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The New Order in Power is a project initially started for a friend's roleplaying game website; it was to be serialized in "issues" of his on line magazine as a kind of updated Imperial Sourcebook, complete with character profiles and RPG statistics. The conceit behind the project is that it is excerpted from the writings of Professor Yinqo Lamont (biography to follow), an historian writing at an undefined point in the future. As such, it is not entirely composed of canonical information; there is a great deal of "flavor text" invented by the author purely for the sake of composition and flow. Nevertheless, a great deal of effort has been made to document it carefully, and footnotes are included for the sake of clearly delineating what is canonical and what is not. Because the greater part of the material is official canon, it is being posted here rather than in Fanfic.

As always, questions, comments, and feedback are both welcome and highly encouraged.

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

About the Author

Professor Yinqo Lamont, D.Phil., Ph.D., M.D., etc., boasts of a distinguished career of government service and academic success. He earned his first doctorate (in history and moral philosophy) from the University of Humbarine-Caldera, and in subsequent years has accumulated additional doctorates in economics, political science, psychohistory, and law. Professor Lamont is the best-selling author of a number of books on the Palpatinic Era, including The Tears of Palpatine, The Coming of the New Order, The New Order in Power, and The New Order at War, and collaborated with Dr. Yaqobo Slade on Season of Revolt: The Rise of Neo-Republicanism and Old Fuss and Failure: Gilad Pellaeon and the Retreat from Empire. He is also noted as the composer of three widely acclaimed symphonies.

Professor Lamont is a fellow of the Eminent Society, holds the distinction of being the sole recipient of both the Order of the Phoenix and the Legion of Honor, and is the galaxy’s only four-time recipient of the Powellyne Grant for Socio-Economic Research. He is also a three-time recipient of the Mothma-Organa-Bel Iblis Grant for Historical Studies and a three-time recipient of the Palpatine Grant for Distinguished Contribution to History and Moral Philosophy.

He is the current holder of the Antilles Chair of History and Political Economy, and holds the title of Senior Professor. He is also a visiting professor of psychohistory at the University of Coruscant and associate professor of robopsychology at the Magrody Institute. Professor Lamont is the senior editor of the Galactic Historical Society Journal, and sits on the board of governors of the Galactic Endowment for Historical Research. He is curator emeritus of the Trias Museum, visiting conductor of the Royal Philharmonic at Tempialis, and holds the rank of Honorary Grand Master of Firepath. In addition, he is the only full professor in The University’s faculty to have argued cases before both Supreme Courts.

The following is quoted from a condensed version of The New Order in Power.

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter 1: The Galactic Emperor and the Ruling Council

The fundamental laws of the Galactic Empire consisted of the Constitution of the Galactic Empire, the Constitutions of New Order, the Imperial Charter, and certain other “organic laws” enacted by the legislature. The fundamental laws established that supreme executive, legislative, and judicial authority inhered in the Galactic Emperor, who exercised these powers either by ordinary means (the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Imperial State) or extraordinary means (the Ruling Council, the Privy Council, the Hierarchy). In constitutional theory, the “ordinary entities” and the “extraordinary entities” had the same jurisdictions and authorities, but in different circumstances. The noted political theorist Grigoir haut Shamil famously explained it thus: “Neither the Senate nor the Privy Council is a legislature in any true sense of the word; rather, each speaks authoritatively for the Emperor in those matters within its competency.” According to Shamil’s influential theory, the members of the Senate did not have an exclusive right to legislate for themselves on their own behalf. Instead, they had the right to legislate for themselves on the Emperor’s behalf. Imperial law subtly discarded the concept of self-determination, transforming the Senate from a proper legislature into a sort of collective viceroyalty. One of the Empire’s earliest attorneys general, Prince Bail of Antilles, famously complained of Shamil’s theory in legal terms: “The body politic has always been a body corporate; Shamil would have us reduce the corporation aggregate to a corporation sole.” [1]

The Galactic Emperor

In the Official History of the Rebellion, Luke Skywalker was quoted as calling Palpatine of Naboo as “the central supermassive black hole of the Galactic Empire.” It is not an altogether inappropriate label; Palpatine was indeed the single entity whose massive force held the Empire together, overcoming all of its centripetal and fractious tendencies, in much the same way that a galaxy is transfixed by the gravity of its supermassive black hole. Much has been written of Palpatine the man; regrettably he has proven to be extraordinarily difficult to examine scientifically, given his persistent and habitual reclusiveness, and the manner in which he quite deliberately divorced himself from the deeds done in his name and by his authority. This has given rise to the popular belief (held by a vast majority of the galaxy’s citizenry during his reign) that he had been “shut away from the populace” and was “controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office,” as the First Saga of the Journal of the Whills so famously puts it. Sufficient evidence has come to light that historians can confidently say that this idea is mistaken; it has proven difficult, however, to determine precisely how far from the truth it actually is. [2]

Palpatine had emerged from the Clone War of 16 rS in the public consciousness as a galactic savior, a wise and principled leader who had struggled against the anarchy and corruption of the dying old Republic (it was decades yet before evidence arose indicating that he had in fact been responsible for the rise of the Separatist movement and engineered the Clone Wars as a means of centralizing power in his own hands). On this foundation his propagandists erected a cult of personality that elevated him to the status of a sort of secular demigod, a wise and benevolent ruler who was above party factionalism, almost above politics itself. Declassified memoranda from the highest levels of the Imperial State and recently uncovered private correspondence among some of his most influential courtiers has revealed a vast and concerted program of steadily elevating Palpatine's reputation, deflecting criticism from him to his ministers and other, more fallible beings. Palpatine was transfigured into an infallible figure, a unifying figure who served as focus of universal adulation, and whose authority (both legal and moral) was both unquestioned and unquestionable. His authority as Galactic Emperor was quickly codified into law, making it quite unambiguous that the Galactic Emperor’s authority was absolute and unlimited, subject to no check by any entity within the Empire; Imperial jurist Huber Gdans described the Emperor’s authority in his milestone Constitutional Law of the Galactic Empire as “the objective expression of the united will of the people,” a “total and all-embracing embodiment of all facets of the public life, circumscribed by no checks or controls, by no private preserves of individual rights or civil liberties.” The distinguished lawyer Arkady Krylenko, His Imperial Majesty’s Attorney General for the Imperial State from 32 to 39 rS, described the Emperor’s authority as “the pure, unadulterated expression of the enlightened consciousness of the body politic, overriding and superseding misguided public opinion; it is the voice of the galactic sovereignty.” In the landmark decision Antilles vs. Galactic Empire, 5 G.E. 137 (19), the Supreme Court ruled that “the decrees and proclamations of His Imperial Majesty are organic law, and may not be contradicted by lesser statutes.” [3]

Despite these sweeping statements of authority, Imperial law was actually quite vague about the actual functions of the Galactic Emperor. There were no duties or obligations prescribed for the Galactic Emperor in the Constitution, the Constitutions of New Order, or the Imperial Charter. The Senate’s laws and resolutions always tasked “the responsible Ministry of the Imperial State” with performing the duties it imposed, while the Privy Council’s orders-in-council likewise placed the onus of duty on “the responsible Minister of the Throne.” The Senate and the Privy Council rarely presumed to legislate on any matter related to the Imperial Prerogatives. Only the Supreme Court occasionally dared to discuss the Galactic Emperor directly, and even there it was suitably vague. The most famous of these cases, Iyatol vs. House of Palpatine, 7 G.E. 125 (23), only went so far as to acknowledge that there was a difference at law between Palpatine of Naboo, a natural person, and The Throne, a body corporate functioning as a corporation sole, “presently inherent in the natural person of the aforementioned Palpatine of Naboo.” The decision established that there was a distinct difference between Palpatine’s private property in his capacity as a natural person, and the Throne Estate, the Galactic Emperor’s inalienable property in his capacity as monarch. In practice, however, the difference between the two was rarely clear, and Palpatinist-Tarkinist ideologues frequently argued that the distinction was altogether meaningless, pointing to the Court’s description that The Throne was “inherent” in Palpatine himself. [4]

The Throne was very vaguely defined, except insofar as it was identified as the legal embodiment of the Galactic Emperor’s authority. It has been speculated by a number of historians, foremost among them Dr. Iacobo Slade, that The Throne was a legal fiction meant to give some semblance of legal basis for Palpatine’s power; being tailored specifically to apply solely to him, it became impossible for anyone else to occupy The Throne after his death, since no one was really clear as to what The Throne was or what it entailed in the first place. Even the means by which The Throne could be transferred was left undefined; in Palpatine’s first Speech from the Throne on 16:5:23 (printed as “The Full Text of Palpatine’s Glorious Speech” by the state-controlled Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition), he claimed that his new Empire would be “ruled by the majority, ruled by a new constitution,” and that it would “continue to be ruled by this august body and a sovereign ruler chosen for life” (other accounts differ slightly, and have him instead saying that it would be “directed by a single sovereign, chosen for life”). Nevertheless, no legal mechanism was ever put into place to provide for the selection of a successor in the event of Palpatine’s death or abdication, a glaring omission that would subsequently rear its ugly head after the Battle of Endor in early 39 rS. [5]

Since neither Palpatine nor The Throne had any clearly defined role in the government of the Empire — his sole official duty was to be supreme — it became a simple matter to dissociate the Galactic Emperor from day-to-day decisions. Administrative matters requiring his personal attention were handled instead by his factotum and alter ego, the Grand Vizier of the Galactic Empire. Decrees bearing his name were instead drafted and issued by the Council of Ministers, on the principle that they spoke on his behalf. Palpatine rarely signed his name to any orders or state documents; it has proven nearly impossible to determine with any degree of reliability which of the thousands of decrees issued from the Imperial Chancellery actually resulted from his decisions. Historians are left to comb memoirs and reminiscences for vague accounts of having “discussed the matter with the Emperor” or obtaining his approval — verbal, of course, almost never written — for a given proposal (such as the oral appointment of Moff Jerjerrod as Commander Death Star in 38 rS). Despite the regularity with which the name of the Emperor is bandied about, very few decisions or policies can actually be traced to Palpatine himself. Most of those that can verifiably be determined to have come from The Throne and not its many advisors and ministers are such mundane matters as the incorporation on of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR) as a tax-exempt nonprofit foundation on 16:5:24. Despite his supreme legal authority, Palpatine rarely directly intervened in public affairs. Instead, he used indirect influence and manipulation to drive others to implement the policies he desired, pushing others to sign their names to decisions he was unwilling to have associated with his own (such as Dangor’s approval of the Tarkin Doctrine and appointment of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin as Commander Death Star). There is no serious scholarly dispute that Palpatine drove the majority of important decisions in his Empire; nevertheless it is however a source of great frustration that he usually used his vast reservoir of ‘soft’ power rather than his limitless ‘hard’ power, because soft power cannot be reliably documented, leaving the true extent of Palpatine’s role in his Empire a mystery. The majority of his (very few) public appearances were not even related to politics, focusing on such harmless pageantry as the New Year Fête Week — he attended the traditional Shaldania Parade that marked the week’s opening eight times from 29 rS to 37 rS — or the latest philanthropic endeavors of his family’s charity, the Palpatine Foundation. (The Palpatine Foundation, which spent trillions of credits annually on subsidizing food, housing, health care, and education throughout the galaxy, as well as providing fully 30% of all funding for orphanages in the Empire, was once bluntly called “the bank account with which we will buy the public’s adoration” by former Minister of Information Pollux Hax in a confidential memorandum to Sate Pestage, the Emperor’s Grand Vizier.) [6]

Easily the most famous trapping of The Throne was its elite personal bodyguard, the Imperial and Royal Guard (1st Brigade, Imperial Guards Legion I), clad in distinctive scarlet robes inspired by the uniforms worn by the Mandalorian Death Watch and the Sun Guards of Thyrsus, military units reputed throughout the galaxy for their ferocious fighting abilities. During the Emperor’s reign the Guard’s size was not generally known; in 35 rS the rebel Alliance’s chief historian, professional journalist Major Arhul Hextrophon, would write that “no firm figures are available on the exact number of Royal Guards serving the Emperor, but speculation ranges from fewer than 50 to the tens of thousands.” By 45 rS, the Guard had been upgraded to divisional strength, forming the core of the newly-established I Marine Expeditionary Force. Within the Guard was a still more prestigious unit, the Sovereign Protectors (1st Battalion, First Imperial and Royal Guards Regiment); detachments of the Sovereign Protectors were assigned to each of the Emperor’s residences to oversee security, and at least one of their number was with him at all times. The Guard was, however, only part of the large joint-service command dedicated specifically to his protection; the Army devoted the entire 1st (Galactic Emperor’s Own) Division, while the Navy provided Naval Forces Personal Security Command, including Carrier Space Wing ONE (CSW-1) “The Immortals” (VF-1 “The Emperor’s Sword,” pride of the Imperial Navy, was one of the Immortals’ fighter squadrons). Unlike many other prominent members of the Empire’s ruling class — Darth Vader and HIMS Devastator (and later HIMS Executor) being the most prominent example — , the Emperor himself did not favor a particular warship as his personal flagship, but most frequently made use of HIMS Imperator and HIMS Majestic when circumstances called for a warship; more often he traveled on board one of his yachts (HIMY Excalibur and HIMY Emperor’s Shadow being his favorites) or his private shuttle (originally a modified T-2c Theta, later replaced by a modified T-4a Lambda; the latter was long rumored and eventually confirmed to be equipped with a cloaking device). In 45 rS, the Emperor finally selected a warship, the cyclopean battleship HIMS Eclipse, as his personal flagship; after her destruction he similarly honored her sister ship, HIMS Abysm (hastily re-christened Eclipse for the occasion). [7]

The Emperor’s principal official residence was the Imperial Palace, easily the most famous holding of the Throne Estate; it was described by Pollux Hax as “a hybrid cathedral and pyramid, rising higher than any other structure on the planet,” whose “tallest spires reach up into the rarefied atmosphere.” The vast complex of polished gray-green rock and mirrored crystals was adorned with countless phosphorescent panels, glowspheres, electroluminance strips, hanging gardens, marble pyramids, and zero-gravity fountains; even the fiercest among the Emperor’s critics have called it one of the greatest architectural achievements in galactic history (The Princess Leia of Alderaan, one of the best-known leaders of the rebel Alliance, once called it an “endless, gorgeous maze of crystal roofs, hanging gardens, pyramids of green and blue marble shining with gold... summer quarters, winter quarters, treasuries, pavilions, music rooms, prisons, halls... grace-and-favor residences for concubines, ministers, and trained assassins”). The complex began its life as the much more modest Presidential Palace, a subcity thousands of years old which chiefly served as a ceremonial residence for the Supreme Chancellor and housed most of the civil service’s offices in the late Republic (most Supreme Chancellors actually resided elsewhere; Palpatine for example lived in a spacious suite at 500 Republica); after his acclamation as Emperor in 16 rS, Palpatine had the old palace extensively renovated, transfiguring it into what has been widely described as “the centerpiece of the entire gleaming city.” The Palace grounds were home to more than fifty connected structures and more than twenty thousand rooms; some of the rooms, like the famous Grand Corridor, were themselves kilometers long. The Palace complex was so large and extensive that it served simultaneously as the government district, housing a fully-equipped medical sub-complex and a number of offices and headquarters, including the War Room, the Admiral’s Office, the Crypt (a cryptologic center, not a burial vault), and the Imperial Information Center, within the bedrock of the planet itself. [8]

The residential district of the Palace complex was accessible through the Grand Corridor, including the wood-paneled President’s Guests Floor; the Emperor’s actual living space was a tiny fraction of the Palace called the Residence, a suite of residential rooms, studies, private audience chambers, libraries, and art galleries deep in the core of the main building reserved for his personal use (the Residence was equipped with viewports designed to simulate the view of the outside exactly, creating the illusion that it was perched atop the main pyramid rather than nestled deep within it). Most of the Imperial Collection — those works of art owned by The Throne, chiefly inherited from the Supreme Chancellor’s Collection — was on display in the Emperor’s Gallery within the Palace grounds, near the Palpatine Gardens and the Mon Calamari Inglenook (his private collection was scattered among his various residences across the galaxy). The Palace included a number of throne rooms and audience chambers, including the famous Chamber of the Imperial Presence, a cavernous room modeled on the old Senate Rotunda with the Imperial Throne on a raised column where it was bathed in illumination from prismatic skylights; it is from this chamber that he gave most of his public addresses. Stretching out beyond the Sublime Porte — the main entrance to the Palace grounds — was the enormous Pliada di am Imperium, a vast plaza that opened into Glitannai Esplanade, Imperial City’s celebrated ‘carotid artery’ running along Judicial Plaza and ending in the Imperial Navy’s headquarters at Unity Gardens. The Palace had a reviewing balcony overlooking the Pliada to enable the Emperor or other dignitaries to observe parades and other celebrations in the enormous plaza. [9]

Though the Palace stretched from the planet’s bedrock to the very heights of the ecumenopolis’s skyline — the Palace’s tallest tower was the tallest structure on the planet — it was certainly not the only holding of the Throne Estate on the planet, or above it. Drifting above in low geosynchronous orbit was the Emperor’s skyhook, a tethered satellite station more than a kilometer in diameter. Lavishly opulent, the Emperor’s skyhook was a city-sized private habitat, featuring an enormous central park filled with evergreen and deciduous trees more than thirty meters tall. Skyhooks the size of Palpatine’s were famous for their manicured scenery and sculpted waterfalls beneath vast transparisteel domes; his was no different, featuring as it did breathtaking gardens modeled after his native world of Naboo in spring, tended by the finest horticulturists in the galaxy. The chief horticulturist of the skyhook staff, the renowned Hilder ohm Quarr, was one of the most respected names in his field for decades (he died in a turbolift accident after accepting a position of chief horticulturist on The Prince Xizor of Falleen’s skyhook, Falleen’s Fist). Palpatine did not keep any of the Imperial Collection on display on his skyhook, although he did keep a gallery of items from his private collection there. [10]

