Lit Sheev's 'de jure' powers

This goes for both Legends and New Canon. Was it ever established whether Palpatine in his role as Galactic Emperor had Executive and/or Legislative Powers? Or was it just Executive? We know what the Empire had in Legends for Legislative and Executive branches, but I don't think we ever got word in which branch the Emperor falls under. Yes, de facto everything was pretty much subservient to him, but de jure I don't think they ever outright went 'this is autocracy'... for the most part anyway.

As far as real life comparisons go, I imagine the Galactic Empire to be closer in nature to Napoleonic France and the German Empire rather than the UK. In both the French and German cases, the Emperors had overwhelming executive powers and were practically absolute monarchs, just claimed that they weren't.

Also for the people more into the New Canon material, is there any significant difference between Sheev's powers in the Legends Empire and Sheev's powers in the New Canon Empire?

 

Well the Galactic Emperor's alternative title was 'Imperial Executive'. That should say plenty of his executive powers. Maybe it was a case of the Legislative branch being significantly weakened in favor of the Executive? It is pretty much what happened in the Galactic Alliance as well, to the point where a Chief of State could rule as undisputed dictator and bombard planets without the Senate being able to say a word about it (Let's not even get to the original Rebellion which was a de facto elective dictatorship). When the the Senate was disbanded, the mofference I assume took over the duties of the Senate. Wookieepedia (I know, it's like a historian in rl using wikipedia) points towards a Diet of Imperial Planetary Governors, giving only a single source in the Crimson Empire Handbook.

But yeah a lot compare the Empire to the British Empire or Nazi Germany, but I think the much closer similarities are with Napoleonic France and the German Empire. Napoleonic France relied on populist revolutionary fervor, as does the Empire through COMPNOR and the New Order Party and in both cases the Emperor was widely favored by the populace each government controlled. The German Empire on the other hand had things like the General Staff, which by the end of World War 1 resembled the Mofference very closely. The Germans also had the Kaiser, a monarch with actual executive power and he could also dismiss the Chancellor (Grand Vizier in the Empire's case) and the Reichstag by decree.

Unrelated to all of this, but did anyone else find something odd about the Remnant's election in FOTJ? The 'Imperial Head of State' (the Imperial Executive title should have been reused here imo, even if not full Emperor) was elected by the entire populace of the Remnant (or should it be Proto-Fel Empire at this point?). This is something that was never really done before. In all cases, from the Old Republic, to the First Galactic Empire, to the New Republic and GFFA, it was always a case of the populace of the worlds electing the Legislative Branch, and the Legislative Branch electing the Head of State. The Remnant's whole electoral ordeal, though it was full of rigging and the like on all sides as it was mentioned, seems to ironically be the biggest case of broad democracy in the Galaxy.

 

Imperial Executive was in Shadows of Mindor. I'm not sure if it was mentioned outside of it. The Court and the Ruling Council seem to be the Executive Branch, with the Emperor in charge of them. The Galactic Senate was the legislative, with the Grand Vizier ontop of that. We just have no idea what exactly happened to their functions after they were dissolved. It's worthwhile to note that the Imperial Senate's dissolution was intended to be 'temporary' for the 'duration of the emergency'. Meaning in theory it was still there, just the legislative branch for all intends and purposes was 'shut down' and the Executive Branch ruled by decree. Now I can reference Nazi Germany and say this is very similar to what happened to the Reichstag. It 'existed' and was basically Hitler's arena of making speeches, but was dissolved in 1942 when the war started getting heated and there was no time for it. If for the time following ANH there was no Legislative Branch then it goes with what you've said previously, that no one in the Empire had authority to elect an Emperor and Sheev had no known heirs, so the original government of the Empire (and Old Republic) passed away with his death.

Also was there any other example like the Remnant? Or was that just it's own oddity, combined with all the other FOTJ oddities? Maybe they directly voted for Head of State because they had no real Senate/Parliament to speak of? I'm also kinda surprised the Fels didn't bring back something like the Imperial Senate to give themselves further legitimacy. As shown, the Mofference being both the Executive and Legislative Branch AND having total control of the military isn't such a great idea.

 

My view was always that the Ruling Council was at least in flimsiplast always just an equivalent to a Council of State, a group of advisors who held no actual government power. This would probably be to the benefit of both the Senate (no chance of them replacing the senators) and Palpatine (no even technical option for ending his authority, like happened with Mussolini and his own Grand Council). It would make sense that they not be given any legislative power, especially since the Senate being suspended is just "for the duration of the emergency", not technically any sort of amendment. It'd also contribute towards all the chaos after Endor if there was no established mechanism for the regency or electing a new Emperor without the Senate being in session.

It's interesting that the NEU seems to be positioning that when the NR Senate is established, it's pretty much accepted as "the" Senate, which makes me wonder how many of the Imperial-era senators returned to it and if that's what gives it so much legitimacy.

Interestingly at least from Tarkin is seems like the advisors are closer to something like the Cabinet in that they each have specific functions they oversee. It's interesting in the old EU that neither the Republic nor Empire seemed to really have a cabinet government, even though there were occasional sources with ministers. But I guess if we see Palpatine as Napoleon, it kind of reflects the Directory, with the legislature and its bureaux doing most of the government work directly and interacting with the ministers.

 

So you'd also say the Emperor was apart of the Executive Branch, if not the Executive Branch itself? A very powerful Executive Branch at that.

 

This makes me wonder what the people thought would happen when Palpatine died, especially those who didn't know he was Force-sensitive. He wasn't that young even in RotS, and in RotJ he looked like a corpse already and walked with a stick to feign weakness. Surely there would be only a couple of years at max and then he couldn't rule anymore. So what did the political analysists think would happen? With all his emergency powers and disbanding the Senate Sheev made the Empire unable to work without him, but did the people who knew the laws notice that?

 

We know that there's planetary monarchs that have lived on for hundreds of years and still ruled fine. No reason why Sheev couldn't have done the same. The planetary monarchs did it with bio-augmentations but Sheev has better - he has the Force.

There's also the case of Vitiate. He ruled his Sith Empire for thousands of years and no one batted an eyelash. It was more Sith than Palpatine's Empire, sure, but there were also non-FS civilians as a majority.

 

Yep... When I think of it, multicentennarian Humans weren't that uncommon in Legends. A background character from Episode III, Duke Teta, was 300 years old, thanks to countless medical treatments and organ transplants. And Shayoto, a Human Jedi Master, was no less than 800 at the time of the Conclave at Deneba.

 

Let's not forget Fay. Sure, she may have been 'Near-Human', but Sheev could claim he was all the same. I think he may have originally just wanted to rule like that and play around with the power he had, but him dying and then getting resurrected resulted in his 'eat the Galaxy' ploy in Dark Empire, as well as the structure of the 'Dark Imperial' government where he didn't really care who betrayed him in the past and who was a warlord because all he wanted was useful tools until he could finish up his Vitiate-like plan. The Palpatine of the Dark Empire period is very different from the Palpatine of the original Imperial Period.

 

In The Bounty Hunter Wars (I think book 1) Xizor sees Palpatine as "out to consume everything" in the aftermath of ANH:

Xizor concealed a shiver of disgust. As far-reaching as his own ambitions were, they paled by comparison to Palpatine's. There was something in the withered figure that didn't just want to control the galaxy's sentient creatures, but to consume them the way a greedy Hutt swallowed its wriggling food. The small and weak ones will go first, thought Xizor. And then someday it'll be the turn of Vader and me. That would be the reward for their loyalty. To be consumed last ...​