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"The galaxy is an estimated thirteen billion years old."
Crix Q5 Baobab, teaching at the Baobab Merchant Marine Academy's first day of orientation[1]

13,000,000,000 BBY, or 13,000,000,000 Before the Battle of Yavin, was the approximate year in which scientists believed that the galaxy was formed from dust and gas. Star systems and planets would form in the following eons within the galaxy, and life and sentience eventually emerged on a portion of those worlds, leading to the events of the galactic history.

The galaxy in 13,000,000,000 BBY[]

"This is our galaxy. Its luminous disk is about a hundred thousand light years across and contains some four hundred billion stars—only about a quarter of which have been thoroughly surveyed."
―Crix Q5 Baobab, teaching at the Baobab Merchant Marine Academy's first day of orientation[1]
Galaxy1

The galaxy that was formed in 13,000,000,000 BBY

13,000,000,000 BBY, or 13,000,000,000[1] Before the Battle of Yavin, was a year of the Galactic Standard Calendar[7] that fell within the Pre-Republic era.[2] By that year,[1] the universe had already been created as a result of the event known as the Big Bang.[8] Many scientists later believed that, around 13,000,000,000 BBY, a cloud of dust and gas one hundred thousand light-years across experienced a gravitic collapse.[9] Eventually, the cloud coalesced to form a disk of the same dimensions—the galaxy—that revolved around an extremely massive black hole.[1]

Impact[]

"What's that? Oh, you want an answer to the life question. Well, nobody knows for sure—remember only about a quarter of the galaxy has been properly surveyed. But there are more than five million intelligent species known to the Empire. Do the math and you'll realize there have to be a fair number of species we've yet to meet."
―Crix Q5 Baobab, teaching at the Baobab Merchant Marine Academy's first day of orientation[1]

The galactic disk came to contain approximately four hundred billion stars, many of them developing over the succeeding eons planets that orbited them. By the time of the reign of the Galactic Empire,[1] which began in 19 BBY,[7] much was known about the physical properties of the galaxy, but only around a quarter of all the galaxy's stars had been surveyed by that point. Based on mathematical statistics of the explored galaxy, it was estimated that approximately 3.2 billion star systems could support life and that one billion of those systems were inhabited by sentient beings. Despite approximately one quarter of the galaxy having been surveyed by that time, more than five million sentient species were known to the Empire, implying many more were yet to be encountered.[1]

Since 13,000,000,000 BBY, multiple galaxy-spanning civilizations and political entities rose and fell, including the Celestials, the Infinite Empire, the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire, the New Republic, the Yuuzhan Vong empire, the Galactic Alliance, and Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire. The reign of those factions was marked by a series of galactic-scale conflicts.[1]

Behind the scenes[]

Although the 2001 reference book The Essential Guide to Alien Species by Ann Margaret Lewis originally established 5,000,000,000 BBY as the approximate date for the creation of the galaxy,[9] that date was eventually overridden by the 2009 book The Essential Atlas, authored by Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry, which instead placed the galaxy's origin in 13,000,000,000 BBY.[1]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 The Essential Atlas
  2. 2.0 2.1 The New Essential Chronology establishes that the Pre-Republic era preceded the foundation of the Galactic Republic, which Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia dates to 25,053 BBY.
  3. SWTOR mini Galactic History on The Old Republic's official website (article) (backup link) dates the Tho Yor Arrival, as described in Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi 0, to the year BTC 32,800 of the calendar based on the date of the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant. Since the difference between that calendar and the Galactic Standard Calendar—based on the date of the Battle of Yavin—was 3,653 years per the reasoning here, the Tho Yor Arrival must have taken place in the year 36,453 BBY of the latter dating system. Therefore, the difference between the Galactic Standard Calendar and the dating system based on the Tho Yor Arrival that is featured in Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void must be 36,453 years.
  4. Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia places the Treaty of Coruscant, which served as the zero point of a calendar adopted by the Galactic Senate following the conclusion of the Great Galactic War per SWTOR mini Galactic History on The Old Republic's official website (article) (backup link), in the year 3653 BBY of the Galactic Standard Calendar, which was based around the date of the Battle of Yavin. Thus, the difference between the two dating systems is 3,653 years.
  5. The New Essential Chronology establishes that the zero point of the calendar introduced by Tarsus Valorum was the Ruusan Reformation. The book places that event in the year of 1000 BBY of the Galactic Standard Calendar—which was based around the date of the Battle of Yavin—therefore establishing a difference of one thousand years between the two dating systems.
  6. Per the reasoning here, the Battle of Yavin, the zero point in the Galactic Standard Calendar per The New Essential Chronology, can be placed in 35:3:8 under the Great ReSynchronization dating system, thereby confirming the placement of the division between each Galactic Standard Calendar year as the third month in the Great ReSynchronization year. Thus, there is a two-month, seven day gap between the two dating systems, with the first two months of a GrS year being the last two of the preceding Galactic Standard Calendar year, and there is a total difference of 35 years and 2 months between the two systems.
  7. 7.0 7.1 The New Essential Chronology
  8. Star Wars (1977) 87
  9. 9.0 9.1 The Essential Guide to Alien Species
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