Though the Palace and the skyhook are the best known of the Throne Estate’s holdings, there were others, even on Imperial Center itself. His Imperial Majesty’s Residence at Naboo was one of his favorites, a (relatively) modest retreat tucked away in the lake country of his homeworld (seeing that this retreat was built on property held by the House of Palpatine, it is not entirely certain whether or not it belonged to the Throne Estate). A much more impressive palace was planned on Etti IV, capital of the Corporate Sector, but was never completed despite many years of construction (like a number of other palaces under construction, work on the Corporate Sector residence continued even after the Battle of Endor in 39 rS). The various palaces and monasteries favored by the reclusive Emperor often played host to portions of his extensive private collection of works of art and memorabilia (such as the now-famous secret storehouse at Mount Tantiss, Wayland, where he also stored more than twenty thousand Spaarti clone cylinders and a functioning prototype of Grand Adm. Martio Batch’s hibridium-based cloaking device), as well as state-of-the-art command, control, communications, and computer equipment, allowing him to exert his influence anywhere in the galaxy should he so desire. [11]

In these latter days one of the Emperor’s other residences in particular has risen to notoriety second only to the Palace itself (no mean feat, given the Palace’s continued prominence as the seat of the New Republic Government). This was the Imperial Citadel, a vast tower rising several kilometers over the skyline of his hidden utopia on Byss, a private resort world hidden away within the nuclear chaos of the Deep Core. Nearly 90 kilometers tall, the Citadel was a fortress unto itself, defended by turbolasers, shock fields, and shields, with a canyon-like moat surrounding it; within were HoloNet communication modules, subspace transceivers, and the like, as well as a private landing bay, and barracks for the three Marine legions assigned to defend it, to say nothing of the dungeon wherein the Inquisitorius came to be based, and a cluster of alchemy laboratories. Although it certainly had its share of palatial trappings — the Emperor’s personal (and extensive) library and private apartments, a throne room and audience chamber, viewing rooms, and an extensive luxuries including a gladiatorial arena, a mock combat tank, libraries, museums, internal gardens, and a ménagerie — the Citadel has earned a reputation as the Palace’s eldritch shadow, a place of grisly experiments, esoteric rituals, and other abominations associated with Palpatine’s so-called Science of Darkness. Perhaps nothing better exemplifies this sinister reputation than the mammoth Clone Labs deep within the bowels of the Citadel, where Palpatine’s Sithian arcana permitted him to obtain a degree of immortality. Regrettably the Citadel was never open to the public and information on its construction and contents remains limited; it was destroyed along with the rest of Byss in late 45 rS. [12]

The Ruling Council

Palpatine’s famous reclusiveness often went so far as spending long periods in total seclusion; on occasion, whole months would go by without meeting with his ministers or making public appearances. Sometimes his private secretariat would explain these periods by saying he was attending to Imperial business in secure areas (as was the official explanation when he did not attend the Shaldania Parade in 37 rS, according to “New Year Fete Week Launched in Imperial City,” Coruscant Daily Newsfeed G76D), but more often his absences were attributed to the precarious state of his health (rumors about Palpatine’s health had been widespread as early as his second term as Supreme Chancellor, 7 - 11 rS — see, for example, “Palpatine Health Rumors Denied,” HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 52; even denials that he was in poor health were considered newsworthy by the major networks). Recently declassified records have revealed that more frequently these periods of seclusion were the result of Palpatine’s devoting more and more time to the study of the so-called ‘dark side of the Force’ and related arcana — including extensive research into the Jedi Order, the Krath, the Heresiarchs, and other, less well known groups like the shamans of Jarvashqiine and the followers of the Tyia — , and the development of his own personal school of applied metaphysics, the aforementioned ‘Science of Darkness.’ Over the course of this time, he wrote extensively, beginning work on an esoteric encyclopedia called the Dark Side Compendium; by the time of his death in 45 rS, he had finished the first two volumes, The Book of Anger and The Weakness of Inferiors, with a third volume, The Creation of Monsters, still in manuscript. The only known surviving copies remain in the possession of the Jedi Order, despite repeated lawsuits by the House of Palpatine. [13]

In any case, to ensure that matters requiring The Throne’s personal attention were not neglected during his seclusion, he established a sort of permanent regency, the Imperial Ruling Council (formally Their Excellencies the Members of His Imperial Majesty’s Most Serene Ruling Council, but more commonly called the Serenissimus, i.e., the “Most Serene”). The Serenissimus acted directly on The Throne’s behalf; when Palpatine was unavailable, the Serenissimus gave or withheld the Imperial Assent in his place, and exercised the Imperial Prerogatives of appointment and dismissal. All the Government’s major policy decisions were subject to the Serenissimus’s veto, as indeed were all matters within the jurisdiction of the Imperial State. This vast power made a seat on the Serenissimus one of the most coveted prizes in galactic political life, and its members wielded considerable authority even when the Emperor was not in seclusion; the prerogatives attached to one of these seats were so great that the Ruling Councilmen were even called “the Emperors” at times. [14]

Seeing that the Serenissimus was intended to act as Palpatine’s personal, collective lieutenant (and not in the generalized manner proposed by the Shamil theory), it was readily recognized that only the most influential and intelligent of the Emperor’s advisors would be elevated to its lofty heights. A list of those who served as Ruling Councilmen reads like a veritable roll call of the Palpatine’s inner circle: Sate Pestage, Ars Dangor, Indutiomarus Trachta, Lord Crueya of Vandron, Janus Greejatus, Sim Aloo, Kren Blista-Vanee, Nefta, Sa-Di, Kazîglu Bey, Naraku, and Julian Kintobor of Ivo were all prominent Ruling Councilmen throughout the Serenissimus’s history. Pestage, Dangor, and Trachta — widely regarded as Palpatine’s three closest advisors — were the longest serving, each having served more than 10 years on the Council (not consecutively) and having served on several occasions as president, effectively making each the de facto ruler of the Empire in his turn. After leaving the Serenissimus at the conclusion of his term, each “Emperor” was granted the title “Ruling Councilman Emeritus” and was entitled to the postnominal initials RCE (cf. the seated Ruling Councilman’s postnominal RC); although no formal authority was attached to this status, the prestige was enormous. A wily courtier — there were no “Emperors” who were not wily — could easily parlay his newfound status as an ‘elder statesman’ of the Empire into still further influence. Much as Palpatine himself often relied on his informal ‘soft’ power even where his formal ‘hard’ power applied, these former “Emperors” could on occasion find that their ‘soft’ power as Emeriti could exceed even their ‘hard’ power while still seated. [15]

Many of the Empire’s most notorious policies and decisions were approved by the Serenissimus in closed-door sessions, including the establishment of the Inquisitorius and the School of Torturers and the approval of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin’s Death Star Project (there is considerable evidence in many of these cases, including personal testimony, that these decisions were made after consultation with Palpatine himself, although none of the extant official records mention his personal involvement — yet another example of his frustrating refusal to be directly tied to the more unpleasant aspects of his rule, even those carried out with his explicit permission or approval). But despite its status as the most powerful of the extraordinary bodies, it was limited in its scope (under Shamil’s theory, only the Emperor himself could have unlimited scope). Although it wielded enormous authority, the Serenissimus lacked The Throne’s ability to intervene freely and of its own accord. It was prohibited by decree from interfering in the internal workings of the Senate, the Privy Council, or the College of Moffs. It could sack Grand Moffs and bring down Governments, but it could not kill bills still being considered in the halls of the Senate or orders-in-council being drafted in the Camera Stellaris. It was likewise prohibited from interfering in the internal affairs of the Empire’s million member states (“dominions” in Imperial legal jargon). Despite these limits, the far-reaching authority of the Ruling Councilmen made them some of the most powerful beings in the entire galaxy, head and shoulders above even the others among the Emperor’s advisors. When summoned to appear before “the Emperors” in their cavernous chambers in the Palace of Justice, even Moffs and Grand Moffs were denied the privilege of a chair; all lesser beings were required to stand in the presence of the Serenissimus (the only occasion on which the Serenissimus stood was in the presence of the Emperor himself, in which case his modest throne was the only chair present anyway). [16]

The Serenissimus was limited to thirteen members at a time, consisting of twelve regular members and a president. A seat on the Serenissimus was limited to a term of two years, with one seat falling vacant each year (a small number of the seats were made permanent by special writ of The Throne). Nomination to the Ruling Council was a complicated process involving a list of candidates being drafted by the Government and pruned by the Senate before submission to the Emperor for final selection. In this way even the theoretically all-powerful Emperors had checks on their power; a Ruling Councilman interested in returning to the Council after his term expired was compelled to cultivate followers among the Privy Council and the Senate, lest his candidacy die somewhere in the halls of those lesser bodies. On at least one occasion a candidate member, fearing that his odds of making the final cut were endangered by previous intrigues, contracted the Assassin’s Guild to improve his chances of selection (as it happens, he died of a heart attack the morning the Emperor’s decision was to be announced). [17]

Endnotes

[1] Palpatine declares in the version of his first Speech from the Throne quoted in the novelization Revenge of the Sith that the Empire will be “ruled by a new Constitution” (“The Full Text of Palpatine’s Glorious Speech” (Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition) reports this as “ruled by a new constitution,” with minuscule vice majuscule). The Senatorial Amendments to Constitutions of New Order (Decree 77-92465-001) were cited by the Will in Children of the Jedi (along with the Capital Powers Act). The Imperial Charter is mentioned by The Princess Leia of Alderaan in Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (specifically she remarks that the Empire has perpetrated yet another “gross violation of the original Imperial charter [sic]”); the Star Wars Encyclopedia defines it as “a document that contained rules and agreements set forth by the Empire” that “governed the rights and responsibilities of all Imperial worlds and star systems” regarding “the use of resources, rights of passage, military protection, tribute, and colonization.”

Prince Bail of Antilles, explicitly identified in Episode I Who’s Who, is often confused with Prince Bail of Organa, Prince Consort of Alderaan, who first appeared in Attack of the Clones.

[2] The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook is notionally an executive summary of the Official History of the Rebellion, prepared by Major Arhul Hextrophon, Executive Secretary and Master Historian, Alliance High Command, and his staff on behalf of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. The Prologue to Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker is notionally a quotation from the First Saga of the Journal of the Whills.

[3] Paraphrased from German jurist Ernst Rudolf Huber’s Verfassungsrecht des Großdeutschen Reiches (Hamburg, 1939). The Ultimate Visual Guide states that the Emperor acted “without any legal, political, or financial restraints.”

[4] Palpatine uses the term “the Imperial Throne” to refer to his authority in “The Path to Nowhere” (Dark Times No. 1 - 5).

[5] The date of Palpatine’s acclamation is fixed by “Palpatine’s Triumphs: A Celebration” (Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition). The differing texts of Palpatine’s first Speech from the Throne are quoted from “The Full Text of Palpatine’s Glorious Speech” (id.) and the novelization of Revenge of the Sith. The fact that there was no legal mechanism providing for the selection of a new Galactic Emperor is from the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which specifically states that “the Emperor had not left a designated successor, and there was no constitutional procedure for one.”

[6] The Grand Vizier’s role is described in the Dark Empire Sourcebook as “the personal assistant to the Emperor in all things,” being “personally responsible for the preparation and tasting of the Emperor’s meals, manager of his household, holder of the Imperial Seal, and chief scheduler of all functions,” in addition to having served as “Steward of the Imperial Personal Archives” and therefore having been “privy to Palpatine’s most secret holo-communications and recordings.” Sate Pestage’s power as Grand Vizier is emphasized with the remark that “he speaks for the Emperor in all things.”

The dissociation of the Emperor’s name and authority from his direct role in government is drawn from Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, which quotes a line from the First Saga of the Journal of the Whills that “many used the imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions.” Palpatine verbally appointed Jerjerrod head of the second Death Star Project in the Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook, while the orders establishing the Tarkin Doctrine and authorizing the first Death Star Project were signed by Ars Dangor in the Death Star Technical Companion.

The Commission for the Preservation of the Republic (COMPOR) was a grassroots Palpatinist political movement in the late Republic that was formally re-incorporated as the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR) on 16:5:24, according to “COMPOR Reorganized” (Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition). Palpatine’s attendance of the Shaldania Parade at New Year Fête Week from 29 rS to 37 rS is mentioned in “New Year Fete Week Launched in Imperial City” (Coruscant Daily Newsfeed G76D). Palpatine’s personal solicitude for orphans is inferred from “The Mind Spider!”, which shows that a large group of children were raised “in Palace of Emperor Palpatine as part of experiment in adolescent indoctrination” (to which “Lumiya: Dark Star of the Empire” (Star Wars Galaxy Magazine No. 3) adds that one Shira Elan Colla Brie was “raised on an estate belonging to Senator Palpatine”).

Pollux Hax was described in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe as having served “for several years as chief of the Emperor’s propaganda dissemination section” (he is the notional author of that book’s article on Coruscant).

[7] The Imperial Sourcebook states that the Imperial Royal Guard’s uniforms were “derived from a pair of similar designs, the uniforms of the Death Watch of the Mandalore system and the Sun Guards of the Thyrsus system,” and calls them “units with such ferocious reputations”; Hextrophon’s description of the unit’s size is quoted from the same source. The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that “a newly formed legion of Royal Guards” was embarked on board the Eclipse in 45 rS (the Imperial Sourcebook establishes that the Imperial Marines use the terminology “legion” vice “division” or “battlegroup”).

The Dark Empire Sourcebook describes the Sovereign Protectors as the “most elite order of the Emperor’s bodyguards” “selected from the main body of the crimson-robed Royal Guard,” and adds that “they are stationed in small groups throughout the Empire as watchmen over all the palaces and monasteries that Palpatine haunts as well as guarding the Emperor.” Their strength as a battalion-level unit is indicated by the Dark Empire Sourcebook’s statement that the Imperial Citadel complex on Byss includes “barracks for three legions of stormtroopers, 400 Sovereign Protectors and 600 Sentinels” (note that the sourcebook actually says that the Citadel has “its own regiment of Imperial Sovereign Protectors as a house guard,” but a unit of 400 is at battalion-strength).

The Emperor’s Sword is described in the Death Star II Expansion Set as “elite pilots sworn to defend the Emperor to the death,” who are “stationed at Coruscant but always travel with the Emperor.”

The Devastator was identified as Darth Vader’s flagship in The Mandalorian Armor, and he subsequently hoisted his flag on the Executor in “Darth Vader Strikes.” Palpatine was abducted from the Majestic in TIE Fighter: Defender of the Empire. The Imperator has been mentioned in Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire, TIE Fighter: Enemies of the Empire, Wedge’s Gamble, and X-Wing: Alliance, but never identified as one of the Emperor’s flagships. The Excalibur, a C-3 passenger liner, was seen as the Emperor’s personal yacht in TIE Fighter: Enemies of the Empire; the Emperor’s Shadow first appeared in “The Kaal Connection” (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 7), and was named in “The Emperor’s Pawns” (Star Wars Gamer No. 5).

Palpatine’s modified T-2c Theta shuttle was seen in Revenge of the Sith, while his T-4a Lambda was seen more than 20 years later in Return of the Jedi (called a “transport used extensively by Emperor Palpatine” in the Death Star II Expansion Set). Complete Cross-sections, speaking of the T-2c, notes that “Palpatine’s later shuttles will feature a cloaking device — making them invisible to all forms of light, gravity, and other known energies.”

The Eclipse was seen as the Emperor’s flagship in Dark Empire. She was replaced by the lubberly-named Eclipse II in Empire’s End.

[8] Pollux Hax’s description of the Imperial Palace is quoted from The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. The “polished gray-green rock and mirrored crystals” and the “phosphorescent panels, glowspheres, and electroluminance strips” are from the same source; the “hanging gardens, marble pyramids, and zero-gravity fountains” are from Coruscant and the Core Worlds. The Princess Leia’s description is quoted from Children of the Jedi. The description as “the centerpiece of the entire gleaming city” is also quoted from Hax’s breathless article in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe.

The Presidential Palace (and its eventual transmogrification into the Imperial Palace) was originally mentioned in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. Its age and role as “a showpiece residence for the supreme chancellor” is stated in Coruscant and the Core Worlds; its role as the government district is indicated by Coruscant and the Core Worlds’s remark that “the new Republic Executive Building accommodated governmental overflow from the Presidential Palace.” It was an established fact that the supreme chancellor did not actually reside in the Palace, despite it being his official residence (an auxiliary dormitory was also provided in the Chancellor’s Suite in the Republic Executive Building, as seen in Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-sections). The apartment suite where Palpatine actually resided as supreme chancellor was first seen in The Phantom Menace, and specifically stated to be in 500 Republica in Labyrinth of Evil.

The Palace’s proportions of “more than fifty connected structures and twenty thousand rooms” was stated in Tyrant’s Test (and repeated in Coruscant and the Core Worlds). The Grand Corridor was first described as “like an enclosed canyon” in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe, which noted that the Palace included “open areas large enough to house a Victory-class Star Destroyer”; in Wedge’s Gamble the Grand Corridor — also briefly called “the Grand Hall of the Galaxy” — was described as being large enough that “Rogue Squadron could have dogfights with a whole wing of TIEs” in it. The same source added that it “ran on for kilometers” and that “the open areas at the floor level could easily have accommodated a Star Destroyer.”

The Illustrated Star Wars Universe described the Grand Corridor as being “populated by thousands of bureaucratic functionaries, diplomatic runners, staffers, and ambassadors of all races and species,” while the Princess Leia’s description adds “prisons” to the complex grounds. The Imperial Information Center is from Darksaber. The medical wing, War Room, Admiral’s Office, and the Crypt are from Coruscant and the Core Worlds (the same source specifically states that the Information Center was “in the Coruscant bedrock beneath the military floor,” kilometers beneath the topmost floors of the complex.

[9] The residential area’s accessibility from the Grand Corridor is mentioned in Coruscant and the Core Worlds, while the President’s Guests Floor is mentioned in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe. The latter source described “several ‘artificial penthouse’ suites, with window walls made of projection screens, displaying images from cameras mounted at the top of the Imperial palace,” among “the most protected rooms at the core of the building.” Coruscant and the Core Worlds specified “the chief of state’s quarters were located deep in the palace core with ‘windows’ showing real-time holograms of the view outside,” identifying the Emperor’s residence as one of the “artificial penthouses.” In Shadows of the Empire, the Prince Xizor thinks of the “luxury of the Emperor’s private and protected chamber at the core of the giant pyramidal palace.”

