Jedi Order, 6000 years old?

[Rithuan 179]

Hello there,

So, I just realize that with TLJ now we have a canon date for the origin of the Jedi Order. Did anyone notice this?

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Prime_Jedi

I.... I don't like it. Suddenly I feel the galaxy is younger than it was originally imagined. If this is true: how old is the republic? when did the Sith separate from the Jedi? What about the first Hyperspace travel? 

[HappyDaze 9,579]

Oh,  so the most recent version of the Jedi Order is 6000 years old then...

Much like the most recent version of the Republic (the one Palpatine killed) was only 1000 years old. 

Neither were necessarily the only versions of those organizations. 

[TheJack 59]

Well then, another reason to hate The Last Jedi I guess.

 

While I didn't expect this, it doesn't surprise me that it tries to break yet another piece of the universe. I wonder if the writers are doing this deliberatly, or just don't have any sense of scale?

Edited March 12 by TheJack

[WolfRider 147]

6000 years is not old enough ? It's you who don't have any sense of scale. Human history isn't that old with only 5000 years. The oldest cities are less than 10000 years old. And at that time the only tool and weapons available were made of polished stones.

[Stan Fresh 1,988]

3 hours ago, TheJack said:

 I wonder if the writers are doing this deliberatly, or just don't have any sense of scale?

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2007/03/09/310038/-Science-Friday-Sixty-Men-from-Ur

Do you know how long 6000 years is?

 

[CaptainRaspberry 1,184]

I don't really see how this is an issue. I could play a session of this game every day for the rest of my life, and we still couldn't fill up every day of a 6,000-year period. I doubt we could even manage a 1,000-year period.

[wilsch 226]

Because discriminating Star Wars fanatics needed the same plot to have repeated 50 times, and not just a dozen or so.

Two points to remember: one, Star Wars is strongest in the here and now, as its history is a backdrop; two, it's like not real, and we can individually make it whatever we want. And definitely not get huffy over it.

[Nytwyng 4,010]

44 minutes ago, wilsch said:

Because discriminating Star Wars fanatics needed the same plot to have repeated 50 times, and not just a dozen or so.

Two points to remember: one, Star Wars is strongest in the here and now, as its history is a backdrop; two, it's like not real, and we can individually make it whatever we want. And definitely not get huffy over it.

But...but...teh Diznee is teh evulz because teh Diznee. And in their evulz they’re distroyng muh childhood!!!

/endSarcasm

[Yaccarus 1,091]

If you want new movies, follow Canon.

If you want good lore, follow Legends.

[Stan Fresh 1,988]

8 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

If you want good lore, follow Legends.

Often,  the best comedy is unintentional. Case in point.

[KungFuFerret 3,687]

7 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Oh,  so the most recent version of the Jedi Order is 6000 years old then...

Much like the most recent version of the Republic (the one Palpatine killed) was only 1000 years old. 

Neither were necessarily the only versions of those organizations. 

Wasn't it "1000 generations" ?  Which is significantly longer than 1000 years.   Most measures put a "generation" (the time it takes an organism to grow from birth to average birthing age themselves) at around 25 years for humans.   So that's roughly 25k years.  

Maybe I'm mis-remembering Obi-Wan's line to Luke in New Hope, but I could swear he said "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of the Old Republic"

[GroggyGolem 2,782]

5 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Wasn't it "1000 generations" ?  Which is significantly longer than 1000 years.   Most measures put a "generation" (the time it takes an organism to grow from birth to average birthing age themselves) at around 25 years for humans.   So that's roughly 25k years.  

Maybe I'm mis-remembering Obi-Wan's line to Luke in New Hope, but I could swear he said "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of the Old Republic"

I came here to say this exactly.

 

Obi-Wan said "For over a thousand generations..."

 

which, yeah, puts it around 25k years that the Jedi Knights were part of the Republic.

Edited March 12 by GroggyGolem

[KungFuFerret 3,687]

7 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

I came here to say this exactly.

 

Obi-Wan said "For over a thousand generations..."

 

which, yeah, puts it around 25k years that the Jedi Knights were part of the Republic.

Which would imply the Republic was equally as old, which is a much larger number than 6k years.   

Personally I don't really care what they make as canon.  It's not like every year of that 25k period was fleshed out, it was made to allow writers to plug in whatever they want as far back as they want, and it would be highly unlikely to conflict with anything else.   6k is still plenty of time to do that stuff.

But, I don't really put much value in the Legacy stuff anyway, or it's claim as "canon".   Unlike a lot of fans, I found most of the material to be terribly written, that nowadays would be found only on a fanfiction site.   So the idea that they shaved off several millenia worth of time off a timeline that has zero impact on the films, or my gaming table?   *shrugs*  Meh.

Edited March 12 by KungFuFerret

[Stan Fresh 1,988]

You can be a knight without belonging to a knightly order.

