Lit What did the Galactic Republic actually do?

Usually, the purpose of a government is to provide for common defense, facilitate trade, maintain a common currency, and settle disputes.


The Galactic Republic didn't have a military, and wasn't capable of truly providing defense, for the institution of the Republic itself or its more vulnerable worlds.

The Galactic Republic outsourced the facilitation of trade to private entities like the Trade Federation.

The Galactic Republic outsourced its own currency to a private entity, the InterGalactic Banking Clan.

The Galactic Republic also depended on an religious order of some ten-thousand monks (in a galaxy of quadrillions of quadrillions) to mediate and settle disputes, to ensure peace and justice prevailed.


So, what did the Galactic Republic actually do?

 

Republic might not have his own army.

But the members of the Republic has his own armies. Such as Naboo's Gungans, Kashyyyk's Wookies etc. They can send help to other members if it's needed. As we've seen in the Clone Wars Season 4 Episode 02, the Gungans helped Mon Calamari people.

They also have the Jedi, so yeah they can do a lot with the bureaucracy.

 

I wonder was Kashyyyk represnted at some point during the republic as we see no wookie senator or representant. The wookies are allies with the jedi we know at least with Yoda and we know the jedi takes members of wookies in to their order. I'm sure with the jedi and other allies with the jedi and the republic they manage to maintain peace for 1000 years. Sure there were probaly few small conflicts here and there but no galactic war.

 

But what did the Republic actually do? the Gungans and the Mon Calamari didn't need to both be part of the Republic in order to send aid to one another.

And yes, they delegated justice and peacekeeping to the Jedi, as I mentioned in my post: "The Galactic Republic also depended on an religious order of some ten-thousand monks (in a galaxy of quadrillions of quadrillions) to mediate and settle disputes, to ensure peace and justice prevailed."

So what did the Galactic Republic actually do?

 

The Jedi proposed that the Gungans could actually help the Mon Calamari people. They didn't know each other. Without the Senate interactions and the Jedi's knowledge from the capital, they wouldn't hear or learn anything about each other in the first place. It's very good for communication and taking the important decisions from one place.

Also the Jedi are not politicians, they are the keepers of the peace. So they can't involve into the politics, the galactic senate decides and the Jedi takes action from the capital. Having a capital like that helps Jedi a lot to do their work quickly. It's basically necessary because of the Jedi's nature which is not wanting to rule or decide for other people's life, if it was the Sith instead of the Jedi, then the Galactic Senate would be unnecessary, since the Sith would decide what it should be done for instead of the politicians and the senators.

 

The Galactic Republic over centuries provided all OP mentioned itself until outsourcing it gradually (thx to Sith machinations probably). By the time of the PT, it was a corrupt shell of its former self only held up by idealists and dreamers that formulated laws they could not enforce (slavery) and opportunities/legalisations of business that provided more options for money grabs to the corrupt elite.

Effectively the Galactic Republic was a tiny localised working government that nominally claimed a wider allegiance than it actually governed. No wonder the Hutts provided more governnance and services to the larger galaxy than the Republic entire, with their enlarged sphere of influence as on Fact Files TCW map and Atlas maps speaking volumes.

 

Coordinate?

IMO that would be the most important function of a meta-governmental entity like the GR. Providing institutions and procedures for its members to hash out things like industry norms, trade routes, HoloNet protocols, whatever. Mediating conflicts between members on a legislative level ("what are rules that we should all agree to follow?") and a judicial level ("did someone break one of those rules we all agreed on?"). Perhaps administrating things like galaxywide patents etc.

...that's the idealistic version. The less idealistic one is that it's like the UN, presenting itself as the guardian of sentient rights and galactic democracy or some such while being mostly ineffectual when member states actually misbehave.

 

You're missing my point.

The Senate decides what?

But as I said in my post, it has apparently delegated industry norms, trade, etc. to megacorporations like the Trade Federation, and mediating conflicts and judicial matters to the Jedi.

This is what it seems to me. Except not even really a guardian of democracy, since it didn't require Senators to be directly-elected by their people until the New Republic (even Padme was appointed as Senator), and many of its member systems were monarchies or other non-democratic governments.

 

No, why would anyone miss your point here. I just told you what they do.