The art on display in the palace includes “intricate carvings” and “richly colored transparisteel insets” in the Grand Corridor (The Illustrated Star Wars Universe). In I, Jedi, Corran Horn describes the Palace’s interior as being made up of “ornate designs and vibrant colors,” in which “the use of Imperial Scarlet predominated, with gold, silver, blue and green accenting various features”; the décor was periodically punctuated by “an alcove or a wall panel that housed artwork from one of the myriad planets in the galaxy.” Items from Palpatine’s private collection were seen on board the second Death Star in Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy, on Byss in Dark Empire and the Dark Empire Sourcebook, and in Mount Tantiss in Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, the Heir to the Empire Sourcebook, the Dark Force Rising Sourcebook, The Last Command Sourcebook, and the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook.

The Palpatine Gardens were mentioned as being both on the Palace grounds and open to the public in The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, and the Mon Calamari Inglenook (“a humid annex designed to resemble a coral reef with an enclosed pool circulating around the clear-walled rooms”) was mentioned in Coruscant and the Core Worlds. The Emperor’s public address chamber was first described by Hax in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe as “a sunken auditorium like a great crater dug into the bedrock,” in which the audience decks were “flat stone benches [...] arranged in long arcs, where visitors can come to hear Imperial pronouncements directly from the Emperor himself” (“Acoustics are perfect, allowing the audience to hear the barest whisper from the Emperor; the reverse is also true”); Hax adds that “at the pinnacle of the throne room is an angled, prismatic skylight, which pours rainbows of light onto the Emperor as he lounges back into his levitating chair, bathing him in glorious colors as he speaks...” It was first seen in TIE Fighter. A second throne room was seen in Shadows of the Empire.

The “reception entrance to the Imperial Palace” was mentioned in Shield of Lies, where it was described as “forty polished stone steps” leading to “triple metal-mosaic doors sheltered under a great cantilevered stone awning” (later defaced by the addition of eight stars symbolizing the signatories of the Declaration of a New Republic). The Pliada di am Imperium and Glitannai Esplanade were mentioned in Coruscant and the Core Worlds (which described Glitannai as “running along the broad-topped buildings of the Judicial Plaza,” agreeing with the statement in Wedge’s Gamble that the Imperial Justice Court was linked to the Galactic Museum, itself adjacent to the Palace complex).

[10] The Emperor’s skyhook and the fate of the chief horticulturist after accepting the Prince Xizor’s job offer were described in Shadows of the Empire.

[11] The Emperor’s other residences on Imperial Center are mentioned by Director of Imperial Intelligence Ysanne Isard, who recalls in Isard’s Revenge that he had once taken her to “one of his hidden sanctums, one of the various satellite palace complexes he maintained on Imperial Center.” The residence on Naboo is seen in Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided and mentioned in Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine. The palace in the Corporate Sector and its continued construction after 39 rS are mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook. The storehouse in Mount Tantiss on Wayland is featured in Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, the Heir to the Empire Sourcebook, the Dark Force Rising Sourcebook, The Last Command Sourcebook, and the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook; the cloaking device was identified as one of Batch’s hibridium models in “Who’s Who: Imperial Grand Admirals” (Star Wars Insider No. 66).

[12] The Imperial Citadel first appeared in Dark Empire; its height is roughly determined by examination of The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons. The defensive and communications systems are described by the Dark Empire Sourcebook, as are its three legions, its dungeon, labs, and luxuries. The cavernous moat is seen in Dark Empire II, and the destruction of Byss is seen in Empire’s End.

[13] The Essential Guide to Characters notes that Palpatine “set up a system whereby the Empire couldn’t function without him,” and “once that system was in place, he became more distant and reclusive, seen only by those who needed to see him.” While he was thus in seclusion, “his leaders and commanders would present the public face for him.” His absence from the Shaldania Parade for the first time in eight years in 37 rS (and the official explanation) is mentioned in “New Year Fete Week Launched in Imperial City,” while the health rumors are mentioned (as cited in the text) in “Palpatine Health Rumors Denied” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 52).

The Dark Empire Sourcebook observes that “while his Vizier and ministers maintained the day-to-day operation of the Empire, Palpatine spent decades, frequently in seclusion, in meditation and study on a master work of his thoughts and teachings.” The scribe writes in The New Essential Guide to Characters that Palpatine had effectively delegated responsibility for ruling the Empire to his Grand Vizier because he himself was “consumed with dark side studies.” Palpatine’s research is described in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, specifically naming the Jedi, Krath, Heresiarchs, Jarvashqiine, and the Tyia among his subjects of study; and eventually moved on to experimental studies, which formed the basis of his “Science of Darkness” (expressly mentioned in the sourcebook).

The Dark Side Compendium and its three volumes are mentioned in the Dark Side Sourcebook; passages from The Weakness of Inferiors are quoted in the notes appended to Dark Empire, the Dark Empire Sourcebook, and The Dark Side Sourcebook. The scribe demonstrates at least a passing familiarity with the contents of these books in The New Essential Guide to Characters, so it is possible that copies survived the destruction of Byss in Empire’s End.

[14] Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker mentions that Palpatine was a recluse, “seen only by those who needed to see him”; The Ultimate Visual Guide adds that he “seldom leaves his palace on Coruscant.” The Ruling Council is mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which adds that “major decisions made by ministers or advisors had to be personally ratified by his [Palpatine’s] chosen servants.” The nickname of “the Emperors” is an ad hoc explanation for vague references in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker and “Darth Vader Lives!” (Star Wars Official Poster Monthly No. 2) to “the later corrupt Emperors” and “successive evil Emperors” (respectively).

[15] Ars Dangor was first mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook. Grand Moff Trachta first appeared in “Betrayal” (Empire No. 1 - 4). Lord Crueya of Vandron was first mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook. Janus Greejatus and Sim Aloo first appeared in Return of the Jedi and were identified in the Death Star II Expansion Set. Kren Blista-Vanee first appeared in Return of the Jedi and was identified in Galaxy Guide 5: Return of the Jedi. Nefta and Sa-Di first appeared in Dark Empire II.

The Death Star Technical Companion says of Dangor that (as of 35 rS) “the Emperor deals with the big picture; he leaves the little pieces for Dangor to take care of” and that “all public addresses and the day-to-day running of the Empire” were delegated to him; this matches nicely with the scribe’s statement in The New Essential Guide to Characters that “by the time of the Battle of Hoth, Pestage was, in fact, running the Empire” and that the Emperor had “surrendered the day-to-day responsibilities of rule to his Grand Vizier.” These statements and the known role of the Emperor’s senior advisors in overseeing all major decisions of his ministers suggests that the presidency of the Ruling Council passed from one to the other around the time of the Battle of Yavin. Trachta’s importance is inferred from Palpatine’s remark in “Betrayal” that the Grand Moff was “so necessary to [Palpatine’s] operations here” on Imperial Center.

[16] The Inquisitorius was first mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook and the School of Torturers was first mentioned in Children of the Jedi. The Death Star Technical Companion shows that although Moff Governor Wilhuff Tarkin proposed the Death Star Project in a communiqué directly to the Emperor, it was Ars Dangor who actually responded and approved the project.

Tarkin mentions “the million systems of the galactic [sic] Empire” in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. The Galactic Republic was described as having “over a million member worlds” in The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition.

[17] The Assassin’s Guild first appeared (as the “Assassins Guild,” without the possessive) in “The Weapons Master!” (Star Wars #1).

Awesome article, Publius, you wouldn't mind if I stole this (figuratively of course) for a SWRPG Saga Campaign set during the reign of the New Galactic Empire, would you? The players are pirmarily loyalists and this in a library on Bastion would be a great way to flesh it out.

Great work as always.

Most excellent, Publius.

General Schatten wrote:Awesome article, Publius, you wouldn't mind if I stole this (figuratively of course) for a SWRPG Saga Campaign set during the reign of the New Galactic Empire, would you? The players are pirmarily loyalists and this in a library on Bastion would be a great way to flesh it out.

That was the intention. Of course, this chapter was to have an archetypal Ruling Councilman and probably also a character from the Throne Estate, but unfortunately that work has been postponed indefinitely.

I'm curious to find out what role did the Ruling Council play in the years following the death of Palpatine and the Thrawn and DE periods of the galaxy. Do they have any connection to the Imperial Remnant?

Good article.

Do they have any connection to the Imperial Remnant?

No.

Former Soveriegn Protector Carnor Jax and leader of the anti-Palpatine conspiracy, builds an "Imperial Interim Ruling Council" from amongst the surviving ruling class and his co-conspirators, which roughly functions (apparently) along the same lines as the original Ruling Council. However, after Jax's death at the hands of former Royal Guardsman Kir Kanos, and the subsequent liquidation of the Imperial Interim Ruling Council and would-be Emperor, Xandel Carivus (the last incompent of the council chair), the Empire's state apparatus totally collapses and is swallowed up by the warlords and holdouts where it does not merely disband.

The endnotes are not considered part of the article as it would have appeared in-universe, right?

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter 2: The Imperial Senate

By far the oldest state institution in the Galactic Empire and the most important of its “ordinary entities,” the Imperial Senate was originally established in 24,965 BrS by the Constitution of the Galactic Republic, under the formal name of the Senate of the States of the Galactic Republic in Congress Assembled (traces of this remain in the informal practice of referring to the small working minority of senior senators meeting on a day-to-day basis as ‘the Senate,’ while referring to a rare convocation of the full body as ‘Congress’). Initially established as a small council of representatives from the ‘Great Powers’ of the Core Worlds, time and tradition transformed it into a massive assembly of permanent representatives (with the rank and privileges of ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary) from each of the million quasi-sovereign states of the Galactic Union (“dominions” in Imperial legal jargon). Under the fundamental laws, the Senate had the exclusive power to administer the member states of the Empire (this power was, however, exercised on The Throne’s behalf, not in the Senate’s own right). The Encyclopedists, writing from the vantage point of 60 rS, succinctly described the Senate as having power to “create laws, pacts, and treaties to govern the galactic union” and to “steer the course of government and administer to the many member systems.” Breaking with recent tradition, the Imperial Senate convened in the ancient Senate Hall on Imperial Center rather than in the more modern Senate Rotunda of the late Republic; this decision has been widely interpreted as a deliberate attempt to match the Imperial State’s fondness for grandiosity, as the Senate Hall was a vast complex of offices and deliberation chambers second only to the Imperial Palace itself in size. [1]

In the late Republic, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic was both president of the legislature and chief of state; the combination of the two offices had been implemented in the Early Late Period (the so-called ‘Requine Period’ of the Revisionists) to guarantee the doctrine of senatorial supremacy (Professor Iaius Shāhanshāh’s magisterial The Theory and Practice of Supremacy in the Galactic Union is considered the definitive text on this doctrine). The fundamental laws of the Empire and Shamil’s constitutional theory both rejected senatorial supremacy in favor of the supremacy of The Throne, and the office of Supreme Chancellor was by constitutional necessity stripped of its functions as chief of state. Consequently the title was reduced to the more modest “Chancellor of the Senate” (also seen as “President of the Senate” in Galactic Standard, a form much preferred by Monarchists due to the common practice among CWPP-ND Loyalists of referring to Palpatine as “the President” during the Clone Wars). Thus, the Chancellor lost the right to appoint the Head of the Government and other government ministers, as well as the right to appoint and receive diplomatic representatives; in the process, the office of Speaker of the Senate was abolished and its functions restored to the Chancellery. Nevertheless, the prestige attached to the Chancellor’s Podium was enormous; the Chancellor took precedence with the highest officers of state (before even Peers of the Empire), was entitled to lifetime protection by a personal bodyguard (The Speaker’s Regiment), and kept official apartments in the Senate Office Building. Freed of his policy-making functions, the Chancellor became an apolitical figure — a “Little Palpatine,” as some have put it — , who was required by custom to resign from whatever political parties or caucuses he had been a member of and to serve as an impartial presiding officer; unlike the Supreme Chancellor he had once been, the Chancellor had absolute power to maintain discipline and order (up to and including ordering the sergeant-at-arms to enforce the expulsion of unruly senators from the Senate floor), and his rulings on points of order could not be appealed. [2]

If the Chancellor of the Senate was a great deal more powerful in parliamentary terms than his antecedent the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic had been, so too was the Senate of the Galactic Empire a great deal more dignified than the Senate of the States of the Galactic Republic in Congress Assembled. Sessions on the Senate floor were marked by scrupulous formality and punctilious observance of ceremony — the pomp and circumstance was of course rigidly enforced by the dictatorial Chancellor; partisan attacks on the Chancellor or public dispute of his rulings were considered bad form, and invariably resulted in the culprit’s being portrayed in a negative light in the holomedia. In this environment of sangfroid pomp and circumstance, many politicians accustomed to the rough-and-tumble politicking of the old Republic were unable to adapt, and lost considerable clout; the taboo against partisan “sniping” on the Chancellor — who, like the Emperor, had been clothed in the invisible armor of political sacrosanctness — engendered considerable resentment in many opposition figures, especially in light of the fact that (in practice) no one was elected Chancellor without the formal ‘approbation’ of The Throne and a nihil obstat from his inner circle. With the rise of functionalism in the New Republic Senate, it became fashionable in the 40s and the 50s to disregard the conventions of the ‘era of good feelings’ and attack the reputations of the Chancellors of the 20s and the 30s (in NRI Special Threats File 12773/BFC/77:2, an internal New Republic Intelligence memorandum, Voren Na’al pointedly wrote that “most of the subsequent Presidents of the Imperial Senate were lapdogs of the Emperor” in his editor’s notes on Dr. Donn Gulek’s Ten Years After: Notes on the Mature Organizational and Administrative Structure of the New Republic). [3]

Much of the Senate’s power derived from its power of the purse; no tax could be levied on the dominions or their citizens without the Senate’s express approval, which meant that the robust economies of the wealthiest states in the galaxy were taxable by the Senate and by the Senate alone. Furthermore, the Senate had direct control over all appropriations from the Consolidated Fund, giving it considerable oversight powers over all Imperial State functions financed through it (including public health policy, most defense spending, and the colonial administration). Furthermore, rather than merely overseeing the Imperial State’s use of the funds it provided, the Senate could also wield the power of the purse in a more offensive manner: By withholding the appropriations required to implement Government policy (“denying supply” in parliamentary lingo), the Senate could force the resignation of Government. As a result, a Senate majority could influence Government policy by merely threatening loss of supply, and a great deal of political intrigue was centered on efforts to find alternative sources of funding, such as the annual tributes paid by the Corporate Sector Authority and the Wheel (since neither was formally a part of the Empire, the Imperial State’s relations with entities such as these were not subject to the Senate’s control). It had tremendous influence in the Civil Service, and retained a great deal of oversight authority in governing His Imperial Majesty’s Other Territories, those territories governed by the Imperial State directly (a tremendous amount of effort was exerted by the Imperial State to conceal the true nature and extent of its activities in HIM Other Territories). Furthermore, although custom demanded that the Senate give serious consideration to legislation proposed by the Government, it was perfectly capable of defeating key measures of a Government’s legislative program (if the Government had designated such measures as “a matter of confidence,” long-established custom demanded its resignation if they were defeated in the Senate). [4]

Nevertheless, the Senate’s considerable power was heavily diluted by its equally considerable composition; as each dominion was entitled to representation, the full Senate was composed of a million voting delegations. No pretense was made that this was in any way practical, and as it had done under the old Republic the Imperial Senate usually reduced itself to a working minority under the Senior Senator System (SSS), in which certain ‘senior senators’ cast the votes of entire Sectors and even Regions. Each senior senator wielded at least 50 votes-by-proxy, with particularly influential senators having many times more; the SSS was essentially the ages-old clientele system writ large. The ancient and influential ‘Great Powers’ of the old Core Worlds accrued votes to themselves by controlling enormous and time-honored networks of treaties, gentleman’s agreements, trust mandates, satellite states, and economic influence; as a result, an economic powerhouse like the Republic of Alderaan or the Corellian State could easily command hundreds of votes at any given time. The SSS also benefitted worlds whose main asset was name recognition, as clever marketing and influence-mongering could allow a relatively minor state to accrue its own sphere of influence, transforming it into a regional power controlling the votes of scores of ‘junior senators.’ As De la Hauterie has observed in Satellite States, the SSS frequently gave disproportionate influence to certain states of relatively unremarkable economic or military capacity; the Kingdom of the Naboo, for example, managed to hold onto a surprisingly large sphere of influence in the Senate throughout the entire Palpatinic Era, despite having a gross domestic product rather less than 10 per cent that of Great Powers like Wukkar or Amamoz. The Federal Republic of Wukkar’s Senator Gracian Pildr’th (himself a Chancellor of the Senate toward the end of his career), privately and memorably complained that Naboo’s influence was entirely due to the “accident of history” that Palpatine of Naboo happened to have been born there. [5]

