Full Series Why did all of the more powerful national entities seem to side with the CIS?

Just about any nation-state in the galaxy that would consist of several worlds or systems under one flag, large enough to be a regional power with their own respectable space forces and capships, seemed to go over to the CIS.

The Republic was left with a load of poorly defended single-planet states, usually with no native space forces to speak of, and totally dependent on Coruscant and the GAR for defense.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying a bit and there were more powerful nation/entities on the Republic side, and we just didn't see them in show - but just going off what we see, it certainly seems that what I described above is the case.

Weird.

 

Cause the CIS were the good guys.

 

Tell that to Lucas, he had almost no idea about how to portray the complexity of a civil war.

 

That's why the Clone army was created. That's also why the Jedi had no time to really ask the uncomfortable questions about where the army came from.

 

We all know the Sith and their CEO cronies conspired to start a war that would pave the way for their dominion over all.

But yeah, I would say the seceding systems that Dooku convinced to leave might have been, but not the corporate ceos that made up the TF, IBC and so forth. And since they funded the Seperatist's war machine and not the non-corporate related star systems of the CIS, they appointed themselves the Seperatist Leaders. The other worlds pretty much were suckered into a war that only had the corporations's interests in mind.

 

Hutt Space was one of the most powerful groups after the CIS and the Republic- and they ended up assisting the Republic.

 

I wonder what was the agenda after the Republic was dissolved. Some infighting between the more idealistic and oligrachistic elements of the seps would had been nice. I am talking about armed conflict.

 

That brings up something that bugged me about the PT... the war. I don't know that I've ever articulated this particular annoyance before, tho I would guess others have. Granted, my perspective is pretty skewed by only knowing much (and even then, not much) about the history of the USA, but here it goes:

...the war in the OT is called the Galactic Civil War. It's about an alliance of rebels fighting against the government in power, the Galactic Empire. Okay. Fine. Nothing much to complain about there, on its own...

...but then we get the Clone Wars. A war between the Republic, and a collection of systems & governments that wish to secede from the Republic to form their own galactic nation. And it gets dubbed "the Clone Wars".

That's where my not-at-all-complete understanding of US history kicks in. It seems to me the situations in the Clone Wars is far more similar to the Civil War of the US, a war between the USA and the nation of seceded states, the CSA. So it seems like THAT should've been called the Galactic Civil War, and then the war in the OT would be the 2nd Galactic Civil War or something.

I guess what that means to me is I really dislike the way the Clone Wars were conceived... I expected something different, not dissatisfaction with the current government leading to secession and a war between two nations. And a better reason for it having "Clone" in the title and "Wars" plural than "Well, our army is made up of clones, so we'll name this war after them" (and I've never seen a memorable justification of the plural 'wars', especially when the GCW, which is understandably on a smaller scale, is only dignified with the singular 'war'; what are the separations between the 'wars' of the Clone Wars? Do the Outer Rim Sieges count as a separate war from the rest of it? etc).

Anyhow, I did enjoy the CIS, kinda... I liked the blue & gray color scheme from the series & toys. I liked their message, which on the surface was valid & attractive. The Republic WAS corrupt. From a certain POV, the CIS WERE the good guys--and probably would have many members that would wind up joining the Rebellion later. Only the CIS was led by a Sith Lord (and the entire situation masterminded by that Sith Lord's master--and his master before him, according to the books) and a bunch of corporate states, and the latter were in it for profit more than ideology, although their ideology--less government restrictions, free trade, etc--would also lead to their acquiring more profits... and war can be good for business, so they'll profit from that, too. And they & Dooku put a corporate spin on everything, to appeal to the masses & keep the movement going.

So that's why many of the powerful entities joined the CIS... more profits, less red tape dealing with the Republic Senate, etc. And for those entities that weren't basically corporate states, they likely just bought all the hype.

 

That's my problem, they are way to eager to throw themselves at the mercy of some megacorps.

 

According to The Essential Guide to Warfare- Bail Organa & Mon Mothma limited the ex-CIS groups joining the Rebellion- making it clear that the Rebellion was in the business of building a New Republic, not Separatism. Some joined, others went their own way.

 

Wars go by multiple names. The U.S. Civil War wasn't known as The Civil War back in its own day. The south called the War the War for Southern Independence, while in the North called it the War for the Union. Even both World Wars are known to have several different names even now (for instance, some still refer to WWI as The Great War). It's not a stretch to say that the conflict could have had different names for different people, but we just don't see that.

 

It's complicated by the schizophrenic way in which the very nature of what the Republic is, is portrayed.

On the one hand, the OR seems to have more power and authority over its members than the UN or NATO do in reality.

On the other hand, it's not exactly as tight as a national gov't like the US federal gov't - the individual systems / system collectives have much more autonomy than US states do. In TPM Naboo is even referred to as a sovereign system.

The portrayal seems a bit schizophrenic. Sometimes the OR is portrayed more like the UN in space, other times it's portrayed more like the United States of Galaxy.

