Oh very well, I’ll poke around in this can of worms again 😉
You have good points, and I agree with almost everything. I was trying to be clever by stating that the goal of the First Order was to destroy any attempt to find Luke, since as you say nobody but Kylo wants to actually find him again. But it is a bit wordy. I don’t want to have the First Order declare specifically that they wish for regime change, since that would probably require action on the part of the Republic, but I would like to keep it more subtle.
The ‘vanquish’ is also fairly difficult coming at the end of the crawl and fair point on the ‘across the stars’ being hopeful.
So perhaps I should just revert things to be a bit shorter and more simple:
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
Rejoicing in the Jedi’s
downfall, sinister agents
under the command of
the evil FIRST ORDER
have emerged from a
hidden Imperial base to
spread chaos and fear
throughout the grieving
New Republic.
In an act of RESISTANCE,
a daring band of rebels
armed by the Republic
has sent their best pilot
to Jakku, desperate to
find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars…
Of course, this has the unfortunate effect of removing that specific First Order declaration, which means that the First Order is just causing mischief and the idea of Resistance to this general mischief doesn’t seem particularly warranted. Perhaps if I placed the declaration right at the top of the second paragraph, it would avoid the problem of burdening the reader with more complication at the end of the long paragraph:
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
Declaring that the time
of the Jedi has ended,
sinister agents of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to sow chaos and fear
throughout the grieving
New Republic.
In an act of RESISTANCE,
a daring band of rebels
armed by the Republic
has sent their best pilot
to Jakku, desperate to
find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…