Even working under the SSS, the Senate remained an enormous body, and the need for concerted action encouraged the formation of broad coalitions of political parties and caucuses of like-minded sapients. It was not uncommon for political parties and coalitions to cut across dominion borders, as not even an Alderaan or a Chandrila could act by itself. Some of the grand old parties of the late Republic — the Democratic Center, the Conservative Caucus, the Rationalist Party, and the Neo-Democrats — survived into the Palpatinic Era, albeit often under radically different conditions. By far the largest political party in the galaxy was the New Order Party of the Galactic Empire (formerly the Galactic Movement during the Clone Wars), the Palpatinist-Tarkinist leviathan with affiliates in more than 25 million different political jurisdictions, boasting of trillions of party members throughout the galaxy. The openly authoritarian and populist NOP enjoyed a disciplined party machine that was the envy of the interstellar community, controlled centrally by the New Order Galactic Committee, supported by scores of influential think tanks like the New Order Leadership Council and the Antonius Institute, and sustained by the strict ideology of Correct Thought; its vast influence — at times as much as 25 per cent of the Senate’s total votes — made it the dominant partner in the Empire’s largest political alliance, the Interstellar Renewal Union (IRU), a bloc of political parties and coalitions, most of them either sympathetic or adherent to Palpatinism or Palpatinism-Tarkinism. The IRU, predictably, was remarkably well-organized, with subsidiary bodies like the Core Worlds People’s Party (absorbed outright into the Palpatinist movement after centuries of independent political life), the Colonial Renewal Union, the Expansion Renewal Union, and the Renewal Union of the Inner Rim, each coordinating scores or even hundreds of smaller, local parties; like the CWPP, the Rationalist Party and Finis Valorum’s once-proud Democratic Center were swept along, becoming pillars of the IRU, which itself caucused with Palpatine’s old base, Orn Free Taa’s Neo-Democrats (still formally separate). The IRU-ND was often able to filibuster or outright kill any legislation it considered “unmutual” (Palpatinist-Tarkinist jargon for “not beneficial to the New Order”), and openly schemed to take control of even more states, often by strategic efforts exploiting the already-convoluted networks and spheres of influence that made up the SSS; by seizing control of key states with ‘cardinal votes’ in major voting blocs, the IRU-PD could gain enormous influence disproportionate to its actual membership. Statistics support this analysis; despite the many setbacks it faced at the polls and in the Senate Hall during the Palpatinic Era, the IRU-ND showed an overall steady increase in vote shares from its formation in 16 rS to the dissolution of the Senate in 35 rS. The General Secretary for the Galaxy, the head of the New Order Galactic Committee and therefore head of the NOP as a whole and senior partner of the IRU-ND, was commonly referred to in informal circles as the Shiyukhfrayer, an Old High Frieten word meaning quite simply “Senate Boss.” [6]

The Senate’s direct lines of communication with the dominions and its oversight of the Imperial State made it the most powerful potential source of opposition to the New Order. The IRU-ND may well have boasted of 38 to 45 per cent of the Senate’s total votes, but this also meant that the remaining 62 to 55 per cent was beyond its effective control, split among voting blocs like the Societalists, the Progressive Front, the Rights of Sentience Party, the House of Discretions, and the Conservative Caucus. Strategic alliances among these and others could wrest control of the Senate from the IRU-ND (although the lack of strong organization and the legacy of generations-old mistrust meant that the opposition was generally unable to sustain a governing coalition for very long); the opposition was perfectly capable of ousting unpopular Governments and disposing of Moffs and ministers. The strength of the opposition blocs was enough to give pause even to the most powerful of the Monarchist courtiers and grandees — though The Throne enjoyed sovereign immunity and supremacy of powers, its ministers and officers did not. As a result, state officials were careful to keep their activities within the letter of the law (or else were clever enough to conceal it when they didn’t). As many as 30 per cent of all officials dismissed from the Senior Executive Schedule were brought to heel by Senate action; 30 per cent of that number committed suicide, 18 per cent were murdered after leaving office, and 4 per cent were convicted of felonies and sentenced to prison or death. Fully 26 per cent of all Ministers President were brought down by loss of supply (cf. 18 per cent brought down by confidence votes in the Privy Council). [7]

Of course, senators themselves were not immune to misfortune; 13 per cent of all senators were executed for treason, 7 per cent were imprisoned for fraud, official corruption, or malfeasance in office, 23 per cent were assassinated, and a whopping 59 per cent reported being victims of ‘legislative violence’ (although altercations on the Senate floor were strictly prohibited and occurred on only three occasions, backstairs violence was common, most memorably in the case of the United Republic of Corulag’s Senator Jheramyd Page, who was pushed down a flight of stairs in 30 rS to prevent him from casting his votes on the Social Guarantees Protection Reform Act). The unluckiest senator of all was undoubtedly the Kierolyn Reformed State’s Senator Pertreyes Jade, who suffered two broken arms and two broken legs in a fistfight in the Senate Office Building, only to be expelled from the Senate after conviction of 603 counts of fraud, grand larceny, tax evasion, and embezzlement two days later; he was assassinated by radical droids rights activists while en route to the Palace of Justice to be executed by disintegration booth. Although it is commonly alleged that the young red-headed assassin girl was in reality an agent of the Imperial State, no evidence of any kind has ever been found substantiating it. [8]

Galactic politics has always been a heated affair, and the Palpatinic Era was no different. Allegations of disloyalty, treachery, and outright treason were routinely made against senators of all parties and origins. The end of the Civil War and the declassification of records that has followed has revealed, however, that in many cases these accusations were actually based in fact. It was a matter of public record even at the time that there were many in the Senate who sympathized with various rebel and insurgent groups; many dominions were even involved in covertly providing material support to such groups. The largest and most important of these groups, the Alliance to Restore the Republic, was formed by the Corellian Treaty of 33 rS, in which the three large, well-organized and well-funded rebel groups backed by the Corellian State, the Republic of Alderaan, and the Chandrilan Democratic Republic agreed to subordinate their operations to a single supreme headquarters, the Corellian Treaty Organization. It is no coincidence that the founding leaders of the Alliance were prominent Republican senators (Garm Bel Iblis, Prince Bail of Organa, and Mon Mothma) with connections in the highest levels of their dominions’ governments, although for the most part these Great Power states sponsors of rebellion were careful to conceal the truth behind their involvement. A few dominions were not so prudent; in 35 rS, a number of idealistic states responded to the publication of Mothma’s Declaration of Rebellion by formally announcing their opposition to the Empire and joining the Alliance (the Imperial State, taking advantage of existing emergency powers legislation, swiftly crushed the so-called “Secession Worlds” and installed puppet governments to administer their occupation). Although the most important backers were not quite so demonstrative of their support, they did continue to provide financial and material support throughout the Alliance’s history, and a small delegation of senators even joined the core of the CTO on Yavin IV to be with them during their ‘rendezvous with destiny’ in 35 rS. In many ways, the Senate became a sort of early rung in the Alliance’s cursus honorum; approximately 80 per cent of the members of the Cabinet of the Alliance had been either senators or aides to senators. In turn, this made the Senate a breeding ground for the later leaders of the New Republic; 60 per cent of the members of the New Republic Council in its first ten years had held Senate seats in the old Republic or the Empire. Indeed, when New Order senator Dagon Ivre l’Bak called the Republicans’ exclusive Charter Club “a den of traitors,” he did not know how right he was; the leadership of the Ruling Revolutionary Party that dominated the New Republic for most of its early history reads like a veritable Who’s Who of the Republican opposition in the Imperial Senate. [9]

Endnotes

[1] Grand Moff Governor Wilhuff Tarkin mentions “the million systems of the galactic [sic] Empire” in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, while The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition states that the Galactic Republic was composed of “over a million member worlds.” The term “Congress” is used for the Senate in both The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith (in the latter, it is used by none less than Mas Amedda, Speaker of the Senate). Each senator’s diplomatic rank was established by A New Hope, in which a high-ranking Imperial hierarch refers to the Princess Leia of Alderaan as an ambassador.

“The Encyclopedists” refers to the “group of scholars” who are the notional authors of the Star Wars Encyclopedia, and their description of the Senate’s role is quoted verbatim from that work. The Senate Hall’s status as the second-tallest building on Imperial Center is established by Imperial propagandist Pollux Hax in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe (“The Palace looms high over the old Senate Hall in an adjacent sector of the city — and the Senate Hall itself towers over everything else on Coruscant”).

[2] The “group of scholars” refers to the presiding office of the Imperial Senate as “Chancellor of the Senate” in the Star Wars Encyclopedia, while Voren Na’al mentions the title “President of the Senate” and “the lingering association of the term President with the last holder of that office before the Empire” (i.e., Palpatine of Naboo) in Cracken’s Threat Dossier; nevertheless The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith show that Palpatine used the title “Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic” vice “President of the Galactic Republic.” The supposition that the two titles are synonymous terms in Basic and Galactic Standard, respectively, is an ad hoc solution to the apparent discontinuity. The Chancellor’s official apartments are the Chancellor’s Office seen occupied by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith and seen in more detail in Revenge of the Sith: Incredible Cross-Sections.

[3] In Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse, the Princess Leia of Alderaan claims that “in the interests of getting things done, the New Republic has dispensed with ceremony,” but admits that “I sometimes miss the pomp and circumstance of the Old Republic,” drawing explicit contrast between her earlier career as an Imperial Senator and her later career as a New Republic Senator (although she attempts to whitewash her fond memories by invoking the New Republic, she was not even alive in the last days of the Old Republic and certainly never participated in its Senate; she similarly disingenuously claims to remember the “Old Republic” style of the Senate in Planet of Twilight, conveniently forgetting that her entire career took place in the Imperial Senate).

NRI Special Threats File 12773/BFC/77:2 (and with it, Voren Na’al’s editorial notes on Dr. Gulek’s Ten Years After: Notes on the Mature Organizational and Administrative Structure of the New Republic) is quoted from Cracken’s Threat Dossier.

[4] The Senate’s power of the purse and exclusive jurisdiction over the Empire’s million member states is implied by the statement of the “group of scholars” that it ‘steered the course of government’ and ‘administered to the many member systems’ (herein named as the dominions), as distinguished from the 50 million “colonies, governorships, and protectorates” (herein named HIM Other Territories) of The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition. The Imperial State’s annual tribute from the Corporate Sector Authority is described in Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook, which states that “the revenues would go directly to the Imperial government, rather than be split amongst sector, planetary and local governments”; the Wheel and its own tributary arrangement were seen in “The Empire Strikes!” (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 18), in which it is noted that “much of the Empire’s military funding comes from the tax on the Wheel’s earnings.”

The Senate’s influence over the affairs of the Imperial State is indicated by General Cassio Tagge’s knee-jerk concern in A New Hope that the dissolution of the Senate would result in the collapse of the bureaucracy, and Grand Moff Tarkin’s reply that without the Senate’s interference the Regional Governors would have “direct control.” Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races and Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds contain several examples of Imperial efforts to conceal their illegal activities from the Senate, including such unethical practices as reclassifying species as non-sapient in order to sidestep stringent statutes governing slavery and extermination.

[5] The title of “senior senator” was mentioned in Return of the Jedi (Mon Mothma, Prince Bail of Organa, and Palpatine of Naboo, all of whom were seated in the presidium of the Senate, were identified as having been senior senators and members of “the High Council”). The figure of at least 50 proxy votes is derived from the statement in the Imperial Sourcebook that a Sector was “originally a cluster of star systems with approximately 50 inhabited planets,” so that a senator wielding 50 or more votes-by-proxy would roughly represent a single Sector. The name “Republic of Alderaan” is derived from her announcement as the “elect senator of the restored Republic of Alderaan” in Tyrant’s Test. Palpatine was seen to be the Galactic Senator for the Kingdom of the Naboo in The Phantom Menace.

[6] The New Order Party is implied by mention of “party officials” and “wealthy party functionaries” in the Dark Empire Sourcebook; its existence is made explicit by the mention of its local affiliate, the Esselian New Order Party (ENO) in “Rawmat Recession Threatens Ralle’s Coalition” (Galaxywide NewsNets, The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1, No. 8) and “Alien Workers Reach Accord with the Hall” (Galaxywide NewsNets, The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1, No. 9), which contested seats in the Esselian Empire’s unicameral legislature, the Esselian Hall, in opposition to Hall President Cambira Ralle’s ruling Forad-Cardean coalition. The NOP’s ideology of Correct Thought is conjectured from The Imperial Military Guide to Correct Thought, mentioned in Force Commander. The term “unmutual” was used by the Imperial Security Bureau in its evaluation of the ideological suitability of one Cadet Han Solo in the Dark Empire Sourcebook (specifically, the ISB cleared him of any involvement in “‘unmutual’ intent or anti-Imperial actions,” as Senator Simon Greyshade (Vorzyd V) put it).

The Rationalist Party, an organized political party of technophile free marketeers, first appeared in Planet of Twilight; in 48 rS it was represented in the New Republic Council, and was said to “have adherents both in the Republic and in nearly every piece of the Empire still big enough to field a fleet” (with “too much influence in both the New Republic and in the various fragments of the old Empire” for the Party’s wishes could not be disregarded out of hand). It is identified herein as the same pro-business party that nominated Senator Ainlee Teem (Malastare) for the Supreme Chancellery in The Phantom Menace.

Finis Valorum was Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic from 4 BrS to 3 rS; he was brought down by a vote of no confidence in The Phantom Menace. Senator Orn Free Taa (Ryloth) first appeared in The Phantom Menace; his leadership of a sizeable tertium quid (herein referred to as the Neo-Democrats) in opposition to Ainlee Teem’s pro-business party (herein identified with the Rationalist Party) and Senator Prince Bail Antilles (Alderaan)’s conservative party (herein referred to the Conservative Caucus) is first established in Cloak of Deception.

[7] The Rights of Sentience Party, a vigorous supporter of indigenous species’ political rights, first appeared in Planet of Twilight; in 48 rS it was represented in the New Republic Council, and had a heated rivalry with the pro-business Rationalist Party. It may have some connection with the Rights of Sentience League that attended the Eriadu Trade Summit of 3 rS in Cloak of Deception. The Conservative Caucus is the name herein given to the “faction of Bail Antilles” that “thinks only of the Core Worlds” mentioned in Cloak of Deception; it was evidently sufficiently powerful that its nominee was one of the three main contenders for the office of Supreme Chancellor after Finis Valorum’s Chancellery was brought down by a vote of no confidence in 3 rS in The Phantom Menace. The inability of the opposition parties to work together is derived from Senator Gno’s remark in The New Rebellion that the Imperials had taken advantage of disunity, so that “small disagreements became major,” and “major disagreements were ignored, until the government was so factionalized it didn’t work at all.”

[8] Page (no first name given) was mentioned as the Senator for Corulag in the Heir to the Empire Sourcebook. Palpatine’s fondness for red-headed assassin girls was first seen in “Pariah!” (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 62) and again in Heir to the Empire.

[9] . The Corellian Treaty was first mentioned in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook (the founding members were specifically identified in Dark Force Rising); its date was fixed by The Essential Chronology. The Secession Worlds and their fate were mentioned in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook. According to Lt. Gen. Jan Dodonna, a small delegation of “Senators and Generals whose worlds have given us support, wether open or covert” was present at Massassi Base in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, having “come to be with us in what may well prove to be the decisive moment.” The Corellian Treaty Organization is the name used herein to refer to the central government of the Alliance as established by the Corellian Treaty; the Ruling Revolutionary Party is the name used herein for the governing coalition of Alliance partners that dominated the New Republic until the Imperial Emancipation of 52 rS (seen in The New Rebellion).

The Cabinet of the Alliance is described in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook (under the name “Alliance Cabinet”), but contrary to the name did not function as a collegial government but rather a presidential one, in which the Chief of State made policy decisions and the Cabinet were responsible for implementing them. The New Republic Council was the ultimate executive authority of the New Republic, consisting of the Chief of State and the chairmen of the autonomous Senate Councils; it has been identified under several names, including the New Republic Council (Planet of Twilight), the Galactic Council (id.), the Ruling Council (Shield of Lies), and the Inner Council (Cracken’s Threat Dossier).

Thanas wrote:The endnotes are not considered part of the article as it would have appeared in-universe, right?

Correct. One doubts that Professor Lamont would have access to, say, the Dark Empire Sourcebook.

Publius wrote:One doubts that Professor Lamont would have access to, say, the Dark Empire Sourcebook.

With that resume, I'm surprised he doesn't have access to the DESB.

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter 3: The Privy Council and the Council of Ministers

The Privy Council

Some historians, chiefly among the Revisionist school, have taken to classifying the Imperial system into two separate categories, the ‘normative state’ of laws, established procedures, and legal responsibility, and the ‘prerogative state’ of clout, influence, and intrigue. The terms are essentially jargon for the older terms of ‘rule of law’ and ‘rule of men’; the ‘prerogative state’ refers to the accumulation power without necessarily accumulating corresponding legal responsibility. It is agreed among all such historians that the corporate body of the Galactic Emperor’s advisors, the Privy Council, represents the pinnacle of the ‘prerogative state,’ containing as it did the most powerful grandees in the whole of the galaxy. Its members were appointed from all walks of life and were privileged to offer confidential advice to The Throne on all matters of state; they were neither publicly elected nor required to meet job qualification standards, and were free to pursue their own private affairs without regard to the Empire’s otherwise strict rules governing conflicts of interest. Some of the most prominent names in the Palpatinic Era appear on the Privy Council’s rolls of membership. If influence is defined as the ability to make others do what one wants solely by virtue of being who one is, then the members of the Privy Council were influential, indeed. [1]

The Lords and Others of His Imperial Majesty’s Most Honorable Privy Council were formally incorporated by Imperial Decree (counter-signed by the Minister President and His Imperial Majesty’s Attorney General for the Imperial State) in 16 rS, within six months of Palpatine’s acclamation as Galactic Emperor. The privileges and immunities established within that Decree remained the same throughout the remainder of the period: immunity from prosecution in dominion courts for any reason, immunity from arrest except in cases of breach of the Galactic Emperor’s peace, confidentiality of advice given to The Throne in matters of state, exemption from military service, jury duty, or any other form of public service, and entitlement to an annual stipend from His Imperial Majesty’s Privy Purse. Privy counselors were entitled to the style “Right Honorable” (if already styled ‘Rt. Hon.,’ they added the postnominal letters PC) and took precedence immediately after Peers of the Empire. Because their “advice” was considered a state secret, any meeting of privy counselors could be legally considered “advisory deliberations,” giving them legal protection, as state secrets could not be used in court proceedings; declassified documents have revealed that less than 40 per cent of all “advisory deliberation” actually involved anything more than a cursory discussion of state business (more often than not, these conversations actually involved court intrigue and illegal business dealings, using “advisory deliberation” as a legal smokescreen).

