My block continues to be a drag, but before the month of June fully closes out, I did want to post something. Fortunately, in Star Wars: The Old Republic, the streets of Corellia are a great source of Aurebesh, so I decided to translate a few more the urban signs to help grease the wheels in my brain.
Click the thumbnail to read this Aurebesh sign in English.
The signs featured here would not look out of place in any metropolis here on earth, even with the alien text. SWTOR’s environmental artists did a great job giving these assets a familiar structure but with just enough sci-fi flair to firmly place them in Star Wars’ “lived in” universe. All of these signs have seen better days, but are still legible enough to read.
The translations contain no revelations or deep lore, but nor should they. A sharp turn indicator, an advertisement and a fire hazard warning are all things we might expect to see on an excursion through any big, war torn city, whether it is on Corellia or Earth.
Click the thumbnail to read these Aurebesh signs in English.
The red and orange advertisement in this image contains a pair of seemingly random letters. Many if not most of the signs seen throughout SWTOR share this trait. Over the years, I’ve often wondered if there are any hidden meanings or “Easter Eggs” in these signs. Some letters seem to appear more often than others, but I’m not convinced that is indicative of a pattern.
More often than not, I suspect the aesthetics of the shape of the letters guided their selection. In this case the Aurebesh Dorn and Yirt align to leave a neat triangular gap between the letters that the artist used as a design element in the sign. For my translation, I had to distort the D and Y letters to get them to fit to maintain the original design, but I think it worked out well.
I truly love it when I can read the writing in Star Wars and SWTOR, but it’s also important to remember that these fake space letters are just one design element in the greater world the movies and the game create.
