i've only seen force awakens once, but i have a quick question about something that bothered me, and is probably the biggest reason why i didn't really like it. maybe i just missed something.
so what exactly is the situation in the galaxy? is the new order pretty much just the empire now, or are they the rebels now? are the old rebels the government now? is it just all out war all over the galaxy with various factions? that feels stupid considering return ended with what appeared to be a galaxy-wide celebration.
the original star wars gave a quick explanation that pretty much covered all that needed to be covered (there used to be a senate, emperor got rid of it, rebels sad now), but with episode 7 even at the end i really didn't feel like the story was grounded to anything.
The main government of the Galaxy was The New Republic, which was a reorganization of the Rebel Alliance. The First Order was basically the remnants of the Galactic Empire, and retained control of some Outter Rim systems. The two governments had signed an armistice which imposed massive restrictions on the latter, though they continued to build up their military despite the terms of the agreement stating that they needed to heavily demilitarize. Additionally, they expanded pretty heavily into uncharted territory, annexing new systems and largely operating secrecy far from the core worlds.
The Republic kinda knew this was happening and many within kinda just allowed it to happen (and some in the Republic were outright Imperial sympathizers). The Resistance was a response to all of this, who basically acted semi-"illegally" to fight the First Order, with backing from elements within the Republic, again, despite the terms of the armistice and being publicly disavowed. There was no full scale war at this point though.
The Starkiller attack in TFA destroyed the current Republic capital system, the bulk of the fleet, and the Senate, crippling the Republic and kicking off a new war proper.
There is a lot of parallels to the buildup to World War II and the rise of Nazi Germany in the years between the two world wars.