Editing Star Wars Setting (section)

==Setting History==
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Bear in mind the highly contradictory nature of canon and many sources from EU to Disney means any attempt to truly form a concrete history would take an in-depth scholarly pursuit of all sources and debate amongst the global community while taking into account upcoming new results that can entirely rewrite the record. You know, like real history ([[Tolkien]] did an admirable job, but nothing quite says plausible history like something everyone has an opinion on but nobody that anyone wants to listen to has fully researched). At any rate, what is presented here is an abridged version of the lore history prior to the Original Trilogy, using the most complete accounts, and combining the EU AKA “Legends” with the Disney canon when not contradictory (because despite having supposedly wiped it out of canon, there are frequent callbacks to parts of it). Though in fairness, Legends lore is far more fleshed out and takes priority in practice. Since it is under construction, it will probably be split into different sections (or we'll put parentheses showing whether it's Disney or OG, going in year order). As a note, most dates are referred to Before or After the Battle of Yavin (with both 0 BBY and 0 ABY existing) for the sake of out of universe convenience. There are various in-universe calendars, but this is pretty much the standard at the time of the end of the story and is the easiest to follow IRL. Thus, when the contradictions majorly start after Episode 6, the format will be Legends-5 ABY, Disney-5ABY, Legends-6 ABY and so on.

* The universe begins, life begins to evolve. A lot of small things happen that tie into other stories, but aren’t worth mentioning outside that story.
* The unknown Celestial race holds dominion around a hundred thousand years Before the Battle of Yavin, they mysteriously vanish soon afterwards.
** Before disappearing, a set of force wielding physical gods known as the Father, the Daughter and the Son help them to seal Abeloth "The Mother", a mortal who lived with them and in desperation for sharing their immortality did some extremely bad dark side Force stuff and turned into an eldritch abomination, in the Maw Cluster of black holes using Centerpoint Station, a super weapon in the partially artificial Corellia System.
* The first galactic civilization (that we know of except whatever the Celestials were, if they even count as a formal polity) are the Rakata, cruel aliens who uplift various other species for slaves and food in the Rakatan Infinite Empire. This explains most aliens that are just paint and simple face prosthetics away from being human, as well as recurring traits like bipedalism.
** The Rakata encounter the Sith species, who also use the dark side. The Sith drive them off after a costly battle thanks to Sith King Adas sacrificing himself.
*** The Sith'ari prophecy is made to indicate a worth successor to Adas who would bring the Sith to the height of their power, Bane would be the Sith'ari more than twenty thousand years later.
** At some point the Rakata encounter the Hutts, and the result is the Rakata being nearly wiped out. Hutts did not possess space travel, nor would they until much later so how the fuck that happened isn’t clear, though it is mentioned that they lost their connection to the Force (universally the Dark Side due to species wide enforcement of being an asshole) after an unknown illness. 
** Time progresses and the Rakata are forgotten from general knowledge outside of archeological and historical circles, even then only Force sensitives really know the major significance other than "big empire that collapsed before the Republic was even a dream".
* Civilizations develop and discover space travel, then hyperspace travel. Initial hyperspace colonization and mapping is risky, requiring oftentimes blind jumps and the hope there isn’t a star or something where you end up.
** Blind jumps result in colonists losing contact with the rest of the universe and evolving on their own, explaining some groups that are VERY similar but not the same species (for example, Miraluka are lost human colonists who ended up on a planet with poor light and over generations they evolved to not have eyes, but instead all have a Jedi-tier connection to the Force to “see” with). 
* The Force-users find their jumps guided to a specific planet, with aliens from many diverse backgrounds guided to a planet (First Tython in Legends, changed to Ahch-To in the Disney canon. Later material for The Mandalorian brought Tython back alongside Ahch-To as both being early Jedi planets and nobody knowing for sure which was actually the first).
** Bringing their own religions, traditions, and cultures, the Force-users develop schools of thought on the philosophy. Eventually one group decides the meaning of life for the Force is to destroy evil (like [[Paladins]]), and wages war on the others saying “you’re with us or against us”. One group resists which saw honor and personal development as the meaning of life (like [[Cavalier]]s). The rest were split between the two.
