Saga How did the empire fall in one year?

Just watching the movies, I figured that when news of Palpatine's death reached Coruscant, the Imperial Senate re-convened and voted
to go back to a Republic and put surviving Imperial leaders on trial, and that the Rebellion then dissolved.

 

Hadn't the imperial senate been long dissolved by then?

 

Yes, but on paper it was "for the duration of the emergency (the Rebellion)", and I'm sure there would be many within the Empire who would say, "The Emperor's authority came from the Senate, so it's the Senate's job to decide what to do next."

 

Though, I'm pretty sure in canon (from the aftermath novels), Operation Cinder was left to Galiux Rax in control of the remaining forces of the empire with Grand Admiral Sloane. Also, Rax used Grand Vizier (pretty much vice emperor) Mas Amedda as the figurehead of the empire at that time with him being the puppet. Mas Amedda really wanted to surrender too, but was being held under guard by Rax's men (I believe ISB).

 

Operation Cinder would have targeted everyone who was not fanatically loyal to Palpatine. If any Imperials were in any doubt about what to do when Palpatine died, their minds would have been made up at that point and most would have decided to fight for the galaxy rather than a regime.

 

IMO - At a certain point the Empire ceased to be a cohesive entity with much of its command and control capabilities wiped out. Though individual units may have continued to fight the Empire itself would have been gone.

Also, it seems that a good number of personnel defected to the First Order instead of surrendering or standing down and attempting to flee.

The FO in turn really was just using the blueprint of the Empire as well as the equipment and people from the Empire so its rise could be relatively fast as well.

 

Stupendous Wave made a great video about this today:
The emperor was the glue of the empire

 

I personally greatly enjoyed the Aftermath trilogy, so I'm sorry to hear you guys disliked them so much. As for the Empire falling in one year - it didn't, at least not completely. The Galactic Civil War ended, but the Empire wasn't completely gone. With the death of the Emperor, several Moffs and Grand Moffs split from the Empire proper and established themselves as independent War Lords, and most importantly, Corusant and the imperial government under Mas Amedda remained. The Battle of Jakku broke what remained of the imperial armada after a year of splintering, in-fighting, defections, and galaxy-wide uprisings, so the Emprie seized to be a galactic power, but the political entity that was the Empire continued as a rump state under the New Republic's oversight. We don't yet know how the Imperial Remants developed over the 30 years after the war, but the empire didn't just disappear.

 

I'm tired of the arguments that Star Wars needs to be gritty and "realistic" and that the Empire couldn't have collapsed after being defeated in Endor, because supposedly it isn't "realistic". This is a fairy tale and in a grander essence, and eschatological story about how the world should be, not necessarily how it is. Especially when the "realistic" arguments don't hold much weight at all once you break them down. Franco realized that Spain had to restore the monarchy since dictatorships are a cult of the dictator and once he dies, it's difficult to transfer the power to a third party. This same reason is why the Soviet Union collapsed under a year, so it's not like this type of thing doesn't have precedent. The new canon puts its own spin on how that happened, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but I do really like darklordoftech's idea, that the Imperial Senate was re-instituted after the Emperors death and the people voted for a return to democracy. Not unreasonable when you consider how balance had been restored to the Force and how Death Star is what held the systems in check and without them, (and the Empire) the people revolted.

 

this thread is gonna get a whole lot more complex in about a week or so when we see how those Imperial remnants or whoever they are in The Mandalorian! (but it has been established beforehand that there's a few Imps still hanging about, the Unknown Region First Order starters and it looks like some Outer Rim bunch of folks)

 

Not to mention if TROS also possibly reveals more about the beginning of the Resistance!

 

I don't like Wendig's writing style, it's awful. But the story he was telling was good and enabled me to get through the first two books.

 

I agree. I had no idea about the timeline of that show, so it was a twist on itself

 

The Imps in Mandalorian in 3 episodes seem to be very much dregs, I can buy that they are Battle of Jakku stragglers who never made it to the Unknown Regions.

 

Yeah definitely.

They aren't two warring nation states. It's explicitly an ideological civil war. The Rebel Alliance is a reformist movement within the Galactic Empire, which was once known as the Galactic Republic. It isn't even a particularly radical movement, just one which calls for a return to an older form of government, away from a failed innovation in form of the the Imperial regime. It doesn't need to kill every last stormtrooper or destroy every last ISD to win.

