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He requested such to be placed in here. The work below is his work, and wanted the fanfic to have as much exposure to it.

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).

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)

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 “Brentaal Breaks Trade Records” (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.

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter Five: The Hierarchy

Perhaps more than any other aspect of the Galactic Empire, the Hierarchy defies easy description. There was no formal instrument of incorporation, and no established governing structure; it had no stated purpose, and no formal roll of membership. Nevertheless, the power exercised by the Hierarchy was quite real, and there was never any question over whether or not any particular individual was a member of it. Despite its lack of formalized structure, it behaved as a corporation, owning property in its own name and appointing agents to represent its interests. Often Hierarchs were selected to serve as The Throne’s emissaries, and they frequently appeared with little to no warning, rarely venturing further than to define their role as “speaking for the Emperor.” There was no question that the Hierarchy was a part of the Empire’s ruling structure, even if it was never made clear what precisely the Hierarchy was, or what it existed to do. Historians have struggled over the years with even its basic character; Dier L. Prentiss, arguably the preeminent secular expert on the Hierarchy, described it as an “unincorporated society with undefined powers to act as extraordinary personal representatives of the Emperor,” seeing it as playing a legitimate if uncomfortable role in government, while Janu Godalhi, a former rebel partisan, famously wrote in The Dark Side of the Empire that the Hierarchy was “a cult of parasites, a blot on the constitution, a blemish on the face of good government, a cancer on the body politic, a black hole of malign influence.” [1]

The lack of documentation related to the Hierarchy has made it an historical dead spot, and historians are almost entirely reliant on verbal accounts and second-hand description. Without a charter or act of incorporation, it cannot even be reliably determined when the Hierarchy was established. Prentiss’s The Black Hole of the Empire covers mountains of incidental evidence and personal recollections, leading him to the conclusion that the Hierarchy was a kind of merger between Darth Sidious’s secret network and parts of Palpatine of Naboo’s clientele. Prentiss sees it as a continuation of the trend of Palpatine’s use of informal representatives — a practice, it must be noted, that appears to have been deliberately calculated to increase his personal prestige, as it accustomed people to accepting orders on the authority of Palpatine the man rather than the office of the President. Many of the Hierarchy’s members were members of Palpatine’s entourage for decades, and nearly all the members of his Inner Circle were associated with it (with a few prominent exceptions, such as Indutiomarus Trachta and Ardus Kaine). Nevertheless, the evidence is incidental, circumstantial, and indirect; there is virtually no direct evidence at all. There does not appear to have been anything like it among the predecessor Sith states like the Brotherhood of the Sith and the Sith Empire (unsurprising, given that these theocratic polities lacked many features of the Empire, such as devolved government, a dedicated diplomatic and colonial administration, and a professionalized civil service), although ‘Alanahrmaas has pointed out functional (if not necessarily structural) similarities to the Shadow Court of Ouhibo and the Penumbra of the Polystate of Korel, both of which were influenced by the Sith. Kerum Antilles-Smyrigorax goes further and compares the Hierarchy to the Synod of Experts of the Tund and to the largely mythical Leukocytists of Zomfoodigan. [2]

As nearly as can be determined, the Hierarchy was structured as a secret society divided into two “Spheres,” the Greater Sphere and the Lesser Sphere (contrary to expectation, the Greater Sphere was conceived as being inside the Lesser Sphere — the terms are borrowed from Sithian eschatology rather than Gehrlian geometry). The Greater Sphere was composed of full initiates of the society, while the Lesser Sphere was composed of their familiars and support staff. According to Luke Skywalker’s Reminiscences, the Greater Sphere was composed entirely of “dark side” magi, belonging to a number of different sects (indeed, he speculates that it included nearly all such magi throughout the Empire); the Lesser Sphere appears to have been dedicated entirely to the support of the Greater, and it comes as no surprise that Sate Pestage, the Shadow Hand to Palpatine’s Dark Lord of the Sith, seems to have doubled as head of the Lesser Sphere. There was apparently a system of internal ranking, though its mechanics are not well understood; it is known, however, that whatever system was in place, it bore no relationship with the Table of Ranks or other formal distinctions. The New Republic Historical Council’s official scribe documented evidence in his Neo-Almanach that despite his relatively lowly rank as a “mere” inquisitor, the former Master Jedi Jerec’s standing in the Hierarchy was second only to Darth Vader himself, noting that he “outranked the Dark Side Adepts such as Hethrir, Sedriss, and Kadann” (remarkable in that Lord Hethrir was Procurator of Justice and the former Master Jedi Kadann, the so-called Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side). Hierarchical rank was accepted as “trumping” normative rank, and thus a Hierarch like Kadann could even overrule so lofty a figure as Grand Admiral Afsheen Makati without a second thought — and implicitly putting a man like Jerec far above even that rarefied place in the Imperial State’s normative rank structure. [3]

The evidence remains sketchy at best, however, when one attempts to move from generalities to specificity. It is known, for example, that the Hierarchy included autonomous organizations like the Prophets of the Dark Side, a neo-Sithic cult composed primarily of heretical Jedi Knights who served as privy advisors to Palpatine, using their preternatural abilities of prescience and clairvoyance; the Prophets also provided initial training to many of Palpatine’s covert magi, including Grand Admiral Nial Declann. The cult used two basic ranks for initiates, acolyte and prophet, and subdivided these basic ranks with additional distinctions (lesser prophet, high prophet, etc.), with the Supreme Prophet having ordinary jurisdiction over the entire body. The Prophets operated mainly out of a hidden temple within the Imperial Palace complex, but maintained temples on Dromund Kaas and Bosthirda (the latter of which was kept secret even from Palpatine himself). The Prophets are particularly noteworthy because they rarely acted as emissaries of The Throne but often conducted their own espionage efforts, leading many to consider their status as “Imperial” to be tenuous at best. A similar covert organization known to have existed within the Hierarchy was the Secret Order of the Emperor, a secret society composed of individuals loyal to Palpatine personally, who carried out self-assigned missions and spied on the normative state with an eye toward maintaining Palpatine’s hold on power. The Secret Order — whose resources were plentiful enough for it to operate its own frigates independently of the Imperial Navy — formed an enormous network of spies and agents-in-place, providing Palpatine and his Inner Circle with an enormous amount of internal intelligence. Their efforts were not limited to information-gathering; the Secret Order also conducted assassinations, spot inspections, and any number of other tasks furthering the goals of the Hierarchy, and recruited from among the finest soldiers, sailors, agents, and marines in the Armed Forces to provide its muscle. The Secret Order maintained its own system of ranks, completely unrelated to the Table of Ranks and even to the Hierarchy’s ill-understood system (First Initiate, Second Circle, Third Circle, Fourth Circle, Inner Circle, Emperor’s Hand, Emperor’s Eyes, Emperor’s Voice, and Emperor’s Reach); this particular information is known in its entirety due to the declassified memoirs of a Secret Order agent, Fleet Admiral Tan Maarek Stele. The Secret Order’s handlers — swathed in a distinctive cloak and carrying letters patent identifying them as special agents of The Throne — often appeared on space stations, bases, and warships throughout the Empire, ignoring the chain of command; countless Imperial officers and men have recorded being told simply never to ask who these “Cloaked Figures” were or what they wanted, and the vast majority of those who saw them certainly never learned that they represented the Secret Order. Although the two organizations had no formal constitutional link, the Prophets of the Dark Side appear to have directed the activities of the Secret Order of the Emperor (although this should not be understood as to mean that members of the one were ipso facto members of the other). [4]

The public image of the Jedi Order and other mystic cults suffered deleterious harm in 16 rS when the leader of the Jedi High Council, Master Jedi Mace Windu, led three other Jedi Knights into Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s office to arrest him and seize power in the Republic. The subsequent declassification of records has revealed, of course, that Palpatine was in fact a Sith Lord and had manipulated the entire Clone War for the sake of engineering his own rise to power, but none of this was known at the time. Totally lacking in political savvy or public relations skills, Windu had simply decided Palpatine’s continued possession of lawfully-enacted extra-constitutional powers was a danger to the Republic, and resolved to force him to resign. In retrospect it would have been difficult to devise a more inept approach, and the Jedi played directly into Palpatine’s hands. The dismal failure of the Cloister Coup directly led to Order 66 and the swift passage of the Dangerous Cults Act 16 rS, which outlawed the use of “preternatural or extranormal abilities,” to include “all manifestations of mentalics, telepathy, magics, mystics, wizardry, sorcery, magery, shamanism, or comparable meta-disciplines of any kind whatever,” in any way that “may influence, prejudice, resist, obstruct, or in any way interfere with the functioning of government or commerce, without license, sanction, and regulation by the Imperial State.” The Dangerous Cults Act was to serve as the legal basis for the Great Purge, in which the Jedi Order, the Guild of Vindicators, the Church of the First Frequency, and countless others — including Jedi auxiliaries like the Antarian Rangers and the Pendarran Warriors — were exterminated en masse, all with the sanction of the Imperial Senate and the courts. [5]

As a result of the Dangerous Cults Act, His Imperial Majesty’s Government had the right to establish its own state-sponsored cadre of Force cultists comparable to the old Republic’s Jedi Order, but the negative publicity associated with the Cloister Coup lingered for decades, and HIMG never pursued the matter. Instead, the Privy Council met in closed session and issued an order in council establishing the Inquisitorius, a secretive autonomous branch of Imperial Intelligence headed by the Grand Inquisitor and charged with enforcing the Dangerous Cults Act. Unusual for Imperial agencies, the Inquisitorius did not conform to the Table of Ranks, and did not use an officer/enlisted format. Instead it was arranged like the Hierarchy itself, into upper and lower halves: The specially-trained agents who served as field operatives and interrogators were classified as “inquisitors,” while the clerical and support staff were classified as “familiars.” Each category was divided into degrees of seniority, but the structure much more closely resembled a tradesman’s guild than the militaristic structure found elsewhere in the Imperial State. Particularly noteworthy was the fact that each inquisitor bore credentials certifying him to act directly on behalf of The Throne, without the interposition of Imperial Intelligence, the Ministry of Security, or even HIMG and the Privy Council. These credentials gave them legal immunities not enjoyed by any other law enforcement officers, as well as tremendous informal powers of persuasion. In addition, they often carried letters of cachet issued by The Throne authorizing them to act without reference to “ordinary law,” often to enforce arbitrary orders and impose unappealable judgments. Thus armed, the inquisitors became known as “angels of death,” appearing suddenly and with wide-ranging authority to suspend due process of law in pursuit of “dangerous cultists,” acting with near-total immunity. On their own authority, inquisitors often issued Legal Authorization for Advanced Confinement Documents (LAACDocs), authorizing the arbitrary detention of individuals without cause, and without recourse to writs of habeas corpus or quo warranto. ‘Alanahrmaas has documented that the extraordinary powers granted to the Inquisitorius were frequently pressed into service in support of planetary “pacification” operations, often with only perfunctory reference to violations of the Dangerous Cults Act; often the accusation alone was sufficient to warrant an “audit” by an inquisitor, who would after overseeing exceptionally horrific purges eventually conclude that there was no violation after all, without providing relief to the injured parties. The inquisitorial audit — more commonly called a “witch hunt” — became the most dreaded of all possible acts by the Imperial State, as the audit was not subject to the Sapient Rights Act. Unlike the questionable doctrine of imperial infallibility used as a defense by the Armed Forces of the Imperium, the inquisitors’ credentials and letters of cachet made them almost totally immune to the judicial oversight. They were free to scour the galaxy for “dangerous cultists” with impunity. [6]

During the Clone War, the unflattering nickname “Palpatine’s Secret Police” had begun being applied to the Jedi by Palpatine’s detractors, who thought them beholden to his politics. With the dissolution of the Jedi Order and its rigorous suppression by the Inquisitorius, the name was unironically passed to the Inquisitorius, along with the occasional use of “Dark Knights” and “Emperor’s Sabermen” to refer to inquisitors. Despite this, documentation has shown that the overwhelming majority — some 98 per cent — of all inquisitors and familiars were not practicing Force cultists, and in of that remaining two per cent, the vast majority were cultists but not magi. Only a tiny minority of the Inquisitorius actually possessed abilities regulated by the Dangerous Cults Act; nicknames aside, the Inquisitorius was decidedly not the Empire’s Jedi Order. As a matter of course, inquisitors were issued their vestments, a lightsaber, and a disruptor, but conventional wisdom has noted for thousands of years that carrying a lightsaber does not a Jedi Knight make. Declassified documents from the archives of Citadel Inquisitorius on Prakith have revealed that 80 per cent of all inquisitors never ignited their lightsabers outside of initial training and annual re-qualification (as compared to the 96 per cent who used their disruptors at least once a month, and the 98 per cent who used mind-probes or other interrogative automata). The Inquisitorius’s authoritative handbook, Stratagems of the Inquisitorius, went into great detail in many subjects, including a thorough dissertation on a number of different interrogation disciplines, and contained detailed descriptions of hundreds of cults pursued by the Inquisitorius — but contained only a single paragraph on the lightsaber, and that only insofar as it discussed its use as part of the inquisitor’s psychological warfare arsenal. The relative unimportance of the weapon in the text is striking, not least because the author, Grand Inquisitor Laddinare, Lord Torbin (formerly Director of Information for the Judicial Department and Palpatine’s wartime Attorney General), was himself a magus regulated under the terms of the Dangerous Cults Act. [7]

Although the Inquisitorius contained only a tiny minority of magi under the Dangerous Cults Act — “10-96s” in fringer parlance, after the Imperial enforcement protocol for a mentally imbalanced person (with the connotation of a ke’dem, Old Corellian for “condemned” or “fallen,” i.e., dark Jedi) — they were disproportionately represented in the highest ranks of the organization, with almost all of the most senior high inquisitors and every successive Grand Inquisitor being 10-96s (although this was common knowledge only among the upper ranks of the Empire’s ruling class; the vast majority of the population knew them only as the “angels of death” who carried lightsabers, disruptors, and letters of cachet). Thus, the Inquisitorius’s reputation was twofold: The lower ranks saw them as the Empire’s most sinister of secret police, while the upper ranks saw them as Jedi hunter-killers. It was this latter reputation as the Hierarchy’s muscle that led to the Inquisitorius’s diminishing relevance outside the context of the Dangerous Cults Act and the Great Purge. With the Purge more or less completed, the ruling class saw no real need for the Inquisitorius outside the occasional audit of particularly troublesome rebellious worlds. When the Lord Torbin was assassinated on Weerden, no replacement Grand Inquisitor was appointed — the Senate, HIMG, silent fractions, and even many in the Privy Council had been disturbed by the Grand Inquisitor’s freedom of action, as he reported directly to The Throne or to the Ruling Council, without any responsibility to any of the others, despite his theoretical subordination to Imperial Intelligence and the Ministry of Security. Instead, the Lord Torbin’s deputy, Chief Inquisitor Loam Redge, served as acting head of the Inquisitorius until his replacement by Chief Inquisitor Ja’ce Yiaso in 36 rS, whose stewardship of the organization was notably phlegmatic, allowing the Inquisitorius to fade still further into the background while more aggressive and influential members like High Inquisitor Tremayne and Inquisitor Jerec became virtually autonomous warlords. [8]