** The Paladin-like aggressors were victorious, slaughtering and driving off the Cavalier-types. The Paladin-like Force-users would become the early Jedi. The Cavalier-types would find pain and misery in exile after multiple Great Schism's, sinking deep into worship of power and personal gain. After the Third Great Schism caused by Jedi Knights Ajunta Pall, Sorzus Syn, Xoxaan, Remulus Dreypa and Karness Muur wanting to study the Dark Side after the balance started falling towards Light Side use lead to the Hundred Year Darkness civil war, they are exiled. The exiles find and enslave a species of aliens and stole both their dark Force/alchemy teachings as well as their name when Ajunta Pall killed the last King Hakagram Graush, the Sith, and interbreeding with them to build the Old Sith Empire, Pall as the first Dark Lord of the Sith.
*** The Hundred Year Darkness leads to the invention of Lightsabers, inspired by Rakata Forcesabers, though initial examples like the one Karness Muur used require energy batteries on belts connected by cables.
*** Karness Muur discovers the method of immortality when he transfers his spiritual essence to his Muur Talisman amulet created by Sith Alchemy. Dreypa, his rival, makes a stasis coffin to hold Muur in, said coffin is later named the Jebble Box and is misidentified as a Jedi artifact.
** This becomes a recurring pattern in Star Wars history regarding good and evil Force-users. Good creates its own evil by standing up and declaring themselves good and morally correct, turning any challengers to their orthodoxy towards the Dark Side (look, it comes up whenever Lucas or some other writer wants to go back to the Taoist roots of The Force). Good then defeats the evil it created once evil has almost won, and they reestablish order with some oppression in an attempt to prevent another evil which restarts the cycle.
** The Chosen One to bring balance to the Force prophecy is made. Anakin Skywaker would fulfill this prophecy a thousand years after Bane fulfilled the Sith'ari prophecy.
* Humans and Duro, the first two species to discover hyperspace travel from Rakata technological remnants, eventually meet. The planet they meet on has been implied to be the human homeworld, the Duro homeworld, Earth, and various other things, but it doesn’t matter, final decision settled on as Human homeworld with any connection to real Earth slashed and Duro homeworld being described as another planet in another part of the galaxy. It becomes Coruscant (the homeworld of the Taung, a.k.a. OG Mandalorians, and also the homeworld of the human predecessor race, the latter won and drove off the Taung to Mandalore), and they create the first Galactic Republic in 25553 BBY. 
** The exiled Taung found Mandalore, a martial society of warmongers and Social Darwinists, on the planet of Mandalore, which along with it's moon and nearby systems has a massive amount of the substance known as Beskar, capable of making Lightsaber resistant armor.
* Various expansion wars occur after the Republic is founded, including a religiously motivated 1000 year long pro-human genocidal regime, the Pius Dea cult, taking over, brought down by the Jedi and those sick of their shit after their reign, leading to a few decades of Jedi Grandmasters pulling double duty as Supreme Chancellor to restore democracy and arrest leftover cultists. Other wars also occur such as the the Hutt Wars with Xim the Despot, the Hutt Cataclysms (a major series of Civil Wars and natural disasters that ruined the Hutt Empire and instituted the Hutt Cartel system and founded the basis of the galactic criminal underworld), and a series of wars on and off for 20000 odd years over whether Coruscant or another planet (Alsakan) is to be the capital.
** Two important worlds that need to be noted are Corellia, which has disproportionate influence in the founding of the Republic and even has the right to declare neutrality in civil disputes due to economic power of its status on the most important hyperspace shortcut in the galaxy (as well as the Celestial influenced state of their system), and Kuat, founded by pre-Hyperspace human colonists launched from Coruscant and the premier shipyard in the galaxy.
* Eventually the Sith return to destroy the Jedi after two Republic scouts accidentally stumble upon Korriban, the Sith species home planet and now the burial site for the Dark Lords, and return while being followed, kicking off the Great Hyperspace War.
** The Republic is almost destroyed, but survives, and led by Empress Teta (the Empress of a member world that is) in turn smashes the Old Sith Empire led by Dark Lord Naga Sadow.
** The Sith slink back into the shadows. The Jedi start their other big tradition, over-correcting from their past mistakes and creating new ones, by beginning a time of non-interference in galactic affairs and a general desire only for peace.
** During this time, Darth Vitiate (born Tenebrae as the illegitimate son of Sith Lord Dramath [[Grimdark|who raped one of his slaves]]) exploits the defeat and manipulates 8000 fellow Sith Lords to a secret ritual to live forever. It goes [[Just as Planned]] for Vitiate as he consumes the souls of his fellows to become immortal (but not invincible) and names himself Sith Emperor of the Reformed Sith Empire. He secretly builds his forces from the remaining Sith armies and lords.
** Duringthe final battle of the Great Hyperspace War a Sith ship crashes into a planet and the survivors become the Lost Tribe of Sith.
