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Given Palpatines purge of Senators who signed the Petition of 2000 post ROTS and many imperial sycophants turned Senator in the Imperial senate, I find it quite risky of Mon Mothma if she just trusted in their vote, even if banking on their imprisonment and disbanding of the Senate having an effect and change of mind for them. Most rich Senators probably faced prison in a golden cage. Sure a cage nonetheless but how many of them truly would vote for their ideological and fiscal enemy?

Also, if your idea is true, why call it "NEW" Republic then and not just the reinstated, continuation of the old Republic? We know the "NEW" is not just a historical ascription but used in present tense and in nomenclature and short versions of its insitutions. For them to create a NEW Republic, we need a clean break as to why they cannot reinstate the old one and simply reform that one over time. Meaning the early Rebellions plan of returning the Empire into the Republic failed and they had to create something separate yet inspired.

Maybe Mon Mothma had the former Senate and Senators hold such a vote as you said but given its turnout against her plans and still operating under martial law and with a Provisional Council she headed, she chose not to legalise that vote and instead create a New Republic with those that voted in her plans favor. Like she gave the Imperial Senators a chance and failing to proof themselves, Mon Mothma turned them down and used some draconian martial law methods to make sure the NEW Republic will last and not become the same corrupt Empire 2.0.

This kinda fits my view that SW is History and a conflation of many characters, myths and stories. Like there are currently hundreds of old and modern retellings of the Arthurian myth cycle and SW likewise can have Legends, new Canon, One Canon and others as retellings of a more complicated, unknown real past. Which characters got conflated? Which separated? Which timeperiods merged or due to lost lore mixed up? A true modern myth.

To twist your idea around of the Jaina&Jacen happening much later: What if the Legends timeline did happen with Jaina and Jacen but years later, their descendands named their kids Han and Leia and historians conflated their tales with that of the OT ones and the then late return of Palpatine and his clones daughter Rey happens with those.

 

Yeah, I love this line of thinking. It was absolutely genius for them to brand the old continuity as "Legends". They could have called it "the Original Expanded Universe" or "the Apocrypha", but by calling it "Legends" they invited fans to adopt this foggy window of history approach and decide for themselves what really happened.

Do you think The Crystal Star is too weird for the Star Wars universe? Great, it was just a story, it never actually happened. Did you like the idea behind Legacy of the Force but hated the execution? Those events occurred but the aspects you didn't like were wrong or exaggerated. Do you wish Revan had been female or the Exile was a dark sider? They were, those stories were mistranslated or misinterpreted after thousands of years.

We even saw Legends do this to itself in the later years. Death Star has Imperials share rumours about the breakout level from Battlefront II and say that the idea of a Jedi leading the escape and the 501st putting it down are just tall tales. The SW.com Databank implied the Mace Windu episodes of the 2003 Clone Wars were an over-the-top animation by the boy who watched the battle. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor casts doubt on whether the narrative is the "actual" events or Lorz Geptun's movie adaptation.

 

As I mentioned earlier, in regards to @Anedon 's point, I'm really fond of the idea that Luke, Anakin and Rey all have such similiar traits and stories because their legends emerged from the same historical "Skywalker" event, developed distinct traditions, and were then smushed back together a bit awkwardly.

So, yeah, there was a "nobody" pilot from a desert planet who was instrumental in toppling an evil regime. That's the kernel of truth that spawns Star Wars.

 

We all know the true inspiration for Star Wars and who the farmboy is that left home to conquer and change the universe...

Spoiler

The lifes and youth of George Lucas...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lucas_in_Love

 

I'm also up for Han originating as a take on the same legend, who eventually gets shoehorned into the "grand unified" version we are familiar with but playing second fiddle to the more aggrandised versions of his history.

He's an ace pilot who's there to blow up the space station, he marries a royal, he's "the Father" to the powerful Force sensitive he comes into conflict with, and his name probably means "Chosen One" in some language.