The Inquisitorius was not the only “muscle” at the Hierarchy’s disposal. Military and naval assets of the Imperial State were routinely seconded to the Hierarchy; it was a relatively common sight for inquisitors and other agents of The Throne like Tremayne and Jerec to have Star Destroyers at their beck and call, while Rokur Gepta, Palpatine’s good friend and the last Sorcerer of Tund, crewed his personal cruiser with Imperial Navy sailors and even ruled as a de facto Imperial proconsul in the Centrality, a client state of the Empire (Gepta’s authority was even more unusual than most members of the Hierarchy, as strictly speaking the Imperial State had no direct jurisdiction in the Centrality, as it was neither a dominion nor part of HIM Other Territories). Some of the individual members and constituent sects maintained their own private armies, separate and independent from the Armed Forces of the Imperium; the Sith Order itself numbered among its resources the theocratic Enlightenment of Thule, an entire world ruled by a Sithian clerico-military junta and dedicated to training and provision of military forces for the Sith Lords’ use. Leading members like Darth Vader owned clienteles in their own right and even kept their own stables of spies and assassins — as well as commanding extensive regular forces. The resources of nearly the entire Imperial State were made available for the Hierarchy’s use, such as the development of the Shadow Droids and the conversion of the marines of the Black Watch (1st Battalion, Seventh Imperial Guards Regiment) into ‘dark side’ stormtroopers, or “Darktroopers” (like the Sovereign Protectors of 1st Bn, First Imperial and Royal Guards, the Black Watch’s Force training was reportedly rudimentary, and never intended to make them into anything beyond neophyte magi). Even those forces not specifically seconded to them could be commandeered with little effort, requiring little more than the presentation of their credentials. The Hierarchy’s casual use of their letters patents to supersede the chain of command and take control of local assets prompted Captain Jaso Seledrood’s famous observation that fleet admirals “only have to worry about the success of their subordinates, their Moff, and guys whose name begins with Lord.” [9]

Luke Skywalker’s Reminiscences contains an extended discussion of the Hierarchy’s place in the Empire — or, more correctly, what the Hierarchy’s place in the Empire would be. According to Skywalker, the Hierarchy was intended to be more than merely a catchall secret society of the Empire’s magi. Drawing from his personal experience and from conversations with the few surviving members of the Emperor’s Inner Circle, Skywalker concludes that the Hierarchy actually represented an incipient ‘dark side’ theocracy, with Palpatine’s “Scientists of Darkness” replacing the College of Moffs and gradually integrating the galaxy into a kind of stateless psychic dictatorship, what Skywalker calls “a narcotic utopia of shadows and hunger.” The Reminiscences remains one of the most detailed and comprehensive sources from any of the key figures of the time — especially regarding the Byss period — and although Skywalker’s description of the Hierarchy drew controversy, there is a great deal of support for his assertion, despite Palpatine’s traditional antipathy toward documenting his activities. Palpatinism-Tarkinism was wholly in support of totalitarianism as a system of government, using Palpatine’s writings in The Paths to Power and The New Tranquility as justification; the uncensored text of The Weakness of Inferiors contains an elegantly written synthesis of Palpatine’s previously published secular political theories with Sith doctrine — at least some among the Revisionist school have gone so far as to suggest that the “Science of Darkness” version represents the original form rather than a synthesis, and that the secular versions were in fact sanitized for the sake of introducing his full program to an uncritical public. In any case, in his last book on politics one finds Palpatine calling unabashedly for “control, without violence, over the innocent, the ignorant, and ‘all inferiors’” (earlier he defines the term “inferiors” as encompassing everyone not within the Hierarchy’s Greater Sphere — a term, it must be remembered, derived from Sithian eschatology) and prescribing the use of his Science of Darkness to impose “structure in order for civilization to survive and thrive in the galaxy.” Furthermore, it is a documented fact that Palpatine was slowly integrating members of the Hierarchy into the normative structure of the Imperial State, from installing Sarcev Quest, Sim Aloo, and Janus Greejatus in the Ruling Council, to appointing Darth Vader’s protégé the Lord Hethrir as Procurator of Justice, to ultimately appointing Vader himself as Supreme Commander after the destruction of the Death Star. Skywalker notes in characteristically mild language in his Reminiscences that Palpatine remarked to him on Byss that he’d essentially begun a second infiltration of the State, repeating the same process that had brought him to power in the first place; where first he’d infiltrated the Republic and twisted it to his ends, he was now infiltrating his own Empire to further transmogrify it into his Sithian utopia. [10]

Endnotes

[1] Janu Godalhi is identified as a former law enforcement official, rebel partisan, and popular historian in “Star Wars: Databank | Godalhi, Janu.”

[2] The Hierarchy’s origin among Palpatine’s supporters is from Threats of the Galaxy, which notes that many of his subjects [dark side adepts] were drawn from the fawning Senators and other officials who had long been loyal to Palpatine’s government and continued to serve the Emperor after the demise of the Republic.” His practice of sending personal representatives rather than dedicated representatives is seen in his use of aide Kinman Doriana as an all-purpose agent in “Hero of Cartao” (Star Wars Insider Nos. 68 - 70) and Outbound Flight.

The Emperor’s Inner Circle is defined by the Star Wars Encyclopedia as “a group of ministers and governors closest to the Emperor at the time of the Battle of Endor.” Its association with the dark side is inferred from the fact that Sate Pestage is known to be a Sith cultist (“The Emperor’s Pawns,” Star Wars Gamer No. 5) while both Sim Aloo and Janus Greejatus are known dark side adepts (Death Star II Expansion Set), as are Palpatine’s close friends Nefta and Sa-Di (Dark Empire II). Grand Moff Kaine appears in “The Pentastar Alignment” (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 3), respectively. Trachta’s given name of Indutiomarus is unattested.

The Brotherhood of the Sith first appears in Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith. The Sith Empire first appears in Tales of the Jedi: Golden Age of the Sith. The Sorcerers of Tund were first mentioned in Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu.

[3] Sate Pestage’s role as Shadow Hand to Darth Sidious is conjecture, based on the description of that office as a “trusted advisor and second in command” in “Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties” (Star Wars Insider No. 88 Online Supplement). His involvement in dark side esoterica despite an apparent lack of Force sensitivity is derived from the statement in “The Emperor’s Pawns” that he was involved in unspecified “dark side experiments,” casting him as Darth Sidious’s chief familiar to match his secular role as the Galactic Emperor’s alter ego.

The “official scribe” is a reference to the notional author of The New Essential Guide to Characters, herein referred to by the non-canonical name Neo-Almanach (his affiliation with the New Republic Historical Council, notional publishers of The Essential Chronology, is unattested). The statement of Jerec’s rank relative to Lord Hethrir, Sedriss, and Kadann, is quoted directly from that source, and forms the basis for the concept of rank within the Hierarchy.

Kadann subjected Makati to summary corporal punishment on the bridge of the latter’s flagship in an incident described in “Who’s Who: Imperial Grand Admirals” (Star Wars Insider No. 66).

[4] The Prophets of the Dark Side first appeared in The Dark Side Sourcebook, and were said to be responsible for initial dark side training in “Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties,” which also defined their ranks and the locations of their temples. The Prophets were identified as having trained Declann in “Who’s Who: Imperial Grand Admirals,” and were confirmed as having their own internal espionage efforts in “The Dark Forces Saga, Part 3: Pride of the Dark Side.”

The Secret Order of the Emperor first appeared in TIE Fighter, which also defined their ranks and identified their representatives as the Cloaked Figure; they were seen to operate at least one Nebulon-B escort frigate independently of the Imperial Navy in that same source. Tan Maarek Stele’s affiliation with the Secret Order is attested, but his eventual rank of fleet admiral is not.

The Prophets of the Dark Side were first identified as the leaders of the Secret Order of the Emperor in “The Emperor’s Pawns.” Tan Stele was an Emperor’s Hand of the Secret Order, but not a Prophet of the Dark Side, thus providing the basis for the continued separation of the two organizations.

[5] Mace Windu led the attempted coup against Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. The name “Cloister Coup” and the Dangerous Cults Act are unattested.

The Jedi Order was first mentioned in A New Hope. The Guild of Vindicators first appeared in “Dark Lord’s Conscience” (Devilworlds No. 1). The Church of the First Frequency was mentioned in the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook. The Antarian Rangers and Pendarran Warriors were first mentioned in X-Wing: Wraith Squadron and Wanted by Cracken, respectively. All of these organizations’ first appearances established their persecution by the Empire.

[6] The Inquisitorius was first mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which describes it mission as “rooting out all that smacked of the old ways during the Great Purge.” The Grand Inquisitor was first mentioned in The Star Wars Sourcebook, and later identified by the Dark Empire Sourcebook as head of the Inquisitorius. It was called “a secret division of Imperial Intelligence” in the Rebellion Era Sourcebook, which adds that they “conduct searches of the farthest reaches of the Empire, most notably in the Outer Rim Territories,” looking for “Force-users – adepts, shamans, dark side devotees and alien students of the Force in all their forms, as well as any ancient Jedi that may have escaped the purges of the previous generation.”

The Ministry of Security was mentioned in “Imperial Advisor Golthan Leaves Court” (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 13). Its status as the portfolio with control of Imperial Intelligence is unattested.

Legal Authorization for Advanced Confinement Documents (LAACDocs) are mentioned as a legal innovation of High Inquisitor Tremayne in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim.

Inquisitors’ role in routine planetary suppressions is alluded to in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which notes that the standard “Inquisition Module” for the modular taskforce cruiser is manned by “100 Inquisitors, 3,660 CompForce/observation staff, 10,000 interrogation droids” and is “used for punitive actions against insurgents and rebellious worlds.” The Module is equipped with “15,000 pre-fabircated disintegration chambers, two garrison bases, an Orbital Data Net Eraser unit, probes with sterilization spores, five cluster bombs with magnepulse bombs... and a complete orbital nightcloak system,” providing the basis for the particularly fearsome reputation of being left to the Inquisitorius’s tender mercies.

The term “audit” for Inquisitorius operations is mentioned by the scribe in The New Essential Guide to Characters, mentioning that an inquisitor’s great influence came from “wielding the bargaining tool of exemption from Inquisitorius audits.”

[7] The nickname “Palpatine’s Secret Police” for the Jedi Order during the late Clone War was mentioned in Yoda: Dark Rendezvous (it is not attested for the Inquisitorius). The Courtship of Princess Leia refers to a group of Jedi having been exterminated by “Lord Vader and his Dark Knights” without elaboration; their identification with the Inquisitorius is conjectural.

Citadel Inquisitorius, Prakith, is mentioned as the headquarters of the Inquisitorius in “Byss and the Deep Core, Part 3: Prakith.”

The fact that not all inquisitors are Force-sensitive was first established by Alliance Intelligence Reports, which includes High Inquisitor Mox Slosin, a Force-blind yet nevertheless high-ranking member of the Inquisitorius. Furthermore, former Master Jedi Jerec was identified as an inquisitor by The New Essential Guide to Characters, but it is made quite clear in Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire that he kept his Jedi abilities secret, meaning that lack of preternatural abilities was not incompatible with service as an inquisitor.

Disruptors are described as a kind of extremely powerful firearm in The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, which notes they were highly-restricted, and only “a very small number of Imperial officials — Imperial Security Bureau interrogators and inquisitors — were allowed to carry these inhumane weapons.”

Intelligence czar Blackhole used a mind-probe while interrogating prisoners on Vorzyd V in “Gambler’s World.” Grand Inquisitor Laddinare, Lord Torbin, was first mentioned in The Star Wars Sourcebook, and was identified as author of Strategems of the Inquisitorius by The New Essential Guide to Droids, in which he discussed the use of interrogation aids like the IT-O interrogator (first seen in A New Hope). His status as Judicial Department Information Director is mentioned in “People’s Inquest Demand Jedi Budget Reports” (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 48); his term as Attorney General is unattested. He was revealed to be an expert swordsman and a Jedi hunter-killer in “The Emperor’s Pawns” (Star Wars Gamer No. 5).

[8] The terminology “10-96,” its origin in “Imperial enforcement protocol,” and its relationship with the Old Corellian word ke’dem, are quoted without elaboration from “The Final Exit” (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 4).

The Lord Torbin’s assassination was first mentioned in The Star Wars Sourcebook. The vacancy in the office of Grand Inquisitor after his death was mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook. Chief Inquisitor Loam Redge is seen at the Galactic Emperor’s Retreat on Naboo in Galaxies: An Empire Divided; his status as the Lord Torbin’s deputy and de facto successor is unattested. Ja’ce Yiaso appears in the same source, but is identified as Grand Inquisitor; his rank is corrected to chief inquisitor herein to satisfy the Dark Empire Sourcebook’s statement that the Lord Torbin was the last Grand Inquisitor, with the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook establishing that his assassination took place at an unspecified time prior to the events of Han Solo’s Revenge in 33 rS.

Yiaso’s lackluster management of the Inquisitorius is unattested, but serves to explain the organization’s gradual slide into irrelevancy described by the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which notes that they had “long since outlived any usefulness” and “were unaware of their unpopularity.”

High Inquisitor Tremayne first appears in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim. Jerec first appears in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, and was identified as an inquisitor in The New Essential Guide to Characters. Both are seen to operate independently at their own discretion or on direct orders from Darth Vader and the Galactic Emperor, with no reference to their nominal superiors in the Inquisitorius.

[9] In Tremayne’s first appearance in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, it was established that the Star Destroyer Interrogator “is at his disposal at all times,” although his flagship is identified as the Inquisitor in “Dark Vendetta” (Star Wars Galaxy Magazine No. 8). Jerec was seen to have use of the Star Destroyer Vengeance, Captain Thrawn commanding, in Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire (The New Essential Guide to Characters establishes that Jerec subsequently adopted a Super Star Destroyer also named Vengeance as his flagship).

Rokur Gepta, Sorcerer of Tund, first appears in Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu, in which his ship is identified as the decommissioned Imperial cruiser Wennis, crewed by “military personnel, now indefinitely detached to serve aboard the decommissioned cruiser.” The Essential Chronology mentions that Gepta “enjoyed an amicable relationship with Emperor Palpatine,” who had “granted him near-total autonomy within the confines of the Centrality,” with the right to “command Imperial naval units.” The Centrality was identified as a client state of the Empire rather than a member state or incorporated territory in “A Campaign Guide to the Centrality” (Star Wars Gamer No. 5).

Thule first appeared in The Clone Wars, and was described in Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds, which confirms that the ruling junta is a remnant of pre-Order Sith but maintained their allegiance to the reigning Sith Master, Darth Sidious, who kept it carefully isolated from the assets of the Imperial State.

Darth Vader’s personal internal spynet is first alluded to in “Dark Lord’s Gambit” (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 35), in which he mentions “my spies” who kept him informed of the doings of Major General Ulric, Baron Tagge, a key member of a rival court party. In the comic adaptation of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, he again mentions “my spies” having identified Luke Skywalker as the destroyer of the Death Star. Vader’s henchmen are known to have included both military officers (Major Rahz of “Bring Me the Children: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker” and Special Forces operator Major Shira Ellan Colla Brie of “Hello, Bespin, Good-bye!”, Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 57) and fringer assassins (former Gunnery Sergeant Wrenga “Jix” Jixton of Shadows of the Empire: Shadow Stalker and the Noghri Death Commandos of Heir to the Empire), as well as training his own client magi (e.g., Flint from “The Apprentice,” Star Wars Annual No. 3, the Lord Hethrir of The Crystal Star, and Kharys, Majestrix of Skye, of “The Long Hunt,” Star Wars Annual No. 1).

The Shadow Droids and the Darktroopers first appeared in Dark Empire II; both are said to be “empowered” with the dark side of the Force. The extent of the Darktroopers’ training is conjectured from the statement in The Dark Side Sourcebook and the Royal Guard and Sovereign Protectors received only very basic training intended to “sustain the Emperor until help arrived” in the event that they failed to provide complete protection. The designations Black Watch (1st Battalion, Seventh Imperial Guards Regiment) and Sovereign Protectors (1st Battalion, First Imperial and Royal Guards Regiment) are unattested.

Captain Seledrood’s comment is quoted verbatim from the Imperial Sourcebook; his given name is unattested, as he is only identified as “Captain Seledrood (deceased).”

[10] Palpatine’s plan to replace the Moffs with his dark side adepts is explicitly described in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which notes that “eventually these adepts would replace the system of Moffs, Grand Moffs and governors, instituting a Dark Side Theocracy [sic]”; in Threats of the Galaxy, it is noted that he “intended to train a new breed of noble, one completely subservient to the dark side, to replace the planetary governors who were hoping to have a more direct hand in his control over the galaxy.”