* Freedon Nadd, Jedi apprentice, is denied knighthood and falls to the Dark Side after finding Sadow's tomb and his spirit. He causes the Beast Wars on Onderon and its moon Dxun and rules for a hundred years before dying, his cultists becoming weirdo beast rider types who plague Onderon.
* Two Jedi Knights, Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma fall to the Dark side after finding Dark Lord Marka Ragnos and Nadd's spirits respectively and become Master and Apprentice in that order. After Ulic kills his brother and former fellow Jedi, he returns to the light and kills Exar Kun during their war to destroy the Jedi. Ulic wanders around for a while and then dies in his former lover Grand Master Nomi Sunrider's arms, who had become Grand Master after Exar Kun and Ulic's war ended with the formers death.
* Mandalorians, the space Mongols/Aztecs, start attacking the universe because all they understand is war (and because the Taung species is dying out, leading to them allowing worthy foreigners to join, humans end up as the vast majority).
** This massive war almost wipes out several species but the Jedi do nothing. Eventually one of their number, nicknamed the Revanchist and his friends Alek and Meetra Surik are dispatched to investigate, and upon finding the atrocities committed decide to forsake the Jedi wuss way and break the back of the Mandalorians.
** The Revanchist takes the name of Revan after picking up and putting on the mask of a female Mandalorian who refused orders to massacre civilians and died defending them.
** During the fighting, Mandalore the Ultimate orders Serocco and Jebble nuked from orbit, killing everyone who failed to escape and leaving Jedi Assassin Celeste Morne stranded on Jebble in stasis, which she had gone in to to keep the Muur Talisman which contained to soul of Karness Muur, one of the Dark Jedi exiles who founded the Sith Order, from escaping. The stasis coffin is the same one built by Remulus Dreypa to keep Muur in.
** Revan kills Mandalore the Ultimate in single combat, leaving the Taung extinct. After learning that Mandalore the Ultimate was manipulated through his final words, Revan and Alek go to Dromund Kaas to investigate, then fall to the Dark Side and create a fascist government centered on Dromund Kaas (actually the hidden capital of the Reformed Sith Empire who brainwashed the leader of the Mandos). The Sith Emperor had brainwashed both of them.
** Revan becomes Darth Revan and Alek becomes Darth Malak, which almost destroys the Republic, again (a third recurring theme), with the only loyalists remaining being Surik and her chief engineer, who had returned to the Order after the final battle at Malachor V where they fired a super weapon, the Mass Shadow Generator on Revan's orders which the brainwashed Revan used to kill the other loyalist Jedi, before Revan and Alek went off to open revolt.
** A Jedi named Bastila Shan is sent to assassinate their leader Darth Revan, but believing in redemption instead she wiped his mind. The two went on an adventure while Revan was trained as a Jedi again, and he defeated his apprentice Darth Malak and dismantled his own army (also did a bunch of racing, theme #4).
** Afterwards, the remaining Fallen Jedi institute the First Jedi Purge under the Sith Triumvirate, Darth Nihilus (who vored planets after being reduced to a husk by the superweapon Revan used at Malachor V), Darth Sion (who was so edgy he had to be convinced to let go as he was too angry to die), and Darth Traya (a.k.a. Kreia, actually Jedi Master Arren Kae, who wanted to destroy the force itself) and their followers, survivors of Malak's remaining army.
** The only loyalist Jedi survivor of Revan's initial force, Meetra Surik, having been exiled from the Order after being the only veteran to return, comes back and destroys the Sith Triumvirate (redeeming the only apprentice they had, Visas Marr, in the process) along with her companions (including Visas and her old chief engineer) who she trained as Jedi, plus Revan's old war buddy/current Mand'alor (Mandalorian king) Canderous Ordo and an asshole droid.
** Revan's companions and Meetra's companions then presumably rebuild the Jedi Order and the badly damaged Republic over 300 years, while Revan and Surik go to Dromund Kaas to finish off the Emperor (Revan not telling anyone like a moron, while Surik just went to help her friend) but are betrayed by their ally Darth Scourge, who foresees the Emperor is not going to die for three more centuries.
** Surik ignonomously dies, while Revan is tortured for 300 years while managing to keep the Emperor from attacking the Republic when it is vulnerable.
* A clusterfuck of things happen.
** The Sith create a nearly galaxy-wide coalition to start a civil war with the Republic. The Sith have overwhelming advantage, but are so backstabby and hedonistically asinine they fail to accomplish anything major after the initial strikes, though Darth Malgus manages to sack Coruscant and the Jedi Temple.
