Corruption of course didn't go away with the fall of the Old Republic; if anything, it probably increased during the Galactic Empire and even with the New Republic (which is why the Yuuzhang Vong got so close to conquering the galaxy). However, it eventually paved the way for the Galactic Alliance.

Also, even without Vader Sidious likely would have succeeded; in fact, the Rebel Alliance might not have overthrown Sidious if Vader/Anakin hadn't been a factor.

Also, the Yuuzhang Vong were stopped by the New Republic/Galactic Alliance and its allies, but the Old Republic with its nonexistant army (before the GAR, which was funded by Sidious) would have gotten stomped.

Just had to get a post in before the ban hammer hit eh? It was a pretty stupid one anyway. The vong wont be unopposed if they invade the OR. Entities like the Trade Federation and Banking Clan will build droid armies and its not like there are places like Kamino that can't put out a military and equipment in a relatively short time. Clones would take longer but I imagine that droid armies built en masse fare just fine.

^ This "Old Republic = Military Buffoons" is something that's been floating around for a while now. I don't know how it got started, but the simplest counterpoint is this: If the Old Republic was so incompetent, where did the operational know how needed to beat the Separatists come from ?

The problem is that the Palpatinists didn't fix the galaxy; they precipitated an ongoing Two Hundred Years' War (factoring in the deep-field sequel EU material), with no end in sight. Is the galaxy really better off for being ruled by many splinter factions, many of them outright tyrannies, rather than one (admittedly creaky and slow-responding) republic?

MANDALORIANS.

There was nothing wrong with the Republican Navy, though it had been spending the bulk of its time chasing pirates, smugglers, etc., for who knows how long. That means lots of very valuable experience in small scale battles, pursuits and quite possibly in maintaining their aging ships at the tail end of an under-funded, corrupt and inadequate logistical train. It is also quite probable that a high proportion of their personnel were of comparatively low quality, since we have no evidence that the Republic saw them as valuable enough to waste incentives and recognition on. Personally, I would suggest that the veterans of the RN were worthy of considerably more respect than anyone seems ready to give them.

Where your strange brain bug may have originated was in the fact that the Republic had long since demobilised their army. With the exceptions of the Chancellors Guard on Coruscent, and the many private and/or corporate armies that seemed to be running around, all we know of are the various branchs of the Judicial Forces. Cops, basically, and far more used to operating in very small numbers than the kinds of massed military forces required for the Clone Wars.

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"Know Enough To Be Afraid" - Transylvania Polygnostic

The Royal Navy has not survived for so long by setting an example for others,
but by making an example of those others...

Lots of stories do this route. A hundred years war is better than a thousand years of dark ages, if order and peace lay on the other side of that war. Of course, to milk the cow, that war has to continue in EU for readers to enjoy the conflict.

Edit: quote tags were screwed up so I just fixed it by erasing the quoted part of my earlier post.

I fail to see how there would have been a thousand years of darkness though if Palpatine had been stopped.

^ I suspect the answer may be more Skywalker-centric than actually sensible

Yeah, this is an element of the OT that now falls into place because of the PT. It's not just overthrowing the Empire and killing the Sith, it's whether the next generation will overcome the mistakes of their parents and predecessors.

Luke is, of course, the central example. As the OT progresses, we see that his experiences mirror Anakin's in the PT and that he shares his father's flaws: a temper, impatience, and excitement. This makes the climactic duel in the Emperor's throne room all the more critical because it's not just beating Vader or touching the Dark Side. Luke is on the verge of making the same decision that Anakin did 23 years earlier, but pulls back and triumphs.

It extends to the other characters, too. Leia follows in Padme's steps as a planetary leader and starts But her relationship with Han is built off of mutual attraction and respect, not passion as with Anakin and Padme.

Han also in many ways is a mirror for Anakin's arrogance and cockiness. While those elements remain, he matures throughout the OT and learns to care about those closest to him rather than himself.

Even Boba is subject to this. He alone guesses what happened to the Falcon in TESB, having learned from his father's failure to kill Obi-Wan in orbit of Geonosis. However, he fails to learn form Jango's mistakes at the arena -- namely wearing a jet-pack and leaping into the fray against Jedi -- and it leads to his death (within the context of the movies, anyway).

---

"A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification; he can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, you become something else entirely... a legend, Mr. Wayne."

-- Ducard, Batman Begins --

Isn't this overdoing it a bit ? I mean - every character doesn't have to undergo this change.

To Boba's credit, the Jedi were thought by all to be extinct. So if he saw someone wield a lightsaber, I wouldn't be surprised if he assumed that at best the person was not sufficiently trained.