The idyllic nature of Palpatine’s dark side theocracy is also described in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which describes the prototypical Byss as being “a mythic world, bathed in the Dark Side [sic] of the Force,” “reputed to be a peaceful and beautiful world,” with “enormous leisure and habitation complexes,” home to 19.8 billions who “live out the rest of their lives in harmless amusements and pageants” on “a mystic siren world, whose surreal shores and glimmering oceans held the promise of contentment unattainable anywhere else.”

Palpatine’s career as a writer is mentioned in the Core Rulebook, which notes that his “early notes on the nature of power” became “popular political texts” and were “taught at universities throughout the galaxy”; The Paths to Power is mentioned by name as one of his books which had topped “the best-seller lists” in “Palpatine’s Triumphs: A Celebration” (Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition 16:5:241, Star Wars Insider No. 84), although The New Tranquility is unattested. The Weakness of Inferiors passage regarding “control, without violence” is quoted verbatim from the Dark Empire Sourcebook (the second passage regarding civilization is unattested). The New Essential Guide to Characters claims that Palpatine “merged political theory with Sith doctrine” in The Book of Anger, but this is an obvious error, as The Weakness of Inferiors is doctrinal while The Book of Anger is phenomenological.

The infiltration of dark side adepts into the Imperial State is first mentioned as such in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, which notes that “before the Emperor’s defeat, many had been gathered into the Imperial Ruling Council”; “The Emperor’s Pawns” adds that Sarcev Quest, an Emperor’s Hand, “became the first darksider [sic] to infiltrate the Imperial Ruling Council.” Sim Aloo and Janus Greejatus were identified as dark side adepts on the “Imperial council [sic]” in the Death Star II Expansion Set. The Lord Hethrir was identified as the Procurator of Justice in The Crystal Star, while Darth Vader’s appointment as Supreme Commander is described in Dark Empire, which notes that Luke Skywalker had “taken his father’s place as the Emperor’s protégé and Supreme Commander of the Imperial forces.”

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter Six: The College of Moffs

The Moffs

The title "Moff" itself has a long lineage; the word is attested in the meaning of "potentate" or "grandee" as early as 17,729 BrS in a series of High Galactic peace treaties between the Senex Lords and the Kings of the Twelve Proxen. In some quarters of the galaxy it evolved into a ruling title in its own right (for the most part extinct by the time of the Great Hyperspace War), while in others it led a vestigial existence as an archaic title for certain high officers (the University of Caldera, for example, still titles the head of its medical school the Moff of Apothecary and Physic). By the Late Siltrine Period, it was mostly used in belles-lettres and poetry, evoking an almost numinous sense of a bygone era of 'Great Men' (the most famous use being in Palchryne's essay "On the Need for Latter Day Moffs in a New Order of Ages"). It seems unsurprising, then, that a belletrist and classicist of Palpatine's stature should have been familiar with it, and made quick use of it in a calculated appeal to the millennial yearnings of the postwar era; longtime propagandist and ci-devant Podium press secretary Pollux Hax's memoirs mention that as an assistant private secretary in the newly-upgraded His Imperial Majesty's Household, he'd written a privy memorandum suggesting the Old Esselian title "Grandix" be brought into general use, only to be overruled by Palpatine himself, who preferred "Moff." Thus, in 16 rS the Imperial Chancellery released an Imperial Decree (countersigned by the Grand Vizier, HIMAG(IS), and the Lord President of the Council) establishing "Moff of the Empire" as a "style, title, or attribute" to be bestowed at the pleasure of The Throne. It was in effect a special dignity to be granted to the cardinals of the Empire, men and women who served in key positions and held the Emperor's personal favor. As with most major state offices, The Throne made appointments on the advice of the Privy Council (the only other appointment handled directly by the Privy Council rather than by its committee HIM Government or other select committee was that of the Minister President himself). [1]

The Moff was styled "His Excellency" and entitled to the postnominal initials ME; additionally, he had the legal right to infix the title into his substantive name (thus Wilhuff Tarkin became Wilhuff Moff Tarkin), and even enjoyed some of the traditional trappings of sovereign royalty (such as the celebrated right to walk beneath a canopy during state ceremonial). The Table of Ranks made special provision for him, creating an entirely new level for him above ministers, secretaries of state, high admirals, surface marshals, and ambassadors (a matter of no small importance, because it was specified that a Moff took precedence immediately after a privy counsellor but before a candidate member of the Council — meaning that if the Minister of the Interior or Minister of the Colonies was not a full privy counsellor, he actually took precedence after his subordinate governors who also happened to be Moffs). Despite his status as a civilian, a Moff had the right to wear the uniform of the Armed Forces of the Imperium instead of the State Services uniform, carried a saber instead of a dagger, and was entitled to wear gold epaulettes and a gold aiguillette on his right shoulder while in dress uniform (the aiguillette on the right shoulder was a conspicuous indication of affiliation with HIM Household). He shared the privy counsellor's immunity to arrest except in case of breach of the Galactic Emperor's peace, and was uniquely privileged to ignore a subpoena — a Moff was privileged to provide all testimony in writing rather than appearing before any court or tribunal (legally, only the Galactic Emperor could require a Moff's presence, meaning that the Ruling Council was the only body that could order him to appear before it). As previously noted, Moffs were in fact civilians, and in some cases their new place on the Table of Ranks placed them well above where they had previously served in the Armed Forces (e.g., Marcellin Moff Wessel, Governor of Immalia Sector, was actually a colonel). [2]

In keeping with the Palpatinist-Tarkinist doctrine of "organic holistics" (i.e., corporativism), the Moffs were administered by the College of Moffs, a state corporation charged with regulating their pay, allowances, and benefits. Although the relationship between the individual Moff and the College was in theory the same as the relationship between the individual judge or lawyer and the College of Judicature or the individual minister or secretary of state and the Council of Ministers, in actual practice the College's ability to dictate policy or force compliance was significantly reduced by the very nature of Moffhood: A Moff by definition held the Galactic Emperor's favor, and it was no simple matter to discipline one of "The Emperor's Own." As a result, the College of Moffs became less of an administrative body and more of a private club, transmogrified by its members' preferences into something of an advocacy group. A sizeable legal department was established and charged with protecting the privileges of the College's members; a Moff facing civil or criminal charges enjoyed some of the finest legal representation in the galaxy, provided at the College's expense (despite the intense and often lethal rivalries within the College, it was universally agreed that no one benefited if the prestige or privileges of Moffhood were in any way damaged by outsiders — where "outsiders" included the courts). Unlike most of the Empire's state corporations, however, the members of the College of Moffs were all at the same level on the Table of Ranks, which meant there was no single preeminent member with an undisputed claim to headship of the college (cf. the Minister President and the Lord Justice President). Consequently, the position of Dean of the College of Moffs — customarily an honor bestowed on the Governor General of the Core Worlds whenever that officer was also a member of the College, otherwise belonging to the next senior governor general who was also a member of the College — was a largely honorary one, with a great deal of prestige and influence at court but little actual power. Ironically, despite their status as "The Emperor's Own," the College of Moffs never actually adhered to the Palpatinist-Tarkinist ideal described in the so-called 'Leadership Principle.' [3]

The title of Moff is often incorrectly believed to be strictly gubernatorial, and in many cases it was used as a synonym for governor. Needless to say, this is not correct; not all Moffs were governors nor were all governors Moffs. It is true that the large majority of Moffs were governors, but it is fallacious to insist that the one must be accompanied by the other (to say nothing of factual impossibility — at any given time there were more several thousand Sectors but the total number of Moffs never exceeded the maximum of 1,600 established in the initial Imperial Decree). Moffs were found in a number of different offices under the Empire, including senior administrators, military commanders, program directors, and even Government ministers and diplomatic agents. [4]

A second (and closely related) error is the commonly held belief that Moffs were sector governors. This second error stems from the fact that the Empire had two types of Sector-based governor: sector governors and regional governors (the large majority of Moffs governors were regional governors vice sector governors). The office of sector governor was an established part of the multilayered federal structure of the Republic, with a limited role in administering the affairs of Sector-level devolved governments. Popularly elected within his own Sector, the governor's authority was limited by the local constitution, statutes, customary law, and gentlemen's agreements between Great Powers holding interests in the Sector (the Tradyne Sector, for example, was subject to an understanding on tariffs between Corellia and Detapa, both Great Powers with interests in the Sector despite being located in different Regions altogether). As an agent of the sector government, he had no authority over Republican assets like the Sector Rangers or the Republican Guard — both under the control of the Republic-appointed sector coordinator — and lacked the ability of the Sector's senator to assume direct control of the Republic's security assets; for this reason, the sector governor was in many Sectors regarded as a kind of chief administrator on the sector assembly's behalf rather than a chief executive in his own right (there were, of course, exceptions; in some Sectors the sector governor was a powerful figure in local and even regional politics). [5]

The office of regional governor was much newer, dating only to the Sector Governance Decree of 16 rS, one of the last major reforms of the Galactic Unity Government prior to the establishment of the Empire; regional governors were appointed rather than elected, and were not subject to recall or removal at the Sector level. As an agent of the Republic Authority (soon to be replaced by the Imperial State), the regional governor was supreme commander of galactic military and naval forces in the Sector, and soon acquired control of galactic police and civil service local assets, as well. The regional governor was not accountable to the sector assembly — he reported instead to the Senate via HIM Government and to the Privy Council — and even had the authority to issue executive orders with force of law. The two offices existed in parallel; Sectors continued to elect sector governors even after regional governors were appointed, but it soom became clear that sector governors were rapidly facing into irrelevancy in the face of their much more vigorous counterparts. Many Sectors streamlined their local governments to eliminate redundancy of effort with the regional governorate, or even abolished them altogether (to say nothing of not wanting to pay the de facto sinecure salary of the lame-duck sector governor). Even the full title was different: The sector governor's full title was generally "Governor of X Sector," whereas the regional governor employed the more formidable title "Governor and Supreme Commander in and over X Sector" (in actual practice, this distinction was only seen in the most formal contexts). A Moff as regional governor was usually referred to as "Moff Governor," or occasionally the more archaic form "Governor Moff." [6]

The Moff regional governor was the chief representative of the Imperial State in the Sector, and had a great deal of control over the sector administration (although his authority over "His Imperial Majesty's Government for X Sector" included the local His Imperial Majesty's Attorney and his office, it did not extend to the Imperial courts of the third tier or inferior tribunals, except of course for courts martial). He could interfere as much or as little as he liked in the performance of subordinate governors' and territorial administrators' duties, and could even assume direct responsibility as governor of a particularly favored jurisdiction at his pleasure. He had authority to prescribe the structure for the devolved HIMG by decree, could set policy on his own initiative, and could even dismiss officers from the State Services or the Armed Forces under his authority without reference to the ministries (most famously in the cases of Ternau Moff pà and Surface Marshal Grigori O'Carraghix, dismissed in disgrace after a rancorous quarrel over a game of Firepath, and of Iosif Carran Moff the Garland Mór and Permanent Secretary Sir Petr bel Tarriweather, dismissed because of "irreconcilable sartorial differences") — unlike the Minister President's Cabinet on Imperial Center, the devolved HIMGs had no ministers, and thus the approval of the Council of Ministers was unnecessary for even the most sweeping personnel decisions regarding the Civil Service (and in any case, most ministers were not even candidate members of the Council, and were thus outranked by a Moff). The regional governor could appoint anyone he liked to his cabinet (if he decided to keep a cabinet), and could even go so far as to delegate day-to-day control to a prime minister or first secretary or whatever title he was inclined to use. Furthermore, as supreme commander, the regional governor had total control of the Sector Command, the sum total of all Imperial Navy, Army, Marine, and Intelligence regular forces stationed within the Sector, as well as having authority over the local sepoy forces and any allied forces while the latter were actually operating with Imperial forces. Most prominently, a regional governor was assigned a personal security detachment from an Imperial Guards unit, and always had at his personal disposal a Marine legion (which acquired the official style "The Moff's Own" when the regional governor was a Moff as a consequence of his patronage). Despite his subordination and responsibility to the Senate, the Privy Council, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of the Colonies, and the local Grand Moff governor general, the Moff regional governor had considerable discretion in his administration of the Sector. Indeed, the Moff's free hand to rule as he pleased was responsible for some of the most notorious scandals and abuses of power in the Empire. [7]

All Sectors were not created equal. The oldest Sectors in the Galactic Core, established in the early days of the Republic, were designed to include approximately fifty inhabited planets. As time passed, the definition of a Sector became much less specific, so that the youngest Sectors in the outlands regions of the galaxy were in some cases dozens or even hundreds of times larger in volume than their Coreward brethren. Similarly, the economic conditions varied radically from Sector to Sector, from the economic powerhouses of the Core such as Kuat Sector to the impoverished subsistence worlds of Arkanis Sector in the Outer Rim. Most importantly, however, political conditions were different. The Great Powers of the galaxy were heavily concentrated near the Core, and each was nestled comfortably at the heart of a vast sphere of influence (as described in De la Hauterie's Satellite States); in many cases entire Sectors were dominated totally by a single state, either by territorial coterminousness or by more informal means. The political conditions in a Sector had a tremendous impact on the regional governorate, for obvious reasons; in a Sector containing one or more Great Powers, a regional governor could expect to face close scrutiny from powerful forces in the Senate, and was forced to be cautious in discharging his duties (to say nothing of having to contend with the entrenched influence of the Great Powers themselves). Contrariwise, a Sector in the Outer Rim, often bereft of Great Powers and far from the watchful eyes of the Senate, had nothing at all to check the power of the regional governor. The result was a radical variation in the character of a regional governorate's administration, whereby one could find benevolent paternalism in one Sector and iron-fisted autocracy in the next; the large majority of Imperial atrocities and oppression took place in "the Sticks," as Core Worlders derisively referred to the outland regions. Needless to say, a governorship of a Sector in the wealthy and cosmopolitan Core Worlds Region might have offered less freedom of action than a Sector in the Outer Rim Territories Region, but the difference in prestige was enough to make up for it; Core Worlds governorships were highly sought-after among Moffs, not least for the privilege of residing in sumptuous palaces in the lap of luxury. [8]

The Grand Moffs

Sectors have historically arranged into groups traditionally called Regions, but like the Sectors themselves, all Regions were not created equal; they could range from as few as three to as many as several thousands of Sectors, and there was no sense in pretending that the smallest were remotely as important as the largest. Accordingly, although they were all commonly referred to simply as Regions without further elaboration, in actual fact the Republic Authority had instituted a classification scheme dividing them into three types, viz., the Lesser Region, the Greater Region, and the Galactic Region. So easily understood was the classification that the distinction was rarely made in practice, even in official correspondence. Only in the most formal of legal texts would one find reference to (for example) the Region of the Prylex Commons, the Greater Region of the Bright Jewel Cluster, or the Core Worlds Region of the Galaxy, instead leaving them as simply the Prylex Commons, the Bright Jewel System Cluster, or the Core Worlds. (As it happens, scandocs that used the full titles were usually of the same kind that would later make the distinction between the Governor of the Sector and the Governor and Supreme Commander in and over the Sector.) As with Sectors, the prestige associated with each Region varied wildly according to its political and economic circumstances; their borders were as likely to reflect historical association or sentimentality as astronomical proximity or sound economics, and the outlands Regions never carried anything remotely like the importance and gravitas of their Coreward brethren. Nevertheless, they all had one thing in common: The Republic Authority was represented by a governor general, who was appointed by the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and held the personal rank of a head of state. For millennia, the rank of governor general represented an achievement greater even than having risen to the post of General Minister. Only the Supreme Chancellery itself was regarded as a greater honor than the governorate general within the executive branch of the Republic. [9]