** Things cool of for 12 years in a Cold War, then heat back up again and are disrupted when the Sith Emepror (who as stated was the guy who manipulated the Mandalorians and brainwashed Revan) is apparently killed by the Hero of Tython (who is then promoted to Jedi Battlemaster) aided by Darth Scourge (who the Emperor life-extended to serve as his personal assassin, while plotting to kill the Emperor).
** Revan splits in two from the 300 year torture, and after the torturers (the edgiest Sith ever, the Dread Masters, who were personally trained by the Emperor) get killed by the SWTOR player character of your choice (story-wise, the Hero of Tython makes the most sense as the Jedi Knight so will go with that for the purposes of timeline), who had also apparently killed Darth Malgus when he got pissed at the [[Stupid Evil]] of the other Sith and tried to make his own empire, and tries to bring the Emperor back to a physical body, with the protagonist and their allies barely stopping him.
** It turns out the Emperor manipulated Revan's last efforts and used the bloodshed there to transfer all of his spirit to where he was actually focusing on, the Eternal Empire at the planet of Zakuul he made over the past few centuries, after finding a super robot fleet in the planet of Iokath and possessing a local hero named Valkorion. His body is destroyed by the protagonist, and the Emperor's son Arcann (who killed his light-side twin in a rage) invades both the Republic and the Sith Empire.
** Meanwhile, the protagonist is placed in carbonite for five years, while Arcann used the Emperor's supposed death to drum up support for his regime in Zakuul. He is defeated and (due to Light Side Republic Loyalist Jedi Knight being the most reasonable choice for storyline purposes) is redeemed to the light side. His sister tries to take over, and is killed. A large part of the Emperor's soul is destroyed after trying to take over the SWTOR protagonist.
** Afterwards, the Republic and Sith Empire return to war over the remaining superweapons on Iokath and the SWTOR protagonist rejoins the Jedi and the Republic. Empress Acina (who took over the Reformed Sith Empire after Darth Marr, regent after the Emperor faked his death, was killed after being captured along with the protagonist prior to the 5-year timeskip) dies in the fighting and Darth Malgus returns, having survived and rebuilt as a cyborg.
** The Emperor finally loses control of the Force and all three of his personalities (Tenebrae, Darth Vitiate and Valkorion) are destroyed, finally killing him for good and thus letting Revan and Meetra become one with the Force. The protagonist continues heroics and defeats/captures some Dark Council Sith Lords (and Malgus, presumably in the next expansion as of the time of writing - which happened and he was captured by the Republic, further details TBA as SWTOR storyline continues) and the final phase of the Great Galactic War eventually ends in Republic victory, the Reformed Sith Empire shattering to pieces.
* Around 2000 years before the Battle of Yavin some dickwad Jedi falls to the Dark Side as Darth Ruin and reignites the brewing low intensity conflict as the New Sith Wars at full scale as the first undisputed Dark Lord in a millenium since the Sith Empire Remnants shattered to insurgencies and individual Dark Side cabals. Ruin instigates the Fourth and last Great Schism of the Jedi.
** The Sith eventually reform into the Brotherhood of Darkness to prevent the mass backstabbing that restarted with the New Sith Wars and bans the title of Darth, with all Sith Lords being equal (though of course, [[Communism|some are more equal than others]], like fallen Jedi Master Skere Kaan).
** After a thousand straight years of war, a Galactic Dark Age settles in and ruins major tech infrastructure and companies, fixing the dissonance between movie era tech being worse than literally thousands of years ago. The last three hundred years until 1000 BBY are particularly brutal, killing FTL communications past the Mid Rim sans courier and brings the Republic to its knees.
* 1000 years before the Battle of Yavin, Sergeant Dessel, transferring from the Sith Army to the Sith Academy after his force sensitivity was discovered, thinks the Brotherhood of Darkness is a bunch of bullshit. He decides that the Dark Side can only have two Sith, one Master to embody power and an Apprentice to crave it, after finding Revan's edgy fanfiction he wrote after the Mandolarian Wars and before the Jedi Civil War in a Sith Holocron. He names himself Darth Bane and manipulates Lord Kaan into building the Thought Bomb, a Dark Side Force weapon.
** The Brotherhood of Darkness are defeated at the (Seventh) Battle of Ruusan. They detonate the Thought Bomb, which wipes them out along with the Army of Light, a Jedi army formed in desperation by Lord Hoth as a last resort to save the Republic, as the Army of Light sacrifice themselves to force Kaan to detonate it early and end the New Sith Wars, [[Just As Planned|exactly as Bane planned]].
