How Powerful Was The Galactic Empire? - Star Wars Explained 

Why is there so much support for the Empire in the real world? I mean, the Rebellion is clearly the good guys. But how many people call them Rebel scum? The Empire is just... cooler.

If Star Wars was even slightly realistic, the empire would never have been taken down by a bunch of rag tag rebels

Empire protec Empire attacc BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY Empire strikes bacc

Fun fact, the Empires Military was being built up with all these numbers and super weapons because the emperor knew that the outergalaxy Yuuhzon Vong were on their way with a mega invasion fleet. Had the Rebels not fought against the Empire 365 Trillion lives might have been saved because the Empire would have completely destroyed the Vong invasion force right off the bat.

I always wondered why they shut the droids off.

So powerful the mighty galactic empire, defeated by a race of teddy bears

As a Star wars nerd i cant not do an analysis on this. So here is my take. Now this is just my personal opinion, what i personally think. You might agree or disagree, there is no right or wrong side in this argument, just opinions. Here is my take on why the Empire is better then the Republic. So with that out of the way here it is. The Galactic Republic is a *sarcastic quotation marks* democracy. Why am I saying that? Well the galactic republic is more of an oligarchy. The rule is divided between several people but those people are not chosen because they wish the best for the people, they are in the senate because they are the richest people and the best liars. The senate on an overarching level was incredibly corrupt. If you wanted to get something done, then just throw out some money and you will have the support of almost the entire senate. It is also extremely inefficient in the sense that it does give a lot of power to people who have no experience with it. The Chancellor has supreme command of the army, which makes no sense considering the chancellor is a politician, not a general. The same thing applies to economics and internal politics, the leaders are not chosen based on their merit, and they are chosen based on how many supporters they have bribed to their side. This has led to a lot of Republic defeats. Whilst the Empire transfers command to the person they deem strongest, the Republic transfer command to popular leaders. But being loved by the people does not equal being a brilliant commander. Which has been proven by men like Darth Marr. He is cold, analytical and logical. He has the charisma of a desert. No one likes him, but he is basically ruling the Empire in the Emperors absence, why? Because he can look past the petty squabbles of the Dark Council and instead make decisions based on rational thinking. This is what separates the Republic and the Empire the most. The Republic is a “democracy” and thus the leaders of it are chosen by the people. It sounds great in theory, but people usually vote for whoever talks best. Not who is the best leader. This results in that most senators are just good liars, good manipulators and foremost very very rich. The Empire bases its commanders and leaders on strength. Prime example being Darth Nox of the Dark Council. Darth Nox was a slave his/hers entire life, it was discovered that Nox was a force sensitive and he/she was sent to Korriban for training. Nox rose through the sith order as one of the most powerful force users alive, even eclipsing Emperor Vitiate in some abilities. And before long the former slave sat on the Dark Council. Ruling the Empire. The sith are incredibly discriminatory to aliens, seeing them as second class citizens. Notice the “second” part of “second class” Aliens were often discriminated, but it was not impossible for them to reach high ranking positions. Prime examples being Grand Admiral Thrawn or General Bentilais san Sk'ar. The Empire was also famously sexist, although not the same degree as their race discrimination. Especially after the death of Palpatine the Empire became very open minded. Regional recruitments resulted in many female and alien soldiers. If the battalion was positioned on an alien planet, most recruits would be alien, and that was fine. Quite a lot of females actually reached very high ranking positions in the Empire. Examples being Admiral Daala of the Imperial Navy, Admiral Betl Oxtroe, Intelligence Director Ysanne Isard, Captain Uwlla Iillor, and the ace Pilot Juno Eclipse. Another example of a high ranking female is the Dark Lady of the sith, Shira Elan Colla Brie, or as she’s more popularly known as, Lumiya. There was also hundreds of females in the Stormtrooper corps, especially after Palpatines death. Such Jes Gistang or Isila Drutch. Palpatine was also fairly liberal when it came to aliens, comparative to other sith of course. He freely conversed with people like Mas Amedda with no problem. So aliens were discriminated, but not discriminated discriminated. It was still possible for aliens to reach high ranks in the Empire and it was even more possible for females. Of course, the Empire was still discriminatory, but it’s worth noting that it wasn’t impossible to become very powerful in spite of your race. But on an overarching level the Empire was very pro-human. But it should be noted that this is a feature of the Republic too. Darth Plagueis, a muun, very famously said to his apprentice, Sidious this. "It must be you. You have the political skills, and more to the point, you are a human. In this era only a human is capable of rising to the top of Coruscant's biased political heap." So both the Empire and the Republic are biased towards humans and human males specifically. The difference is that the Empire values strength, the Republic values if you’re a good liar. In the Republic a group of corrupt, racist, egocentric people rule and they have the entire jedi order blindly following them. The sith order does whatever they want, the Empire can’t order them. If the Empire told the Dark Council to commit genocide they would probably reply “Meh… no” The Empire is the preferable choice because they value strength over everything. No matter if you’re an alien or a slave, if you’re powerful enough you will reach the top of the ladder. Darth Nox and the Emperor’s second wrath is the proof of that. The Republic is much more about lies and corruption. Look at Palpatine, it was incredibly easy for him to become the most powerful man in the Republic and transform it into the Empire. He just needed to lie and bribe. The Republic is such fragile and ineffective system that it’s a miracle that only one person has managed to destroy it from within, considering how easy it is to do. In conclusion, the sith sell an ugly truth, the Jedi sell a fancy lie. There will never be peace, there will always be people who hate each other and despise each other. It’s better to just embrace that as a fact and