History of the galaxy

The Galaxy was formed about 5,000,000,000 years ago.

Pre-history
The first known galaxy-spanning political entity was the cruel Rakatan Empire, which collapses after a protracted civil war.

Founding of the Galatic Republic
In 25,000 BBY, the discovery of hyperspace travel was made. It enabled several worlds and species came to know each other, they formed a loose affiliation that accepted common laws and currency, and the Republic became the 'official' galactic government. The Jedi Order was also was founded.

The Republic was born with the signing of the Galactic Constitution c. 25,000 BBY, during the Unification Wars. Though history often recalls the Republic as an ideal utopia, a less biased examination reveals numerous galactic conflicts—such as the Hundred-Year Darkness, the Great Droid Revolution and the Vultar Cataclysm—throughout its reign.

Early years
For years the Jedi Knights and the ancient armies and navies of the Republic defended against violence. Twenty millennia after its founding, the Republic saw one of its most destructive conflicts in the Great Hyperspace War. A forgotten menace, the long-banished Sith Empire, launched a full-scale incursion into Republic space. Many worlds were forever scarred in that battle, but the Jedi were able to repulse the invaders. Following that conflict were the conflicts of the Old Sith Wars of c.4,000 BBY which almost destroyed the Republic. But in the end, it emerged stronger than before.

New Sith Wars
In 2,000 BBY, the Republic once more faced a menace of the Sith, who had formed a New Sith Empire larger than its predecessors. This time the Jedi took the forefront of the war. The conflict fluctuated until the Battle of Mizra in 1,466 BBY, which saw one of the largest Sith victories in the war. The loss for the Republic was so great that a dark age began, with widespread social unrest and economic collapse.

The Republic itself shrunk to just a rump state surrounding the Core Worlds, the Sith Empire encompassing the rest of the Galaxy. The Jedi took over absolute authority, ruling the remainder of the Republic directly. The Senate was bypassed with sole governing power residing in the Jedi Supreme Chancellor, while the Republic's armed forces were absorbed into the Jedi Army of Light.

After nearly five hundred years of continued war, the Army of Light had beat back the Sith to the planet Ruusan. They were finally defeated in 1,000 BBY at the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, although the entire complement of the Army of Light at Ruusan also perished.

Following the battle, the Ruusan Reformation was enacted by Chancellor Tarsus Valorum. It returned power to the Senate, placed the Jedi under the authority of the Republic government, and disbanded the vast majority of its remaining military.

With peace and prosperity came a dangerous complacency. Vast armies and navies were downscaled, and the Republic came to rely on the Jedi more and more for the maintenance of civility. Despite a few isolated flash points — like the Stark Hyperspace War and the Battle of Naboo — full-scale military conflict remained a distant memory.

The Decline of the Republic
As the Republic grew more and more powerful, many of the bureaucrats and Senators that ran the government grew increasingly corrupt or complacent. The bureaucracy that had grown and festered over millennia choked any attempt at proactive government. Furthermore, patron politics and personal agendas also hampered effective governing.

During this time the Senator of Naboo was Palpatine. His homeworld was under siege by the Trade Federation. Despite the full-scale invasion of the planet, the call to react was tied up in procedure. When Queen Amidala—the elected leader of the sovereign system of Naboo—spoke before the Senate, calling for action, she also called for a Vote of No Confidence in the leadership of the Republic under the persuasion of Palpatine and Chancellor Finis Valorum was voted out of office. This led to the then popular Palpatine into becoming the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.

Clone Wars
Traditionally, the Chancellor could only serve two four-year terms, but Palpatine stayed in office much longer, due to the prolonged Separatist Crisis.

The crisis occurred when several of the Republic's member Star Systems and organizations united in order to separate from the Republic. This unified organization became known as the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Tensions between the Republic and the Separatists eventually escalated into all-out war, and the Clone Wars began.

The Senate granted Palpatine emergency powers to deal with the Separatist Confederacy in a motion introduced by Representative Jar Jar Binks. Palpatine's first move, widely supported at the time, was to create a vast army of clone warriors to serve as the Republic's fighting force against the Confederacy. The Republic had not previously needed an army, since until then any small conflicts with in the republic could be solved with the peacekeeping Jedi. However, the fact that the Confederacy had access to an enormous army of droid soldiers required the Republic to construct a more formal military to effectively fight.

In the ensuing years, the Senate increasingly ceded its power to Palpatine, who became the war's political Commander-in-Chief. Such actions were justified in the name of security, and eventually Palpatine did not need the approval of the Senate for many of his actions. Since the chancellor held a vast majority of supporters in Senate, this was considered a perfectly reasonable way to increase the wartime government's efficiency. [edit] The End of Democracy

"So this is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause."

