User:Brandon Rhea/Third Galactic Civil War

The Third Galactic Civil War was a galaxy-spanning conflict that began in 1,011 ABY between numerous factions, though most heavily involving the, the , the New Sith Imperium, and the Rebellion. Other players included the s, the, and the. The conflict began after years of cold war that followed the takeover of the Galactic Empire, which had previously been aligned with the Alliance and Jedi since the. War broke out once the Sith destroyed the Jedi flagship, The Will of the Force, and the Alliance officially declared war.

When the war began, the conflict continued into numerous engagements, most of which ended with a victory for the Sith, who made it their goal to push into the and capture, the capital of the Galactic Alliance. After two years, the Sith Empress, Andraste, enlisted the Mandalorian clans to make the front-line assault into the Core, and the campaign took the Mandalorians from, to , and finally to Coruscant. Once there, the Sith brought their fleet to bear. The Jedi scattered across the galaxy, the Galactic Alliance collapsed, and the Sith laid waste to the planet.

The next ten years marked a period of Imperial expansion. The Sith fully took control of the Core Worlds and the, and they began to expand into the Mid Rim. With over a decade of war, however, the galaxy’s supply of began to rapidly decline while its demand rapidly expanded, leading to a galaxy-wide shortage of the healing agent. The Hutt Cartel, which filled the power vacuum left after the collapse of the Chiss Ascendancy, became the owners of the bacta reserves and threatened to destroy it if the Sith advanced any further. Meanwhile, the of  began selling an older healing agent,, and also threatened the destruction of their supply of the Sith continued their expansion. Heeding the warnings, Sith expansion ceased around 1,022 ABY, allowing the remnants of the former Galactic Alliance to begin communicating and working towards creating a unified Rebellion.

In the midst of the war, two children were born to Empress Andraste, who was secretly one of the last remaining descendants of. Her children, Lana Skywalker and Desev Vencu, were kept hidden in order to be trained to one day defeat their mother and restore the Skywalker lineage to its former prominence.

Return of the Sith
After the death of and the collapse of, the surviving  scattered throughout the galaxy in an effort to build another Sith empire. While the and the restored Galactic Empire formally allied together after their partnership defeated Krayt, the  hunted the Sith throughout the  until the Jedi were satisfied that the Sith no longer posed a threat. The Jedi did, however, continue to watch for signs of a possible Sith re-emergence, even as centuries of peace between the Alliance and the Empire went by.

With the Sith gone, the Alliance reasserted control over a number of star systems it previously held while the Empire took control of the northern regions of the galaxy. Both governments recognized that in order to maintain trust, they would have to cease major military developments and build ups, a feat they both accomplished. After a few centuries of the rule over the Empire, the Fel line was succeed by the Elyurius dynasty, who maintained peace with the Alliance. Meanwhile, the New Jedi Order also began to rebuild its numbers from the remnants that it had been dwindled down to, and many previously thought dead came out of hiding to help mend their broken order. In order to ensure the safety of their ranks, the Jedi mostly congregated in the near, though they did plan to expand beyond the Core once their numbers were sufficient.

Behind the scenes
The Third Galactic Civil War is the setting of Star Wars Legacies, the fifth and current role-playing timeline on The Star Wars RP, and it is set in the year 1,013 ABY. The idea of setting a major galactic conflict after the canonical was first proposed by site administrator Brent Krajewski during the fourth timeline, Great Hutt Wars, which lasted from 2009 to 2011. Having been set primarily in the year 12,979 BBY, long before most established canon, members ultimately wanted a change from Great Hutt Wars to a more familiar  setting. The Great Hutt Wars timeline moved ahead a few years in an attempt to rejuvenate interest, but, by June 2011, the vast majority of the site's membership requested a new timeline for the site.

Though initially resistant to the idea, the site's administrators ultimately agreed to a timeline change and presented three different possible eras: the centuries after , an previously undeveloped time during the, and the post-Legacy era as conceived by Krajewski years earlier. Members overwhelmingly chose the post-Legacy era, and a think tank of administrators, then-faction leaders, and other members was put together to develop the specifics of the setting and the factions that would be involved in what became known as the Third Galactic Civil War.

One of the goals of the think tank was to develop a war and a setting that felt like a combination of classic Star Wars as well as the Old Republic era, specifically . To accomplish the former, part of the story that was developed included adding into the backstory a freeze on military development in the Galactic Alliance and the Galactic Empire, allowing for the retainment on iconic visuals such as X-wings, TIE fighters, and Imperial stormtroopers. To accomplish the latter, the Sith of the new timeline would be based on the philosophies of the Sith Empire in Knights of the Old Republic, with a Galactic Alliance similar to the Old Republic. In addition to the Sith-ruled Galactic Empire and the Galactic Alliance, other initial factions included the New Jedi Order, the Mandalorians, and the Chiss Ascendancy, the latter of which was chosen to add a wildcard into the timeline.

The timeline began in July 2011 and some initial conflicts were role-played, but the Third Galactic Civil War itself did not start until October 2011 when the Sith and Jedi role-played the destruction of The Will of the Force. The battles that followed were scarce, with most taking months to role-play due to members' slow posting habits. Those several months also marked numerous leadership changes in each faction, particularly the Jedi who went through eight faction leaders in less than one year.

Despite the numerous leadership changes, the faction that went through the biggest changes was the Imperial Knights. As originally conceived, the Imperial Knights would be an official, admin-supported independent faction, which was a change from the site’s norm; independent factions had always been member-run and not a major part of any given timeline. After a few months, though, the administrators chose to make the Imperial Knights a main faction. Mistakes made by the faction’s leadership, however, allowed the Sith to discover where the Imperial Knights were located. After two major attacks, the Imperial Knights were relegated back to independent status, where they mostly floundered.

By early 2013, the site administrators decided that they would be introducing a time skip to the timeline, moving the plot and the war forward by ten years from 1,013 to 1,023 ABY. There were two primary reasons for this: one, they wanted to move away from what had become mostly a Knights of the Old Republic-feel and into a classic one, allowing them to collapse the Galactic Alliance and introduce the Rebellion to fight the Sith Empire; and two, in order to advance what had become the site's overarching story to a place where it could be effectively role-played. A year earlier, the administrators began a story where the Skywalker lineage, previously believed to have been extinct, returned, and a new Skywalker heroine was born who would act as one of the timeline's main characters. Part of the timeline, therefore, was to get the character to an age where she could be role-played as a major character.

As part of the time skip, a series of battles was set into motion that led to a final battle at Coruscant, where the Galactic Alliance was set to be destroyed. Another think tank was also put together to develop the timeskip, where a history of the ten year skip was put together in order to achieve the classic Star Wars feel. It was further decided that the Chiss and the Mandalorians would be relegated to independent faction status; the Chiss had never played a large part in the timeline and were conceptually a failed faction, and real-world infighting amongst Mandalorian players led to the idea of breaking the clans into their entities rather than a unified faction. To compensate for the loss of two main factions, the Hutt Cartel was introduced. The Imperial Knights were also brought back to a larger level, becoming a cell in the Rebellion.

The start of the time skip, which is expected to begin sometime in October 2013, will mark the final chapter of the site's continuous mythology. It will also act as the site's version of the final Star Wars story ever, making the Third Galactic Civil War the last war of the site's ongoing continuity.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Legacies