The Greater Core, or simply the Core, was a colloquial term used to designate the most coreward regions of the the galaxy, including the Core Worlds, the Colonies and the Inner Rim. The concept of Greater Core was commonly used in opposition to the Rim, another colloquial term, somehow pejorative, that designated the galaxy beyond the Greater Core, namely the Expansion Region, the Mid Rim, the Outer Rim, the Wild Space and the Unknown Regions. Although the distinction between the Core and the Rim had never been formally recognized, it had large cultural and political implications throughout galactic history.
The distinction between the Core and the Rim originated the most ancient times of the Galactic Republic, when the Republic space encompassed an area similar to the Greater Core while the rest of the galaxy was already known as the Rim. Hence, inhabitants of the Core often considered themselves superior and more civilized than the Rimmers. Intensive colonization of the Rim began during the Great Manifest Period. The contrast between the safe Core and the dangerous Rim, dominated by the Hutts and the Tionese, pushed many Rim worlds to join the Republic and accelerated its galactic expansion.
Millennia later, during the Pius Dea Crusades (c. 11,000 BBY), the Rim was ravaged by the Republic controlled by the Pius Dea sect. Following the crusades, the tensions between the Core and the Rim persisted throughout galactic history. Furthermore, the Rim would be widely neglected by galactic governments.
In the last centuries of the Republic, the authority of the Galactic Republic declined progressively in the Rim. In 124 BBY, the Republic declared the entire Outer Rim Territories and parts of the Mid Rim a free-trade zone in order to foster economy and rebuild ties between the Rim and the Core. For many reasons, the project was a failure Later, the taxation of Rim trade routes prompted separatism. By the final decades of the Republic, large portions of the Rim were abandoned to the Hutts or exploited by corrupt senators. At that time, the Galactic Senate was divided between the Human-dominated Core Faction and the non-Human-supportive Rim Faction. During the Clone Wars, the Fourth Constitutional Amendment gave more voting power to planets of the Core Worlds, Colonies, and Inner Rim, prompting the secession of Rim worlds into the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
During the Galactic Civil War, the Alliance to Restore the Republic was more supported in the Rim than in the Core. Immediately after the Battle of Endor, countless worlds joined the New Republic, most of them in the Rim territories.
- The New Essential Chronology
- The Clone Wars Campaign Guide
- The Essential Atlas
- The Essential Guide to Warfare