If the Senate reconvenes and selects a new chancellor to replace the one who got himself killed at Endor, it's over. Those armies and fleets now serve the restored Republic. The Rebel Alliance has won the war. Any "Imperials" from that point onward are (ironically) rebels and lawless bandits.

That would be the legal situation, though there would obviously be ideological die-hards and defectors to these holdouts. Just going by the films (and TCW), I'm not sure they'd be as widespread as alleged in both expanded universes, considering that much of the Imperial military once served the Galactic state when it was a Republic and so clearly don't have an automatic aversion to taking orders from another chancellor. Some of them could legitimately fear being charged with crimes against sentient life and flee for that reason, but not the average stormtrooper or ISD crew member, or even a high-ranking officer who didn't commit any such crimes.

You might as well ask how it is that the old Republic fell in an instant in ROTS without the Sith personally defeating the entire Republic navy, down to the last Consular-class frigate orbiting a backwater planet.

That's not how changes of government work.

This is a separate matter from comparing how the new canon EU handled the fall of the Empire (referring to the Imperial regime in the Galactic state, which long predates it) with how the Legends EU handled it.

Something that the Legends EU got very right is the idea that there's a power vacuum at the top of the Empire and a succession crisis after Palpatine's death. Out of any potential autocrats in a galaxy which has a centuries long tradition of democracy, only Palpatine has legitimacy as a ruler. He has this from his election to the chancellorship, and from the Senate granting him more power at every stage between TPM and ANH. No-one else can claim this. At the time of ROTJ, here has never been a succession of power from one autocrat to another. Palpatine is still serving out an extended term in office after his elections between TPM and AOTC.

In Legends, there's a succession of self-declared emperors. Even the most competent of post-Palpatine leaders - such as Thrawn - are still never elected to civilian leadership at any point in their careers. They're just crude dictators with no reason for anyone to follow them beyond brute force. There's a lot of instability as power trades hands between various warlords. I personally find that more believable than a united group of Grand Moffs and Grand Admirals executing Operation Cinder, as if Palpatine was their god and not just an elected strongman. It's a bit more grounded and political while the new canon EU depiction is more fantastical and, ironically, cynical.

That instability damns the "Imperial" way of doing things as backwards and useless. It's remarkable that it supposedly takes so long IU, in both expanded universes, for most people to accept that it's a failed experiment. I think that acceptance is clearly the intention of the ROTJ special edition scenes, depicting widespread celebration of Palpatine's death even on Naboo and Coruscant. Even the claim by General Tagge in ANH that the Rebel Alliance has growing support in the Senate, which thunderously applauded Palpatine's new order in ROTS, indicates that even people who supported Palpatine's rise to power in the PT are increasingly sick of the whole idea of a dictatorship. Instability following Palpatine's death would reinforce that view and convince more people of it.

 

The Soviet Union is a good example. It fell in two years after the fall of the Berlin wall. I did not like the book, but it shows how the Galactic Empire collapsed on itself after Palpatine is removed. Many surrendered, or deserted, but the hardcore members left to the unknown regions to regroup. It takes time to build a powerful fleet and army, but alot of their equipment is from the empire days. Overtime they build their forces to emerge as the First Order, and began conquering planets and sectors. One can make the parallels between what is happening with the First Order and Russia. The EU was more of how Rome had fallen when it came to the Galactic Empire.

 

So what I'm about to say doesn't line up with TFA but it's what I thought happened pre-sequels. This is going to be a long read so strap yourselves in, I'm about to make the jump to hypothetical space.

Basically, it all comes down to two conversations in A New Hope that in my view set up the downfall of the Empire. The first is the Imperial meeting where Tarkin tells his colleagues that the Senate has been disbanded and that the regional governors now have direct control over their systems and that fear will keep planets in line. The second is Tarkin's conversation with Leia in which she implies that the more the Empire tries to assert control, the more systems will turn against it and he reiterates his belief that fear of the Death Star will prevent that from happening.

So first, let's talk about the Senate. The Imperial Senate was a worry for the Empire. The Emperor may have had control over the military but it wasn't reasonable to maintain a sufficient military presence on every single planet to maintain control. The Emperor had play ball with the Senate, keep them from getting too unhappy. It's one thing for a few rag tag revolutionaries to kick up a fuss but if entire planets start rebelling and that spreads across the many worlds of the Empire, even the might of the Imperial Fleet wouldn't be large enough to quell every uprising. I'll come back to this.

