How to merge conflicting narratives?

Question

I am setting up my story setting, a sci-fi story, and the people that I work with have created their own lore(s). Some of them conflict with one another. How might I combine these lore(s) into one, unified, lore?

For example:

[Mirexon] They were oppressed by a group of people which, in all essentiality, were like another nation. They were beaten and suppressed by these people, until they fought back. Now the Mirexon have prejudice and violence against this nation.

[Xalinx] They originated on their planet many centuries ago, as cave people. They were involved with the Mirexon for a long time, and are prejudiced at by the Mirexon. They traded and acted with other nations, but have "no idea" of the Mirexon incidents.

[Akarex] They originated from the Earth System and arrived in the current system about 210 years ago. They traded with both the Xalinx and the Mirexon, and took the Mirexon side in the oppression and rebellion. Xalinx is prejudiced against them because of this.

Answer 1

So, it appears you have multiple, conflicting stories about the same general events.

Sounds like most of history! People will almost always tell their stories in whatever way makes them look better. They'll emphasize their own virtue and diminish their opponents'. They might entirely leave out bits they can't justify, and as the story is passed on, those bits might be completely forgotten by one side—while another holds them as indelible scars. These principles don't apply just to societies, either; interpersonal relations can experience the same general problems on a smaller scale.

Take each narrative you have and assume that story is 'true' from the perspective of the people telling it. Find the points where they conflict, and examine the motivations of your storytellers for spinning them in the way they chose. Chances are you can explain most of the discrepancies away, and as a bonus, you'll have fuel for future character interactions between people on opposite sides; the things they 'know' to be true differing can easily lead to conflict or misunderstandings.

In this specific case, since you're working with multiple authors, you might run into a couple irreconcilable differences, but once you've done most of the work of blending the different narratives as above, you should be able to work with them to smooth out the bits that don't fit. Sometimes someone is just plain 'inventing' history. And sometimes you have no choice but to delete a piece you like for the greater good of the story.

Answer 2

So it looks like you have four races: The three you mentioned (hearby refered to as Mir, Xal, and Aka respectively) and an unknown oppressor of Mir (UOM).

And want to square away that the Mir hate the UOM, the Xal hate the Mir for reasons unrelated to the UOM/Mir Conflicts, and the Aka supported the Mir against the UOM in the UOM/Mir conflict, and for their friendship with the Mir, the Xal also hate the Aka.

This is entirely possible, if you consider that nations will often make strange bedfellows for conflict. Just because the Mir were opressed, it does not mean they aren't without their faults... Yes, they were once slaves, but that hardly means they weren't horrible people in their own right... just that they shouldn't have been enslaved for their own things. Perhaps the Mir mistook the Xal's friendly greetings as hostile because UOM use the same actions as hostile signal. This happens a lot in scifi (It's why Humans and Mimbari had a war in Babylon 5 on first contact, but especially in nature. It's literally the reason why Dogs and Cats fight. Dogs and cats use similar body language cues to communicate... it's just that the cues don't mean the same things to dogs as they due to cats. A dog that gets low to the ground and arches it's back is asking "Do you want to play" where as a cat doing the same action is asking "Do you want to fight me?" When one of the two animals makes this action, the other will respond with the same action... and the dog reads the response as an invitation to play, while the cat reads the action as "bring it Morpheus come at me gesture included". And the next cue is to start the playtime/fight time and both are ready to deliver... and that's why cats and dogs hate each other... it's not that they can't understand... it's just that culturally... they don't assume another message is being sent.

So, the Mir might have misread the Xal's intent and reacted poorly. It could be an honest mistake for the Mir, but an act of war to the Xal (who were only being nice). Meanwhile the Aka don't know what just happened, only that their ally the Mir are now attacking the Xal. The Aka might even understand the Xal did nothing wrong and the Mir were ignorant, not malicious, but the Xal are far too offended to listen to reason and won't hear the words of anyone who would defend the Mir.