Category Archives: Aurebesh to English

April 25, 2018 · 5:08 pm

Jax’s Back

This month, in the comic book pages of IDW’s Star Wars Adventures 2018 Annual, saw the return of one of the most infamous characters in all Star Wars lore: Jaxxon, the green haired, rocket-rabbit from the very earliest days of what would become known as the Expanded Universe.

Jaxxon and his partner Amaiza (who also returns to the four color limelight), were one quarter of the “Eight for Aduba-3“, one of the first original Star Wars adventures in any media after the release of the movie. Before I wax too nostalgic, I should point out that the Aduba Saga has fairly earned its controversial reputation. Writer Roy Thomas saw in the first Star Wars movie a mix of Flash Gordon serials, samurai, western and World War II movies, and decided to do his own riff on The Magnificent Seven, adding elements from Godzilla movies, Warner Bros. cartoons, female professional wrestling, and even Cervantes. The end result, however, is an over-stuffed, under-cooked mess. In the years to come poor Jaxxon would be singled out by both official sources and fans as an excuse to dismiss the whole Marvel series. This is ironic because, until this month, there was literally a four decade gap in Jaxxon stories, and his last appearance in 1978, issue 16’s “The Hunter” is one of the strongest tales in the original run.

No doubt, these comics are very much of their time, and may not be to modern tastes. The earliest stories between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back tended to be illustrated in a broad Silver Age style: Luke and Leia had the physiques of super-heroes, almost no effort was given to make the characters look like their actors, and the action was very exaggerated and over the top. What was proper Star Wars was still being discovered back then, and sometimes those old comics wouldn’t fit in continuity, used concepts from the movies weirdly or were just too comic-booky. “Eight for Aduba-3” fits all those bills.

And yet…

The giant monster stomps things, Jaxxon cracks wise, Amaiza kicks butt, Don-Wan Kihotay is clumsily heroic, and Han Solo saves the day in spite of himself. What more could an eight year old ask of a Star Wars comic? Nowadays when some folks are genuinely asking if there is too much Star Wars, it’s hard to imagine what is was like back then to be a fan starved for new adventures after just one movie. Splinter of the Mind’s Eye smacked of the low budget sequel it was intended to be and the wholly bizarre Holiday Special left a generation of kids shaking their heads in confusion. But in the pages of Marvel’s Star Wars comics, that’s where the action was. If you wanted to see all the heroes from the movie exploring new worlds, encountering scores of new aliens and playing with all manner of new ships, droids and weapons, Marvel had you covered.

Even as a big fan, I cannot deny that those old Marvel stories have a host of issues, but I think their flaws were more of execution than ambition. Some stories were misses, sure, but they were big misses. And there were plenty of hits too: stories that made the wait between movies easier to take, and stories than even now stand tall in the legendary array of Star Wars canon.

So I’m thrilled to see Jaxxon and Amaiza have another day in the sun. Over the years, there has been the odd sighting in roleplaying game supplements, inside jokes and background references, but the cartoony style of Star Wars Adventures is a natural fit for Jaxxon. The story by writer Cavan Scott, illustrator Alain Mauricet and colorist Chris Fenoglio is a delightful romp with action, betrayal and a charming reinvention of these old characters. You don’t have to know who Jaxxon and Amaiza is to get a kick out of the story, but there are some literal and figurative easter eggs for old timers like myself to enjoy. I do hope they check in with these two star-hoppers again, at the very least they have some unfinished business. Jaxxon is silly and dumb like Star Wars can be sometimes, like Star Wars should be sometimes. If you’re cool with that, by all means, check it out!

Black Hole Redux

This week’s Aurebesh recreation continues my tribute to Jaxxon and Amaiza. Back in the day, Han Solo knew Amaiza as the “den-mother of the Black Hole Gang” so a return to my favorite daily quest hub seemed appropriate. The Jaxxon connection is obvious upon discovering the translation of this sign.

The sign is one of many advertisements for the HyperMatter Corporation and at first glance seems to tout the company’s commitment to the environment. However, anyone who has quested through the zone probably knows that the color in question probably refers to the radioactive glow that one might develop after spending too much time in the Black Hole.

