The Political History of the Galaxy: The Collapse of the Empire

Why did the Empire fall, and why couldn't the Republic finish the job?

The long version: there was a massive bureaucracy and power structure in place, as well as a set of people perfectly capable of ruling the Empire. The Emperor's death alone should not have been sufficient to cause the fall of the Empire. What other factors - political, economic, etc. - ultimately caused its collapse? Potential topics: swelling unrest in the Mid Rim and the Colonies, instability and power plays among the ruling class, Pellaeon's retreat and warlordism, and the Emperor's own machinations.

And on the other side: by 12 ABY, the Empire was in ruins. What kept the New Republic from finishing the job? What forces, internal and external, held the young government back from eliminating the remnants of the Empire and mopping them up to establish control over the galaxy?

Part of The Political History of the Galaxy: A Lit Board Ongoing Project

 

Your a brave man Keralys I promise to be good

Why did the Empire fall, and why couldn't the Republic finish the job?

The Emperor Died(well sort of ). Without Palaptine or Vader greed and personal ambition quickly rose to the top. As to the second part the massive military machine the Empire used as a political tool wasn't going to be swept away under the carpet with any ease.

The long version: there was a massive bureaucracy and power structure in place, as well as a set of people perfectly capable of ruling the Empire. The Emperor's death alone should not have been sufficient to cause the fall of the Empire.

Not instantly anyway, and it didn't. But we know Palaptine intended for his underlings to squabble and scratch for power. I wonder if this timeframe(post DE) is really the time when the Moff's began a slow rise to prominance even with the Warlords being somewhat in the spotlight. They remained a political office with some sense of legitimacy, most certainly when compared to the many Warlords popping up. I guess I'm trying to say that they were maybe a constant anchor in the fractured Empire, legitimate government officials in a sea of self proclaimed rulers.

Not that they were not greedy themselves of course.......

And on the other side: by 12 ABY, the Empire was in ruins. What kept the New Republic from finishing the job? What forces, internal and external, held the young government back from eliminating the remnants of the Empire and mopping them up to establish control over the galaxy?

Because thats not the Jedi way? Obliterating the Empire, especially one willing to eventually yield would have made them no better than what they were fighting against. Not that it would have been a simple task, or a quick one. Add on crisis like the Yevetha and the New Republic was likely stretched pretty far.

Without Pellaeon's decision to pursue peace the remnants of the Empire certainly would have been finished likely sooner than later. I think it's readily clear through canon that some people did and do like living in the Empire, in whatever form they could find, so that probably comes inot play as well.

 

I think the failure of the Empire is actually boiled down to a larger failure of the Old Republic. The Emperor did not replace many of the corrupt officials that had brought down the Old Republic. Instead, he encouraged the culture of decadence and self-entitlement that destroyed the Galaxy's Unity.

Much like the Roman Republic, there was a lot of civil warfare after the rise of the dictator Sulla. Rather than treat Palpatine as Julius Caesar, we should better consider him a Sulla figure. After his death, there were a number of extremely devastating civil wars but no Augustus Caesar figure to put them all back into place. Instead, the Empire continued to produce successor after successor who HATED each other and wore down the Republic's strength. You could make an argument that the increasingly stupid and ineffective Imperial successors to Palpatine also severely undermined the Empire's credibility.

With Trioculous and Xandel Carvius, you have the Empire showing some truly ridiculous figures to the public at large. They're the Caligula and Nero figures of the galaxy as a whole. With the Empire elevating such figures to incredibly powerful positions (albeit Trioculous is a pretender and illegitimate usurper), its easy to understand why the public lost trust with the Empire at large as capable of living up to its promise of stability.

There's also a great deal to be said that the Empire's destruction of Alderaan was actually just the first step in an increasingly insane Palpatine's galactic ambition. My personal theory? Palpatine's Dark Side probings resulted in his senility or outright madness sometime before ANH. It's entirely possible he was crazy from suffering mild brain damage at the hands of Mace Windu. This may explain his sudden personality change from dedicated politican to cackling madman.

