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Topic Started: Dec 30 2016, 04:32 AM (167 Views)
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Echoes
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Dec 30 2016, 04:32 AM
Post #1
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- Posts:
- 46
- Group:
- Admins
- Member
- #9
- Joined:
- Dec 30, 2016
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Welcome to Star Wars: The Echo Wars! The Echo Wars began when a few members of an existing Star Wars community decided to try a clean slate approach to Star Wars play-by-post roleplaying. Our community shares a love for fantasy, science fiction, space opera, and the particular mix of all three that mingled together in the Star Wars franchise… plus an interest in developing and writing stories and roleplaying with friends.
So, how do you get started? Step one, you need to register an account on our board. If you want to join just to say hi and talk to people, that’s okay too—no pressure to step into the roleplay, but we’d love to have you.
Once you’ve registered, feel free to drop an introductory thread in the Arrivals & Departures forum. A lot of our members use Skype, and there will even be an open Skype chatroom for feedback to the staff, but you’re just as welcome to ask questions in the chatbox or just participate in some General Discussion. We have a dedicated forum for Staff Feedback if you need to reach us directly, and we encourage you to take advantage of it.
What’s The Echo Wars about? Star Wars: The Echo Wars is an alternate universe (AU) play-by-post roleplay set in a distant future following the Star Wars Original Trilogy. That’s a mouthful, so let’s break it down and make it as simple as possible.
The Echo Wars is an alternate universe play-by-post roleplay. I assume if you got to this point, you probably know what a roleplay is, but just in case—we write collaborative stories in a shared setting, using characters we’ve developed individually, and we do so by posting to this forum. The alternate universe Star Wars part is our shared setting. We write in our own version of the Star Wars universe where only the Star Wars Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy actually happened. Many Star Wars fans will recall an Expanded Universe (EU), and it’s tough to be aware of media and not know about the various new and upcoming Star Wars movies.
In our roleplay setting, the new stuff isn’t happening and didn’t happen. Not only that, even the Clone Wars cartoon show never happened. The only pieces of Star Wars media we consider to be “canon” on our site are the first six movies—The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
For those who are familiar to Star Wars roleplaying, this may come as a shock. Basically, we wanted to be able to create our own (or recreate) histories, myths, and legends to make our site as living and breathing as possible. And so, even though the movies are counted as canon in our timeline, the events of the movies and the saga of the Skywalker family are distant memories.
What’s the Echo Wars alternate universe like? Well, that’s an intense question. Let’s see if we can turn it into bite-sized pieces. The galaxy is currently under the control of six separate factions, with a seventh largely independent faction comprised of Force sensitives. The factions are: - The Coruscanti Empire is a monarchy with its capital at Coruscant in the Core Worlds. The state is authoritarian and laws are enforced by the military police, but the empress is constrained by law and answerable in extreme circumstances to a Council of Moffs.
- The Hosnian Republic is a parliamentary republic with its capital at Hosnian Prime in the Core Worlds. The Republic formed from a disparate group of planets who left the Galactic Empire.
- The Ascendancy of the Hand is an oligarchy with its capital at Csilla in the Unknown Regions. The Ascendancy is a xenophobic state in which all species except Chiss are second-class.
- The Mandalorian Clans are a nomadic tribal culture with a gathering place at Mandalore in the Mid Rim. Many Mandalorians participate in illegally trafficking mostly legal products in violation of various laws.
- The Hutt Cartels are a loose affiliation of criminal enterprises owned by Hutts. The Hutts are corrupt—slave trafficking, illegal narcotics, racketeering, and prostitution are mainstays of the Hutt cartel economy.
- Black Sun is an organized criminal syndicate specializing in contracted criminal activities run by Vigos. Black Sun is particularly involved in espionage, smuggling, piracy, and assassination.
- The Church of the Force is a quasi-religious lodge of academics and Force sensitives devoted to studying the Cathedral of Echoes on Empress Teta. The Church works to rediscover understanding of the Force as it reawakens in the galaxy.
In addition to the factions, we’ve got the full breadth of Star Wars species, locations, and other accumulated miscellaneous stuff from decades of Star Wars fiction. If it’s on Wookieepedia, there’s a good chance we’ll still let you use it. The caveat is that individual characters and events that took place in media other than the Prequel and Original Trilogies just don’t exist for us. Otherwise, go nuts!
What’s this about the Force reawakening? Good question, that’s an important bit. After Luke Skywalker brought balance to the Force by destroying Darth Sidious and redeeming Anakin Skywalker, the Force went into a deep sleep. Force sensitive people and creatures throughout the galaxy lost all sense of its presence, as well as access to the supernatural abilities Force sensitivity offered.
Time passed. Enough time that the Jedi and the Sith, as well as other Force-using organizations, became a distant and irrelevant memory. Then some more time passed, and they were all largely forgotten—which brings us to three hundred and thirty-three years ago, in Year -333, when the Force started to echo through a particular building on Empress Teta, in the capital city of Cinnagar. That building came to be known as the Cathedral of Echoes.
Individuals started to hear the echoes from faraway places and felt drawn to the Cathedral. Over time, a small group of religious zealots calling themselves the Church of the Force arrived at the Cathedral of Echoes and explained to the new generation of Force sensitives that this was what the Church had waited so long to see: the return of the Force. The Church and the Force sensitives joined together to begin studying the Force, reawakening its power and redeveloping an understanding of what it could do.
The Church of the Force owns the building and surrounding land of the Cathedral of Echoes and pays for upkeep by offering the special services of its gifted people, who most often serve as diplomats and negotiators, to the government of Empress Teta. All trained Force sensitives in the galaxy studied at the Cathedral of Echoes and all Force sensitives in the galaxy hear and feel a pull towards it.
Just recently, the echoes began to change ever-so-slightly. People began to hear directions from the echoes…
Would you like to know more? We get it, there’s a lot to chew on already, but there are a few things about the way we run the site that you may want to know. We try to allow as much freedom as possible in the roleplay, especially when it comes to plots and stories, but we have a few policies to make sure no one feels stepped on or treated unfairly. The list of guides below should help you understand what we do to keep things on a fairly even playing field.
Possessions Guide Character Development Guide Powers & Abilities Guide Character Journals Guide
The other things you may have already notice are the Sagas of Old and Memories. Because we nixed the Expanded Universe and much of the established canon of Star Wars, a lot of the history of the galaxy is a blank slate. Since people often like to reference historical events, we’ve opened the Sagas of Old to tell the legends and myths of powerful people and organizations that existed 777 or more years before the events of The Phantom Menace. The Memories are for events which occurred before Year Zero, but more recently than 333 years ago.
So… how do you start? Glad you stuck with us this far! Hopefully you’ve already read the ZetaBoards Terms of Service and Board Rules. When you’ve got a character in mind, check out the Character Creation Guide and see if you can develop a profile for them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask questions in the HoloNet Instructionals. We don’t have a “Frequently Asked Questions” yet, since we’re still pretty new, but if we see recurring trends we’ll start one.
So without further ado, welcome to Star Wars: The Echo Wars…
… and may the Force be with you.
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