Which Luke clearly was. Remember, Boba had seen Jedi in action in the areana and no doubt during the Clone Wars, so he would have had some appreciation of what a properly trained Jedi was capable of. Seeing Luke in action on the skiff, I doubt he would have been overly impressed. Plus, he did get a chance to shoot Luke in the back... only Solo put paid to that. Boba KNOWS Solo, they had a history, so what I didn't get was Fett not taking him out first.

---

"Know Enough To Be Afraid" - Transylvania Polygnostic

The Royal Navy has not survived for so long by setting an example for others,
but by making an example of those others...

True. That's just my present interpretation of Boba's actions within the OT beyond being 'The Bounty Hunter'.

---

"A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification; he can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, you become something else entirely... a legend, Mr. Wayne."

-- Ducard, Batman Begins --

This is late, but I wanted to respond myself.



I think everyone agrees on this.

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"They're not triangular, but they are more or less blade-shaped"- Thrawn McEwok on the shape of Bakura destroyers

"Lovely. It's known as impugning character regarding statement of professional qualifications' in the legal world"- Karen Traviss, crying libel because I said that no soldier she interviewed would claim that he can take on billion-to-one odds

"I've already laid out rules for this thread that we're not going to make these evidential demands"- Dark Moose on supporting your claims

That is your interpetation of the prophecy. Where does it say anywhere that your interpretation is correct? The fact is we have insuffcient knowledge to make any sort of definitive statements.



Old Obi Wan spent a long time with Luke as a Force Ghost after the fact.



Anakin and Obi Wan are consistently depicted as best friends and Anakin holds him in the highest of regard only until he takes Windu's hand and aids Palpatine.

Obi Wan loses his lightsaber because he had the shit kicked out of him, Anakin was being reckless. Either way it doesn't negate the very strong point OBi Wan makes about losing the weapon.



Do you think Yoda was really that detached given the pain he felt as Order 66 kicked in and the obvious grief he was going through as he and Obi Wan went to stop the beacon at the Jedi Temple? After 900 years of watching people come and go out of his life the fact is that Yoda had become used to the idea that people would die and rather than let himself be racked with sadness each time he chose to deal with it in a less emotional way. This is especially important considering the tangible effect that those emotions have on a Jedi Knight that can push them into the influence of the Dark Side.



Their ways still consisted of upholding some rather benevolent ideals, which is what i've been trying to defend.



You said that Vader is "just an abusive father". I disagree, I believe what Obi Wan said when he referred to Vader as having killed Anakin Skywalker as being "true in a sense." Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker were two warring personalities with Vader having repressed Anakin for so long. The love of the father was what allowed Anakin to be redeemed in the end.



I don't. While you and I seem to be in agreement on this there are people who wuite literally believe as evidenced on this board that the Jedi Order had lost any and all sense of compassion and were so arrogant that they all deserved to be murdered by the clones who they had been fighting alongside for years so that the Empire could come to power (which leads back to the Imperial Apologist debate in some instances).

Anakin had a virgin birth. TPM made him into a clear Christ figure and a destined savior. Unlike Jesus, he gave in to the devil's temptation.



While I've often argued that Anakin and Obi-Wan are friends and that they depict a realistic father/son relationship (against the people who don't understand nuance and say they were "never" friends just because they bickered), the movies are quite clear that their relationship is strained at times. Anakin comes out and says it.



Of course he wasn't completely devoid of emotion or attachment, especially during something as terrible as Order 66. But come on, couldn't Yoda have asked Anakin a bit more about his dreams? Talk to him some more?



The Jedi are good guys. Only an idiot or someone who doesn't get SW would argue otherwise. All I'm saying is that they're flawed good guys.

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"They're not triangular, but they are more or less blade-shaped"- Thrawn McEwok on the shape of Bakura destroyers

"Lovely. It's known as impugning character regarding statement of professional qualifications' in the legal world"- Karen Traviss, crying libel because I said that no soldier she interviewed would claim that he can take on billion-to-one odds

"I've already laid out rules for this thread that we're not going to make these evidential demands"- Dark Moose on supporting your claims

This is the super-important part. So far as I'm aware, this is the one instance in entire Star Wars timeline where the Force itself takes direct action and it is to create a being to destroy the Banite Sith Order. The Old Jedi Order, flawed and imperfect as they are, remain the "good guys". That is what makes the fall of Anakin to the Dark Side and the events of Order 66 a tragedy in the epic, literary sense instead of a case of institutional hubris.

---

"If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to jail. Evidently, if you launder nearly $1 billion for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night." Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)


The Noldor are the Wise, and the Golden, the Valiant, the Sword-elves, the Elves of the Earth, the Foes of Melkor, the Skilled of Hand, the Jewel-wrights, the Companions of Men, the Followers of Finwë.

I thought Darth Plagueis created Anakin? I thought hinting at that was one of the points of the "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis" bit in ROTS, the other being to dangle a carrot in Anakin's face.
So more an anti-christ figure, really.