I believe Operation: Shadow Hand was what really destroyed the Empire's credibility even more than Xandel Carivus' pathetic turn as Emperor. The Empire's Blitzkrieg against the Core Worlds, his chief center of support, is such a incredibly violent and unnecessary act that it undoubtedly eradicated any lingering popularity that the Emperor possessed. Had the Emperor been thinking clearly, he would have attempted to present himself as a liberator. Instead, he employed monsters like General Delvarius and Admiral Harrsk.

 

Well, the Empire's fall in a political aspect is due in part to the military aspect as well. It was really due to the fact that there was no truly appointed leader after Endor. With Palpatine gone, warlords like Jerec, Shadowspawn, the Prophets Of The Dark Side, Trioculus, Zsinj, Harrsk, Teradoc, Delvardus and assorted Moffs were free to make their own little empires and whittle away the Empire's capability to control the galaxy as a whole.

Add to the fact that loyalist Moffs and Advisors, as well as military-backed leaders like Pellaeon, Isard, Rogriss were simply unable to stop the New Republic from advancing into the Empire's territory, and you have a very clearly painted set of points for the Empire's fall, at least for the first 4 years after Endor.

Thrawn comes back in 9 ABY. He's the highest ranking Imperial left, and naturally the Imperial military rallies behind him. Even the Moffs and Advisors approve, although for their own gains at first, and Thrawn shows that the Empire can sustain itself if it doesn't overuse its resources or men in no-win battles. It does indeed inspire the Empire not to give up, Thrawn is the one leader they've been looking for. The heroes naturally triumph, defeating Thrawn, pushing the Empire back, and basically breaking Imperial moral down further. The loss of Bilbringi and Mount Tantis doesn't help either.

At this point, roughly 10 ABY, the Empire is left with an assortment of Moffs, Admirals, Advisors, and warlords. Spurred by Thrawn's campaign, they all decide to rally together as one for a common goal: finish Thrawn's job, run the New Republic off Coruscant and never give up. They quickly accomplish this dream of theirs and dance happily. One problem: there isn't a single leader to rally around when all is said and done. The Imperial military wants to be civil about it, elect a new Grand Admiral. The Moffs and Advisors don't seem to like the idea that they aren't the be-all-end-leaders they were after Isard and before Thrawn, so they throw a disagreeing hissy fit. COMPNOR, as well as the Intelligence and Security Bureaus were left out of this new Grand Admiral appointment discussion entirely, so at this point, everyone is at war with everyone in the Empire, so at least the warlords are in familiar territory here, if no one else is.

Palpatine swoops back in from the dead, and happily assumes the reings of his Empire since the weaklings were rooted out during the Mutiny, as it became known. The heroes try to beat the ever-self-ressurecting Palpatine to no avail. This continues through 10 ABY and into early 11 ABY. Things are looking up for our battle-worn Empire, which as this point has slighly over half the galaxy under its banner.

Some Imperials liked it when Palpatine was not around to threaten their lives every time they failed or what have you. Carnor Jax was one. Paying off the Emperor's personal cloning scientist/physician/whatever they call him in the fandom nowadays, leads to the corruption in Palpatine's clone DNA in 11 ABY, thus beginning the Emperor's true, ultimate and final demise. The New Republic is successful in driving the Empire back yet again due to a lack of a true leader for the forces to rally behind. The shortlived Imperial Interim Council was an attempt to convince the splintered Imperial military to focus, but it was a failure. The Empire at this point was a dozen factions, spread over a third of known space, bent on infighting rather than ending the New Republic. This is where the New Republic finally says "Hey, if it isn't going to fight us, let's just watch it destroy itself. It's not a threat anymore."


I'm not trying to recap the timeline here, but I sort of have to so you can see just how and why the Empire lasted as long as it did after 11 ABY. Here goes:


Flash forward futher into 11 ABY to Admiral Daala, who gets out of the Maw, finding that not only is Tarkin dead, but so are Palpatine, Vader, Thrawn, etc. She goes on her little revenge spree before fleeing to the Deep Core to see what's left of the Empire s

 