** The Rule Of Two is instituted by Bane who takes Zhannah as his apprentice, preventing the Dark Side clusterfuck that happens when too many assholes exist as “equals” in one faction. The Jedi almost destroy the Sith as Zhannah is caught spying in the Jedi Temple and is forced to retreat, chased by three masters and two knights.
** Bane and Zhannah defeat them and Zhannah's cousin is made insane by her Sith Sorcery and attacks the Jedi task force sent after them, who are forced to kill him. Thinking that was the Sith they were looking for the Jedi pat themselves on the back and go back to Coruscant to report the Sith being destroyed.
** Zhannah defeats Bane and takes Cognus as her apprentice. Cognus takes Millenial (yes, Darth Millenial) as her apprentice, who disagrees with the Rule of Two and goes to Dromund Kaas to start the Prophets of the Dark Side, who worship the Dark Side. Cognus takes another apprentice and things continue as they hide, plan, research, and backstab in secret for 1000 years.
* After this apparent victory, the Republic undergoes the Ruusan Reformation, beginning the Great Peace of the Republic in which no major war occurred.
** The Jedi are greatly weakened in political authority and demilitarized. They also begin strictly enforcing the age maximum for training people as Jedi. Having lost its best and brightest save for Grand Master Faye (namely, Lord Hoth and Master Valenthyne Farfhalla) in the Army of Light's sacrifice, degenerate into Lawful Stupid morons with the Ruusan Reformation, which states that the Jedi can no longer create an army, and that the Jedi are under the command of the Senate, although they still have their own Council for internal stuff. They decide to vigorously enforce the age limit and become more and more detached from the people and the small good deeds that help reinforce the light side in an individual (demonstrated in SWTOR with the Hero of Tython, whose dead master as a Force Ghost instructs him to give labor and medical assistance in a small village to help reinforce his soul).
** The Republic disbands its military except for a small anti-piracy force in the Judicial Forces and leaves actual defense to Planetary Defense Forces.
** The Republic massively decentralizes and executive, as opposed to legislative or home planet/sector, power starts falling back into Senators hands for the first time since pretty much the Pius Dea period as Supreme Chancellors and Vice Heads essentially become first and second among equals to other Senators, thus making the executive and legislative significantly accountable to the larger and more bribe friendly Senate rather than the government.
* Due to the infrastructure damage, a period of [[Medieval Stasis]] sets in, turning for example battle droids from multi legged hyper mobile tanks and super deadly assassins to crappy shit tier fodder infantry outside of expensive special models.
* Megacorporations gain power in the sparser regions of the Mid Rim and the Outer Rim as the republic falls into a combination of absurd political corruption and Inner Rim/Core Worlds exceptionalism, to the point that some corps have Senators of their own (not even bribed, literal voting members presumably elected/bribed the electoral offices from corp owned worlds). Senators essentially become mouthpieces of planetary interests or big business and vote based on who bribes them.
* 65 years before the Battle of Yavin, a man from Naboo's House Palpatine (dubbed Sheev in Disney canon) became the apprentice to a Sith Master named Darth Plagueis.
** He learned secrets of Sith Alchemy and pretty much any other plot-related evil shit that writers want, takes on the name Darth Sidious, then killed his master and began a (very convoluted) plan to wipe out the Jedi, rule the galaxy and wage war on things outside the galaxy, and live forever. Just assume anything that happens from here until his death is [[Tzeentch|because of him]].
** Palpatine takes on an apprentice, an older Jedi who left the Order due to its hands-off approach to galactic governance. The now ex-Jedi Dooku Serenno reclaimed the fortune and title of Count he had relinquished to join the Jedi and was secretly contacted by Palpatine to slowly cajole him over years.
* A Jedi named Sifo-Dyas has a prophecy that the galaxy will soon be at war, and concocts an elaborate plan to get an army for the currently armyless Republic using money from criminal organizations and the genetic material of a Mandalorian descended from the old warriors. He’s killed by Palpatine ([[Just As Planned|the guy that planted the idea in his head]]), who takes over the project via Dooku and had each clone implanted with a secret control chip that would override their training and loyalties when Sheev gave “Order 66”. 
