Books Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy

Though in the context of the Star Wars, just a thousand years is pretty unambitious. Even in the new canon that is just matching the Republic's lifespan rather than radically surpassing it.

I hope they realize that just because a senator is from a species does not mean that they have to represent the homeworld of that species.

 

Actually at least for the issue of Malastare it's worse. In the old EU, all the Gran senators we saw on screen represented Malastare which just happened to be their non-native colony. In the new EU, Malastare is the Gran homeworld, though it's also confusing because it's still the issue where all the Gran senators we see are from Malastare but the Malastare episodes of TCW only showed Dugs.

 

Ultimate Star Wars does say that Malastare is only an adopted homeworld of the Grans. But you know... that book's been proved wrong before.

 

....blargh. Thanks for the info though!

 

The FFG sourcebook, Strongholds of Resistance, established that the Gran had separate Senatorial representatives from both Kinyen and the Gran Protectorate, the exiled Gran colonies, which were represented by Malastare. Senator Kharrus from TCW, for instance, represented Kinyen while Ask Aak represented Malastare. Interestingly, the two seemed to hate each other, since after Kharrus' death, Malastare used Kinyen's Separatist sympathies as a pretence for blocking any attempts at confirming a replacement.

That's probably Legends, of course, but relevant to the topic of Gran Senators seemingly only representing Malastare.

 

I liked the Gran/Dug conflict was always interesting to me, and I'd hoped for a Clone Wars story about the Separatists trying to exploit this by supporting the Dugs.

 

Not bad, this goes along with a piece of the SW score being part of Empire propaganda music. "...your sector, and join the ranks of the proud!" And now we know what posters came along with those tapes.

 

It just seems weird that the Galactic Senate has less representatives in it than China, for some odd reason.

 

Well, if senators are still meant to represent sectors, that number isn't that small. 1,024 sectors would make a lot of planets.

 

It's also possible that this gets managed down further and further, and we've 1,024 political entities represented (which is why the Jedi and the Trade Federation have seats, maybe?) and so there are a lot of planets that are governed and represented by entities higher up the foodchain than they are. I have to imagine that every sector has its own senate in its own capital, and there's a senate for individual solar systems, and then individual planets, etc.

 

I was thinking about this the other day. You make a great point, we really don't know how "big" or "small" the Galaxy in the canon, right? As for senatorial representation, my assumption is that the powers that be don't want to fully explain it, as it is a complicated knot to untie. From a practical sense, numbers are always smaller as they want to put things into terms that the average reader can comprehend. Hence 2000 senators, fleets that are in the hundreds, three million clones, etc.

I know maximalists hate this, but let's face it, the second you write stories with hundreds of thousands of senators, millions of capital ships, and billions of soldiers, the scale gets a bit hard to tell a personal story in.

--Adm. Nick

 

Unlike the questions of some of the lower end populations, capital ships, and troop numbers, I could definitely buy a few thousand Senators representing the Republic. As mentioned above, I think it would be reasonable if they just represent a large group of constituent planets, with some other from of political hierarchy that reaches down to planetary levels in place.

 

I'm also increasingly convinced that the Galactic Senate is more like an audience chamber for the Chancellor, and legislation that affects the galaxy as a whole is rare and obscure.

 

I don't care either way, RE: galactic size, but I don't see how this is true at all. How does the number of Jax Pavans out there have any affect on how difficult it is to tell a personal story about one Jax Pavan? Whether we're talking 5000 or 582,797,754, it's an identical process.

 

How large was the Legends Senate? Still the 24,372 figure?

 

I brought it up more as a general statement that I have heard many fans state before, not as something that I feel strongly about one way or another. I term myself as a moderate in these issues, both from personal preference and a desire to avoid the often heated and contentious fights I've seen over the years regarding size, scale, and scope within the GFFA.

--Adm. Nick

 

I've always assumed that the powers of the Senate are defined to a very specific set of laws and responsibilities. Regulating galactic commerce, universal rights, military spending, galactic infrastructure, mediating disputes among members, and foreign relations with other galactic states. Outside of those specific areas (in regards to stuff at a galactic level), the member worlds handle their own affairs.

--Adm. Nick

 

In what capacity was she discussing those things?

EDIT: Is there a "Galactic Civics" thread?

 

A Senate with hundreds of thousands of senators would be undesirable anyway. It would be absolutely unwieldy to the point of being impossible to carry out the most elementary business. The point of representative democracy is that a few stand in for many, and the gap between 1,024 and 24,000 senators is trivial compared to the gap between 24,000 and the teeming quadrillions of beings in the galaxy. I've always taken for granted that there were hierarchies of regional and planetary representation below the Galactic Senate.

 

Maybe part of the wartime powers given to the Chancellor and Senate?

--Adm. Nick