The establishment of the Empire brought rapid changes. In the first place, the governor general was classified as an Executive of the Imperium, and thus the traditional household regiments were replaced by personal security detachments of Imperial Guards stormtroopers (although many Regions chose to continue the practice of equipping household regiments for tradition's sake). The governors general were given much greater authority to regulate the affairs of their Regions, including the right to issue orders to sector governors and the newly-established regional governors, and to oversee the work of the newly-created HIMAGs' Regional chancelleries; the appointment of governors general became an Imperial and Royal Prerogative, and in the process the governor general was upgraded from representative of the Imperial State to the representative of The Throne itself. The old practice of appointing distinguished diplomats and jurists was discontinued in favor of professional civil servants and Galactic Emperor's Commissioned Officers (GECOs) — in fact, it rapidly became clear that service as a regional governor was practically a sine qua non of the governorate general. To acknowledge the newfound importance of the office in the tightening federal structure of the Empire, the decision was rapidly made in late 16 rS to create a new rank within the College of Moffs, to be bestowed upon the governors general who found the Galactic Emperor's favor. Thus was born the rank of Grand Moff of the Empire. [10]

The Grand Moff held considerable prestige in the Empire; it is with good reason that the Grand Moffs were dubbed "the Incorruptible's fair-haired children." In the first place, his appointment was a clear mark of the Galactic Emperor's personal favor — unusually, the Privy Council had little input in the matter, leaving the creation of Grand Moffs one of the few overtly exercised "reserve powers" of The Throne. Like the less radiant Moff, the Grand Moff was styled "His Excellency" and enjoyed the use of legally-regulated postnominal initials (GME), as well as all the other privileges of the Moff like the canopy and the uniform of the Armed Forces of the Imperium. But the Grand Moff's privileges were even greater; he carried a different baton than did the Moffs, surface marshals, and high admirals, was entitled to an apanage, and was totally immune to arrest except by a specially-appointed commissioner of The Throne. Furthermore, he took precedence before even the privy counsellors, ranking with the Peers of the Empire and heads of state (hence the famous holo of Minister President Tarasikodissa Iesayu stepping aside for Indutiomarus Grand Moff Trachta). The office of Dean of the College of Moffs was reserved for the Grand Moff Governor General of the Core Worlds Region of the Galaxy, or to the next senior Grand Moff governor general in the theoretical event that he was not a member (in actual practice, very few governors general did not receive the rank). No Grand Moff was ever appointed who was not already sworn of the Council, and they were frequently major players of court intrigue; a cabal of Grand Moffs who jokingly dubbed themselves the "Central Committee" of the College of Moffs — or occasionally even the tongue-in-cheek "Mofference" — were the core of one of the court's most enduring parties. [11]

It seems inevitable that any discussion of the Grand Moffs must become a discussion of the best-known among them, Wilhuff Grand Moff Tarkin, who was early on recognized as one of the ablest of Palpatine's "Whiz Kid" technocrats. Scion of the patrician Tarkins of Eriadu, he had served as Lieutenant Governor of Seswenna Sector before the Clone War, only to return afterward as Governor of Seswenna Sector and then as the newly-appointed Governor and Supreme Commander in and over Seswenna Sector. In addition to his duties as both a sector and regional governor, he was a leading figure at court, a privy counsellor, and one of the chief architects of the Palpatinist-Tarkinist ideology (as implied by the very name); over the course of his career, he would add Minister of the Interior of the Galactic Empire, Imperial Senator for the Social Republic of Eriadu and the Seswenna Sector, and President of the Social Republic of Eriadu to his list of offices, as well as his place as Honorary Vice Chairman of the Select Committee of COMPNOR, the New Order Galactic Committee's First Assistant General Secretary for the Galaxy, and General Secretary of the New Order Party of the Outer Rim. He was, as one holojournalist once put it, "kind of a big deal." As acting Governor General of the Outer Rim Territories Region of the Galaxy, Tarkin was the foremost executor of the postwar reconstruction policies of the Imperial State, sidestepping traditional legal restrictions by appealing to his mandate to stamp out Separatist holdouts, to institute the rule of (Imperial) law, and to enforce the Galactic Emperor's Peace. As these wartime powers began to expire by virtue of their sunset clauses, and with no Senatorial Amendments in sight to extend them, the "Pocket Grand Moff" — so called because of his status as an acting governor general, which left him not quite a Grand Moff but something rather more than a "mere" Moff — submitted a privy memorandum to The Throne suggesting (among other things) that these wartime powers to cross Sector boundaries be packaged together into a new territorial unit, which he called a Priority Sector or Oversector (the two terms, Basic and Galactic Standard, appear interchangeably in Tarkin's scandocs; the use of the one over the other has been source of no small amount of controversy among historians). Although the actual correspondence was handled by Ars Dangor, President of the Ruling Council, there is no question among reputable historians that Palpatine himself was intimately involved in the proposal. Tarkin's memorandum was made the basis for an official policy statement of the Imperial State, which Dangor named the Tarkin Doctrine. As for Tarkin himself, the rewards were considerable: He was appointed both His Imperial Majesty's Plenipotentiary for the Suppression of Rebellion and Governor General and Supreme Commander in and over Oversector Outer, a new kind of governorate general appointed directly by The Throne (or the Ruling Council), without any input at all from the Privy Council. Needless to say, this promotion carried with it elevation to the coveted degree of Grand Moff of the Empire. [12]

The Tarkin Doctrine was one of the most radical changes in the whole course of the Empire. The Revisionist school has generally attempted to downplay the novelty of the Oversector, pointing to the appointment of privy counsellors as proconsuls over Special Areas — the official title was of course "rector" rather than "proconsul" — as an intellectual prototype. The facts simply do not support this assessment; Special Areas were ad hoc groupings of political responsibility, with no attempt made at formally incorporating them as a separate jurisdiction, and they lacked consistent organization, usually simply "piggybacking" off the existing government structures. In contrast, the Oversector was a fully-functioning territorial unit, defined without reference to existing borders, and included both a professional civil service, a functioning judicial system — the principal officer of the justice system was dubbed HIM Procurator General (vice the Region's HIM Attorney General) — , and a standing military and navy. The governor general of an Oversector could not only commandeer whatever Sector-based military or naval forces happened to be operating under the regional governor's orders within his area of responsibility, but also had command of his own permanently attached forces; no Oversector was ever incorporated without at least the equivalent of two full Sector Commands. The Oversector governor general had authority to issue orders to regional governors within his jurisdiction — meaning, of course, that in some cases a Sector might fall under the authority of a sector governor, regional governor, regional governor general, and oversector governor general at the same time and in the same respect — and unlike the Moffs regional governors, was not subject to HIMG's or the Privy Council's control. But the real utility of the Oversector was in its modularity: Because it did not conform to traditional territorial bounds of Sector and Region, an Oversector could be used to sidestep or short-circuit the vested interests and spheres of influence of local Great Powers. Thus Tarkin of Eriadu, who had been unable to become Governor General of the Outer Rim Territories Region due to forceful opposition among rival Great Powers in the Outer Rim, became a Grand Moff by making an endrun around them and their entrenched influence via the Governorate General of Oversector Outer. The Oversector was in many ways a frontal assault on the ages-old system of the Great Powers and their spheres of influence. So successful was this tactic that within a few years, Tarkin had broken his rivals' stranglehold on the office and succeeded in adding the Governorate General of the Outer Rim Territories to his repertoire, thus becoming the iron-fisted dictator of the largest volume of space directly controlled by a single being in the known universe. [13]

Officially, Oversectors were created to counter continued Separatist subversion and increasing Rebel violence. This justification was accepted at face value at first, but rapidly descended into the depths of legal fiction; while Separatism and Rebellion were plausible justifications for Oversector Outer, Bright Jewel Priority Sector, and even Quelii Oversector, but the establishment of Imperial Center Oversector — "Sector Zero," in spacer slang — , which incorporated the naval might of Anaxes, the so-called "Defender of the Core," into the newly-established forces of Azure Hammer Command, smacked of a blatant power grab, giving rise to one of the most rancorous court cases in Imperial history. Ultimately the case of Dell vs. Galactic Empire, 7 G.E. 114 (26), went before the Supreme Court of the Galactic Empire, where it was seized upon by the Lord Justice President, the notoriously acid-penned Duke of Burr Nolyds, as an opportunity to put the Senate in its place. Peppered liberally with thinly-veiled excoriation of Senator Harkon Dell, the Opinion of the Court was one of the most sweeping statements of the Imperial State's authority in matters of galactic security, and one of the few times the Supreme Court ventured to describe the Imperial and Royal Prerogative in anything like clear terms. Nevertheless, the frontal assault on the Great Powers' traditional spheres of influence did not go unanswered, giving rise to frequent use of the Senate's oversight powers to try to wrest control back from the Grand Moffs, especially in His Imperial Majesty's Other Territories, those fifty million territorial jurisdictions not legally incorporated into any dominion and therefore relegated to the demesne of The Throne. Unsurprisingly, the Oversector system was one of the most frequently criticized aspects of the Empire, frequently described as a "tightening of the grip" designed to stamp out lingering Republicanism. Indeed, the system dovetails quite nicely with the other "Rationalization" policies intended to increase Imperial control at the expense of the Great Powers (such as the codification of law and equity into a single codex juris, the standardization of the galaxy's medical practices into a single health code, and the attempted imposition of a uniform system of bankruptcy law). The Revisionist school has long noted that not everything in Tarkin's memorandum to The Throne proposing the system was new: Most notably, the Death Star Project was already well underway by the time Tarkin officially proposed it, and many Revisionists have suggested that the Oversector had been planned out in advance by Palpatine and Tarkin as an alternative to the war-powers regional governorate general, with the actual proposal itself being a mere pantomime (itself not at all unprecedented in Palpatine's and Tarkin's long collaboration). Luke Skywalker's Reminiscences go even further, claiming that Palpatine only intended the Oversector system as a transitional phase, ultimately intending to replace the entire governorate structure with direct theocratic rule by the Hierarchy. [14]

Endnotes

[1] The hegemonic Lords of the Senex Sector appeared in Children of the Jedi, in which it was established that they were sufficiently ancient as to regard Coruscant as déclassé.

"Meet Your Regional Governors" (Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition, Star Wars Insider No. 84) specifically states that Palpatine chose the title "Moff" as "an evocative tribute to the satraps of the small space empires who grew the ancient Republic" (it also establishes that the title was in use immediately after Palpatine's enthronement in 16 rS). Pollux Hax is identified as a former "chief of the Emperor's propaganda dissemination section" in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe; his status as an assistant private secretary and his involvement in the selection of the title is unattested.

The Imperial Sourcebook states that the Emperor's advisors "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"). The Rebellion Era Sourcebook states this more forcefully: "The moffs were appointed by the Emperor and his advisors."

[2] Moffs were styled "His Excellency" in Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future (and anyway it is the conventional form for high-ranking state officials not entitled to a more specific style). Moffs are specifically identified as civilians rather than commissioned officers in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that under the Empire "civilian orders are now transmitted at the level of the Sector Group, from regional Moffs, Grand Moffs, or the Emperor himself." Nevertheless nearly all Moffs who have appeared in the canon have worn the drab duty uniform of the Imperial armed forces, with rank badges.

The Star Wars Sourcebook mentions a "Naval sword" being used in a surrender ceremony hosted by General Irrv, an Army officer, indicating uniformity throughout the services (evidently in favor of the Navy). The Hutt Gambit goes further and explicitly identifies the weapon as a "ceremonial officer's saber," making it an important symbol of the officer's authority (the breaking of the saber's blade is mentioned as a part of the formal ceremony of degradation preceding an officer's dismissal in disgrace).

"What Sin Loyalty?" (Empire No. 13) establishes that officers in the grade of commander and lieutenant colonel may wear epaulettes on their dress uniforms, while gold epaulettes are attested only in the grade of grand admiral (and, presumably by extension, grand general). An aide to Grand Moff Tarkin is seen wearing an aiguillette on the left shoulder in Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand. The Moff's special affiliation with the Emperor is attested by the Lords of the Expanse Gamemaster Guide which notes that the Moff is "assigned to represent the Emperor," while Planet of Twilight says that a Moff generally rules "in the name of the Emperor."

Moff Wessel's rank of colonel is explicitly stated in "Meet Your Regional Governors."

[3] Imperial politics as a complicated affair of intrigues and frequent violence is well-established in the canon. The Hero's Guide mentions that dueling remains a common practice among the upper class, and court intrigues are known to have resulted in the deaths of some of the principals (e.g., the Prince Xizor of Falleen in Shadows of the Empire and Orman, Baron Tagge, in "In Mortal Combat!," Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 37). "Soldiers of the Empire!" (Star Wars Official Poster Monthly No. 4) notes that "the personal ambitions of the leader one [an Imperial Guards stormtrooper] is assigned to protect may give rise to little-publicized but very lethal feuds," adding that "the size of a titled officer's private army is a factor in realizing his political goals, and Imperial Guards often find themselves in the role of his men," and that "a Guard never feels he is playing the traitor by assassinating rival Imperial Officers," revealing that assassination is not only common, but even uses official resources. In Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama, Darth Vader rejects the use of outright physical torture in favor of mind-altering drugs, hypnotic suggestion, and psychic probing, because a high-level Imperial politician will have had "access to many family and government secrets" and consequently will have been "specifically trained and prepared to withstand conventional questioning," necessitating "levels of pain so high as to risk killing her" to conduct an effective interrogation-by-torture.

[4] Several Moffs have appeared who have no gubernatorial function, such as Moff Kadir, the treacherous Commander of Imperial Center Security in "Betrayal" (Empire Nos. 1 - 4), and Moff Jerjerrod, the Director, Imperial Energy Systems, in the Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook; conversely, several Sector Governors have appeared who are not Moffs, such as Sector Governor Paro Lanto in Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races and Sector Governor Nardix in "Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM" (Tales of the Bounty Hunters). The Rebellion Era Sourcebook states that "the position of moff was a political and administrative position similar in function to that of sector governor," making explicit the difference between the two.

The Imperial Sourcebook explicitly states that Regions can "contain from as few as three to upwards of thousands of sectors." Elsewhere, it states that a Sector Group is "all of the military forces assigned to a given sector of space," and adds that "thousands of Sector Groups are at the Emperor's command."

In addition to the examples of Kadir and Jerjerrod, Grand Moff 4-8C was seen as head of Imperial Redesign in Prisoners of the Nikto Pirates, and the late Moff Giiedt was mentioned as having been the Imperial "liaison" to the Tiss'sharl League (a diplomatic post) in "The Price of Power" (Empire No. 31).

[5] The Rebellion Era Sourcebook states that sector governors were "elected by the people." The authority of sector coordinators (mentioned in Shatterpoint) as contrasted with sector governors is unattested, but the Imperial Sourcebook states that in the "Republican Navy" (here treated as the Republic's security assets), "Senators or other politically powerful beings could directly commandeer naval vessels — sometimes entire squadrons — for missions without having the order come down through the chain of command."

[6] Despite the terminology, "Regional Governors" did not in fact govern Regions. "Meet Your Regional Governors" describes newly-appointed Moffs who govern specific Sectors (Moff Tarkin, Governor of Seswenna Sector; Moff Denn Wessex, Governor of Relgim Sector; and Moff Wessel, Governor of Immalia Sector), and specifically says that these "regional governors" received "the honorary title of Moff" (the Imperial Sourcebook states that "Sectors are governed by Moffs"). Threats of the Galaxy explicitly states that "Palpatine installed regional governors, called Moffs, to oversee the galaxy's sectors and exert control over unruly populations, nominally to shore up their defenses against the Separatists." Although the Imperial Sourcebook says that "the title 'regional governor' is commonly used" for Grand Moffs, this must be understood as a colloquial usage in light of the evidence.

The Sector Governance Decree is mentioned in Revenge of the Sith, which reveals that it instituted a system of assigning governors to every planet in the Republic, "arriving with full regiments of clone troops — what they call security forces"; Palpatine described their role as "coordinating planetary defense forces, and ensuring that neighboring systems mesh into cooperative units, and bringing production facilities up to speed in service to the war effort." The Imperial Sourcebook also establishes the basis for the Moff's responsibility to the government and privy council, noting that "a Moff reports to an advisor, with duplicate reports being sent directly to the Emperor."