Also, of course, he kills the resurrected Palpatine in some legends.

 

The argument would be because they are the democratically elected representatives of their world. Mon Mothma was taking a huge risk but if the people of the galaxy wanted the Empire then they would vote it in--but Mon and Leia believed in them. The elections held on many worlds were binding but many of the Senators were still within their intial terms from the time of the Senate's involuntary recess.

Certainly if Mon Mothma dissolved the Republic by fiat she'd be deserving of her own overthrow no matter her intentions.

 

Now this reminds me of the movie Predestination with Ethan Hawke. Everyone was him... kinda. Epic timetravel movie.

So... Is the same legend applicable to Leia too? Genderbend SW!

Are the YJK just teen versions of their parents in a teenified version of the myth?



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I mean I fully expect that when they do the full saga reboot in our lifetimes we'll get Leia Skywalker and Luke Organa. 100%.

 

Well if Rey and Dark Prince Ben Solo arn't that already..



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That bikini Chewbacca is disturbing.

 

Agreed... Clothed Wookiees are always weird

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Oh hey, that reminds me of this I posted over here:

 

@New Republic and Imperial Senate
We caught a glimpse of one old Senator, Simon Greyshade, and he was living fine. He was even living it up in retirement. Its possible Palpatine didn't care much for the Senate as an institution. Tarkin and the Moffs wanted the red tape out so they can pursue their war, and Palpatine signed up on it because he pulls the strings irregardless of whether its Tarkin or Pestage/Amedda as a second-in-command. I mean, from what we know, the Senate is pretty much just a rubber stamp by the time of ROTS anyway.

Both the New Republic of New Canon and Legends seem to want to go for becoming a different entity by the end of the Galactic Civil War. Its possible their claim to legitimacy actually comes from the Empire. The Concordance in NuCanon recognizes their territorial claims and their claim to galactic sovereignty, leaving a rump Imperial Remnant on Coruscant that eventually dissolves itself off-screen. In Legends, maybe the fine print is that the NR will recognize the Remnant as the Galactic Empire proper, but the Empire will recognize all territories held by the NR as legitimate.

Its interesting that the NuCanon NR wanted to stay away from the OR/Empire even aesthetically, as they tore down ISDs and rebuilt them into Starhawks. Meanwhile the NR, particularly when it becomes the Galactic Alliance, displays some Imperial tendencies. Maybe a Point of Divergence is that a lot of those Neo-Imperials-in-GA/NR were sidelined in New Canon and left on the fringes, leaving to their eventual secession to become the public face of the First Order.

@Legends characters in New Canon
This comes to mind. Mara Jade, Hethrir and Galen Marek reimagined as NuCanon Inquisitors.

Who really knows, they might have senior citizen Thrawn come out of the Unknown Regions and unite the FO and Sith Eternal remnants post-ST, performing his campaign several decades later than he should've. Then, similar to Francisco Franco in Spain, he cedes power to an Imperial noble with a strong claim, going by the name of Soontir Fel, proclaiming the Second Galactic Empire. Then he himself is succeeded to the Throne by his son Jagged.

Then an aged Ezra Bridger, taking in the ideas of the Bendu while being stranded with Thrawn, ends up forming an Order of Force Users in service to this Second Empire.

 

I have a rather tragic LOST STARS headcanon that takes place until we get a proper sequel:

* Ciena Ree is put on suicide watch during her imprisonment as Thane does his best to try to negotiate some form of deal for her despite the fact Ciena is completely and utterly insistent on giving nothing more than her name, rank, and serial number. This is doubly the case due to the fact that plenty of other cowardly and evil officers go wild offering up their fellows. It gives the impression she's a fanatical true believer.

* Thane burns bridges with most of his fellow Rebels because of his love of an Imperial as they assume the same about her.