The problems that presented before the senate and the courts of course, what do you think?

 

No, you really are missing my point. One is that the Republic delegates too much to the Jedi, and I'm asking what the Republic does outside of delegating so much to entities like the Jedi and the Trade Federation. Second, is that there wasn't 1000 years worth of intense regional conflicts like the invasion of Mon Calamari in the middle of the Clone Wars, the conflict of Naboo was seen as highly irregular, so what else did the Republic do (and without the Jedi)?

What problems are the Senate and the Courts presented with, that they actually decide, and not the Jedi or the Trade Federation? The Republic doesn't deal with military matters, it doesn't administrate trade (and just taxing trade to outlying systems at the start of TPM seems unprecedented and leads to the Naboo crisis), it leaves settling disputes and the general job of justice and peacekeeping to the Jedi. It even relies on a private banking clan for finance. So what does the Senate do?

 

''delegates'' too much to the Jedi? What?

Do you even realize that if not for the Jedi, the Sith would rule the galaxy for 1000 years even before the Battle of Naboo, or at least the galaxy would be in a constant chaos with an unending battles between the Sith and the Jedi?

Of course the Galactic Republic and the Jedi are inseperable and they work with each other more than anyone else.

Every problem that the people brings up before the Senate. Otherwise every planet would turn into Tatooine or Oba Diah, where the gangsters rules the planet.

Not only the crime syndicates, there are also intergalactic factions like the Mandalorians, or the Yuuzhan Vong. The Galactic Senate is needed for taking decisions when it comes to what to do against these threats, Jedi can't rule and decide on their own. They are not politicians.

 

The Galactic Republic, after Ruusan I guess, seemed to be somewhat more like the United Nations than the Republic of the United States of America.

IG: @jedisufism

 

Well apparently the Galactic Republic was so irrelevant economically that people living in an entire Hutt shadow economy had no use for Republic credits whatsoever : https://boards.theforce.net/threads...credits-are-useless-to-watto-in-tpm.50052587/

 

The Ruusan Reformation effectively made the Republic non-existent and handed the Galaxy on a silver platter to the Sith. If anything, Palpatine restored the Old Republic as it was, before adding himself as Emperor ontop of the existing structure.

 

It just occurred to me that the Banite Sith could have set all these situations up over the course of a thousand years after the Ruusan Reformation to make it easier for 2 of them to destroy the Jedi and Republic.

 

All part of the plan. The Plan.

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That seems like an exaggeration of their abilities. More likely they just found weaknesses in the system over time, and exploited them.

 

*cough*

 

I finished my re-readings of the New Essential Chronology and New Essential Atlas recently, to get back into Star Wars lore.

Sources on the formation of the Galactic Republic are a bit sparse and contradictionary. I believe she was founded in like 25,200 BBY, several centuries after hyperspace travel became common and shortly after the Rakatan Infinite Empire had collapsed. The most important Core Worlds came into contact and conflict, and when they realized cooperation was far better than that, over 20 local powers joined together and became the Core Founders of the Republic. Like 50 years later a hyperspace line that lead to Ossus was discovered and the Jedi, who identified with the Republic and her ideals, choose to became her servants and guardians.

Uh, well, I know Star Wars is adventure fantasy and like "1970s, 80s & 90s North America + World War 2 IN SPACE!", but if you think about it, it is a bit weird that problems like poverty, racism, slavery, corruption, subjugation etc. still exist after over 25,000 years of hyperspace travel and 36 millenia of galactic civilization.

 

they tax you.

That is about it.

 

Fundamentally the republic in the post Ruusan era exists to keep the galaxy unified.

Power had been decentralized either to corporations or world’s sectors and systems.

The senate exists to give everyone in theory a voice, the Jedi and judicial forces exist to maintain peace and prevent conflicts or end them. And everything else can probably be done better by someone else.

 

Just because that was what happened in a particular instance in TPM does not mean it is the only way anything ever got done in that entire galaxy for over a thousand generations.

 

Also, we don't know the degree to which these third party entities operate under strict provisions in the form of Senate litigation - and enforced by a Republic court system. It could be that executive function is "outsourced" to third parties, with the Senate and courts theoretically serving to check and balance them.