The parallel of the office of sector governor and regional governor is inferred from the Rebellion Era Sourcebook's previously cited comparison of the role of the Moff to that of the sector governor, and the claim that "the moffs and the senators shared the responsibility of keeping star sectors orderly, prosperous, and obedient to the Empire." The gradual obsolescence of the sector governor is derived from the same source's claim that "elected governors were removed gradually until the moffs held power throughout the Empire."

The specific title "supreme commander" vis-à-vis Sector-based forces is mentioned in Specter of the Past. A secret memorandum from privy counselor Ars Dangor to Moff Tarkin quoted in the Death Star Technical Companion addresses the latter as "Governor Moff Tarkin." The same style is seen in "Soldiers of the Empire!"

[7] The Imperial Sourcebook states that in his capacity as "the being in charge of an entire sector" the Moff "has command over a military Sector Group, and is responsible for the security of the entire sector" and goes on to say that "the Moffs have authority over their sectors, and are responsible for administering the sector-wide bureaucracy," and that they "are known to frequently remold the local bureaucracies, including the sector-wide government, planetary governments (through governors) and even more localized governments, making them more 'agreeable' to the Moff's personal objectives while still adhering to Imperial standards." It notes that governors receive instructions from two sources, "the generally stated policy goals which are distributed by the Diplomatic Service, and [...] direct orders received from the Moff," and "in case of a conflict, the Moff's orders are to be followed"; elsewhere it bluntly states that "the planetary governors of a sector are under a Moff's control." The Moff's freedom to take on a particular governorate is also explicitly stated: "It is not unusual for a Moff to also serve as a governor of a particularly favored world within his sector."

Firepath is a strategy board game played by Darth Vader and Lady Dhol in "Dark Lord's Conscience" (Devilworlds No. 1).

The term "Sector Group" is used in the Imperial Sourcebook to refer both to "all of the military forces assigned to a given sector of space" (both Army and Navy) and to "the total of Naval strength in a sector" (the highest naval echelon, equivalent to the Army's sector army, which "covers all troops in a given sector"). Herein the term 'Sector Command' is substituted for the joint-service Sector Group, leaving the latter term for the Navy echelon.

Imperial Navy and Imperial Army are seen in A New Hope. The stormtroopers are identified as a separate branch of service ("stormtroopers operate independently of the military and answer directly to the Emperor" with "their own chain of command" and "follow the Imperial army and navy at their 'discretion'") in the Technical Journal of the Imperial Forces, and are specifically named as the Imperial Marines in "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation" (Galactic Battlegrounds: Prima's Official Strategy Guide). Imperial Intelligence is identified as a separate branch of service ("an official arm of the military") in the Death Star Technical Companion. The Imperial Sourcebook mentions that Surface Officers Training Doctrine specifically provides for operations in concert with local auxiliaries, with the Imperial regulars in a decidedly superior posture in the relationship.

The Imperial Sourcebook mentions that "no Imperial Ambassador, Grand Moff, Moff, Admiral or Governor General goes anywhere in public without an honor guard of at least 10 stormtroopers," while "Soldiers of the Empire!" mentions that elite stormtroopers are assigned to the "Imperial Guards," in which capacity they serve as bodyguards to "an Executive of the Imperium," and specifically notes "Governor Moff Tarkin's personal guard... 40 men. Lord Darth Vader's personal guard... 12 men," hence the identification of the Moff's bodyguard as being a detachment of an Imperial Guards unit (where 'guards' is a unit designation). The regional governor's direct command of a Marine legion is mentioned in Rules of Engagement: The Rebel SpecForce Handbook, which notes that "a common arrangement is to assign a legion to each branch of sector's Imperial government: one legion for the Army, another for the Navy, and a third to the Moff's discretion (the Moff's Own)."

In A New Hope, Grand Moff Tarkin notes that the dissolution of the Senate means that "the Regional Governors will have direct control," implying an oversight role for the Senate in the affairs of the regional governors and the Imperial State's territorial administration. The Moff's subordination to the Cabinet is only unsupported, but the role of the privy council is stated in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that "a Moff reports to an advisor, with duplicate reports being sent directly to the Emperor."

[8] The territorial definition of a Sector as containing fifty inhabited planets is specifically stated in the Imperial Sourcebook, as is the definition's decay to include "unimaginably large sectors [that] contain vast numbers of inhabited worlds with no regard to limiting factors." The Core Worlds' economic status is stated in "Into the Core Worlds" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1, No. 7), which calls them "the economic engines of the Empire"; the same source establishes quite clearly the difference in the Empire's approach to government in the Core Worlds versus the outlands, calling it a direct result of "the Emperor's policy of showing only a beneficial face to the Core populace," where "there are few signs of suffering, and little evidence of the oppression and tyranny common to more remote worlds languishing beneath the Empire's jackboots." It goes on to say that "since the Core worlds are so important to the Empire, Moffs supervise only a few worlds rather than one entire sector," and "most locate their homes and offices on the most prominent world in a prominent sector," saying that "being assigned a Core World sector is a highly sought-after plum for Moffs." It also defines "the Sticks" as a derisive Core Worlder term for the outland regions.

Kuat Sector is mentioned in Platt's Starport Guide, while Arkanis Sector, which is home the Tatoo system (including Tatooine), is mentioned in Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley.

[9] The Imperial Sourcebook states that "sectors are grouped together into larger territorial entities called regions," and that Regions can "contain from as few as three to upwards of thousands of sectors." It goes on to identify the Galactic Core (i.e., the Core Worlds) as a Region, and states that "regions are governed by Grand Moffs." The specific terminology of Lesser Region, Greater Region, and Galactic Region (and their formal full titles) is unattested, and was developed by Mr. John Vermazen, and is used here with permission.

The identification of the office of governor general with the Region is based on the identification of Nox Vellam as "Governor-General" of the "Bright Jewel System Cluster" in Scoundrel's Luck, with the added note that Yavin IV is within his jurisdiction; however, "Siege at Yavin!" (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 25) establishes that Yavin is in the Gordian Reach Sector, which indicates that the Gordian Reach is a subdivision of the Bright Jewel.

The governor general's rank as a head of state is inferred from the Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook, which states that the ExO of the Corporate Sector Authority is "treated as a political leader abroad and holds a social ranking comparable to an Imperial Grand Moff," by extension making a governor general a member of the same diplomatic grade.

[10] The title "Executive of the Imperium" and the entitlement to an Imperial Guards detachment is derived from "Soldiers of the Empire!" (and supported by the same passage from the Imperial Sourcebook which is hitherto cited to justify the Moff regional governor's own Imperial Guards personal security detachment). The progression from regional governor to governor general is derived from the Hero's Guide Web Enhancement: Character Templates and Prestige Classes, which notes that "if the Imperial Moff does his job well and furthers the aims of the Emperor's New Order, he may live long enough to attain the position of Grand Moff and oversee several sectors in the Emperor's name." The Imperial Sourcebook explicitly states that "regions are governed by Grand Moffs," thus the identification of the title as a special honor for governors general of Regions.

[11] The Imperial Sourcebook states that "the Emperor personally appoints each Grand Moff, and they report directly to him." The Grand Moff's rank as equivalent to a head of state's is in the previously cited Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook. The "Central Committee" as a club of Grand Moffs is unattested, but serves as a basis for the later Central Committee of Grand Moffs, which "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" makes clear was established after the Battle of Endor in 39 rS. In Queen of the Empire, the Central Committee held a secret conference on board the Moffship, explicitly described as "a Mofference."

[12] Grand Moff Tarkin first appears in A New Hope, and is identified as Lieutenant Governor of Seswenna Sector as of 3 rS in Cloak of Deception. He is expressly called a "sector governor" in Revenge of the Sith, and his status as one of the earliest regional governors is confirmed in "Meet Your Regional Governors," while his status as a privy counsellor is inferred from his reminiscences in the Death Star Technical Companion of "my days in the Emperor's court." Tarkin's role as a key ideologue of the New Order is stated in Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope and the Rebellion Era Sourcebook. His term as minister of the interior is unattested, but inspired by the Death Star Technical Companion's mention that he diverted funds from "the departments of System Exploration and Public Works"; his term as a senator is likewise conjecture, based on the claim in Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope that he "appeared untouchable, both in the heat of battle and on the Senate floor." His presidency of Eriadu is unattested, as are the specific offices associated with COMPNOR and the New Order Party. His appointment as a special plenipotentiary for the suppression of the Rebellion is unattested, but based on his command of the first Death Star, in which capacity he explicitly told Darth Vader that "the Emperor has given me a free hand in this matter"; remarkably, his authority to order the destruction of a major Core World has never been questioned in any forum, even by his most ardent critics.

Tarkin's tenure as governor general of the Outer Rim — and with it, the nickname "Pocket Grand Moff" — is unattested, but serves to explain reference to "Grand Moff Tarkin" playing a leading role in the invasion of Kashyyyk in "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation," at a time in which he was known to have been a Moff (Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader); the Death Star Technical Companion is unambiguous that he was a Moff when the Tarkin Doctrine was first submitted (both it and the Imperial Sourcebook quote Imperial Communiqué #001044.92v in its entirety). Dangor is seen to respond to Tarkin's proposal in the Death Star Technical Companion, in which he appoints Tarkin to "complete authority and control of Oversector Outer, which includes most of the sectors considered the Outer Rim Territories"; that his promotion to Grand Moff is different from that of the heads of Regions is explicit in Dangor's statement that Grand Moff Tarkin would be "the first of a new order of Imperial officials." The interchangeability of the terms "Oversector" and "Priority Sector" is conjectured from the inconsistent usage of the Imperial Sourcebook; the distinction being a reflection of polylingualism is unattested.

[13] A privy counsellor's proconsular control over a given region of space is described in the Imperial Sourcebook as being "granted oversight of the administration of systems," implying no coherent incorporation as a separately-governed territory; the specific terms "rector" and "Special Area" are unattested, as is the presumed intellectual relationship with the Oversector (or lack thereof). The Imperial Sourcebook states that "each Grand Moff commands at least two Sector Groups, or the equivalent in other military resources," and that they have "complete freedom to act as they see fit, without giving advance warning to the Moffs or planetary governors of their actions." It adds that "the Emperor personally appoints each Grand Moff, and they report directly to him."

Tarkin's appointment as head of the Outer Rim Territories themselves and not only Oversector Outer is explicitly stated in the Death Star Technical Companion, which calls him "Imperial Governor of the Outer Rim Territories" (Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker calls him "Governor of numerous outlying Imperial territories," implying that he continued to hold several significant governorates concurrently). Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope states that Tarkin was "the Imperial Governor with the most systems under his control."

[14] The expansion of the Oversector system is explicitly stated in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that "the number of Grand Moffs is growing, and the resources given to each Grand Moff is also increasing." Bright Jewel Priority Sector, the newly-bestowed organizational title of the Bright Jewel Cluster System in Scoundrel's Luck, is described in Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds. "The Quelii oversector [sic]" is mentioned in Cracken's Threat Doctrine, while Imperial Center Oversector, its nickname "Sector Zero," Anaxes the "Defender of the Core," and Azure Hammer Command are described in Coruscant and the Core Worlds. Senator Harkon Dell is mentioned by Grand Moff Tarkin as a critic of the New Order alongside Senators Mon Mothma and the Princess Leia of Alderaan in the Death Star Technical Companion. The Senate's continued efforts to hamper the Grand Moffs is based on Tarkin's statement in A New Hope that with the Senate dissolved the regional governors would have "direct control." The 50 million jurisdictions of HIM Other Territories (name unattested) are based on the "colonies, governorships, and protectorates" of The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition.

The criticism of the Oversector as "tightening the grip" is based on the Princess Leia's comment to Tarkin in A New Hope that "the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." Its relationship with COMPNOR's codification of law (mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook) as another manifestation of Imperial invasiveness is conjectural; the Rationalization policies and the attempts at unifying health codes and bankruptcy law are unattested. The Death Star Project dates back as early as 5 rS (seen in Rogue Planet), with a prototype already under construction in 16 rS, when it was inspected by the Galactic Emperor and Governor Tarkin in Revenge of the Sith; consequently, Tarkin's suggestion of a weapon of mass destruction to implement rule by fear of force and Dangor's approval of the proposal must be pantomimed ex post facto justification rather than genuine novelty.

The Dark Empire Sourcebook states that "it had been planned that eventually these adepts would replace the system of Moffs, Grand Moffs and governors, instituting a Dark Side Theocracy [sic]."

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter Seven: The State Services of the Imperium

The Galactic Republic had been composed of over a million sovereign states, each jealously guarding its liberties and prerogatives — and none more so than the Great Powers, the ancient masses of hard and soft power nestled comfortably at the centers of huge constellations of territory and influence. At the formation of the Republic, some of the younger Great Powers had adamantly opposed the creation of any sort of standing government at the Republic level, insisting that the standing committees of the Senate were enough to govern the Galactic Union. Traditionally called "the Anarchy Worlds," they insisted loudly and at great length that the Republic had no ontological value except as a collective of the member states, no more and no less: There could not be any locus of power other than the Senate, as that would constitute an unconstitutional theft of power by an extraconstitutional parasite. In the event, the Anarchy Worlds had been unable to carry the day, but the Founders had found it politic to offer a concession to their fear of any body existing outside the member states. The system finally adopted assiduously avoided investing the permanent government with trappings of statehood, ultimately even denying it the name. Thus it was that the permanent federal government became known as the Republic Authority, a name that would endure for twenty five millennia. In the end, only Palpatine of Naboo possessed the audacity and the power to change it. One of his first acts after acclamation as Galactic Emperor was to issue an Imperial Decree renaming the Republic Authority to the Imperial State. [1]

The Imperial State was composed of the entire executive and judiciary of the Galactic Empire, responsible for the day-to-day enforcement and administration of Imperial law and for the implementation of government policy on matters of "All-Empire" significance. It was a vast body of technocrats and bureaucrats, dealing with every imaginable field of sapient interest or endeavor. The Imperial State had agencies dealing with everything from specific regulations for the transportation of fruit across interstellar space to the circumstances under which an entire species could be lawfully exterminated. Needless to say, the fields of expertise of the Imperial State's employees could vary dramatically, ranging from astrographers cataloguing masses of dark matter to admirals and generals wielding weapons of mass destruction capable of rendering whole worlds uninhabitable — and all of them with a specific place on the Table of Ranks, providing a one-to-one correspondence of grade among each and every one of the Imperial State's employees. An ivory-towered populist, one of Palpatine's favorite boasts — posthumously published in the Sayings of the Incorruptible — was that his Empire had succeeded where the Republic had failed, and overcome "the destructive forces of anomiefication and alienation." "A place for everyone," he was fond of saying, "and everyone in his place." [2]

At the broadest possible level, the Imperial State could be divided into two basic groups: Civilian officials on the one hand, and military and naval personnel on the other. In keeping with the New Order ideal of "Systemic Coherence" — close cousin of the doctrine of organic holistics ("orghol") — these two groups were formally organized into two separate categories, the State Services of the Imperium (SSI) and the Armed Forces of the Imperium (AFI). Pursuant to the closely-related 'Identity Principle,' uniforms and insignia of rank existed for each and every grade of the Table of Ranks, whether in the SSI or the AFI, although there were, of course, a large number of functionaries who were permitted to forego wearing uniform. The AFI wore uniforms in drab, black, or white, and Galactic Emperor's Commissioned Officers carried sabers in formal dress; in contrast, the SSI wore uniforms in gray — hence the common nickname "grayshirt" for an Imperial bureaucrat — and carried daggers in formal dress (the universality of arms was in fact a point of frequent complaint in the Senate, where many felt it was unnecessarily threatening and inappropriate). As befitted the pluralized name, the SSI consisted of a number of subsidiary bodies and autonomous services, including (but not limited to) HIM Civil Service, HIM Diplomatic Service, HIM Court Service, HIM Medical Service, the Cadre, the Corrections Service (ICS), the Labor Service (ILS), the Educatory, the Technocracy, and the Merchant Service. Needless to say, the State Services were administrative bodies comprising the work force of the State, providing the billions of functionaries required for the business of government, and not necessarily agencies of the government; the Educatory did not, for example, create or implement government policy on state universities and institutes of higher learning. Contrariwise, some of the State Services were coextensive with official agencies: The Court Service was the administrative guise of the Magistrature and the Merchant Service encompassed most of the Spacelift Command and the Imperial Fleet Auxiliary, the state-owned part of the Merchant Navy; the ILS and ICS did not even change their names in their capacities as government agencies. Most State Services were orghol-compliant, and were organized along the same lines as the Empire's administrative corporations. [3]