* The surrender of Mas Amedda and the pardoning of all non-war criminals, which the prosecutors reluctantly acknowledge she is, results in Ciena Ree undergoing a mild meltdown as according to her arcane code of honor--her "leader" just declared it was okay to go on with her life. She's ectastic and happy and ready to live her life.

* Thane is APPALLED that all of this was essentially due to the fact that she was fanatically devoted to what he considered pointless legalese. Ciena is disgusted that he apparently didn't consider her OATH to be worth anything.

The two break up.

 

Yeah, one of the weird things about the Confederacy of Independent Systems is how it tosses alien plutocrats like the leaders of the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, etc, in the same bucket as all-human aristocracies like the Serenno elites.

I was trying to figure out the other day where the ruling houses of the Senex/Juvex sectors' sympathies would have lied during the Clone Wars, and decided that I really can't tell. They've got that Alsakan-style fiercely aristocratic sentiment of wanting lots of distance from the central government that meshes perfectly with Separatist ideology (and with Count Dooku's background specifically), but they've also got the sort of supremacist mindset (they're a settler regime for crying out loud) that would make it totally in-character for them to rally to High Human Culture sentiment in the Republic, and to cheer as Palpatine smashed the alien power centers like Neimoidia.

Ultimately, we know they ended up in cahoots with Palpatine, but we don't know how roundabout the way to get there was.

 

Yeah, I'd agree with this. The point of the Clone Wars from Palpatine's POV was to centralize the galaxy and get rid of as many of those other power centers as possible.

 

This is basically my headcanon... where Legends is concerned at least (which will always be where "my" canon sprung from). I always liked the idea that the Clone Wars was at least partly a war between different corporations and their business models, with the Confederacy being the place for the megacorps that saw big government as an interloper to be "drowned in the bathtub" to coin a phrase (Trade Federation, Commerce Guild) and the Republic being the place for the megacorps that saw big government as a partner to be supported (Kuat Drive Yards, Sienar Fleet Systems). It reflects a fundamental rift between different galactic elites, like the differences between the rural planters in the South and urban merchants in the North before and during the American Civil War.

Which I still think is reasonable if you're going by the movies and at least by old (early to mid 2000s) canon. TCW (which is where I consider NuCanon to start rather than part of old canon) muddies the waters a lot by introducing a representative legislature for the Confederacy, turning the Separatist Council into a shadow government rather than the actual Politburo of the CIS, making the megacorporations behind it into nonpartisan actors playing both sides, and having Palpatine support... banking deregulation? At which point something like ColeFardreamer's explanation makes more sense.

 

The existence of the Separatist Senate isn't that odd, but the Council becoming a shadow government is really odd and clashes with the movies, heavily. Its like if Bill Gates was spotted next to Saddam during the invasion, yet was fully capable of calling himself neutral, despite uh... Microsoft-built robots, fighting against the US. Its nonsense. Its clear that the Council was intended as the CIS leadership. Even in the deleted scenes, Anakin and Padme very obviously meet all of them so it can't be said its just Gunray.

As for Alsakan, I think the anti-alien sentiment helped keep it with Coruscant this time around. My theory is during the Empire it had some heavy Rebel Alliance sympathies due to the Empire's heavy pro-Coruscant bias, but some accepted the strong government if it meant Human High Culture. We don't hear of it, but it could've joined up with the Corellian Confederation during the Second Galactic Civil War.

 

I do think a lot of AOTC makes more sense when not viewed on its own but in the light of TPM which often is forgotten about given its 10 years prior inuniverse. Thus, lets go a step back and re-look at the leadup to the Clone Wars.