The official seat of the Council was the Palace of the Camera Stellaris, a large complex across the plaza from the Imperial Palace’s Sublime Porte on the north side of the Pliada di am Imperium. It was named for the palace’s most distinctive feature, the Camera Stellaris, in which the ceiling of the deliberation chamber was decorated with a vast reproduction of the galaxy, with more than ten million precious gemstones set into the polished black marble canopy. The Camera was an unrivaled work of art, famously described by Ebenn Q3 Baobab, two-time Laureate of the Empire, as “a sky alive with unnumbered sparks, all fire, every one burning.” The chamber itself was overgenerous in its seating arrangements; although it could accommodate as many as a thousand privy counselors in its concentric tiers of luxuriously upholstered reclined-benches, the largest group to ever assemble was only 600, and formal sessions rarely included more than 200 (including those attending via holographic proxy). Records show that Palpatine only met with more than twenty privy counselors on four occasions (although there are believed to have been a slightly larger number of undocumented meetings); he only appeared in the Camera Stellaris twice, including the ceremony marking the palace’s formal opening after completion by his favorite architectural firm, Gehirn and Seele. [2]

Nonetheless, decisions made by the Council, even if only by its working minority, had force of law in His Imperial Majesty’s Other Territories, and were published under the title “orders in council” (which did not require the Imperial Assent to take effect, unlike actual laws passed by the Senate). In this way the Council set itself up as a rival legislature, taking advantage of a legal technicality by which orders in council were administrative orders given on behalf of The Throne (The Throne obviously did not require its own assent), and were therefore not subject to the stricter rules governing legislation affecting the Imperial State and the dominions. Furthermore, the Council’s deliberations were not holovized and were not entered into the public record; most decisions were made by voice votes, and there are very few records extant that indicate how individual privy counselors actually voted on any given matter. Like the practice of engaging in “advisory deliberation,” it seems clear in retrospect that this was intended to provide still further protection to the privy counselors and their more sordid dealings. The lack of hard data proved to be a great hindrance to the New Republic’s war crimes trials, as it proved to be nearly impossible to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt individual involvement in many of the Council’s more objectionable decisions. [3]

The Lord President of the Council was head of the Council and a Great Officer of State; he was addressed as “My Lord President.” The Lord President was formally appointed by The Throne, but as with so much else with the Council the actual decision was actually made long before the formal appointment was made. In most cases, the Lord President was a senior privy counselor who could command the cooperation (not necessarily loyalty) of a plurality of members of the Council. Formally the Lord President had absolute power in his capacity as a parliamentary chairman; in practice, however, the casualness with which the Council approached rules of order meant that the actual power of the Lord President was almost entirely dependant on the incumbent’s personal clout. Some Lords President, like Ars Dangor and Kazîglu Bey, were for all intents and purposes dictators with nearly total control over the Imperial State; others, like R. Percival Waynrigkt and Sir Ambiorix Ni, were little more than mouthpieces for much more powerful figures at court, who were content to play the part of éminence grise. Nevertheless, the office was seen as an important one, and was occupied by a large number of very powerful courtiers; a plurality of Lords President also served as Ruling Councilmen during their careers, either before or after their Lord Presidency. [4]

In constitutional theory, all appointments to senior offices in the Imperial State, including the Council of Ministers, the College of Moffs, the Diplomatic Service, the Civil Service, and the Galactic Emperor’s Commissioned Officers (GECOs), were made by The Throne. In practice, the appointments of the Minister President and the Moffs were controlled by the Privy Council, the only occasion in which orders in council required the Imperial Assent (usually obtained from the Ruling Council rather than the Emperor himself). Moffs were typically given four-year appointments as Regional Governors, while the Minister President — invariably already a privy counselor — was appointed to serve “at the Galactic Emperor’s pleasure” (i.e., indefinitely, limited only by dismissal or resignation). In theory the same process applied to other senior appointments, but in practice the Minister President handled appointments to the senior ranks of the Council of Ministers, the Diplomatic Service, and the Civil Service, and the full Council merely rubber-stamped his decisions; the senior ranks of the GECOs were handled separately by the Supreme Commander, the Minister of War, the Minister of the Navy, and the Minister of Security, who together formed a separate Select Committee on Collective Defense and Security that submitted a semiannual list of new general and flag officers to the Council’s Advisory Committee on Military Affairs to be rubber-stamped. Similarly, the Minister President’s Office prepared a semiannual Honors List to be submitted to the Council’s Advisory Committee on Honors and Benefices (although it has been contended that His Imperial Majesty’s Household played a more important role in the granting of honors, the fact that most Household officers were also privy counselors and often also Ruling Councilmen has made the question a hotly contested one among heraldic circles). [5]

There were two ways to gain entry to the Privy Council. The first (and far more prestigious) was to be appointed directly by the Emperor, giving one the cachet of being a handpicked advisor to The Throne. These men and women, informally dubbed “the Emperor’s own” by gossips and socialites, were power-brokers of the first rank, including noblemen, patricians, industrialists, bankers, capitalists, politicians, academics, generals, admirals, and even a small number of crime bosses (most notably the Prince Xizor of Falleen, who had been Underlord of Black Sun until his death in 38 rS). When people spoke of the Emperor’s advisors they typically meant “the Emperor’s own,” who were generally regarded as the most influential beings in the Empire; indeed, no one was ever appointed a Grand Moff without having already been sworn of the Council by direct appointment. Although it is an article of faith in many Conservative circles that “the Emperor’s own” were drawn entirely from “Augie’s technocrats” (i.e., the ‘New Man’ specialists and experts that served him during his years in the Senate and the Supreme Chancellery), it is a matter of fact and public record that many of “the Emperor’s own” were drawn from the “Names and Numbers” (the traditional elite of the galaxy, referring to the established families, or “Names,” and the most powerful multistellar corporations, or “Numbers”). They included many leading society figures and captains of industry, with distinguished careers in the Senate and even the judiciary. To be blunt, the persistence of the myth of “Augie’s technocrats” ignores the fact that many of “the Emperor’s own” were graduates of the Names and Numbers cursus honorum; Irulan has suggested that the myth’s status as accepted truth stems from a pronounced discomfort among the upper class at the extent to which they were involved in the ruling of the Empire, a case of what sociologists have dubbed “uncomfortable history.” [6]

The best known privy counselors were all members of “the Emperor’s own”; the so-called “Emperor’s Inner Circle” consisted almost entirely of men and women sworn of the Council in 16 rS, when practically his entire war cabinet was elevated en masse. As a result, the first of “the Emperor’s own” were drawn chiefly from the Executive Office of the Supreme Chancellor, His Excellency’s Government, and the War Council Advisory Panel. [7]

The second means of entry to the Council — substantially less prestigious than direct appointment — was to be appointed a member of His Imperial Majesty’s Government as a full member of the Minister President’s Cabinet. Full Cabinet ministers were designated “Candidate Members of the Council” rather than “Privy Counselors,” and although they enjoyed the style “Right Honorable,” they were entitled only to the lower-ranking postnominal letters CMC, and did not share the full counselors’ immunity from prosecution and arrest. Cabinet ministers joined the Council in this reduced capacity because the Government was technically a select committee of the Council, and therefore a full member of the former must needs have been a member of the latter. They could vote in select committees like the Government, but not in standing committees, and were obligated to immediately yield the floor to any full counselor who wished to speak, both in committee and in general session (no small matter, even in the notoriously lax rules of order observed by the Council). The appointment of candidate members was entirely in the hands of the Minister President, but their weakness relative to full counselors prevented even the most ambitious Ministers President from attempting to pack the Council with supporters: Candidate members could be expelled by voice vote of the full counselors, and could only convert to full counselors by direct appointment or by a vote of the full counselors. Unlike the diverse backgrounds of the power-brokers and men of affairs that made up “the Emperor’s own,” most candidate members were career politicians (including a substantial minority of former senators). Only 27 per cent of all candidate members appointed were ever elevated to full privy counselors. [8]

Not all of the Council’s business was conducted on a collective basis. The Ruling Council frequently assigned individual privy counselors and candidate members of the Council special duties, often sending them off on “fact-finding missions” (e.g., Coh Veshiv was sent on an inspection tour of the Core Worlds in 35 rS, while Rufaan Tigellinus was dispatched to head the investigation of financial improprieties on the part of the Imperial Governor of Brentaal IV in 38 rS), service as The Throne’s personal representative (e.g., Sir Mils Panaka’s lengthy stay as nuncio to the Corporate Sector Authority), oversight of sensitive programs (e.g., Rodin Hlian, Lord Verpalion’s mission to Lianna to supervise the nova Project), or plenipotentiary commissions (e.g., Bregius Golthan’s appointment as Plenipotentiary for the Security of the Core Worlds and Colonies Regions in 38 rS); it is now believed that many of these special duties were distributed at Palpatine’s direction, and were as often means of punishing courtiers by wasting their time and efforts as they were bona fide assignments. The most common special duty by far was appointment as proconsul over a region of space; as documented by De la Hauterie in The Para-State, the extent of each proconsulate was inversely proportional to the clout of the proconsul, so that the most powerful privy counselors were given very small territories to oversee while the weakest were given huge expanses that rivaled even some Grand Moffs’ domains. The Revisionist school has gone even further in its analysis, demonstrating with some considerable success that these proconsulates typically included territories important to rival power bases (as when hypermatter magnate Cos Dashit found much of his industrial infrastructure under the governance of his longtime court enemy, Crispin Hoedaack). Both the Revisionists and the Historicists agree that these deliberate reversals of influence represented part of Palpatine’s schemes to keep his advisors in check (a notable subset of the Revisionist school, led by Mal y Pense, has suggested that Palpatine went even further, even going so far as to arrange for some of his privy counselors to be randomly killed). [9]

Politics in the Privy Council was a notoriously messy and complex affair; nearly every privy counselor of more than a few years’ standing publicly displayed occasional signs of severe paranoia (Vantos Coll’s vehement insistence that his mistress’s cat was plotting his death being merely the most famous example). Whereas the Senate could be reliably divided into coalitions, policy conferences, political parties, and ideological factions, organized political groupings had no place in the Camera Stellaris. Political organizations had little to no control over admission to the Council, and parliamentary jargon would characterize all privy counselors (and most candidate members of the Council) as being more or less “crossbenchers.” Instead of clean-cut party politics, the Council’s dealings more often reflected the wider intrigues of the Court of Courts, with all the entanglements court intrigues entailed. In court lingo, a “party” was not an organized political grouping but rather a loose social network, generally centered around a powerful courtier (most powerful courtiers were of course privy counselors). At the core of the courtly party was the clientele, a system of patronage — practiced by the galactic upper class since before the dawn of the Republic — consisting of a patron who offered his protection and distributed favors and benefits, and his clients, who received the patron’s assistance in exchange for a binding social obligation to loyally support their benefactor (court lingo dubbed this obligation the client’s “attendance,” with the collective body of all attending clients being the patron’s “clientele”). Attendance could be loaned, traded, or even sold from one patron to another — although one “patronized” a client, one “commanded” his attendance and “owned” a clientele — , and many clienteles included patronage arrangements that began seven or eight generations before. What made court and Council a minefield of intrigue was that not all attendances were publicly known (“invisible,” in court lingo), and it was possible for a patron to become indebted to a more powerful figure, subsuming one clientele into another and forming ever larger and more influential networks. In essence, the courtly party functioned identically to the sphere of influence in the realm of interstellar politics. Like the sphere of influence, the size of a courtly party could be regarded as a sort of index of power; just as interstellar polities were reckoned as superpowers, great powers, regional powers, and local powers, courtly parties were also ‘graded’ by court convention. [10]

The most powerful courtiers typically mimicked Palpatine himself, setting themselves up as the “elder statesmen” of the Council, above the fray of day-to-day politicking, preferring to manipulate events from behind the scenes and to allow others to do their dirty work for them while they cultivated images of themselves of even-handed gravitas; like the Chancellor of the Senate, they set themselves up as Little Palpatines. These powerful few formed the nucleus of the Emperor’s Inner Circle, and their removal from the rough-and-tumble of conventional intrigue led to their courtly name of “Clean Hands”; the courtly equivalent of the Great Power, the status of Clean Hands was highly coveted, attained only by Palpatine’s closest and most trusted advisors — e.g., Sate Pestage, Ars Dangor, Lord Crueya of Vandron, Indutiomarus Trachta, Sim Aloo, Janus Greejatus, Nefta, Sa-Di — a small, tightly-knit group of aides and assistants who had served as Palpatine’s inner cabinet for decades. Despite their vast influence, the Clean Hands tended to act silently, through carefully hidden networks of spies, assassins, and agents-in-place. Recently available financial records have revealed that (without exception) the Clean Hands were within the top one per cent of the wealthiest beings in the galaxy, and all of them held lucrative silent partnerships and enormous stock holdings in some of the galaxy’s largest and most profitable concerns. Tellingly, Clean Hands were well-represented in the membership rolls of the Serenissimus.

Directly beneath the Clean Hands was a somewhat larger tier of powerful courtiers whom court lingo dubbed “White Gloves,” who were somewhat more directly involved in conventional intrigue and politics (they were termed White Gloves because while they were not as immaculate as the Clean Hands, they were nevertheless “untouchably clean”). The most active courtly parties formed around White Gloves like Wilhuff Tarkin, the Baron Tagge, Kren Blista-Vanee, Getorix Bartam, and the Prince Xizor of Falleen; unlike Clean Hands, White Gloves were more openly surrounded by their retinues. Despite their “second-hand” status, the White Gloves were enormously powerful; Tarkin famously demonstrated his power by announcing his candidacy for the Presidency of the Social Republic of Eriadu and promptly winning unopposed because the entire Diet — including all seven main party candidates — was part of his clientele. The Clean Hands and White Gloves commanded clienteles that made them virtual states unto themselves; De la Hauterie’s The Para-State contains extensive documentation showing that they could and often did number whole star systems and multistellar corporations under their patronage. [11]

In an anonymous article published in the Politico-Historical Fellowship Society’s Journal of Modernity and Thought, the Princess Leia of Alderaan — then a freshman senator — described the Clean Hands and White Gloves as “great stars at the center of constellations of corrupt influence,” which (polemics aside) serves as an excellent description of how courtly parties operated in the Council. Lesser courtiers-patrons tended to congregate around them, sometimes allying while retaining their own independence, sometimes becoming high-ranking figures in their clienteles. When acting as patrons of their own clienteles, court middleweights were known as “Grey Gloves,” and although their parties were smaller and less powerful than the heavyweights’ they nevertheless exerted tremendous influence over the Empire and its affairs. Beneath the rather broad spectrum of Grey Gloves were the more modest Black Gloves, who owned their own clienteles but were not influential enough to figure as leading players in court intrigues in their own right. Whereas Clean Hands and White Gloves were commanders in chief of court intrigues and Grey Gloves generals, Black Gloves were field officers, much closer to events and much more likely to be “burned” if something went wrong. Disgrace, scandal, bankruptcy, and violent death were far more common among Black Gloves (although the cases of the Baron Tagge and the Prince Xizor serve as stark reminders that not even the heavyweights were entirely immune). Beneath the Black Gloves were the Dirty Hands, who were in courtly terms foot soldiers to be maneuvered and sacrificed according to circumstances. It is important, however, to remember that court politics operated at the galactic level, and while a Dirty Hand may be a featherweight by court standards, he was very likely a potentate in his own right to everyone else. Black Gloves and Dirty Hands included cabinet ministers, senators, Moffs, governors, high-ranking GECOs, and senior civil servants. [12]

The Council of Ministers

Administratively, Imperial public servants were divided into a number of pay grades (structured so as to give parity to the equivalent grades of the Armed Forces of the Imperium), with the senior grades — the Senior Executive Schedule (SES) — divided into two classes. Senior civil servants were ranked as secretaries of state, while political appointees were ranked as ministers. In many dominions and independent states the term “Council of Ministers” refers to the principal executive body; it is often synonymous with the “Cabinet” or the “Government.” Unusually, this was not the case in the Imperial State. The Council of Ministers of the Galactic Empire was instead the collective body of senior political appointees at the head of the various ministries, independent agencies, and state corporations that composed the Imperial State (cf. the College of Moffs and the Diet of Governors), and as such had the authority to set policy governing the whole of the executive branch of the Empire on an “All-Empire” basis. At the head of the college was the Minister President of the Galactic Empire — the “president” in his title was not a noun, but rather an adjective referring to the fact that he presided over the Council of Ministers — , successor to the Republic’s General Minister and Head of the Government. The Minister President controlled all appointments of both ministers and secretaries of state, subject to the approval of The Throne (as expressed by the Privy Council). Regardless of rank, a minister was allotted office space in his ministry’s arcology, and also in the spacious chambers of the Council of Ministers headquarters, the Ministerium, a vast pyramid running along Basilica directly opposite the Plaza of the Union from the Senate Rotunda (the Ministerium’s association with Basilica has led to the street’s common use as a metonym for Imperial governmental administration in general). [13]

Despite its theoretical power, the Council of Ministers — “MCON” to the Privy Council’s “PCON” and the Ruling Council’s “RCON” — rarely acted as anything more than an administrative body for its membership, controlling leave and allowances for ministers and little else. Instead, the Council conducted its business through the Minister President’s Cabinet, a select committee of the Privy Council formally called “His Imperial Majesty’s Government” (an upgrade from its Republican counterpart, “His Excellency’s Government”). Although HIM Government was composed almost entirely of ministers and acted on the Council of Ministers’ behalf, it was not technically a committee of the Council itself, an important distinction that arose from a quirk in Imperial constitutional theory: Because decisions of the Council of Ministers were subject to the Privy Council’s approval, their implementation would have been delayed until the latter could be bothered to convene and conduct hearings on the matter. Since the Government was actually a select committee of the Privy Council, its decisions did not generally require review and could be implemented immediately. It is for this reason that appointees to the Government who were not already privy counselors were appointed candidate members of the Council as a matter of course, in order to dodge statutory limits to the powers of the Council of Ministers. Furthermore, because the Government was a Privy Council select committee composed of privy counsellors and candidate members of the Council, all of their meetings could be considered “advisory deliberation” (and therefore state secrets inadmissible in court), giving an extra layer of legal protection to the several ministers.