I must admit I missed this sign during my first survey of the zone since it is posted somewhat out of view in the Imperial section of the Black Hole and does not seem to be used elsewhere. The sign itself hangs high on a building and is easy to miss if you don’t look up or don’t back track while completing your weekly quests. I only recently discovered it myself while exploring the area on an Republic character. It’s like Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

 

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Filed under Aurebesh to English, General Star Wars, My Artwork

April 10, 2018 · 10:05 am

No Disintegrations

Welcome to This, uh, Month… in Aurebesh! In honor of last week’s Bounty Broker Association event, let’s take a look at the holographic display projected by the Investigation Probe during interrogations of Shady Characters across the galaxy.

First off, some but not all, of the text in this graphic is reversed, since it is meant to be read by the target and not the players. In my recreation, I reversed the graphic for the sake of legibility.

Elements of this are shared with others from the game, most notably, the Agent’s regeneration ability, Recuperate, and as a part of the cut scene associated with “From Ashes,” a daily quest on Ziost. In both cases the graphic elements are assembled differently for each context.

Most of the text itself, however, is the same in all three examples, and it seems to be drawn from a collection of boilerplate jargon related to computer error messages. For example, the inset text on another photograph complains that the target “has a slow area server.”

The photographs themselves are of real people, but I don’t know their identities and presume they are or were member’s of SWTOR’s design team. Whoever they are, I’m sure they probably get a kick of being targets of bounty hunters from across the galaxy.

Gods, Conquests and Cartel Markets

It’s a been a while since my previous post, so I thought I’d offer some quick comments on Patch 5.8, “Command Authority” and other goings in the community.

For me, the biggest new addition has been Izax, the ultimate boss in the Gods from the Machine operation. Sadly, I have not yet scored a kill of this giant robot space lobster god. Aside from missing a week due to the holiday, Gods is simply a very long operation. My guild raids only once a week, and the first time there it took nearly our entire allotted time just to get to Izax. Certainly, now that we know the puzzle before him it won’t be as bad, but even so I think the raid itself might be too long, especially when it comes the trash pulls. The Scyva trash, in particular, seems excessive and I don’t think it could hurt to cull a group or two from the earlier bosses as well. It’s not unreasonable to expect that a Story Mode operation be clearable in around two hours, and I don’t think Gods is there yet.

As for Izax himself, my first impression based on a few pulls and watching many videos is that he clearly is the most complex Story Mode boss in the game. This doesn’t bother me, since it doesn’t seem like the gear check is too severe to beat him. The short battle rez timer can cover a whole host of mistakes and sloppy play. I look forward to getting it together enough to beat him soon.

The other big change in this update is the revamp to the Conquest system. Some folks seem to be up in arms, but I’ve got few major complaints with the changes. Previously, I was able to meet my personal target on one or two characters a week and that hasn’t changed. It seems to me that Bioware is trying to move the Conquest system away from one where a small group of players can pile up vast sums of points to one where the guilds that succeed are the ones that motivate the most players to participate. This doesn’t strike me as a bad thing. That individual players had been able to accumulate hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of points doing nothing but crafting or endlessly running the same heroics on every character in their legacy day after day strikes me as contrary to the spirit of what is meant to be a guild activity, not an individual one.

That said, I do wish it were easier for individuals to meet their personal goals on their first character. I think a player with a decent stronghold bonus should be able to hit their personal goal in a solid afternoon or evening of play. I’d like to see more big, one time objectives, that let folks quickly pile up some points without having to log on again and again during the week.

Finally, we are in the midst of the big Cartel Market Spring sale, and while I generally don’t talk about the Cartel Market here (it’s not my place to tell people how to spend their money) I cannot deny that I’ve taken advantage. At this point, the market has such a huge backlog of stuff that the prospect of getting that one item you’ve always wanted all your life is tricky if you happened not to be playing at the time it was released. Inflation has driven many items out of the reach of lots of player who simply can’t afford the prices on the GTN so I think it’s a good thing that folks who’ve been frugal with their monthly grants (i.e. not me) can treat themselves to something cool. As for me, dropping 90cc on an old emote I missed out on back in the day instead of millions on the GTN made my day for sure.

