Static variables and application domains

I communicate between different swfs using static variables and functions. I’m running into an issue when testing the file locally the swf’s that the main swf loads in can’t access the static variables the main swf set. I’m pretty sure it’s because when I test the main swf is in the authoring environment and the other swfs are being loaded from “localhost” so they are in different domains technically. Is this because they are in seperate application domains when I’m testing? When I load them all in the browser through localhost it works fine but then I lose all the debug functionality and convenience of the built in player.

Any ideas on a work around for this would be very helpful. Thanks.