Encyclopedia of Speculative Fiction

Galactic Empire

From the Encyclopedia of Speculative Fiction - http://encyclopedia.wizards.pro

Empire redirects here. For other empires, see Empire (disambiguation).
Image:Imperial Emblem.gif
Galactic Empire
Form of Government Empire
Founding Document Declaration of a New Order
Official language Galactic Basic Standard
Capital Imperial Center (Coruscant)
Head of State

Galactic Emperor (19 BBY – 11 ABY), Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet (12 ABY—)

Head of Government

Grand Vizier (19 BBY – 4 ABY), Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet (12 ABY —)

Legislative Branch

Imperial Senate (19 BBY – 0 BBY)

Executive Branch

Imperial Inner Circle (19 BBY – 4 ABY), Central Committee of Grand Moffs (5 ABY), Interim Ruling Council (11 ABY), Council of Moffs (12 ABY—)

Judicial Branch

Supreme Court (presumably ended by 0 BBY)

Commander-in-Chief

Military Executor (19 BBY – 4 ABY, 10 ABY – 11 ABY), Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet (12 ABY—)

Formed from the Galactic Republic 19 BBY
Fragmentation 4 ABY
Re-organization 19 ABY
Currency Galactic Standard Credit (Imperial Dataries)
National Holiday Empire Day
"Fear will keep the local systems in line."
—Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin

The Galactic Empire, also known as the New Order or Palpatine's New Order, was the government established by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to replace the Galactic Republic. It consisted of over one million member worlds and fifty million colonies, protectorates, and governorships.

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Origins of the Empire

The Republic ended following a period of intense political turmoil and the devastation of the Clone Wars. At the height of the chaos the Republic's scheming head of government, Chancellor Palpatine, proclaimed himself Emperor.

Image:84PalpatineSpeechFinal.jpg
Emperor Palpatine announces the New Order

The Empire can said to have begun with the scheming aspiration of Senator Palpatine of Naboo, whose alter ego was the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Using the Trade Federation as a pawn to blockade Naboo, he used manipulation of the crisis to become Chancellor. Because his apprentice Darth Maul had been killed by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Naboo, Palpatine/Sidious took as his new apprentice, the former Jedi Count Dooku. Count Dooku then joined with the Trade Federation under Viceroy Nute Gunray and others to form the Confederacy of Independent Systems. This group, known as the Separatists, ignited a war with the Galactic Republic known as the Clone Wars. It was named after the clone troopers used by the Republic.

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Palpatine was an efficient and effective leader who quickly brought to an end the corruption in the Senate; his power was greatly increased as a result of the Clone Wars. Eventually the Senate lost most of its power and became little more than an advisory council to the Chancellor. However, Anakin Skywalker discovered that Palpatine was a Sith lord and the Jedi attempted to arrest him. Anakin Skywalker however, sabotaged this development and became the Emperor's new apprentice, Darth Vader. Palpatine then proceeded to carry out the Great Jedi Purge which eliminated the Jedi threat, and had Darth Vader eliminate Nute Gunray and the other Separatist leaders. Secure in his power and position, Palpatine used the false Jedi rebellion to issue the Declaration of a New Order and declared himself Emperor in 19 BBY.

Image:Imperialrecruitposter.jpg
An Imperial recruiting poster

Many people of the new Empire enthusiastically supported the vision outlined in the Declaration of a New Order, largely due to the violence that had plagued the galaxy for so long. Many senators wholeheartedly supported the new government while a number of more cautious senators chose to watch and wait to see how the new government would handle the affairs of state. It promised to trade frailty for strength, chaos for order, and uncertainty for decisiveness. In retrospect, the foundation of the Empire had already been set down during Palpatine's chancellorship and all potential threats eliminated; therefore, the transition from Republic to Empire was relatively smooth.

During the first few years of the Empire, Coruscant was renamed Imperial Center and the galaxy saw the single largest military buildup in history. A council of Moffs was established to more efficiently govern individual sectors and regions of the Empire. Popular support for the policies of Palpatine's administration was high.

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Organization of power

Image:Empire.jpg
Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, along with several Royal Guards standing at attention aboard the second Death Star

The Empire was ruled with absolute power by Emperor Palpatine, with Sate Pestage as Grand Vizier (the Head of Government, who was actually running the Empire day to day by the Battle of Endor), and Darth Vader as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Starfleet and Military Executor. Two of his top advisors were Janus Greejatus and Sim Aloo, who accompanied Palpatine when he traveled to the Death Star II. The Galactic Senate still existed years after the Empire's establishment as the Imperial Senate, but it had little power and was eventually dissolved by Palpatine shortly before the Battle of Yavin. The real power below the Emperor was in the hands of the Grand Moffs, like Wilhuff Tarkin, and the regional governors who were eventually granted direct control of their regions.

Image:Orgempire.gif
Organization of the Galactic Empire

The Galactic Empire was actually more decentralized than the Galactic Republic. Systems were grouped in Sectors and Sectors in turn into Oversectors. These were controlled by the Moffs and Grand Moffs, who exercised power in the disparate regions of the galaxy. This was in contrast to the structure of the Galactic Republic, which placed senators in control of their respective sectors.

