Why Casual Fans Have a Warped View of Star Wars Ideologies: Diplomat's Guide to Major SW Factions 

Palpatine and his politics did a great job making the entire galaxy see him as someone indispensable in their lives. In fact, a group of imperials nostalgic for the old regime tried to crash Luke and Mara Jade's wedding, not out of malice, but because the Emperor's death left a huge hole in their hearts, so they were disposed to do anything that could help them overcome their depression.

I LOVE the way Palpatine's declaration of the 1st Galactic Empire is phrased in the novelization. It uses several catchphrases from real world nations. "We are one nation, indivisible." The United States pledge of allegiance. "One nation, under God, indivisible..." "We are an empire that will stand ten thousand years!" Both a play on "The Reich shall stand a thousand years" and the East Asian use of 10,000 which tends to actually mean infinite.

Rebel: "HOW THE HELL DID YOU BECAME A BRAINWASHED MURDEROUS PAWN OF PALPATINE" Imperial: "I watched the glorious "Empire Today" music video" 🗿

Honestly, I would love to see a star wars show starring a Separatist; not only would we get to see a side of the Clone Wars not often shown, but there would also be the tragic irony of knowing how it'll all end.

One thing to give the Sith credit for is giving their subordinates a comfortable life within their tyranny in order to maintain their loyalty. For example, SWTOR's Sith Empire had military bases filled with luxury restaurants, shops, fun zones, etc. so that their soldiers remained 100% motivated in their exhausting and atrocious job

Lol "light-sabre measuring." Love it.

16:48 This art is undoubtly one of the most badass and underrated in all Star Wars. Despite being the only illustration of the Pius Dea Crusades we ever got, this image alone tells with no words an amazing story that deserves to be explored. Those cathedral ships, by the way 😱

I just realized that's Commander Shepard in the thumbnail!

47:56 This seems like a misrepresentation. The corporates were not genuine Separatists either, at least, not the majority of them. Most of them still maintained neutrality, and they all knew about at least part of Palpatine's plan. Even in TCW, which portrays them more like actual Separatists, that the corporates are only war profiteers, and ROTS has all the information that lore channels seem to forget. The corporate leaders on the CIS Council clearly in that film had been helping Palpatine rig the war in the Republic's favour. The CIS wouldn't have been so unscrupulous because it was also strongly anti-monopoly and disapproved of the amount of power individual corporations had. The Battle of Naboo was a major contributing factor to increasing Separatism, as the Separatists saw that the Republic were so apathetic on the topic of corporate power that they were even willing to let the corporates invade a wealthy human colony world.

44:45 Love how Darth Talon gets the best shot here, having a presence much more prominent than even Darth Krayt himself. It's pretty obvious that the artist behind the image knew what he was doing. 😏

10:48 For those who wonder, this official art depicts Ahsoka and Rex being accompanied on a mission, in the "No Prisoners" novel, by a Jedi named Callista Ming, who would fall in love with Luke decades later, forming with him a stable relationship after passing her consciousness to the deceased body of a Jedi student. She would then be killed by Abeloth, thus becoming the Entity's vessel

"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." I wonder if they're gonna retcon Nemik's manifesto being the inspiration for Leia saying this.

21:34 “Speaking of […] the Empire” *shows the CIS symbol*

Please make more videos like these. Maybe ones analyzing the sith ideology. Your videos are excellent and are up there with Generation Tech as the most insightful Star Wars content creators

I wish Nemik survived the heist, he would have been political juggernaut.

The best Star Wars channel and u guys drop consistently

To put these ideologies in simple boxes, which is reductive, I admit, but still helpful, the Galactic Republic is a liberal or neoliberal democracy broadly, though individual planetary governments range from democratic republics to monarchies to autocracies and so on. The Galactic Empire is fascist, being primarily modeled on Nazi Germany, but with elements of Imperial Japan and Stalinist Russia incorporated as well. The CIS is a libertarian capitalist society, being ostensibly democratic, but ultimately run by corporate interests and a council aligned with the corporations. The Rebel Alliance encompasses a broad range of leftist ideologies such as social democracy, anarchism, and potentially certain forms of socialism, though the latter isn't shown explicitly, to my knowledge. The New Republic specifically is best described as somewhere between liberal democracy and social democracy.

I honestly wish the sequels explored politics like this fantastic video. The lack of political context in those movies were one of the main reasons that Trilogy was a non-sensical mess

This is my new comfort video. I'm going to watch this 752 times until I know every phrase from Geetsly's.

