Star Wars Galaxy: Now?

[Gurgeh]

So since SW takes place a Long, long time ago what do you think the galaxy might be now? What do you think might have changed? Does anyone know anything about what happens to SW as of now in the current timeline?

[Batman]

I'll assume by 'now' you mean real world now, to which the answer is who knows? Given that the 'long time ago' was never ever actually quantified (yeah, that came as a shock) it's completely impossible to figure out when 'a long time ago' was. In-universe now is amply (if unsatisfactorily) documented by the EU.

[Darksider]

IIRC Artoo is supposed to tell the story of the Skywalkers to the Keeper of the whills in 105 ABY, which is fifteen years before Legacy, so the Galaxy is probably pretty stable under the control of the Galactic Alliance, with a small segment under the remnant's control.

[Havok]

First of all, it is "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...".

Second, if a "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...". is the time from the current EU back to ANH, which is 100 something plus years, I'll eat my shorts.

I say 50,000 years at LEAST past everything we know about anything Star Wars. Yes it's arbitrary, but it's about as far back as the known history goes and I like things to have symmetry.

[Solauren]

According to some, 1974 lines up with about 10,300 ABY

And R2-D2 made it past Legacy times apparently (shrugs)

This is all from the old 'Time Tales' timeline, so I have no idea how canonical it really is.

[Enigma]

Has there been any books\comic\stories\etc.. of the SW galaxy in our modern time? In other words, the far future for them but in our real world time?

[Batman]

At least the whole thing having happened 50,000 years ago in-universe would explain why the Star Wars universe is inconsistent as hell.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well, as the SW galaxy is a large (MW-scale or bigger) spiral galaxy, it's going to be at least 3 million light-years away, most probably a lot more. So any signal we recieved (for instance, news footage of the Battle of Yavin) would be three or more million years old.

With that kind of time-lag how their date system alligns with ours is irrelevant anyway.

As a hypothetical scenario, let us suppose that the SW galaxy is fifty million light-years away, one of the galaxies in the Ursa Major Group (give or take a few million ly) and their news report about the Battle of Yavin (0 BBY/ABY) reached Earth in 1975 or so (to inspire George Lucas).

What is the SW galaxy like now? Well, it's fifty million years older, so the even if humans aren't extinct they will have evolved and mutated and look very different to how they do in the films. A an average star will be about 1/4 further around in it's galactic orbit, so the galactic maps will look very different and hyperlanes etc will have changed drastically.

All of galactic history seen in the EU will be truly ancient. The entire time-span of observed history (25,000 years) has happenned 2000 times. I wouldn't be surprised if formerly great worlds like Coruscant, Kuat and Corellia are no longer inhabited or seen as important.

In other words, it would be a totally different galaxy, perhaps with some species that look vaguely like what turns up in the films, and maybe with similar technology (hyperdrives might still be around for instance, but fifty million years leaves a lot of room for development.)

You might ask why couldn't it be Andromeda, but Andromeda contains a trillion stars (according to 2006 data fromt he Spitzer telescope), and we have EU passages saying "400 billion suns." Which means it's MW-sized, and there's nothing else that size in the Local Group. The closest other group is the M81 group, at 11 million light years. If it's a galaxy in that group, the situation I described will be much the same, just with timescales reduced by a factor or 5 or so.

tl;dr version: The SW galaxy is so far away that seeing it "now" would be a totally different galaxy and civilisation.

[Havok]

YEAY FOR NERDS, MATH AND SCIENCE!!

[Eternal_Freedom]

^What he said

[Eternal_Freedom]

I realised this morning that the SW galaxy "now" might be even more different than I speculated.

There is a passge in one of the NJO books, during the search for Zonama Sekot, where Danni Quee explains why hyperspace travel is so difficult in the Unknown Regions, saying that it may be the result of a collision of interaction with a "dark matter galaxy."

If that process was ongoing (and I can't see why it wouldn't be) then after 11-50 million years it's possible the dark matter galaxy completely mergedwith the SW galaxy, rendering hyperspace travel virtually impossible over long distances. Galactic civilisation will be very different if this is the case.