This exercise of power was backed up by the use of state terrorism in the form of the Tarkin Doctrine, named for Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. The Doctrine threated force rather than the use of force to control dissent; the Ghorman Massacre was an example. The justification for the Tarkin Doctrine was the excessive cost and impracticality of the use of pure terror in the form of billions upon billions of troops and spaceships to maintain order. The instrument of enforcing the Doctrine was the Imperial military, which included the Imperial stormtroopers and a large fleet of intimidating warships like the Star Destroyers of the Imperial Navy and the All Terrain Armored Transports (AT-ATs) of the Imperial Army, all of which which were intended in part to spread fear as well as destroy the enemy. This policy reached its zenith with the construction of the world-destroying Death Star.

Image:Threemoffs.jpg
Grand Moffs Denn Wessex, Wilhuff Tarkin, and Marcellin Wessel

The Empire's New Order also emphasized human and, to a lesser extent, humanoid supremacy, with other alien species like Wookiees, Mon Calamari, and Lurrians subjected to slavery. Antislavery laws were repealed and legislation legalizing the persecution of aliens was passed. As a result, the vast majority of the Imperial armed forces were composed of humans, with only rare exceptions like Grand Admiral Thrawn climbing in the ranks of the military. Some argue that while the Empire was unquestionably xenophobic, there is little to suggest that the Emperor himself was. In fact, some believe that the privy councilors and advisors that filled Palpatine's court and ran the Empire on a day-to-day basis were the xenophobes, and applied "High Human Culture" on their own accord.

Peaceful demonstrations against such policies were dispersed using brute force, often killing and maiming thousands, such as in the Ghorman Massacre. The planets of the Empire were no longer given a say in the government, but were now kept in line by the thousands of sector groups of the Imperial Starfleet, each containing at least twenty-four Imperial-class Star Destroyers and several thousand lesser ships. Disillusioned senators who had tried unsuccessfully to use legal means, and the time-honored system of checks and balances, now sought to end Palpatine's rule through rebellion.

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Resistance to Imperial rule

After the true nature of the Empire became clear, three of the most influential senators, Bail Organa of Alderaan, Garm Bel Iblis of Corellia, and Mon Mothma of Chandrila, met in secret and signed the Corellian Treaty. This formed the Alliance to Restore the Republic, more commonly referred to as the Rebel Alliance. However, the threat of Rebellion allowed Palpatine to endorse the Tarkin Doctrine of rule by fear of force rather than force itself. Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, Palpatine declared a state of emergency and disbanded the Imperial Senate. Thus the last institution that represented the values and ideals of the Republic was swept away.

A key instrument in the enforcement of the Doctrine was intended to be the Death Star I, a moon sized space station with sufficient firepower to easily destroy a planet with a single discharge of its powerful superlaser. Whereas many planets could afford planetary deflector shields capable of warding off virtually any conventional attack, none could defend against the power of that awesome weapon. The weapon was destroyed in the Battle of Yavin, which marked the first major space-based victory for the Rebel Alliance.

The Rebel Alliance was a guerrilla army dedicated to the defeat of the Emperor and the restoration of the Galactic Republic. This goal was nominally (but significantly) achieved with the deaths of Palpatine and Darth Vader, along with the destruction of the second Death Star at the Battle of Endor.

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The post-Endor Empire

The Empire was too large, however, to be destroyed in one blow; for the next decade or so, the Rebels (soon renamed the Alliance of Free Planets and then the New Republic) fought to free the galaxy from former Imperials styling themselves as independent warlords as well as Imperial loyalists such as Thrawn and Ysanne Isard.

Following the death of Thrawn, a new leader of the Empire emerged—a clone of Palpatine himself. Imbued with the dead despot's spirit, which had fled the death of his body at Endor, the clone proceeded to rebuild his Empire and six years later had finally regained the strength to again challenge the New Republic. Palpatine's clone regrouped the fragmented Empire's many warlords and loyal forces into a single unified force, headquartered at Byss in the Deep Core. Using a series of devastating attacks and new superweapons, he nearly defeated the New Republic, but was ultimately himself defeated.

Following the death of the resurrected Emperor, the remains of the Empire fell into a quick downward slide. It finally reached its demise under Xandel Carivus, but its death would not last. Soon afterward, Admiral Daala gathered thirteen of the militarily most powerful warlords together and executed them, bringing their military forces together under the banner of the Empire. This new Empire, often referred to as the Imperial Remnant, soon faced its first defeat, and Daala turned its reins over to Gilad Pellaeon.

Several more defeats occurred over the ensuing years, forcing the Imperial Remnant into eight backwater sectors in the Outer Rim Territories. Seeing that defeat was imminent, Pellaeon finally admitted the need to sue for peace. After a peace accord was signed with the New Republic, the Remnant settled into a period of stability that was not punctuated until the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, where the Imperial Remnant allied with the New Republic and its successor-state, the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances in the fight against the Yuuzhan Vong.

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Appearances

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See also

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External links

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