* As the Republic weakened due to corruption and the rising power of corporations, and the Jedi weakened due to Sheev’s (and his predecessors) tampering with the Force via bullshit Alchemy handwaves and becoming detached from the common people weakening their compassion and the light side, planets and organizations within the Republic began to act aggressively. Sheev was behind many of their moves as his public identity rose as the Senator of his home planet of Naboo.
** As aforementioned, many organizations gained enough power to have Senatorial representatives, making corporations as powerful as entire planets and causing the clusterfuck of alliances and conflicting interests to render the Republic almost powerless. 
* The Trade Federation, a simple shipping company that had its own Senator and via shared interests controlled many, MANY more, began using its private army to blockade planets. They did this to secure exclusive contracts with the goal of controlling all trade everywhere eventually, and even hold power over the Republic due to its lack of military.
** Sheev as Sidious reveals himself to be heavily invested in their projects, and they gladly accepted his patronage. He advised them to upscale their ambitions and blockade the planet Naboo, which was far more powerful politically and economically than their previous targets, 32 years before the Battle of Yavin.
* We leave the mists of backstory/dubious canon and enter into the Movie/TV Canon.
** Two Jedi, an apprentice and a master (Obi-wan and Dooku’s old apprentice Qui-Gon) were sent to negotiate an end to the blockade. Fearing that the Federation had gone into dangerous territory, the leaders contacted Sheev, who ordered them to kill the Jedi and continue the blockade as if nothing had happened.
*** The Jedi escaped to the surface of the planet and escaped with the planet’s leader Queen Amidala. They were delayed due to engine problems from the escape, and stopped at Tatooine where they picked up a slave boy named Anakin who was Force-sensitive (implied to be an experiment from Sheev’s Alchemy to create life as he learned under Plagueis, abandoned after accidentally rendering Anakin's mother pregnant with no father, bot Plagueis and Palpatine deeming it a failure). Meanwhile Sheev’s own apprentice Darth Maul had been sent to ensure his plans were carried out. A couple of weeks after this Palpatine kills Plagueis and becomes the Dark Lord.
** Sheev convinced the Queen to start a movement against the administration of the Republic, which was joined by the majority of the Senate; even the corrupt were sick of everyone else’s corruption.
*** This destabilized the Republic leadership, shuffling Sheev into power as Supreme Chancellor and putting his lackeys in charge. Meanwhile, the queen and Jedi returned to Naboo and lead a revolt, defeating the Trade Federation and leaving their leadership as prisoners of the Republic, but Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jin dies at the hands of Sidious's apprentice Maul and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi is left grieving and Maul believed dead as he was cut in half by Kenobi.
*** Sheev worked behind the scenes to keep them from being prosecuted for their actions while making plans to turn Anakin Skywalker, who had been found and chosen for training by the Jedi as part of the Chosen One Prophecy (by Obi-Wan, who had literally just become a Knight after Qui-Gon's death, so that was a dumb fucking call giving the kid who needed a father figure to a rigidly dedicated young man in mourning who had almost failed out of the Jedi into the Jedi Service Corps due to relative weakness in the force), into a future asset.
** Sheev progressed his plan for a war to further destabilize the galaxy by pitting the various corporate powers he controlled as Darth Sidious against the united planets he controlled as Supreme Chancellor. This leads to a Separatist movement with both sides financially powerful, both sides possessing armies, and both sides feeling they were the ones who were wronged and both firmly in Sith pockets, the Separatists as a disposable tool under Dooku (who, after Maul's believed death, had become Sidious's apprentice Tyrannus) and the Republic primed to vote for Palpatine to gain more and more power.
*** The “Clone Wars” began after a series of events orchestrated by Dooku where the Jedi discover and deploy the clone armies against Separatists who had been planning to execute the Jedi and former queen of Naboo as revenge on behalf of the Trade Federation. 
** Sheev manipulated both sides of the conflict to deplete the strength of all participants. The Separatists were led by the cyborg General Grievous, Count Dooku (Sidious planned to replace both Maul and Dooku from the beginning, with Anakin) and the corrupt Separatist Council essentially acting as Count Dooku's mouthpiece, while the Republic forces were led by the Jedi Master Mace Windu and Grand Master Yoda.
** Public opinion began to turn against the war, and groups of Senators who had previously been allies of Sheev began meeting in secret and planning for militarizing their planets so there would no longer be a need for an army of the Republic. 
** When the time was right Sidious orchestrated a finale of battles which resulted in the deaths of Dooku and Grievous, then enacted Order 66 to slaughter almost all of the Jedi and turned Anakin to his side as Darth Vader. He declared himself Emperor and the Republic his Empire, eliminating much of the old government over time, and allowing cronies to make it into the ranks of a galactic military dictatorship which used powerless puppet governments on the local level.
