Lit Galactic union, governance, and civilization -The Official Galactic Republic Discussion Thread

Though this all makes it very odd that no one knows who the Rataka are by Revan's time.

Though I think it is worth noting that even in the later stages of the Republic that local governments can have a lot of authority, up to an including laws that violate the Republic constitution and waging war on one another. Even the Empire relied on indirect influence in many places.

 

Yes I would think there would have to be a good balancing act in terms of the sovereignty issue in the Galactic Constitution, though I believe power tilted towards the individual planets most of the time, especially early on. It does mention in various source books that the Empire did stay out of local planetary affairs most of the time, unless they were obviously anti-Empire.

Though I guess were getting way ahead of the topic, my thought would be that for the majority of its history the Old Republic was more alliance than a federal authority. Maybe during some times of crisis it became more federalized, but lessened again after the crisis had passed. I would hypothesize that it is the Post-Ruussan Republic that pushed the Galaxy towards a more federalized or centralized system, though I know in some areas they did the opposite. Maybe they greatly amended the Constitution in 1,000 BBY. The Second Galactic Civil War would then bring these issues back to the forefront, probably fighting over the similar issues then they did in 25,053 BBY.

Though I meandered I tired my best to bring it back to the Republics founding

 

Personally, I find the various smaller colonial empires and unions - the Esselian Empire, the Azure Imperium, whatever Corellia, Coruscant, Alsakan and so on might have formally termed their holdings - the most interesting facet of both pre- and early Republic history. How long they predated the Republic, how long they, both formally and functionally, survived within it, how the individual situations interacted with one another and with the concept of Senate representation, and whether anything Republic-wide - a tradition, an institution, a religion, whatever - can be traced back to one of them. For instance...I don't know...it is known the first supreme chancellor wore blue and it thus it became the traditional colour of the Senate Guard - but can the Azure Imperium's influence be seen here? Or maybe BoSS can trace its origins back to the cooperation of Corellia and Duro's hyperdrive engineers and governments. Something like that.

As to the Unification Wars, my own inclination, given the very little we know, is that the title should very hail from a later age - that the conflicts of the time were largely unconnected affairs, few possessing any great glory, and can only be grouped together with a broad - and distant - historical scope; they might have, on the whole, had a general theme of interplanetary unification or otherwise to them, but the only way one would categorically combine them would be as 'those wars fought around the time of the Republic's formation'.

 

Exactly! Great ideas, BTW. The early Republic's traditions would of been pulled from it's various members, so that makes great sense. I especially like your theory on the BoSS. Given that the Duros & Corellians worked together to establish hyperlanes, that seems to be the perfect "origin story". Knowing the Coruscanti, they probably helped fund those efforts and offered them a headquarters on Coruscant to help coordinate the efforts, which probably led to the official formation of the BoSS following the founding of the Republic.

Another great idea! I like the idea that later generations of Republic historians came up with the term Unification Wars. Again, it ties to my desire to see the founding of the Republic something a little less violent and much more noble in intent. After millennia of being enslaved and oppressed, these worlds and species of the Core decided it was for their collective interest and prosperity to unite. That is a powerful story and one worth exploring.

--Adm. Nick

 

I think that is another good possible explanation for the Unification Wars. Zakrinand Minus is described as a warlord, and at least Esseles was ruled by a warlord at some point in the Pre-Republic era. I believe per EGTW that a lot of the early Republic conflicts were with warlords, and when they weren't fighting them they allied themselves with the Republic and became a Moff, so that may link nicely with what is known as the Unification Wars. Plus planets like Alderaan and Alsakan united behind their monarchs around the same period. Though I still believe there would have been a little bit of tension involved in laying the ground work for the Republic as well.

 

Yeah, given the scant information we have on the Unification Wars, there is any number of possibilities as to what they were and why they were fought. I am definitely a fan of the idea that they were a series of unconnected conflicts that were lumped together by later Republic historians. Between conflicts between parent worlds and colonies, warlordism, and other potential minor skirmishes, I think we can safely assume that the Unification Wars had enough of a impression on the Core Worlds that it helped push them to unite into the Republic.