stop trying to create peace. Peace is a utopia, it is fantastic but it will never exist because in order for it to exist everyone in the galaxy need to be a teaspoon of hugs and teddy bears, which they’re not. The Jedi don’t live in reality, they live in their own little bubble where they claim that everyone loves each other and that there is no emotions. They don’t live in reality, reality is harsh. Reality is filled with hatred and war, the sith fully accept this. The Jedi ignorantly denies it. The war between the Empire and the Republic is not a war between good and evil. It is a war between people, and to quote George RR Martin “All people are capable of great good and great evil” There is no good guy nor a bad guy. They are people and we all need to make a decision on who we think is the shiner turd. In my case that is the Empire, the Empire values strength over everything and I can understand that and I can value that over the lies of the senate. But you might think differently and that’s fine, there is no right and wrong side in this argument. Just people. Oh, and there is one more thing i should add. The nail in the coffin for the entire debate. The foundry. In 3642 BBY the Jedi Knight Revan found an ancient Rakata factory beneath an asteroid. The Factory was intact and was still capable of creating a droid army. The droids that it could construct were extremely powerful, and only the most powerful warriors even had the slightest chance to kill them. In a few weeks this factory could build an army that would destroy the Empire. Now understandably, the Empire weren't big fans of that possibility. So they assembled a small strike team to land on the asteroid and deactivate the factory before it could produce its payload of death. The strike team fought its way through the enormous factory and eventually walked into a dark chamber. In the middle of it stood a droid. HK-47 was Revans most faithful ally and a incredibly powerful assassination droid. The strike team asked it what Revan was doing and the droid gave them all the information, on the false assumption that he would then kill them. He told them that the droids had been equipped with bioscanners, they could detect sith genetic material and would kill on sight. Now i'm not talking about the sith order. I'm talking about the sith race, who were mostly civilians in the Empire. Not only were the republic planning on eradicating an entire race, but they would kill anyone that was even related to a sith pureblood. Your great great great great great great grandfather could have had a brother who was married to someone who had a father that had a sister that was married to a sith pureblood and you would get killed. If you somehow missed it, ill spell it out. That's genocide. This genocidal act would eradicate 97.8% of the Imperial civilian population, note the CIVILIAN part of that. Those were just regular people trying to make a living, they were fathers and sons, husbands and friends. They were innocent people that were just trying to make a living. And they were targeted by the Republic. Not only is that genocide, but it is the worst warcrime committed in the history of the Star Wars galaxy. Now luckily the Imperial strike team defeated HK-47 and Revan and deactivated the factory. But if the Empire hadn't stopped them, the Republic would had committed genocide on a massive scale. Lets take things into perspective, the worst genocide in human history was the holocaust. In it 11 million innocents were murdered based on their race and sexuality. One million of those were children. It is one of the most tragic events in the human history, if not the most tragic. Now lets compare it to this. HK never says the number of Imperials that would die but we can calculate it. As mentioned in the video, there lived 100 quadrillion people in the Empire. That is alot of people. So easy math here 97.8% of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 quadrillion) That's 97,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 people. I repeat 97,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 people would me murdered because of their genetics by the Republic. 97.8 quadrillion people. That is horrible. To take things in perspective that is more then eighthundredthousand billion holocausts. You heard that right, you would need to do the holocaust more then 800,000,000,000,000 times in order for it to even be close the Republics attempted genocide. Or here's another thing. In the history of mankind there has existed 107,602,707,791 human beings. 107 billion is alot of people. That is every single homo sapiens that has ever existed, that is the entire human civilization. Thats all of us. So lets math again, 97800000000000000000000000/107,602,707,791 = 908899060328110 The Republic tried to commit a genocide that would had killed more people then have ever existed on earth. In order to compare the attempted genocide of the republic, you would need to kill every human that has ever existed more then 900 billion times. There is no comparison. The sith have done evil things, but the Republic tried to commit genocide on such a gigantic level. There is just no argument really. The Republic are not good guys. They are genocidal maniacs. The Rebels do break some rules of war too as a matter of fact. More specifically article 46 and 26 of the Hague Convention. Article 26 states that it is illegal for an invading force to attack a target with civilians without warning. The officer of the invading force must take all actions possible to warn the civilians of the target and the authorities to minimize civilian casualties. Which is something the Rebels didn't do with the death star. Article 46 states that a military occupying a foreign country (The rebels occupying the Empire) must respect the religion of its inhabitants and their personal freedoms. The invading force must also, unless in extreme circumstances, respect the traditional laws of the country. The Rebels fail this miserably. They have no problem attacking a person solely because they are sith. If you somehow missed it, the sith and jedi order are both fanatically religious orders. Going to war against the Empire and refusing to accept Palpatines peace offer on the basis of his religion is bad enough. But having no problem killing a person solely because they're sith, that is illegal. Most famous example of this is in Episode 3, where Mace Windu and 3 more Jedi masters try to murder Palpatine when they find out he is a sith. Not only is that a violation of the Hague convention, but it is a direct violation of Republic law too. To make this even worse, article 33 of the 4th Geneva convention regarding protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War states that an individual person can not be punished for actions they have not personally committed. So attacking Palpatine on the basis that he is a sith violates not one, but two laws of war.