** Separatist remnants continue resistance and a majority of them are defeated in the Reconquest of the Rim.
** Small rebel cells popped up everywhere, which would eventually unite under the surviving members of the old Senate following Palpatine using Vader's "secret" apprentice to lure them out and failing to kill them as said apprentice turns to light and sacrifices himself (the plot of The Force Unleashed).
** The Great Jedi Purge comes to an end one year before the Battle of Yavin with Master An'ya Kuro being killed by Vader, leaving several dozen Jedi alive as the Empire shifted focus to fight the Rebels, now united as the Alliance to Restore the Republic. The Alliance is led by Mon Mothma and Bail Organa, two Senators.
** The Emperor dissolves the Senate and orders his military second Wilhuff Tarkin to use the newly built Death Star, a planet killer super weapon, to enforce his rule, while his civilian second Sate Pestage handles the bureaucracy.
** Han Solo, would be Imperial Officer, quits the academy after saving Wookie Warrior Chewbacca's life due to personal aversion to Imperial policy and turns into one of the best smugglers in the galaxy (having a Wookie owing a life debt to you really helps in fights, by the way).
** Vader turns out to have fathered twins with Padme Amidala, the Naboo senator after Palpatine became Chancellor, who died due to her life force being drained after giving birth to Luke and Leia. Leia got sent to live with Bail Organa and his wife in the idylic paradise Alderaan as Princess, while Luke got given to his in aunt and uncle at the sandy shithole Tatooine, utterly worthless except as a shadowport since the Rakatans bombed it to dust in such a way as to render minerals mined from it useless due to ion fluctuation after the world defied them. When we said the Jedi degenerated into [[Lawful Stupid]] morons, we meant it, given it was Obi-Wan and Yoda, basically the two big name Jedi of several dozen who had their heads screwed on straight, who made this decision.
** In 0 BBY Leia, by this time a very active but powerless Senator, acquires the Death Star plans after various different missions gather bits and pieces of it and rushes to Tatooine to get Obi-Wan's help on her fathers orders. Obi-Wan was on Tatooine to help guard Luke. Leia's ship and its escorts are intercepted by Vader and his units and her corvette attempts to escape from the battle only to be boarded by Vader's personal elite unit since the Clone Wars, the 501st Legion. Leia is captured but two droids, C-3PO (a protocol droid built by Anakin as a child) and R2-D2 (an astromech that used to belong to Naboo and was used by Anakin in the Clone Wars) manage to escape with the plans which Leia gave to R2-D2. The droids crash onto the planet in an escape shuttle.
**The Droids find their way by sheer happenstance into the hands of a lowly moisture farmer Owen Lars and his Nephew, Luke Skywalker, the latter of whom manages to find Leias hidden message in R2-D2 and brings it to Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Imperials on the other hand managed to trace the movement of the droids to Lars and kill him and his wife; this prompts Luke to travel to Alderaan with Obi-Wan Kenobi. 
**  Luke and Kenobi make the aquaintance of Han Solo, who hire him and his ship, the Millenium Falcon, to make the journey to Alderaan. On the way, they accidentally discover that Alderaan had been destroyed by the Death Star and get captured by the Empire. Han and Luke escape with Leia, but Kenobi sacrifices himself in a duel with Vader. Leia guides the other two sods to the Rebel hideout on Yavin IV, but the Imperials had traced the Millenium Falcon and were preparing to destroy Yavin IV with the Death Star.
** The Battle of Yavin occurs. The Rebels use the Death Star plans to find the stations achilles heel in the form of a tiny exhaust port leading directly to the stations main power generator (EU canon had it that this was simply an oversight, Disney Canon has it that it was purposefully placed there by the leading engineer of the Death Star as a sort of contingency plan he cooked up as revenge against the Empire for forcing him to spend all his life with his work and away from his family). Since the Death Star was designed to face massive fleets, rendering any large-scale attack pointless (and also save on the SFX budget), the Rebels instead concoct a highly risky operation to attack the station with mere fighters until Luke lands a hit on the exhaust port, blowing the entire Death Star to smithereens. 
*** Anything after this is referred in the official time as ABY. The time between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back also suffers from dubious canonicity, since all of it was contained either in novels, comics or other stuff and even then, it wasn't well covered.
