Lit Why Even Rebel in the First Place?

TLDR: The Rebellion just seems like a Core World rejection of a Mid-Rimmer like Palpatine of Naboo ascending to a higher social status than them, and they just COULDN’T bear it. So they committed regicide. And they pandered to the galaxy’s ne’er-do-wells and the Rim worlds to be their footsoldiers in a selfish political game.


If you think about the Rebellion, it makes less sense. First off, really no one in the Rebellion but Bail Organa knew that the Empire was ruled by a Sith Lord.

Secondly, they claim to be fighting against the supposed tyrannical nature of the Empire, but by most accounts of the EU, including those written by Alliance historians themselves (Imp Sourcebook, Coruscant and the Core Worlds, etc) state that daily life in the Galaxy wasn’t all that different nor changed dramatically from Republic to Empire. So if the lives of like 95% of the Galaxy didn’t change at all, what was the point? Apart from that, the Republic wasn’t exactly the shining example of democratic government either. It was an elitist Core World oligarchy at best, and an incompetent, neglectful and corrupt kleptocracy at worst. The Empire was at least a functioning state, albeit yes a dictatorship. But the machinations of Imperial court politics didn’t really affect the common man at all.

And many of the Rebellion’s supporters come from monarchical star systems, so to fight the Empire because it wasn’t “democratic” is hypocritical. Besides, Palpatine technically was installed as monarch by the popular demand of the People, through legitimation by Galactic Senate. The Empire was a constitutionally legitimate state.

If the argument for the Rebellion was that it was a reaction to Imperial atrocities, I’d argue most of the perceived atrocities and heavy-handed actions taken by the Empire were done in response to violence first taken by the Rebel Alliance, other militant groups like JAN or the criminal underworld, or by Separatist holdouts committing acts of aggression against the Imperial state, and not getting the message that they lost the War. These groups also hid among civilian populations, and attempted to use diplomatic shields to protect themselves after committing acts of terror, and put the Empire in a nearly impossible position that resulted in a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” scenario, thus forcing its hand resulting in harm to civilian populations in an effort to prevent future rebel activity.

It’s like if a group of partisans in the US (or UK or wherever you live) decided to blow up and raid a military base or a major government building, so the government responds by putting the city on lockdown, monitoring communications and instituting a curfew so they can locate the terrorists. Then the very same terrorists use the “drastic and tyrannical” actions taken by the government as justification for carrying out even more acts of rebellion. They literally brought it upon themselves.

If the argument is that the Empire was humanocentric, racist or permitted slavery, my response is… so was the Republic. The Imperial Charter, just like the Republic, legally established the rights of all sentient inhabitants of the Empire. To rebel against one government for perceived racism, and not the former, is pure hypocrisy. “Slavery” in the Empire was a form of punishment for criminal activity, not a business endorsed by the state. It was just a pejorative term used for penal labor, which existed under the Republic as well (and many real world countries as well).

 

Maybe instead of REBELLING all these people could just GET A JOB

 

I've brought this up before-the Alliance to Restore the Republic is not some mass uprising of the oppressed. Its led by wealthy and powerful people-out of favor with the current regime yes, but not the "masses". The fact it has the resources it does, should tell you its an elite driven rebellion.

Its notable very much the Sith-Jedi conflict really doesn't factor into it, nobody knows about Palpatine's long term plans and the rebel alliance was always somewhat ambivalent about Luke being a Jedi until it became clear it was only to their benefit.

But you are correct in your latter points-its notable Organa, Mothma and Iblis wait about 17 years to formally rebel and they did so largely(in legends) because of a Sith plot. So tbh one shouldn't consider the RA particularly noble in motivation.

 

IMO the destruction of planets like Geonisis, Kamino, Lasat, justify the empire being atrocious. And that’s all before Alderaan. Remember the empire in both continuities was building the planet destroying weapon from the word go.

sure life was more or less the same for most of the galaxy between the republic and the empire. And sure the alliance was led by an entrenched political class. But that doesn’t mean it’s wholly bad.

Kamino, Geonisis, Lasat, Alderaan and countless other genocides I am forgetting wouldn’t have happened under the republic. If I had to choose the republic pre palpatine or the empire. I would choose the republic faults and all.

 

Let's ask the opinions of the people of Alderaan.

 

As well as the mass enslavement of species like the Wookiees and Bodach'i.

 

Jello becoming a radical leftist is my favorite subplot of the Disney era.

 

People like to have a say in their own government.
Giving one person final say on all things seems like a poor way to do that.
And that's before we get to the genocide, police state, and political persecutions.
Free speech specifically is extremely undervalued, even in most modern "free" societies. You don't really appreciate how badly you need it until its gone.

 

Is there a Star Wars analog for Martin Niemoller?

 

The Republic was not "just as bad" as the Empire. The Republic could have been fixed, if its citizens had worked hard at it instead of being lazy and apathetic.

 

I think shows like Andor are demonstrating how the tyranny and crimes of the Empire did, in fact, affect the everyday normal Imperial civilians.

Also, even if they didn't... the crimes of the Empire are still worth rebelling against.