"What do you mean they blew it up!? Well, whose they?! What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon!?" - Emperor after he hears that his Death Star was destroyed by a bunch of College kids.

Overdependence on one or two central figures was both a strength and a weakness. Palpatine was the strongest Dark Side user of all time. Vader was not far behind. Palpatine had prepared no successors and consolidated too much power in his own hands, so when he was destroyed and Vader turned at the same time, the Empire lost its unifying strengths.

*reads title* Well their accuracy was fucking laughable and they were defeated by a planet of 2 foot tall cannibal teddy bears!

The Empire should've won in Star Wars. Or at least an alternative version.

battle of endor was bullshit and plot hole. Every battle should have been like Hoth

The simple fact of the matter is; the Galactic Empire had peak strength attainable in the Star Wars universe. The only reason the rebels won was because of poor unreasonable 80's quality writing.

Am I supposed to take a drink every time the symbol of the Galactic Empire pops up?

Couldn't have been that powerful if it was brought down by a bunch of rag tag rebels.

Something makes no sense. You say that The Empire's army consisted of tens of trillions of soldiers. You obviously would have to get that info from somewhere. What I don't get is that Shadows of the Empire stated that the Rebel Alliance was outnumbered by the Galactic Empire ten thousand to one. Meaning that if the imperial army had ten trillion troops, then the Rebel Alliance Army would have over a billion troops. If that were the case, why did they have so much trouble defending their bases and why wasn't their fleet an armada?

If i was emperor of the galactic empire i would prioritize public order and make sure no one wanted to rebel.

You should do: Galactic Empire vs Sith Empire.

For the Empire!