—Senator Padmé Amidala

Tension between Palpatine and the Jedi began to grown as the war progressed. Many members of the Jedi council remained skeptical of Palpatine's growing powers, especially at the expense of the Senate the only body they were contractually obligated to serve. Eventually the Jedi, with the help of Anakin Skywalker, discover that Palpatine is actually the elusive Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, and plot to assassinate him. Palpatine kills all four of his assassins, most notably Mace Windu. Chancellor Palpatine responded by issuing a decree which declares all Jedi to be enemies of the Republic after portraying them as anti-democratic.

At the conclusion of the Clone Wars, Palpatine addressed the Senate and declared that the Galactic Republic would become a Galactic Empire so strong as to never be threatened by outside forces again. The Chancellor, who by this time had been grotesquely disfigured (he claimed by Jedi assassins), proclaimed himself to be the first Emperor of the galaxy. Deluded by Palpatine's charm and skill in conjunction with the effects of his Dark-Side powers of persuasion, the majority of the Senate cheered him on loudly in approval.

After twenty-five millennia, the Galactic Republic had ceased to exist. Only a shrunken, powerless Imperial Senate would continue to exist and decades later, shortly before the Battle of Yavin, Palpatine dispersed the Senate and the last remnants of the Republic were swept away.

Galatic Empire
The Republic ended following a period of intense political turmoil and the devastation of the Clone Wars. At the height of the chaos the Republic's scheming head of government, Chancellor Palpatine, proclaimed himself Emperor.

After the true nature of the Empire became clear, three of the most influential senators, Bail Organa of Alderaan, Garm Bel Iblis of Corellia, and Mon Mothma of Chandrila, met in secret and signed the Corellian Treaty. This formed the Alliance to Restore the Republic, more commonly referred to as the Rebel Alliance. However, the threat of Rebellion allowed Palpatine to endorse the Tarkin Doctrine of rule by fear of force rather than force itself. Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, Palpatine declared a state of emergency and disbanded the Imperial Senate. Thus the last institution that represented the values and ideals of the Republic was swept away.

A key instrument in the enforcement of the Doctrine was intended to be the Death Star I, a moon sized space station with sufficient firepower to easily destroy a planet with a single discharge of its powerful superlaser. Whereas many planets could afford planetary deflector shields capable of warding off virtually any conventional attack, none could defend against the power of that awesome weapon. The weapon was destroyed in the Battle of Yavin, which marked the first major space-based victory for the Rebel Alliance.

The Rebel Alliance was a guerrilla army dedicated to the defeat of the Emperor and the restoration of the Galactic Republic. This goal was nominally (but significantly) achieved with the deaths of Palpatine and Darth Vader, along with the destruction of the second Death Star at the Battle of Endor.

Republic re-established
When the Rebel Alliance re-established the Galactic Republic, it became known as the New Republic, as the original Galactic Republic had become known as the Old Republic by this time. Its goal, as Mon Mothma said, was "to become the New Republic in fact as well as name."

Unfortunately for the dreams of the Rebel Alliance, the New Republic quickly fell afoul of political infighting of the likes seen in the waning days of the Galactic Republic. The central government was swiftly rendered impotent. The quote at the beginning of this article is telling: the Galactic Empire (and the Galactic Republic before it) could boast one million member worlds, combined with colonies, protectorates and governorships both precursor governments controlled (to one extent or another) fifty million systems. It is rather clear that the system and sector governments had quite firmly rejected the New Republic's leadership by the time of the Black Fleet Crisis (which is where that quote dated to). However, in the New Republic's defense, the Galactic Republic had 25,000 years to gain members, while membership in the Empire was negotiated at turbolaser point.

Furthermore, the New Republic Senate, fearing the federal consolidation of power that the Imperial Starfleet permitted, badly underfunded the New Republic Defense Force for many years. The situation reached critical levels in the Black Fleet Crisis where the entire NRDF had mere thousands of warships (as opposed to the millions of the Empire). It was not until some years after the peace treaty with the Imperial Remnant, the Senate finally authorized increased defense expenditure. Sensing weakness, the Yuuzhan Vong began their long-planned extragalactic invasion with nearly disastrous consequences.

Political infighting and weak leadership led the New Republic to a great number of defeats in the war and that government would not long survive the fall of Coruscant. Some time after the Yuuzhan Vong capture of Coruscant, it completely reorganized into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, or the Galactic Alliance for short, following its alliance with the Imperial Remnant and also, to an extent, with the Chiss, an insular civilisation from the Unknown Regions on the edge of the galaxy.