Star Wars in our universe

[Meste17]

Can someone tell me when Star Wars would have taken place if it was in our galaxy? Some sources claim that the first movie actually took place in the same year it was released, 1977.

[IanKennedy]

The closest you can get to is "A long time ago and far far away" and that was stated at the start of the first movie in 1977. So it was at least a long time before 1977. So there's nothing to say it isn't out universe. Just not in this neck of the woods.

Graham wrote a story with a crossover, Portal, note the chapter buttons in the header.

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

Wasn't there some book or film, where Han and Chewie ended up on Earth a few centuries ago?

I could be entirely imagining things, or heard someone mention a fanfic, there's so much stuff now I don't know, and I have never been much into Star Wars to be honest (as you know Meste).

[McAvoy]

You can either subscribe that this is just in another galaxy and long ago with absolutely no connection to Earth whatsoever.

Or it's in another galaxy long ago and some humans traveled to the Milky Way to colonize Earth Ala NuBSG.

Or it is the Milky Way and Earth is long forgotten/destroyed and it's like 30,000 or more years in the future.

[Meste17]

You can either subscribe that this is just in another galaxy and long ago with absolutely no connection to Earth whatsoever.

Or it's in another galaxy long ago and some humans traveled to the Milky Way to colonize Earth Ala NuBSG.

Or it is the Milky Way and Earth is long forgotten/destroyed and it's like 30,000 or more years in the future.

What about the possibility that it is 610 million years in our past? I base that on the following facts:

1. Google reportedly says our own galaxy is 13.61 billion years of age, which translates to 13,610,000,000 years old. The Star Wars galaxy (according to legends) is 13 billion, or 13,000,000,000 years old, which is not only on Wookieepedia, but again, confirmed by Google. That leaves a difference of 610 million years, or 610,000,000 years.

Source:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_ga ... ears%20old.

"The galaxy was between 100,000 and 120,000 light-years across, or 37,000 parsecs (a parsec is 3.258 light years), and approximately 13 billion years old. The galaxy's luminous disk contained some four hundred billion stars, of which around a quarter had been properly surveyed by the galactic community by the time of the Galactic Empire. The luminous disk revolved around the Galactic Center, a supermassive black hole that massed as much as four million suns. As late as the Declaration of a New Order, only probe droids had ever visited the black hole at Galactic Center.[1] The known galaxy included nearly a billion inhabited star systems, from uncharted smugglers' settlements to planet-spanning ecumenopoleis where scarcely a meter of ground remained untouched. Under the Galactic Empire, nearly seventy million of those system were sufficiently populated to merit some form of representation."

2. According to the theory of the Big Bang, literally EVERY galaxy in the known universe started at literally the exact same time, hence why it's called the Big Bang. So if it was supposedly in our "future," where are the missing 610,000,000 years at least? For the SW galaxy would HAVE to have been at least as old as ours, possibly older.

3. I have done some math on it, using the release date of the first Star Wars (May 25, 1977) as a reference point.

Having done all of this, my estimate is this:

1977 - 610,000,000 = 609,998,023 BC

So if this is the case, then Star Wars IV: A New Hope specifically took place in 609,998,023 BC.



Hence why I subscribe to your second theory that it IS indeed in another galaxy long ago and some humans traveled to the Milky Way to colonize Earth Ala NuBSG.





End of point.

[McAvoy]

You are wrong about all of the galaxies being born at the same time. Big Bang event wasn't some snap your fingers and I everything appeared, it was an expanding wave. The universe is still expanding which is where we get our figure for how old the universe is.

Which means the galaxies closer to the ground zero of the Big Bang the older that galaxy is. Everything travels at the speed of light. So hypothetically, the Star Wars galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy are 610 million years apart. Which is the equivalent of having two babies five years apart from each other.

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

As mentioned above, it is completely wrong that all galaxies formed at the same time. Most galaxies are between 10-13.6 billion years old. That is a 3.6 billion age gap between the earliest and latest. Stars continue to be born and die.

It specifically says "A long time ago in a galaxy far away". If we assume that is in relation to us, the audience, which is a reasonable assumption, then it would be in the past, not the future. But "A long time" is subjective. For me, 2 years is "A long time", quite literally.

