Who is left to fight in Star Wars episodes 8 onwards?
Having just watched TFA for the fifth time, read the novelisation (adult only) and gone through the Visual Dictionary, something just came to me:
With the absolutely massive losses on all sides, just who and what is left to fight any Star Wars moving forward?
* The Visual Dictionary makes mention of the major disarmament on all sides after the defeat of the Empire
* What there was of the Republic fleet seemed to have been concentrated around the Hosnian system and was blasted to bits, as <PERSON> had declared and intended
* We don't know what there is in terms of ground troops, or if those also were concentrated in the above system and are now floating through space
* It's made clear in all of the above sources that the Resistance operates on a shoestring and they just lost at least half their fleet of starfighters above Starkiller Base
* If they had/have any capital ships, we haven't seen one
* The First Order, similar to <PERSON> Redacted >, secretly broke the disarmament treaties with factories and shipyards in the Outer Rim
* We've only seen one lone fancy new Star Destroyer, not even any additional ones around their precious Starkiller. Makes you wonder just how many capital ships they have overall
* Oodles of troops and TIE fighters and ground combat vehicles were on the planet/base and are now part of the coronasphere when it all went "look, new binary star system, neat!"
* Having yet again indulged the Dark Side/Sith obsession with super-expensive super-weapons, there may not be a lot left as all the funds went into this boondoggle
* The Visual Dictionary states that the FO has a fraction of the resources and funds of the Empire
With all this, what's left at the level that fits the moniker Star Wars?
Scattered Republic patrol craft, the odd capital ship probably mostly used for peackeeping missions, a handful of Resistance fighters, whatever capital ships the First Order was able to afford with all the cash going into SKB.
Will the title of Episode 8 be Star Wars - The Arms Race Is ON! ? Star Wars - Drole du Guerre ?
Out of universe, all sides would now need decades to lick their wounds and rebuild their fleets for another show-down. In universe, we might be tuning in again a couple years down the road to switch to <PERSON> and <PERSON> (and <PERSON> and <PERSON>?) having picked up more Force experience points. 963