** The Rebels, with their cover blown, find themselves immetiatly beset by a very pissed Vader leading a massive Imperial Fleet to exact vengeance on them. Yavin IV is abandoned in a messy evacuation, forcing the Rebels to stay spaceborne for some years. Luke, while exploring opportunities to expand his knowledge of the Force, crashlands on Hoth and proposes the ice planet to become the new Rebel headquarters. The Rebels start to accumulate more covert support from big players in the political sphere of the Empire, most notably the Bothan senator Borsk Fel'lya and the Corellian resistance fighter Garm Bel Iblis and become a bigger thorn in the Empires side through constant guerilla warfare. 
** Vader, having learned about Lukes identity, makes it his mission to find his son and leads a vast effort to locate the Rebel headquarters. A probe droid sent out by the Imperial Navy eventually finds the Rebel base on Hoth; however, a premature attack by the incompetent Admiral Ozzel gives the Rebels proof that they had been found out and prepare to get the fuck out of Hoth. Vader leads the Imperial troops that attack the Rebels covering the evacuation in a brutal onslaught (that also serves as a reminder that the Empire is not to be trifled with, as the Rebels stand absolutely no chance in taking the Imperial forces head on). Most of the Rebels manage to escape, but their forces are crippled and take years to reconstitute. Luke starts his Jedi training under Yoda and ultimately learns that Vader is his father. 
** The Rebels learn via the Bothans that the Empire has begun construction of a second Death Star with cocaine and hookers over Endor and moreover, that the Emperor is personally overseeing the construction. Any common sense gets thrown out of the room when the Rebel leadership decides to attack the Death Star directly with all of their forces only for the whole ordeal to have been a trap set by the Emperor who fed the Rebels false intel, catching them between the Death Stars hammer and the Imperial Navys anvil (which they should have smelled from five miles away). In spite of all the odds, the Rebels still manage to disable the Death Stars shields, blow up the stations generator like the last time, killing the Emperor, Vader, most of the Imperial Navys commanders and get away with it. This is where the old Lucasfilm canon ends. The Empire is defeated and the galaxy liberated from its tyranny. 
* Here we continue on with the old EU timeline, although what is and isn't considered canon is a bit difficult to determine. 
** The Empire's leadership collapses into total anarchy, as various factions of politicians and warlords vie for power. Nominally, a council of regional govenors stays in charge, but it gets undermined by various factions trying to take control over the majority of the Moffs via blackmail or corruption and several military leaders outright seceding from the Empire with the forces under their command. The Rebels still face the daunting task of taking down the Empire properly; while the weakened grasp on power of the Empire is obvious, it still is a force to be reckoned with. The immediate fallout of the Battle of Endor involves an invasion of a far outpost near the uncharted regions by reptilian invaders whose call for aid, originally meant for the Imperial Command aboard the second Death Star, gets intercepted by the Rebels who send Luke and company to fix their mess. The first truce between the Rebels and an Imperial Faction gets signed and the world becomes independent shortly afterwards. 
** The first big internal Imperial kerfuffle gets resolved when the former head of the Imperial intelligence services, Ysanne Isard, manages to instigate a successful coup against the council of Moffs and take control of Coruscant. The Rebels move fast to take control of Coruscant themselves and while the attack on the planet is successful, Isard escapes with a Super Star Destroyer [[What|buried in the planets crust]] and unleashes a bioweapon that only targets non-human species, stoking paranoia and racial tensions in the Alliance and on Coruscant while Isard manages to keep the upper hand on the Alliance by embargoing a number of planets producing a vital substance needed to cure the effects of said bioweapon. Rogue Squadron suceeds in tracking her down and ultimately kill Isard shortly afterwards. The Alliance takes control of Coruscant, various imperial worlds defect to the Rebels, the New Republic is officially founded and Leia becomes its first chancellor.
** Thrawn returns from the unknown regions to single-handedly take control of the badly battered Imperial factions, several of which were contemplating surrendering to the New Republic. Thrawn reinvigorates their fighting spirit, reforms the Imperial fleet and starts a campaign of conquest that proves to be a major headache for the New Republic. Luke starts his first earnest attempt to reform the Jedi Order on Yavin IV that gets thwarted when Mara Jade lures him into a trap. After a series of twists and turns, Thrawn is assassinated by his Noghri bodyguard and his rule over the Imperial Remnants comes to an end. 
* Here we will discuss the post-Endor to start of TFA Disney timeline.
* Here we will discuss the aftermath of Thrawn's death until the Abeloth fight in Legends timeline.
* Here we will discuss the Disney Sequel trilogy and it's surrounding side stories.
* And finally, the end of the Legends timeline.
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