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IRG CommandoJoe wrote:Shouldn't they make something that is both efficient and modular? I think with the resources the Empire has they could make something work.

IRG CommandoJoe wrote:Yes, I forgot that the only soldiers in the Empire are humans. And if they had aliens on other ships, it would defeat the purpose of NOT having more modular designs for different species. If the Empire saw nothing wrong with using aliens on other ships, then why wouldn't they appear on the ships in the movies? Why would they ignore aliens' skills that might be useful on the bridge of the Executor rather than making modular designs to let them operate freely on any ship?

Dr. Curtis Saxton wrote:It is interesting to observe that all of the Old Republic naval and military personnel portrayed in The Phantom Menace are human. Several thousand of the elite Senate Guards are shown to be human males, and two pilots for an ambassadorial ship are human. This seems similar to the situation with the galactic armed forces in the later trilogy, suggesting continuity of recruiting practices. (The same applies to non-government forces; almost all the front-line fighters of the Rebel Alliance were human [ANH, TESB, ROTJ].) However this is not necessarily a sign of institutional prejudice. There are other possibilities:

Demographics: Humans may actually constitute a majority of the militarily-inclined galactic population. It may even be true that humans constitute an overwhelming majority of the sapient biomass and population of the galaxy. (Cloud City and Coruscant give that impression, especially in the Special Edition movies.) Collectively, non-humans only appear to be numerous in locations that are on the sparsely- settled margins of the galaxy (eg. Tatooine).

Standardisation: Naval/military units may be species-based for the sake of equipment standardisation and morale, and by chance we simply haven't seen the major non-human units yet.

Sociobiology: There may be practical considerations that are not immediately obvious to we who in a single-species society. Perhaps it's a reason similar to the common real-world disinclination of women from entering military service, or perhaps it is something to do with the physical potential of recruits.

On Earth, few species engage in socially organised warfare, as distinct from hunting or individually motivated fighting. Humans are noteworthy for war (some ants and termites do it too). Perhaps the human tenacity, propensity and proficiency for warfare is also distinctive among the common sapient species of the Galactic Republic? Non-human species might participate in the galactic military to an extent like human females, who in comparison with human males are less inclined towards front-line fighting than but readily occupy specialist, support and leadership positions. In other words, it may be more a matter of disposition than institution restriction.