How much do "present day" (around 0 BBY) people know about the Infinite Empire? Is it something WE know but they don't or is it common knowledge? Somewhere in between perhaps? I'm working on something and I'm not as well versed in nuances of history as I like.

Thanks.

It is basically completely unknown. This is something that some researchers might be aware of, if their field of study is ancient civilizations. There really isn't any reason for the average citizen of the Republic to be aware of an obscure, mostly forgotten race of conquerors from 25,000 years ago. It'd be like asking how many average Americans can tell you about the Olemcs or Ancient Sumarians or something even more obscure. Only, instead of just being THAT out there, now multiply it by the galactic scale, and instead of 8 or 10 thousand years ago, its almost triple that long ago, and instead of a single planet/race like earth, you are dealing with 1,000 1,000 planets, with tons of different species, several of which were in charge.

Now, beyond all that, remember Palpatine is in charge, and in control of most information. He has the average people thinking the Jedi and Sith adn Force powers basically are just superstition and nonsense, when there was THOUSANDS OF YEARS of documented cases, holovids recordings, etc, of Jedi doing clearly extraordinary things. If the galaxy can forget and discard the Jedi in the course of 20 years, imagine how unknown the Rakata must be outside academic circles.

All that said, http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Infinite_Empire at the bottom there are some sources not far from the timeframe of EotE. If you check them for the reference, you can see if it is average citizens calling it out, or if its like, just Luke, or someone who would know or have a reason to study such things.

Excellent, thanks for the reply. Makes sense when you put it like that!