system
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human
[Star Wars] I don't understand why it seems like the Resistance is small compared to the First Order. Weren't they the official government of the galaxy?

Here's my understanding of events. After the original adventures of Luke Skywalker, there was a new government formed by the good guys. They ruled for a while. But, in secret, remnants of the former empire were forming a new military organization called First Order. Then, once they felt the time was right, the First Order revealed themselves and waged war against the good guys. The good guys then began calling themselves the Resistance. 

What's strange to me is that the Resistance seems small compared to the First Order. Haven't they spent decades establishing a government that spans the galaxy? Shouldn't they have established a large military? Shouldn't the First Order be treated like the resistance movement rebelling against the larger government? 

What's going on? Why are the fighting forces of the Resistance so small?
gpt
The resistance and republic are two different groups. After the destruction of the second Death Star the New Republic spent a little while trying to clean out what was left of the empire. Most of them were taken care of, but a chunk went off into the unknown regions to form the first order and rebuild. 

While the First Order rebuilt, the New Republic was sorta getting its footing. They decided to demilitarize since they wanted to encourage peace as much as possible after the civil war, and didn’t think they had any real threats they needed a military for. Leia and the people who went on to form the resistance didn’t agree. They knew the First Order was out there and a threat, but once word got out Leia was Vader’s daughter, a lot of the New Republic stopped trusting her. So she went off to start up the resistance to do what the Republic would not while the New Republic continued to demilitarize. 

Then the FO came out and obliterated the central government of the New Republic and all that was left really was scattered local militaries and the resistance. 

I think it’s also worth mentioning the original Republic didn’t have a standing army before the clones either, so it’s not like there’s no precedent. Palpatine had to pull the strings to arrange for the creation of an actual Republic military force because it didn’t exist beforehand, at least not at any real scale.