An update to the ongoing saga that is the crawl:

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, last
of the legendary Jedi
Knights, has vanished.

In his absence the evil
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the ashes of the
Empire with a weapon
more deadly than the
dreaded Death Star,
able to destroy any star
system while hidden
in the depths of space.

With the Republic held
hostage by this deadly
threat, they dare support
only a small Resistance
to locate the long-lost Jedi
and defeat the shadow now
spreading across the stars…

For this to work, I’d have to delete some of Hux’s dialogue in the Snoke scene to imply that the weapon has been ready to fire since before the start of the film, and presumably has fired as a demonstration of its threat to the Republic.

The crawl has strong echoes of ANH’s crawl which sets expectations in terms of the plot, and it establishes the Starkiller as the massive threat that it should be. The Starkiller becomes the reason the Republic is unable to take action, which is more simple and direct than discussions about treaties or a corrupted Senate. It also allows this story to explore some previously unexplored territory in having a superweapon which has presumably worked as intended for some time. Finally, it ends with language used later in the film as well as tying visually into the Finalizer’s appearance a few seconds later.