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We know Star Wars happened, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away". Is there any information on exactly when that was, relative to our time?

Kevin
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Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
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    In metric or in imperial? – DavRob60 Jul 29 '11 at 12:01
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    @DavRob60 - preferably in pints, yards and ounces. Oh, and shillings. – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Jul 29 '11 at 12:29
  • I know it isn't an "Exact Duplicate" but it is essentially asking the same thing. :) – DampeS8N Jul 29 '11 at 13:04
  • @DampeS8N - I don't think so. That one seems tongue in cheek (mixing fiction and reality) and is a combination of time and distance. The answer is based on a tenuous link with ET! I'm thinking of a Star Wars specific answer, possibly from the expanded fiction. – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Jul 29 '11 at 13:12
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    @Wikis At Area 51: Hm, your point about the answer in the other question is valid. As I didn't specifically list the time frame that the ET expedition occurred (and can't locate it) I could reopen this. However, this question probably doesn't have an answer based on anything better than ET. Lets find out. – DampeS8N Jul 29 '11 at 13:18
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    possible duplicate of Has the light from the Star Wars galaxy reached us yet? – DavRob60 Jul 29 '11 at 14:37
  • It happened a long time ago. Probably long enough ago that the answer would have no meaning to us. Perhaps along the lines of saying "a billion billion X", where X is years in this case. While it is a real number is not readily fathomable and therefore is meaningless. – Xantec Jul 29 '11 at 15:41
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    3826 parsecs ago. – Kirby Todd Feb 08 '13 at 06:52
  • @davrob60 - I'm pretty sure it's all in Imperial – Valorum Jul 24 '14 at 07:53
  • I've realised I don't get @DavRob60's joke - can anyone explain? – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Jul 24 '14 at 07:57
  • @Wikis Imperial units of the empire. Don't think too much... – DavRob60 Jul 24 '14 at 21:24
  • @DavRob60: thanks, that was what I guessed. Thinking too much has never been a problem for me... – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Jul 25 '14 at 04:21
  • it's impossible to know for now. A pet theory of mine (maybe heard it somewhere else so I'm reluctant to take full credit for it) is that we've seen that R2-D2 is one of the more permanent characters throughout the Skywalker saga. We don't know that perhaps the "long time ago" is relative to whoever is telling the story, not "our" real-world time. The tag could still be an in-universe reference, not an out of universe one. R2 could be in a far off galaxy telling this story far into the future.... – NKCampbell Oct 21 '19 at 15:09
  • ..this could also explain why the technology seems so far advanced to our real-world times. The story could still take place far into the future relative to us, but relative to the characters, and the one telling the story, far in their past - which could still be our distant future. – NKCampbell Oct 21 '19 at 15:10

5 Answers5

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The issue is one that the Star Wars Galaxy must have 3rd generation (Population I) stars to exist, meaning it's at least many billion years post-Big-Bang.

Given the current estimates of 13.75 billion years of age, it's likely it's not more than 8 billion years ago (BYA), in order to allow for the relatively modern shape portrayed in the films. Moreover, the Milky Way has lots of Population II stars, but those can't give rise to life as we know it in their worlds, as the needed high-metal mixtures won't be present to coalesce into terrestrial worlds until the nova of Population II stars forms sufficient metals to generate the population I stars which gave birth to us all. Note that the oldest Population I stars have less than 2% of the metal content, and that we are, as a life form, carbon, calcium and iron with significant smaller amounts of other stuff, but the lower metalicity of the older stars implies a lack of iron.

So, we can rule out the oldest. Getting to the 5 BYA point, we start looking at stars that might have life as we know it. Not so much heavy metals, but still, enough to have stuff we would recognize.

So, I'd say the "Galaxy Far Far Away" had its "long time ago" no more than 5 BYA and probably no more than 1 BYA, because it looks like galaxies of that age.

aramis
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    These is some awesome calculations... – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Aug 31 '11 at 10:21
  • @wikis it was inspired by the "official maps" and the galaxy used as the backdrop... – aramis Feb 29 '12 at 02:04
  • Cool. I would have accepted based on the overall awesomeness but I was looking for something official. Hopefully all the up votes by awestruck readers will compensate... :) – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Feb 29 '12 at 05:24
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    So, what you're saying is Stormtroopers hit Luke's farm at 14:43 December 21, 8294392101 BC. There you have it. – zxq9 Oct 03 '14 at 12:58
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    @zach-saucier: I intended it to be two "no more than" statements - changing the second to no less that is WRONG, and mutilation of the answer. The first is absolute, and the second absed upon median appearance. KNOW WHAT YOU"RE DOING BEFORE EDITING. – aramis Dec 15 '15 at 01:44
  • @aramis Perhaps you should clarify exactly where that number comes from and rephrase that sentence as it's confusing – Zach Saucier Dec 15 '15 at 02:24
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There is absolutely no way to pin this down. As Roger Ebert pointed out, we're not even necessarily the frame of reference to which the "A long time ago..." refers to. That is to say, this is all a story being told to us from an unseen narrator, from whose point of view the events of the story happened "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away."

Because we don't know where (or when) the narrator exists, we can't know where or when the events occurred. It could well be right around the corner, just a couple of years from now (or ago).

Chris B. Behrens
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No. I think Lucas wanted to remove all links to our world. Though I found a decent Star Wars timeline explaining when the various events happen in the Star Wars universe.

Neil
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Star Wars Tales Volume 5 was a comic that was written a few years ago. According to its Wikipedia article:

Han Solo and Chewbacca are aboard the Millennium Falcon when they are attacked by Imperials. They are forced to leap to hyperspace blind and end up in our solar system, where they crash on Earth's Pacific Northwest. Believing they are on Endor due to the large trees, they venture out to investigate, when Han is killed by Native Americans. The mourning Chewbacca leaves the Falcon to live in the trees, where the natives believe him to be Sasquatch. 126 years later, the wreckage of the Falcon and Han’s remains are found by the intrepid American archaeologist Indiana Jones and his sidekick, Short Round. Indy, spooked by how 'eerily familiar' the remains are, decide to leave them in peace.

That would put it somewhere near 1800 because the adventures of Indiana Jones takes place in the '20s and '30s. I heard an unrelated story about it taking place 5,000 years ago, as well.

Giacomo1968
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Michael Kirbie
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    From that same wikipedia article: Starting with Issue #21, when Tales changed editors, all stories are considered to be within continuity, unless labelled otherwise. Tales stories from before Issue #21 are still considered non-canon, although canon references to the stories can and have been made, which incorporates those elements referenced into official continuity. This means that those first 20 issues are essentially "what-if". – phantom42 Feb 07 '13 at 19:02
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Unfortunately I can't remember where I read this and can't provide a reference. But I did read that Lucas originally planned for Star Wars to take place in our future, in the year 3000 or thereabouts. But then the idea struck to set it "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and Lucas realized it freed him from having to tie the history of Star Wars to our real history, he could simply make everything up from scratch. He didn't even really have to worry about being entirely faithful to the laws of physics (sound in space, gravity and breathing on an asteroid, etc.).

So no, Star Wars doesn't take place in "our" time at all, and that was a conscious choice. (Didn't stop me, as a kid, from thinking ROTJ would end with someone discovering Earth.)

jeffedsell
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