The "new republic collapsed in 2 days" really ruined ST setting

[thwhtGuardian]

But it’s not just the OT that plays up the evil of the Empire and makes that a point of clarity - it’s also literally ALL their expanded universe stuff in the Disney era.

That nihilism doesn’t exist whenever you give one of these writers a chance to write a story with Tarkin (because old school Star Wars fans always have a hard on for Tarkin) committing atrocities on almost everyone around him, or a chance to write something with Operation: Cinder, or anything else that’s set in the OT, where they want to have Saturday Morning Cartoon levels of evil, but played seriously.

They fundamentally go out of their way to make the Empire an inescapably more terrible government than the Republic whenever they’re writing with the real Empire. And even the most cynical depiction of the Old Republic makes it clear that it’s not the Empire - largely because that nihilism you note ceases to exist once they want to emphasize the Empire being evil.

They only get “nihilistic” when they get lazy - and the vaguely anti-democratic messaging isn’t intentional, it’s just that laziness expressing itself right up until they bring back some imperial villain and have him start torturing puppies on screen or something.

The fact they’re lazy about the New Republic *is the problem* - because it’s lazy and contributed to the lackluster writing that plagued much of the ST, and seems to be again being used to avoid spending more time writing smart villains on Disney+.

Hell, when they write good villains, it ends up with stuff like Mayfeld being retraumatized by his old commanding officer and shooting him for it, because of how obviously evil the Empire was compared to everything else - and Mayfeld’s supposed to be the arch-cynic, beyond the casual Galactic citizen. Might be a sign of where that episodes writer didn’t fall back on laziness as Filoni and Favreau did in The Mandalorian Season 4 and Ahsoka.

Weirdly, Legacy wound up having the Galactic Alliance Remnant become a major player and implied Victor of the war organically instead of the planned Fel Empire being the main heroic faction - the writers seemed to just find it more fun to right straight up heroes and the morally grey Fel Empire wasn’t good enough to fit the main heroic mold of the story, and thus they had the Emperor go bad.

They defiantly seemed to become enamored with making the government the baddies after ROTS, though, so you’re right about that - and it’s a sentiment that likely survived the jump from Lucas to Disney.

It isn't lazy though...it's just a take you don't enjoy, which is fine.

And the Republic was as bad, they were literally willing to let the Trade Federation commit atrocities on Naboo. There wasn't a single other system that stood up and said, "Hey, we'll help you take back your planet." and even the Jedi counsel didn't help, which tells you that kind of behavior was normalized.

And it's not anti-democratic messaging, it's anti-conservative messaging. It's painting the graft, cronyism, rich old boys club and special interest influence in a negative light; it was no accident that the bad guys were the Trade Federation, Banking Clan and Techno Union Clan. I guess he could have been less subtle and said the villains were Big Pharmacy, the Religious Right and the Tobacco Gun Lobbies.

[Frontier]

The Republic in the High Republic was pretty functional and competent (outside maybe a duplicitous Senator or two).

[Slowpokeking]

It really felt like it's being played as if to a lot of people, not just the ultra rich, didn't really see that big a difference in how they were governed. That's the way the Empire rose with applause at the end of the PT, and even during the OT the Rebels are a small rag tag force without any real support, and in the recent Marvel comics we've heard how Storm Troopers actually liked joining up because it gave them steady a job, opportunity for advancement and a better home than they previously had. And in the Mandalorian we've seen people bemoaning the inadequacies of the New Republic and in Ahsoka we see how there is a vast number of people aiding the Imperial remnants at multiple layers of the government.

Sure, if all you have seen is the OT than it's just Empire bad, Rebels who want to restore the Republic good but ever since the PT came out it's been more nuanced. The Republic wasn't some shining beacon it was very much a hive of scum and villainy where special interests and greed ruled the day. It's why Palpatine could hide in the Senate, it was always a place steeped in hatred, pettiness and greed so the Jedi couldn't tell that there was something more right under their noses, it just felt like business as usual.

And it's because of that development in the PT, that the old Republic wasn't worth restoring, that it seemed obvious that the New Republic would be doomed to fail in the sequels. What they wanted was an ideal that either never existed or hadn't existed in a very long time and without realizing that flaw then they just duplicated it warts and all.

Sure that kind of nihlism makes it feel like the OT heroes fought in vain, but that happens sometimes.

