Lit The Great Hyperspace War - 5000 to 4990 BBY

I've heard the idea of the Great Hyperspace War lasting a decade a few times. I'm curious to know if it's just one of those fan theories that gets passed around as canon here, or if there actually was some source that retconned it. If it is the latter, then I'm unaware of it. However, having just looked through the relevant sources, I can tell you this:

1) There's nothing in the actual TOTJ comics to justify the war being a decade long. Or even more than a few weeks or months at most, even. Also, Golden Age of the Sith ends with Jori escaping into hyperspace, and Fall of the Sith Empire opens with her still in hyperspace, so...definitely not a journey that lasted a decade.
2) Both comics are prefaced by the same notice stating that the story takes place "near 5000 years before the Battle of Yavin." The opening scroll of Fall of the Sith Empire also explicitly states the events of Golden Age of the Sith span only a few weeks.
3) Both the original and New Essential Chronologies have the war listed as just 5000 BBY. No mention of 4990 BBY at all.

In short, both the Great Hyperspace War comics and both the Essential Chronologies all agree that the war takes place entirely in 5000 BBY.

 

That's interesting. I don't have the issues myself, so I'd wondered if it might have been something like that.

But even so, the 4990 date is changed to 5000 in the trade, and more importantly it's still not backed up in any way by the actual content of the comic itself. So whatever the reason, I wouldn't see any reason to accept 4990 BBY as the official date of Fall of the Sith Empire.

 

The idea of the Great Hyperspace War lasting ten years is a long-dead relic originating from bizarre dating included in the original issues. The entire war has been dated to 5,000 BBY by Crosscurrent, the TOTJ Omnibus, The New Essential Chronology, The Essential Atlas --- the list goes on. The EC and the NEC are also both intended to be in-universe documents. The dates of a large number of Dark Horse comics have been changed by the omnibi alone (X-wing, Droids, etc), and The Fall of the Sith Empire has a bevy of other sources supporting it. It's all in 5,000 BBY, baby.

 

I do not think Dakhan lasted that long. I think Sith Space was invaded right after the Naga Sadow's forces fled back.
When the Republic arrived, Sadow and the future Sith Emperor fled and Dakhan was left behind.
He probably only last for mere hours.

 

the GHW lasted 10 years, that much is fact and won't be retconned away ever again. it is much better even than a short war that is neither great nor spectacular aside a lightning strike and instant retaliation by the Republic ending in genocide.

JJM books if I am not mistaken were based on a 10 year GHW with the backstory of Korsin and Co depending on it even, or we loose these tales that make no sense otherwise. and that's 10 years under Sadow even in those sources.

 

My broad conclusion based on TOTJ, Lost Tribe and now TOR is that Sadow's initial blitzkrieg was over and done inside a year. If I recall correctly, I think TOR itself is fairly specific that Vitiate pulls his coup and runs right after.

(On a related point, I'd suggest taking the "thousands of Sith Lords" Vitiate slew with a pinch of salt, as TOR essentially treats "Sith Lords" the same way as how "Jedi Knights" is frequently used to refer to the whole order, padawans and all, and in TOR you get promoted to Sith Lord, even though commoners have been calling you "my lord" and a "Sith Lord" all along, so it's probably the case that Vitiate didn't literally kill thousands of Naga Sadows, just thousands of Sith of any rank.)

Dakhan is currently devoid of any real explanation, beyond "he took over", so how long his reign lasted and/or whether there were other placeholders after him is the area where I think things can still be stretched out, as TOR does make it sound like the Republic genocide was more than just a single bombing run and that they were basically purging the Sith Empire once the initial Great Hyperspace War had ended and Sadow fled, so you can probably basically treat 4,990 BBY as the year when the Republic declared all hostilities over and that their mission to cleanse Sith Space was complete.

 

It was retconned away years ago, and every new piece of SW material that mentions the war backs the retcon up.

In Crosscurrent and Precipice, Yaru Korsin is gathering lignan ore in advance of the Battle of Primus Goluud, which occurs in the penultimate issue of The Fall of the Sith Empire. Crosscurrent and Precipice are both dated to 5,000 BBY.