In TPM we see a megacorporation, the Trade Federation, bullying outlier worlds like Naboo into signing contracts that would give them full control including their senate representation with the megacorp taking over law enforcement, trade, everything as a "service". But one such world, Naboo, is not gonna have it and makes a stand and the perileous journey to the central government on Coruscant in order to report the TDFs methods and criminal behavior. This spawns a political crisis and places the central government in a dilemma having to choose between two bad options: Support the minority claim and anger a big powerplayer or stick with the powerplayer and alienate the small people and outlier worlds.
Either way, the government makes potential enemies and discontent among its populace, which is what the Sith trick was all about in the first place. To create the central divide it would build a war upon later. Bonus points for Palpatines ascension to chancellorhood.

Now on how this is crucial to understand AOTC and TCW. And forgive me some medieval paralells following (possible due to me entrenched deep in Bardcore medievalized versions of the Star Wars Soundtrack found on youtube again...).

As stated in interviews and the out of universe book "Star Wars and History" the Trade Federation was modelled upon the East India Trading Companies of british and dutch origin amongst other inspirations.
My book review here with lots of details:
To better understand the megacorporations of the GFFA, their political claims and power as well as their separatism, I highly recommend to read the book or at least my in depth review. The Republic is not like modern governments with its members but follows historic inspirations from another time as most of SW does. In that the Rim and many worlds are viewed more like colonies and territories in development rather than full members. And here the megacorporations come in and provide not only trade and basic services but also law and law enforcement where the meager government forces alone could not. The corporations act with consent of the crown so to speak as its representatives in these colonies and are quite powerful, and as of TPM's latest legislature, allowed to arm themselves against piracy due to lack of government forces and protection. With the increase in colonies and new territories these corporations grew in influence and size and became huge political parties the crown depended upon to rule in its stead in these places. They are system essential. And powerhungry they want more power, even to topple the central government if it no longer serves their needs as it went against them in TPM. Even if measures against the TDF for its Naboo incursion were not too harsh, it still hurt them.

The government faced two bad options to decide upon in TPM. Yet in TPM the Jedi and Queen Amidala went rogue before the government decided and freed Naboo. This decision is still the same one we see early in AOTC: The Military Creation Act. The government can either support the megacorps and their methods or take back control and for that it needs a military to either be able to control the megacorps or to enact protection and governance in its stead in regions where the megacorps overstepped.
Cue Separatist crisis as the Corporations threaten to seceed should the government cut their support, undermine their rule. Their system essential-ness and far greater military than the government currently has incites fear about their separatism threats. Nevertheless the government can either support them and die a slow death due to their growing might, or oppose them now and have a fighting chance despite being undergunned and on the recieving end of a war should it come to that, or risk breaking the galaxy apart in separatism even without a war.
With the government deciding in favor against the corporations in AOTC, the leaders of the corporations meet with the representative of the Separatist Senate, Count Dooku to formalize their support and separatism.

Now some questions:

The Separatist Crisis pre-AOTC: Who threatened to seceede and why? The megacorps? Individual worlds and senators?

In Legends and canon it was not the corps that threatened secession but senators and their worlds giving as reason the Republics corruption and inaction against corporate oppression. Basically the Separatist Crisis sprung up among worlds like Naboo that faced the corporations and saw the TPM inaction of the government as a reason to no longer support it. The meager sanctions on the TDF post TPM added to that sentiment and it took the government 10 years to even decide a Military Creation Act. Palpatine obviously reasoned that he was trying and faced a lot of senate opposition despite his election further blaming others and rifting the senate into pro and anti Republic elements. Cue the separatist Senate for senators discontent with the corrupt body.

A lot is complicated here as there are later loyalist and separatist corporations, good senators on both sides and corrupt ones as well on both. And more than once some switcheroo had Palpatine turn the reasoning on its head suddendly with a clever move.

Without the corporations that lobbied the government outright threatening separatism themselves as noted above, their indirect threat was there still. But their members that suffered the republic inaction threatened to seceed and sent Senators to the Separatist Senate discussion body. Therefore, the separatists grew within the corp territories and the Republic saw the corps unfit to reign them in or control their own regions of space furthering the government interference angle as necessary. Likewise this gives the megacorps a perfect excuse as to why they later are split in the Clone Wars between loyal and separatist elements of their entities, forces, etc. as parts of the megacorps seceeded leaving the rest of them loyalist (for now).

