Let’s start with establishing some new canon introduction, while honoring our own special blend of canon created by ourselves.
Here is a Linear Canon Guide:
The First Order (commonly referred to the Order) was a hermit state that emerged approximately 30 years after the fall of the galactic empire in 6 ABY. At least that’s when we see the height of power in the Disney films.
They have a similar history as us to a degree. A remnant faction of the Galactic Empire, existing essentially as a subfaction of political power and its own sphere of influence. They disappeared into the Unknown Regions similar to us, only far deeper.
We have different histories, with the Vast Empire being essentially a border faction of the Imperials that had the most dealing with the New Republic and cultural exchanges. We are more diverse than the other factions.
Thrawn was a nemesis of ours for a long time too, fostering distrust of Chiss amongst many of our ranks. We are still in the midst of that cultural thing, story-wise because of the role. He was also an Imperial warlord faction.
And it turns out as we go into what I can new VE canon (for simplicity's sake). Thrawn turns out to be the expeditionary force of the First Order, a pawn in the grand scheme of the First Order's plans. Thinking that he is carving a spot at the head of the table for the Chiss at the rebuilt Empire.
And naturally being a diverse subfaction of the Empire, we are considered the weakest link. A meat shield between them and the New Republic.
And more than that... we are also fighting with the New Republic because of some crimes against sentients that they are performing due to events found in stories of the past. Unethical experiments. Etc. Their propaganda turns us, the Imperials into the bad guys, despite being a subfaction that does not subscribe to the old Empire diversity stance.
Two fronts, we actually have success against the NR. Until Thrawn starts hitting harder on our homefront from behind.
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If we merge in Disney canon (at least by picking and choosing), we can argue that even if it started similarly as in "THE NEW DISNEY CANON" as one may call it, it changed drastically in how it approaches the scale with us being a player.
At one point, Rey tells Luke that they’ll have control of the galaxy within weeks during these films. This is done quickly because there is no unified military power that can challenge them. The Republic’s military was nuked with the Hosnian System. It is now the resistance attempting to put together a fight now.
We changed the galactic stage with our chapter pushes forward to coreward worlds. So thus, in our canon, these things happen in a much faster timeline because of our existence.
We were making huge coreward strikes in chapters 8 and onwards trying to expand our domain. Here is a map of where we stood at 12 ABY, this comes from Fury’s story work:
The bulk of our defending on the homefront occurs in 17 ABY through 19 ABY. Shattered Glass occurs at 20 ABY during a unified push to reclaim our systems of the factions remaining.
We succeed. And reclaim control of our space once more. We turn to rebuilding. Our success led to a false sense of security and yet also hypervigilence as a culture of prevention of this happening again.
Prime Executive Order directives were made during the recovery process as a contingency method. Order Zero-Niner was one of them.
Three months after shattered glass, we see a hostile sudden attack. A massive Thrawnist fleet launches a suprise attack on the Lotaith system and reintroduces total warfare with an experimental prototype test of the First Order's Starkiller system.
High Command immediately executes the precoded emergency order of Zero Niner.
For context:
- OOC:
TOP SECRET - VAST IMPERIAL HIGH COMMAND INTELLIGENCE
Restricted to High Ranking Command Officers of Clearance Access 9837290 Rotating Encryption Code and Members of the Divisional DJO Clearance Transference
Order Zero-Niner
Every military presence must muster together and establish itself as an independent unit within its region and wait for an encrypted message from High Command to merge on a hidden stronghold shipyard creating our very own Eclipse-class SSD in deep space far from any traveled route. Scheduled to be completed in 23 ABY. If executed earlier than completion, she will be quickly rigged for emergency launch protocols.
The coordinates never came.
Lotaith, the capital planet of the Vast Empire was already under siege when the message went out. Thrawn laid down a master stroke of crippling our empire. He blew the system’s sun by careful placement of the gravity well generators on his vessels.
There were very few survivors, only those fighting on the edge of the system and had the reflexes to quickly enter hyperspace and lucky enough to survive a random destination hyperspace burst.
The Vast Empire is caught between both the Republic and First Order War, our systems become a no-man’s land of war-torn ruins.
All that survived of the coordinates was something heavily encrypted that Riqimo had managed to pull out of the
Dominion's databank (Army High Command star destroyer).
Bit by bit, he has been drifting trying to find various old officer codes to help break the encryption. He has found enough to be close, but needs to call out for the remnant factions still listening for for the call on their old encrypted VE channels.
That is where we begin now. 23 ABY after Shattered Glass. Chapter 11 - Zero Niner.
The current story is here to give us a creative space to stretch the writing muscles. You can write however you want during the entire time space of the three years. You can write with whichever members you want.
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Also of import: 
For purposes of this story, I suggest anyone anyone who would normally be below a squad leader role into a squad leader role for the story on the Army side. I talked with Drac and Slasher and they like to give their equivalent a shot for this story on the Navy side as well. You are Elite troopers and pilots and whathave you. Working independently to support a greater whole.
In a time of decentralized command, you take charge of the grunts with less training and experience. You are thrust into command of people less experienced than you. You might even be protecting refugees and civilians. Or maybe you're alone with a pocket of civilians.
Or maybe you take a deep dark cover operation to insert into the First Order forces for intelligence.
Or come up with your own possibilities.
Essentially, we fragment into different pockets of resistance with some command officers acting as runners between the pockets, protecting critical and sensitive information. (Gee, sounds vaguely familiar)
Empire’s Edge is considered canon for those that choose to have their characters in there. They can determine their own fitting into the ABY timeline as they see best.
Bringing the First Order into our canon early actually makes very good logic for our club. It gives something for the new generation of fans to relate to, but we still get to be the cool Imperials and “good guys” of the galaxy.
This new story arc provides us with continuing our spirit of writing in our own blend of canon in the universe, treating the galaxy as a playbox where things from official canon exist, but we determine how they interact with each other and create new stories of our own making.
Speaking of stories of our own making...
This story provides a plethora of plot hooks for you to build upon yourself and develop. The overarcing theme we are contributing to is a 3 year spanning deep cover resistance operation trying to crack the encryption of the coordinates... upon which we will work to start a Chapter 11 from the operations as a backstory if we wish to continue writing.
