Jedi Order, 6000 years old?

By Rithuan, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

57 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Perhaps he didn't mean 25k years, but 1000 generations of time, is significantly more than 1000 years. More than an order of magnitude in difference.

Keeping in mind that this is the same script that appeared to use “parsec” as a measure of time, not distance.... 😏

12 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Keeping in mind that this is the same script that appeared to use “parsec” as a measure of time, not distance.... 😏

Yeah, but it was Han Solo saying it, and canon does show that he was actually talking distance in the end. 😜

10 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yeah, but it was Han Solo saying it, and canon does show that he was actually talking distance in the end. 😜

Sure, after decades of coming up with reasons for why the mistake “wasn’t.”

Nothing to prevent the same being applied to yet another Certain Point of View (TM). 😁

Edited by Nytwyng
3 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Sure, after decades of coming up with reasons for why the mistake “wasn’t.”

Nothing to prevent the same being applied to yet another Certain Point of View (TM). 😁

It wasn't just established in Solo . It had also been well established in Legends back when it was still canon.

7 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

Wasn't it "1000 generations" ? Which is significantly longer than 1000 years. Most measures put a "generation" (the time it takes an organism to grow from birth to average birthing age themselves) at around 25 years for humans. So that's roughly 25k years.

Maybe I'm mis-remembering Obi-Wan's line to Luke in New Hope, but I could swear he said "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of the Old Republic"

You didn't read that right; I was talking about the Republic being 1000 years old:
"I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two!" -- Chancellor Palpatine, "Attack of the Clones"

7 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

I came here to say this exactly.

Obi-Wan said "For over a thousand generations..."

which, yeah, puts it around 25k years that the Jedi Knights were part of the Republic.

You also didn't catch that I was talking about the age of the Republic only measuring the current (Palpatine-ended) Republic, not previous versions. The current Republic was 1,000 years old according to:


"I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two!" -- Chancellor Palpatine, "Attack of the Clones"

25 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

It wasn't just established in Solo . It had also been well established in Legends back when it was still canon.

If only I had mentioned those decades of rationalizations.

Oh, wait...I did. (You even quoted it.) 😜

Edited by Nytwyng

Personally, the Jedi were born when they stepped onto the stage and died the moment they stepped off from the sliver screen. What happened before the formation of the republic isn't really relevant, unless the post episode 9 period does away with the republic entirety as it stands or some revelation makes the formation of the Jedi a matter of importance.

I imagine that perhaps before the formation of the Jedi would be a fascinating period, because their formation is something that isn't covered, well anywhere. Apparently they were born on planet Jedi in the EU and were just Jedi forever, until they weren't, then they were dark Jedi, then sith. Personally I felt that was rubbish and unimaginative, that the Jedi was always around because it was and all the galaxy conflict happened because one formed an evil empire, instead of a legitimate culture clash like every actual example of war.

One of the things I would find interesting is what if the Jedi was assembled from various schools of thought and culture. Like the lore describes Gand's findsman, Sages, and witches in the galaxy along with various other cultures. Why couldn't the Jedi have simply formed from a cooperative of those respective "religons" to form a unifying movement dedicated to understanding the force? That would have been much more interesting to read then the Jedi existing, because the Jed deiiii existing, however they are pronounced. Then having the Sith arise from some other region in the galaxy as a separate but apposing order.

Edited by LordBritish
7 hours ago, Rithuan said:

Wow... that escalated quickly.  Do you know if I have a history background? You are not considering that I might have a "sense of scale" and still find it odd. This is not a promising start.

Considering that "sense of scale" is referring to a comment from someone else just above the one you quoted, it's probably not addressed to you.

8 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Considering that "sense of scale" is referring to a comment from someone else just above the one you quoted, it's probably not addressed to you.

Exactly.

I must be missing something...the OP wiki link doesn't indicate the Jedi Order is 6000 years old (or any age). I skimmed the Ach-to entry in the Last Jedi Visual Dictionary and didn't see it there either (may have missed it).

Not that I think it matters one way or the other but where is this actually stated?

The source comes from the Art of the Last Jedi book, not the visual dictionary.

