With so much excitement and adventure happening in the galaxy far, far away, it can be hard to remember that there are other galaxies nearby with their own stories to tell. A lack of reliable hyperspace routes -and certain superstitious perspectives about what lurks in the darkness beyond known space- has ensured that the galaxies orbiting the galactic disk have gone unexplored and undocumented.

As new series like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, The Bad Batch, and more arrive on Disney+, the edges of the stellar maps are being filled in. As fans eagerly anticipate the burgeoning growth of the Star Wars Universe, there’s a wealth of information (both canonical and in Legends) to help them chart a course through the other galaxies.

10 They Exist In The Unknown Regions

Browsing through The Essential Atlas, fans can find out exactly what Luke Skywalker meant when he called Tatooine the farthest planet from “the bright center of the universe”, or more specifically how far the Outer Rim is from Core Worlds like Coruscant. The book also contains valuable information about the mysterious Unknown Regions.

The Unknown Regions  answered to neither the Galactic Republic or the Galactic Empire, and included both formally uncharted regions of the galaxy and according to the material (which contains quite a bit from Legends novels and paraphernalia), the seven galaxies orbiting it.

9 They’re Dwarf Galaxies

Star Wars: Episode II –Attack of the Clones saw Obi-Wan probing Dex for information about the saber dart he found after his altercation with Jango Fett, and the Besalisk explained that Fett could only be found in the Rishi Maze, which was a smaller galaxy (as seen in the image above) and one of three dwarf galaxies framing the main one.

That Kamino was located just outside the Rishi Maze implied the second galaxy (Firefist) was partially explored. The third galaxy wasn’t named, but could also be seen later after Obi-Wan tried to probe the Jedi Archives for better maps of the galaxy.

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8 They Were Of Interest To The Sith

According to The Old Republic game, following The Hyperspace War and the destruction of the Sith Empire by Republic armies invading Korriban, the newly appointed Sith Emperor Vitiate looked for another location for the Sith to flourish beyond its smoldering homeworld.

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He led what remaining Sith there were to the Unknown Regions, rebuilding the Empire from there and looking beyond the void for new realms to conquer. As he told the Hero of Tython, there were many other galaxies beyond known space that could be conquered by the Sith if destiny ordained it (and if he didn’t destroy the galaxy first).

7 They Traded Money

Attack of the Clones introduced fans to the Banking Clan, but a version of the cohort could already be found in Legends canon. This commerce guild, known as the InterCalactic Banking Clan (IGBC) was responsible for the shifting of monetary assets between the main galaxy and its tertiary satellite galaxies.

A powerful institution as old as the Galactic Republic, it dictated the flow of data, credits, and wealth between Core Worlds and those in the Outer Rim. The IGBC funded settlements, bankrolled trade corporations, funded governments, and eventually even funded Darth Sidious’s Cold War between the Republic and the resurrected Sith Empire.

6 They Harbored Threats

In the New Jedi Order books and elsewhere in the Legends canon, as well as in the novelization of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, an abhorrent race known as the Yuuzhan Vong was able to reach the known galaxy from an adjacent major galaxy with the help of ships able to travel at sublight speeds.

Some ships used by the Vong, known as world ships, took many thousands of years to travel through space, taking multiple generations to cross galaxies at a time.

5 They Contained Other Species

Other than the incredibly malevolent Yuuhzan Vong, there were several other notable species that were considered extra-galactic. These could be found in the pages of the Marvel Star Wars comic series that ran from 1977 until 1986, which adapted to changes in the Original Trilogy movies and even picked up where they left off.

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When the Galactic Empire was essentially removed as a villain by the events of Return of the Jedi, the comics introduced species like the Nagai, elegant humanoid creatures drawn to resemble Japanese anime (they would be seen decades later in the Star Wars: Legacy series). Other species of note included the Chazrach, the Kwa, the Tofs, and the Silentium.

4 They Were Regarded With Superstition

In the game Knights of the Old Republic, a Mandalorian named Canderous  explained how after chasing a Vong vessel to the edge of the known galaxy, their ship dared go no further into the void because to do so was tantamount to committing suicide.

This sort of view of what lay beyond the know galaxy gave rise to tall tales told by space pirates, smugglers, and bounty hunters about the things that dwelt in the darkness, and often prevented further exploration of the regions.

3 They Were Difficult To Travel In

According to Legends canon, one of the reasons no one traveled between galaxies was because hyperdrives couldn’t get a lock on anything in the void beyond known space. While this technically wouldn’t be enough to stop anyone from traveling into the blackness, but fear of death or jumping into the middle of a planet usually dissuaded anyone curious enough to try.

Watching Poe Dameron hyperspace skip his way through the known galaxy in the Millennium Falcon highlighted the sort of dangers that could be encountered not punching in the right coordinates.

2 They’re A Safe Haven

The rendezvous point at the end of The Empire Strikes Back has often been debated by fans, but in 2003 Leland Chee (responsible for keeping track of canon consistency at the time) explained that what the characters were looking at in the viewport was the Star Wars galaxy.

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This implies that, much like criminals hiding out in the Outer Rim or Grand Admiral Thrawn lurking in the Unknown Regions, there were regions of space desirable for those who didn’t wish to be found (this included Rebels like Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and the rest of the fleet).

1 They Could Include Our Own

With the appearance of the phrase, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” at the start of  every episode of the Skywalker saga, fans have wondered how far away the galaxy actually is from their own, the Milky Way. Clues exist thanks to the cameo of Senator Grebsleips (Spielberg spelled backwards) and other Asogians in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

An Asogian visited Earth from a planet three million light years away in the movie E.T., making it apart of the Virgo Supercluster, and making his galaxy (and by proxy the Star Wars galaxy) one of many dozens of neighboring galaxies to the Milky Way (the closest neighbor Andromeda is about 2.5 million light years away).

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About The Author


Kayleena Pierce-Bohen
(1343 Articles Published)

Kayleena has been raised on Star Wars and Indiana Jones from the crib. A film buff, she has a Western collection of 250+ titles and counting that she’s particularly proud of. When she isn’t writing for ScreenRant, CBR, or The Gamer, she’s working on her fiction novel, lifting weights, going to synthwave concerts, or cosplaying. With degrees in anthropology and archaeology, she plans to continue pretending to be Lara Croft as long as she can.

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