But a long time ago could be 1000 years, 5000 years, or a million years, who knows?

[Meste17]

You are wrong about all of the galaxies being born at the same time. Big Bang event wasn't some snap your fingers and I everything appeared, it was an expanding wave. The universe is still expanding which is where we get our figure for how old the universe is.

Which means the galaxies closer to the ground zero of the Big Bang the older that galaxy is. Everything travels at the speed of light. So hypothetically, the Star Wars galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy are 610 million years apart. Which is the equivalent of having two babies five years apart from each other.

Yes, I agree. Hence my calculations as mentioned above. Hence why I postulated that the Star Wars galaxy had events 610 million years before today, but if you have any better theories or ideas, I would indeed love to hear them McAvoy.

[Meste17]

Wasn't there some book or film, where Han and Chewie ended up on Earth a few centuries ago?

I could be entirely imagining things, or heard someone mention a fanfic, there's so much stuff now I don't know, and I have never been much into Star Wars to be honest (as you know Meste).

Yes. It was a story called, "Into the Great Unknown," which also featured Indiana Jones approximately 126 years after Han and Chewie crashed on Earth.

[Meste17]

Well some sources actually claim it could be as far as 4.7 billion years before today. Anyone agree?

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

Well some sources actually claim it could be as far as 4.7 billion years before today. Anyone agree?

Claim Star Wars to be 4.7 billion years before today?

If so, it cannot be set in our universe, if the Star Wars galaxy is supposed to be 13 billion years old, as that would make the universe it is set in at least 17.7 billion years old, or close to 18 billion years.

Current estimations based on observations of universal expansion, etc, suggest our universe to be around 13.8 billion years, making the above potential Star Wars universe some ~4 billion years older than ours.

[Meste17]

Well some sources actually claim it could be as far as 4.7 billion years before today. Anyone agree?

Claim Star Wars to be 4.7 billion years before today?

If so, it cannot be set in our universe, if the Star Wars galaxy is supposed to be 13 billion years old, as that would make the universe it is set in at least 17.7 billion years old, or close to 18 billion years.

Current estimations based on observations of universal expansion, etc, suggest our universe to be around 13.8 billion years, making the above potential Star Wars universe some ~4 billion years older than ours.

Yes. Here are the sources:
https://www.quora.com/Approximately-wha ... ke-place-1
https://www.reddit.com/r/MawInstallatio ... rth_years/
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comme ... rs_anyway/
https://theportalist.com/what-year-does ... take-place
https://poe.com/poeknowledge/1512928000373743
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-timeli ... ndalorian/
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-movies ... y-science/
https://www.wired.com/story/physics-of- ... -universe/

[Meste17]

I agree @Tinadrin.

[Meste17]

https://www.wired.com/story/physics-of- ... -universe/

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-movies ... y-science/

"Altogether, this means that Star Wars needs to be at least 9 billion years after the big bang. This leaves plenty of years before the current time (about 4.7 billion to be precise), so it could still count as “a long time ago,” but it is certainly closer to now than to the big bang. Figuring out where the Star Wars galaxy is in the history of the universe is harder than trying to pinpoint planets in the history of their development. For instance, we see many terrestrial (rocky) planets and a few gas giants. A planet such as Mustafar is very volcanically active and has lava flowing all over its surface; Mustafar is probably in its earliest stages of development. In a similar fashion, Hoth could be an Earth-like planet in the heart of an ice age. It’s more likely that it is just a cold planet far from its star, but Earth did undergo several ice ages."


"As reported by Wired, Johnson posits that based on the development of life, culture and approximate age of the planets in the universe, Star Wars takes place about roughly 9 billion years after the big bang that created the universe as it is now known. If true, this leaves at least 4.7 billion years between the stories of Star Wars and the present day world. In other words it is "a long time ago.""

Given this information, would we all be in agreement?

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

In agreement with what?

You previously stated the Star Wars galaxy is 13 billion years old. Your latest says the galaxy at the time of the setting is only 9 billion years old. It is hard to agree with anything if there are contradictions, and this is a 4 billion year contradiction.

Also, it is a fictional setting in any case. Thus, whilst there may be an Earth, even one identical in pretty much every way to ours, within the Star Wars universe, it still wouldn't be this universe.