For what it's worth, in Legends, the Je'daii transitioned into the traditional Jedi Order around 25,000 BBY, and officially joined the Republic. However, this oddly contradicts many Old Republic stories which tell us that the Republic was still very new and growing in 5,000 BBY (namely, the Tales of the Jedi series). Heck, Coruscant was barely a thing in 5,000 BBY, and by the time Exar Kun came into power around a thousand years later, the Republic was still only a fraction of what it is in the Prequel Trilogy.

So, depending on what you'd consider the true "Old Republic," Legends Jedi have either been guarding it for 25k years or a little over 5k. It's also worth pointing out that there are literally tens of thousands of years of history between these dates that simply haven't been touched.

Much like how the Republic from 1,000 BBY to the end of the Clone Wars is distinguished from the "Old Republic," and like how Luke's Jedi Order is distinctly separate from the Jedi Order of the Clone Wars in countless ways, I'm of the belief that the "Ancient Republic," and "Ancient Jedi," are distinctly separate from the Republic and Jedi Order we see in the Tales of the Jedi comics and Knights of the Old Republic games.

With all that being said, it's possible this "Prime Jedi" who founded the "Jedi Order" 6,000 years ago in Canon is simply the Jedi who founded what is the modern iteration of the Jedi, as others have mentioned before me. This does not mean that a Jedi-like organization didn't already exist in some form or another at a prior point in Star Wars history.

But honestly, what does it even matter if the Jedi Order truly is only 6,000 years old? That's still utterly ancient, and leaves a ton of room for stories to be told. Look at how much material existed in Legends between the Tales of the Jedi series and the Legacy series of comics! That's less than 5,000 years, and it felt like there were endless possibilities for new stories to be told. Personally, I'm fine with having a shorter timeline to keep track of.

How many years between a Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and when ET in ET the extraterrestrial shows up on Earth in the 1980's?

There is a phrase that I came across that I really like and it helps put topics like this into perspective.

In America 100 years is a long time.

In England 100 miles is a long distance.

The implication is that the opposite is so. In America 100 miles is nothing, but with our relative history being so short we have trouble dealing with lengthy histories.

England however, has at least a thousand years of relevant history (and I could be short on that estimation, but I'm an American ;) ), but it's a tiny island, and travelling even short distances is a time consuming issue (and that might have something to do with their lengthy history being dominated by non automotive travel).

So in skimming a topic like this, I'm a bit bemused. As an American anything over 200 years long is a bit bizarre. So Star Wars history for me has already been a REALLY REALLY LONG time.

So 6,000 years? Or 10,000 years? Or 25,000 years? I don't really care. It's a really really long time either way.

However, (that said) if we plumb the depths of history we do have some examples of very lengthy Empires in the Assyrian, Babylonian, & Egyptian dynasties. Asia also appears to have some long surviving empires as well, but I'm not as familiar with their histories.

Ultimately, I think the point of the collapse of the Republic was that it was a stable force for a long time and its duration dramatically accentuates the tragedy of it's collapse. :(

On 3/12/2019 at 2:52 PM, Rithuan said:

Wow... that escalated quickly. Do you know if I have a history background? You are not considering that I might have a "sense of scale" and still find it odd. This is not a promising start.

More on point. Yes, as several posters mentioned, I got the idea that the galaxy and the Jedi order was older. I usually don't pay much attention to the expanded universe, but I got that idea from KOTOR and the Great Hyperspace War. I like that idea, and I wanted to see if everyone was aware or did care about that.

Also, I didn't come to argue about TLJ. Just wanted to read your opinions on how old is the Jedi/Sith/Republic with this new addition to the cannon. For example, I didn't consider that the Jedi as philosophy/religion was older than the Jedi Order. That's awesome!

The Great Hyperspace war was only 5,000 years before the movies in Legends with the KOTOR games being around 1,050 years after that. The Jedi Order only existing for 1,000 years before The Great Hyperspace rather then 20,000 years isn't a big problem IMO.

