I'm thinking based on (SPOILERS), mon mothma's 90% military reduction, the empire walls itself off in the unknown regions, and reinvents itself as the first order, then lashes out and kicks the crap out of the new republic after a long period of Peace, and rises to become the dominant power, challenged by what's left of the new republic in the form of the resistance

I think it's more likely that the First Order is up to no good , and the Resistance breaks with the New Republic in order to try and stop them- or at least mitigate the harms.

First Order might be just growing outside of NR jurisdiction and the resistance is a splinter group wo do something about it. That happened more than once in the EU.

First Order might be just growing outside of NR jurisdiction and the resistance is a splinter group wo do something about it. That happened more than once in the EU.

I think this. The movie could very easily be happening in the other half of the galaxy (all uncharted) as a precursor to the FO invading the NR. If true, then Jakku would be where the 2 factions meet.

See the galaxy, but unless I miseed it, Jakku is not on here (its new). Jakku is in the outer rim and essentially the farthest from the core worlds. Not a spoiler, but the pic is huge.

Therefore the Resistance are separate from the NR. But why do they have fancy new t-70's? Are they really new? Didn't they show them off in one of the recent comics? So they'd be about 30 years old now.... surplus fighters.

In the beginning of Aftermath, we know Wedge is looking for the leftovers to the Imperial fleet. They know it exists, so they can't just disappear. Ackbar even warns that the Imperials are capable of playing the long game of deception, so maybe the last SSD is sacrificed at Jakku to give the NR the illusion of total victory. Meanwhile they leave and become the FO, preparing for their return to a galaxy..... 30 years later and defeated by victory.

Perhaps the T-70 was created not to be used by the New Republic but especially for the Resistance. Give them what appears to be updated older fighters so the New Republic has plausible deniability against claims that they re violating the treaty by aiding the Resistance.

Maybe there were two or more designs competing to become the New Republic's replacement for the X-Wing. The T-70 lost the official competition and then the plans somehow ended up in Resistance hands via an officially disgruntled designer who have them the T-70 in response to the design being rejected. of course the question then becomes was the designer really disgruntled or was this all a plan by Resistance friendly members of the New Republic to supply the Resistance with advanced fighters.