Major Faction

Throne World: Coruscant

The Old Republic was once the dominant political and cultural hegemony in the galaxy, stretching across hundreds of millions of worlds. Its principles of peace and justice stood as a symbol of its integrity for over several thousand years, before even its mighty traditions could not stave off inevitable collapse.

Perhaps the most significant element underpinning the function of the Old Republic was the primacy of the Galactic Senate, which included representatives from all of the citizen-planets within its borders, which were colloquially called the Core Worlds. The Senate were answerable in theory to the people they represented and, by extension, the Republic was therefore also answerable to its people via the Senate.

The President of the Senate held a degree of authority limited by the body itself, which resulted in the Senate holding primacy over the executive branch of government. However, it also frequently generated extended delays, a perceived inability to function with any kind of decisiveness, and a frustrating return of much legislation to a cycle of review, oversight committees, and other arms of the bureaucracy. Many citizens long viewed the deep bureaucratic legislative branches of the Republic’s operation as needlessly obscure, arcane and, as often as not, incompetent.

Underpinning the operation of government was an order of philosopher-warriors who embodied the judiciary, the enactment of law and order across the Republic. The Jedi Order was formed during the early years of the fledgeling Republic, and became a critical aspect of its operation. The Jedi were given free rein to administer justice in their particular sphere of influence, which was often an entire planet. In the early days, the Jedi—who possessed almost supernatural power—were seen as a force for good, settling quarrels and making judgements on disputes. For a thousand generations, they Jedi were the guardians of peace.

But while the early Jedi had humbly accepted their role as mediators and took solemn oaths of office, by the later Republic they were frequently seen as self-righteous bullies, whose prowess in combat could not be challenged by anything other than a small army… or another Jedi. Their storied history and early legends had been gradually replaced by tales of misdeeds, of arrogance and haughty disdain for the people they once swore to protect. Their code became a joke, and eventually, they fell.

And with them fell the entire Republic, unable to bear the burden of its massive bureaucracy without the Jedi to keep order. Only military power could breach the gap, and with the Jedi fighting amongst themselves in the Clone Wars, the Republic shored up its own military in what was, initially, self-defence. But inevitably its own strength became its weakness, and the Jedi imploded, the military reigned supreme and the ambitious Senator Caius Palpatine took advantage of the situation to reform the Old Republic into a more streamlined corporate image. Naturally, he was the head of this private institution and was named First Chair, effectively the supreme governor of the corporate mechanisms which now controlled the entire government.

Few saw this for anything other than what it was; a dictatorship in all but name. Emperor Palpatine, as he came to be known, was the first of many emperors who oversaw the slide toward martial law and terror overtake the Old Republic, which was no longer. It had been reborn as the Galactic Empire.