>>6590
Y'know, I saw a piece of trivia that states that The Clone Wars was meant to, originally, mirror World War II, and the original trilogy was meant to mirror the Vietnam war. It could be possible that the new trilogy could mirror the late Cold War or by extension Desert Storm or even the war on terror.
The Empire is still around, yet obviously losing ground, similar to the late Soviet Union. The Knights of Ren seem to be almost religious zealots and could hearken to groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda. I'd put my money on the idea that the First Order will be defeated or made unimportant or maybe even betrayed by the Knights of Ren by the end of the second movie at least, fall akin to the Soviet Union, and then the Knights of Ren will become the primary bad guys, akin to Radical Muslim groups.