There was a theory that Palpatine built the Death Stars and enforced fear into the galaxy to prepare it for the Yuuzhan Vong. The reason for the Death Stars was that the Y. V. had ships the size of entire planets. Even worse all the Y. V. tech were actually living creatures including guns and armor. This had a huge strategic effect as ships healed themselves after battle. The Death Stars were designed to be able to destroy the Y. V. before they could do anything. Palpatine enforced strict rulings in order to prevent spies to gather info and to further help the galaxy get ready for the most fearsome empire to ever live. The end result was the Galactic Empires fall and the New Republic to form. Several years later, battered and ill-capable to fight from hunting down the Imperial Remnant, the Y. V. used this as their advantage and invaded. They managed to conquer a vast amount of space, including Coruscant, and destroyed a large amount of the New Republics forces. After some time I think even Admiral Ackbar was killed (not sure on that) and many other well-known heroes too. In the end the remains of the New Republic managed to defeat the Y. V., but the galaxy was far too broken from the war. Soon after the Galactic Federation was built to replace the New Republic. Fun note: There is an interesting theory that states that Disney bought STAR WARS for that reason because Buzz (from Toy Story) lived in a galaxy that had a great war that destroyed the government in charge and the Galactic Federation was born after that.

6:23 the admirals choked to death were done so because they were ass inompetent and corrupt and got into position due to neptoism and whatnot. Note Vader has no problem with Piett, Veers, etc - because Vader knows they're not corrupt and shit. Needa was connected to Ozzel's clique i.e. why Needa was choked dead in TESB 6:46 in the early years of the Empire, due to the Imperial Senate still keeping a chokehold on the spending, the Empire had to either chose between continuing to build incom fighters like the ARC-170 and Z-95 and the new X-wing, or switch to TIEs. TIEs were cheaper, and the Imperial Navy preffered more Star Destroyers than shielded and hyperspace capable craft.....because there was basically no threat to the Empire, and the Imperial Navy would be a garrison force - not a rapid reaction force needed that the Republic Navy was in the later stages of the Clone Wars. So more ships it would be, to patrol the outer rim systems and whatnot which were still full of separatist holdouts and pirates which got pieces of their navy and were a real threat. 8:14 the outer rim never accepted the Imperial Presence, (separatist holdouts and rebels abound there!) while the Core Worlds were in general loyal to the bone inheriting the control of the government from the Republic 8:20 8:25 rebel propaganda, Vader wasnt that dickish. and the Empire spent lots of money on their military. 8:27 rebel propaganda, the Empire emphasized how it was better than the assbackward republic and how it protected the core worlds of human civilization from anarchy and non-humans wrecking the place like they did in the Clone Wars.

At least I know why the tje fighters always exploded after 1 or 2 shots XD

I very much appreciate this video and the information provided. It really helps put in perspective where everything stood and how big everything was (both literally and metaphorically). Thank you for this upload.

Very nice video, I really enjoyed the background theme

Tons of fathers and mothers died on the starships and death stars. The children of the empire WILL return. And they will have vengeance :) Sorry. Obvious imperial here. I know I know, I'm the bad guy.

Weren't the stormtroopers under the command of the stormtrooper corps and the imperial army was more along the lines of garrison forces that weren't as highly equipped?

Nicely summarized and done.

I am very happy you made this video. I am a huge star wars fan I this explain everything I wanted to know and more about the Galactic Empire. Please make more of these star wars videos.

No matter how strong Empire is/was - Imperium of Mankind would kicked their butts every day of the week in 1 on 1 battle. 31'st millennium or 41'st millennium.

the jedi are just as oppressive as the sith making both sides extreme, people said the impire was evil for mass murder but remember the rebels almost brought the galixy into financial ruin and killed millions of civilians on imperial planets and space stations

Your videos are always great Wesley

I'm impressed that you were able to include such specific numbers of ships, soldiers, systems, etc. I've had trouble finding information like that the few times that I've looked for it. When people compare Star Wars to other sci-fi universes, they tend to severely underestimate the sheer numbers that the Empire had. Warhammer 40K is the only one I know of that stacks up.

EMPIRE FOR LIFE !!!

This was just a great video! How powerful was the: CIS Republic Rebels Death Watch ---> Shadow Confederate *and future factions from Episode 7 beyond?

That was one amazing video. Goose bumps throughout the entire video...