Again, that's because Palpatine's Empire was still building. Especially in the end of PT, he just declared his title change and destroyed the Jedi order, a lot of works were still to be done. Even Hitler didn't start holocaust right after he took the government.

The old republic was corrupted, yet it still wouldn't die in 1 day with capital destroyed. It is saying that the New Republic is 10 times worse than the Empire and the Old Republic.

It isn't lazy though...it's just a take you don't enjoy, which is fine.

And the Republic was as bad, they were literally willing to let the Trade Federation commit atrocities on Naboo. There wasn't a single other system that stood up and said, "Hey, we'll help you take back your planet." and even the Jedi counsel didn't help, which tells you that kind of behavior was normalized.

And it's not anti-democratic messaging, it's anti-conservative messaging. It's painting the graft, cronyism, rich old boys club and special interest influence in a negative light; it was no accident that the bad guys were the Trade Federation, Banking Clan and Techno Union Clan. I guess he could have been less subtle and said the villains were Big Pharmacy, the Religious Right and the Tobacco Gun Lobbies.

And who was controlling the TF to commit it? Palpatine.

The old Republic was bad, and yet it still had many supporters. How is it not lazy to let the New Republic die in 1 day?

[josai21]

My take is honestly that the government from Prequel Trilogy to end of Sequel is the same government. Functionally the same. Palpatine's attempt to shift the republic to an empire is a blip on the screen.

There isn't enough of a massive timeframe between Old Republic/Empire/New Republic for there to be separate identities. This all occurs within one lifetime.

It depends on what type of government/who is in charge might be changing in the Rey Era, but I would posit that the Fall of the Republic is something that spans over all three trilogies.

[Slowpokeking]

My take is honestly that the government from Prequel Trilogy to end of Sequel is the same government. Functionally the same. Palpatine's attempt to shift the republic to an empire is a blip on the screen.

There isn't enough of a massive timeframe between Old Republic/Empire/New Republic for there to be separate identities. This all occurs within one lifetime.

It depends on what type of government/who is in charge might be changing in the Rey Era, but I would posit that the Fall of the Republic is something that spans over all three trilogies.

Both the Old Republic and the Empire don't collapse that easily. Any functional government doesn't work like that.

[ChrisIII]

I think early in the Disney EU they had the concept of revolving capital worlds.

Chandrila (Mon Mothma's homeworld) was the first, then moved to a farming planet when it was attacked in the Aftermath novels/Battle of Jakku. In the Mandalorian timeframe they are using Coruscant again, and by the time of sequels it's Hosnian.

It's kind of unclear what government the resistance would form, in the OT the Rebellion's leadership is largely composed of senators like Leia, Mon Mothma, Bail, the various ones in Rogue One etc. who would presumabely be prepared for a post-Palpatine galaxy.

The resistance still had Leia but she was kind of taking on a more military role and had already been a senator...

[thwhtGuardian]

Again, that's because Palpatine's Empire was still building. Especially in the end of PT, he just declared his title change and destroyed the Jedi order, a lot of works were still to be done. Even Hitler didn't start holocaust right after he took the government.

The old republic was corrupted, yet it still wouldn't die in 1 day with capital destroyed. It is saying that the New Republic is 10 times worse than the Empire and the Old Republic.



And who was controlling the TF to commit it? Palpatine.

The old Republic was bad, and yet it still had many supporters. How is it not lazy to let the New Republic die in 1 day?

Yeah, Palpatine put the Trade Federation up to it...but the entire rest of the Republic then allowed it to happen and offered zero support which tells you that what the Trade Federation did wasn't outside the norm.

And it isn't unrealistic that the New Republic would fold if the seat of power and all it's functionaries died all at once. Just think about it this way, if China nuked DC right this instant and the President and all the Senators and Representatives died in one fell swoop do you really think there would be a United States in the aftermath?

[Slowpokeking]

Yeah, Palpatine put the Trade Federation up to it...but the entire rest of the Republic then allowed it to happen and offered zero support which tells you that what the Trade Federation did wasn't outside the norm.

Nobody is denying that the old republic is corrupted and ineffective, but even Palpatine had to spend decades to transform it into Empire. It still got many supporters. Even Padme had no intention to destroy it, just to form a more effective government.

The New Republic collapsed in 1 day, which means is it functional?

[godisawesome]

It isn't lazy though...it's just a take you don't enjoy, which is fine.

