The Trade Federation Boycott

Well, in The Phantom Menace there is a disagreement between the Republic affiliated government of Naboo and the Trade Federation. The main conflict is the Trade Federation wants to take control over the small planet, and Queen Amidala is trying to make the planet's representative bring up a plea to the Senate to investigate. The Federation has made an alliance of Trade crafts on the outlying space of the planet as a blockade against all incoming and outgoing ships. At first, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are sent by the Republic to make negotiations with the Federation. Evidently in the Federations attempts, they did not want the two Jedi to leave their presence alive.

The blockade is proven illegal, but Naboo being such a small planet, not many from the Republic venture out that far. My question is, how exactly could this be taken into action up to the point of invasion without action being taken by the Senate?

I know the Senate takes a long time to resolve anything, but how would it take so long with no action?

 

Actully the block aide is not what Nute was asking if it was legal or not. What he really wanted to know is if it was legal for them to land troops.

The block aide/boycott was just a front.

 

Yes, i know. I was just saying that the blockade wasn't legal.

 

No, the blockade was perfectly legal. The invasion was not.

 

As you know, their blockade was perfectly leeeee-gal, for they were hahpy to re-ceeeve, the, am-bassa-dors.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

But it had nothing to do with Japanese accents either. It was Transylvanian. Oops! Wrong thread

 

ok. i'm gonna try to explains this. bear with me here.

The Trade Federation blockaded Naboo by the ordering of Darth Sidious. Sidious\Palpatine chose naboo in particular because the queen would come to him for help because he was naboo's senator. it was perfectly legal for the trade federation to blockade Naboo, there was no law in the galaxy saying they couldn't. still, the senate tried to end the blockade. but, since there was no law saying the federation couldn't do this, they couldn't legally use force to drive the federation out. so they realied on negotiations (sp?). supreme chancellor Valorum (i think thats an awesome name) realized how long the negotitations were taking so he secretly dispatched 2 jedi, hoping that they could solve things quicker than the senate. as we all know, things didn't work out to swell, and then the Sidious ordered the invasion of naboo, which was not legal at all. sidious's (sorry if punctuation is wrong right there) plan was to force Queen Amidala to sign a treaty, making the invasion of Naboo legal,(i decided it was probably his idea becuase he said that he was the onve who would make it legal) and all would be well and good in the Senate and Palpatine could continue his plans.
in short, the blockade was ok, the invasion wasn't.
sorry for babling on too much, i get carried away with star wars.

 

I have a better question. I think, If I'm not mistaken we are led to believe that the Naboo are starving because of the blockade. The trade federation has stopped all shipping to and from Naboo. So the Naboo depend on other planets for their food? The planet is perfectly habitably. It can sustain gungan and human lifeforms, so why can't they simply grow or raise (livestock) their own food. Why depend on other planets to feed you when yo can do it yourself. Or, are we led to beleive the Naboo are so inept at survival that they have to depend on others for survival?

Edit: Okay, I just realized something the Naboo are starving because of the invasion not the blockade, but what purpose would the blockade have served? It's likened to a picket line. The reason unionized workers picket is to get some problem resolved (i.e. higer pay, medical insurance, better working conditions, etc.). The workers get the problem resolved by not working or "hurting" their place of employment. so, by blockading the planet they were stopping vital items from reaching Naboo, other than food that is. Is this assestment even remotely correct?

 

yeah kindov. the Naboo could rely on their own food during the blockade, but when the Federation invaded, they didn't even let the people have that. no ships could enter or leave during the blockade.
say, as long as we're talking about the trade federation, i got another quick question i've been wondering about. why are there dozens of federation ships at the beginning of TPM, but only one when amidala returns back to naboo? did they come on another side of the planet? if they did that hardly seems like a smart move by Gunray to me.

 

Why no self-reliance on the part of the Naboo?

Because free trade has made systems reliant on others for their livelihoods.

A symbiotic relationship.

And remember, the federation was "picketing" in protest to the taxation of trade routes, which they nearly monopolized.