General Star Wars Thread

Governors appointed by and only loyal to Palpatine. It's basically space feudalism with Palpatine exerting power over the local governors through the Deathstar. After the destruction of the second Deathstar and with Palpatine's death, there was basically nothing holding the governors together. Explaining the fast crumbling of the Empire after Endor.

edited 9th Dec '17 10:55:50 AM by Antiteilchen

Considering what little effect the Senate had on Palpatine to begin with, I reckon his actual idea was to leave the day-to-day workings of the Empire to local governments, including giving them considerable military leeway, and using his mobile superweapon-shaped throne mostly to subdue any attempts at rebellion. He did seem happy just cackling on his big chair. For a Sith, it's the little things that count.

In a way, perhaps. One thing I find tends to get overlooked in the prequels is how the Jedi themselves weren't in the best shape from the start. (My own theory as to the whole bringing-balance thing is that they were themselves imbalanced and had to be dissolved as well. The final Jedi to die was Vader himself, after all.)

Mind you, one real-life example to follow would be the UN, which doesn't have its own army, but does allow for vastly different nations to at least communicate openly, and has so far avoided any all-out wars for over sixty years now. Given its comparable diversity, it might be prudent to view the galaxy not as a single nation, but as a multitude, each with their own locally preferred frameworks. So in that regard, the lack of a central authority to enforce one-size-fits-nobody legislation would be a pretty major boon.

edited 9th Dec '17 10:57:45 AM by indiana404

That's curious to me, because my impression was that the regional governors were simply the chief ruler of their respective planet. I.E., with Naboo, Padme is the Senator and Queen Apailana is the regional governor. But A New Hope hadn't specified if "region" means planet or star system or something else.

edited 9th Dec '17 10:58:33 AM by Tuckerscreator

The other thing to consider is that Palpatine ultimately won the galaxy through the Senate, and nearly ruled longer as Chancellor than he ever did as Emperor. Liberty died with the Senate's thunderous applause. So in that regard as well, the actual government framework seems less relevant than, y'know, it not being run by an evil space wizard, who's also undetectable by other space wizards. A lesson for the ages, that's for sure.

I mean, someone has to manage the planet's affairs - the Senators are influential, but they don't rule their planets.. I'm assuming that the difference between the King/Queen of Naboo and a regional Governor is that the former rules as per the needs of the people of that planet, while the latter rules as per the needs of the Empire (consider, for example, how practically nothing that the Empire does on Lothal actually benefits Lothal).

The assumption that the Governors are the Empire's way of taking a hands-off approach seems...faulty, considering that we have every reason to assume the opposite.

edited 9th Dec '17 11:05:28 AM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!

I like how the dissolution of the Imperial Senate is being framed as a positive move for the people of the galaxy, when in fact it was a radical and explicitly anti-democratic maneuver designed to snatch power away from elected official and put it in the hands of state-appointed military leaders.

"Hey, the Empire's not so bad, they did away with democracy and installed a military junta?"

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

What bugged me watching the prequels as they came out was that they were very vague as to why the Senate had become so corrupt. It was just taken as a given. They used to be great, now they're not; that's all we have. Starting at the tail end of the Old Republic's lifespan didn't help.

Now in the present, with greater familiarity in the real world with tactics such as gerrymandering, voter suppression, and so many other corrupt mechanisms used to create lopsided legislative bodies, it seems more plausible, but no less vague in the text itself.

edited 9th Dec '17 11:40:11 AM by Tuckerscreator

But yay, handing control of systems to local military dictators will result in smaller government! Except for the fact that those military dictators all answer directly to a central authority - the Grand Moffs and the Emperor - so a libertarian utopia, this ain't.

Maybe that central authority's not so bad, though. After all, the pointless destruction of both Alderaan and Jedha that resulted in the deaths of millions if not billions of people was just Poor Writing and therefore Doesn't Count when determining the moral qualities of the government that was responsible, because of reasons?

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

So that's one planet and spare change for the Empire. Meanwhile, the new Republic's eternal love for senatorial debates only allowed for the destruction of five. Not exactly a mark of pride either.

Pretty much, yeah. Doesn't make for a great cautionary tale if you don't show exactly what went wrong. Palpatine was running a Xanatos Gambit from the start. Invasion of Naboo - if successful, he gets the pity vote as Chancellor; if failed - he gets the victory vote. Clone Wars - whichever side wins, he's the one running it. He was literally offed by a deus ex machina in the face of a shiny droid. It makes sense that when you apply any sort of logic to the conflict, a lot of conclusions might not be as intended. Problem is, the prequels framed the story as a big and meaningful parable - a story that presented itself as one where you're supposed to think about the big stuff - instead of a free-wheeling adventure where the day is ultimately saved by cannibalistic teddy bears... who were supposed to evoke the Viet Cong. So, um, hooray for Communism? No wonder the Alliance Starbird looks like the logo of the CPUSA.

edited 9th Dec '17 11:34:46 AM by indiana404

"One planet and change" is certainly a frighteningly callous way to talk about the aforementioned billions of innocent lives, but such is kind of rhetoric that comes out with Empire apologists, I suppose.