The DESB, I think, said it best that Emperor Palpatine did not design the Empire to survive him. The most ambitious Imperials simply carved out sizable territories that later payed lip service to Thrawn and the Reborn Emperor (if they still existed then) but otherwise continued unabated. The two most powerful remaining figures - Pestage and Isard - were both people accustomed to being more of "behind the throne" people; Pestage, one would imagine, would've eventually backed someone from the IRC (or possibly a dark horse candidate) if he hadn't been constantly at war with Isard. And Isard... well, Isard was excellent at her given job, but as the de facto leader of the Empire she made a great intelligence agent. While she easily outmaneuvered the IRC and maintained her power, she lost the capital in an absurd scheme after a long string of failures. Considering what she did to Brentaal, I wouldn't be surprised if she deliberately sabotaged some of the Imperial officers - maybe even Grand Admirals - on the front lines if she felt that they might be accumulating power to take over the Empire. Pellaeon should count himself lucky that he wasn't made an Admiral...
We know very little about the structure in the year-and-a-half following the fall of Coruscant, and even Thrawn's return meant little, I imagine, to the ruling structure dealing with the day-to-day matters of the Empire.
The Empire's false resurgence seemed to do more against the Empire than the New Republic. Remember that the Yavin heroes showing up on the wastelands of ruined Coruscant were there to see the ravages caused by the Imperial Civil War, not the retaking of Coruscant. The purges meant more decimations to the structure of the Empire, and Palpatine probably never got around to filling in many of the gaps before he experienced his final death.
And his final death - while technically at the hands of the NR, he was really dealt his death blow by one of his own, the supposedly "loyal" Royal Guard in alliance with one of his Hands. The rump Empire founded bore little to do with Palpatine's Empire, so I won't further discuss it (other than to note that some of the other ex-Imperial attempts, like the Empire Reborn movement or the Second Imperium, were closer in spirit to what Palpatine had envisioned).
So what does it all up to? What crucial elements existed that caused the collapse? As I stated, the main one would be that the Emperor deliberately did not plan for any succession to him. Why should he, since he planned on essentially live forever? Secondarily, the atmosphere of suspicion and betrayal that festered in the upper levels of the Empire crippled it without the Emperor on hand to keep everyone in line, which would seem to be Palpatine's Sith principles being applied generally. Again, despite the presumed inefficiencies (and exploitation by the Rebel Alliance time and time again), Palpatine probably thought in expedient since he was planning on dumping the "Empire" as it stood for a Sith Theocracy anyways.

 

Post the Prequels, I believe it's more likely Palpatine didn't intend a Non-SITH to suceed him. Darth Vader had been made the military executor of the galaxy and the vision in Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire indicates that he could have suceeded in dominating the galaxy if he had murdered Palpatine.

Likewise, Kyle Katarn's Dark Side ending also shows that the power of the Ruusan energies would have allowed Kyle to become a Sith in everything but name (or maybe even that). That would have also allowed him to become Emperor of the galaxy.

I think there's a certain level of Dark Side power and charisma necessary to hold the galaxy together or even Force Abilities. It might explain why the Empire propsered under Roan Fel.

I think there's something to be said for mass defections as well. The Empire's military forces were occupied elsewhere but I don't think the New Republic would have had a ghost of a chance of taking the galaxy were anyone really actually willing to stand up for the Empire. I think it's very likely that they started gaining serious traction because they were now possessed of the resources of countless worlds like Bakura.

While the Republic lacked a Fondor or a Mon Calamari, the lesser worlds would definitely add their own strength.

 

"With the knowledge gained from his Dark Side Compendium, he would create an eternal dynasty, with the descendants of Skywalker as its nobility, and Palpatine himself as its omnipotent ruler." - DESB, p. 38.

 

Yes, I have the book.

Doesn't mean that Palpatine didn't expect to eventually be killed by Vader at the beginning.

He only discovered immortality late in his reign.

 

However, it is implied by ROTS that he was interested in it well before discovering it.

 

I believe immortality was plan 'B'. He stated that Anakin would become more powerful than he, right? I think that little trip to the beach on Mustafar might've caused him to reconsider...

And I recall a chart of the imperial government which was more convoluted than Transformer continuity. Basically, Palps set things up so if he died, things would fall apart. I'm guessing it was set up like that post-Mustafar.

 

EU tells us that immortality had been sought by the Sith for thousands of years. Palpatine intended to use Anakin's greater power to this end.