In a way Geetsly’s told us the truth. From a certain point of view

You guys really take Star Wars content to the next level! Youve quickly become my favorite Star Wars channel!

I would say that Palpatine overlooking the high human laws to allow Thrawn the rank of Grand Admiral speaks volumes to his genius(Thrawn's, not Palps). I love your channel because you tackle a lot of the idealogical and philosophical topics of Star Wars. On top of that, you do excellent, well thought out lore videos.

Wow man, this video hits every point I just love hearing every last detail about. Super awesome work!

I think something that should also be kept in mind with the Rebels is much like the CIS they are, though to a much lesser degree controlled opposition as the Empire actively manipulates, and allows to continue to exist the Rebellion to various degrees. However due to the much weaker control over said opposition, its nature as much firmer true opposition, and the wildcard factors that were jedi and other characters like Luke Skywalker there was also a need to truly crush them. Even then for all intents and purposes the Empire was on the cusp of victory at Endor, it was one big relatively well prepared trap that outside of certain HIGHLY unlikely factors going the rebels way would have seen the vast majority of any united resistance against the Empire destroyed in a single blow, all the while the Emperor would either get a fancy new apprentice, or eliminate the last true jedi capable of stopping him.

The greatest Star Wars politician without adoubt was Borsk Fey'lya. Man joined the Rebels, not because he believed in freedom, but just because he knew it wasthe most convenient group for his own agenda. Disturbingly realistic

I think that one of the most interesting lines in Andor is Saw Gererra and Luthen’s conversation about the different ideologies driving the various factions of the Rebellion. Neo-Republicans, Seperatists, Galaxy Partitionists, Human Cultists, etc. and my god I *need* to read those manifestos

Glory the CIS!

That looks like Commander Shepard in the middle on the thumbnail

50:41 An idea they discarded, given how they embraced the Empire and effectively enslaved much of the planet, even shipping much of the populace off to mines and factories across the stars.

This was a masterpiece…! Please make another video looking deeper at sith versus Jedi ideologies.

A brilliant video guys, and a brilliant thesis on the multiple ideologies/philosophies of the Star Wars peoples and the correlation with the problems inherent in real world politics, which unfortunately includes it's sometimes gruesome outcomes.

If I were a Jedi Knight or Jedi Master during the Clone Wars, I wouldn’t want myself and possibly my Padawan to participate in the War.

Loving these long form videos

Great vid. I learned a lot, and enjoyed it. Thanks! 😊

That was a very thoughtful and thorough overview!

"Stop politicizing mah Star Wars!" Star Wars: **Is 90% politics if you think about it.**

This was a very interesting and well-done analysis. I'm also surprised I never before realised Saw is kinda canon's Garm Bel Iblis

Id love to see another video like this with more obscure factions from the EU and Disney canon. Amazing video

So a friend and I are working on a post rotj timeline for a Star Wars TTRPG game I'm running where the politics make more sense, and this video really just vindicated the both of us lmao, thank you for this. It's a really great video.

This is a lot better thought out then many other takes on the matter

1:11:41 had to rewind but um…that’s an interesting imperial walker in the foreground 😂

Great video as always, but I have a different opinion on the Megacorps of the CIS. I don't think that libertarian capitalism is what the megacorps wanted. The ideal government for the megacorps is a corporatist government like the Galactic Empire. Libertarian capitalism is not appealing for megacorps. You may be able to destroy your competition more easily, but why wasting money on that, when you can co-operate with a government that destroys your competition through regulation and bureaucracy at the cost of citizens? Ask yourself how the separatist megacorps became that powerful. Most, if not all of them, co-operated with the Republic and gained an unnatural degree of economic power through unequal regulations and other kinds of special treatment. Their definition of "free market" is vastly different to the libertarian concept.

I've got a question Did the destruction of Malachor V free Abeloth because of the wound in the force? If not why couldn't She escape? Thank you love the channel

A Herculean effort . Good job

The Republic is a great example of real democracy, full of idealistic ideas of unity, equality and the sharing of power, but the reality is much less rosy because many of those ideas would only work as advertised in a perfect world.

a good job. i outright loved the big effort to be neutral (as much as none of us are its the effort thats important) i particularly like your attention to economic systems and how they contribute to the identity of a faction and how centralization is a balancing act where going to far in either direction can be a very bad thing.