HIM Government consisted of the Minister President, the heads of the most important ministries, and such other senior state officials as designated by the Minister President. The fluidity of its membership was due to the simple fact that the Cabinet did not, in constitutional theory, actually exist; the fundamental laws never specified how The Throne’s authority was to be executed, and Senate legislation always tasked “the responsible Ministry of the Imperial State” with performing the duties it imposed, while the Privy Council’s orders-in-council likewise placed the onus of duty on “the responsible Minister of the Throne.” With few exceptions, the ministries and their ministers were not created by primary legislation, but rather by organization plans issued by the Minister President’s Office, which left the Minister President with relative freedom to create as many — or as few — government portfolios as he liked, splitting and merging areas of responsibility or shuffling and reshuffling his cabinet according to his best judgment. As a result, the Government’s role in government depended almost entirely on the character of the incumbent Minister President; ‘strong’ Ministers President like Gracian Pildr’th sidelined their Cabinets entirely, making almost all policy decisions themselves and leaving their “colleagues” to carry out their orders, while ‘weak’ Ministers President like Bail Antilles preferred a much more collegial, consensus-based style of government. Even the Government’s size could vary dramatically, ranging from as few as ten to as many as thirty-five members. To accommodate this modularity, the Government’s official chambers — the famous red-paneled State Room, one of the most sumptuously decorated rooms in the entire Camera Stellaris complex (like Basilica and the Ministerium, the State Room was commonly used metonymously to refer to the Government itself) — were substantially larger than required by most actual Governments, since the Minister President’s whim could easily double or even treble a Government’s size. [14]

The Government had direct control of policy on an “All-Empire” basis, and could directly influence dominion affairs by recommending legislation to the Senate; it had a controlling interest in the affairs of His Imperial Majesty’s Other Territories by way of its direct control over the Ministry of Colonial Affairs and the Ministry of the Exterior. The unfortunate side effect, however, to this wide-ranging power was that it rendered the Government responsible to both the Privy Council and to the Senate. A Minister President was appointed by the Lord President of the Council to serve “at the Galactic Emperor’s pleasure,” but could be brought down in a number of ways other than outright dismissal or voluntary resignation. He was obliged to maintain the confidence of a majority of the Privy Council — with all its byzantine courtly parties, invisible attendances, and secret “gentleman’s agreements” — and could be compelled to resign by losing a vote of confidence. He was also obliged to maintain the confidence of the Senate, and could be forced to resign if he were denied supply, or if the Senate defeated legislation he had designated “a matter of confidence.” Most dangerously, he could be forced to resign if his cabinet rebelled and resigned en masse, and it was this vulnerability that proved the most fatal over the course of the Palpatinic Era. A Minister President had to satisfy interest groups with virtual strangleholds on certain portfolios, and he angered them at his own risk, both to his political life and to his life itself: some 20 per cent of all Ministers President left office due to assassination.

Like courtly parties, these so-called “silent fractions” were not organized political parties, and were not even composed entirely of public officials; generally they were something along the lines of a club of like-minded individuals — privy counselors, senators, ministers, civil servants, military and naval officers, and even private citizens — who by hook or by crook had come to control certain areas of government (although in some cases there was more than one silent fraction in a given field). Despite the name, silent fractions were anything but silent, and did not hesitate to make a great deal of trouble for the Minister President if it appeared he were not taking sufficient note of their wishes; no less than fifteen Governments were brought down by mass resignations provoked by silent fractions (including that of Gracian Pildr’th, one of the “strongest” Ministers President to have ever held the office). The most powerful of these were the silent fractions in the Imperial Navy. The dominant Navy silent fraction had enough political clout to “own” several Government portfolios (usually Navy, Space, Interstellar Transport, Commerce, and whatever else they could snap up). Nearly as powerful were the fractions of the Army (owning the War, Munitions, Colonies, and Industry portfolios), Intelligence (owning Security, Interior, and Information portfolios), and COMPNOR (owning the Culture, Justice, and Corrections portfolios). Similar influence was wielded to a lesser extent by the lobbyists and fractions of the Galaxy Labor Front, the Galactic Corporate Policy League, the Galaxy Bank Group, and the Interstellar Monetary Fund. Generally a fraction’s influence waned the further one moved away from its “core” interests, but their power was not to be underestimated. Even if they did not appoint ministers owned by the relevant fractions, Ministers President were forced by necessity to appoint ministers who were at least amenable to the fractions’ interests, a severe limitation to the Minister President’s freedom of action. As a result, the general public was never more than dimly aware of the actual forces shaping Government policy, because the silent fractions were only “silent” inasmuch as they never appeared in the news media, working “silently” through their partisans in the Privy Council, Senate, and Council of Ministers, often in opposition to the stated policies of the Minister President himself. [15]

The Government’s vulnerability to collapse made it difficult to use as a vehicle for large-scale changes in policy or government direction. Combined with the relative weakness of the Government in the Privy Council — candidate members being unable to vote in standing committee or general session — it meant that the Government actually had surprisingly little control over the course of government, a counterintuitive situation the Revisionists argue was deliberately engineered to conceal the true loci and direction of power in the Empire. Despite his status as a “Glove” at court, a Minister President was generally unable to implement much change or reform in any but the most superficial fields; to accomplish anything of lasting significance he had to navigate a political minefield stretching from the Senate Rotunda to the Camera Stellaris, snaking through the Ministerium and State Room by way of smoke-filled back rooms and tumultuous lobbies occupied by invisible clients and silent fractions. For all its trappings of power and influence, His Imperial Majesty’s Government was in many ways an elaborate pantomime designed to conceal the fact that true power in the Empire was exercised by unseen cabals of courtiers and intrigants. Although disagreeing with the Revisionist contention of intelligent design, Irulan and others of the Historical school have borrowed a poet’s phrase and perhaps justifiably called the Government “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” [16]

Endnotes

[1] The terminology of the ‘normative state’ and ‘prerogative state’ is borrowed from British historian Richard J. Evans’s The Third Reich in Power, 1933 - 1939. The name ‘Privy Council’ is not attested in the official canon.

[2] Ebenn Q3 Baobab’s status as a two-time Laureate of the Empire was mentioned in the Galactic Phrase Book & Travel Guide; his description of the Camera Stellaris is a quotation from English playwright William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The council’s size is drawn from the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that “while there are hundreds of advisors, the Emperor rarely travels or consults with more than a few dozen at a time.” The Ultimate Visual Guide takes this further, claiming that “to keep all of them paranoid and politically insecure, the Emperor never meets with more than 12 at a time.”

[3] The council’s authority to govern the territories is drawn from the Imperial Sourcebook, which states that “the Emperor has left it to his advisors to modify the portions of a planetary government, be it government procedure or members of the ruling body, to conform to the will of the Empire,” adding that “governors are chosen by the Emperor’s advisors”; furthermore, “the planetary governors of a sector are under a Moff’s control, and a Moff reports to an advisor,” and the advisors collectively “oversee the political machinery of the Empire.”

[4] Ars Dangor acted as the Emperor’s executive agent in the Imperial Sourcebook and the Death Star Technical Companion. His status as a Lord President of the Council is conjecture based on his known status as one of the most powerful men in the Empire (the same evidence was also used to support his unattested status as a President of the Ruling Council).

[5] The Imperial Sourcebook states that the privy counselors “usually appoint the planetary governors, as well as some of the Moffs, and oversee the political machinery of the Empire” (although it adds that “a few are just holo-approvals of candidates the Emperor has chosen”). Their control over military affairs is derived from their ability to supercede a Moff's operational command and control of Sector forces (“advisors, Imperial military high command, and, of course, the Emperor, can seize control of sector group fleets at any time”).

The Diplomatic Service is mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook, which indicates that it distributes general policy statements to Imperial colonial administrators; it should not be mistaken for the Diplomatic Services Branch (“DiploSer”) in Imperial Intelligence’s Bureau of Operations. The Emperor’s Advisory Committee on Military Affairs is mentioned in passing in the Imperial Sourcebook (a rebel intelligence cell intercepted a report from the “senior officers of the Department of Military Research” on certain special technologies and weapons of mass destruction in the Empir’'s arsenal); its status as a committee of the Privy Council is inferential.

[6] The Ultimate Visual Guide states that “the Emperor personally selects dignitaries from hundreds of different worlds to serve as his advisors.”

The Prince Xizor first appeared as a close confidante of the Emperor in Shadows of the Empire, which also revealed him to be the head of the Black Sun crime syndicate until he was killed by Darth Vader. Ostensibly a 'legitimate businessman' and shipping magnate, his status as a privy counselor is conjectured from his closeness to the Emperor (he was permitted, for example, to observe a private holoconference between the Emperor and Darth Vader).

[7] The Emperor’s Inner Circle is described by the Star Wars Encyclopedia as “a group of ministers and governors closest to the Emperor at the time of the Battle of Endor.” The Office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic is mentioned in the 13:5:23 Republic Emergency Broadcast System (HoloNet News), while the War Council Advisory Panel is mentioned in passing in Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary as having been “responsible for the deployment of clone specialists” during the Clone War.

[8] The Cabinet is explicitly mentioned in X-Wing Rogue Squadron: The Rebel Opposition when Governor Norquest mentions his expectation of soon hosting “powerful visitors who will elevate me to the next level – an ambassador, or perhaps a Cabinet minister...”

[9] The Imperial Sourcebook states that the Emperor routinely sent advisors not in his immediate entourage “on missions to gather information or spread disinformation through appropriate channels” (which missions “keep the advisors isolated from each other, a condition which assures their continued dependence on the Emperor”).

Coh Veshiv’s fact-finding tour (which abruptly ended with his capture by Imperial mutineers-turned-rebel-privateers) is seen in The Far Orbit Project, while Rufaan Tigellinus’s investigation of charges of insider trading on Brentaal IV is mentioned in “Governor Maclain Under Investigation” (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 14).

Captain Panaka was head of security for Amidala, Queen of the Naboo, during the Naboo Incident, as seen in The Phantom Menace; Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy reveals that he was a “longtime ally and follower” of Palpatine, and was elevated to the rank of Moff by 39 rS. The office of an Imperial advisor assigned as the Emperor’s personal representative to the Corporate Sector Authority is described in Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook; Panaka’s knighthood, given name, and service in this capacity are unattested.

Rodin Hlian, Lord Verpalion, a former Imperial Senator and close friend of the late Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, arrived on Lianna as the Imperial minder of Santhe/Sienar Technologies’ NOVA Project in Mission to Lianna. Bregius Golthan’s assignment of “overseeing security within the Colonies and the Core Worlds” in conjunction with the Ministry of Security is described in “Imperial Advisor Golthan Leaves Court” (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 13).

The Imperial Sourcebook describes Palpatine’s deliberate “system of adversarial administration,” whereby “an advisor is granted oversight of the administration of systems which are strongholds for one of his rivals,” and “advisors with weaker political bases are granted a greater degree of oversight than are strong advisors.” The Ultimate Visual Guide blends the fact-finding missions with adversarial administration, saying that “each dignitary is assigned to gather information about a rival dignitary’s home system, which discourages them from forming secret alliances.”

Emperor Cos Dashit (“Lord of Alderaan, Consul to the Supreme Tribunal, and ruler of the Galactic Empire”) and Crispin Hoedaack (“newly appointed Governor of the Aquilaean Systems” and “First Lord of the Aquilaean System and Surrounding Territories”) were two of the five members of the Supreme Tribunal appearing in The Star Wars: Rough Draft. They are unattested in the canon.

The Ultimate Visual Guide adds that “when the Emperor desires new advisors for his circle, he kills the old ones at whim.”

[10] Vantos Coll was “a member of the Supreme Tribunal” conspiring with Darth Vader and Crispin Hoedaack to seize control of the Galactic Empire in The Star Wars: Rough Draft. He is unattested in the canon.

[11] Orman, Baron Tagge, first appeared in “Siege at Yavin!” (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 25); he is the earliest example of a courtier with a powerful courtly party, as his headship of the House of Tagge was accompanied by chairmanship of the vastly powerful Tagge Company (the galaxy’s largest corporate conglomerate) and all the resources it commanded. Grand Moff Bartam first appeared in “Betrayal” (Empire Nos. 1 - 4).

[12] Darth Vader blinded the Baron Tagge with his lightsaber in “Evasive Action: Endgame,” and was quite open about having been responsible for his death in a lightsaber duel in “Red Queen Rising!” (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 36). In Shadows of the Empire, Vader directly ordered the Naval bombardment that killed the Prince Xizor and destroyed his luxury skyhook over Imperial Center.

[13] Ministries’ headquarters are assumed to be arcological hyperstructures by parallel to the Galactic Republic, whose Ministry of Science was headquartered in the Minisci Arcology in “Ministry of Science Continues Hypermatter Studies” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 50), while its Judicial Department was headquartered in the Judicial Arcology in “People’s Inquest Demand Jedi Budget Report” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 48).

[14] Bail Antilles’s incumbency as Minister President (like the existence of the office of Minister President itself) is unattested.

[15] The Imperial Space Ministry is mentioned in Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters, the Ministry of InterGalactic Transit (capitalization adjusted herein) in "The Free-Trader's Guide to Sevarcos" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 2), and the Ministry of Energy in the Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook.

The Ministry of Security is mentioned in "Imperial Advisor Golthan Leaves Court" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 13), while the Finance Minister is seen in "The Path to Nowhere" (Rebellion No. 1 - 5).

The Minister of Culture is mentioned in Shadows of the Empire (as of 38 rS, the anonymous incumbent was on the payroll of Black Sun), and the Imperial Correctional Facilities Minsitry (whose head is titled Minister of Corrections) is mentioned in the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook.

The Galactic Corporate Policy League, a policy consortium composed of the galaxy's most powerful multistellar corporations (with secret, illegal ties to Palpatine dating back before his election as Supreme Chancellor) was described in some detail in the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook; it is the body responsible for the reconstitution of the Corporate Sector and the creation of the Corporate Sector Authority.

[16] The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that “major decisions made by ministers or advisors had to be personally ratified by [Palpatine’s] chosen servants.” Irulan’s description of the Government is a quotation from William Shakespeare’s MacBeth.

Note: The term "Little Palpatines" for the so-called 'Clean Hands' of the court was inspired by Mr Wayne Poe's article by that name.

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter 4: The Courts and the Justice System

By the time of the late Republic, the judicial system was a wasteland of stultifying red tape, frivolous litigation, incompatible legal codes, and an oppressive sense of futility. Cases usually took years before even reaching a courtroom, to say nothing of the interminable series of appeals to ever higher courts of review. The ponderous weight of twenty-five thousand years of case law and the sheer volume of cases on the docket meant that the courts were paralyzed into irrelevance; legal relief by court ruling became a joke, and the relative ease of posting bounties or obtaining letters of marque and reprisal as an alternative to interstellar arbitration contributed to a steadily deteriorating atmosphere of violence that was only exacerbated by the militaristic antics of the major multistellar corporations, who often turned to gunboat sales pitches in order to “protect” their intellectual property rights and market shares. The multistellars played fast and loose with the law, using forced treaties with sficca republics and after-the-fact legislation to form a slapdash legal defense, confident that they could simply bury lawsuits beneath mountains of judicial procedure until they died (for example, the case of Des Etoiles vs. The Tagge Company took 67 years to settle, with the parties to the suit in the end being grandchildren of the original parties). The court system had become so slow and unresponsive that political strategists considered a court settlement to be substantially less practical than a vote of no confidence. The impotence of the old Republic judicial system was one of the major campaign issues for Palpatine of Naboo’s CWPP-ND coalition, and he made judicial reform a key plank of his NewOrder package of policy initiatives once he was in office as Supreme Chancellor in 3 rS. Palpatine’s promises of reform were not idle chatter. He set up a special panel within the Executive Office of the Supreme Chancellor to vet nominees to the bench, pushed through key legislation, and handpicked nearly all of the top tier appointments. Inevitably, Palpatine’s influence became so pervasive throughout the upper ranks of the judiciary that there was serious concern that he actually controlled the courts and it would be impossible to carry out any sort of legal proceedings against him. [1]

Few issues have been so contentious in the post-Palpatine political arena as the level of his control over the judiciary. For obvious reasons, those who benefitted handsomely during his reign have a vested interest in the courts being regarded as having been fair and impartial, even if draconic, while some of the more radical members of the anti-establishment party have even gone so far as to demand the nullification of all rulings made by “placemen-judges” and “pet benchwarmers,” on the grounds that they cannot be regarded as binding legal decisions. Despite the political controversy, it is a matter of near-universal agreement that the justice system of the old Republic was imported more or less unchanged into the new Empire, consisting of the courts themselves and the executive agencies that served them; the chief innovation of the Imperial system was to combine the administrative functions of several different bodies into the College of Judicature. The controversy lay in the question of whether or not the system went more or less unchanged because Palpatine already controlled them.

