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Lit Why did the Republic become so corrupt post-Ruusan?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by purplerain, Nov 3, 2013.

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  1. purplerain

    purplerain Jedi Knight star 4

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    Sep 14, 2013
    The Republic wasn't corrupt for 24,000 years (as far as I know), so why did it become so corrupt all of a sudden?
     
  2. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    Golden age fallacy.
     
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  3. purplerain

    purplerain Jedi Knight star 4

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    Sep 14, 2013
    Huh?
     
  4. DarthSanctimonious

    DarthSanctimonious Jedi Knight star 3

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    Sep 18, 2006
    Because an inept-ad-absurdum galactic government drives a lot of zero-effort book plots? See also NJO, LotF, FotJ.
     
  5. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    One gets the impression that Order 66 was the first time the Jedi were wiped out, but there were earlier purges. The Republic itself was nearly destroyed during the New Sith Wars. The Republic was "corrupt" during the Pius Dea era.
     
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  6. The Supreme Chancellor

    The Supreme Chancellor Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 4, 2012
    I think that is when the Jedi stepped down from politics (to avoid becoming corrupt I'm guessing) and allowed regular beings to govern themselves. Apparently everyone else other than the Jedi is corrupt.
     
  7. RC-1991

    RC-1991 Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Dec 2, 2009
    I usually conceptualize the whole prequel-era decline as an aftereffect of the New Sith Wars- that a thousand years of nonstop war, plague, and terror broke the Republic and the Jedi on some sort of spiritual level. It helps to drive the doctrinaire nature of the Jedi, and their increased isolation from the galaxy.

    Just my thoughts, anyway.
     
  8. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    I've always thought it was kinda of a stagnancy and complacency on the part of the Jedi. They thought they destroyed the Sith and became content to essentially function as the Republic's enforcers and their mandate became what the Supreme Chancellor made it, rather than the Force. Consequently, when the Supreme Chancellor is a Sith Lord, things get hairy...

    But even before then, politics became a limiting force on the Jedi so that when problems cropped up, they could only address the symptoms rather than the cause as to do so would exceed their mandate, which would get Jedi like Qui-Gon into trouble. We see that the Sith had their hand in a lot of the events leading up to the prequel trilogy and if the Jedi investigated them a bit more deeply they may have found the common connection -- the Order of the Sith Lords, and done something to deal with them before the Sith were ready.
     
  9. DarthJenari

    DarthJenari Jedi Master star 4

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    Dec 17, 2011
    Because of a 1,000 years of Sith Lord manipulation.
     
  10. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

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    Nov 28, 2000
    I sort of feel like politicization of the Jedi Order is part of the problem. Becoming chancellors was a mistake -- whatever stability it granted was offset by the fact that it essentially exacerbated the wars with the Sith. Post-Ruusan, they maintained an entanglement with the government for some unknown reason. Power of the Jedi went into this a great deal: the Jedi of that era became law enforcement, to the point where things like Jedi declining to act against slavery because it was outside the Republic's jurisdiction actually was an issue. The Jedi of the old EU -- which represents both the Skywalker tradition and the pre-Ruusan tradition (even as seen in things like TOR) were rather more heroic figures than that. They did what was right, and they stayed out of politics.

    Guardians of peace and justice means just that. Now, I do understand the original idea is that they serve the Republic since the civil government represents the will of the people, theoretically. There's some merit to that: but the whole thing about being keepers of the peace rather than soldiers didn't seem to actually work out in practice.
     
  11. Scrubbed

    Scrubbed Jedi Master star 1

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    Feb 1, 2006
    I'd say the Republic is corrupt because it is simply too large. Era's that aren't corrupt probably have insufficient stories to demonstrate corruption.
     
  12. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Feb 2, 2010
    The official explanation is based on a combination of factors. First, the decision to disband the Republic's military following the Ruusan Reformation. This became a problem as the Republic grew and the Mid and Outer Rims grew considerably in population and more importantly economic importance - notably 1,000 years of warfare and Sith occupation had pretty much crushed the non-Core regions in terms of economic capability.

    As the Outer Rim descended into lawlessness the Republic was forced to assert itself in these territories. One solution would have been to reestablish an army, but they chose, being happy with peace and presumably with low taxes, not to do this. Instead they declared a massive free trade zone and tweeked the rules on 'Functional Constituencies' in an effort to allow the Outer Rim a great voice and give it better ability to protect itself. This occurred in 124 BBY.

    The problem was, this allowed a series of mega-corporate associations including the Trade Federation to essentially buy up the OUter Rim's votes, paralyzing the government and to exercise a great degree of control over that territory. This flooded the halls of power with gigantic bags of cash - leading to a seismic increase in corruption.

    In effect, by refusing to assert a strong central government the Republic allowed the peripheral regions to form mini-governments of their own under corporate control, and this power was leveraged en masse back on the Republic itself.

    The situation has a parallel in American political structures: imagine if the Senate was the only governing body (no House and no President), and a set of megacorporations did everything they could to buy up the influence of the low-population rural states, they could easily bring efficient government to a complete halt.
     
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  13. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

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    Nov 28, 2000
    I'm not sure that's the best comparison. The Galactic Senate isn't an analog to the federal principle in the American Senate, which provides two votes regardless of a state's population. Evidence suggest the Galactic Senate was much the opposite, with populous (and ancient) Core Worlds having their own senators while entire sectors had to content themselves with a singular senator themselves. The TradeFed may have been a functional constituency of its own, but its controlling the votes of the Rimkin senators required many more seats because those low-population worlds were not as represented as high-population worlds.
     
  14. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

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    Oct 23, 2004
     
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  15. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Feb 2, 2010
    Even though the Mid and Outer Rims were low in population, they were vast in territory and shear number of sectors. The abjection corruption of even a relatively small fraction say 10% of the Senate via the Trade Federation and its allies would have been enough to seriously gum up the works. Also, I think that even a small portion of the Senate as a whole being more or less openly for sale would seriously undermine the ethics of everyone who remained.

    We know that sort of thing was possible, Darth Plageuis was able to pull enough strings via his Banking Clan and other industrial contacts to tip the balance of power and get Palpatine elected Chancellor after all.
     
  16. purplerain

    purplerain Jedi Knight star 4

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    Sep 14, 2013
    I wonder if the pre-Ruusan Republic will ever return or if it's as dead as the Je'daii Order.
     
  17. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

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    May 25, 2000
    The faulty reasoning that things were always better in "the good old days."

    But yes, the combo of decentralization of resources and one thousand years worth of meddling by the Dark Lords of the Sith can do wonders.
     
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