A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

Post by Zor »

Here's a grim thought that came to me on a thread elsewhere on the internet,TL:DR version: what if instead of forming a New Republic after the fall of the Empire the galaxy fragmented into various independent polities.

It's a couple of decades down the line, we have a young woman who is strong in the force, has good relations with her family and a love of her homeworld becomes a new Jedi, with Luke allowing her time off to visit them because he's a nice guy who feels that the old Jedi order was too rigid and monastic.

"My Fellow Corellians: we are in a dire straight. The Federation of Kuat has acquired an asset to facilitate their Neo-Imperialist Ambitions. Lyra Matai, one of Luke Skywalker's "New Jedi" who feels that service to her Homeworld and it's Neo-Imperialist activities is more important than the new masters' high minded but naive ideals. She is in a prime position to train. Throughout military history the presence of Force Wielders has been a considerable force multiplier on top of their considerable industrial power. We cannot allow a Jedi-Gap. As such I am please to announce the foundation of the Knights of Corellia: an organization of force wielders dedicated to the protection of the Corellian Confederation."


And what is not told is that the Corellians have acquired this to aid in their instruction.
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A Force usage arms race could be utterly disastrous. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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This feels like it should be in user fiction.
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

Post by AniThyng »

"Here's a grim thought that came to me on a thread elsewhere on the internet,TL:DR version: what if instead of forming a New Republic after the fall of the Empire the galaxy fragmented into various independent polities.
"

For all intents and purposes that is what happened to the Disney Canon NR anyway...
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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The "grim thought" part basically comes down to whether we expect the smaller polities to be better than, worse than, or as bad as the Empire was. That in turn breaks down to questions like "would the successor states pursue less aggressive poiicies of subjugating aliens and minor planets" and "what kind of Force use would they encourage?"
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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Honestly, the Empire fragmenting into numerous independent policies is what I would have preferred, and how I probably would have written it if I were running the ST.
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-01-10 08:43am The "grim thought" part basically comes down to whether we expect the smaller polities to be better than, worse than, or as bad as the Empire was. That in turn breaks down to questions like "would the successor states pursue less aggressive poiicies of subjugating aliens and minor planets" and "what kind of Force use would they encourage?"
The Republic had a thousand years of peace and stability for most of the galaxy. Breaking it up into multiple camps that would inevitably have rivalries, arm themselves and fight means that war is inevitable and sooner rather than latter. New grudges would fester and be encouraged by the local powers that be. Economies would suffer thanks to Tariffs and a desire for autarchy, which would be blamed on rivals. There would be disputes over contested worlds.

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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

Post by Simon_Jester »

Zor wrote: 2018-01-10 08:58pmThe Republic had a thousand years of peace and stability for most of the galaxy. Breaking it up into multiple camps that would inevitably have rivalries, arm themselves and fight means that war is inevitable and sooner rather than latter. New grudges would fester and be encouraged by the local powers that be. Economies would suffer thanks to Tariffs and a desire for autarchy, which would be blamed on rivals. There would be disputes over contested worlds.

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The existence of the Republic did not prevent any of these evils. All of this was already happening before the Clone Wars, let alone before the founding of the Empire.

Under the Empire, all these things continued. An ongoing war of occupation was being waged by the Empire against its own citizens. Grudges were actively encouraged insofar as these grudges allowed the Empire to use nonhuman species as scapegoats to be tyrannized and enslaved. There is little evidence of economic flourishing, and much evidence of Palpatine's intent to plunge the galaxy further and further into a Dark Side tyranny.

Preventing this galaxy-sized failed-state outcome required a war of revolution, which further disrupted the economy and created grounds for longstanding grudges, despite being better than the alternative.

Making a government bigger does not automatically make it better, and a region can very easily be better off under a dozen smaller governments than under a single conquering tyranny or incompetent bureaucracy.
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-01-11 10:26amThe existence of the Republic did not prevent any of these evils. All of this was already happening before the Clone Wars, let alone before the founding of the Empire.
And yet it still maintained comparative peace. Up until the end of said period large scale warfleets were not a thing. There were fights with pirates, but not clashes of battleships.

