I don't think the High Republic is going to be the first exploration of the Outer Rim but more of the end of an age where the Galatic Republic has reclaimed most of it.

So something that has freaked me out along with some others is the idea that its 200bby and the Republic is only now exploring the outer rim. While some may have wanted the timeline to shorten a bit since 25000 years of development is a long time having the Republic only reaching the outer rim 200 years before the movies has caused quite a bit of a stir.However I'm pretty sure this is a misunderstanding of what is happening in the story.“This was a golden age for the Jedi, and also a time of galactic expansion in the Outer Rim. So expect there to be rich tales of exploration; charting out the galaxy, meeting new cultures, and discovering what pioneer life in the Outer Rim was like.""Star Wars: The High Republic is set on Starlight Beacon, the Jedi’s base of operation out on the Galactic Frontier."Seems to be what people are focusing on. The idea that they are just now exploring the outer rim. But this can not be true given what we already know of the galaxy. We know that the Jedi started on Ach-To in the unkown regions. We know Battu in the Outer Rim was used as a major training hub in the early days of hyperspace travel. Jeddah was a important Jedi planet in the days of the Old Republic. Jedi Lost gave us back Ossus as one of the central Jedi temples and the VD for TROS went a step further and re-canonized Odan Urr and the Ossus Cataclysm as happening 4000 years before the movies. The VD also talked about ancient Jedi and Sith using the wayfinders to navigate the galaxy and the unkown regions in the distant past. A CYA book mentions the Legend of Lehon. And their are a number of other old republic and outer rim references in the current canon including the Mandalorian War and MalachorThat along with just the appearance of a number aliens in the art work who hail from outer rim and mid rim planets such as Ryloth, Kashyyk, Iridonia, Mirial and Zygerria means that the outer rim has been and is well explored.However the "outer rim" is a circle of space that wraps around the galaxy much like a wheel around a hub.Well a very lopsided wheel as the vast majority of exploration happens in the eastern half of the galaxy wit the western half being basically unexplored due to natural hazards. On the inner side of the wheel we have the part of the outer rim that connects to the aptly named mid rim and the expansion regions (followed by the inner rim, colonies, trailing sectors, core, and deep core regions) and on the outer side of the hypothetical wheel we have the part of the outer rim that connections to Wild space which is just basically everything that isn't one of the previous sections and the Unknown Regions along with something really important happening out there about 2000-1000 years before the movies.You see if you put a Pre TPM timeline of Legends next to a Pre TPM timeline of the NEU next to each other many of the same name and events are still there and still in their correct time period. OR at least within a few centuries of it. And one of those major events is the New Sith Wars, or just the Jedi-Sith war in the NEU.You see in Legends the New Sith Wars raged on and off in some capacity for about a thousand years (more off than on really. I could go into it more but just know the sith are around and the Republic much like Rome starts to fracture after centuries of constant warfare and strife) and in the last century leading up to the end of the New sith Wars (and the rise of Darth Bane in 1000bby) we get the Galatic Dark Ages known in canon just as "The Fall of the Republic"During this Dark Age in Legends during this Dark Age the Republic was pushed back to only the colonies and the core worlds with the sith breaking off into different warring factions and controlling the rest of the galaxy and in the NEU it looks even worse as they actually take Coruscant from the Republic. And while the sith controlled these regions they started to destroy hyperspace beacons for navigation, maps and starcharts, and holonet receivers to cut off their own section of the galaxy with the rest of the galaxy.In legends it doesn't seem like it take the Republic very long to reestablish contact with the formerly controlled parts of the galaxy after the end of the war and it was easily able to reestablish navigation with the previous parts of the galaxy.But what if it wasn't in the NEU? The fact that the Sith took Coruscant in the NEU could mean the war was already much worse. So what if the rebuilding was harder.Remember we are in the "High Republic" but we are also in the end/last days of the High Republic. So what if from say 1000bby-500bby you have the real exploration going on. The Republic rebuilding and started to make contact with parts of the galaxy that they had already made contact with (and vice versa) and setting up new hyperspace beacons and waystations since the old maps had been destroyed. Hyperspace bouys as a tech have been around/mentioned as being around as late as 4000bby in Legends and have been mentioned in the NEU as well in Tarkin.So we have the High Republic from say 500bby-200bby where the Republic has basically rebuilt its self and gotten back to its old size with many of the old species we know and love but is still in the last stages of regaining some of the land lost in the war or maybe even pushing out into what will be the tip of the outer rim by the time of the movies.Also again the outer rim is huge, space is huge. It could be that most of the outer rim places we know of are already explored and they are pushing out beyond those.TLDR:Think of the High Republic more like the ends of a reconquest/reexploration of known land that they lost fighting the sith. OR maybe a exploration of the furthest reaches of the outer rim. via /r/StarWars https://ift.tt/2V5L7ik