Knowing nothing about the expanded universe or tie in stuff, I'd say they were in a bit of a cold war standing with the Republic and engaging in some tetchy cover diplomacy/trade embargoes/chastising for assorted terrorism and atrocities but capitalizing on the Republic not wanting to commit to sending the galaxy back to war and the Resistance not having the full backing of the Republic to fight them openly, all to cover that they were arming up and building this base, and running the stormtrooper program. When Poe gets on the base he has this moment of look on his face like "Holy Shit, it's the Empire in here!" so it's not something the Resistance knew about for sure.
From a tactical standpoint, I'd say they hid all this buildup under a load of disarmament treaty noises, only took trooper kids from planets where there was high crime and child endangerment already endemic, built the Starkiller out of a planet that was in a less inhabited sector and off the trade routes, and had some 'neutral' science talking heads puff up something about stars suddenly being eaten being a natural phenomenon involving mini singularities and just not seen in the local range before. Hide everything, cover it with flim flam and 'well-intentioned' political bs, and only reveal it with a first strike that takes out the entire planetary system of the Republic. Move into the power vaccuum, bam, First Order Empire. Snoke is running his own agenda inside this of course, but having the First Order in charge or perhaps even just complete chaos in the galaxy is something that will serve his larger purpose in some way, and he and the Knights of Ren have likely also operated to support this First Order development and help the larger more obviously militaary build-up operations remain hidden.
From all this I'd say there are likely a large swatch of First Order allied or sympathizing or controlled planets generating economic product that the Republic may have only cared about from a sentients' rights perspective, and information going in and out of the sector would be strictly controlled by the First order. For a current modern example of the pre-starkiller situation, think mainland China or North Korea maybe?
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Re: Hmmm.
(Anonymous) 2016-01-31 10:32 pm (UTC)(link)From a tactical standpoint, I'd say they hid all this buildup under a load of disarmament treaty noises, only took trooper kids from planets where there was high crime and child endangerment already endemic, built the Starkiller out of a planet that was in a less inhabited sector and off the trade routes, and had some 'neutral' science talking heads puff up something about stars suddenly being eaten being a natural phenomenon involving mini singularities and just not seen in the local range before. Hide everything, cover it with flim flam and 'well-intentioned' political bs, and only reveal it with a first strike that takes out the entire planetary system of the Republic. Move into the power vaccuum, bam, First Order Empire. Snoke is running his own agenda inside this of course, but having the First Order in charge or perhaps even just complete chaos in the galaxy is something that will serve his larger purpose in some way, and he and the Knights of Ren have likely also operated to support this First Order development and help the larger more obviously militaary build-up operations remain hidden.
From all this I'd say there are likely a large swatch of First Order allied or sympathizing or controlled planets generating economic product that the Republic may have only cared about from a sentients' rights perspective, and information going in and out of the sector would be strictly controlled by the First order. For a current modern example of the pre-starkiller situation, think mainland China or North Korea maybe?