The Courts

The highest court in the Imperial system was the Supreme Court of the Galactic Empire, inherited intact from the defunct Republic; in the process, the title of the presiding judge was changed from the traditional Republican “Chief Justice of the Galactic Republic” to the somewhat reduced form “Lord Justice President of the Supreme Court of the Galactic Empire” (reflecting the doctrine that The Throne itself was head of the judicial system, and thus “Chief Justice” of the Empire). The Lord Justice President controlled the court’s agenda and had charge of all administrative affairs related to the court, as well as serving ex officio as the Dean of the College of Judicature, a member of the Board of Regents of The University, and the Chancellor of the Galactic Museum. The remainder of the court was composed of the lords justice, who took precedence with Peers of the Empire while sitting on the court (by custom, retiring justices of the Supreme Court were appointed to the Peerage, with lords justice taking counties and Lords Justice President dukedoms). All appointments to the court were made by The Throne on the advice of the Minister President and the Privy Council’s Select Committee on Justice and the Law, although convention gave the sitting lords justice a sort of informal veto of any nominations they found objectionable (which in effect transformed the court into a self-selecting elite). Once appointed to the court, a lord justice of appeal in ordinary retained his seat not “at the Galactic Emperor’s pleasure” but rather “in good behavior, as it pleases the Galactic Emperor” (i.e., he was not normally subject to dismissal, but could be removed for “misbehavior”). [2]

In theory the Supreme Court was equal to the Senate as the chief manifestation of one of The Throne’s sovereign powers. It had original jurisdiction in cases involving high officers of state (extending in some cases to senior officials of the dominions) and ambassadors, and also in cases to which dominions were party in their capacity as semi-sovereign states. Otherwise it heard appeals from lower courts, including the court systems of the dominions — meaning that it was theoretically possible for a decision of a dominion’s own supreme court to be overruled, even if that dominion’s fundamental laws made no allowance for such an appeal. There was no rule of “double jeopardy” — a defendant could be tried multiple times for the same offense, on the principle that The Throne had delegated full authority to the Court to “see that justice be done,” and that this superceded any right to “security from prosecution due to prosecutorial unpreparedness.” Conceivably the court’s greatest power was its ability to rule on the constitutionality of laws, statutes, and orders-in-council. Like the Council of Ministers and the Senate, however, it was not truly supreme in its own sphere; the court’s decisions could in theory be overruled by the Ruling Council or The Throne directly, although in practice neither ever agreed to hear such an appeal. In 19 rS, Palpatine ordered the Supreme Court to remove its chambers from the old Galactic Courts of Justice Building — which it shared with various inferior courts — to the vast new Curia di am Tranquilitas, constructed for the court’s sole use as the centerpiece of the new Imperial Justice Court complex ringing the Judicial Plaza off Glitannai Esplanade. Like most structures built by Palpatine’s favorites at Gehirn and Seele, the Curia was designed with psychological impact in mind: The new building was laid out so that the justices seated in the enormous main deliberations chamber were framed by a suitably majestic halo thrown up by the lights of the Imperial Palace itself. [3]

Directly beneath the Supreme Court were the so-called “courts of the first tier,” the courts of appeals, with either astrographical or subject-matter jurisdictions. There was one court of appeals for each Region in the Empire, in addition to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces of the Imperium and the Court of Appeals for the Imperial State; the Imperial State was the senior court of the first tier and heard appeals from the various “courts of the second tier,” specialized courts with subject-matter “All-Empire” jurisdiction. Each court of appeals was generally composed of between thirty and forty lords justice of appeal, who rotated through panels and heard cases as assigned by the head of each court; a lord justice of appeal was addressed in court as “My lord” or “My lady” rather than “Your Honor,” and the head of the court took the title “Lord Chief Justice.” Naturally, the Regional courts of appeals were located in palatial curiae in the appropriate Regions, usually on the capital world but in many cases in a different city from the seat of the Regional Government. In contrast, the subject-matter courts of appeal (Imperial State and Armed Forces of the Imperium) were located in the suitably impressive Curia dar Solacium and Curia di am Solitudas, to the left and right of he Curia di am Tranquilitas at the center of the Imperial Justice Court complex in the heart of Imperial City. The prestige attached to the courts of the first tier was considerable; a lord justice of appeal took precedence before Regional Governors and Senators. When they dabbled in court politics, lords justice of appeal often found themselves ranked with the Grey Gloves solely on the basis of their seats on the first tier.

The “courts of the second tier” were the subject-matter courts hearing cases on an “All-Empire” basis; like the Supreme Court and the courts of the first tier, their jurisdiction could on occasion include the dominions as well as HIM Other Territories. They dealt chiefly with regulation of interstellar trade, claims and contract disputes against the Imperial State, intellectual property law, and the regulation of employment and benefits under the Imperial State. Because of their nature the courts of the second tier were the least numerous, consisting of only the Court of Interstellar Trade, the Court of Claims, the Court of Intellectual Properties, the Court of Contracts, and the Court of Meritocracy (a long-standing joke among holojournalists included “the Court of Public Opinion” as a court of the second tier, which occasionally made its way into poorly-edited published articles). Although by law these courts could sit anywhere in the Empire, they rarely ventured forth from their chambers in the Imperial Justice Court complex (as second-tier courts, they were not entitled to curiae). Each court’s composition was regulated by law, but they typically included forty to fifty members, titled “High Judges” (the president of each court being the “Presiding High Judge”). For the most part, high judges stayed out of politics and kept to their law texts, studiously laboring away in unglamourous but nevertheless important cases.

The “courts of the third tier” were the district courts, by far the most numerous — with at least one district per Sector, there were thousands of district courts; heavily-populated and full-developed Sectors in the Core and Inner Rim could have as many as three or four. These were courts of first instance for all suits within the district rising under Imperial law; unlike the courts of appeals, they had no appellate jurisdiction over the dominions. Their size and prestige was also variable: In the (staunchly Monarchist) Azure Sector, there were three district courts, each with fifty or more sector judges, each of whom was a highly-respected member of Azurite society; in contrast, the (vocally Republican) Alderaan Sector comprised only a single district with at most twelve sector judges, who were widely regarded as Imperial placemen (or “creatures of the Moff,” as the Princess Leia of Alderaan routinely referred to them). Consequently, the prestige attached to a seat on a district court varied wildly from Sector to Sector. Assignment of judges to the district courts was handled centrally by the College of Judicature, although influential Regional Governors were usually able to arrange the assignment of their preferred candidates (or at least prevent the appointment of undesired ones).

The district courts were the lowest “regular courts” in the Imperial system. Inferior courts could be established by decree or local legislation, and this was typically the route Regional Governors took when providing for the administration of justice in the governorates, protectorates, and prefectures under their supervision. For the most part, such inferior tribunals were populated by magistrates and justices of the peace, who served fixed terms subject to renewal rather than “good behavior” appointments and were not actually required to possess law degrees. These inferior tribunals exercised the district court’s authority in a delegated fashion, and in theory all their decisions were subject to review by actual judges of the district. In actuality, review of magistrates’ decisions was infrequent, and usually only done on a question of law rather than as a matter of course. The inferior tribunals’ authority to impose penalties were restricted by law, and were only permitted to impose “life or death” (i.e., life imprisonment or execution) in cases dealing with “Enemies of Civilization” (piracy, terrorism, or anarchism) or “Enemies of the Empire” (treason, rebellion, or mutiny); even then, their authority was diminished from the district court’s — an Imperial regular court could conduct trials for “Enemies of the Empire” with the defendant in absentia. Even at this lowest level, however, the courts were noted for their brusqueness and harshness — most notably in cases arising under the Revenue Codees, in which there was no presumption of innocence, it was incumbent upon the defendant to prove the satisfaction of legal obligations, and the courts were as likely to impose sentence to hard labor as mere seizure of assets. [4]

Judges, magistrates, and justices of the peace were governed by the College of Judicature, an administrative corporation established by the Judiciary Regulation (College of Judicature) Act 17 rS, with the intent of rooting out corruption in the judicial system; like the other administrative corporations (e.g., the College of Moffs and the Council of Ministers), it controlled the salaries, allowances, and benefits of all judges and magistrates within the Imperial judicial system, as well as overseeing administrative matters such as assignments and the business of the committee of ethics; these functions had previously belonged to agencies under Senatorial control, such as the Senate Bureau of Judicial Ethics and the Senate Bureau of Emoluments. The College also issued policy guidelines for administration of the Imperial courts, including maintaining the rules of civil, criminal, bankruptcy, appellate, and evidentiary procedure (each governed by a permanent advisory committee that made recommendations to the College’s Standing Committee on Rules and Procedure); prior to the Judiciary Regulation (College of Judicature) Act, this function had been performed by the now-dissolved Judicial Conference of the Republic. As the Revisionist school has been quick to point out, this arrangement heavily prejudiced the system against being pushed into change by way of legal action or legislation; a Supreme Court that established the rules governing the courts was unlikely to tolerate attempts to modify those rules by the Senate or plaintiffs claiming the rules were unfair. By giving the College of Judicature the authority to regulate its members’ careers as well as the rules by which they operated, the Empire essentially transformed the judiciary into a self-governing elite (holojournalist Qa Cranston’s famous “shimmersilk-clad state within a state”). Most of all, this corporatist approach to judicial governance benefitted the Dean of the College of Judicature — i.e., the Lord Justice President, who in accordance with the Palpatinist-Tarkinist ‘Leadership Principle’ had a free hand in assigning senior judges and justices to the College’s committees. In effect, this allowed the Lord Justice President to exert vast and disproportionate influence on the entire judicial branch (hence Lord Justice President the Duke of Burr Nolyds’s nickname “Emperor of the Courts”). [5]

Members of the College of Judicature were divided into grades broadly comparable to the Table of Ranks used by the Civil Service, Diplomatic Service, and the Armed Forces of the Imperium, although grades did not correspond to authority or precedence but rather to seniority, benefits, and privileges. It was possible for a high judge to have a higher grade within the College than a lord justice of appeal, although the system was structured so as to prevent too large a disparity between grade and tier. Grades and assignments to specific courts were handled within the College by the Committee of Regulation, while appointments to tiers were done instead by The Throne on the advice of His Imperial Majesty’s Select Committee for the Judiciary, formed of representatives from the Privy Council, the Senate, and the College of Judicature. In addition to clearly displaying distinctions of tier, the elaborate vestments worn in court proceedings also displayed grade (these distinctions were much subtler, and few people outside the judicial field knew how to read them). All members of the College were entitled to dispense “summary justice” without reference to a jury in cases involving petty offenses, although in some cases the options for summary justice penalties have been regarded as being inappropriately harsh, although well within the bounds of statutes passed by Sector and Regional assemblies and the Senate itself.

The courts’ role in the Empire has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly dispute. Even a cursory review of their case files disproves the idea that the courts were somehow lax in their application of the law: in the twenty-three-year reign of Palpatine before the Intraregnum (16 rS to 39 rS), the courts system processed 300% more cases than the courts had under the Republic during the preceding two hundred years. The average time from filing of suit to judgment was reduced from years to months, with the number of criminal prosecutions skyrocketing. The courts under the Empire were both robust and vigorous, a major departure from the lethargy that had plagued the old Republic in its last days. To some extent this vigor was inherited by the New Republic’s courts, which have been known to cite Imperial decisions in their rulings (albeit quietly and discreetly). Indeed, thanks to the efforts of COMPNOR’s Justice agency, the Empire saw a massive effort codifying and streamlining law and equity into a single, clear codex juris, a feat many legal scholars believe was only possible with the strong-arm tactics the authoritarian Imperial State was able to use to enforce its completion. Nor is the claim that the courts turned a blind eye to abuses entirely in accord with the evidence; during the entire Palpatinic Era not six months went by without some Moff, Senator, Minister, or other senior official being convicted of high crimes or official corruption, and the penalties imposed on these officials were every bit as harsh as those passed on private citizens — often more so. To say that the courts were lax in their duties is simply not borne out by the evidence. [6]

On the other hand, there is every reason to accept the argument that while the courts may have done much, there was much they did not do, and much they did that was wrong. It has been estimated that for every government official indicted, tried, and convicted, there were approximately five and a half who escaped unindicted (hence the sardonic joke that the “0th Law” of Imperial ethics was “Don’t Get Caught”). A great many of the Empire’s most egregious abuses were never investigated at all — let alone prosecuted — , because they took place in the Rimward regions of space where oversight was significantly reduced or nonexistent, and governors made sure that evidence of their crimes never made it to court. Even near the Core Worlds, some flagrant outrages went unpunished due to the perpetrators finding some technicality of law that absolved them of responsibility (most famous of these was the so-called “Ghorman Massacre,” in which a revenue cutter was deliberately landed on top of a crowd of tax protesters; the ship’s captain was able to defend himself by appealing to spaceport regulations prohibiting non-essential personnel from being within a certain radius of the landing pad during flight operations). Despite possessing the authority to strike down unconstitutional laws even in the dominions and throughout the Imperial State, the courts rarely did so, permitting even flagrant violations of civil rights like species segregation — often disingenuously dressed up as “public health codes” — to stand unchallenged. The courts in the Rim did relatively little to ensure that the strict terms of the Dangerous Species Act were satisfied, to the extent that several documented cases of genocide went entirely unpunished. Furthermore, a disproportionate number of the Empire’s criminal prosecutions were for political offenses, to the extent that the Encyclopedists claimed that “persecution of political prisoners” was the criminal justice system’s “most important function.” Some of the Empire’s most notorious policies were perpetrated with the connivance of the courts; it was in fact the Court of Appeals for the Outer Rim Region that had ruled in Pronar v. Buker that Mon Calamari were non-sapient and therefore opened the way for their “domestication” (i.e., enslavement), a piece of legal foolery that was imitated in scores of other cases, including the “domestication” of the Wookiees of Kashyyyk (who, like the Mon Calamari, had been seated in the Senate of the old Republic). [7]

The Justice System

The Galactic Republic’s justice system was centrally organized in the famous Judicial Department, which included divisions for most executive functions related to justice and law enforcement. Prominent among these were the Law Officers Division, the Investigations Division, the Sector Rangers Division (the mainstay of pulp holonovels), the Revenue Division, the Gendarmerie, and the elite Republican Guard. It simultaneously served as the police, customs service, and prosecutors of the Republic, as well as the chief legal advisor to His Excellency’s Government (the Office of the Supreme Chancellor retained its own separate legal office, the General Counsel to the Podium). The result of this was that the Attorney General of the Galactic Republic was one of the most powerful officials in the Republic, controlling the largest single department in the government and exerting influence over a huge system of policemen, lawyers, and paramilitary forces from the vast Judicial Arcology in the heart of Galactic City, Coruscant. A weak or corrupt Attorney General could leave the entire system impotent in the face of rampant crime and disorder; Professor Jayidhars ‘Alanahrmaas has even gone so far as to identify Adnan Beruss, Finis Valorum’s well-meaning but generally inept third Attorney General, as the single largest contributor to the rise of Palpatine after the man himself. Beruss — often regarded at the time as a potential rival to Valorum for leadership of the Democratic Center (and with it, the Supreme Chancellorship) — was too important a member of the governing coalition and too well connected to be easily rid of, forcing Valorum to rely more heavily on informal channels, most notably his friend and unofficial policy advisor, Palpatine of Naboo. In contrast, Palpatine’s own wartime Attorney General, the chinless Laddinare, Lord Torbin — practically Beruss’s opposite in that he lacked a political base of his own but possessed the ability to do his job — was so energetic in using his wide-ranging powers that some contemporary political commentators suspected him of running a shadow government plotting a coup against Palpatine himself. [8]

There is no evidence that Palpatine ever took the rumors about his Attorney General seriously — in fact, he subsequently appointed Torbin as Grand Inquisitor — but one of the most significant changes to the constitution of the Galactic Union in his early reign was the dismantling of the Judicial Department and the elimination of a single head of the justice system. The initial Decree for the Regulation of the Imperial State (issued a mere six days after Palpatine’s acclamation to The Throne) established a new office of His Imperial Majesty’s Attorney General for the Imperial State, who would henceforth as the chief legal advisor to The Throne, as well as advising and representing both The Throne and His Imperial Majesty’s Government in court; HIM Attorney General’s new Imperial Chancellery absorbed most of the Law Officers Division and entirely replaced the old General Counsel to the Podium. Stripped of his role as the chief lawyer of the central government, the Attorney General soon lost control of Regional and Sector legal affairs when new HIM Attorneys General were appointed for each Region, with the sector coordinators placed under their direction (in the process, the title for the sector coordinator was changed to “HIM Attorney” for a given sector). The new HIMAGs were more or less independent, although the original HIMAG — for the Imperial State, who rapidly usurped the old AG’s place as the undifferentiated “the Attorney General” — was senior and had certain supervisory powers over the others. The result was that there was no longer a single head of the Empire’s legal affairs, although the College of Law Officers — yet another of the Empire’s administrative corporations, in which the HIMAGs were the board of directors and HIMAG(IS) automatically took the role chairman of the board — ensured uniformity of practice and benefits for the Empire’s law officers. Prosecution of crimes under Imperial law and all other legal services to the Imperial State and its organs were handled by the new HIMAGs and their offices; despite the decentralization, the College proved to be a much more effective regulatory body than its predecessor, the now-defunct Bar Association of the Republic (although all Imperial law officers were members of the Imperial Bar Association, the new body was substantially weaker than the College, whose standards and practices were quickly adopted as normative throughout the Empire). Having thus quickly lost all control of the Empire’s legal affairs, the old Attorney General — who was not entitled to a seat on the College board, and did not enjoy the cachet of being “His Imperial Majesty’s” — soon lost the title as well, when the Judicial Department Reformative Act 17 rS renamed the office “Minister of Justice.” [9]

The creation of the HIMAGs was not the end of the reforms. The Republican Guard was removed from the Judicial Department; its facilities were turned over to Supreme Headquarters Armed Forces of the Imperium (SHAFI), while the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Navy assimilated the Guard’s actual operating forces. The Revenue Division was reorganized as the Customs Office, and after a brief transfer to the Ministry of Finance was subordinated to the Ministry of Space. The Corrections Division became the Imperial Corrections Service, quickly handed off to the new Ministry of Corrections (where it quickly acquired the decidedly unflattering nickname “Bureau of Punishments”; its premier training institution, the Sheikh Dimitrios ágh Zarkov Corrections Center and School, also quickly acquired the even more unflattering soubriquet of “School of Torturers”). When the dust cleared, the Judicial Department had been reduced to a pale shadow of its former self; the newly-dubbed Ministry of Justice controlled only agencies concerned with law enforcement — reduced from the entire justice system to the Empire’s conventional police force. The sweeping reorganization had left Justice with only a handful of its previous agencies, most notably the Office of Criminal Investigations, the Sector Rangers, the Special Enforcement Officers, and the Substance Control Authority. The reforms had essentially split the justice system into three (more or less) parts: The Ministry of Justice, which enforced the laws; the HIMAGs, which prosecuted the offenders; and the Ministry of Corrections, which punished the guilty. In the midst of all this, the winding up of the Gendarmerie and its replacement in the outlands by the Armed Forces of the Imperium went largely unnoticed; as ‘Alanahrmaas has pointed out, generations of the Gendarmerie as the Republic’s provincial police agency had left huge swathes of the galaxy accustomed to paramilitary law enforcement — and their inhabitants thus barely reacted to the imposition of actual military law enforcement. As a result, it soon became commonplace throughout the outlands for provost marshal stormtroopers, military policemen, and masters at arms to act as policemen even where martial law was not in effect, often substituting summary courts martial and non-judicial punishment (NJP) for proper trials and “His Imperial Majesty’s Justice.” The general acceptance of military law enforcement seems to have left stillborn most legal challenges to this legally questionable conduct, and many commentators cite this as a key contributing factor to the prevalence of atrocities and gross abuse of power in the outlands. [10]