Great video. Love the analysis of the empire

who perfers the galactic empire than the sith empire?

Republic vs empire?

nice job dude, i will love to see a vid about the power of the Hutt cartel

Hey well done man. I really enjoyed that.

This was pretty cool. I would like to say that I think that the biggest weakness was that power was concentrated in very few people and as it was absolute power supported by fear, there were too many internal struggles to attain those positions. Once the two main leaders, the Emperor and Vader died, the Empire no other fate than crumbling. (I'm ignoring the whole post-Episode VI EU)

The mighty Galactic Empire brought down by a race of teddy bears. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA................what a joke. I love everything about Return of the Jedi except the Ewoks. I recall seeing ROJ back in '83 when it was released, and as soon as these little critters appeared on the screen, my reaction was like, WTF!!!! I see the Ewoks as an early sign of George Luca's idiotic plan to downgrade Star Wars to the level of a children's fantasy.

Really enjoyed this.. thanks

very interesting video, good job dude.

Not sure I would call imperial military equipment "cheap" imperial star destroyers are very expensive, heavily armored, heavily armed, heavily shielded.

Stormtroopers are failures at killing Ewoks. No pun intended.

great video and info, thank's

Love your videos, keep it up dude!

I wonder if they are going to mention anything about Grand Admiral Thrawn and his impressive Imperial counteroffensive and temporary victories against the Rebel Alliance after the Battle of Endor until he was betrayed and finally defeated in the upcoming episode VII.

I think the Empire was a fine government in my opinion. They only want order to be brought into the galaxy, and Vader even says, "Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." Besides, they never harm anyone that's not a terrorist, even Alderaan, a "peaceful" planet, was destroyed only because it was one of the most important stations for the rebellion, harboring important figures and rebel forces. Plus the rebellion didn't even have many troops, making it seem like they never had much support. There's rebellions today that have more support and troops than them, suggesting that many were happy with how the Empire operated. Their worst acts were against terrorists (rebels), not harming anyone else. They also brought economy and employment benefits. And it's not as if the Jedi are innocent in all of this as well. Jedi were part of some of the largest conflicts to hit, including the Clone Wars (a Jedi ordered a massive force of Clones) and the Jedi Civil War. The Empire drove technology forward, ushering in new technological advances.

this was very intresting you deserve my sub

Well done my Friend. Well Done!

Long Live the Empire!

4:03 Hyrule is in the empire too?

Wow! This was a fascinating and thorough study.

Awesome video, thank you!!!

Tell us how powerful the first order is

Anybody who's play Empire at War for any reasonable amount of time knows that the Empire only lost because they were the bad guys in a trilogy of movies where the good guys were supposed to win.

Well done! It is quite enjoyable.

Fantastic video, it like something from the History Channel :)

Its too bad the old lore didn't stick. Mainly because of the Prequels. Before, it was know in the EU that the Empire had been around for a good century and some change. Pretty much along the same lines of Rome. Where there was still elements of the Old Republic in the form of the Senate, but was overseen by the Emperor and he had the final say in all matters. But then of course the Senate was disbanded in Episode 4 and that's when the Governors and Moffs took over for their regions and ruled that way. The Emperor looked the way he did because he was just that old and warped by the dark side. The Clone Wars were originally fought by the Empire against the Clones. The Spaarti raised a clone army to take sectors from the Empire. (Think Rome fighting with Carthage). The Jedi at this time were an ancient religion and not many left due to the continuous wars with the Mandalorians over the centuries. They pretty much wiped each other out. The Jedi also fought for the Empire against the Spaarti clones. Then were turned on by the end of the war and the few remaining were hunted down. The Emperor tried to erase them from history. I don't know if there was an official reason for it. Maybe tried to stage a coup themselves? So after the war, all cloning was outlawed. Granted, this lore hasn't been around since Episode 1 came out, maybe a little earlier, and a bunch of new things had to be made up and overwritten to help fill in the plot holes. I just like this version on things better, because it seems much more plausible than something that was supposed to be as powerful as it was, fall into disarray only after 20 years by a band of ill equipped rebels that were always on the run had a couple of lucky shots.

Honor to the Empire!

Another amazing video! Very informative, grande!

Nicely done video! Looking forward to more from you.