And even if you try to make the false equivalence of the Republic being just as bad as the Empire (not true), that doesn't mean the Empire shouldn't be rebelled against... just that rebellions against the Republic were justified too.

 

If those people would just do what they were told, the officers wouldn't shoot them

 

You're correct, but where is this popular support? In ROTJ we see celebrations/uprisings after Endor, but these were quickly put down. The empire was not overthrown by strikes and mass revolution on the streets-but because of its own failure to consolidate after Endor. Thus allowing the RA to transition to a conventional war(without having to engage the Empire's actual superiority).

As to the OP's question, Palpatine's plans in Dark Empire should answer it. If you don't want to be a soul battery fueling his ascension to Godhood and universal wars of conquest then you have every reason to rebel.

Thing is, no one actually knew about that.

In canon it seems the mass public is a much more active political force, and since I don't care for canon, I'll refrain from commenting.

 

The New Republic would not have been able to take and hold the Core worlds if it didn't have popular support, or at the least a majority of sentients who preferred it to the Empire. The Empire was able to stay in power through brute force, but since the New Republic doesn't do that then it would have had to have popular support.

 

It’s a trap!

 

Why rebel? Well, just keep your head down and it'll be fine. Sure, a couple of your neighbours vanished. And then there was that entire team that got arrested. But sure, nothing to worry about, they must have been guilty of something you're not. Just relax, it'll be fine....

 

It's not a problem if you don't look up.

 

Spoiler: But how does this affect you personally?

 

All suspects are guilty...otherwise they wouldn't be suspect.

 

From another famous series:

"Crime blitz citizen, if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear."

Citizen is arrested for keeping an unlicensed goldfish and possession of illegal substances (sugar).

 

The Rebellion could undoubtedly be viewed as a reactionary, aristocratic revolt against the Bonapartist Palpatine accumulating all the power that they previously held into him, yes. To what extent the Empire was a dictatorship (it definitely was) can vary, but it isn't the fall of a clear-cut democracy to a clear-cut dictatorship. Its more like an oligarchy gets swept aside by a single dictator who cleans house of both the Old Republic oligarchy (who survive, and go on to be the Rebellion) and the Separatist oligarchy (who die on Mustafar).

The mistake of the New Republic/Galactic Alliance in all continuities was not expanding voting franchises and forcing NR membership to be about having democratic governance on a local level. Sure, keep the NR Senate parliamentary if must be, but make it a necessity for member states to be sufficiently democratic, either as constitutional republics or constitutional monarchies. Naboo's system is basically Space Poland-Lithuania, for example. Sure its 'elected' but its nobles voting for a Queen. There is no Naboo Parliament to speak of. There's only the Queen/King and the Senator appointed. Make the Senator elected, extend representation to common Nabooians and Gungans.

 

For me it’s really just as simple as the republic didn’t enslave and genocide whole races and cultures at least through military action. I am sure the republic probably doomed many a species because of corporate greed or need for resources. In legends they only committed genocide against one race the Sith intentionally. So that’s a better track record.

I’ll admit the old republic sucked. It wasn’t anywhere near a good governmental system. But it’s better than the empire. So again if your choice is the new republic or empire I choose the new republic every time.

 

Given the Empire repeatedly responded to peaceful protest or even mild criticism with overwhelming violence, and was willing to completely ravage the economies and ecologies of member worlds if left unopposed, what choice is there? To just roll over and die? "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable" as the saying goes.

There is a reason the Rebellion proper starts with the Gorman Massacre in both canon and legends, though interestingly a lot later in canon, leaving a long period of time where the empire was mostly unopposed except for small, disunited cells.
And a bigger reason where the triple whammy of disbanding the senate (thus removing the illusion the people have any say in government), destroying Alderaan, and then losing the super weapon that supposed to intimidate people in line. (In fact, as much as I did love legends, in retrospect they kind of downplayed how devastating that would have been to the basic legitimacy of the populace - and I think fandom discourse has kind of exaggerated how unpopular the senate and republic was - yes, some worlds wanted leave, many more wanted to stay, we saw anti-republic elite propped up by battle droids against a mostly loyalist populace more often than we saw the reverse. In fact, part of the point of the war was to stir up patriotic sentiment enough that people wouldn't question their loss of rights and freedoms.)

And on the participation of senators, two things come to mind:
1) It seems a catch-22 for rebellions. If they don't have politicians or bureaucrats people will say they are bad because they will have no idea how to rule. If they do, then suddenly the rebellion is really a coup, no matter how widespread the support is.
2) The Rebellion was very much born out of grass roots popular resistance movements. If anything, the senators were johnny-come-latelys who threw in after trying and failing to protect people's interests peacefully, though admittedly they did bring a lot of resources, organization, and a clearer political goal to fight for rather than merely oppose.

I thought the New Republic in canon did do that. I certainly remember something about reforms to make the New Republic more democratic than the old.

(Though to be perfectly honest, even after all these decades how the Republic actually worked can be...really fuzzy, especially in contrast to how WEG fleshed out the imperial government)