On another note, I can only assume that Coruscant's role as the founder of so many major Core Worlds solidified it's being chosen as Republic capital. We will talk about Coruscant later on, but I can only assume that Coruscant also had the backing of Duro & Corellia, as their combined role as the Republic "Big Three" probably meant that if those worlds and their colonies voted one way that the rest felt the need to agree.

Later this week we will touch on the Core Founders themselves and their individual strengths prior to forming the Republic.

--Adm. Nick

 

Catching up on going through the blog posts, I got one answer to a question I asked recently - the Provisional Council, at least circa 1 ABE, is based on Yavin 4 briefly (until Trioculus' attack), and then relocates the Mon Mothma's New Hope as a traveling HQ.

As far as the Unification Wars, I had mentioned it in my feedback to Jason Fry on the EGTW, but I'm guessing it was too disconnected from other sources to be any use (considering it had been referenced only once in the numerous mentions of the origins of the Republic). My guess - considering the hodge-podge nature of the early Republic 'fleet' - is that it was a number of conflicts between various Core World powers that were more of local skirmishes than total war.

 

Has there even been a reason WHY Coruscant was chosen as the Republic's capital? I mean having your capital unable to feed itself does seem like a detriment from a defensive point of view.

 

If I remember correctly, the fact that it is at the center of all the biggest hyperlanes is a big reason that it is the capital - this makes it a center of commerce and the economy, able to rapidly deploy its forces all over the galaxy - or serve as a staging area for its allies, and I think it would help with administration and government services as well.

 

Do we know they can't fend for themselves for a significant amount of time? Though I personally would like to see it changed, Coruscant was a city planet for quite sometime without the ability to get resources from outside their own solar system. I would think they could withstand a blockade for a decent amount of time.

I would think its the capital for a number of reasons, including as mentioned above in being at the nexus of some major hyperlanes. With its large population and industrial capability at the beginning of the Republic, it would probably be a decent amount of time before other human colonies, Corellia or other non-human worlds for that matter to catch up. Also since there seems to be a lot more human worlds and colonies in the Core compared to non-human ones, Coruscant is as close to a human homeworld as any. Without knowing the state of all of the other Core Worlds during this period, I would say Corellia would be the most likely alternative capital, followed by Duro.

 

Some its foodstuff comes from other planet in the system so the blockade thing would still cause trouble even in times where they did not have FTL , also whilst the ancient Coruscanti might not actually have had proper FTL tech, others cultures of the time had and we know that for example human traders did use the Gree Hyerspace Gate Network, since a sizable number ended stranded in Gree Space after the Gate Network broke down and then got enslaved by the local Gree.

 

I'm wondering why the Republic switched from the Starbird to the Bendu symbol sometime in between TOR and AOTC.

 

Well given that Rome became a great city by virtue of it's army, once it lost the edge in that it got sacked. Twice. Before fading into a mid level power (the Papal state)

Constantinople was located at the end of a peninsula in a very defensible position and at the centre of a number of trade route.

 

We will be touching on Republic symbology & heraldry in a future post, but it is clear that the Bendu symbol and the Starbird both were popular during various periods of Republic history. When a civilization lasts 25,000 years, it is easy to assume that symbols would come and go into popularity. We also have the Republic symbol for KOTOR as well.

Great point. I am reminded of when Pompey's forces were capturing grain shipments, nearly starving the Rome. Hell, even in modern history, name a capital that IS self-sufficent.

We can touch on Coruscant a bit more in depth during our focus on Core Founders, but I think that the following main factors contributed to it's being chosen as galactic capital:

• Located on hub of several major hyperlanes
• Presumed huge industrial capacity
• It's status as "founder" of majority of major northern Core human worlds
• It's good relations with Corellia & Duro

All of these factors are key, but the final may of been the deciding factor. In the case of the Corellians, their independent nature and desire to focus on exploration (as opposed to governance & bureaucracy) probably caused them to vote for Coruscant as capital. The Duros, with strong trade links to Coruscant and their own preferred focus on exploring, most likely saw little value in being capital.