So is the OR a nation, or a union of nations? Are the member worlds nations, or sub-national states? It seems to vary from portrayal to portrayal, movie to movie, book to book, game to game... writer to writer.

 

Funny enough, I think Lucas recognized the limitations of his storyline viz a viz the complexity of civil war; hence the references in the ROTS text crawl about "heroes on both sides" and that "evil is everywhere."

Almost like he was saying to the audience, "for simplicity's sake, droids = bad & clones = good, but not really...."

 

Sort of tangential to the topic, but given that the more powerful entities did go to the CIS' side, I never quite understood why Palpatine would insist on staying aligned with the Republic. Why recruit Count Dooku to be the charismatic leader to split the Republic in two? After the corruption of TPM and the attack on Naboo, why didn't Palpatine himself fill that role? All the strong entities then willingly flock to Palpatine's side and he can legitimately win a war against the Republic, notably because the Republic would not have an army.

Instead he recruits Dooku, has Dooku divide the Republic, gives Dooku a huge army by pushing the likes of Gunray to the CIS' cause. Then he makes use of a Clone Army to fight a mock war against this straw man enemy to solidify his position as a tyrant by being given emergency powers.

Seems like a very roundabout way of getting the same thing.

As to the actual topic, I think the answer is that many of the entities were following the money and power. Seemed like the Outer Rim worlds felt neglected and were impacted greater by the inefficient bureaucracy and thus has reason to turn to Dooku. Meanwhile the powerful commerce guilds went to the CIS for promises of greater authority in government. And when the major corporate giants all jumped sides, some others may have jumped sides following the wealth while others may have simply jumped sides because they felt the Republic was doomed and wanted to be on the winning side. I don't think there's necessarily any single reason.

 

I imagine he didn't go that route because he'd be seen as the aggressor in that scenario, when what he wants to be seen as is the benevolent, peace-loving leader who was "forced" into violent action against his wishes. Without getting into specific real world examples (pick one, there's a ton of them), you'll find that people don't like being conquered, regardless of their prior circumstances. Sure, whatever government they had was awful and they hated it... but it was theirs. These guys that just waltzed in and started running the place? They're outsiders. Their first impression was marching across the border with weapons. What makes them any more trustworthy than the fools they kicked out?

You get what I'm trying to say?

 

If this is like the Mongols invading China and establishing the Yuan dynasty, then yes, it's like they are outsiders and will always be regarded as outsiders. The CIS was not an outside entity though, it was part of the Republic that split away because the Republic was corrupt. Palpatine would be alienating a large chunk of the galaxy either way. He either stays ruler of the Republic and alienates the Separatists that he defeats who began in the Republic and end back up under Palpatine's rule in the Empire. Or if he filled Dooku's role, he would have alienated the loyalists, but history could just have easily have remembered the loyalists as corrupt officials oppressing the sovereign rights of planets.

The Separatists were a domestic entity. It's like having communists overthrow the Russian aristocracy or the United States breaking away from England. Being a loyalist in either situation generally isn't viewed favorably. Instead things get viewed in hindsight as these powers triumphing over injustice which is what could have easily have happened had Palpatine backed the CIS (or outright joined it) and won over the Republic.

 

History is dictated by the victor. Yes, in those successful revolutions, the loyalists have been painted in a poor light, as hangers-on of a dying system... but look at all the failed rebellions throughout history. The rebels are, by the same methods, made out to be trouble-makers, disturbers of the peace, and probably perverts (because why not?).

 

Palpatine was controlling both sides, so I don't know how much chance there realistically would have been a failed Separatist movement had he decided to back them instead. The only reason the Republic even had an army was because Dooku goes and hires Jango to be a template for a clone army raised outside the borders of the Republic.

It's not elaborated on in AOTC itself, but I think there was tiein EU it which it was shown that when legislature for a Republic army was up for a vote in the senate - but before the discovery of the Clone Army by Obi-Wan - there was a lot of squabbling in the senate over where that manpower would come from and how would the government afford it. When Sifo-Dyas/Sidious/Dooku (I think TCW will put its own spin on it with the "bonus material") ordered the Clone Army, they apparently did so with secret wealth (I think some have said Darth Plagueis' fortune) and not tax dollars or anything that would raise suspicion in government. TCW also shows though that when the Republic picks up the bill, it can't afford a prolonged war without coming close to bankruptcy.

If Palpatine wanted to look like an innocent victim/hero, I would think he could do that easily from the CIS side of things too. Become the leader of the CIS following the events of TPM, have a massive army (but do not use it). The Republic would then start arming itself leading to senate conflict and draining the Republic treasury leading to more disgruntled systems that may then voluntarily jump sides to join the CIS. Instead of raising a Clone Army to obey Order 66 and betraying the Jedi, the Jedi would remain legitimate targets as combatants for an enemy state that could be killed without having to go through the trouble of turning popular opinion against them.