Frankly it could be argued that the Republic fell because it was too loose of an organization allowing too much autonomy to it's worlds while lacking the tools to prevent them from rebelling. If the Republic had a modest standing army and navy it could have prevented the Trade Federation and similar from building up a military, thus averting the Clone Wars. Palpatine came to power because of a response which (thanks to his manipulations) overshot the mark from "reasonably strong democratic central government able to effectively serve its people" to "militaristic totalitarian dictatorship".
Making a government bigger does not automatically make it better, and a region can very easily be better off under a dozen smaller governments than under a single conquering tyranny or incompetent bureaucracy.
That's loading the scenario: saying that the best form of division can be better than the worst form of unity. Nobody's arguing that. In general terms larger nations are more productive than a comparable number of smaller ones with the same resources as they work more together than against each other. Making a government bigger does not nessisarilly make it better, but it does allow it to bring more resources to bear on a problem and eliminates than a dozen smaller governments at best working at cross purposes and at worst actively fighting against each other.

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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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Zor wrote: 2018-01-12 12:38am
Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-01-11 10:26amThe existence of the Republic did not prevent any of these evils. All of this was already happening before the Clone Wars, let alone before the founding of the Empire.
And yet it still maintained comparative peace. Up until the end of said period large scale warfleets were not a thing. There were fights with pirates, but not clashes of battleships.
The point is, by the time the movies start, the "Republic brings peace and stability to the galaxy" era is already over. The Clone Wars and the Empire do not restore it. By the time the rebels kill the Emperor, there's nothing left to save of the old peaceful, stable system of things.

Palpatine destroyed it for personal power and to centralize more control over the galaxy into his own person.

This isn't about whether the Old Republic was good or bad around, say, 100 years before Yavin. It's about what happened during the movie era.
Frankly it could be argued that the Republic fell because it was too loose of an organization allowing too much autonomy to it's worlds while lacking the tools to prevent them from rebelling. If the Republic had a modest standing army and navy it could have prevented the Trade Federation and similar from building up a military, thus averting the Clone Wars. Palpatine came to power because of a response which (thanks to his manipulations) overshot the mark from "reasonably strong democratic central government able to effectively serve its people" to "militaristic totalitarian dictatorship".
If the Republic had been more tightly organized it might well have provoked more rebellions. "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." A galactic regime that tolerates a great deal of diversity and local autonomy may be less able to rein in splinter factions, but it's also less likely to create them.

Also, at least in the old EU which fleshed things out differently, the Old Republic era was not quite so peaceful as all that. For one example...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stark_Hyperspace_War
Making a government bigger does not automatically make it better, and a region can very easily be better off under a dozen smaller governments than under a single conquering tyranny or incompetent bureaucracy.
That's loading the scenario: saying that the best form of division can be better than the worst form of unity.
And yet, the "worst form of unity" is exactly what the Star Wars Galaxy had under Palpatine. Whether or not the New Republic can do a better job of governing the galaxy is an open question.

In the old EU they stagger from one crisis to another for several decades, barely keeping galactic civilization afloat in the face of warlordism that was made possible in large part by the sheer bulk of the Empire's military machine- the very same one designed to 'unite the galaxy' so long as Palpatine was alive to control it.

In the new canon, well, the New Republic utterly fails to do anything decisive about the First Order while it still can in between Episodes VI and VII, and effectively allows the First Order to build up a superweapon that enables them to decapitate the New Republic from across the galaxy during the events of The Force Awakens.

A situation in which instead of the New Republic we get a large number of relatively diverse, single planet or multi-planet polities might well be little or no worse on average than the results of the New Republic taking power were.
In general terms larger nations are more productive than a comparable number of smaller ones with the same resources as they work more together than against each other.
Citation needed. Experience on Earth tends to suggest that this effect is weak or nonexistent. I could equally well argue that larger nations tend to be less cohesive due to the sprawl of territory and interest groups they include, resulting in increased internal competition that more than offsets external competition.