 

I know some sources wrongly claimed it still is in 5000... but an error is no retcon! And as for Lost Tribe I know it is before said battle but meant something else from these novels. The way Korsin talks, esespecially about his and the others backstory and so on, and they mention earlier missions etc. it sounds as if they are in a prolonged war with the Sith holding actual territory across the galaxy, not just a hidden empire and a blitzkrieg strike. The entire premise there was it was a 10 year conflict with Sadow, and the rest after Sadows demise happened within 1 year. not the other way around!

most books dating of said tales is based on older books and not many knew or recognised the 10 year retcon which means it still exists, just was not as widely known as it should have been!

 

That pretty much fits what the TOR timeline video says, yeah, as it states that after Naga Sadow had fled, the Republic started its mass genocide, which was when Vitiate made off.

Pretty sneaky of him, really. "Hey, I've got this cool hiding spot... where I'm going to eat all your souls!"

 

I'm anything but an expert on this period, but I do remember that Crosscurrent read a lot like the war was a more protracted affair than just a 1-year-or-less blitz. I know that's pretty much how it was portrayed in the comics, but I agree with Zor that recent novel sources (LTotS, Crosscurrent) seem to imply that it lasted longer than that.

Is there any evidence in the comics themselves that it was a short war, other than implication-by-fast-paced-storytelling?

 

Well, like I mentioned above, that it depends how you define "Sith Lord".

If it's a laymen's definition -- where every pleb on Korriban calls you a "Sith Lord" the minute you arrive -- then those 8000 might not have been anything more than the newest class of apprentices.

Even in Vitiate's empire of mass rank inflation, a true Sith Lord is still a much more special thing and finding 8000 feels like it'd have been quite a large amount, as they'd all have their own office and apprentices and followers and flunkies, so if you amassed 8000 bona fide Lords, you'd actually be amassing hundreds of thousands of followers.

 

The ten year war was never a retcon --- it was the original dating, given in the front of the issues, and it's since been retconned away. Yes, Precipice seems to imply a longer war than the comics did, but inferring ten years from it is a huge stretch. It's more like weeks or months instead of the... well, hours, that the comics imply. Precipice is dated entirely within 5,000 BBY, as is the followup Skyborn. There is no source that wrongly claims that the war is entirely in 5,000 BBY; there are multiple sources that correctly claim that the entire war is in 5,000 BBY. The New Essential Chronology, The Essential Atlas, Precipice, Crosscurrent, Reader's Companion, the first TOTJ Omnibus, etc, etc. Trying to dispute that is just plain ignoring facts.

 

I guess it's possible that the Sith holocaust lasted ten years, but there's really nothing to support that other than conjecture. The ten-year war dating comes from 1997 and was retconned as being erroneous years before TOR's Galactic Timeline series introduced the idea of the Sith holocaust. The two have nothing to do with each other, really. In any case, since sources continue to date the war as entirely within 5,000 BBY, the Sith holocaust is either within that year or not considered part of the war.

 

The GHW as led by Sadow definitely only lasted a few weeks/months as portrayed in the comics.

But, then again, the Great Sith War as led by Exar Kun only last a few weeks/months as portrayed in the comics, too... and it has since been buffed up considerably, despite there being no obvious point for a timeskip.

My past self would frown at now-me horribly for saying this, but these days I'm honestly content to handwave the TotJ comics' portrayal of the various wars away as the "legendary/mythic" interpretation of events -- literally tales of the Jedi -- rather than particularly accurate historical accounts.

 

The impression TOR's given me through the timeline and the game itself is definitely that the holocaust was a fairly big thing.

Of course, whether "big" means "10 years" or "10 months" remains debatable, as a lot can obviously still happen in 10 months if LOTF is anything to go by.

 

FWIW, The Ultimate Visual Guide from 2007 dated the Great Hyperspace War at 5000 BBY and the "Fall of the Sith Empire" at 4990 BBY, but the revised edition that came out last year redates them both in 5000 BBY.

Maybe the GHW and GSW are like the TOTJ version of the post-Yavin period, where there was this huge galactic time warp that let everyone have thousands of adventures in like a month.

 

Oh, there's probably about four or five years in there for that supernova to get all the way to Ossus.