Second, let's talk about the rebels plan. A lot of people assume that the rebels goal was to overthrow the Empire. It wasn't. The goal of the rebels was to convince the galaxy to reject the Empire, to create the galaxy-wide uprising Palpatine was afraid of. The Imperial military was far too large for the rebels to ever hope to defeat it in open war. But if they could get the Senate on their side and get the galaxy at large on their side, the demand for a return to democracy would be impossible to ignore. Sure, the Emperor would send his military to any world that caused a fuss...but every world? Not a chance. The rebels believed that in the end, the Emperor would either have to give in to their demands or he'd be forcibly removed from office...now they didn't know he was a Sith Lord but that kinda doesn't matter.

Third, now let's look at the Emperor's plan. He knew all this. He knew he had to keep the Senate on side. He knew even his mighty armada couldn't cope if every world rose up. His entire plan is based around creating a climate of fear. He started a war to get into power and fear of the Separatists was used to give him more and more power. Then he became Emperor by creating a new enemy to fear - the Jedi and for a few years that would have worked, at least until the Jedi were all but wiped out. He used that fear to build a military that was completely loyal to him but publicly at least, he still had to placate the Senate.

That's where the Death Star comes in. The final instrument of fear. Once the Death Star was ready he could get rid of the Senate and the fear of entire worlds being destroyed with a single blast would prevent anyone of even daring to think of rising up against him. Palpatine spent 19 years as Emperor, presiding over a Senate that he despised until his ultimate weapon was complete and he could get rid of them. Military leaders and regional governors, all loyal to him, would keep planets in line, using the threat of total annihilation to stop any pesky rebellions from forming. The destruction of Alderaan would prove that the Rebels were right in that the Empire is evil but would also be a statement from the Empire that nobody had better even think about challenging it. Then Luke Skywalker went and blew it up.

So now there's no Senate, the Empire has destroyed a planet and the galaxy is getting antsy. All pretence of the greater good disappears from the Empire. It's evil. There can be no doubt. The rebellion is growing and Palpatine needs to act quickly to ensure he maintains control and fear across the galaxy. Enter the second Death Star.

OK, so now the preamble is out of the way, let's get to the meat of how and why the Empire falls. The two conversations from A New Hope provide the basic context for what happens but it's Palpatine's own plan in Return Of The Jedi, coupled with the decisions he made during A New Hope that cause it to happen.

Palpatine's plan was to lure the rebels into a trap, using himself as bait in order to turn Luke to the Dark Side and to end the rebellion and once again strike fear into the hearts of everyone in the galaxy using the power of a Death Star. The rebellion would be crushed and nobody would dare oppose him again.

There are two important things to remember here. First, again, there's no Senate. Regional governors control star systems. Second, Palpatine deliberate orders the bulk of the Imperial fleet to spread itself thin across the galaxy to create the illusion that they're looking for the rebels so that the rebels will believe that Endor isn't as well defended as it could be. Now, Palpatine does keep some Star Destroyers at Endor as part of the trap but most of the fleet is elsewhere.

It's also important to look at the power structure of the Empire by the time of ROTJ. You have the Emperor of course. Then you have Vader, who is the Emperor's presumed heir and also essentially the supreme commander of the fleet. Then you have Admiral Piett, who as commander of the Executor basically serves as Vader's second in command of the fleet. Then you have various admirals and generals who all answer to Vader and Palpatine and you have the aforementioned governors who answer to Palpatine.

The Battle Of Endor happens and...well...things not only don't go according to plan, everything goes wrong. The Death Star, the ultimate weapon of fear, is destroyed. The Emperor is killed. Darth Vader, his presumed heir and commander of the fleet is killed. The Imperial flagship, the Executor and it's commander, Admiral Piett, presumed second in command of the fleet, is killed.

The leadership of the Empire is wiped out. There's no Senate to take command of the situation because the Emperor saw fit to disband it. Various admirals and generals have control over their fleets, battalions etc but they don't know what's going on. The regional governors theoretically have control over their individual star systems but there's no "head governor" to assume control of the Empire. Everybody answered to the Emperor and his inner circle, all of whom died.