Entry into any of the State Services required an academic proficiency test, although the particular test one took varied according to the service the applicant sought to join (the entry requirements to the Technocracy and the Civil Service being much more rigorous than for the Labor Service, for example), and additional requirements such as educational background and letters of recommendation also varied from service to service; advancement was governed by standardized exams and performance evaluations, although there was an informal practice of preferential treatment for members of the New Order Party and the rest of the "COMPNOR Family." Public servants could be assigned to "home duty" in the central bureaucracy, clustered into hubs on major worlds in the Core, or assigned to "duty abroad" in the Regional Governorates; home duty was generally more prestigious and sought after than duty abroad, leading to a system of 'virtual promotion' whereby functionaries working abroad often worked at and were paid at a level higher than their actual grades on the Table of Ranks — a minor or sub-administrator could serve as director of administration in a colonial governorate while on duty abroad, while a comparable billet on home duty was suitable only for a full administrator or higher (in some locales a directorate of administration carried secretarial rank). Despite the SSI's strict rules on conflicts of interest, it was common knowledge that a clever functionary could profit handsomely from service on duty abroad, if he played his cards right. This led, of course, to the famous "0th Law" of SSI conduct: "Don't Get Caught." The punishments for violation of the 0th Law were swift and harsh, and the whole of the SSI was subject to the oversight of the Imperial Senate and its inspectors general, who rigorously used their senatorial mandate to discover and punish waste, fraud, and abuse. Nevertheless, although subject to the Senate's scrutiny, the SSI did not belong to the Senate; as a corporate body of the Imperial State, they were ultimately controlled by HIM Government, whose policies they were responsible for enforcing. As always, Government involvement implied court entanglement — the Government, needless to say, being a creature of the Privy Council — , the SSI's rules on political noninvolvement notwithstanding. The retiring Secretary General Sir Edmond ha-and-Trel reputedly advised his successor, Dr. the Antilles Mór, "It is well that you take no interest in the intrigues of the court; but the intrigues of the court, alas, take an interest in you." [4]

The headquarters of the several State Services were clustered on Basilica — which, along with the Ministerium, helped solidify the street's status as a metonym for Imperial government — , much as the headquarters of the several Armed Forces were clustered on Via Bellatricis, on the opposite side of the Imperial Palace. And just as Supreme Headquarters Armed Forces of the Imperium had its home at the magnificence of Infinity Heights, the Secretariat General State Services of the Imperium was housed in suitable splendor at Sempiternity Towers. At the very top, however, the symmetry broke down, as there was no single independent head of the SSI; unlike the Supreme Commander, the Chairman of the Coordinating Committee was double-hatted, his primary office being that of Secretary General to the Government, the chief administrative officer of the Minister President's Cabinet and head of the Civil Service. The Secretary General, in his capacity as ex officio Chairman of the Coordinating Committee, took precedence before all other functionaries of the Empire; retiring Secretaries General were customarily created Peers of the Empire. Despite his prestige, however, he did not enjoy quite the same preeminence his counterpart the Supreme Commander did. For one thing, the Coordinating Committee had more members than the Supreme Commander's Committee, as it included the heads of all the State Services — including such prominent officials as the Surgeon General of the Galactic Empire, the Director General of the Courts, and the Superintendent General of the Cadre. Although legally equivalent to the Supreme Commander, the Chairman's place in the Empire was somewhat less formidable, particularly given the much more firmly-established subordination of the SSI to the Government's control.

The senior and most prestigious State Service, HIM Civil Service, provided most of the professional functionaries working in the various ministries, bureaux, and independent agencies in the Imperial State; the general rule was that a public servant belonged to the Civil Service unless he belonged to some other State Service. Members could be found in virtually all of the Imperial State's agencies, performing clerical and administrative duties in the Ministry of Finance and HIM Treasury, the Imperial Records Office, the Imperial Business Bureau, or the Bureau of Science and Travel (BST), or filling more specialized roles in the Imperial Department of Resources, the Imperial Colonization Board, the Bureau of Revenue (often translated as "Imperial Taxation Bureau"), and the Ecological Preservation Bureau. Civil servants were even found assigned to duty in such "technical bodies" as the Imperial Social Planning Office, the Imperial Science Division, and the Imperial Survey Corps (ISC) — although the actual technical duties were usually performed by members of the Technocracy. As they rose in rank, civil servants were often the closest to political power; secretaries of state ranked with but after ministers, and the highest-ranking were assigned as permanent secretaries to the various ministries, overseeing the non-political staff and managing the implementation of government policy. Ministers themselves had uncertain tenure — Cabinet ministers had to resign if the Government fell, and non-Cabinet ministers could be sacked or re-shuffled at the Minister President's pleasure; in contrast, permanent secretaries could only be removed for cause (even portfolio re-shuffles did not dislodge them: the Imperial State's components were highly modular, and a re-shuffle would usually only move a permanent secretary to a different minister's jurisdiction). As a result, senior civil servants often became entrenched within their ministries, more or less indispensable to the smooth running of the ministry's affairs; a canny functionary like Chief Administrator Crela Nen, Director of Administration to HIM Colonial Government for Goroth Prime, could passive-aggressively bring government business to a standstill if she did not get what she wanted. Some went even further; Percévale Rendar da Gier-Hensdayle, Permanent Secretary of State to the Ministry of Land Management, held office for 23 years and made a modest place for himself as a Dirty Hand at court, owning a small silent fraction of his own. [5]

The other State Services were generally not as versatile as the Civil Service, but could nevertheless be found represented in a number of different bodies. Technocrats — the Imperial State's corps of scientists, engineers, and technical experts, not to be confused with "Augie's technocrats" —were nearly as ubiquitous as the civil servants, and HIM Medical Service was well-represented in the Imperial Biological Welfare Division, the Imperial Board of Foodstuffs and Consumables, the Imperial Species Identification Bureau, among others. The Cadre encompassed the Imperial Safeguards Division (ISD), the Marshals Service, and most of the Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations (IOCI). Many public servants of the technical corps and even from the Civil Service itself were assigned to duty with the AFI, serving in the ministerial departments, military hospitals, depots, garrisons, and shore commands. Functionaries were not necessarily assigned to work alongside others of the same specialism, and both home duty and duty abroad could lead one to any of countless different places and career tracks. [6]

After the Civil Service, the best-known corps was HIM Diplomatic Service, which simultaneously provided the Empire's foreign service and colonial administration; the combined functions reflected the doctrine of the "Ecumenical Throne," which held that the Galactic Emperor's authority was universal, and that the countless polities in existence only differed from one another in the degree of integration to the Empire and the manner in which The Throne's authority manifested itself. Consequently, there was no such thing as a truly independent state, and therefore no need for a dedicated foreign service — after all, when Senators were ambassadors, how much of a difference was there really between a dominion and a foreign power? The Diplomatic Service thus had responsibility for relations between the Imperial State on the one hand and the dominions, colonies, governorates, protectorates, client states, and foreign powers on the other. Because each dominion was entitled to a Senator, the Imperial State therefore accredited an ambassador of its own to each dominion, who served as the representative of The Throne to the dominion's own head of state; these ambassadorships were largely ceremonial, and in many cases the same being was accredited simultaneously to a Great Power and to the states in its sphere of influence (in some cases, high commissioners were assigned as representatives of the Government instead of ambassadors as representatives of The Throne). Additionally, every inhabited star system in the Empire was assigned an Imperial diplomatic agent, who served as the senior representative of the Imperial State and was responsible for all Imperial assets permanently assigned to the system. The rank and authority of this diplomatic agent varied according to a number of variables assessed by the Diplomatic Service; the most common types were governors, planetary commandants, consuls general, and prefects. Many of these officials were actually GECOs on secondment from the AFI, leading to the common sight of an Imperial governor or other agent wearing the drab uniform of the AFI rather than the gray of the SSI. Many senior diplomatic servants — including governors and diplomats — declined to wear uniform at all. [7]

Governors were the highest-ranking diplomatic agents, appointed directly (albeit en bloc) by the Privy Council to serve as the Imperial State's principal officer in the territories under their administration — predictably called a governorate — , and thus had actual operational command and control of military assets as well as public service. The nature of a governor's appointment varied according to circumstances: governorates within a dominion's territory were generally restrained, and largely confined to local offices of government agencies and the local garrison, while governorates within HIM Other Territories had near total freedom to administer the local government as they pleased, provided they conformed with Diplomatic Service policy and the instructions of the responsible Regional Governor. On occasion, the Diplomatic Service would assign a colonial governor to serve as "civil advisor" to a client state at the invitation of the indigenous government, but in most such cases where this political fiction was entertained the client government was moribund, leaving the colonial government in de facto control. In most cases, the Imperial governor was merely an additional layer of government above the existing local government rather than a wholesale replacement of it (the practice of "one-upsmanship" vice replacement or reform was commonly seen throughout the Empire). [8]

The governor's staff was also variable; governorates of heavily-populated worlds frequently included a second agent as vice governor or lieutenant governor as the governor's second-in-command (a vice governor was assigned at the same time as a governor and held office under the same commission, while a lieutenant governor was an independent assignment for a fixed term). The governor was assisted by a staff of Imperial civil servants, the most senior of which was the director of administration, and other public servants assigned from the Courts Service, Medical Service, Cadre, Technocracy, and other State Services; every governorate included military and naval attachés and a Customs Office representative, who was responsible for collecting excise and tariff revenues. Additionally, the governor was formally the commander-in-chief of whatever regular and sepoy forces were permanently assigned to his jurisdiction, which occasionally led to embarrassing circumstances: Garrisons were conventionally classified as the general headquarters for a paper corps, and thus had a lieutenant general as commanding general as well as a colonel as garrison commander, but not all GECOs seconded to the Diplomatic Service and assigned as governors were necessarily of general rank (or even Army officers at all). The uncomfortable situation on Galrecau Major was the ultimate example, when Captain the Na-Duke of Valrieu was assigned as governor and was thus inadvertently installed as superior to his uncle, Lieutenant General the Grand Duke of Palran-on-Talray. [9]

Governorates were generally subdivided into prefectures, at which level prefects and sub-prefects acted as the governor's representatives, with delegated authority over military and civil assets. In some cases, no governor was assigned at all, and the territory was administered by a prefect — if the vacancy was temporary, the title was "Pro-Governor" or "Administrator of the Government," as "Acting Governor" was restricted by law to vice governors and lieutenant governors — , assisted by a sub-prefect as second-in-command. Systems whose Imperial presence was chiefly military were assigned planetary commandants instead of governors and commissars instead of prefects, while systems largely lacking in garrisons or other military presence were assigned consuls general and consuls instead. Worlds whose Imperial presence was limited to a single installation were often administered by supervisors — often limited-duty GECOs working on secondment as captain-supervisors or colonel-supervisors. Protectorates were separate jurisdictions under the administration of a protector, who was usually a senior prefect under the supervision of a nearby governor; like most governorates, protectorates typically retained their indigenous governments under the protector's oversight. [10]

Note, however, that governorates were not classified as Subjects of the Union, and did not have the same legal status as Sectors, Regions, Special Areas, and Oversectors. Imperial law rarely took notice of the governorate as such; the Government rarely dictated policy directly applicable at that level, as it tended to think in terms of dominions and Regional Governorates. The governors and other diplomatic agents were not Executives of the Imperium, and did not enjoy the privileges of that status — they were not, for example, assigned personal security detachments from the Imperial Guards, and could not commission officers on their own authority (the ability to appoint Governor's Commissioned Officers was a powerful tool frequently underestimated by those without experience in duty abroad). The Diplomatic Service was, after all, one of the State Services, and its agents were therefore subject to a great deal more restrictions to their freedom of action than the political appointees. These diplomatic agents were hardly comparable to the Regional Governors, Rectors, and Governors General in terms of rank or authority. [11]

Indeed, despite the ability of public servants to passive-aggressively disrupt government business and obstruct government policy, the SSI were not generally regarded as a locus of power. The majority of the well-known figures of the Palpatinic Era spent little if any time as public servants; although the SSI was respected and well-compensated, it simply did not have the glamor of the AFI or politics, not least because politicians were obviously freer to play at politics and intrigue (indeed, the Government frequently entangled the SSI and the state agencies in their intrigues, resulting in the bureaucracy frequently working at cross-purposes to itself). Even the prestigious governorship — the governor was styled "His Excellency" and enjoyed the personal style of "Right Honorable" while in office — with its control of whole worlds and divisions of soldiers, could be deprecated by the ruling class: There were tens of millions of governors and other principal diplomatic agents, and even the Diplomatic Service itself often did not bother to address them by name, sending form letters directed to the office and saluting them as "Sir or Madam." Certainly very few governors (who were largely exempted from the rules on political non-involvement) ever achieved even Dirty Hand status at court. Those public servants who did rise to fame — or infamy, as one likes it — tended to come from the Technocracy, including such luminaries as Dr. Bevel Lemelisk, Dr. Umak Leth, Dr. Ohran Keldor, Dr. Lira Wessex née Blissex, Dr. Raegar, and Dr. Borborygmus Gog. Even these famous technocrats were not, for the most part, career public servants; most had been lured into the Empire's service from the private sector, although there were exceptions — Bevel Lemelisk may have entered the service at the rank of master engineer after a successful career at Calthrop Gir, but Umak Leth had started his career at the rank of junior engineer and rose to the office of Chief Engineer to the Galactic Emperor before replacing Lemelisk altogether as Master of Imperial Projects, the head of the Technocracy. [12]

Overall, the SSI were respected and respectable, but no one ever mistook them for being the avenue of achieving honor and influence in the Empire. For those desirous of glory or power, the opportunities were not in the State Services of the Imperium, but rather in their twin brethren: The Armed Forces of the Imperium.

Endnotes

[1] The Founders are mentioned in "House of Tagge Sides with Loyalists" (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 49).

[2] The bureaucracy's responsibility for affairs on an "All-Empire" basis is derived from the Imperial Sourcebook's description of government agencies having "authority over a specific subject matter throughout the galaxy." The transportation of substances and commodities is regulated by the Ministry of InterGalactic Transit (sic), mentioned in "A Free-Trader's Guide to Sevarcos" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1, No. 2), while the lawful extermination of a species on the basis of "overwhelming undesirability" is governed by the Dangerous Species Act, mentioned in Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races.

Palpatine-as-populist is implied by Kinman Doriana's claim that "Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is the champion of the common citizen" in "Hero of Cartao" (Star Wars Insider No. 68 - 70), despite his background as an academic of noble lineage. The Rebellion Era Sourcebook is even more explicit, calling the New Order "a populist movement" in its early years, formed of "grassroots organizations" and "citizen groups" encouraging local involvement in government (the most prominent such group eventually becoming the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order, or COMPNOR).

[3] The Imperial armed forces' drab, black, and white uniforms are seen in A New Hope; the use of officer's sabers in dress uniform and in ceremonials is seen in The Hutt Gambit and the Star Wars Sourcebook, respectively. An "Imperial Civil Service uniform" is mentioned in passing in Tapani Sector Instant Adventures, while the Diplomatic Service appears in the Imperial Sourcebook. The Galactic Republic's Merchant Service is mentioned (as a counterpart to the Republic's Military and Exploratorion Services) in the Star Wars Encyclopedia; it is assumed that the Merchant Service was retained after the transmogrification into the Galactic Empire.

The distinction between the individual corps of public servants and the actual agencies themselves is implied by the Imperial Sourcebook, which states that "the Imperial bureaucracy runs each Imperial agency."