I don’t imagine this will be a one-time sale. I’d like to see it come around quarterly, or at least every six months. Hopefully they’ll also work out the kinks and get decorations on the shelves next time.

Suggestions Are Welcome

This post is especially late because I abandoned another recreation I had hoped to do, a monitor on CZ-198 whose text is both clearly identifiable as Aurebesh, but also just blurry enough to be illegible. In my frustration, it took a while to find something else to do instead. I have a backlog of signs and posters I’d like to translate, but I also welcome suggestions. If anyone has spotted an alien display out there they’d like to see recreated in English, please let me know. Outside inspiration is always appreciated!

 

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February 7, 2018 · 6:56 pm

A Mote of Dust Suspended in a Sunbeam

Hello there. This past month was busy, and I confess the end of expansion lull has me logging on a bit less these days, so I’ve not been as diligent in my blogging as perhaps I should.

To get back into the swing of things, this week’s recreation is fairly straight forward. This sign with its large planetary graphic is probably most familiar to Republic players who keep up with the Black Hole Weekly since it can be seen by the irradiated zone near the Hyper Matter Tower. It also can be found elsewhere around the galaxy and as a stronghold decoration.

The sign’s content and layout echo numerous others around the game. The use of prominent and seemingly random double letters is common element in many, many, many other signs we’ve seen, as is the featured use of the “D” glyph, Dorn. The planet symbol is also a recurring motif. The awkward English translation is also not uncommon. Threepio is most assuredly disappointed, but this sort of thing must be expected when working with alien languages. That said, even the Aurebesh on display here is somewhat distorted. The “Q” glyph, Qek has been slightly truncated with the downward stroke on the right side of the letter trimmed off, probably to make it fit on the sign. The kerning of the original Aurebesh font is pretty sloppy, so reshaping letters for design reasons seems fair.

It’s Fine. We’re Fine.

There has been a flurry of Star Wars news recently, and I thought I’d toss in my two truguts.

First up, SWTOR released game update 5.7: Legacy of the Creators. The Scyva encounter is neat and not too rough on storymode. If you can do Nahut, learning Scyva should be easy. Since I’ve only completed the Fallen Empire story on two characters, neither of which are a Smuggler or Inquisitor, I have not yet tried the new story content. That I haven’t been running all my characters through the story should not be taken as criticism. I think Breaking Bad is one of the best TV shows ever made, but I’ve still only seen most episodes once. When it comes to alts, I tend to run through the story super-duper casually: maybe a chapter once a week, sometimes not even on the same character. I’m happy to run stuff at my own pace, and I’m not ever going to spacebar-mash my way through just to be caught up. However, my story main is my Consular, and she is definitely feeling a little left out, but I’m certain Tharan Cedrax’s return will be EPIC. In the meantime, I am eagerly anticipating the next road map.

This week also saw the reveal of the long awaited or perhaps over-due trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story. I won’t go too deep, since predicting anything about a movie from its trailer is a fool’s errand. Any Star Wars fan with access to the internet knows that this movie has seen more than its fair share of behind the scenes drama, and I’m reluctant to get too hyped about a movie that may turn out to be a total mess. My expectations are not high, but Ron Howard is a reliable and experienced director who knows how to work within different genres, so I’m not without hope. I’m also down with Alden Ehrenreich. He looks as much like Harrison Ford as River Phoenix did, and what snippets of him we get in the trailer do seem to capture Han Solo’s mix of cockiness and dumb-assery, so I’ve got no issue there. And, c’mon, Donald Glover as Lando? Hell, yes.

And, if nothing else, the trailer confirms that the Terror from Beyond is canon.

Finally, it was also announced that David Benioff and D.B Weiss will be writing and producing some Star Wars movies. As a long time Game of Thrones hate watcher, I’m less than psyched, but I can see why they might be appropriate picks for a big franchise like this. There are a lot of Star Wars stories out there, and I don’t have to love them all. I’ll like what I like, and not worry about the rest.