---

人之初
性本善
性相近
習相遠

People at birth are naturally good. Their natures are similar, but their habits make them different from each other.
-Sanzi Jing (Three Character Classic)

That says absolutely nothing in terms of what I asked. We have never seen this prophecy stated anywhere and what little wee have gleaned can be interpreted so many ways that for anyone to make a definitive statement is laughable.



I would argue that once Anakin becomes a Jedi Knight the dynamic changes, with Obi Wan giving him orders for the most part because he is on the Jedi Council. Once Anakin gets knighted you see a lot less of the teacher/student dynamic and more of the "ultimate team" combination that the RoTS novelization depicts in the early pages.



This post is incredibly well timed, I will elbaorate on that after my response.

Yoda would have asked more questions if he had been aware of the circumstances. I'm sure he has been approached by hundreds of Jedi over the course of his life in similar situations, and that none of those Jedi were ever refrring to their spouse. Anakin didn't come out and say "But Master Yoda, my child could die!" or anything at all that would indicate to Yoda that this was something more than concern for comrades in battle during war. If Anakin felt that the advice was insufficient he should have pressed harder. Instead he chose selfishly to keep his secret and get angry with Yoda (as depicted in the novelization) which did nothing other than push him ever closer to the Dark Side.

Now as for why the post was well timed. Yoda gives seemingly contradictory advice to Ashoka Tano is the latest Clone Wars episode and i'm still figuring out what the hell to think about it.




It's those idiots and people who don't get Star Wars i'm primarily arguing with. As demonstrated in this very thread there are people who think that the Jedi deserved to be murdered to the last man for their lack of compassion and arrogance. Which is so far off base that it begs the question if they have ever even watched Star Wars.

Secondary is the notion that Yoda's advice to Anakin and that their intentions were anything but wrong. The Jedi's flaw not in their ways or traditions, but that they were completely blind to the machinations which brought them down because the Sith used their time in the Shadows wisely.

(emphasis added)

Thing is, what is a hundred years of war if not a dark age? And what guarantee can there be that the squabbles and vendettas created by the first century of warfare won't lead to another, and another? Civil wars have begun more dark ages than they've ended.

A successful Palpatine who had actually succeeded in uniting the galaxy, suppressing threats to galactic civilization, and creating a society where the average citizen could live relatively free from want or fear, could appeal to the need to "fix" the galaxy as justification for his actions.

A failed Palpatine (or his defenders) cannot. Because he didn't fix the galaxy; he just broke it more forcefully than it would have broken on its own. The Republic's "corrupt and broken system" was far more peaceable than the chaos that replaced it. And given the kind of dislocation and suffering that normally accompany major wars (like the ones that wracked the galaxy before, during, and after the Imperial era, entirely as a direct result of Palpatine's machinations), it seems almost certain that more people are suffering than would be otherwise.

So if the Dark Lord of the Sith ever intended to fix the galaxy (as opposed to just lying and appealing to the need), he failed utterly, due almost entirely to his own cruelty and evil.

Justifying Palpatine by the need to fix the Republic is like arguing the need to rebreak a bone so that it will set properly... which would work, except that what Palpatine actually did was to take a sledgehammer to the thing and pound it into a mass of compound fractures. He made repairing the situation and restoring peace and order to the galaxy harder, not easier.

I would go a step further - Palpatine got outright lucky at times. Unless we now want to suggest he somehow "ensured" Anakin and Qui Gonn would meet on Tatooine - which begs the question: he could do that but not figure out that Yoda survived?

Luck had nothing to do with it, one of the skills Palpatine used to maximum effectiveness was his ability to adapt his master plans to any situation, and to incorporate new elements into his plans. A great example being the clone army. It could very well be possible that Palpatine's plans for Anakin were altered or even completely changed once Qui Gon found him. It is possible that Palpatine had no idea of Anakin's existence/significance and once he was discovered Anakin was immediately targeted.




He knew Yoda survived, he just couldn't find him and it didn't bother him enough to start a galaxy wide manhunt specifically to target him.

I think Lucas explicitly came out and said Plagueis created Anakin in one of the early drafts of ROTS.

As it is, it works either way. If Plagueis didn't create Anakin, then the story still gets Anakin's complete attention. If Plagueis did create Anakin, it is dramatic irony that the insturment of the Sith's triumph would become the instrument of their destruction.

---

"A vigilante is just a man lost in the scramble for his own gratification; he can be destroyed, or locked up. But if you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, you become something else entirely... a legend, Mr. Wayne."

-- Ducard, Batman Begins --

^ According to canon then, did Palpatine "know" about the existence of Anakin from Plagueis?
Was finding Anakin part of his plan from the beginning?