Now we get to the crux of the whole thing - Return Of The Jedi: Special Edition. The thing the Emperor feared, the thing he built the Death Stars to prevent inevitably happens. The galaxy rises up. This is what the rebellion was about. We see worlds across the Empire rising up in celebration. Now, in the movie we only see a handful but the implication is that it's happening everywhere. The most important place it happens is Coruscant.

Now I know in the Disney canon, the Coruscant uprising is crushed but frankly, that's complete nonsense. Everyone on Coruscant is rising up. How many people are there on Coruscant? A trillion? There's no way there's anywhere close to enough stormtroopers on Coruscant to do anything. In fact I suspect that stormtroopers across the galaxy probably threw away their uniforms. The point is though, Coruscant is Imperial capital, where the Emperor's control, above anywhere else, should be absolute. If anywhere was going to stay loyal, it would be there and yet we see a mass uprising.

Uprisings are happening across the galaxy. The regional governors have no control. They have no power now. Just angry mobs outside their door. They can try calling for help but thanks to the Emperor's grand plan, the bulk of the fleet is spread far and wide across the galaxy and every fleet commander is probably getting thousands of calls begging for help.

Now let's go back to Endor. We see the rebels celebrating. We know there were Star Destroyers there but they don't fire after the Executor and Death Star are destroyed. Given what they just witnessed and assuming the apparent deaths of Palpatine, Vader and Piett, it makes absolute sense for them to retreat.

The truth is, the Empire doesn't fall in a year or five years, it collapses in a day and it's the Emperor's own fault. His grand plan to rule the galaxy through fear and destroy the rebellion ends up destroying the Empire. The fleet has no leadership, with individual captains and admirals fighting amongst themselves to claim command, the governors lose complete control over their systems as the people rise up, storming garrisons, toppling statues and overwhelming Imperial forces all over the galaxy, the Empire is done.

The question then is, what happens next? Well, first there has to be a ceasefire. In the face of a mass galactic uprising, I'd wager that most Star Destroyer captains would agree to cease hostilities. Admirals and generals would start making deals to avoid warcrimes tribunals. The rebel leadership would travel to Coruscant, greeted as heroes by the billions of people lining the streets and they would form a temporary transitional government with their priority being recalling the Senate to vote on a new constitution that restores the Republic.

That's the key thing here. The Empire isn't defeated in the traditional sense. It just becomes a Republic again. The Imperial fleet would fall under the control of the Rebel Alliance and the recalled Senate and over time, would likely be dismantled. There would be some warcrimes tribunals for the most evil offenders but I imagine most would have made deals. I suspect a number of lower ranked officers might have even ended up serving in the Republic fleet once it was established.

That's not to say it would all be rosy. Some fleet commanders and Star Destroyer captains who are steadfastly loyal to Palpatine would keep fighting and cause trouble but they would eventually be destroyed, give up or forced to flee with those who ended up doing the latter perhaps turning to piracy in the lawless outer rim.

So yeah, pretty much based entirely on the movies, that's basically what I assumed happened. I never really bought into the EU notion of the war continuing for 5 years and then having various versions of the Empire for decades after Endor because Endor was supposed to be the ultimate victory of the rebellion and signify the end of the Empire. Having them keep coming back undermines that. The same goes for the First Order and any supposed contingency plans of the Emperor. A contingency presupposes that the Emperor thinks he could lose but his entire plan at Endor is based on the complete belief that he will win and that's largely what fuels the Empire's collapse.

The idea of a battle like Jakku isn't beyond the realm of possibility if some star destroyer captains could band together but it wouldn't be a year later and really they wouldn't be fighting with any hope of victory.

The ultimate point is that the Empire isn't some foreign invader, it's the Republic under military dictatorship. Remove the dictator and have mass uprisings to counteract the military threat (I didn't even get into the sheer number of civilian ships that would take up the rebel cause against any Imperial ships that refused to recognise the will of the people) and the Empire becomes the Republic again. The key thing for the Alliance and a restored Senate is to ensure they don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

Anyway, if you read this far, I hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to the numerous holes you will pick in my overly long rundown of how I see the Empire's collapse.

 

Absolutely brilliantly written.

 

Is that in the films? If it's not it doesn't count.

 

It does tho.

 

Does not.

 

For an analogy, if Palpatine is Hitler, the Rebel Alliance is a group of Germans trying to ovethrow Hitler.

 

Yeah, so apparently somebody doesn't realize that EVERYTHING since Disney took over is canon now, I guess?

Living under a rock is fun.