 

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December 19, 2017 · 9:32 pm

Got Blue Milk?

This week, let’s revisit two vivid posters that can be seen adorning Nar Shaddaa’s Huttball arena and several kiosks found on Carrick Station. I had given these a look back when I transated another pair of similar advertisements, but I decided to punt them down the road for reasons I’ll go into below.

These graphics recently reappeared in A Traitor Among the Chiss on the planet Copero as handles on bar taps. The colorful nature of these graphics make them appropriate for anything from Space Mountain Dew to Grape Fizzy Glug.

However, these posters show the danger in working with fake space letters that simply don’t translate into English. The bright green poster on the left combines two different alien languages: Huttese for the bold cyan letters in the foreground, and Futhork for the yellow letters in the back.

The Huttese font first appeared in the pod racing sequence of The Phantom Menace and has appeared in other Star Wars games beyond The Old Republic. While some Huttese such as graffiti in the Black Sun sector of Coruscant and the sign above Hutta departures gate of the Imperial Fleet can be translated into English, this particular example cannot. I doubt the letters have any specific meaning in the game, and simply may have been selected for how cool they look.

And I have no problem with that. It can be easily justified by assuming the writing is meant to be read as Huttese instead of English or Galactic Standard. And when designing typography with alien languages, the priority should be in how the final result looks rather than how it reads. Indeed, the Huttese font itself is a designer’s nightmare. Several of the letters use the exact same glyph, but simply flipped or rotated in different directions. If you wanted to write “Porg” in Huttese, all four letters of the word would share the same shape, with each letter oriented differently, and one having an extra accent. I’m quite certain that Hutts across the galaxy have a good laugh every time some poor soul tries to puzzle out their nigh unreadable language.

The poster also contains some Futhork writing. Although they are hard to make out in my translation, the exact same arrangement of letters can be found in another poster that can be seen on Nar Shaddaa and Corellia.

Next up is a purple sign written in Trade Federation Basic, which, like Huttese, was created for Episode I. As with the previous poster, this one does not have a meaningful translation. I suspect the glyphs used were selected not for any meaning but for how they fit into the poster’s design. For my version, I faithfully translated the letters, but adjusted their orientation to maintain the poster’s horizontal and vertical symmetry.

Even though these signs may not translate into English, it is to the designer’s credit that their meaning is obvious. If you should catch sight of them in the cantina in the Copero flashpoint and find yourself craving a refreshing energy drink or an ice-cold pop, then they’ve done their work!

 

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November 5, 2017 · 12:15 pm

These Astro-Droids Are Getting Quite Out of Hand

This time around we return to Coruscant and a poster featuring an astromech droid, surely the most beloved and indefatigable model of robot in all Star Wars lore.

This is one of many signs whose prominent use of Mern, the Aurebesh “M” immediately marks it as an advertisement for the Coruscant Marketplace. Aside from the large M glyph, this signs shares elements with other advertisements: the double Mern, for example, appears in other posters we’ve seen around the galaxy.

In addition, the circular icon seen faintly in the center, dark gray panel is used on the high-tech banners or street signs that delineate the Old Galactic Marketplace neighborhood of Coruscant.

I think it’s pretty neat to see so many posters and ads, which may seem different and alien at first glance, were clearly designed to share the kind of common branding that we might recognize on our own advertising soaked world.

Finally, while preparing this post I recalled yet another sign that I covered back in the earliest days of this blog that also showcases a droid. To be perfectly honest, my original recreation is pretty much rubbish, so I decided to go all George Lucas on it and give it the Special Edition that every Gonk droid deserves. I think my second try turned out a bit better.

 

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October 1, 2017 · 3:22 pm

I’m a Space Cowboy, on a Steel Bantha I Ride

This week, let’s turn our attention to some monitors that first appeared in Chapter 10 of Knights of the Fallen Empire, “Anarchy in Paradise”. The walls of the Overwatch headquarters are lined with wanted posters for a wide variety of criminals who flaunt the laws of the Eternal Empire.

