General star wars talk/discussion/complaining

[Zardnaar]

Of course, the Republic (and the NR, presumably) is explicitly not actually a galactic government. It’s a membership organisation of legal agreements across member systems, much like the United Nations.

This means that it finds it rather hard to enforce things if member states don’t want to cooperate and honestly it’s a lot to expect anything from it, much of the time. But it’s democratic by definition (at least at the system level - the systems don’t have to be democratic and many aren’t) and it doesn’t have to be incompetent.

Indeed, the fact that somebody (Mon Mothma, mostly) stitched it back together out of whole cloth is impressive and implies a high level or organisational and diplomatic competence. What it should be is very short on resources and jurisdiction (I would assume that most systems are not in fact members at this early stage), but it shouldn’t be incompetent.

Maybe Weimer is the inspiration. Or some of the post Soviet collapse states.

Its somewhat realistic at least. Doesn't make it interesting though.

 

[jian]

Maybe Weimer is the inspiration. Or some of the post Soviet collapse states.

Its somewhat realistic at least. Doesn't make it interesting though.

While a good IRL inspiration might be 20th century China, I don’t think anyone wants to see GFFA Mao vs CKS play out on screen. Also, is Taiwan the First Order in this scenario? Ugh.

We don’t really have a good IRL comparison, I think, or at least one that is anywhere near the same scale or isn’t highly problematic.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Of course, the Republic (and the NR, presumably) is explicitly not actually a galactic government. It’s a membership organisation of legal agreements across member systems, much like the United Nations.

The UN does not raise taxes, or attack nations that want to leave. The Republic is a government.

 

[MarkB]

Of course, the Republic (and the NR, presumably) is explicitly not actually a galactic government. It’s a membership organisation of legal agreements across member systems, much like the United Nations.

That is in absolutely no way how it is portrayed on screen. It is shown as being a centralised government from which there is no simple means of walking away. If there were, the Separatist movement wouldn't have needed to exist - planets and even entire sectors that wished to leave the Republic would simply have done so.

 

[jian]

The UN does not raise taxes, or attack nations that want to leave. The Republic is a government.

Fair enough - it’s truer to say that the Republic is much more like a highly federated collective, more like the EU than the UN, but with a “you can’t leave without paying your back taxes” clause in the membership agreement.

It’s clear that most systems in the Republic are highly autonomous, making and enforcing their own laws, and most Republic laws apply to international trade. The Republic has little in the way of a functional military or even diplomatic corps, that’s why they end up leaning hard on the Jedi Order. If you’re already in that place it’s clearly rather unwise to try and enforce anything militarily, but there we are.

(The prequel films and the Clone Wars series show that the pre-clone military was extremely thin. This doesn’t explain where all the materiel - ships and bases and tanks and such - came from. Having a sudden influx of loyal trained clone soldiers is nice but where did all those destroyers come from? Did Sifo-Dyas also have a very full Amazon basket at Kuat Drive Yards?)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Fair enough - it’s truer to say that the Republic is much more like a highly federated collective, more like the EU than the UN, but with a “you can’t leave without paying your back taxes” clause in the membership agreement.

The Republic is quite clearly and deliberately modelled on the USA. No one contemplated invading the UK when it left the EU.

 

[jian]

The Republic is quite clearly and deliberately modelled on the USA. No one contemplated invading the UK when it left the EU.

It would be equally true to say that it’s based on Ancient Rome or China. Both of which have been both more or less centralised, would or would not have invaded bits that wanted to leave, etc. Honestly it’s mostly poorly thought out and based on vibes, because Lucas.

The only way it resembles the US (apart from having a senate and everyone speaking English) is because Lucas wanted to make a heavy handed reference to current US politics in the prequel trilogy, but it really doesn’t fit.

 

[Zardnaar]

While a good IRL inspiration might be 20th century China, I don’t think anyone wants to see GFFA Mao vs CKS play out on screen. Also, is Taiwan the First Order in this scenario? Ugh.

We don’t really have a good IRL comparison, I think, or at least one that is anywhere near the same scale or isn’t highly problematic.

Iirc the inspiration was Nazis fleeing to South America/4th Reich.

Nit a vad idea by itself but the ST just essentially rehashed the OT and FO was essentially tge epite including super weapons, bigger SSDs, bigger Star Destroyers etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

Fair enough - it’s truer to say that the Republic is much more like a highly federated collective, more like the EU than the UN, but with a “you can’t leave without paying your back taxes” clause in the membership agreement.

It’s clear that most systems in the Republic are highly autonomous, making and enforcing their own laws, and most Republic laws apply to international trade. The Republic has little in the way of a functional military or even diplomatic corps, that’s why they end up leaning hard on the Jedi Order. If you’re already in that place it’s clearly rather unwise to try and enforce anything militarily, but there we are.

(The prequel films and the Clone Wars series show that the pre-clone military was extremely thin. This doesn’t explain where all the materiel - ships and bases and tanks and such - came from. Having a sudden influx of loyal trained clone soldiers is nice but where did all those destroyers come from? Did Sifo-Dyas also have very full Amazon basket at Kuat Drive Yards?)

Basically they set up a KDY subsidiary at Rothana oirc and built the material. With paid for it.

 

[Belen]

The rebellion wasn’t democratic, and frankly, compared to say the French Revolution, the New Republic did rather well.

Galactic-wide government was a fundamentally bad idea.

Agreed. The galaxy would have been better served by regional polities.