If we look at specific examples the evidence is unclear. The US is economically more productive than a random sample of Third World nations, but politically divided Europe is by any reasonable standard at least as productive as politically unified India or China- and has been for centuries.

There are certain highly specific situations where a single larger government reliably performs better, such as during an ongoing war with a foreign power. But that doesn't necessarily translate into any broad argument that can prove larger governments superior for reasons of pure theory.
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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Zor wrote: 2018-01-12 12:38am And yet it still maintained comparative peace. Up until the end of said period large scale warfleets were not a thing. There were fights with pirates, but not clashes of battleships.

Frankly it could be argued that the Republic fell because it was too loose of an organization allowing too much autonomy to it's worlds while lacking the tools to prevent them from rebelling. If the Republic had a modest standing army and navy it could have prevented the Trade Federation and similar from building up a military, thus averting the Clone Wars. Palpatine came to power because of a response which (thanks to his manipulations) overshot the mark from "reasonably strong democratic central government able to effectively serve its people" to "militaristic totalitarian dictatorship".
I always take umbridge at this, the problem the Republic had wasn't really external, it wasn't something that could be solved with warships and bombs. I think it was evocatively said in the original Star Wars novel (and the first exposure I had to the setting as a kid, so perhaps I'm biased)
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The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that... it was the Republic.

Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.

So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.
The danger wasn't something you could shoot; by the time shooting was a productive action it was already too late. The Jedi were fine as peacekeepers, we see that in TPM, Daultay Dofine's reaction is very telling. "This scheme of yours has failed Lord Sidious, we dare not go against the Jedi." Only the sith galvanize the Trade Federation into action, and only the presence of Darth Maul and Sidious in the senate stops the situation being resolved.

If the senate had the will to send the Jedi to resolve the Naboo crisis in force, the situation would have been resolved quickly. The control ship famously lost to one untrained prodigy, imagine if Mace Windu had been attacking it with a flight of Jedi fighters.
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-01-12 08:06amThe point is, by the time the movies start, the "Republic brings peace and stability to the galaxy" era is already over. The Clone Wars and the Empire do not restore it. By the time the rebels kill the Emperor, there's nothing left to save of the old peaceful, stable system of things.
If there was political division it never would have happened in the first place. There could up to millions* of political entities, each with their own militiaries, political agendas and fears.

*though I doubt that would be the case to be honest, frankly you'd have local Madisons, Bismarcks, Charlemagnes and Tokugawas that would carve out new intersteller federations and kingdoms. This is basically the pattern that was followed in the real world, bands of a few dozen became tribes of a few hundred which became small agrarian clans/chiefdoms of a few thousand to small city states that were eventually hammered into kingdoms, empires and nations.
If the Republic had been more tightly organized it might well have provoked more rebellions. "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." A galactic regime that tolerates a great deal of diversity and local autonomy may be less able to rein in splinter factions, but it's also less likely to create them.
What she was referring to was Tarkin's use of the threat of extreme military force to keep. Not every centralized state makes use of such heavy handed methods that make such enemies to keep it's populaces in line.
Also, at least in the old EU which fleshed things out differently, the Old Republic era was not quite so peaceful as all that. For one example...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stark_Hyperspace_War
And yet, the "worst form of unity" is exactly what the Star Wars Galaxy had under Palpatine. Whether or not the New Republic can do a better job of governing the galaxy is an open question.

Citation needed. Experience on Earth tends to suggest that this effect is weak or nonexistent. I could equally well argue that larger nations tend to be less cohesive due to the sprawl of territory and interest groups they include, resulting in increased internal competition that more than offsets external competition.