[4] The privy council's and COMPNOR's involvement in controlling the public service is derived from the Imperial Sourcebook's claim that "the Emperor's advisors and COMPNOR effectively control the massive Imperial bureaucracy." The Senate's oversight of the public service is based on General Tagge's objection in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker to the dissolution of the Senate, asking "how will the Emperor maintain control of the Imperial bureaucracy?"

Galvoni III was identified as "site of an Imperial bureaucratic hub" in Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope, which hosted a branch of the Imperial Records Office, whose "restricted computer network" contained classified information about the Death Star Project, suggesting the importance of these bureaucratic hubs to the Imperial State. Bureaucrats' service at the Sector level under the Regional Governors is established by the Imperial Sourcebook, which mentions that "the Moffs have authority over their sectors, and are responsible for administering the sector-wide bureaucracy, which must answer both to the local Moff and the Imperial bureaucracy."

The grade of minor (junior to the grade of supervisor) is seen in "Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88" (Tales of the Bounty Hunters); the office of director of administration is seen as senior civil servant in the Colonial Government of Goroth Prime in Goroth: Slave of the Empire.

[5] The existence of the Ministry of Finance is implied by the identification of "Finance Minister Gahg" in "The Path to Nowhere" (Dark Times Nos. 1 - 5). The Imperial Records Office is mentioned in Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope, and the Imperial Business Bureau in "Underworld: A Galaxy of Scum and Villainy" (Star Wars Insider No. 89). The Bureau of Science and Travel (BST) is seen in the Rebellion Era Sourcebook. The Imperial Department of Resources is mentioned in Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and the Imperial Colonization Board in The Truce at Bakura Sourcebook. The Bureau of Revenue and the Imperial Taxation Bureau appear in Galaxy Guide 8: Scouts and The Far Orbit Project, respectively (their identification as a single body with two names is unattested). The Imperial Social Planning Office and the Imperial Science Division are mentioned in "The New Empire: How Can You Help?" (Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition, Star Wars Insider No. 84) and Galaxy of Fear: Army of Terror, respectively. The Imperial Survey Corps (ISC) is mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook. The Ministry of Land Management appears in the Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook.

"Self-serving Imperial Bureaucrat" Crela Nen, the Director of Administration of the Colonial Government of Goroth Prime, and her successful campaign of passive-aggressive resistance to the policies of her superior, the Rt. Hon. Marsh Limoth, Colonial Governor of Goroth Prime, are seen in Goroth: Slave of the Empire.

[6] The Imperial Biological Welfare Division (a front for the Imperial Biological Weapons Division) was seen in Galaxy of Fear: Planet Plague. The Imperial Board of Foodstuffs and Consumables and the Imperial Species Identification Bureau were mentioned in in "A Free-Trader's Guide to Sevarcos" and "The Evacuation of Jatee" (Supernova), respectively. The Imperial Safeguards Division (ISD) was mentioned in the Star Wars Sourcebook, and the Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations (IOCI) in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim.

[7] An Imperial Senator's diplomatic rank of ambassador is mentioned in A New Hope; the practice of sending an Imperial Ambassador to member states despite their status as part of the Empire is seen in the Lords of the Expanse Gamemaster Guide (an ambassador is accredited to the Tapani Sector), which also mentions the normative practice of sending ambassadors to the Empire's client states. The Diplomatic Service is mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook, which states that "Imperial policy exists in two different forms for a governor," as there are "the generally stated policy goals which are distributed by the Diplomatic Service" and "the direct orders received from the Moff"; the alternative form Imperial Diplomatic Corps is used in "Velmor: Royalty and Rebellion." The offices of planetary commandant, consul-general, and prefect are seen in "A Free-Trader's Guide to Sevarcos," Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters, and Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley, respectively.

The practice of seconding military and naval officers as governors, planetary commandants, and prefects is conjectured to explain the frequent appearance of these officials in military uniform and displaying military rank. The practice of not wearing uniform is demonstrated by Malvander, Governor of Solem, and an anonymous Imperial diplomat in Sacrifice" (Empire No. 7) and Heroes and Rogues, respectively.

[8] The Imperial Sourcebook claims "planetary governors are Imperial agents who represent the Empire's authority on a single world," that "usually that representation extends to an entire system, giving him jurisdiction of all the planets orbiting a single star," and that he has "command of all Imperial troops garrisoned on his planets"; their appointment by the privy council is described as being "appointed by the Emperor's advisors, although a few are just holo-approvals of candidates the Emperor has chosen." The existence of Imperial governors even in the member states' territory is derived from the claim in "Into the Core Worlds" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 7) that "the governments of the Core Worlds have gone along willingnly with a nominal Imperial occupation" and that "Moffs, as well as governors, preside over the semi-independent world governments." The colonial government as de jure advisors to the local government of an independent state is seen in Goroth: Slave of the Empire, where the Colonial Government officially "serves an entirely 'advisory' function" pursuant to the 'invitation' of the native government, the P'Dar'Ken, which remained "sovereign and supreme."

The Imperial Sourcebook states that "governors are expected to let a planetary government run its own affairs unless the local course of action puts the planet in conflict with Imperial goals"; in The Truce at Bakura the Bakuran legislature and government continued to function under the supervision of Imperial Governor Wilek Nereus. The DarkStryder Campaign indicates that this continuity of self-government may well end up as moribund as a colongial government's official host, as General Herron Dade, the "head of Gandle Ott's planetary militia," intended to use "his popularity to position himself for a bid for the presidency of the long-dormant domestic government."

[9] Marja Lang is identified as an "Imperial Vice-Governor" in The DarkStryder Campaign, in which she is seen to assume office as "Acting-Governor" after the Imperial Governor of Gandle Ott fled the planet. Contrariwise, Hamman Flatt is identified as a "Lieutenant Governor" in Force Commander. The distinction between the two offices is unattested. Captain Zeta Traal was seen as military attaché in charge of the Imperial delegation to the Kingdom of Velmor in "The Last Jedi!" (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 49). Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters states that by law "every starport" was assigned a Customs officer.

The garrison as headquarters of a paper corps is described in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that "the corps HQ is the basis for the Imperial garrison," and uses the paper corps system as the skeleton for a system of "organizing points for rapid mobilization." These garrisons are also home to "additional tech, medical, science and diplomatic service personnel" assigned to perform "diplomatic, trade and medical functions" that are "nominally outside" the commanding general's authority. Note that the Imperial Sourcebook incorrectly claims that majors general command corps; majors general command divisions and lieutenants general command corps (hence the equivalent ranks général de division and général de corps d'armée, respectively).

[10] The prefect as deputy of the governor with military and civil authority is seen in both Galaxy Guide 7: Mos Eisley and "Missed Chance" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 7), while the sub-prefect is seen in Galaxy Guide 10: Bounty Hunters and Galaxy Guide 11: Criminal Organizations. Prefect Gerom was seen as head of government on Namore in Heroes and Rogues, with no mention of a governor. In "A Free-Trader's Guide to Sevarcos," Planetary Commandant Velpar Raftin (a major in Imperial Intelligence) is said to desire the elevation of his administration to a "full governorship"; the same source identifies the planetary commandant's subordinates as Imperial commissars. Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters states that "each planet in the [Minos] Cluster has a consulate, with an Imperial Consul-General in charge of it," and although "there are few Imperial officials stationed at the consulates, and their duties are very limited," they nevertheless retain "the formal authority to take over the local government"; the rank of consul as subordinate to a consul general is unattested.

The grade of supervisor as head of a particular office is seen in "Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88," with Supervisor Gurdun (his aide, Minor Relsted, is promoted to supervisor after Gurdun's transfer); the grade of captain-supervisor is seen in Splinter of the Mind's Eye, in which Bin Essada, a Regional Governor seated at Gyndine, offers to promote Captain-Supervisor Grammel, head of the garrison and secret mining colony on Mimban (Circarpous V) to "Colonel-Supervisor Grammel" if he were successful in detaining certain high-profile rebels. Protectorates were mentioned alongside colonies and governorates in The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition.

[11] The status of Executive of the Imperium and their personal security detachments from the Imperial Guards are mentioned in "Soldiers for the Empire!" (Star Wars Official Poster Monthly No. 4). The ability to appoint locally-commissioned officers is conjectured from the claim in The New Essential Guide to Characters that Fleet Admiral Natasi Daala's commission was "an unofficial promotion outside of Coruscant's naval hierarchy, but a legitimate one among Tarkin's forces in the Outer Rim" (her actual permanent rank was corporal, according to Daala herself in Darksaber).

[12] The bureaucracy's entanglement in intrigue is mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that the advisors — who "effectively control the massive Imperial bureaucracy" — are "allowed to play their competing interests off each other, often resulting in the bureaucracy's various agencies working at cross-purposes." The number of governors is based on the fact that they are assigned on a system basis, and The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, mentions that there are in excess of fifty million "colonies, governorships, and protectorates" in the Empire. The governor's style of "His Excellency" and the stock salutation "Sir or Madam" are seen in "Sacrifice," although the Diplomatic Service is referred to as the "Imperial Administration Section."

Dr. Bevel Lemelisk, Umak Leth, Dr. Ohran Keldor, Lira Wessex (née Blissex), Dr. Raegar, and Borborygmus Gog first appeared in Galaxy Guide 5: Return of the Jedi, the Dark Empire Sourcebook, Children of the Jedi, the Star Wars Sourcebook, "Battle for the Sunstar" (Ewoks), and Galaxy of Fear: Eaten Alive, respectively. Leth's initial rank of Junior Engineer and later position of Chief Engineer to the Emperor are mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook, as is his replacement of Lemelisk as Master of Imperial Projects.

THE NEW ORDER IN POWER

Chapter Eight: The Armed Forces of the Imperium

The consensus of all historians is that the Galactic Empire was the most militarily powerful entity in the history of the known universe. Strato-psychohistorians at the Delgar Institute performed an exhaustive review of military preparedness in the history of the Galactic Union (RM2032.1-4), reporting (among other findings) that the Republic "was at all times in its history possessed of overwhelming military and naval superiority over any state known to have existed at the same time," and "was empirically capable of repelling any incursion into its territories, subject only to political mobilization." Nevertheless, the same report found that the Empire's military-naval strength exceeded the Republic's by every measure at every point in the latter's history; indeed, RM2032.1-4 contains extensive documentation demonstrating conclusively that the "de facto Empire (inclusive)" was more than five times as powerful as the Republic at its height (for the purposes of RM2032.1-4, Palpatine's war-mobilized Republic in the Clone War was judged to be "a pre-existant manifestation of the Empire proper," according to a rather complicated battery of psychohistorical criteria). In one of the most startling findings in the history of applied psychohistory, the Delgar calculated that it would have taken at least three and a half identical versions of the Republic at its height to have posed a serious threat to the Empire's perpetuation-of-structure. In layman's terms, the Empire was invincible. As famously described by Ebenn Q3 Baobab, the two-time Laureate of the Empire, it was thanks to the Empire's status as the most overwhelming superpower ever known that Palpatine "bestrides the galaxy like a colossus." [1]

The Armed Forces of the Imperium (AFI) were simultaneously the Empire's source of power and its means of applying it, both mine and mint. Composed of the Imperial Navy, Imperial Marines, Imperial Army, and Imperial Intelligence, the AFI represented the single largest investment of resources in the whole of the Imperial system. After re-establishing the armed forces under the Republic during the Clone War, Palpatine continued to increase military/naval funding across the board for years, to the point that the AFI in 36 rS were twice as large as they had been in 34, and more than seven times larger than the defense establishment had been at the start of the Clone War in 16 rS. As befitted their status as the Empire's terrible swift sword, the prestige associated with service in the AFI was considerable — so much so, in fact, that in common speech "the service" referred by default to the AFI. Those desiring power and glory pursued their goals by way of the service; to the cunning, the AFI were a route of swift ascent into the heights of the ruling elite: The large majority of Moffs had military experience, and the easiest way for an ambitious scientist or engineer to obtain funding and fame was to ensure his work had military applications. Competition could be cut-throat, but to the victor went considerable spoils. The single largest item on the Imperial budget, the AFI represented an investment of quadrillions of credits and trillions of employees (in fact, the defense appropriation of 32 rS was larger than 98% of all incorporated states' gross-domestic product). [2]

The AFI performed a number of functions within the Empire. First and foremost, they served to protect the Empire in general (and the Imperial State in particular) from violent disorder, to include invasion, insurrection, and terrorism. Secondly, they were responsible for defending the "the integrity of the Union" against Separatist holdouts from the Clone War (although largely a dead letter, this mandate did retain some residual validity, as pockets of Separatist resistance actually remained well beyond the Imperial Period). Thirdly, the AFI maintained the Galactic Emperor's Peace against disturbance by "piracy and warlike disruptions" (technically they were not supposed to enforce normal criminal law, except when assisting the Customs Office). Fourthly, the AFI enforced the Imperial State's jurisdiction over "unlawful interposition of pretended state authority" (the Empire claimed all the territory ever held by the Republic, and thus justified expansionism in the name of revanchism; where that claim did not apply, the Imperial State frequently either invented a prior claim, or justified its conquest under the doctrine of the Ecumenical Throne). Additionally, thanks to the dissolution of the Gendarmerie, the AFI frequently assumed the role of policing the outlands regions of the galaxy, particularly when the Regional Governor declared martial law. This last role is probably the service's most controversial, as it effectually made the colonial wing of the service into permanent internal occupation forces. [3]

The members of the service were divided into two basic categories: officer and enlisted. Officers were required to have a university-level education, and underwent grueling indoctrination at the service academies — including such famous institutions as the Imperial Naval Academy, Raithal Academy, the Military Academy at Cliffside, Carida, the Naval Academy at Prefsbelt IV, and the Space Academy — that left them the most highly-trained professional military cadre in galactic history (one study found that the average subaltern under the Empire had received a curriculum vitae equivalent to that of a field grade officer under the late Republic). The compensation for this herculean effort was the inimitible privilege of a commission "to exercise all lawful authority on behalf of The Throne" (hence the term "Galactic Emperor's Commissioned Officer," or GECO); in formal dress, GECOs carried sabers, a privilege unique to them and the College of Moffs. By law, officers were promoted at regular intervals except where disqualified for statutory advancement by subpar fitness reports or having received disciplinary action (such as nonjudicial punishment or conviction by court martial). Officers at senior/field grade and above were entitled to state-provided dachas on comfortable resort worlds like Sochi, among other conspicuous benefits (the same were extended, of course, to all SSI functionaries at equivalent places on the Table of Ranks). Two controversial practices substantially broadened the career possibilities open to GECOs: secondment and thirdment. Under the practice of secondment, an officer could be released from normal duties to take an assignment elsewhere in the Imperial State or even in allied governments (thus GECOs could be detached to serve as prefects, protectors, and governors, normally civilian jobs). Under the practice of thirdment, an officer could take indefinite leave of the service and take up virtually any career he liked, retaining his rank and precedence but surrendering most of his official benefits (in essence, he enjoyed the distinction of officerhood without its responsibilities). [4]

Enlisted personnel underwent basic training and then additional specialized training in their particular technical field; like the GECOs, "His Imperial Majesty's Enlisted Man" (HIMEM) was statistically better trained, better equipped, and better supported than in any previous military known to history. The range of specialisms available was staggering, and the AFI boasted of a vast cadre of technical experts in everything from sensors to sapping to spacemanship. The Empire spent lavishly on the training of its enlisted men, to the point that one study found 40% of all master chief petty officers, sergeants major, and master technarchs had the equivalent of two and a half master's degrees from a Class II university (and few jobs could command a relatively higher starting salary than a retired master chief boatswain's mate at a shipping company). Senior HIMEMs — an ungrammatical construction, to be sure, but one found used uncritically in official documentation — were designated noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in recognition of their greater responsibility as the 'middle management' and 'blue collar' leadership of the service; they carried cutlasses in formal dress and had the unique right to apply "corporal admonishment" to any citizen in the Empire who was not rated as a GECO or equivalent on the Table of Ranks — in essence, a senior NCO had the right to physically strike almost anyone, without the requirement of justifying himself. [5]

