Galactic Timeline is a somewhat new weekly series that will explore the early Star Wars timeline preceding the Sacking of Coruscant: from the Rakatan Empire to the Great Galactic War and the return of the Sith. The timeline will be presented, to the best of my ability, in Before the Treaty of Coruscant format.

Part III: Republic at War (approximately 20350-3653 BTC)

With the rate that the new Galactic Republic was expanding throughout the galaxy due to the perfected hyperspace technology, it was only a matter of time until conflict would break out between one of the other existing factions. That time would come around 20350 BTC, when war was declared against the Tion Empire. The hostilities were pretty bloody, with fleets of ships bombing each other’s capitals (Coruscant and Desevro). Pretty lame way to war if you ask me. No extreme battles of monstrous proportions with warships and all terrain armored transports?! For shame! Not above fighting dirty (or cleverly at that), the Republic sent out agents who successfully angered the Hutts (the other major faction of the galaxy). Thinking it was the Tionese who were causing all the trouble, the Hutts lashed out at them and allowed the Republic to win the day. Why fight your own war when you can get bloated slugs to fight it for you, huh? In time, the Tion Cluster would fall under the control of the continually growing Republic, allowing it to spread uncontested among the stars.

Due to the dangers of hyper speed exploration, hyper routes and colonies were somewhat unevenly created with much of the early galactic expansion favoring the stretches east of Coruscant. The galaxy still had much to hide, though the Republic was beginning to reach out farther with outposts such as Ord Mantell in the Mid Rim during this time period. An expansion movement known as The Republic’s Great Manifest Period began around 16350 BTC and focused on the development of the Expansion Region. This booming period was disappointingly nullified about three thousand years later by the First Alsakan Conflict. The planet of Alsakan in the Core Worlds was pretty cheesed at Coruscant for being the beloved galactic capital (perhaps they wanted to be bombed in wars). Politics slid into armed battles (it usually does) which fell short of full civil war, taking place mostly in their respective colonies. Predictably, the Alsakans lost, since nobody ever cared about them, but they would continue to try again and again during the next 14,000 years. That’s pretty sad for some persistent, egoistic, sore losers.

During the next few thousand years, the Republic would continue to strengthen and expand itself and take the place as the dominant force in the entire galaxy. The Jedi formed their early lightsabers at this point, which were unstable and overheated after a short amount of time. As such, they were largely ceremonial during this time. By the time the Jedi would be able to hone the sword as a true weapon, a new faction would start to form that, in time, would become the greatest rival the Galactic Republic would ever encounter….ever.

That is the conclusion of my third issue of Galactic Timeline. I would love to see you guys comment on these articles and tell me what I can improve. I am going to be gone this month, so I expect to see some responses! I don’t want to make these unless you want me to make them.