Shifts in the galaxy will, and markets will be impacted if major events happen (markets are reactive to the economy via its impact on corporate earnings, I tried to make it such that there's always a loose correlation between the three and based on my testing, it seems to be working well. That said, the market system is a tad ambitious so I'm expecting to hear of bugs if enough people play), but in general I tried to make it so something like a galactic-level invasion won't ruin your game (ie. It shouldn't be possible for you to play a civilian and then wake up one day to being ruled by the Sith Emperor 😅). Full disclosure though, it's a pretty large game so play-testing on things years down the line has been very non-exhaustive. Additionally, the degree to which things happen (for example you can determine whether the galaxy starts at war or at peace) is determined by the settings at the start based on what the player wants to experience (there's a lot of customizability on how the game plays, at the start. When playing, I prefer to leave all others on default, except the minor worlds setting which I always max out to 12,000).