Quote Originally Posted by ecarden View Post
As for the argument regarding historical knowledge--there's two problems (1) Almost no one actually learns history, especially history from thousands of years ago at any level beyond the most general.
I feel that's an over generalisation that ignores the fact that the Jedi literally have multiple vast archives and there are people in charge of not only maintaining them but having an expert knowledge of the information archived. Remember that the Jedi are so certain of the accuracy and breadth of their archives that the very idea of a planet not being in their records was preposterous.

Baylan Skoll had access to these archives both as a Jedi Knight and after the Order fell. It's how he learned about Peridea. I don't see why it's so difficult to believe the Jedi have records of ancient history or that Baylan Skoll would access them.

(2) Star Wars is absolutely, famously, terrible at historical memory in universe! Everyone's 'forgotten' the Jedi within two decades! The Old Republic has faded into legend within the lifetime of basically everyone we see! Remembering stuff is basically not a thing in the Star Wars universe.
This isn't really accurate either. Not everyone forgot the Jedi and how could they when, twenty years before A New Hope, Palpatine very publicly charged the Jedi with treason? Luke not knowing what a Jedi was is hardly surprising when he lives on a very isolated farm on a backwater desert planet in the Outer Rim and his uncle and aunt were specifically trying to stop him from learning about them because they didn't want him to know his father was a Jedi who fell to the dark side and became a tyrant.

You couldn't get more isolated from the galaxy than Luke was on Tatooine and that was entirely the point of sending him there in the first place.

This is all beside the point, though. Baylan Skoll was not a moisture farmer from Tatooine. He was a Jedi Knight and a general of the Republic Army. He says himself that the destruction of the Jedi Order didn't make sense to him at the time, but that if you look at history you realise it was inevitable because it keeps happening. The Jedi and the Sith have taken each other out over and over again for thousands of years.