For information about current events and faction territory, check the holonet tab on the top bar. It'll give you our recent timeline and the galaxy map. The most current event recently ended. Corellia was destroyed and half the galaxy temporarily went to Hell.
There's no summary of current factions because they change very, very frequently. The big ones...
The Republic: Duh
The One Sith: They have Coruscant and Tython. Whew.
The Lords of the Fringe: Quasi-neutral wild space conglomerate of monster hunters and free spirits.
The Omega Protectorate: Quasi-NFU mid rim conglomerate of facistic soldiers.
The Mandalorians: Duh. Also Witches of Dathomir.
The Primeval: A recent addition. Quasi-Dark unknown regions conglomerate of Forcies who've made their own claim to "Mand'alor."
The Red Ravens: Bunch of criminals in Hutt Space. Sith pawns.
A few other factions, but I don't care enough about them to remember them.