No matter what, no one, not even the Coruscanti, probbaly realized the power that being Republic capital would bring. As the centuries and millenia progressed and power was more centralized into the Republic government, the world obtained an incredible amount of prestige. Early in Republic history, I have no doubts that Coruscant still had it's own postitions and views. However, in relatively short order, "Coruscant" and "Republic" basically came to mean the same thing.

--Adm. Nick

 

I'm assuming not one building on all of Coruscant is not devoted to food? There are any number of designs with (underfunded) R&D that entail vertical farms. If we can do it why can't a galaxy spanning civilization?

 

I forgot about the new Gree angle, was that last bit of info regarding the slaves and traders recently revealed in SWTOR as well?

With the Gree influence there, I would think it would be a neat idea that humans shared the hypergate network with them or that they reverse engineer the technology. Then eventually something bad happened to cut off human access to these hypergates and the rest is lost to history. I would like that to be an explanation for why there are distant human colonies from the Core like Seoul 5, or how near-human worlds like the Chiss came to be. Better than Rakata or Celestial involvement for me, plus finally something interesting happening in the pre-30,000 BBY Coruscanti history.

I think that has to be correct. There has to be a good reason why we have never seen a Coruscanti president, prime minister, king, queen, chairmen, or whatever. I just assume that it feel under direct Republic jurisdiction, maybe the Galactic Constitution dictated as such. I think there are a few examples of Republic governors running planets, like Taris I believe or Corellia post-Diktat.

 

That's interesting, because both the Empire and the Rebel Alliance were claiming to be the legitimate heir to the Old Republic... and they each chose a symbol from the Old Republic, but apparently different symbols from different eras. Was that a way of showing exactly which parts of the Old Republic they thought were the good and worthwhile ones? Like, if you adopted an American symbol associated with the New Deal era, versus an American symbol associated with the Gilded Age? Something to think about when we get to the symbolism.

 

Personally, I am less interested in why Coursicant was capital and more why Alaskan thought that it had a better claim.

Also if the Republic had a different name back before it was truly galactic.

Though tragically still common and powerful in political circles today.

Well, unlike Rome or Constantinople, you don't have to fight your way through the rest of the Republic to reach Coursicant. Due to the nature of hyperspace, there is little reason for an enemy to not simply rush the capital as soon as the war begins - at which point it has to raise its shields and starve, or risk bombardment and invasion. A more self-sufficient world could still serve as a capital while under siege.

That said, it isn't like a war ends the instant you take the capital, and governments, especially militaries, can operate without one for a time. And in any case, the Republic spent most of its existence as the largest and most powerful government by a large margin (considering how few independent states had so much as a hundred worlds, I wonder just how many citizens simply treated "Republic" and "government" as interchangeable) defensive concerns were probably the last thing anyone thought of when choosing a capital.

At the risk of causing a digression:
You know, in popular media, Rome the Empire and Rome the City are treated so interchangeably that is easy to forget that there were, in fact, other cities in the Empire. I have to wonder though, is how different were these various provinces and cities in the Empire culturally and politically, did they see themsevles as Roman or what they were before that simply paid tribute to Rome, did the people in Rome think of them as Romans, whether or not they played in role in senator elections...lots of things like that.

Course, I know from my own studies of China that such things rarely have straightforward answers.

 

That's easy, its because Alsakan is awesome.

I think it would vary greatly depending on what era your in and the culture/history of the planet in question. No matter what era, I think the more powerful and independent worlds like Alsakan and Corellian and the planets they influenced would be more inclined to think of the Republic as an organization they belong to, instead of the government they ultimately look too. Culturally maybe planets like Corulag and Corfai that were Coruscanti colonies thought the opposite. Would also think that smaller colonies on the frontier of any era also thought of it more of government considering the military protection provided by the Republic.

