The most explored areas of Star Wars that we know so well--from the Clone Wars through to the Legacy era, and off into the Krayt business--that's really just a drop in the bucket in terms of the span of galactic history. You consider, from the Clone Wars (22 BBY) to the end of the Krayt empire (138 ABY), it's only a span of about 160 years.
And also considering that the Republic was the dominant galactic government for 25,000 years--this means that that century and a half of the Star Wars period we know so well only constitutes a whopping 0.6% of known galactic history.
It makes me wonder if centuries or millennia later in the SW EU, all this Palpatine and Empire and Remnant stuff will be any more than a marginal blip on the radar of galactic history. Generations of people later, the end of the Republic, the rise and fall of the Empire, the New Republic, the Galactic Alliance--all this might just be nothing at all.
Stop and look at our own (Western) history. The Roman empire, from Republic to Principate to Empire, is largely considered in history to span from the foundation of the city in the 8th century BC until the city finally fell in 476 AD (or even another thousand years longer, if you count the Eastern Empire as Roman legacy). And yet the whole of Roman history is marred with wars civil and external, government reorganizations, and upheavals of every kind.
When the empire was invaded, struck by plague, crushed by economic depression, marred by civil wars, and saw 20-25 separate claimants to the throne throughout the Crisis of the Third Century; and then 'fixed' by Diocletian dividing the empire first into two and then into four (the Tetrarchy), it isn't considered the point at which Rome died. Constantine the Great won the last of the Tetrachy's civil wars. This was over a century of the "Roman empire" not looking anything like what we commonly accept it to have been. I'm not saying it didn't end up having lasting repercussions, but when we look back on history, we look at it as a contiguous Roman history.
So in the long view, might all we know of the Empire end up just being....yet another disruptive period?
Another few hundred years down the EU line, might not 'our' Star Wars period just be, say, the "Imperial Disruptions" and consist of the Clone Wars, Palpatine's rise and fall, the Imperial Remnant, the Yuuzhan Vong, etc? Is this period of Star Wars simply the SW EU's version of the Crisis of the Third Century?
And also considering that the Republic was the dominant galactic government for 25,000 years--this means that that century and a half of the Star Wars period we know so well only constitutes a whopping 0.6% of known galactic history.
It makes me wonder if centuries or millennia later in the SW EU, all this Palpatine and Empire and Remnant stuff will be any more than a marginal blip on the radar of galactic history. Generations of people later, the end of the Republic, the rise and fall of the Empire, the New Republic, the Galactic Alliance--all this might just be nothing at all.
Stop and look at our own (Western) history. The Roman empire, from Republic to Principate to Empire, is largely considered in history to span from the foundation of the city in the 8th century BC until the city finally fell in 476 AD (or even another thousand years longer, if you count the Eastern Empire as Roman legacy). And yet the whole of Roman history is marred with wars civil and external, government reorganizations, and upheavals of every kind.
When the empire was invaded, struck by plague, crushed by economic depression, marred by civil wars, and saw 20-25 separate claimants to the throne throughout the Crisis of the Third Century; and then 'fixed' by Diocletian dividing the empire first into two and then into four (the Tetrarchy), it isn't considered the point at which Rome died. Constantine the Great won the last of the Tetrachy's civil wars. This was over a century of the "Roman empire" not looking anything like what we commonly accept it to have been. I'm not saying it didn't end up having lasting repercussions, but when we look back on history, we look at it as a contiguous Roman history.
So in the long view, might all we know of the Empire end up just being....yet another disruptive period?
- 4015-3950 BBY make up the "Old Sith Wars", which include the Great Sith War, the Mandalorian Wars, the Jedi Civil War, the Onderon Civil War, the Sith Civil War, the Dark Wars, and the First Jedi Purge
- the 3650s BBY era includes the Great Galactic War, the Cold War, and proxy wars on countless planets across the galaxy
- the New Sith Wars span roughly a millennia in themselves, from 2000-1000 BBY, including the Sictis Wars, the Republic Dark Age, the Second Sith Civil War, the Light and Darkness War and the Ruusaan conflicts
Another few hundred years down the EU line, might not 'our' Star Wars period just be, say, the "Imperial Disruptions" and consist of the Clone Wars, Palpatine's rise and fall, the Imperial Remnant, the Yuuzhan Vong, etc? Is this period of Star Wars simply the SW EU's version of the Crisis of the Third Century?
It wasn't my field! 
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