But yeah, the New Republic (comprised of completely different leaders than the previous Republic) becoming bogged down in the gears of bureaucratic democracy (gears that were deliberately sabotaged by First Order sympathizers) and then being on the receiving end of a surprise attack that wiped out five of their inhabited worlds totally makes them just as bad as the Empire that commits genocide against their own citizens to make a point.

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

People put too much stock in authorities and traditions. Some degree of centralized government is necessary, but any form of government was going to be looked at with some serious side-eye after the Empire. The galaxy's traumatized, and it was always going to be an uphill struggle for whoever tried to reform the galactic government in their wake— sometimes it doesn't matter how good a performer is, if the warmup is bad enough.

But on that same note, governments should be questioned and watched carefully, even creaky old men from nowhere who were awarded their powers by acclaim. That's the (somewhat undercooked) message of the prequels, I think— that even someone as seemingly harmless as good ol' Sheev from Naboo could be an Evil Emperor just waiting to happen.

The Empire did not have an upgraded Death Star that could destroy five planets in a single day. One planet was their maximum ability. Senatorial debate had nothing to do with that.

Indeed, he was truly a Sinister Sheev.

Though like I've mentioned, the message of distrusting government would fly a lot better now if the sequel trilogy didn't start off with people trying to rebuild the Republic verbatim, Senate and all, and then being surprised when it crumbles for virtually the same reasons. I mean, it does send the message that big government should be distrusted, I'm just not sure it was intentional.

edited 9th Dec '17 11:45:19 AM by indiana404

Also you don't get credit for only one planet being destroyed on your watch when you're the one destroying the planets.

It seemed intentional, albeit it in a way that was so cynical as to be downright sulky. Yes, people do have a tendency toward complacency, but if you make the moral of your story "People make the throughout history basically make the same mistakes over and over and their apathy gets them killed", after a while that message stops sinking in and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. At some point, it's worth showing some sort of wild stab at a scenario where there was a solution that actually worked, even a flawed one.

edited 9th Dec '17 12:04:32 PM by Unsung

The Empire also definitely wiped out the Geonosians in the new canon so that's at least two successful genocides on their part. And while the New Republic's incompetence led to the Hosnian system's destruction, they were the victims of an attack by the First Order so it's hardly morally equivalent. The NR itself didn't perform any genocidal acts which puts them above the Empire and FO.

"I mean, it does send the message that big government should be distrusted, I'm just not sure it was intentional."

The New Republic was hardly "big government" — libertarianism is basically de rigeur in their politics, and that's what dooms them, not federalism. You can't just say, "The government should stay out of everyone's way!" and "Where was the government? We need them!" simultaneously. You have to choose. But that doesn't mean that "the government" has to be a totalitarian state that kills its own people out of sheer malice, perpetuates slavery, and clamps down on a free press.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Considering the Republic's idea of government was to disarm constituent systems and then leave them at the mercy of whatever came along, I'd say the stance to have is that either the government interferes on the local level but also offers protection, or it lets worlds protect themselves and doesn't impede them otherwise. Speaking of which...

You also don't get exonerated for losing five when it was your responsibility to protect them. I reckon that's the main point of contention here - as far as I'm concerned, when your team gets on the big chair, the buck stops there. There's no one else to blame, no one else to hold accountable. In positions of authority, incompetence is as bad as malice. But as I mentioned, this is in stark contrast to dramatic conventions, where a hero is even braver for only winning by a hair; a ruler more noble for being overwhelmed by adversity. All in all, good policy makes for bad drama, or at least the kind of soapy exaggeration that passes for drama nowadays.

edited 9th Dec '17 12:08:59 PM by indiana404

You don't even have to blame anyone else for the Death Star, here— you're still blaming the people in charge. Losing five planets is pretty shit, but blowing up your own people on purpose out of some vague idea of intimidating the rest is still worse. And while only one planet actually exploded, the Empire's death toll hardly begins and ends with Alderaan.

edited 14th Dec '17 9:55:42 PM by Unsung

The Empire wasn't even efficient. They blew all their defense budget on big flashy superweapons that mostly didn't work, their domestic policy literally consisted of "rule by fear" which ended up having the exact opposite effect, and they lasted only twenty years.

So somehow the Republic is responsible for its fuckups but the Empire isn't?

Whoever said it isn't? I argue in favor of the government framework, not the upper echelon staff.

Right, the governmental framework that was all about dismantling democracy and handing power to state-appointed military actors who were all still answerable to the autocratic central authority. Good stuff.

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

But that framework is what allowed those upper echelon staff members to perpetrate their atrocities.

Mods called. Have a nice day.

That's the problem, same goes for the Republic - Palpatine orchestrated most of his plans in plain view of the Senate and even the Jedi. It can easily be argued that under his leadership, the highly bureaucratic system of the old Republic was just as easily twisted to serve his will as the Imperial machine. And contrariwise, that without his influence, the Imperial Remnant could function just as well as the new Republic itself. That's what eventually happened in the old canon, no reason for it not to happen again.