Everything works out for Palpatine in the films, but it just seems more straight forward and advantageous had Palpatine kept his options open to jump sides to whichever side was stronger, rather than setting himself up as the underdog and tricking the galaxy. Had he joined the CIS there would be far less tricking and secrets involved, which would make things less risky to Palpatine.

 

The risk comes from the Jedi... they are many, he is one (well, two, with his apprentice). A less-risky, direct bid for power via leading the CIS himself might also clue in the Jedi to what was going on--but mostly, in that role, even if the Jedi are left over as enemy combatants, there's no quick & efficient means of breaking their power. The Sith wanted to destroy the Jedi, to shame them, break them. That's why he had the whole clone army happen, with the executive order to kill Jedi on sight. A trap, to lull the Jedi into a false sense of security even in a time of war, and the no-doubt delicious revenge of feeling thousands of Jedi die in rapid succession via the Force. That way, what few Jedi were left would still be enemies of the state but also may have felt the deaths of their comrades and felt the betrayal of the galaxy--he would have successfully broken them, destroying almost all of their hope. They would no longer have a central base for their power, an established order to turn to... they'd be scattered & alone. No longer any kind of serious threat.

A single, random Jedi is no threat to the Sith... and with a fiercely loyal army at his back, loyal subjects, and popular opinion on his side, Palpatine wouldn't even have to worry much about a small group of Jedi. Very few--and very SPECIFIC--Jedi were any kind of threat to Palpatine & Vader.

 

Aren't the CIS very rich and consist of large corporate entities?

If so, surely their rise and dominance is simply a parable about Capitalism and the way we all are in the thrall of what are largely horrible selfish businesses out for themselves who pretend they care about you.

 

Which makes them both fools and villains. Sorry - it's stupid, immoral, bullheaded, feeblebrained nonsense to say that you'd rather reject help that you might really need to stop a mass-murdering psychopathic madman with a planet-destroying weapon than to just let a few systems go to work out their own destinies for themselves. That's exactly the kind of inflexible ideological crapola that got the Republic destroyed in the first place, and if Organa and Mothma really did say that, then they fit perfectly what Talleyrand once said about the Kings of France - they've learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

 

Why did all of the more powerful national entities seem to side with the CIS?

Not to interrupt what is beginning to take shape as an interesting discussion, but the thought did occur to me that maybe it was because these powerful and resources rich entities were the only ones the CIS was interested in having join? I could see excuses made to exclude any systems which the Sith didn't feel would work to their advantage under the CIS umbrella.

But that said, I'd wager that it's a simple case of where these powerful entities are only the most well-known to us. We know, for instance, that "Several thousand star systems... declared their intentions to leave the Republic" prior to the start of the war. How many of these actually made good on this declaration, I'm not certain, but I imagine that the CIS indeed counted thousands of systems among it's numbers. Surely we've not been told the story of them all.

 

The precise wording:

The Essential Guide to Warfare, page 148
The various groups fighting the early Empire had little in common except their opposition to the New Order. Some considered themselves Republic Loyalists and sought to restore what had been, others were determined to resist any outside rule, and a few were simply opportunists looking to profit from disorder.

And then, there were the former Separatists.

Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and Garm Bel Iblis differed sharply about what role, if any, former Separatists should play in the Rebellion. Bel Iblis argued that Separatists who hadn't committed war crimes should be accepted, noting that the Alliance had found a place for groups that sought their own regions' independence, a goal that would have been called Separatism just a few years before. Organa disagreed, contending that all Alliance members must accept that the Rebels' first and foremost goal was the Republic's restoration. Mothma acknowledged Bel Iblis's point - after all, she'd joined Padme Amidala's calls for peace talks with the Separatist leadership - but worried that accepting Separatists would play into the hands of Imperial propagandists, drying up sympathy and support for the Alliance.

A few Separatist holdouts did eventually join the Alliance after publically disavowing their pasts: The CIS genera; Horn Ambigene became the leader of the Bryx Freedom Fighters, bringing his followers under the Alliance banner as the Bryx Sector Forces. (This did Bryx sector little good: It was brutally subjugated by the Empire.) Blox Hatha, a Neimoidian captain in the Trade Defense Force, was refused formal membership in the Alliance, but became a renowned privateer bearing a Rebel letter of marque.

Elsewhere, Rebel cells and Separatist true believers settled on a tacit policy of quiet mutual support or at least noninterference. But sometimes active hostilities broke out: Atravis sector was scarred by years of clashes among the Empire, pro-Republic resistance groups, and Separatist holdouts.

 

Kind'a like today, where even the nastiest, dirtiest, most malignant corporations like Monsanto and Wal Mart have their enthusiastic supporters.

 

You forget that Palpatine had an even bigger objective (in his mind) than the fall of the Republic, and that was destroying the Jedi Order. If he had done as you suggest, he would have lost the ability to manipulate the Jedi into thinning out their ranks, overreaching their capabilities, and generally weakening themselves to the point where they could be taken down by Order 66.