Ideologies are a very complex thing, even someone who supports an evil cause could have a good ideological reason to support it, despite the evil acts done by all factions, the Empire was obviously the worst, many good people supported all these sides for various reasons, because they believed it was the right and good thing to do for the galaxy. And everyone's views are slightly different even when they're all on the same side. And the side or ideology one chooses to follow will also depend on the person, their beliefs, their life experiences, and so on. Me presonally, I make it no secret I am pro-Galactic Republic and by extension the Rebellion to Restore the Republic. Despite its flaws I still support it. And you made a good point on the Jjedi's role in it, trying to reign in the more evil acts of the Republic, I feel that is an important and understated role in any organization, relationship, or whatever. As Yoda learned during season 6 of The Clone Wars, everyone has at least a little darkness inside of them. The important thing is that you're light outweighs it. However, sometimes your own light isn't enough, and that's why you need others who can help keep you grounded and reigned in, like how Padme, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Rex, R2 and a few others were that for Anakin, which is why Palpatine wanted to get rid of all of them so there would be no to cover his dark side tendencies. And that's why, despite how it failed to execute it at times, the Republic had the right idea to bring all these different views together to discuss things out to find the best possible outcome, just because you have different views doesn't mean you can't along and work together, I mean I'm pro-Galactic Republic and my friend King Orange is pro-CIS, but we still get along despite that and by having different views we share with each other it allows us to learn from each other and become better. As the Rebels episode where Rex and Kalin joined forces shows us, it's important to find the middle ground.

3:25 The Cheese Ascendancy Strikes Again!!! Cmon man! Do you even watch these prior to release??

15:19 i mean most of the sapient biomass of the Galaxy is in the human-dominated Core, colonies and Inner Rim. Also, Last I remember Alderaan's Senate seat was that of the Alderaan SECTOR, its just that the Alderaan planet has enough prestige that you generally got representatives appointed by the Alderaanian planetary government.

Dieses Video ist super Informativ! Danke dafür

...............................is that commander shepard in the thumbnail?

Honestly, I wonder if the title of this video is for Canon fans like me. Sure, the Separatists had multiple good points about the Galactic Republic, but they’re the ones Palpatine manipulates to push the Republic to become the Empire. At the very least, the Separatist Military is as evil as the Empire itself. I actually wouldn’t be shocked if Republic Officers during the Clone Wars took inspiration from their Separatist enemies when they became Imperial Officers. Also, Canon Galactic Republic doesn’t have as dark of a history as its Legends counterpart, though one thing that stays the same between continuities is how the Republic practically hands the Outer Rim to the corporations, only starts to rein them in after Naboo, and clearly doesn’t do enough since they actually tolerate the “neutrality” of the corporations in the Clone Wars despite their forces making up at least a majority of the Separatist Military. Though at least Canon Republic didn’t provide military support to the corporations while Canon Empire sends Stormtroopers and TIE Fighters to help out the Mining Guild, Sienar, and Kuat Drive Yards.

very cool video 👍

"We are an Empire that will stand ten thousand years!" "Best I can do is thirty."

What separated the Galactic Empire from previous Sith empires can be summed up like this: It wasnt a Sith Empire, it was an empire for the Sith to rule.

After hearing this video, I cannot helped but wondering what are the things the Third Republic simply restored and what are the things they improved upon to make it better than the days of the Second Republic. And if the Empire wanted to truly justify its massive Imperial war machine, it needed an actual enemy. You know, like how the Abbasid Caliphate decided to cease the military expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate and pursue annual raids against the Roman Empire instead. So aside from the Battle of Talas and the Conquest of Tarsus, the Abbasid Caliphate never expanded their borders in any directions at all. Rather, the annual raids launched into Anatolia that was ruled by the Roman Empire back then in order to gain loots, slaves and to keep the Roman Empire weakened is the better policy here because the Caliphate has an actual enemy to justify its war machine and to keep the civilians within the Caliphate united under the common threat. Also, can the planets that seceded survived on their own for long? Assuming that if the secession ended in success, of course. I know that they already have to deal with the pirates like the Black Sun, the Hutts, the Zygerrians, the Pykes and the corporations that were their previous allies that were clearly joined because they wanted to make money. And yes, I also know that they can have the defense pacts can be signed and the treaties get renewed in order to fight them. But what are their chances of victories against one of these money-hungry entities?

1:11:36 That's a very big gecko.

Imagine someone so spineless and weak that they wouldn’t be able to handle a video discussing a scifi fantasy franchise, ya know, an entirely fictional and completely made up story. Instead of enabling and coddling this behavior, society needs to teach these people how to handle such things.

galactic senate's biggest problem was acoustics of their chamber

HOLY SHIT. You just propelled yourself from nerds who love to talk about lore to FULL BLOWN In-depth political annalist video essayist just like that! Bravo! Also I just wanted to say that RU-vid unsubbed me recently from quite a few channels, yours was included. Resubbed and all that but if you took a hit in analytics it's because RU-vid does purges.