The application of undeclared martial law was eventually legitimated retroactively by Zakarisz Spince’s Senatorial Amendments (Decree 77-92465-001) to the Constitutions of New Order. Despite the terminology “Senatorial Amendments” suggesting novelty, they were in fact relatively minor modifications to existing legislation, generally only used to re-enact as permanent statutes wartime measures that had been repealed by their sunset clauses; in this case, the Spince Amendments re-enacted Senate Decree 77-92465-001, In the Matter of Suspension of Dispensable Liberties, a Clone War decree which declared that “all military offensives shall be considered under law as states of emergency, and subject to the emergency military powers act of the Senate.” As a result, Imperial judge advocates invariably argued that any given instance of NJP or improper court martial arose in the course of “military offensives” targeting “unlawful insurrectionists” (i.e., rebels). This smattering of legality was enough to convince most aggrieved parties they had no chance of relief from the courts, and was responsible for smothering hundreds of thousands of complaints against Imperial military high-handedness; in all likelihood it will never be known how many legitimate suits were smothered by the stultifying weight of the Spince Amendments. In addition, many of these suits were simply thrown out by provincial courts, citing the principle of ‘imperial infallibility’ — namely, the highly-controversial doctrine that the Imperial State could not commit a legal wrong and was therefore immune from civil or criminal prosecution. Imperial infallibility was frequently cited by military officers and colonial administrators in an effort to dodge legal consequences for their conduct “in the Sticks” (a common derogatory term for most of the outlands regions of space), but unlike many other Imperial legal innovations it was far from settled law; the Supreme Court never ruled on its validity, leaving the matter to the inferior courts, meaning that it may have been the law on some worlds but not others. The Court of Appeals for the Outer Rim Territories Region never gave a definitive ruling, for example, but often permitted its application, while nearly all of the law professors and jurists in COMPNOR’s Justice were vigorously opposed to it, with staunch support from as eminent a law officer as Dr. Gillis Catepan zu Ifijenia, His Imperial Majesty’s Solicitor General for the Core Worlds from 16 rS to 38 rS. [11]

The Imperial justice system worked much more quickly and applied much harsher penalties than its predecessor under the old Republic, but the cost was a much higher degree of political involvement (not to mention interference). The new system brought speed and severity into the galactic judiciary after generations of slow-moving timidity, and at the same time brought significant erosion of traditional rights of equality before the law and due process. At times the Imperial system could be blatantly biased in favor of the Empire, even in petty things. The Rules of Proceedings of His Imperial Majesty’s Courts required all lawyers who appeared before the court to wear especial vestments “befitting the dignity of His Imperial Majesty’s Justice,” and the requirement was strictly enforced. In the Core Worlds, the rich regalia and pomp and circumstance demanded by the Rules brought a sense of a judiciary restored to its ancient prominence, and as a result the common sentiment was that the requirement was laudable. Beyond the wealthy Core, however, the Imperial State issued the expensive and luxuriant shimmersilk vestments to its prosecutors... but made no such issuance to defense attorneys, who more often than not could not afford to provide their own, and were as a result obliged to wear much less impressive vestments of zeyd-cloth. The difference, regarded by many as symptomatic of the system as a whole, was striking, and many jurors unconsciously favored the magnificently-dressed Imperials over their less handsomely-dressed opponents. The Imperial State had stooped to sartorial gerrymandering as yet another of many tools for manipulating its own system.

Endnotes

[1] In The Phantom Menace, Queen Amidala complains that “the courts take even longer to decide things” than the notoriously slow Senate. The legal posting of bounties to the Republic Enforcement DataCore and with the Bounty Hunters Guild is mentioned in “Dooku Bounty Posting Still a Mystery” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 46), while letters of marque are described in Pirates & Privateers and The Far Orbit Project. Corporate jingoism was prominently displayed by the Trade Federation’s blockade and invasion of Naboo to protest taxation of the recently-abolished Free Trade Zones in The Phantom Menace, the Corporate Alliance’s use of tanks to protect intellectual property rights in “Corporate Alliance Attacks Slicer Compound” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 48), and Arakyd Industries’ literal hostile takeover of rival Viper Sensor Intelligence Systems by means of assault ’droids in “Sensor Technology Dispute Settled in Takeover” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 48).

Sficca is mentioned as a kind of plant in the Dark Empire Sourcebook (“things weren’t all chav and sficca blossoms”). The courts’ inability to deal effectively with corporate high-handedness is prominently demonstrated by the revelation in Attack of the Clones that Nute Gunray, Commanding Viceroy of the Trade Federation, faced four trials before the Supreme Court for his part in the Naboo Incident, and was acquitted; ten years before in The Phantom Menace, Palpatine had convinced Queen Amidala that they were more likely to be able to carry a vote of no confidence in the Valorum Government than to obtain relief through the courts.

The New Order as a package of policy initiatives is inferred from A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Third Edition, which defines the New Order as “the phrase that Emperor Palpatine used to describe his new regime.” Its existence prior to the creation of the Empire is indicated by the same source, which says that he “slowly introduced the New Order,” and also indicated by the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook, which refers to “Palpatine and his New Order” before he was even elected Supreme Chancellor.

Master Jedi Mace Windu claimed in Revenge of the Sith that Palpatine “controls the courts” and “a trial would be a joke.”

[2] The Supreme Court of the Galactic Republic appears in Cloak of Deception, in which it is seen to consist of twelve judges (who are not specifically referred to as “justices,” although this assumption seems justifiable in light of the explicit identification of the presiding judge as “Chief Justice”).

The Chief Justice’s role as chancellor of the Galactic Museum is drawn from the statement in Wedge’s Gamble that the Imperial Justice Court was physically connected to the Galactic Museum in Imperial City, Imperial Center.

[3] The Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction in affairs regarding high-ranking officials of member states is derived from the previously cited statement in Attack of the Clones that Gunray had faced four trials in the Supreme Court in connection with the Naboo Incident (which is also taken as the basis for the absence of a “double jeopardy” stipulation).

The Galactic Courts of Justice Building was described in Cloak of Deception as “an enormous edifice of pointed arches, tall decorative spires, and elaborate statuary,” located “in the so-called Plains of Coruscant, not far from the Jedi Temple.” Glitannai Esplanade is mentioned in Coruscant and the Core Worlds as the main thoroughfare in Imperial City “running along the broad-topped buildings of the Judicial Plaza.” As cited above, Wedge’s Gamble mentions that the Imperial Justice Court (here interpreted as a complex housing various courts within the Imperial system) was linked to the Galactic Museum, itself adjacent to the Imperial Palace complex.

[4] The prefecture as a territorial jurisdiction is inferred from such prefects administering worlds as Prefect Mosh Barris in “Missed Chance” (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 7) and Prefect Adar in Galaxy Guide 10: Bounty Hunters. The governorate and protectorate are derived from The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition’s description of the Empire’s colonial holdings as being “colonies, protectorates, and governorships.”

The classification of “Enemy of the Empire” is seen in Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire (in which the titular Enemy of the Empire, Colonel Abal Karda, was sentenced to death in absentia). In Pirates & Privateers, the presiding official in the trial of pirate Joha Marik was referred to as “the magistrate,” and was seen to have authority to impose a life sentence or a death sentence, despite the relatively junior status of a magistrate (generally the same thing as a justice of the peace).

The Imperial Revenue Codes are mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook, which quickly adds that “under these laws, the burden of proof is upon the citizen to show that he has meta ll of his fiscal obligations to the Empire,” and “failure to provide adequate proof is considered an admission of guilt, penalties for which range from confiscation of goods to the increasingly common sentence to labor camps.”

[5] The Senate’s performance of functions not generally proper to the legislative power (and the names of the agencies responsible for this performance) is modeled after the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, first mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook; the SBI was a predecessor organization to the decidedly executive Imperial Intelligence.

Burr Nolyds first appeared in Crimson Empire II: Council of Blood as a member of the Imperial Interim Ruling Council on Ord Cantrell in 45 rS; he is described in Star Wars Handbook Volume Two: Crimson Empire as “an arrogant aristocrat” who “pushed his way into power after using his wealth to supply the Empire with important resources.” The revision of his name to the title Duke of Burr Nolyds and his status as a member of the Supreme Court (let alone its head) are unattested.

[6] The increase in the number of criminal prosecutions in the Empire is derived from the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which observes that the Empire “tried to live up to its ideal of total law enforcement,” in pursuit of which “garrisons were deployed on a thousand worlds; millions of new prison cells were built.”

The Justice agency of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order was first mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that it was “given the job to produce a uniform legal code which would apply to the entire Empire,” and “the legal system improved greatly with the fervent efforts of the members of Justice.”

[7] The inverse relationship between proximity to the Core Worlds and the Empire’s good behavior is explicitly attested in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that “where in the galaxy a citizen is determines the amount of prohibitions and restrictions governing his or her daily life,” adding that “the least restrictive areas in the galaxy tend to be in the Galactic Core and in the Outer Rim Territories” (the latter due to lack of fully established government in the Region). “Into the Core Worlds” is even more explicit, saying bluntly that “in the wealthy Core Worlds, there are few signs of suffering, and little evidence of the oppression and tyranny common to more remote worlds languishing beneath the Empire’s jackboot,” and that in the Core Worlds “the Empire shows a kindly and benevolent face to obedient citizens.” Outside the Core Worlds, of course, “a very different Empire rules.”

The Ghorman Massacre was first mentioned in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, in which rebel leader Mon Mothma cites it as a catalyst for the formation of the rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic; significantly, it took place “just outside the Core Worlds,” and in the event, the man responsible, one Captain Tarkin, was in fact promoted rather than prosecuted.

The Dangerous Species Act is mentioned in Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races, and apparently required investigation into reports of dangerous xenomorphs; other citations in the same source suggest that the law required “overwhelming evidence” of a species’s “undesirability” before official permission could be obtained for its extermination, noting that “official permission for extermination can be extremely difficult to acquire.” The difficulties associated with species law served as a perverse incentive for unscrupulous businessmen and derelict public servants to use questionable legal tactics to avoid classification of newly-discovered species as sapient (as in the case of the Barabels and the Ranats).

The Encyclopedists are the notional authors of the Star Wars Encyclopedia, who describe the Procurator of Justice as being “the head of the criminal justice system of the Empire — in reality, persecution of political prisoners was its most important function.” In the Dark Empire Sourcebook, it is noted that despite the massive expansion of the Empire’s law enforcement efforts, “too many spaces were reserved for crimes of thought and expression, and not enough for murderers or thieves.”

The Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook mentions that the Empire “showed increasing reluctance to classify newly discovered species as sapient” because “if a species wasn’t sapient, according to Imperial law, forcing them to work against their will was not slavery; it was domestication.” It goes on to state explicitly that “some clearly sapient species, such as Wookiees and Mon Calamari, were classified as ‘animals,’ and thus were not protected from slaving.” Wookiee and Calamarian delegations were seen in the Senate in 3 rS in The Phantom Menace.

[8] The Judicial Department first appeared in The Phantom Menace[/i], but was first identified by name in “Emissaries to Malastare” (Star Wars[/i] Vol. 2, Nos. 13 - 18). The Law Officers Division (name unattested) is implied by the activity of Jurisconsult Temlet Dodann as a prosecuting attorney in “Senators Implicated in Slave Ring” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 50). The Sector Rangers were introduced as the Senate-authorized interstellar law enforcement agents of the old Republic in Galaxy Guide 11: Criminal Organizations; in addition to police duties, they also performed marshal functions such as prisoner transfers. Their subordination to the Judicial Department is unattested, but a reasonable conjecture. The Republican Guard was mentioned in The Stele Chronicles as one of the organizations in which Palpatine had cultivated key allies; it is identified herein as the same organization as the Military Service mentioned by the Star Wars Encyclopedia as having been crewed by graduates of the Academy during the old Republic.

The office of Attorney General is implied by “Antitrust Suits Dropped in Light of Separation” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 56), which identifies one Kevzod Stenir as having been Fourth Assistant Attorney General (evidently with responsibility for competition law) in 13 rS. The Judicial Arcology was identified as the Department’s headquarters in “People’s Inquest Demand Jedi Budget Reports” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 48).

The aristocratic Clan Beruss of Illodia was seen as a powerful political family in Tyrant’s Test, with a cadet line active in Corellian politics identified in “In the Empire’s Service” (X-Wing Rogue Squadron Nos. 21 - 24); Adnan Beruss himself and his position in the Valorum Government is unattested. The Lord Torbin, was first mentioned as the Grand Inquisitor of the Galactic Empire in the Star Wars Sourcebook; his given name Laddinare was identified in “People’s Inquest Demand Jedi Budget Reports,” which also revealed he had served as Judicial Department Information Director as of 13:3:21. His status as an Attorney General is unattested, as is the rumor of a possible coup.

[9] The Lord Torbin was identified as the Grand Inquisitor in his first appearance in the Star Wars Sourcebook.

The sector coordinator is identified as a key official in the Judicial Department’s federal structure in Shatterpoint, although the nature of the office is not known beyond the fact that financial interests involved in the distribution of thyssel bark found it to their advantage to bribe senators and sector coordinators; it is herein identified as the Department’s district attorneys (the title HIM Attorney is unattested).

[10] The Imperial Customs Office is described in Pirates & Privateers as a revenue service that “keeps watch over intersystem shipping, enforces trade and tariff regulations, and bedevils smugglers everywhere.” Both Pirates & Privateers and Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters indicate the Customs Office maintains a large and relatively powerful fleet of cutters for enforcement purposes, to the extent that “on popular routes, the risk of meeting an Imperial Customs ship is about one in 20.”

The Imperial Correctional Facilities Ministry (headed by the Minister of Corrections) is mentioned in the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook. The Bureau of Punishments and the School of Torturers are mentioned in passing in Children of the Jedi[/i].

The Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations (IOCI) was first mentioned in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, which notes that it is the Empire’s primary federal police agency; Galaxy Guide 10: Bounty Hunters provides additional detail, especially the IOCI’s role in maintaining the Imperial Enforcement DataCore, the central database for lawful bounties. IOCI’s existence under the Republic is documented in “Special Ops: The Sector Ranger” (Star Wars Gamer No. 8), which notes that “it is only the name of the Rangers’ governing body that changes much over time (from the Republic Office of Criminal Investigations to the Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations).”

The Sector Rangers and their specialized elite the Special Enforcement Officers (SEOs) are described in Galaxy Guide 11: Criminal Organizations, which indicates that the Sector Rangers had authority to deputize citizens as “legal agents of the IOCI.”

The Imperial Substance Control Authority first appeared in The Abduction of Crying Dawn Singer.

The paramilitary Gendarmerie is loosely inspired by the Republic Outland Regions Security Force seen in Rogue Planet; it is not attested in the canon, nor is its quiet replacement by outright military forces. This supposition is intended to explain the commonplace sight of Imperial military forces acting as security police throughout the outlying territories.

[11] The Will quotes the cited text of the Senatorial Amendments to the Constitutions of New Order (Decree 77-92465-001) in Children of the Jedi. It has no canonical relationship with Senator Spince, who is mentioned in passing in the Dark Empire Sourcebook (his given name of Zakarisz is unattested).

“Imperial infallibility” is mentioned (without elaboration) in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that COMPNOR court patron Crueya Vandron was “trying to work the idea” into the Imperial code of law, but was “resisted almost to a being within Justice.” The notion is identified herein with the common law doctrine of sovereign immunity, but this is unattested.

Wow. I only very quickly skimmed through this because I don't like to read such massive, in-depth articles on a computer screen, but at a glance it looks good. I'd like to copy-paste it into a document to print up and read at leisure, but I'd rather wait until all of the parts of it are there to print. How many more parts are there, and is this complete, or are you still writing it?

The project is still ongoing, but these are the only chapters finished as of this time. Future chapters will cover COMPNOR, the dark side hierarchy, the Armed Forces, the College of Moffs, and the Imperial State itself.

Thanks Publius. In that case I'll print it out now and give it a good read-through.

Can't wait for the other chapters!

JFC, I'm back at university.

LFL or whoever writes their sourcebooks should hire you.

Just a question about the Courts/Justice system. As loath as I am to include it...

'The Crystal Star' places Procurator of Justice at the top of the Criminal Justice system in the Empire, but the person in the job was hidden from public view, in this case, Hethrir. Who was clearly no minor official, if Palpitine was pleased enough with him to grant him a Worldcraft.

Kazîglu Bey, Naraku, and Julian Kintobor of Ivo were all prominent Ruling Councilmen throughout the Serenissimus’s history.

I see what you did there.

This is awesome. Entertaining AND informative. Please continue.

Chris OFarrell wrote:Just a question about the Courts/Justice system. As loath as I am to include it...

'The Crystal Star' places Procurator of Justice at the top of the Criminal Justice system in the Empire, but the person in the job was hidden from public view, in this case, Hethrir. Who was clearly no minor official, if Palpitine was pleased enough with him to grant him a Worldcraft.

You are quite correct; The Crystal Star (and the Star Wars Encyclopedia) both identify the Procurator of Justice as the head of the criminal justice system. For the purposes of The New Order in Power, the Procurator of Justice is being treated as a special officer appointed by The Throne to oversee the functions of the ordinary Imperial State. The reason is that at least some function of the justice system is known canonically to have been handled at the ministerial level (Minister of Corrections). The Procurator of Justice is being treated as a great officer of state rather than a political office.

"The Emperor's Pawns" establishes that dark side adepts were being "infiltrated" into the Ruling Council, implying that the theocratization of the Empire was a slow and subtle process. Thus, Lord Hethrir's appointment was probably done in such a way as to avoid drawing attention to it. Vader's apparent appointment as supreme commander in the Imperial Sourcebook, as the first overt installation of a dark side magus in a high-profile, well-known office, therefore represents the "Naboo moment" of Palpatine's plan -- the moment at which the process first becomes visible (not when it begins).

Thank you, a most excellent work.

Incidentally, whatever was Ars Dangor's ultimate fate? I haven't been able to find any info on that matter.

Pelranius wrote:Thank you, a most excellent work.

Incidentally, whatever was Ars Dangor's ultimate fate? I haven't been able to find any info on that matter.

There isn't any. His fate past the Time of Destruction is not known, although it is mentioned he spearheaded the privy counselors' plan to elect a new emperor in the Dark Side Sourcebook. Given the Death Star Technical Companion's assertion that the only thing keeping him from trying to take direct control of the Empire in his own right was his tremendous respect and admiration for Palpatine, his absence from the post-Palpatine era can be taken as an indication of his probable death (the destruction of Byss seems the most likely candidate).