Star Wars timeline: From the dawn of the Jedi to the New Jedi Order

Star Wars is going far and wide in the coming years across all forms of media with an updated Star Wars timeline that includes new eras. Here’s our summary.

Star Wars isn’t all about The Mandalorian and its sibling shows right now. We’ve really enjoyed learning about the grisly origins of the Rebel Alliance with Andor, and 2023 is bringing us the first-ever live-action project set in the High Republic era – so far limited to books and comics – in the form of The Acolyte. With Ahsoka now around the corner, more Disney Plus series in the way, and a new set of Star Wars movies in development, Lucasfilm has unveiled an updated canon timeline of the Star Wars universe that makes everything easier to follow and offers some insight into the future of the franchise.

Looking at the timeline, we’ve got both new additions as well as more precise “pieces” of major eras we’ve already explored based on galaxy-reshaping events such as Order 66 or the creation of the New Republic. So far, every movie or T.V. series has explored a rather “limited” portion of the entire Star Wars timeline developed over the decades (and across two different canons) through comic books, novels, and video games.

With the Skywalker Saga now finished and the “Mando era” shows building up towards a big theatrical conclusion, Lucasfilm is looking to go farther into both the past and the future. Needless to say, this is all part of the post-Disney canon that started off with the six original movies and The Clone Wars (3D), but some bits and pieces of Legends are getting picked up and adapted from time to time, so expect surprises. Also be aware that the Star Wars timeline traditionally follows BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and ABY (After the Battle of Yavin) as the extradiegetic dating system, as it simply makes sense to consider the events of A New Hope as “year zero” for clarity purposes.

If you need refreshers on key Star Wars characters making the jump from cartoons to live-action, check out our handy pieces on Ahsoka Tano, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Bo-Katan Kryze. After the Ahsoka series, we’re looking forward to Skeleton Crew as well. As for ranked lists, we’ve got it all with our Star Wars movies and Star Wars T.V. shows ranked lists, plus the top 10 best Star Wars video games of all time.

The current canon’s Dawn of the Jedi era will probably have very little to do with this comic run, though we all know Lucasfilm likes to pluck Legends ideas and characters quite often. James Mangold – who has just co-written and directed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for the studio – is set to direct a movie which explores “how the Force came to be known, understood, wielded, and harnessed.” Though he’s barely started writing a first treatment of the story, his pitch is based on Biblical epics like 1956’s The Ten Commandments.

The Dawn of the Jedi era, set around 25,000 years before the events of the Skywalker Saga, is named after the 2012-2014 Dark Horse comic series written by John Ostrander and drawn by Jan Duursema. That Legends storyline told the story of the Je’daii Order, the group of Force-sensitives on the planet Tython that preceded the Jedi Order before the formation of the Republic (it was set almost 26,000 years BBY instead).

In the Legends canon, the Old Republic was formed “shortly” after the Dawn of the Jedi and spanned thousands of years, becoming the lengthiest period of Star Wars history by far. Numerous galactic conflicts, such as two Sith Wars, the Mandalorian Wars, and the Jedi Civil War, happened throughout this massive era.

As it stands, the only canonical references to the Old Republic are small and don’t paint a full picture. Lucasfilm will surely explore this fan-favorite period in the current canon sooner rather than later, but it remains to be seen how that will happen. If recent projects are any indication, we might be seeing some renowned Legends characters re-adapted to fit new stories. There’s also the question of whether the long-anticipated Knights of the Old Republic remake will be retold to be part of the current canon, too. As for the still ongoing EA-run MMORPG The Old Republic (which was born before Disney arrived), everything that happens there is part of the Legends continuity.

Right now, there’s a gap of 500 years between the Old Republic and the High Republic eras, though we’re fully expecting Lucasfilm to bump to end of the Old Republic closer to the High Republic. The latter was first introduced in 2021 with the acclaimed novel The High Republic: Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule. It was, however, mentioned in two written works before.

The High Republic multimedia initiative, mostly developed through books and comics so far, created and expanded on this period that bridges the tumultuous times of the Old Republic and the events that happen right before The Phantom Menace. This 400-year phase was when the Galactic Republic was at its height and the Jedi Order had a golden age before its downfall. While it’s largely considered an era of peace, insidious forces worked to rip apart the Republic and the Jedi in the absence of the Sith.

The High Republic era made its T.V. debut earlier this year with the children’s cartoon Young Jedi Adventures. Phase 3 of the main publishing initiative also starts in 2023, but perhaps the most exciting project coming our way is The Acolyte, a live-action original series for Disney Plus being described as “a mystery thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.” Then there’s Quantic Dream’s mysterious Star Wars Eclipse video game, but there are rumors of a troubled development, so we’re refusing to hold our breath for now.