[Kyla 1,301]

The actual line is: "For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic." Keep in mind that he didn't say the Jedi Order were the guardians ... only that the Jedi Knights were. Pablo Hidalgo is very aware of the words that Obi-Wan used, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the Jedi Order and the Jedi Knights are not the same thing. I think the behavior of Qui-Gon Jinn was representative of the backstory that they were going to expound upon; that being of many different viewpoints of the Force amongst the various factions of Jedi Knights that the "Prime Jedi" distilled into a single uniform code of conduct, thus creating the Jedi Order as it is now. Qui-Gon's focus on the Living Force being one of those earlier ideas and one that often put him at odds with the rest of the Order.

[Stan Fresh 1,988]

11 minutes ago, Kyla said:

Keep in mind that he didn't say the Jedi Order were the guardians

Or even that the Jedi Knight were attached to the Republic during that time. I assume they were more like vaguely Eastern wandering martial arts heroes, not the monastic space marshals they became prior to their end.

 

 

[Drig 81]

14 minutes ago, Kyla said:

The actual line is: "For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic." Keep in mind that he didn't say the Jedi Order were the guardians ... only that the Jedi Knights were. Pablo Hidalgo is very aware of the words that Obi-Wan used, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the Jedi Order and the Jedi Knights are not the same thing. I think the behavior of Qui-Gon Jinn was representative of the backstory that they were going to expound upon; that being of many different viewpoints of the Force amongst the various factions of Jedi Knights that the "Prime Jedi" distilled into a single uniform code of conduct, thus creating the Jedi Order as it is now. Qui-Gon's focus on the Living Force being one of those earlier ideas and one that often put him at odds with the rest of the Order.

Came here to say basically this. The force is not 6000 years old. The Official Jedi Order as we understand it to be is 6000 years old. The term Jedi is not 6000 years old. The Jedi Order is. Force wielding individuals that follow a code of good have more than likely existed since the dawn of Star Wars time. I for one find that these space religions evolving and redefining themselves to be extremely interesting and more in line with modern religions. 

Many of the legacy purists don't have a problem with the origin of the Jedi being the followers of Ashla. Or it all starting on a planet where two force using religions fought and took it to space and formed the Jedi and Sith. New Canon is not too different from this very thing.

[TheJack 59]

6 hours ago, WolfRider said:

6000 years is not old enough ? It's you who don't have any sense of scale. Human history isn't that old with only 5000 years. The oldest cities are less than 10000 years old. And at that time the only tool and weapons available were made of polished stones.

.... Yes. That is *exactly* why it is not nearly old enough. This makes the Star Wars galaxy *super* young; if only one species have risen from hunter gatherers to an atomic age civilization (not even spaceships yet!) in that span, then the Jedi are basically children on a galactic scale. This means that Yoda was alive for a full *sixth* of the *entire history of the Jedi Order*! That's absurd!

 

AS mentioned above, Obi Wan even mentions "thousand generations" of Jedi, so this also contradicts previous unquestionably canon lore. Even if you are *extremely* generous and use a short lived race for the generations (which is unlikely given how prolific humans are and the fact that they're the "default" species), it's still vastly more than 6k years.

 

On a sidenote, having the modern version of the Jedi Order be only 6k years old would be quite sensible, as it has no doubt gone through several reforms over the years.

Edited March 12 by TheJack

[Drig 81]

Also if we ever see the founding of the Jedi Order in film or tv form, I think seeing Ahch-To in its prime and seeing the very locations we see in the Last Jedi would be pretty cool. I wouldn't mind seeing a show following the prime Jedi and his followers and the split between the brothers of the force who would later become the Sith.

Edited March 12 by Drig

[Drig 81]

2 minutes ago, TheJack said:

.... Yes. That is *exactly* why it is not nearly old enough. This makes the Star Wars galaxy *super* young; if only one species have risen from hunter gatherers to an atomic age civilization (not even spaceships yet!) in that span, then the Jedi are basically children on a galactic scale. This means that Yoda was alive for a full *sixth* of the *entire history of the Jedi Order*! That's absurd!

 

AS mentioned above, Obi Wan even mentions "thousand generations" of Jedi, so this also contradicts previous unquestionably canon lore. Even if you are *extremely* generous and use a short lived race for the generations (which is unlikely given how prolific humans are and the fact that they're the "default" species), it's still vastly more than 6k years.

Hmm, how do we not know that before the Jedi Order, force wielders didn't belong to numerous factions, beliefs, and powers for eons that would be refined into the Jedi Order. Bringing together numerous faiths and powers to become the Jedi Order that serves the galaxy benevolently sounds in line with what we have seen of the Jedi Order. Cautiously scooping up any force sensitives found through-out the galaxy to ensure that they don't use the force selfishly or fall into galactic force wielding domination sure sounds like there was a time when that was not a thing and the galaxy was more wild west with the force.