On the matter of where the SW galaxy is, this image shows the nearby galaxy groups. Since the SW galaxy can't be within the Local Group, the closest it can be is the M81 group. If not there, it's the M101 group at 24 MLy, or the M51 group at 31 MLy.

In fact, I can say that it isn't in the M81 group, as the SW galaxy is known to have seven dwarf satellite galaxies, and no MW-sized galaxy in the M81 group has that number of satellites. (I don't think any in the M101 or M52 groups do either, pushing the SW galaxy further and further away.)

Suffice to say, if we saw that galaxy "now" it wouldn't even be the SW galaxy anymore. Stars and worlds will be in different places and all the history we see in the EU and films will be long forgotten.

[Azron_Stoma]

^ That implies that we should factor in Lucas's creation of the series at all, and that we should assume he did it through simple radio waves etc rather than say, a UFO with a recording on it or something.

Then again I personally feel that "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" should NEVER be quantified.

[Eternal_Freedom]

My lengthy post was meant to illustrate that the idea of asking what the Sw galaxy is like "now" is pointless. I know it's based on the assumption thatLucas based it on a signal received, but I think it illustrates the point nicely enough.

[Tychu]

Has there been any books\comic\stories\etc.. of the SW galaxy in our modern time? In other words, the far future for them but in our real world time?

There was a non-cannon Star Wars: Tales story. Which had Han and Chewie leaving the galaxy and the Falcon getting shot to Earth. Presumably Chewbacca lived a while on Earth after the Falcon crashed and Han had died because of it. Chewie then saw Indiana Jones who happened to be searching the Falcon for Mayan gold or what have you

[The Cooler King]

Has there been any books\comic\stories\etc.. of the SW galaxy in our modern time? In other words, the far future for them but in our real world time?

There was a non-cannon Star Wars: Tales story. Which had Han and Chewie leaving the galaxy and the Falcon getting shot to Earth. Presumably Chewbacca lived a while on Earth after the Falcon crashed and Han had died because of it. Chewie then saw Indiana Jones who happened to be searching the Falcon for Mayan gold or what have you

I remember that one... the Falcon crashed in the Pacific Northwest, and a grieving Chewie took to the forests (where he became the basis of the legend of Bigfoot). Indy and Short Round were searching out the native legends and found the Falcon. Indy found Han's skeleton and made a comment about him seeming 'familiar, somehow' before leaving.

[TheHammer]

Has there been any books\comic\stories\etc.. of the SW galaxy in our modern time? In other words, the far future for them but in our real world time?

The movie: E.T.

[General Mung Beans]

Has there been any books\comic\stories\etc.. of the SW galaxy in our modern time? In other words, the far future for them but in our real world time?

There was a non-cannon Star Wars: Tales story. Which had Han and Chewie leaving the galaxy and the Falcon getting shot to Earth. Presumably Chewbacca lived a while on Earth after the Falcon crashed and Han had died because of it. Chewie then saw Indiana Jones who happened to be searching the Falcon for Mayan gold or what have you

I remember that one... the Falcon crashed in the Pacific Northwest, and a grieving Chewie took to the forests (where he became the basis of the legend of Bigfoot). Indy and Short Round were searching out the native legends and found the Falcon. Indy found Han's skeleton and made a comment about him seeming 'familiar, somehow' before leaving.

By that calendar, right now on Earth is roughly 250 years or so after the Battle of Yavin. I'm curious as to how the situation at the end of Legacy turned out...

[Tychu]

I remember that one... the Falcon crashed in the Pacific Northwest, and a grieving Chewie took to the forests (where he became the basis of the legend of Bigfoot). Indy and Short Round were searching out the native legends and found the Falcon. Indy found Han's skeleton and made a comment about him seeming 'familiar, somehow' before leaving.

By that calendar, right now on Earth is roughly 250 years or so after the Battle of Yavin. I'm curious as to how the situation at the end of Legacy turned out...

Well if you want to get technical, it would be an alternative star wars timeline. Since Chewie died in the prime star wars timeline. The Earth we see in that alternative star wars timeline may or not be our Earth. I could go deeper but then it will get Star Treky which will lead to someone or myself proving that Star Wars is in fact in the same universe as Star Trek and then we'll have a paradox and somehow Back to the Future will also be in that universe and.......