The Empire improves every system it touches.

The basis of my current support of the Separatist Alliance came from my views as a kid I grew up with the OT and while I often like villains better I was bigger Rebel Alliance fan due to their variety of alien species and heroic goals Then I watched the prequels and I saw the roles reversed: now the insurgents were the bad guys and the government was the good guys. But even then many things captivated me, starting with fairly superficial things like the cool droid designs and Grievous using four lightsabers As I grew up I slowly realized that the Separatists were basically the Rebels of their time but flawed, more complex, more interesting (this was before Rogue One mind you and even then people like Andor were former separatists) The final thing that sold me on them however was this: the Republic was truly corrupt and neglectful, hundreds of worlds suffered indifference in exchange of high taxation long before Palpatine started to enact his plan for galactic domination A single central government cannot fairly lead an entire galaxy's worth of worlds and cultures. The objective of the Confederacy of Independent Systems (ignoring the sith/corporate manipulations that had infected both factions equally) was never to destroy the Galactic Republic but to secede from it, achieve planetary autonomy Sure there are risks in allowing every planet to rule themselves without a centralized set of laws, but this freedom in my opinion is better than the alternative: a failed single state ruled by nepotism, harboring the seeds of xenophobia and autocracy "Dooku was right in the end. He knew the Republic was corrupt, that it would collapse and become something worse He saw it coming: the Galactic Empire"

You forgot one more important person who was also one of the founders of the Rebel Alliance: Galen Marek! His family crest became the symbol of the Rebellion

Is there a video on the Alliance of Neutral Worlds from the Clone Wars?

Woooaaa he said the A word!!!! Hell yeah!!!!!

Every Evil Empire has a habit of making things worse beforehand, so its people are ready to surrender its freedoms for more security. Palpatine knew this too well, which is why he became Supreme Chancellor. He knew the Empire couldn't just walk in and take over. He had to make things so bad, people would cry praises of joy for a more strict government to take over. He took a Republic that was already bad and dialed the bad to a 20. Unfortunately, the Empire was too strict and unyielding. Its grip on its planets was too tight and methods, too harsh to say the least. These facts and a military force too generalized and unadaptive led to the eventual decline of the Empire. To paraphrase Princess Leia, "The greater you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Babe come over, Geetsly dropped a video essay on ideology in Star Wars.

Okay, now this is odd. A Star Wars video with Commander Shepard in the thumbnail.

Geetsly I love your videos

The Alsakani views would've been interesting in this video.

Never ask a human supremacist what colour his girlfriend is

Cool vid bro.😺

Dude please keep making these long form videos

“Well built fictional world” Oh really? Tell me how many stabs with a lightsaber is fatal. Or better yet, how one survives getting incapacitated and falling into a giant hole. This world was always kinda wonky. Lucas or Disney era.

Oh I've noticed!

interesting titbit: there is a deleted scene in a new hope where the characters complain about the empire nationalising the economy.

I need a summary here. I'm interested in the ideas suggested in the video title, but not at the cost of an hour-and-fourteen. Anyone have a Cliff Notes version they care to share?

Props to the editor who messed up symbols for various factions. Pretty embarrassing.

I love star wars as a setting (the sequel trilogy can kick rocks though, sadly) because the traditional good-guys are exceedingly and dangerously flawed in a number of complex and understandable ways, while the traditional bad-guys are genuinely reasonable on the majority of matters, but its the matters on which they aren't agreeable that are egregious enough to justify the efforts against them. Safety and security are genuine and important concerns in the galaxy, given the range of unscrupulous criminals and unstable governments abound in reoublic space, and the plentitude exestential threats shown in extended universe material. Shame about the whole 'blowing up populated planets to *make a point* against your enemies', though. Everyone should have some voice in government, and decentralization towards local government is always a good idea, shame about the prolific corruption and unimpeded mass exploitation, though. Even the Jedi and Sith are so varied in personal beliefs, methodology, and origin that their cult-like organization and cooperation with or subversion of the republic government genuinely makes sense for their function. It just works.

I don't really get the need for "neutrality" when discussing ideology. Because they aren't equal sets of ideals. If an ideology hurts a lot of people and helps only a handful then pretty much everyone is going to hate it unless they are part of that small group that benefits.