If we look at specific examples the evidence is unclear. The US is economically more productive than a random sample of Third World nations, but politically divided Europe is by any reasonable standard at least as productive as politically unified India or China- and has been for centuries.
For 1,000 years from the fall of the western Roman Empire china was quite decisively in the lead as far as human civilizations went and it lagged due to issues largely specific to the Qing Dynasty and foreign involvement and then disunity at that collapsed into warlordism . Now that China was on the rise. Rome's fall in the west came with a decline in population, urban centers, literacy (they did not need monks copying a few scant texts in Byzantium or the Caliphates, people with an interest in classical philosophy just bought books from scribes or book merchants which commissioned scribes to make certain books because they might sell it down the line). Germany around 1800 was considered a land of hillbillies and petty princes (which fought some very nasty wars, see 30 Years War) bur emerged as the leading industrial power in 1900, three decades after unification. Or compare Sengoku era Japan to Tokugawa or Meiji period Japan. Or Han China to Warring States period china.

As for internal competition, unless you are talking about some loose feudal affair such as Westeros where every fief has it's knights and levy internal conflicts don't reach the level of destructive wars. Competition to a society is like combustion, properly contained and channeled it can be beneficial (companies trying to produce better goods) though left unchecked it is be destructive.
There are certain highly specific situations where a single larger government reliably performs better, such as during an ongoing war with a foreign power. But that doesn't necessarily translate into any broad argument that can prove larger governments superior for reasons of pure theory.
Many businesses in Britain have taken a hit from Bexit. Also the Balkans have been a divided mess with a lot of armed conflicts between various armed groups.

But as to my initial point, localist nationalism is often born out of fear of the external other and fueled by it. If the state policy is to raise rabbles up with that sort of rhetoric (and if they see a Jedi Order as one of those external others) you are going to see force users fall to the Dark Side and at least some ruling groups seeing them as a tool to be exploited and cultivated.

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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

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Zor wrote: 2018-01-12 09:59pm
Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-01-12 08:06amThe point is, by the time the movies start, the "Republic brings peace and stability to the galaxy" era is already over. The Clone Wars and the Empire do not restore it. By the time the rebels kill the Emperor, there's nothing left to save of the old peaceful, stable system of things.
If there was political division it never would have happened in the first place. There could up to millions* of political entities, each with their own militiaries, political agendas and fears.

*though I doubt that would be the case to be honest, frankly you'd have local Madisons, Bismarcks, Charlemagnes and Tokugawas that would carve out new intersteller federations and kingdoms. This is basically the pattern that was followed in the real world, bands of a few dozen became tribes of a few hundred which became small agrarian clans/chiefdoms of a few thousand to small city states that were eventually hammered into kingdoms, empires and nations.
If the Republic had been more tightly organized it might well have provoked more rebellions. "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." A galactic regime that tolerates a great deal of diversity and local autonomy may be less able to rein in splinter factions, but it's also less likely to create them.
What she was referring to was Tarkin's use of the threat of extreme military force to keep. Not every centralized state makes use of such heavy handed methods that make such enemies to keep it's populaces in line.
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Riiight.

The point remains valid. A loosely affiliated system that exists mainly to provide a common framework for settling interstellar disputes may well be much better suited to governing a sprawling galaxy full of diverse alien species and planets at wildly different levels of development. Having everything micromanaged in detail from Coruscant would almost certainly result in Coruscant mismanaging most of the galaxy, simply because human usually won't have much insight into how to govern hermaphroditic methane-breathers, and vice versa.

Tighter centralization is not always better. I don't know how to make this more simple, and I wish you could wrap your head around the concept. There are genuinely circumstances where it is better to let groups govern themselves, while operating within a broad legal framework, rather than trying to conquer and unify and merge them all into a single homogeneous blob against their will.

The Old Republic clearly worked quite well for a thousand years or more, as a loosely structured body, with a limited military. Relying mainly on the Jedi to keep the peace worked; having a large Republic fleet that dominated the galaxy by force was unnecessary.

And the system did not start to collapse until corruption and conspiracies arose within the government itself, catalyzed in large part by the Sith. And once corruption and conspiracies are major factors, being more centralized doesn't help.
Also, at least in the old EU which fleshed things out differently, the Old Republic era was not quite so peaceful as all that. For one example...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stark_Hyperspace_War
And yet, the "worst form of unity" is exactly what the Star Wars Galaxy had under Palpatine. Whether or not the New Republic can do a better job of governing the galaxy is an open question.
Citation needed. Experience on Earth tends to suggest that this effect is weak or nonexistent. I could equally well argue that larger nations tend to be less cohesive due to the sprawl of territory and interest groups they include, resulting in increased internal competition that more than offsets external competition.

