Discussions Imperial public and the sith

This is about the public eye of the Galactic Empire in relations to the sith. How much do they know, and how accepting are hey of it? Palpatine never revealed himself to be Sidious to the public eye, but his sith-like appearance and the fact that his executioner has Darth in his name and wields a red lightsaber would be clues enough for them to know that the empire is sith led. Do the loyal imperials accept this, though? Could Imperial propaganda and the labeling of jedi as the true enemies undo millennia of sith antagonism?

On another note, what do you think the clones that attacked the Jedi temple when order 66 was issued were told in regards to Vader, if anything? Many of those clones saw Vader when he was Anakin, and aside from his name, he was still basically a jedi in appearance and reputation. From the perspective of a non force sensitive, he was just a jedi leading clones against the rest of the jedi.

 

I think it's safe to say that few, if any knew what or who Palpatine was. Keep in mind that while Jedi were just previously a reasonably large organization, the vast majority of people in the Galactic republic had never even seen a jedi, on top of which, many did not trust them by the war's end. Additionally, it had been thousands of years since Sith were a thing in the public consciousness, and I'd guess that the Darth title wasn't well known either. While scholars and learned people probably knew EXACTLY who was ruling them, they probably a. Joined the Rebellion, b. Revelled in what the Empire stood for, or c. Kept their mouths shut. Also, considering the sort of things the Empire did, any "loyal imperial" was probably a good candidate for the sith him/herself.

I keep trying to think of examples, but civilization on earth has been around too short of a time for there to be a parallel, but just consider that many people don't know anything that happened in our world just 500 years ago. Let alone thousands. If someone with the symbols and trappings of an evil organization from 5000 years ago were to turn up now, would most of us recognize them for what they were? Maybe, but probably not, considering how short the public memory is.

As for the clones, I don't think they were told anything other than this is your new commander, Darth Vader, obey him. Having taken directions from numerous Jedi over the years including Anakin, and already having a protocol to kill all living Jedi, I imagine the transition was rather smooth.

 

True on the topic of sith being a menace. In the Roman days, Barbarians were similar to sith in a sense they were a constant, long standing enemy that frequently showed their faces over the course of centuries, but you don't hear much about the barbarians now, aside from as a rude insult. Though, with people like Darth Revan, I'd imagine the idea of Darth being a Sith title would be more well known.

 

This.

The Sith had been gone for either 2,000 or 1,000 years by the time of the OT - in the last millennium they'd probably become the fodder of pop fiction and conspiracy theories rather than anything people thought about as "real." So finding out Palps was one would be... not like finding out that the President of the United States is in al-Qaeda, so much as finding out that he's in the Knights Templar or the Hassassin. Most of the public would dismiss it on the spot as conspiracy crap. And among those who listened, even if you showed proof, most would probably say "all right, to the Chancellor has some weird thing for some medieval society. Who cares? What does it matter in this day and age, when there's no Sith Empire or Sith wars anymore and hasn't been for a thousand years? Who cares what he does in his private time when he's done so much good for the galaxy, brought peace and all?"

Even more interesting to me is what became the official and/or commonly believed narrative after the New Republic took over. How much of the whole Jedi/Sith aspect of things did the public ever find out?

 

But then again, human civilization hasn't has access to social networking and instant communication for thousands of years.

On another note, how easy was the transition from a free republic to an autocratic empire? I know there was restrictions on freedoms in the clone wars and even martial law, but not to the extent that the Empre quickly became infamous for, such as declaring wookies non-sentient, frequent executions, etc. Every dictator's power comes from their followers. How many followers would Palpatine still have with that rapid a transition?