And the Republic was as bad, they were literally willing to let the Trade Federation commit atrocities on Naboo. There wasn't a single other system that stood up and said, "Hey, we'll help you take back your planet." and even the Jedi counsel didn't help, which tells you that kind of behavior was normalized.

And it's not anti-democratic messaging, it's anti-conservative messaging. It's painting the graft, cronyism, rich old boys club and special interest influence in a negative light; it was no accident that the bad guys were the Trade Federation, Banking Clan and Techno Union Clan. I guess he could have been less subtle and said the villains were Big Pharmacy, the Religious Right and the Tobacco Gun Lobbies.

Oh, it's still definitely lazy; no one at LFL doing the New Republic story has ever strained themselves with basic critical thinking or originality on that part, and it still primarily serves to just excuse writing dumb villains.

And it's laughable to pretend the Republic was "as bad", considering the entire point of the Empire is that they're worse in every possible metric, with that being the drama of the PT's ending and the reason why the heroes fight back in the rest of the films. The Old Republic is portrayed as having become corrupt, ineffective, and lazy, it's true... but it becomes so as the outcome of hundreds of years of Sith subversions and sabotage, and is still markedly more moral, high functioning, and free than the Empire that comes after it - as again portrayed by often the same guys who will then ignore that when they want to avoid trying too hard in writing the Republic era.

Dave Filoni is 100% behind "Let me show you how the Empire makes everyone's life hell in Bad Batch, with travel restrictions, casual genocide, and species-wide enslavement!" and then going "...But Favreau and I really don't want to spend much time showing Gideon being smart when we're just going to kill him, or to make Thrawn have to be more than Flashily Competent, so the New Republic is just going to be dumb as hell in a way that no one is going to think is well written, and we just hope its tolerated."

...Though I do want to say this: I agree about the PT having actually rather smartly managed to take shots at other conservative forces while still telling a story where the government in opposition ends up becoming something worse on the same side of the political spectrum. The Trade Federation and other CIS villain basically come off like the East India Company going to war with Great Britain - which while absurd in some respects, would not be in terms of resources (the British EIC actually had a larger army than the British Army.)

...But the point of the PT is still "You know what's still far, far worse worse than a heavily flawed, corrupted and bloated Parliamentary government? A fascist dictatorship that runs on slaves and genocide."

And all the material shows that there really isn't a comparison between the two that can be equivocated, even on the fringes - slavery is still outlawed in the Republic, but a day-to-day part of the Empire's existence, and the Outer Rim exchanged largely being "outlaw territory" for active oppression by the Empire.

Yeah, Palpatine put the Trade Federation up to it...but the entire rest of the Republic then allowed it to happen and offered zero support which tells you that what the Trade Federation did wasn't outside the norm.

And it isn't unrealistic that the New Republic would fold if the seat of power and all it's functionaries died all at once. Just think about it this way, if China nuked DC right this instant and the President and all the Senators and Representatives died in one fell swoop do you really think there would be a United States in the aftermath?

Actually, the point of the Trade Federation's blockade is that it's an egregious and unprecedented escalation in the lore - that the Republic hasn't had to deal with this scale of crisis in decades or even centuries. The story is that the Republic never had to deal with this in past generations, and only the creeping corruption has allowed it to happen - which fuels Palpatine's gambit to a much more modest success when the Jedi turn out to be more capable than he expected, leading to him having to take another decade to re-escalate things.

It's a fairly smart, active, and nuanced story - not at all comparable to "stuff blows up, Galaxy rolls over and doesn't give a damn" like TLJ insists happens and TROS kind of quietly walks back.

As for the America comparison... it's actually a pretty awkward or even bad one for both of us to use, but might be fun to actually debate.

Like, we'd need to start by acknowledging a few incompatible issues with the comparison for both of us. The USA runs considerably more "strapped" both in a military sense and a civilian sense than the New Republic would be, since its supposed to be still formidable but comparatively disarmed for a Galactic power while we're a highly militarized hegemon. At the same time, the USA is also only one country and mostly one piece of land, while the New Republic is an infinitely larger collection of planets separated by vast space. If you made them the same size, the USA would be much harder to disarm, but the New Republic would be far easier to defend.

Still, though...