If we look at specific examples the evidence is unclear. The US is economically more productive than a random sample of Third World nations, but politically divided Europe is by any reasonable standard at least as productive as politically unified India or China- and has been for centuries.
For 1,000 years from the fall of the western Roman Empire china was quite decisively in the lead as far as human civilizations went...
Debatable if you don't include metrics that are all about size. And you shouldn't focus on size, because it leads to tautology: "bigger is better because it enables more bigness." Was China in some sense objectively more cultured and enlightened than India or the lands of Islam during this era? I don't think you can prove that China was objectively better off than, say, al-Andalus, which was much more disunited during much of the timeframe you cite.
...and it lagged due to issues largely specific to the Qing Dynasty and foreign involvement and then disunity at that collapsed into warlordism . Now that China was on the rise. Rome's fall in the west came with a decline in population, urban centers, literacy (they did not need monks copying a few scant texts in Byzantium or the Caliphates, people with an interest in classical philosophy just bought books from scribes or book merchants which commissioned scribes to make certain books because they might sell it down the line). Germany around 1800 was considered a land of hillbillies and petty princes (which fought some very nasty wars, see 30 Years War) bur emerged as the leading industrial power in 1900, three decades after unification. Or compare Sengoku era Japan to Tokugawa or Meiji period Japan. Or Han China to Warring States period china.
While we're at it, why don't we bring up some example of less tightly centralized societies that flourished culturally and economically? How about Greece during the classical era, or much of the Hellenistic era? What about Renaissance Italy, which was mostly a mass of city-states?

Conversely, attempts to forcibly unify under governments that lack the administrative skills to run large countries tend to be disastrous. The Mongol conquests united Central Asia- but they also did massive damage to it economically, and within a few hundred years the region had decayed back into warlordism.

Look, THIS IS NOT SIMPLE. Please. That is literally all I am trying to get across here. Assuming by default that a unified government will be better than a disunited one, in the absence of evidence or reasons to expect the unified government to be good at its job, is quite simply unjustified by the evidence.
As for internal competition, unless you are talking about some loose feudal affair such as Westeros where every fief has it's knights and levy internal conflicts don't reach the level of destructive wars. Competition to a society is like combustion, properly contained and channeled it can be beneficial (companies trying to produce better goods) though left unchecked it is be destructive.
Until you get a civil war over who holds the throne? The Roman Empire was pretty damn centralized in 200 AD; that didn't stop it from experiencing the Crisis of the Third Century and starting to fall apart. Again, this is not simple.

There are reasons why many generations of historians have supposed that history tends towards cyclic phases of centralization and decentralization of power, and that the decentralized phases are not always the dark ages of the cycle. Those hypotheses may not be true on balance, but they are not without support.
There are certain highly specific situations where a single larger government reliably performs better, such as during an ongoing war with a foreign power. But that doesn't necessarily translate into any broad argument that can prove larger governments superior for reasons of pure theory.
Many businesses in Britain have taken a hit from Bexit. Also the Balkans have been a divided mess with a lot of armed conflicts between various armed groups.

But as to my initial point, localist nationalism is often born out of fear of the external other and fueled by it. If the state policy is to raise rabbles up with that sort of rhetoric (and if they see a Jedi Order as one of those external others) you are going to see force users fall to the Dark Side and at least some ruling groups seeing them as a tool to be exploited and cultivated.

Zor
Okay, see, that is a valid initial point specific to Star Wars, especially in a probable post-Imperial system where the Jedi Order is effectively nonexistent or erduced to a single man and his disciples.
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

Post by Ave Dominus Nox »

It also serves to mention that for most of its history the Republic Fleet was dedicated to external threats not internal ones. While I don't have a doubt the Fleet would be used to chase down pirates and whatnot the Republic did have a customs and police to deal with internal law enforcement issues. It wasn't until after those external threats, namely the Sith, were... dealt with that the Republic demilitarized under the Ruusan Reformation.
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

Post by The Romulan Republic »

NecronLord wrote: 2018-01-12 03:56pm
Zor wrote: 2018-01-12 12:38am And yet it still maintained comparative peace. Up until the end of said period large scale warfleets were not a thing. There were fights with pirates, but not clashes of battleships.

