5,000,000,000 BBY
5,000,000,000 BBY, or 5,000,000,000 Before the Battle of Yavin, was a year long before the rise of the Galactic Republic. It was estimated by xenobiologists on the planet Goroth Prime who lived during the rule of the Galactic Empire that their homeworld's first vestiges of life were born five million millennia before them.
Prelude
Following the creation of the galaxy around the year 13,000,000,000 BBY, stars began to form within it, developing planets and becoming star systems.[7] One of these systems, which would go on to be called the Goroth system, developed around a star named Goroth Alpha, with a second, Goroth Beta, orbiting.[1] After several millennia in existence,[8] the system had four planets revolving around Alpha between the suns. The system's second planet would become known as Goroth Prime.[1]
The galaxy in 5,000,000,000 BBY
5,000,000,000 BBY, or 5,000,000,000[7] Before the Battle of Yavin, was a year of the Galactic Standard Calendar[9] that fell within the Pre-Republic era.[2] Xenobiologists native to Goroth Prime who lived during the reign of the Galactic Empire,[1] formed in 19 BBY[10] to begin the Imperial Period,[11] studied their planet's biological history. Their estimates placed the world's first forms of life as emerging by the year 5,000,000,000 BBY.[1]
Impact
Those forms of life evolved over billions of subsequent years until achieving semi-sentience one million years before the Battle of Yavin,[1] the epoch of the Galactic Standard Calendar.[10] This was relatively late when compared to the rest of the galaxy. The fully sentient Gorothites then emerged 990,000 years after that.[1]
Behind the scenes
- "The world of Goroth is a relative newcomer among worlds that are home to sentient life. According to native xenobiologists, life arose on the planet Goroth more than five billion years ago, but remained primitive until "recently" (cosmologically speaking, of course)"
- ―Goroth: Slave of the Empire
5,000,000,000 BBY was mentioned in West End Games's Goroth: Slave of the Empire, a 1995 expansion to Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game written by Nigel D. Findley.[1] It was then established in The Essential Guide to Alien Species (2001) by Ann Margaret Lewis as the approximate birth year of the galaxy.[12] The juxtaposition of these events caused something of an issue, as it took many millennia to form planets.[8] The Essential Atlas (2009) by Jason Fry and Daniel Wallace later clarified the year 13,000,000,000 BBY as the approximate birth of the galaxy, rectifying this potential inconsistency.[7]
The Expanded Universe practice of dating its events using the Battle of Yavin as an epoch was standardized out of universe with the release of The Essential Chronology in 2000.[13] It did not formally exist when Goroth: Slave of the Empire came out in 1995. The specific reference within Goroth was relative to the events of that expansion, which occur at a time vaguely during the Galactic Civil War,[1] the conflict during which the Battle of Yavin took place.[13]
Sources
- Goroth: Slave of the Empire (First mentioned)
- The Essential Guide to Alien Species (Later retconned as earlier events)
- The Essential Atlas
Notes and references
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Goroth: Slave of the Empire
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The New Essential Chronology establishes that the Pre-Republic era preceded the foundation of the Galactic Republic, which Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia dates to 25,053 BBY.
- ↑ File:SWTOR mini.png Galactic History on The Old Republic's official website (article) (backup link) dates the Tho Yor Arrival, as described in Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi 0, to the year BTC 32,800 of the calendar based on the date of the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant. Since the difference between that calendar and the Galactic Standard Calendar—based on the date of the Battle of Yavin—was 3,653 years per the reasoning here, the Tho Yor Arrival must have taken place in the year 36,453 BBY of the latter dating system. Therefore, the difference between the Galactic Standard Calendar and the dating system based on the Tho Yor Arrival that is featured in Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void must be 36,453 years.
- ↑ Star Wars: The Old Republic Encyclopedia places the Treaty of Coruscant, which served as the zero point of a calendar adopted by the Galactic Senate following the conclusion of the Great Galactic War per File:SWTOR mini.png Galactic History on The Old Republic's official website (article) (backup link), in the year 3653 BBY of the Galactic Standard Calendar, which was based around the date of the Battle of Yavin. Thus, the difference between the two dating systems is 3,653 years.
- ↑ The New Essential Chronology establishes that the zero point of the calendar introduced by Tarsus Valorum was the Ruusan Reformation. The book places that event in the year of 1000 BBY of the Galactic Standard Calendar—which was based around the date of the Battle of Yavin—therefore establishing a difference of one thousand years between the two dating systems.
- ↑ The Essential Atlas places the Battle of Yavin, the zero point in the Galactic Standard Calendar per The New Essential Chronology, in 35:3 under the Great ReSynchronization dating system. The Essential Atlas also places the Battle of Selaggis on 43:2:28 and the Battle of Dathomir on 43:3:21. The Essential Guide to Warfare and The Essential Atlas both place the Battle of Dathomir in the year 8 ABY of the Galactic Standard Calendar. The Essential Guide to Warfare also places the Battle of Selaggis in 7 ABY, confirming the placement of the division between each Galactic Standard Calendar year as the third month in the Great ReSynchronization year. Thus, there is a two-month gap between the two dating systems, with the first two months of a GrS year being the last two of the preceding Galactic Standard Calendar year, and there is a total difference of 35 years and 2 months between the two systems.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 The Essential Atlas
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Living Force Campaign Guide
- ↑ The New Essential Chronology
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 The New Essential Chronology
- ↑
"Into the Core Worlds" – Star Wars Adventure Journal 7
- ↑ The Essential Guide to Alien Species
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 The Essential Chronology