I've been kind of working on something similar to the Republic in my own stories, albeit with an inverted approach in that the central government is an absolute theocratic monarchy; other worlds under the sovereignty are allowed to practice their own form of governments as they please, as it is believed every sentient is fundamentally different in what type of government best suits them. The only exception is they cross a line that directly challenges/threatens the authority and fundamental beliefs of the sovereignty. This still creates conflicts as different species have their own mystical/religious beliefs, and in this setting, there is no doubt demonic dangers are very real(albeit often subtle, taking centuries or millennia to fully take hold of a people), so alternative religions of various aliens may often fall under being a threat to the sovereignty, which divides many and often forces displacement of those unwilling to give up their ways of life, driven from their homes into dangerous areas of space occupied by others who flee as well. This, in turn, is also an invasion of worlds outside of the sovereignty from those running from it, creating a huge barrier-region between this sovereignty and unknown space where it's incredibly dangerous to travel. In short, I love the idea of different aliens having very different ways of life, different cultural ideals of right and wrong, thus it being total hogwash to expect every sentient being to have the same virtues and ideals of good/evil as each other. The central figures/characters of this sovereignty in my setting aren't human at all, and given their history and genetic disposition, tend to lean into rigid authoritarianism.

Defintely need to do the Mandalorian ideology as well. Legends and canon.

The alliance / new republic and Luke's jedi order are the best factions , they take the best bits of the old and throw away the bad stuff (or at least try)

1:11:37 one of these things is not like the other 😂😂

About the republic there was also the issue of “elected senators” being elected non democraticly you now what I am saying

Palpatine sits there and he eats Doritos like a champ

commander shepard in the thumbnail

Indeed

You could say that Iblas' rebellion was a Punk idealogical rebelion

The CIS ideology: banjo music intensifies

Do I get an diplomat certificate with this?

29:24 lol the Imperial Navy was explicitly built to prevent all the stupid wars of the Republic from happening again. In the Hand of Thrawn Duology Lando straight up realizes most of the Imperial focus was on keeping planetary and sector feuds from becoing wars by just placing the Imperial Navy in the middle of it. As well as nationalizing the sector forces and centralizing them. Also given the Vong came in when the Empire collapsed it seems like Palpatine was right. Oh, and the Imperial Senate has enough power that you know Vader and the Imperial Navy felt they had to hide that they arrested Leia for rebellion in Episode IV. And how Palpatine and Vader kidnapped the Imperial Senators who formed the Rebel Alliance, not doing it above-ground. Hell the Imperial Senate had enough power that the rest of the Imperial Government had to hids how large their navies were going to be given the Senate would complain about it. Also, Imperial Moffs were generally selected from the region they governed. The moff of Chommel Sector was Captain Panaka in the original rtilogy for example. Also Moffs were supposed to centralize power but they were you know supposed to work with the other planetary and sector authorities. They may be both civil-military authorities but you'll be an incompetent and stupid Moff if you piss off everyone in your sector lel. EDIT: also Moffs didnt let the Imperial Military do whatever they did. They literally were the sector governors, duel civilian-military officers who CONTROLLED the sector fleet, even if they didnt directly control whatever central forces the Empire had.

Ive never had a warped view of the Confederacy (although i think owning hundreds of lego battle droids doesnt make me a casual fan). The reason I love the confederacy so much is I can relate to the member worlds' founding ideals, as a countryman of a colonised state. Fuck the high council though - if the sith werent involved they wouldnt have been allowed to join unless the separatists just needed money adverse of the morality

I think you guys could create a full curriculum for a full post graduate degree in Star Wars lore

Always balance was supposed to be: Only Light tied to the emotions, and no Dark Side. This is perfect balance.

The favored career path in Star Wars? Rogue freelance spacer and part-time smuggler.

I just headcanon the rebel alliance as having my own ideology

The Sith were not the only ones who enjoyed being on top of hierarchies

As much as the Jedi got wrong, I find it funny that people attack them for their relationship with the republic. I’m no Jedi lover, but they did the best they could. People love ragging on them for the plights of the republic but what choice did they have. If they weren’t officially sanctioned by the republic they wouldn’t have any reach within the republic. The only way they could make change is as official agents. Otherwise they would be vigilantes. Guess what, if they are acting without republic sanctions they would be criminals with little to no political power. Take any superhero group and they typically have to allow a government to have power over them. Else they would just be labeled criminals.

Lucas naming General Grievous’ flagship after a SCIENTIFIC FACT he doesn’t like certainly didn’t help.