If you successfully decapacitated the US government and somehow took out the US Navy and Air Force, actually occupying the nation would still be a ludicrously difficult challenge, and local leaders would quickly seek to restore some kind of national government quickly out of self-preservation... and to take revenge. The main problems would be a lack of quality material and fully trained military, and that there'd be no way to guarantee the resulting "provisional government" was the same as the preceding constitutional one... but you'd also still have a massive population base to rebuild the military/slow down the enemy attack with cannon fodder, still massive infrastructure for production and industrial might, and vast territory an enemy would have to either occupy or render uninhabitable, or else.

Don't get me wrong, an opponent would still have major advantages, and if a comparable size as an adversary, should still be seen as a likely winner in time... but only in time, and only if still a massive country in its own right - and still with no guarantee of victory if the populace is sufficiently enraged and determined. Any smaller force would be hard pressed to do more than "raid" a few major cities.

...

Having said all that, a lot of it would come down to what public opinion of the main attacked nation (not just government, but the concept of the whole culture) and of the enemy was. Napoleon managed to effectively replace most of the Spanish national government with his own as headed by his brother through a quick coup de tat, at a time when France was materially mightier and stronger than Spain, and then occupied the country with much of his Grand Army... and Spain wound up being a non-stop "bleeding ulcer" because the betrayal Napoleon committed aggravated existing cultural animosity between the people of Spain and his army in a way that didn't happen in other lands he conquered. In contrast, Alexander the Great could conquer whole kingdoms and empires just by defeating the other tyrants ruling them once or twice, because he genuinely wanted to preserve the systems therein.

...Which takes us back to the argument about how the Empire is perceived versus the Republic. The First Order does not, in *any* canon from the films, have the numbers to occupy the Galaxy - even TLJ, which might want it to, still doesn't have nearly enough ships and soldiers to take over the Galaxy, and they're considerably more modestly sized in the Abrams films. They would need vast systems to support their rule, as even a handful of known Galactic Systems could probably pose an inevitable threat in canon (though of course, Johnson doesn't care about that in TLJ.) It's why it actually makes a lot of sense for TROs to open and just go "The First Order needs a hell of a lot more ships and men, okay?" while TLJ had insisted the war was effectively over.

So the question becomes whether enough governments and people don't care who's in charge of the galaxy... and therein the problem of how LFL has made pretty much ever known on-screen planet and character come face-to-face with the evil of the Empire, making it laughable that they wouldn't care about the return of such fascists - particularly since the First Order announce their assault by murdering another whole Core Planet. In that light, it really doesn't matter how the Galaxy views the Republic - because the empire and First Order are just always going to be so much worse.

Barely competent writing, even just mildly more so than what TLJ has, would see the scenario is set up where only a massive war can occur to actually conquer the Galaxy - and again leads to me pointing out that Abrams walking things back just a tiny bit from TLJ leads to a more intriguing and more "realistic" scenario.

[thwhtGuardian]

None of that is lazy, again it's just a take that you personally don't like which is okay, tastes vary.

As for my "real life" scenario...you're really buying into the myth of the military. If the capitol was nuked and all the heads of state were dead there is no USA in the aftermath. The regular population of our nation would be reeling after the deaths of nearly a million people from the blast and as we saw from how well our healthcare system reacted to the pandemic many more would likely die in the ensuing months due to the nuclear fall out and lack of medical care. There would be absolute chaos of an unprecedented scale and what was left of the nation would roll over and beg for what ever aid was offered even if it was the country that bombed us.

[godisawesome]

None of that is lazy, again it's just a take that you personally don't like which is okay, tastes vary.

As for my "real life" scenario...you're really buying into the myth of the military. If the capitol was nuked and all the heads of state were dead there is no USA in the aftermath. The regular population of our nation would be reeling after the deaths of nearly a million people from the blast and as we saw from how well our healthcare system reacted to the pandemic many more would likely die in the ensuing months due to the nuclear fall out and lack of medical care. There would be absolute chaos of an unprecedented scale and what was left of the nation would roll over and beg for what ever aid was offered even if it was the country that bombed us.

It's not the "military myth" I'm buying into - it's the "modern nation states are ridiculously hard to subdue even with complete supremacy unless you can convince the populace you're better than the alternative" truth. We've seen Afghanistan, Vietnam, and numerous other countries take vicious beatings without a well-established government or a military at all, and prove themselves unconquerable. Guerilla wars and successful insurgencies are fueled by a populace simply unwilling to submit, and have proven that vastly outsized countries can still repel clearly superior sized ones. You just never see that happen to larger nations because the sheer depth of their size and industry would give them too much "cushion" to eventually retaliate smarter.

