Who will control the Galaxy after E9? Will the Resistance defeat the FO and restore the Republic? Will the FO conquer the entire galaxy? Will we get a treaty setting up a Cold War with both sides in control of half of the galaxy? Will some other power come to be? Will some former Imperial war-criminal be handed control of the galaxy? Discuss.
Kylo Ren and Rey will reconcile and form a New First Galactic Republic and rule peacefully over the whole galaxy.
The "rebels" are victorious but unlike what occurred after the signing of the Galactic Concordance, this time all the remnants of the First Order are integrated into the new government, the Galactic Alliance. Alternatively there's a Cold War that leads into Episodes 10-12
I expect an ROTJ ending. Rey kills Kylo while Poe/Finn succeed in some massive military victory, giving hope for the future.
When Snoke had the capital blown his Loyalist Senators who wasn't present when this happened started securing the surviving Senate effectively giving Snoke control over the New Republic. His Senators thought they were the ones in control so when the First Order revealed their fleet (as of BF2 spoiler) they begin reacting too late of course...
I don't think the Resistance will rebuild the Republic, that'd be like ROTJ 2. Instead I think it'd be nice if the Resistance became some sort of space force, keeping peace, fighting against any threat, etc
THE FIRST ORDER REIGNS! With the blowing up of the Hosnian System, the First Order racked up enough evil points to immediately be granted rule over the entire galaxy. Nothing to see here!
Except they will be defeated in two and a half hours by a group small enough to fit into a YT-1300 light freighter! I imagine IX will give little or no indication on the astro-political situation. For the sake of change let's have no galactic leadership, just lots of independent star systems, which can coalesce into bigger groups or whatever the plot of X - XII demands.
R2D2 and C3PO will be the ones in charge at the end. They started a third galactic civil so that the major governments would wipe each other out. Then when there's no more Resistance, First Order or Republic Artoo and Threepio will pick up the pieces and lead a droid controlled governing system.
Our measuring stick for the ending should be the following question: what creates the strongest environment for a follow up TV show and books? It's probably not a total victory for Rey and the Resistance. If the First Order wins, then you can bring back the Empire and even Kylo as a new Darth Vader. This creates the kind of world LFL/Disney has probably always wanted to return to. A big powerful evil and a small group of heroes. The ST has been after that from the beginning. It's why Starkiller destroyed the Republic. If you think longterm, what makes sense is a new show that covers the next 10+ years after E9. It's a lot like what they did with the old Legends post E6 books. During this time, we'll see the rebuilding of Rey's new order. And also the slow return of some kind of Republic. E9 will simply show Kylo's defeat, but then return as a full villain like Vader.
Reign doesn't necessarily mean rule. We had an uber long discussion about this immediately after the movie came out.
Brought to you by Archive of Our Own. /s Reign literally means rule. But you can argue that the TLJ is very much confused about its meaning and what exactly the FO reigns is...vague.
It can literally mean rule. Like most words in the English language, it's not so cut-and-dry. In boxing, the reigning champion does not rule anything. In this case, to reign is to be the best or most prevalent or most powerful. This is the way TLJ is using it. The FO is the most powerful military entity. They reign supreme in a galaxy of lesser factions. v be larger in number, quantity, power, status or importance v to predominate; be prevalent.
^ Ergo, they rule…? Edit: I mean, there is nothing else standing in their way except for the Resistance, that much is made clear. We just don't know what exactly they reign or rule over due to lack of world building, but it's easy to assume it's the galaxy in general.
No. Power, importance, prevalence, etc., do not require ruling. They don't rule over anything yet (well, other than the backwater planets they're already exploiting). To reign over is also not the same as to reign. The word "over" adds context and isolates the usage to mean rule. Reign by itself doesn't have enough context to make that determination.
They might reign at the start of Episode 9, but they didn't reign at the start of TLJ which is what's odd in the crawl. They'd struck the first (major) blow against the Republic, decimating the capital and surrounding planets, and thus announcing themselves as a major political/military power in the galaxy, but surely there are other loyalists and infrastructure in other systems that is part of the Republic or at least supported it, and it being mere hours after Starkiller Base blew up, it's just hard to believe that suddenly the First Order reigns.
They have bigger guns. Therefore, they reign. It doesn't mean they rule the galaxy though. No one does any more.
I think the real question is, who controls the galaxy right now? In TFA yes we see the current leadership blown up, but TLJ takes place not even weeks after TFA, I think it's just days. From my understanding in TFA no one believed Leia and the First Order has been growing gaining followers but still not the controlling power of the universe yet. So I think the real question is, who's in the seat of power now for the galaxy and how does that affect both sides going forward.
So, in less than a century, the galactic control flips from the good (though going corrupt in the PT) to the bad (end of the PT to the OT) back to the good (end of the OT to the start of the ST) then back to the bad for FTA and TLJ and I would have to assume it will go back to the good by the end of Episode IX. This is corruption/oppression vs justice/democracy, it's not like they're just switching political parties (well maybe a little) -- That's 5 times there's a change in control in less than 100 years, this can't be normal. So my questions are: 1) Is there a better answer than having a centralized galactic control? 2) Is there something at work causing the baddies to keep regaining control? 3) Is beating the baddie enough (again) or does something else have to happen as well? 4) What happens in Episode IX to solve this once and for all -- or at least for another couple of centuries or so? IMO, Galactic Control is the crux of the "Skywalker Saga".