Palpatines clever trick was that both sides believed to fight corruption. The Loyalists thought the corrupt parts seceeded to escape government meddling, the Separatists believed they escaped the corrupt government lobbyying lements.
Some separatists believed droids to be the more human way given they do not need soldiers or enslaved clones. Likewise the Republic thought the industrial cold emotionless droids to be the embodyment of evil and not as human and selfthinking as even a cloned soldier force can be. In the end, Republic and Separatists were more alike mixed bags than one might think.

Another paralell, the pirates of the carribbean movies feature in the second and third installment the East India Trading company in a threeway war with rogues and government. Some nice paralells there.

Of course there were lots more reasons for separatism and the Core vs. Rim, Humans vs. Aliens thematic and other reasons Dooku used in his imflammatory speeches to incide separatism as can be summed up nicely here:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Separatist_Crisis

Now, we hit AOTC:

An assassination attempt on anti-military voters to further the creation act passing leads to an interesting development when tracking the assassins to a third party. Kamino. As noted before the government has to go through the slow process of voting for a military and then create it over years. The corps are already armed and secured contracts to increase that even with Geonosis short time. Now a third party reveals itself to be pro-Republic, despite existing outside of it so far. Intrigue behind the army creation aside for now, lets use another medieval paralell:
A king desperate for a military threatened by secession and war recieves an offer of help from a neighboring minor yet militarily strong power. It looks too good to be true and seems to be the only option to not enter the potential war undergunned. This power also has ties to the enemy but offers to support the king, furthering the need to secure its cooperation or else it might throw in with the enemy and the war would be over before it began. No choice left to the king he accepts the offer.

And now it is war!

Despite the corporations working both sides knowing or unknowingly. Despite both sides believing to be right and fighting corruption. Despite all the good people taking the best decisions they thought they could make.


The rest is as this topic already discussed at length. Outing of some corporation doubleagentery, nationalisation, separatist senators discovering the truth of their faction and unable to leave or be accepted back into the loyalist fold, likewise on the republic side, loyalists discovering the truth about loyal corporations, corruption and the like and going rebel or trying to, the neutral systems threatened and facing to align with either one or the other side. War.

This leaves us with ROTS... at wars end, the corporations playing both sides has been outed and they are beheaded and nationalised. Loyalist senators discontent with their government write up the Petition of the 2000 and face the consequences under the new autocratic regime as the Senate meanwhile dropped the last pretenses democracy and handed it all to the Emperor, who already had emergency powers to rule like one in all but name. Separatist and Loyalist dissenters alike find it difficult to work together due to the opposing past in the war but some nevertheless form a Rebel Alliance. Meanwhile separatist and loyalist supporters of autocracy and nationalisation form up the new Empire that grants its supporters beneftis and even, despite nationalisation, cements former corporate officials as Moffs and with military rank to do the same as before, but now as government representative in charge of business politics and military all in one.

 

Comics, Novels and Cartoons have their own universe

 

Palpatine taking over the Banking Clan at the end of the TCW elements allows him to fund his projects like the Death Star without anyone knowing what's really going on and removing all transparency.

 

@ColeFardreamer

I feel that way about Rise of Skywalker but in terms of in the light of TPM in the light of hopefully EU/Supplementary material that will one day be made around it. Or some things we already have like Aftermath.

 

I'd be more inclined to make her something like Thirteenth Sister to make her closer in age to Legends Mara.

That or make the Emperor's Hands a rival organization to the Inquisitorius. From Gar Saxon we know that there are probably more than one.

 

I have that in my own headcanon. The Inquisitorius is Vader's thing while the Hands are Palpatine's thing.

 

I don't see the ranks as done by Seniority but by actual position in the organization.