translation.

Finally, all three of these signs are available as stronghold decorations from the CZ-198 reputation vendor in the Sith and Republic staging areas outside the flashpoint portals. Check ‘em out!

Update: While collecting screenshots for this entry, I came across a poster, which I had previously examined in this blog. However, the example I translated was cropped, and it seems there was additional Aurebesh text on the poster that I missed. Therefore, I have revised and expanded my entry on that poster.

During SWTOR’s Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion, patch 2.3 brought players to the secret moon base CZ-198, one of many clandestine research facilities owned by the Czerka Corporation. In addition to being home to a daily quest hub and two flashpoints, CZ-198 is adorned with numerous examples of Aurebesh signage and decorations.

Czerka has it’s origins in the earliest days of the expanded universe, with the company and its logo created as a weapons manufacturer. Czerka played a significant role in both Knights of the Old Republic and in SWTOR where their operatives are the major antagonists of the Tatooine story-arc.

Many of the graphics, especially the ones with specific context, such as signs for the “Tram Station”, “Freight Depot” and “Waste Disposal” are unique to the moon, although a few of the displays can be seen elsewhere in the galaxy, including on the bridge of the Gravestone. Several of the unique signs contain information about Czerka’s research base. The display shown above directs visitors to the various offices found on CZ-198. One department has been appropriately renamed for the setting, and it’s amusing to note that the publicity department seems to have been consigned to the basement beneath even the moon’s facility operations.

Czerka also made sure to provide its employees with the finest nutritional offerings at the Cafeczerka which has options for any tastes and any budget. I’ve got to tip my hat to the artists at Bioware for doing their research on this one. The dishes on the menu are derived from sources across the Star Wars canon. A few do seem to be unique creations of the Czerka Culinary Division, including the spicy Nar Sha Dip and the too often overcooked Alderaan Crisp. Evil geniuses never understand that char is not a flavor!

While this vendor stall can be visited in the Czerka flashpoints, it is also available as a stronghold decoration for folks who like to keep their characters well fed.

There is too much signage on display on CZ-198 for me to cover in a single post, so I will be returning to this moon in the near future.

This week, we pay a visit to fragrant, scenic Nal Hutta, adopted home of the Hutts and the starport at Jiguuna. A prominent sign outside the terminal announces arrivals and departures and their current status.

The listings are of transport services, many of which have their origins in Star Wars lore. Camura Lines was first mentioned back in West End Games’ Star Wars The Roleplaying Game. Yarella is a common Hutt name and thus appropriate for the sign’s context. Rim Shipping is generic enough, but could also be a precursor to “Core to Rim Shipping”, which also appeared in WEG’s SWRPG. Finally Gronco seems to be a Star Wars-ification of the word “bronco” or simply just a funny name that could very well apply to many a Hutt, Wookiee, Gamorrean or a hot shot pilot.

Only half of the scheduled flights are on time, and nearly a third are cancelled, so getting to and from Hutta is a coin flip at best. And you better hope the Hutt Cartel hasn’t overbooked your flight. Being put into Carbon Freeze and dumped in with the luggage is standard procedure for folks who won’t give up their seats. But at least you get there. Thawing and dealing with the consequences of hibernation sickness, however, are your own responsibilities.

This is one of many signs in SWTOR that uses the non-standard Aurebesh font Galactic Basic. The small, red glyphs that bracket the large sign seem to feature a stylized Senth letter, so I have re-created it as “s” in my version. Given that the sign is for a star or shuttle port, it seems like a safe pick.

This week, let’s examine a pair of posters that regular visitors to the Republic’s Carrick Station or any player of Huttball will surely recognize.

The orange banner is another travel poster, this time for an interstellar transport firm called DGB. The meaning of the initials and the numbers along side them are unknown to me. The second poster with its delightfully Eighties contrasting blue and pink color scheme advertises a galactic marketplace.

I can only speculate on the meaning of the large letter Besh: Balmorra? Bespin? Buy n Large? The Mern or M letter, however, is a common element on some other marketplace posters. I’ve speculated on its specific meaning before, and see no reason to stop now. The double Ms could very well stand for the Migrant Merchants Guild, which seized control of Coruscant’s Old Galactic Marketplace.

Both posters use design elements seen elsewhere in the game. The triangular “triforce” symbol and the connected hexagons are often seen on their own in any neon-soaked location from the Huttball arena to Nar Shaddaa’s Promendade.

It seems that even in a galaxy far, far away corporate branding is as inescapable, as it is in our own.

One of my favorite flashpoints is Kaon Under Siege. From its slow build to its crazy mutant-space-zombie apocalyptic climax, it’s an effective and thrilling bit of storytelling. One of Kaon’s most distinctive environments is the abandoned auditorium. Players often race through the theater quickly. pausing only to deal with a pair of rogue security droids patrolling the area. However, passing through an area that would normally be bustling but is currently devoid of life adds to the flashpoint’s mounting sense of unease. Prior to the arrival of the Rakghoul plague, I’m sure it was a lovely place to catch a holovid.

The auditorium’s screen features a large display that, as far as I can tell, appears no where else in the game. It has three sections of scrolling Aurebesh, several inset portraits of aliens and animated graphics of maps and geometric shapes.

The Aurebesh itself is non-specific and draws from SWTOR’s often used pool of mostly random text that can be seen around the galaxy, from the scrolling text that the bottom on the holonet newsfeed in the cut scene that introduces players to the Rakghoul Resurgence event to the Eternal Empire’s Zakuulan language monitors.

This translation includes all four repeating lines that are shared in the two side boxes as well as the crawl atop the screen. To add some visual variety to the repeating letters, the Aurebesh at the top of the graphic is mirrored, and the text in the side boxes is upside down. This technique is common both in SWTOR and in the Aurebesh seen in the Star Wars prequels.

There are items of interest in the content of the Aurebesh. First is the word “slothfurnace” which seems to be a reference to a real company that makes replica Star Wars props such as lightsabers and blasters. I suspect this secret bit of buzz marketing slipped by without official notice. Finally there is a long series of numbers in the first line of the side boxes. I can’t say for sure, but these digits look like a pair of dates to me: June 28, 1976 and November 16, 1977. A couple of birthdays perhaps?