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Star Wars: ABY and BBY by BigBlueSkies
Fellow nerds! I have a question about dates and years ('galactic cycles') in the Star Wars universe.
It has been a common practice to date movies and expanded or extraneous events around the time of the first Star Wars movie, labeled "0 Before/After the Battle of Yavin. This is done meta-fictionally to contextualize the time frame the stories take place in.
...which would be fine, if characters in the universe itself ALSO didn't reference the Battle of Yavin as a historical starting point.
Why not the foundation of the Jedi Order, or the creation/destruction of the Star Forge in the KoTOR years? What is the significance of the Death Star's destruction?
It just bugs me!
Star Wars: ABY and BBY
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Personally, I don't know if the Death Star's destruction is truly worthy of setting the year back to zero myself, but I guess I can try to think of an argument for it.
In the end I think it kind of depends on how much stuff in the extended universe really happened. The Emperor had some truly grand schemes running in the EU that would have allowed him to go on ruling the vast majority of his galaxy effectively forever, or at least until someone else managed to kill him. So, his fall was a truly big deal.
It has also been hinted that the rebellion really was not doing all that before the destruction of the Death Star. When the rebellion managed to take it out it let people know that the Galactic Empire could be beaten and was pretty much the turning point where things really started falling apart for the Empire. As more and more of the Emperor's plans came to light over time, some of which had consequences centuries later, it could have been viewed as important enough to set the year to zero. Maybe add in a dash of galactic scale rebel propaganda too in order to really help emphasize things.
I don't think the destruction of the Star Forge would have been a big enough deal simply because Darth Malak failed to take over the galaxy to begin with, making it simply one more failure in a string of Sith attempts to take over the galaxy.
The founding of the jedi order might not be that significant either since there are relatively so few jedi and they have not ever really seized power directly for themselves. While it could definitely be argued that they have been the power behind the republic for thousands of years, the fact that they have remained behind the scenes may have helped downplay their importance just enough to keep people from setting the year to zero because of the formation of their order.
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NoMoreMe6984
That's a good question. I think the Death Star's destruction is a big deal in the books because it marks the first "permanent" victory for the Alliance, which in turn provided them with enough momentum to move out of the cells-and-scattered-fleets phase into a more cohesive, recognized, and respectable movement. That, and considering that first step ultimately lead to the fall of the Empire, makes Yavin a semi-reasonable date to base your new calendar on.