The three posters I’ve recreated this week have also made their way into our Strongholds as decorations, but there are several more, which I’ll be sure to check out in the weeks to come.

The display on the left is easily the most remarkable of all the posters since it seems to feature a distant ancestor of Ahsoka Tano, the popular hero from The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels animated series. By her armor, this Tano looks to be a bounty hunter who is operating in cahoots with a Gamorrean and Ortolan, which suggests that she might have ties to the Hutt Cartel.

The right poster features someone who I imagine is a renegade from Sith Intelligence that continued to act against Zakuul even after the Sith Empire’s surrender. I am certain that a rogue cipher agent operating within the Eternal Empire could cause no end of trouble.

Last but not least, we have a Twi’lik bounty hunter with a very cool name. However, this poster, as well as the one for the Sith agent, shows that the Eternal Empire would not be bothered with such minor technicalities as spell checking in the pursuit of wanted criminals.

Many of the Overwatch posters share elements and text with each other, and several draw on elements from other signs in the game. The five letters atop the first poster appear in many, many other places, and the text beneath Tano’s known associates is amusingly non sequitur and seems to be drawn from a list of common Aurebesh phrases that appear elsewhere, such as the GTN screens.

The content of these posters basically amounts to what a friend of mine would call “useless flavor text”, but it sure would be cool if some of these characters showed up in the game. I’m certain folks would get a kick out of crossing paths with Ahsoka’s bounty hunting great-great-great grand ma.

They Say It’s My Birthday

Finally, this post marks exactly one year since I’ve started this blog. I hope visitors to this site have gotten a kick out of seeing elements of SWTOR in a slightly different light. I want to thank everyone who has given me feedback, corrections, and suggestions. It is all appreciated. I should also give special thanks to SWTOR Central, Xam Xam Says, Going Commando, Swtorista and FibroJedi for the shout outs, links and help over this past year. And, of course, major props to my friends from New Outriders who make SWTOR feel like home!

 

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September 24, 2017 · 5:42 pm

Back in Black

In honor of the bug that has, for the time being at least, turned daily questing zones into CXP bonanzas, I thought I’d a pay a visit to the Black Hole section of the planet Corellia.

The Black Hole is home to the HyperMatter Corporation, which refined and sold hypermatter, the extremely volatile fuel used by the fastest hyperdrives in the galaxy. The notoriously corrupt Corellian councilor Torvix attempted to seize control of this hypermatter manufacturing center, but instead only attracted the ire of both the Republic and the Sith Empire. The conflict between the three factions turned the Black Hole into a warzone overrun with toxic sludge and rampaging gang members.

This daily hub features several logos, signs and posters related to the HyperMatter Corporation that appear no where else in the game. The sign above boasts of HyperMatter’s commitment to safety, but the fact that radioactive waste literally runs through the streets and basements of the neighborhood suggest that these claims might be slightly exaggerated.

This sign seems to feature one of the taglines featured in their advertising. I don’t doubt HyperMatter’s desire to see their fuel sold across the galaxy, but it’s also worth noting that the poster makes no mention of whether their product would be fairly or affordably priced.

Finally, here is an advertisement clearly aimed at Corellia’s large and infamous population of smugglers and hotshot pilots. I’m certain a crate or two of hypermatter could shave a parsec or two off many a freighter’s run, but hopefully it won’t also cause that ship to be consumed by an explosion of tachyonic plasma should the gas cap not be screwed on tight enough!

These signs are pretty cool, and I’d like to see all of them (as well as a Hypermatter crate) added to the roster of stronghold decorations. I should point out, however, that they do include some “incorrect” Aurebesh punctuation and use the comma glyphs when periods were probably intended. In the interest of clarity, I corrected the punctuation in my recreations.

I think SWTOR has a pretty good track record when it comes to its daily quest zones, and I’ve always found them an enjoyable way to kill time in the game, especially compared to the far less interesting heroics. That the ridiculously excessive CXP rewards have breathed some life back into these areas has been pretty neat and it’s nice to see people running around them again.