Do video "what is Fel Empire"

Decentralization is way better than centralization. Go Empire!

Great channel! Totally TL;DRs Star Wars wiki content.

Thanks for the video, man! I'm high AF and that question just came into my mind. :D

What if the Rebel Alliance had the active participation of Jedi leaders such as Obi-wan Kenobi, Yoda (these two without going into exile), Mace Windu, Ki Adi Mundi, Plo Koon, Kit Fisto and a few members of the jedi order? If we asume the Alliance wins without the help of the Jedi, I still want to know you opinions about how it would have influenced the presence of these powerful Jedi... and I mean influence by them acting like the generals of the Clone Wars, I'm not talking about passive Jedi that went into exile like actually happened with obi and yoda. So what do you think? they would have died prematurely? or would they have brought victory in a few years and more easily? I personally think the Alliance would have been more organized early.

So you are saying that the Empire focuses more about quantity than quality which explains why Stormtroopers cant hit their targets and why TIE fighters get destroyed in one hit. I guess the TIEs focus more on Attack and speed rather than defense

Great Vid, learned a lot

VERY NICE! I even learned a couple things from it that I may not have caught as an oversight. Except when you said that the The separatist droid army was apart of the Empire in the early stages, it was shut down after order 66, Palpatine told Vader on Mustafar that all remaining droids must be shut down immediately.

It was powerful. Rebels won because of plot armor .

oh boy intergalactic racism

Great video!

great video. I read a fan theory awhile back about Palpatine preparing the empire for the Vong, which led to his over looking of the Rebel Alliance.

sound like rebel were star war terrorist

Why is this a hybridisation of lore; because this guy ignored the stormtrooper corps from legends

great video!

It gave me insight, thanks!

WHERE IS EARTH

For the glory of the Empire! Foreword onto death!

This sounds like a history lesson good job

This is an amazing video 10 out of 10 can you do something on the new republic or what happened to the alliance after the deaths of sideus and Vader.

Lol millions of ships and trillions on soldiers. Yet only a hundred of there "best" legion on edor and a couple of hundred of ships in the endor system to catch the rebel fleet. Guess the other millions had better things to do? :)

I'm pretty sure that they're pronounced 'koo-aht' and 'sigh-nar', not 'cowt' and 'sin-yar'. Could be wrong, it's been known to happen.

Glory to the Empire. Nice work on the this.

You're commentary has gotten great. But maybe you could put in video clips as well as pictures (whenever necessary). I know it's trickier to find video and to put it into the video, but it would make it much nicer to look at.

So the Galactic Empire under Emperor Palpatine would be comparable to the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin?

How Powerful Was The Galactic Empire? It was defeated by plushie bears. Next question, please.

Awesome video!

My god this is just facenating this is easily one of your best videos yet.

POWERRRRRR!!!! UNLIMITEDDDD POWERRRRRRRR!

This reminds me of another Empire Couph Couph USSR couph

if you haven't already a video on all the different fighters and bombers used by the empire and rebels would be nice

thank's F.F. all your videos are great

"Yet it was brought down by a small resistance." Yeah...for bullshit reasons.

Empire is still around.. they lost their leader not leaders (Generals, Government) They now have a new government and leaders...

The Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k) vs. The Empire...Who would win? I think the Imperium. A grim dark empire with fewer worlds but the experience of waging total war for 10,000 years, no morale problems, the potential alliance with the Empire leadership (including Emperor Palpatine), and absolutely no qualms about waging a total genocidal war of annihilation on a scale that makes Alderaan look like a minor incident makes even the relatively outnumbered Imperium capable of either absorbing/combing with the Empire or defeating it. And the doesn't even take into account the other races/particular setting of the Warhammer universe fucking with the Star Wars one. I'd love a Warhammer 40k/Star Wars crossover.

Great Video! Have always had a thing for the Imperial Military. At its height the Imperial Navy is said to have had 25,000 Star Destroyer. Yet, that may not all be the Imperial Class alone. This doesn't even take into account dreadnoughts, frigates, cruisers, and carriers. The most recent novel if i'm not mistaken has Imperial Officers mentioning how Palpatine was expanding past the current Imperial borders, which we've also seen in the now no-canon EU.