I'm just saying that your assumption that the Jedi Order in its current form is as old as the galaxy itself or makes the galaxy feel young doesn't fall in line with what the movie hints at. Force Wielders have been around a long, long time. Refining what can and can't been done with that and also being involved in galactic politics, even to thousands of years before the Republic in its current state is formed is perfectly reasonable. 

And also Thousands of generations of Jedi is easily hand waved by the creation of Jedi Order. Many Christian Protestant faiths refer to Christians from generations ago even though those they reference predate their own faiths and more likely belonged to the Catholic religion as there was no incarnation of their current religion. Generations of "Christians" is not too different from generations of "Jedi."

[penpenpen 1,224]

26 minutes ago, TheJack said:

AS mentioned above, Obi Wan even mentions "thousand generations" of Jedi, so this also contradicts previous unquestionably canon lore.

A canon statement does not unquestionable canon lore make. Especially from mister "certain-point-of-view" himself.

Also, "a thousand generations" is not really a good measure of time when you want to be taken literally. It could very well be merely a poetic way of saying "a very long time". Sort of like if someone tells you do something yesterday, they are usually not expecting you to travel through time. Usually.

32 minutes ago, TheJack said:

Even if you are *extremely* generous and use a short lived race for the generations (which is unlikely given how prolific humans are and the fact that they're the "default" species), it's still vastly more than 6k years.

It's funny that you bring up species with different lifespans but jump straight to the assumption that it's standard earth years.

[Desslok 13,293]

1 hour ago, penpenpen said:

Also, "a thousand generations" is not really a good measure of time when you want to be taken literally. It could very well be merely a poetic way of saying "a very long time". Sort of like if someone tells you do something yesterday, they are usually not expecting you to travel through time. Usually.

Exactly. When someone says "I could eat a horse" or "That thing weighed a ton", they don't actually expect you feed them an entire equine or that the filing cabinet was indeed 2,000 pounds. I always saw that as the same style of speech instead of Kenobi saying "The Jedi order has been around for exactly 25.5x1000 years"

[penpenpen 1,224]

12 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Exactly. When someone says "I could eat a horse" or "That thing weighed a ton", they don't actually expect you feed them an entire equine or that the filing cabinet was indeed 2,000 pounds. I always saw that as the same style of speech instead of Kenobi saying "The Jedi order has been around for exactly 25.5x1000 years"

I agree with you 200%, meaning of course, I also agree with an equally long post that you didn't even write.

[Rithuan 179]

9 hours ago, WolfRider said:

6000 years is not old enough ? It's you who don't have any sense of scale. Human history isn't that old with only 5000 years. The oldest cities are less than 10000 years old. And at that time the only tool and weapons available were made of polished stones.

1

Wow... that escalated quickly. Do you know if I have a history background? You are not considering that I might have a "sense of scale" and still find it odd. This is not a promising start.

More on point. Yes, as several posters mentioned, I got the idea that the galaxy and the Jedi order was older. I usually don't pay much attention to the expanded universe, but I got that idea from KOTOR and the Great Hyperspace War. I like that idea, and I wanted to see if everyone was aware or did care about that.

Also, I didn't come to argue about TLJ. Just wanted to read your opinions on how old is the Jedi/Sith/Republic with this new addition to the cannon. For example, I didn't consider that the Jedi as philosophy/religion was older than the Jedi Order. That's awesome!

[KungFuFerret 3,687]

28 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Exactly. When someone says "I could eat a horse" or "That thing weighed a ton", they don't actually expect you feed them an entire equine or that the filing cabinet was indeed 2,000 pounds. I always saw that as the same style of speech instead of Kenobi saying "The Jedi order has been around for exactly 25.5x1000 years"

Normally I would assume he meant it to mean "a really **** long time" just like most everyone else.  But this is Star Wars, and fans are insane about the details of this crap.  Normally I wouldn't care, but there is a significant scale of difference in time if you say years versus generations.    Perhaps he didn't mean 25k years, but 1000 generations of time, is significantly more than 1000 years.  More than an order of magnitude in difference.   So if the topic is "how long was the Republic around" and we have conflicting source materials, all we can do is work with what is provided in the source materials.    If he had meant over a thousand years, he could've just said that.  Anyone with a reasonable understanding of language would assume he meant "a long time, somewhere over 1000 years, hence why he said it that way."   But generations is significantly longer, and since that difference adds up to 4x the time this new canon establishes (roughly 6k) it is worthy of note I think.   

Again, this is all irrelevant really, as it's all just "stuff that happened before".  The only stuff that really matters for the purposes of the franchise are the events going forward.  The rest is literally just flavor text, and something not really on the minds of the people making up the new stories.