Frankly it could be argued that the Republic fell because it was too loose of an organization allowing too much autonomy to it's worlds while lacking the tools to prevent them from rebelling. If the Republic had a modest standing army and navy it could have prevented the Trade Federation and similar from building up a military, thus averting the Clone Wars. Palpatine came to power because of a response which (thanks to his manipulations) overshot the mark from "reasonably strong democratic central government able to effectively serve its people" to "militaristic totalitarian dictatorship".
I always take umbridge at this, the problem the Republic had wasn't really external, it wasn't something that could be solved with warships and bombs. I think it was evocatively said in the original Star Wars novel (and the first exposure I had to the setting as a kid, so perhaps I'm biased)
Alan Dean Fos- "George Lucas" wrote: Prologue

ANOTHER galaxy, another time.

The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that... it was the Republic.

Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.

So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.
The danger wasn't something you could shoot; by the time shooting was a productive action it was already too late. The Jedi were fine as peacekeepers, we see that in TPM, Daultay Dofine's reaction is very telling. "This scheme of yours has failed Lord Sidious, we dare not go against the Jedi." Only the sith galvanize the Trade Federation into action, and only the presence of Darth Maul and Sidious in the senate stops the situation being resolved.

If the senate had the will to send the Jedi to resolve the Naboo crisis in force, the situation would have been resolved quickly. The control ship famously lost to one untrained prodigy, imagine if Mace Windu had been attacking it with a flight of Jedi fighters.
There is certainly some truth to this, but I wonder if the Jedi were somewhat of a paper tiger. Oh, they were well-nigh unbeatable in a one-on-one basis, or small-scale skirmishes (except by other Force users, obviously), but there weren't enough of them to be everywhere in the galaxy at once. They could never have won a full-scale industrial war on their own, even if they'd had the training and mindset to do so. Mace Windu says as much in Attack of the Clones. Note also how Yoda wants to keep a lid on the Jedi's weakness due to the power of the Dark Side, because their enemies will multiply if it becomes known.

The Jedi, as the Prequels repeatedly show, relied on an aura of invincibility. In that sense, Geonosis was likely a crushing loss, because it showed that Jedi could be killed en mass by conventional troops.
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Simon_Jester
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Re: A nightmare scenario: a fragmented Star Wars galaxy

Post by Simon_Jester »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-01-18 08:05pmThere is certainly some truth to this, but I wonder if the Jedi were somewhat of a paper tiger. Oh, they were well-nigh unbeatable in a one-on-one basis, or small-scale skirmishes (except by other Force users, obviously), but there weren't enough of them to be everywhere in the galaxy at once. They could never have won a full-scale industrial war on their own, even if they'd had the training and mindset to do so.
The thing is, having the Force meant they could pretty reliably steer for the biggest and most relevant crises, and intervene at the right moments in ways that leveraged their powers while making their numbers less than relevant. They didn't need to be able to crush a war-fleet if they could land a half dozen nigh-invincible commandos on top of the pleasure palace of the warlord who controlled that fleet, and carve through his personal guard like a bandsaw through butter.
Mace Windu says as much in Attack of the Clones. Note also how Yoda wants to keep a lid on the Jedi's weakness due to the power of the Dark Side, because their enemies will multiply if it becomes known.

The Jedi, as the Prequels repeatedly show, relied on an aura of invincibility. In that sense, Geonosis was likely a crushing loss, because it showed that Jedi could be killed en mass by conventional troops.
Which is a good example of why the Jedi were so wary of how to proceed with their ability to use the Force to predict future courses of action diminished- because they wound up landing a whole heap of Jedi into a big trap.
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