When it hits theaters this week, Rogue One will have the distinction of being the first Star Wars movie to explore the period in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. If you haven't been following the TV series Star Wars: Rebels or books like Star Wars: A New Dawn and Star Wars: Tarkin, you may not know much about this pivotal piece of the Star Wars timeline.

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Palpatine's Empire

Five standard years have passed since Darth Sidious proclaimed himself galactic Emperor. The brutal Clone Wars are a memory, and the Emperor’s apprentice, Darth Vader, has succeeded in hunting down most of the Jedi who survived dreaded Order 66. On Coruscant a servile Senate applauds the Emperor’s every decree, and the populations of the Core Worlds bask in a sense of renewed prosperity.

Replacing the Clones

In the earliest years of Palpatine’s rule, its citizens had flocked to join the Imperial Starfleet as pilots and gunners, funneling their martial spirit into the Emperor’s armies. No one at Pamarthe had ever been able to understand the Republic’s use of clone soldiers to replace citizen-warriors, and they were eager for new battles, new conquests.

An Imperial Death Trooper from Rogue One.

The Fate of the Jedi

So far as Ciena could tell from the few holos she’d ever been able to watch, most people in the galaxy no longer believed in the Force, the energy that allowed people to become one with the universe. Even she sometimes wondered whether there could ever have been such a thing as a Jedi Knight. The amazing tales the elders told of valiant heroes with lightsabers, who could bend minds, levitate objects—surely those were only stories.

“This guy started a war.” Ciena’s head swam. They’d been reviewing galactic history for three hours now. “Okay. The criminal gang that interfered with a legal execution on Geonosis and sparked the Clone Wars was led by… by…” She shut her eyes, winced, and said, “Mace Windu?”

Mace Windu: evil crime lord?

The Birth of the Rebellion

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The idea of firing upon civilians and soldiers alike, from a distance, without taking the slightest personal risk in return—every true warrior of Pamarthe knew that to be the foulest kind of cowardice. Many deserted immediately, and within the year hundreds had joined the Rebel Alliance, including Greer’s parents. She had grown up listening to their stories of battle against the Empire.

To help get you primed for the new movie, we're breaking down everything you need to know about the setting of Rogue One and how Emperor Palpatine rewrote history to make the galaxy forget all about the Jedi.Rogue One takes place shortly before the events of A New Hope. At that point, Palpatine's Empire has existed for about 19 years. That might not seem like a lot of time in which to establish an iron-clad grip over thousands of star systems, but if we learned anything about Palpatine in the Prequel Trilogy, it's that he's very good at planning ahead. Though he allows the Galactic Senate to maintain its existence, they're little more than a token body of powerless senators. The combination of Palpatine's military might and his immense popular support in the aftermath of the Clone Wars means that he effectively has unilateral control over every world in his Empire. After 19 years, he's consolidated his grip over many core worlds, with remote Outer Rim planets like Tatooine mostly forgotten and ignored.This excerpt from James Luceno's novel Tarkin aptly sums up the state of the galaxy after the Clone Wars:It helps that Palpatine understands the value of rewriting history to suit his own agenda. For him, the Clone Wars were really just a massive, expensive PR campaign that he orchestrated from start to finish. Only a handful of Jedi discovered the truth - that both sides were carrying out a fake war designed to increase Palpatine's hold on the galaxy - and most of them are now dead. The simple fact is that the Clone Wars were never more than a distant threat for most civilizations. They didn't take part in the fighting. It was a conflict fought between bio-engineered clones on one side and lifeless robots on the other. Apart from those worlds that served as ground zero in battles between the Republic and the Separatists, few were directly impacted by the fighting. That makes it that much easier for history to be reshaped to fit Palpatine's narrative.As for the clones themselves, there have been various explanations given for why Palpatine phased out his clone army in favor of Stormtrooper recruits. One is that many clones became increasingly willful and independent as the Clone Wars raged on. Some even defected after witnessing the horrors of Order 66, removing their control chips and joining the fight against the new Empire. Palpatine believed (perhaps wisely) that if a handful of clones resisted his authority, it would only be a matter of time until all of them did.But the main reason is simply that the clones stopped being a viable option. They have accelerated lifespans, meaning that most were out of fighting shape within a few years of the Clone Wars' end. And with Jango Fett dead, growing new batches of clones became more and more difficult over time. Thus, the Empire turned to recruiting young adults to fill out the ranks of its new Stormtrooper army. The clones, meanwhile, were placed in settlement camps and faded into obscurity (making it that much easier for Palpatine to rewrite the history of the Clone Wars).Palpatine's army also evolved to suit his changing needs. During the Clone Wars, Palpatine needed an army of faceless soldiers with no family or personal ties. But once the Republic made way for the Empire, he needed a new army made up of the Empire's sons and daughters, one that would inspire patriotism and loyalty. That fact is illustrated in this excerpt from Claudia Gray's novel Star Wars: Bloodline:The main downside to Palpatine's army of recruits is that they lack the clones' intensive conditioning and training. That's what eventually inspired the First Order to try the "best of both worlds" approach with its Stormtrooper army.Han Solo circa-Episode IV is pretty much a textbook example of how ordinary intergalactic citizens view the Jedi during the time of the Empire. They don't believe in the Force. They question whether the Jedi ever existed at all. The shot of a toppled Jedi statue in the third Rogue One trailer speaks to the forgotten state of the Order. How can that be when only two decades before, the Jedi were the ones charged with policing and defending the Republic?It's mostly a numbers game. Jedi are extremely rare in the galaxy. The Jedi Order at its peak only ever numbered in the thousands, compared to the trillions or perhaps even quadrillions of beings that live under the Empire. The odds that someone would actually encounter a Jedi in their life, especially if they didn't live on Coruscant, were astronomical. What reason does the average person have to believe in the Jedi? Here's a relevant excerpt from Claudia Gray's novel Lost Stars:It doesn't help that Palpatine has gone out of his way to eradicate all traces of the Jedi. Those Jedi who weren't murdered by their own troops during Order 66 were hunted down later by Darth Vader and the Sith Inquisitors. The Jedi Temple on Coruscant was converted into Palpatine's new Imperial Palace. And even the memory of the Jedi was tarnished as Palpatine began portraying them as terrorists plotting an illegal coup. As we learned from this passage in Lost Stars, he went so far as to pin the blame on the Jedi for starting the Clone Wars in the first place.This explains why the Jedi are considered a myth even in the time of The Force Awakens. Little historical record of them still exists, and what does exist is mostly lies and fabrications. To nearly everyone, the Jedi are simply followers of a "hokey religion" whose influence died out long ago. Only fledgling Jedi like Luke Skywalker and devotees like Chirrut Imwe keep the memory alive.Despite Palpatine's power and influence, it wasn't long after the creation of the Galactic Empire that resistance cells began to form. Some soldiers, like Saw Gerrera, transitioned from defending their home worlds from the Separatists to resisting the Empire. In the lead-up to the events of Rogue One, a handful of senators like Bail Organa and Mon Mothma have begun quietly working to gather rebel freedom fighters. The animated series Star Wars: Rebels features one such group.Rogue One marks the point where the Rebel Alliance scores its first major victory against the Empire and scattered resistance cells unite to form something bigger. Another passage in Claudia Gray's Bloodline illustrates how the creation of the Death Star managed to turn public opinion against the Empire for the first time:It remains to be seen if any of the heroes in Rogue One will survive their dangerous mission, but it's safe to say that Jyn Erso and her comrades will play a crucial role in bringing Palpatine's Empire toppling down.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN