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For thousands of years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Republic was one of the de facto major powers in the sociopolitical makeup of Star Wars‘ galaxy. But while certain flashpoints have been explored—especially the closer you get to the time of the Republic’s fall in the prequel trilogy—for the most part current Star Wars continuity has kept the past of the Republic in the confines of legend. But as the franchise becomes more and more keen about plunging into its distant past, from James Mangold’s ancient Jedi movie to even Skeleton Crew‘s exploration of the Old Republic, how much do we actually know about what the Republic was like an even longer long time ago?
The Eras of the Galactic Republic
The rule of the Galactic Republic can be largely split into four distinct periods—each briefer than the last, and the final two essentially being subdivisions of the second period. The largest are the two fundamental broad eras of galactic history: one beginning with the Republic’s formal establishment approximately 25,000 years before the events of the primary Star Wars movie saga, and the “modern” Republic’s creation—the galactic entity as we largely know it across Star Wars‘ prequel material—approximately one thousand years prior to those films. Those latter two subdivisions are eras we’re most particularly familiar with through mainline material: the period of the High Republic, taking place for around 400 years during the latter era of the post-reformation Republic, and its twilight as seen in The Acolyte and the Star Wars prequel trilogy with its eventual dismantling into the Galactic Empire.
The former of these periods remains the least explored in current Star Wars continuity, but is significantly more fleshed out in the franchise’s old “Expanded Universe”. While many of those stories remain explicitly out of current continuity, contemporary canon has made vague aspersions some of those EU stories still remaining canonically true in some form—but only in the broadest sense, with very little official material establishing knowledge of how the Republic was governed and existed in its oldest periods.
The Actual “Old” Republic
© Sergio Gómez Silván/Insight Editions Now, 24,000 years is a lot of history, and for the most part, our current knowledge of what is most commonly referred to as the “Old Republic” by title (it was, throughout its history, always the Galactic Republic) is deliberately vague. While the Expanded Universe thrived in exploring this period through things like the Tales of the Jedi comics, and most famously BioWare and Obsidian’s worldbuilding in the Knights of the Old Republic series, contemporary Star Wars canon has treated this era as little more than myth, beyond hints to elements of stories and characters from this period in the EU still having some canonical sway. That, of course, may change as we get closer to projects like Mangold’s aforementioned “Dawn of the Jedi” movie, which will be set around a similar time as the Republic’s formation in approximately 25,000 BBY.
What we do know of the Old Republic still carries some similarities to the more contemporary Republic in the Star Wars films. Coruscant has always been its seat of power, with the galactic core forming some of the Republic’s oldest member worlds and seats of power. The Jedi Order, also established around a similar time, has long had a relationship with the Republic too, in both a spiritual and military sense. The advent of more widespread hyperspace travel, as well as financial support from other ruling planetary powers, allowed the nascent Republic to expand its borders over thousands of years, taking in more member worlds, and inevitably also facing conflict as other galactic powers crossed paths. Conflict defines much of what we know about this period of galactic history: we know at some point the Republic encountered the Zygerrian empire and bristled at its sanction of slavery, leading to a war between Republic and Jedi forces that ultimately dismantled much of the Zygerrian power base. We also know that the Mandalorians also enacted multiple crusades against the Old Republic and the Jedi in this era, leading to all out war multiple times.
The rise of the splinter faction of Jedi that would eventually become the Sith—roughly 20,000 years after the Order’s founding—also created another major war front for the Jedi and the Republic. Throughout their existence the Sith fought multiple wars against the Jedi, bringing the Order itself into closer alignment with the Republic after the establishment of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Early conflict between the Jedi and Sith post-schism saw the latter faction exiled out of Republic space, before the Sith became resurgent with its own galactic power, the Sith Empire, rising out of the planet Moraband. Collectively known as the Sith Wars, these engagements thrust the Republic into alliances with the Jedi as well as the Chiss Ascendancy, bringing the final millennia of the Old Republic’s rule largely into the chaos of perpetual war, on multiple fronts against Sith and Mandalorian hostility.
The final Jedi-Sith War of this period saw a dominant Sith Empire effectively overwhelm much of the Republic’s holdings across the galaxy. Coruscant itself was sacked and occupied, and although it was eventually liberated by the Jedi, much of what the Republic was still ravaged by interstellar conflict. A resurgent Jedi Order, alongside the remnants of the Republic military, went on an offensive that would pave the way to full-scale reformation of the galactic institution.
Reformation, Rise, and Fall
© Lucasfilm The liberation of Coruscant marked a significant turning point for the Jedi Order and Galactic Republic. The emboldened Jedi struck out at the Mandalorians, leaving their homeworld of Mandalore in a state of ecological devastation as well as the Mandalorian Clans humbled into ending their crusades against the Republic. This resurgence also heralded the beginning of the perceived end of the Sith Empire as a galactic power, as Jedi and Republic forces clashed with Imperial and Sith holdouts on the planet Ruusan around 1,032 BBY. The almost-total eradication of the Sith forced handfuls of survivors to abandon Moraband and go into hiding, leading to the establishment of Darth Bane’s “Rule of Two” guiding the Sith in shadow for centuries. But victory also allowed the Republic breathing room to look within after millennia of forever wars had all but destroyed it in turn.
The end of the Jedi-Sith War led to the formal reformation of the Republic, including the first establishment of a democratic union with the creation of the Galactic Senate. Part of the process of ushering in a new age of peace also saw the Republic undergo a widespread demilitarization process—what little conflict that came in this era was largely dealt with by the Jedi Order, assisting the Republic’s law enforcement branch, the peacekeepers of the Judicial Forces with disputes and internal affairs. This peace would eventually usher in a period seen as the apex of the Galactic Republic’s reach and power in the wider galaxy known as the era of the High Republic. Beginning in approximately 500 BBY, the High Republic was a period defined by expansionist policies throughout the Galactic Republic, from stronger efforts to chart safe hyperspace travel routes throughout the Core Worlds and into the Mid Rim leading to a push of Republic influence even further into the Outer Rim territories. This effort was also supported by the Republic’s pathfinder forces, who worked alongside the Jedi Order to establish linked communication networks across the Republic’s advancement into the Outer Rim, giving rise to the Holonet as one of the de facto communication and media networks across the bulk of Republic space.
But although the High Republic was seen as the very height of its influence and reach, much like the expansionist policies of the Old Republic before it, it was a period that saw the Republic and Jedi Order embroiled in wider conflicts once more, especially against the pirate forces of the Nihil encountered on the fringes of Republic space in this period. The High Republic’s light would fade by around 100 BBY, as the galactic entity’s sweeping expansion brought with it a growing sense of stagnation. As the Republic spread further and further into the Outer Rim, absorbing worlds along the way, commerce and trade found itself increasingly drawn from the lucrative fringes of Republic space and directly back to the cosmopolitan power hub of the Core Worlds. Corruption became widespread, as an increasingly unwieldy senatorial body consolidated power towards the Republic’s center, and the limited reach of the Judicial Forces and Jedi peacekeepers alike left crime and piracy rampant throughout much of the Republic’s most extended regions. Corporate power in these regions became increasingly commonplace, leading to the increasing influence of financial blocs and institutions like the Trade Federation or the Banking Clans.
© Lucasfilm It is in the rise of these economic powers—given political power and influence in the senate, through both backroom deals and their own delegated representation within Republic governance—that the Republic laid the groundwork for its own destruction. The Trade Federation’s invasion of the mid-rim world Naboo, supported from the shadows by the machinations of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, led to an upending of power within the Senate and the ousting of Chancellor Finis Valorum, the latest scion of a family whose ruling power within the Republic had coalesced over generations upon generations. From there, Sidious, acting in his guise as Naboo Senator Sheev Palpatine, rose to power as the latest Supreme Chancellor, further manipulating the growing discontent of worlds outside of the galactic core, alongside his latest apprentice—the former Jedi Master and Count of Serreno, Dooku—to organize a formal secessionist movement in the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
The Separatist Crisis, and the galactic conflict that arose from it in the Clone Wars—bringing with it the establishment of the first standing army the Galactic Republic had seen in thousands of years—was the climactic act of Palpatine’s manipulations of galactic events to align himself as both the usurper of political power within the Republic (emboldened through a series of dictatorial powers granted through emergency acts to support the war effort) and the architect of the Sith’s revenge on the Jedi Order. Nearly 25,000 years after it had been founded, the strife that had once defined and then reformed the Republic shattered it entirely with the climax of the Clone Wars, the destruction of the Jedi Order in response to an alleged coup d’état giving Palpatine the opportunity to dissolve the Republic and rebirth it as the first Galactic Empire. Its reign may have been brief—and replaced by a New Republic still carrying many of the burdens and mistakes of its most recent past—but Palpatine achieved the unthinkable in bring to an end tens and thousands of years of both spiritual and political influences with the ends of the Jedi Order and the Republic.
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