 

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September 20, 2017 · 12:42 pm

Watch (Your) Step

This week, let’s look at this large sign, which I’ve seen on Coruscant, Corellia and Cademimu.

That this is a warning sign is pretty obvious whether you can read the Aurebesh or not. The eye is drawn to the prominent orange text and striped bar that indicate that the sign contains important safety information.

Beyond that, there is a lot going on here. It shares a similar design and graphical elements with many other signs in the game; in addition, it also includes a bit of clunky grammar which is also not unusual. At first glance, I thought the star graphic used in the background was the logo of the Black Sun criminal syndicate, but I quickly realized that it relates to the “Sun Section” referenced in the sign. Twelve must be someone’s lucky number because the digits pop up no less than four times on this one graphic. The large D  or “Dorn” letter is a common sight on other Aurebesh signs as well. In my recreation, I italicized the letter to make it more closely match the angle of its Aurebesh counterpart.

Finally, the tiny text in the left sidebar of the black, bottom section is probably also aurebesh, but if it contains any juicy tidbits, I can’t say since the text is far too small and low resolution for me to decipher.

Despite sharing elements with many other Aurebesh graphics in the game, this sign remains distinct from its siblings and works well in a variety of settings across the galaxy.

 

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September 11, 2017 · 4:10 am

Your Number is 2187, Isn’t it?

Your humble blogger is feeling a tad under the weather, so this week I thought I’d choose an easy sign to translate. While the recreation was a fairly simple task, this sign did lead to an aspect of Star Wars history to which I had not been aware prior to researching this post.

This sign is similar in style to many others found around Coruscant and other developed worlds of the Republic. It contains the usual bits of random letters and numbers, a neat calibration icon, a warning about stellar regulations, and a gentle reminder to always secure your safety harness when traveling by speeder.

While the large numbers atop the sign may seem random at first glance. They are far from it. Many fans will recognize them as the number of Princess Leia’s cell in Star Wars. And the numbers would come to even further attention as Finn’s stormtrooper designation in The Force Awakens.

The number’s true origin lies in the name of a short film titled 21-87 by Arthur Lipsett. This film had a profound effect on George Lucas as a young filmmaker, influencing Lucas’ aesthetic style and his habit of titling his early movies with numbered sequences; perhaps most importantly the film provided Lucas with the initial inspiration for the concept of the Force, which would lead directly to our beloved Jedi heroes and Sith villains.

The movie itself is quite abstract, occasionally disturbing, and definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s interesting to see something that had such a seminal influence on Star Wars. “In terms of understanding the power of sound and picture relationships there is no one better than Arthur Lipsett,” George Lucas said of the man who created 21-87.

 

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August 28, 2017 · 12:45 pm

Shut Up and Stellar Drive

I’ve been wanting to recreate this sign since I started this blog. For all its interesting elements, however, there are also parts of it that frustrated me, and I’m not sure I completely cracked this nut.


The sign itself can be seen all over Corellia, but many players’ first encounter with it may be at the start of the Cademimu flashpoint. The sign includes at least two different languages, the non-standard Aurebesh font Galactic Standard and a touch of Futhork.

The resolution of this sign is low, and the writing is blurry and indistinct no matter how close you get to it. On the left, the white text on the black background is so distorted that I can make neither head nor tails out of it. The word that appears twice beneath the Futhork ‘E’ is also difficult to decipher. I think it might be written using the Sith Prophesy font, and have done my best to translate it that way, but I would not be surprised in the least if I got that wrong.

If any sharp-eyed reader has better suggestions, I hope you’ll share your insight with me!

One interesting element of this sign is the array of five letters over the graphic of the planet and moon. This exact arrangement appears in very many other signs throughout the game, even ones that otherwise use proper Aurebesh. Whether it is simply a piece of commonly used clip art or an inside joke of some kind, I cannot say.

Even though aspects of this graphic remain obscure to me, it is still one of my favorite signs in the game. The use of space letters give it an alien touch, but the design keeps it grounded and recognizable as something that fits naturally in the Star Wars setting.

 

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