 

Yeah, most authors just think of Coruscant as "Space Washington DC", hence why we see very little of Coruscant's government. I for one would love to know what sort of government the Coruscanti have had. I do wonder if the Coruscanti chose to embrace the idea that Coruscant = Republic as a way of furthering their own influence. Afterall, when you are the primary founder of major human Core Worlds, a Core Found, and galactic capital, it is easy to see how native Coruscanti might just view that as one more way of showing their own incredible influence.

Regardless if this is what Coruscant evolved into, I agree 100% that early Republic Coruscant would be a much more unique entity. Other than some vague comments about it being a bureaucratic world, we really don't know much about it. Was the world a colonial republic? Was it a quasi-empire? Inquiring minds want to know!

Hmm, good theory about the Galactic Constitution. Maybe that was one of the conditions of being named capital? I can see other worlds potentially thinking this would reduce Coruscanti influence, while wily Coruscanti political leaders probably saw that in the long run that being the hub of an expanding galactic institution would pay big dividends in the future.

Hmm, very interesting question. I personally would prefer the Starbird to be a symbol used by the Republic prior to the events of TOR, but who knows for sure. My personal theory is that the Starbird, which has Jedi associations as well, came into being after the Pius Dea period, when a Jedi Chancellor helped re-establish the Republic and restore Senate rule. The post-Pius Dea period is one of rebirth and expansion for the Republic, so this might be the sort of symbol that the Alliance to Restore the Republic wanted to showcase.

In the case of the Empire, it is really just a minor alteration from the Republic symbol of the Clone Wars, so it was probably chose to keep people thinking that little had actually changed. Palpatine was canny enough to ensure that people, especially people in the Core, felt that there was little difference between the Old Republic and Empire. Basically, that the best parts of the Republic were still in function and that the worst parts had been fixed by the Empire.

It really is an interesting question. Considering that Alsakan and the worlds in it's sphere of influence (Chandrila, Corulag, Alderaan, Esseles) were all founding by Coruscant, there must of been some action that the Alsakani did to gain both the loyalty of it's neighbors AND the sense that they were the rightful capital. My guess would be that the Alsakani played some major role in the Unification Wars, perhaps beating back some of the warlords that threatened the Core in the pre-Republic period. If they didn't do something major, then the only other explanation is that they were suffering from delusions of grandeur.

It probably varied over the millenia. Pre-Tionese War, this was probably very true. Then during the war, all Republic worlds, including those in the Core, suddenly felt the need for greater government control. I imagine this trend continued back and forth throughout Republic history. It isn't unlike many modern peoples attitude towards central government. They don't want it to interfere with their daily lives, but the second there is a crisis people suddenly turn to the government to solve their problems.

I will target to get a post on the Core Founders up tomorrow, so that we can have some fun discussions about the various strengths each world brought to the Republic.

--Adm. Nick

 

My point about food supply was because it a very different matter to supply a planet then a city. Coruscants' reliance on imported food was exploited on at least two occasions I can think of off the top of my head (Great Galactic war and Thrawan). Since the Republic was not formed by Coruscant conquering large amounts of space, I was wondering why they would choose a capital that had such a weakness. Maybe this is a thing most people don't think of but in my country our capital was put inland to protect it from invasion. Or maybe they picked it because other planets (Corellia, Duro, etc) didn't want the other one to get it, maybe like Belgium.

I wonder if they had a vote for it?

 

Given how hyperspace works, there is really no "safe" planets in the galaxy. Besides, a capital isn't supposed to be some remote fortress world, it is supposed to be the hub of a government. When you factor in Coruscant's legacy as a colonizer, their incredible industrial power, their place at the nexus of several key hyperlanes, and their apparent political power (it was Coruscant that called worlds together for the Galactic Constitution), it isn't hard to see why it was capital.

Besides, the early Republic had no major enemies. The only other "empire" it was aware of at it's founding was the Herglic Trade Empire, which it had peaceful relations with. The Republic probably assumed that if a threat materialized that they could dispatch ships from member worlds to Coruscant to protect it in a crisis.

--Adm. Nick

 

So then, where does the info (or mention) of the Unification wars come from?