It's the countries America has failed to defeat that form my conviction this is nonsense, not my belief in any American exceptionalism.

Where the American comparison comes in is as it relates to the sheer size and might of the country so victimized here - which hasn't happened yet in history, but the nearest approximates don't favor your argument either (again, Spain proving itself too powerful for Napoleon to subdue even after successfully replacing the government and co-opting much of the military.)

And let's say we give the First Order a still-very-generous comparison to what even TLJ (the most gung-ho of the material for demanding an easily defeated New Republic) wants to try arguing - something like North Korea (a vastly outsized but somewhat formidable nuclear power) manages to blow up DC, and plant a nuke in our biggest fleet harbor as well. You think the US is rolling over for Kim Jong Un? Even without international intervention one way or another, the USA would still have too much territory, manpower and resources to roll over, especially if the majority of the populace was still unharmed. What North Korea would need would be to have the only nukes in the world, and plenty of them, to use as a threat against resistance, because without them, the USA could have the entire North Korean military dumped on our territory unchallenged, and still not be subdued just thanks to sheer math. Hell they'd probably only have the conventional forces to occupy Texas "quickly."

The China comparison you made earlier is pointless to try applying, because then we're so far off base that the comparison can't be applied - China is a larger country possibly capable of winning a conventional war with the USA, which is clearly not what the First Order is supposed to be (at least if actual thought is applied to it.)

And again, you're ignoring how civilian populations react emotionally, and old grudges they have. We lost our **** at 9/11, but it lead to increased aggression and ruthlessness once we realized the target of our fear and anger was smaller than us. The Generation that fought the Nazis may be mostly gone, but they'd surely cause a vicious emotional response in a majority of the American populace if they did a strike like that.

My assumption is basically that if America could not conquer Afghanistan in spite of being so big and powerful, the out-of-proportional issue would exist for North Korea trying to conquer America.

...And yes, it's still lazy , especially in the ST, and it would appear that the "tastes" it was meant to appeal to remain largely unsatisfied and uninterested - which makes sense; why settle for a pale imitation as TLJ insists on, if you can have the authentic thing elsewhere?

[Slowpokeking]

None of that is lazy, again it's just a take that you personally don't like which is okay, tastes vary.

As for my "real life" scenario...you're really buying into the myth of the military. If the capitol was nuked and all the heads of state were dead there is no USA in the aftermath. The regular population of our nation would be reeling after the deaths of nearly a million people from the blast and as we saw from how well our healthcare system reacted to the pandemic many more would likely die in the ensuing months due to the nuclear fall out and lack of medical care. There would be absolute chaos of an unprecedented scale and what was left of the nation would roll over and beg for what ever aid was offered even if it was the country that bombed us.

Not military, but government will soon reform since all the resource is still there.

State government will quickly form a new one and start the fight asap.

Even ancient empires have survived similar impact.

[krazijoe]

The Republic functioned, but it was still divided...VERY divided and when you remove a head, it creates a vacuum that creates more issues. With different species and planets it's a lot different than a country. Animosity is still there even if fighting for the same goal. Once that goal is met, it's not like everything is forgotten and we are all best buds. When the Emperor lost, all it created was a vacuum and cynicism which takes many, many years to overcome...Or a new enemy...And like here on earth, people begin to follow the charismatic ones, even if they are full of s###...So yeah, I see a fractured republic and factions in that republic and a lot of animosity between planets.

[thwhtGuardian]

We're weren't fighting real nation states in Vietnam or Afghanistan and we never totally obliterated any of their major city centers.

There is no way any nation, whether it be the US, China, Russia or any other developed nation is coming out the other end intact if another nation totally obliterated it's capitol, all it's heads of state and a big chunk of the civilian population.

[Slowpokeking]

We're weren't fighting real nation states in Vietnam or Afghanistan and we never totally obliterated any of their major city centers.

There is no way any nation, whether it be the US, China, Russia or any other developed nation is coming out the other end intact if another nation totally obliterated it's capitol, all it's heads of state and a big chunk of the civilian population.

No, most of them will form a new government quickly and start to fight all over the territory. capital is only the head government, not the full body of it. They still got government in other places, resource and troops. The ppl are backing them, there is no way they are gonna fall in 1 day.

Even ancient nations, whose government control was much weaker than now, don't collapse like that.