Also Palpatine specifically said "This Republic which has stood for a thousand years". Combine that with the Death Watch leader from The Clone Wars stating that his weapon was obtained from a Jedi Temple during the fall of the Old Republic and IMO it is pretty clear that in canon there was more the one republic so Obiwan's comment could have referred to how long Jedi had served in both the Galactic Republic that was converted into the Galactic Empire, and one or more previous republics.

Also, consider the following:

China was founded 70 years ago.

China was founded more than 2000 years ago.

Both of these statements are true.

5 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Also, consider the following:

China was founded 70 years ago.

China was founded more than 2000 years ago.

Both of these statements are true.

See also: the Roman Empire fell in both 476 AD and 1453 AD.

Also in chapter 15, of Rogue One: Catalyst, called On the Shoulders of Giants, Galen Erso references the Jedi being closely tied to kyber crystals for tens of thousands of years. This could mean a whole host of things as well. For both factoids to be true, though, the Jedi as a title with lightsabers have existed for tens of thousands of years, and the current order, whether it be a set of rules, or Coruscant based, or some other doctrine has only been for a briefer period of time.

7 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

See also: the Roman Empire fell in both 476 AD and 1453 AD.

And 1806 as well as 1917 as well as 1919 depending a bit on who you ask.

3 hours ago, Drig said:

Also in chapter 15, of Rogue One: Catalyst, called On the Shoulders of Giants, Galen Erso references the Jedi being closely tied to kyber crystals for tens of thousands of years. This could mean a whole host of things as well. For both factoids to be true, though, the Jedi as a title with lightsabers have existed for tens of thousands of years, and the current order, whether it be a set of rules, or Coruscant based, or some other doctrine has only been for a briefer period of time.

We've also seen that the Jedi Order has this nasty habit of being wiped out on occasion. It could be that this "Prime Jedi" was the Luke/Rey of that iteration, after some period of time during which the previous iteration of Jedi met their end and this person had to rebuild. Heck, there's reason to doubt that the Prime Jedi's iteration is even the same iteration that we saw in the prequels.

To copy @penpenpen : "Ahch-To was the first Jedi temple. Ossus was the first Jedi temple. Both of these statements are true."

On 3/14/2019 at 10:33 AM, Mark Caliber said:

In England 100 miles is a long distance.

No, in England, 100 miles is "what is that again? A mile? The bleep is a mile again!? How many bloody kilometers is it? Just tell me using proper systems of measurement by jove, and forget all that balderdash from the Colonies! They can't even brew a proper cup of tea over there! Pish Tosh!" :P

1 hour ago, CaptainRaspberry said:

We've also seen that the Jedi Order has this nasty habit of being wiped out on occasion. It could be that this "Prime Jedi" was the Luke/Rey of that iteration, after some period of time during which the previous iteration of Jedi met their end and this person had to rebuild. Heck, there's reason to doubt that the Prime Jedi's iteration is even the same iteration that we saw in the prequels.

To copy @penpenpen : "Ahch-To was the first Jedi temple. Ossus was the first Jedi temple. Both of these statements are true."

Technically, no, it isn't, because the Great Library on Ossus was never established as the first Jedi Temple in the old EU. The first Jedi temples were on Tython , in the old EU. It is where the Je'daii Order was first founded, and from where the Jedi Order was born after the First Great Schism split the Je'daii into two opposed factions (light and dark). In canon , Tython is one of several planets (including Ahch-to, Jedda, and Ossus ) many scholars believed was the home of the first Jedi Temple.

1 hour ago, KungFuFerret said:

No, in England, 100 miles is "what is that again? A mile? The bleep is a mile again!? How many bloody kilometers is it? Just tell me using proper systems of measurement by jove, and forget all that balderdash from the Colonies! They can't even brew a proper cup of tea over there! Pish Tosh!" :P

Finally watched the Doctor Who New Year’s special a week or two ago, and was surprised when a character was pulled over for what the officer said was going over X miles an hour.

9 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Finally watched the Doctor Who New Year’s special a week or two ago, and was surprised when a character was pulled over for what the officer said was going over X miles an hour.

Were they in America? They have crossed the pond before. If not, then yeah that would be kind of odd.