Promotion was swift for both GECOs and HIMEMs; those who demonstrated sustained superior performance were steadily advanced, and there were more than a dozen policy initiatives in place to simultaneously reward successful performers and encourage them to pass along their models of success. In short, the Empire aggressively pursued a policy of institutionalizing excellence. The converse was also true: The AFI were ruthlessly harsh in punishing misconduct or incompetence, often employing the death penalty in cases that would have hardly qualified as capital offenses under most other systems. Despite the initiatives in place for rewarding unorthodox successes, there were a number of cases in which mavericks were summarily executed for deviation from doctrine, only to have their deviations subsequently adopted as doctrine after review by court of inquiry. A study by the Imperial Navy's Bureau of Naval Personnel (BuPers) found that 15% of all deaths on active duty in 37 rS were reported as being the result of capital punishment. Of these, only 54% were reported as the result of conviction by general court martial, and 29% were reported to have been the result of captain's mast or admiral's mast under warlike conditions. This left some 17% of all executions in the Navy in 37 to be classified as having been the result of "summary justice" (the most commonly cited justification was "shot while in commission of mutiny," a kangax-court justification on par with the Correction Service's "shot while attempting to escape" or the ISB's "shot while resisting arrest"). In a Navy with billions of officers and sailors, BuPers simply did not have the time or resources to investigate all executions; they were automatically logged as "provisionally sanctioned, pending review," but the vast majority of cases never underwent review, and the extent to which personal animus and vendetta resulted in state-sanctioned murder will probably never be known. It is known, however, that the more political role of the officer community was accompanied by a significantly greater statistical probability of execution for an officer than for an enlisted man (one of the only measures by which the balance of mortality favored the enlisted community). [6]

Imperial High Command

Operational control of the AFI was exercised centrally by Imperial High Command, an independent body established by Imperial Decree in 16 rS to fill the role played by the Supreme Defense Council and the War Council Advisory Panel during the Clone War. The High Command made its home at Supreme Headquarters Armed Forces of the Imperium (SHAFI), a vast palatial chateau at Infinity Heights in Imperial City; officially, it was comparable to the Imperial Secretariat — located in the Secretariat General State Services of the Imperium at Sempiternity Towers — except that the Secretariat remained subordinate to HIM Government. The High Command, in contrast, did not; although it was obligated to "pay due regard" to HIMG policy and to refrain from interfering with HIMG's administrative control of the AFI, High Command was not subject to the Minister President's control, or even that of the Lord President of the Council. Charged by its constitutive Decree with final authority in all matters related to the Empire's military/naval establishment, the High Command answered only to The Throne or to the Ruling Council. This freedom of action was deliberately designed to insulate the head of the High Command from the appointment intrigues of the Court of Courts, and to counterbalance the authority of the Privy Council in military affairs. The head of the High Command was, needless to say, officially titled Supreme Commander Armed Forces of the Imperium (SCAFI) — the full title was rarely used outside of legal documents, and he was almost invariably referred to as simply the undisambiguated "Supreme Commander" — , who was advanced to "special grade" for the duration of his appointment (lord high admiral and lord high constable for the Navy and Army; the hypothetical ranks of lord high marshal and lord high logothete also existed in case a Marine or Intelligence officer were ever appointed — which never happened); in addition to his operational authority, the Supreme Commander was automatically sworn of the Council and was ex officio Chairman of the Select Committee on Collective Defense and Security (which had a stranglehold on nomination of GECOs for permanent advancement to flag/general/directorial rank). His vast authority over the AFI led to the frequent description of the Supreme Commander as "military dictator" or "shōgun" of the Empire. A list of Supreme Commanders reads like an executive summary of Who's Who, including such warlords as Terrinald Screed, the Great Prince Felijp of Philippic-in-Cranstôme, Dr Tahafut Ibn al-Dajjal, and Darth Vader; post-Endor occupants of the office included Teren Rogriss, Mitth'raw'nuruodo, and Master Jedi Luke Skywalker. [7]

From the state-of-the-art command suite of SHAFI, the Supreme Commander presided over the largest and most powerful military force ever assembled. He chaired the twice-weekly meetings of the Supreme Commander's Committee — the other members were the Deputy Supreme Commander, the First Space Lord and Chief of Naval Operations, the Commandant General Imperial Marines, the Chief of Imperial General Staff, and the Superintendent General of the Ubiqtorate — to review the Empire's state of military readiness and to coordinate efforts to meet operational requirements, and was aided by the Surpreme Commander's Staff, whose staff directorates tracked every commitment of Imperial forces at regiment-strength and above on every world in the Empire; indeed, Grand General Malcor Brashin first developed the Battlefield Holographic Control Interface (BHCI) as an integrated command-and-control tool during his tour as Director of Operations (I3) on the Supreme Commander's Staff (and used it to oversee a successful planetary suppression on Telganix III from a Navy amphibious command ship two hundred light years away). Additionally, the Supreme Commander was the appointing authority for the AFI's independent commissions like the Imperial Military Oversight Commission and the Imperial Commission on the Conduct of the War, and could exert considerable influence on appropriations and procurement. Most famously, the Military Oversight Commission had joined with the Senate Budgetary Committee to block the Navy's plan to replace nearly all of its inventory of Victory-class Star Destroyers with the newer Imperial-class, and remained stubbornly opposed even in the face of the Navy's use of its silent fractions, bribery, and intimidation tactics — until, that is, the Supreme Commander, Lord High Admiral Screed (the notoriously caustic-mouthed "God of Space Battles" and "Grandfather of the Grand Admirals") intervened and famously "crammed the ImpStar down the Commission's throats" (in the words of Senator L. N. Jerjerrod, a retired admiral and vice chairman of the Senate Naval Subcommittee). On another occasion, Ibn al-Dajjal vetoed a proposal by the Navy's Bureau of Naval Aviation (BuAv) to modify its interceptors with hyperdrives, despite the fact that the proposal had been an internal Navy matter; in a startlingly blunt memorandum to the 1SL/CNO, the Supreme Commander reminded Admiral Wermis that the High Command's policy was to embark carrier space groups on board capital ships, and submitted in colorfully metaphorical language that Wermis rein in BuAv lest he find himself in need of a proctologist to dislodge Ibn al-Dajjal's boot. [8]

High Command did not have direct control over regular or reserve forces assigned to "colonial service," where they fell under the operational command and control of the Regional Governors and the regional and oversector Governors General (although the High Command retained the ability to supercede the normal chain of command and assume direct control of colonial-service forces); instead, it exercised supervisory authority over large-scale operations conducted by the colonial authorities. This was not, however, a great handicap, as the largest single concentration of military/naval might in the whole of the Empire was not assigned to colonial service at all — the Combined Strategic Forces Command (COMSTRATFORCOM) contained nearly half the total firepower of the Empire, and all of it was under the direct command and control of the High Command; it was a joint-service command, composed of four enormous 'component commands' (the Combined Starfleet, Marine Forces Strategic, the Mobile Strategic Striking Force, and Directorate General Strategic Intelligences), and had in and of itself more manpower and ordnance than the entire Galactic Republic had mobilized halfway through the Clone War. Officially, COMSTRATFORCOM existed to ensure a mobile striking force was held in strategic reserve to promptly reinforce colonial-service forces whenever necessary, ensuring that the Empire's vital infrastructure were protected and the Imperial State were never caught flat-footed by a military emergency. Unofficially, the overwhelming firepower of COMSTRATFORCOM existed to ensure that none of the Empire's governors on "service abroad" ever thought to challenge the Imperial State. Even Grand Moff Tarkin, the dictator of the Outer Rim and "twice, thrice, four times a Governor," could not withstand the High Command's sledgehammer; the Group of Imperial Forces in the Outer Rim and Crimson Mace Command — the unified combat commands assigned to the Outer Rim Territories and to Oversector Outer, respectively — have been rated by RM2021.6-3 as containing more firepower than even the Group of Imperial Forces in the Core and Azure Hammer Command, yet a separate study RM2037.8-2v found that COMSTRATFORCOM was more than eight times more powerful (ironically, the official motto of the High Command was "Peace Is Our Profession"). It has been speculated by the Revisionist school that one of Tarkin's greatest motivations in creating the Death Star was to give himself a concentration of firepower equal to that of COMSTRATFORCOM, something he would find necessary if he were to usurp The Throne from the 'sickly' Palpatine of Naboo. [9]

The Imperial Navy

The Imperial Navy was the senior service of the Armed Forces and central to the Empire's strategic planning — and knew it. The Navy controlled not only the Empire's vast starfleet of enormously powerful warships, but also the majority of troop transports and the logistics train, as well as the Empire's single largest inventory of weapons of mass destruction. The Ministry of the Navy was one of the key portfolios in the Government, and Naval Command the one place even the Imperial Senate never dared to send its armies of inspectors general on a frontal assault. The Navy's silent fractions controlled a number of portfolios — including Intergalactic Transit and Space — and with them, a number of nominally independent agencies like the Imperial Survey Corps (ISC), the Space Rescue Corps (SRC), and the Customs Office; a powerful bloc in the Senate, the so-called Gun Club, was ready to enthusiastically vote for anything the Navy's "fleet faction" might propose (one Senator even admitted he didn't even read Navy funding proposals before voting for them; the Princess Leia of Alderaan famously complained that "you don't count votes for Navy appropriations, you weigh them"). Naval Command was accustomed to a certain degree of splendor; the First Space Lord and Chief of Naval Operations (1SL/CNO) — who enjoyed the unique rank of Admiral of the Navy — effectively reigned as "King of All Known Space" from the palatial majesty of Unity Gardens, the Navy's headquarters complex built by Gehirn and Seele at the far end of Basilica (with the Commodore ISC and Commodore IFA under his thumb, the 1SL/CNO's only real rival was the Commandant General of Imperial Customs, a pale imitator). The Imperial Naval Academy was the most prestigious school in the Empire, and the Navy War College and Naval Postgraduate School each received applicants from more than six million worlds every year. The average Imperial admiral's command was more than ten times what it had been under the Republic. The Navy's official motto was "Service, Fealty, Fidelity," but the unofficial motto around Unity Gardens was the much less modest "It's Good to Be the King." [10]

The Ministry of the Navy managed such administrative tasks as funding, upkeep of "installations and environments," and management of civilian personnel (detailed from the SSI). The rest belonged to Naval Command, and the 1SL/CNO fiercely guarded his prerogatives — and in any case, thanks to the common practice of 'jelligatoring' (i.e., the practice of 'laundering' one's clientele so as to keep ties of patronage 'invisible'), more often than not the 1SL/CNO either 'owned' the Minister of the Navy, or else had enough clout that there was no question of his questioning his nominal subordinate's decisions. It was not the Minister of the Navy who was King of All Known Space, after all. There was no formal Navy general staff; instead, the Board of Admiralty administered the Navy in a somewhat more collegial fashion. The president of the board, 1SL/CNO, was joined by the Second Space Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel, the Third Space Lord and Chief of Naval Procurement, the Fourth Space Lord and Chief of Naval Supplies, the Fifth Space Lord and Chief of Naval Aviation, and certain other officers like the Director of Hypermatter Propulsion, the Surgeon General, and the Astrographer. Beneath the Board of Admiralty the Navy was divided into subject-matter branches, the Line Branch, Flight Branch, Fleet Support Branch, and Support Service Branch, which were further subdivided into bureaux concerned with such matters as deck, logistics, administration, flight, engineering, technical services, ordnance, gunnery, communications, biology, and astrogation. Together the Board of Admiralty and the four branches smoothly administered the largest and most powerful space force in history. [11]

The Navy was unimaginably vast, containing millions of warships, and countless more support ships. The standard Sector Group consisted of 24 Star Destroyers ("major assets"), 1,600 lesser warships ("submajor assets"), and 776 support ships; it was divided into operational commands, which deployed and operated naval forces (e.g., 603rd Superiority Fleet and 730th Assault Fleet), and type commands, which trained, equipped, and maintained naval assets (e.g., Space Force Jehinnom Sector Group and Aviation Force Quatre Ports Sector Group). If the Sector Group was a coequal partner with the Sector Army and (nominally) the Sector Marine Force and the Sector Intelligence Branch in forming a Sector Command, there was no question that the Navy's component command to COMSTRATFORCOM was by far the dominant partner; the Combined Starfleet, composed of enormous numbered starfleets, had enough firepower to disintegrate a habitable planet. In addition to the warships of the Imperial Starfleet, the Navy owned a vast constellation of hospital ships, fleet tankers, container ships, stores and replenishment vessels, ammunition ships, and forward repair ships operated by the Imperial Fleet Auxiliary (IFA), whose sailors were actually civilian merchant mariners employed by the Ministry of the Navy subject to naval discipline and obligated to serve under warlike conditions. Needless to say, the Navy also controlled millions of space stations, shipyards, naval bases, and other installations belonging to the Shore Establishment, and what's more, controlled the Empire's Spacelift Command, an enormous aggregate of ships owned or chartered by the Imperial State to provide spacelift and space transportation to the whole of the AFI and SSI (i.e., the IFA provided replenishment, supply, and support to the Imperial Starfleet, and the Spacelift Command performed the same role in parallel to the Imperial State). While the crews of the Spacelift Command were merchant mariners employed either by the Imperial State or private corporations, there was no question who was their master: The Admiralty had an iron grip on nearly all bulk freighters in the galaxy, and at the Navy's height approximately one-third of all freight moved by large cargo ships was war matériel, under the Navy's control. Still the Admiralty's lust for power was insatiable; when Senate appropriations and naval authorized strength augmentations could not satisfy their hunger, they turned to bait-and-switch tactics to build an ersatz navy, revising the merchant marine academies' curricula to incorporate combat training on naval equipment, and the traditional merchant navy uniforms were abolished in favor of new uniforms almost indistinguishable from the AFI's. Millions of merchantmen owned by the Imperial State were converted into armed merchant cruisers (AMCs), often embarking combat starfighters, and were sent given nominal cargos to carry through pirate- or insurgent-infested space (such cruises were in fact functionally combat space patrols). With mercantile officers and men already trained to Imperial standards with much the same skills and qualifications as their naval counterparts, it was often a mere formality when the Navy outright impressed them into service. Not even the quasiautonomous Bureau of Ships and Services (BoSS), only nominally subordinate to Minispace and the Empire, did not fully escape the Admiralty's bullying. The 1SL/CNO was, after all, the King of All Known Space. [12]

The Imperial Marines

Simultaneously the least political and the most distinctive branch of service, the Imperial Marines barely existed outside of their barracks and white Impervium plastoid armor. Unlike the other branches, the Marines owned no silent fractions, and indeed there was not even a specific portfolio administering their affairs (for the most part, they cerdibacked off Mininav). The professional head of the Marines was the Commandant General Imperial Marines (CGIM), who bore the unique rank Captain General of the Marines and was assisted by the Commandancy Staff. Unlike the other service chiefs, he was appointed directly by The Throne and could not be removed except by letters patent; he submitted a weekly accounting of the Marines operations to the Galactic Emperor, and reported in person to the Ruling Council (he and the Supreme Commander were the only officers of the service to appear regularly before the Serenissimus). The CGIM was a member of the Supreme Commander's Committee, but rarely attended — and when he did, it was usually because some matter or other had a direct impact on the Marines. Central Command's home at Headquarters Imperial Marines was an aesthetically simple affair; although it was suitably cyclopean in dimensions, many reported finding The Citadel almost underwhelming, especially because it was practically on top of the splendor of Unity Gardens and the spectacular zero-gravity fountains of its namesake gardens. The Marines made a conscious effort to be low-key, and even their organization remains something of an historical dead-zone; although declassified records have shown that a significant fraction of the Marines' total manpower was composed of clones decanted by the top-secret Directorate of Hatcheries and Conditioning (DHC chiefly produced "GeNode" type clones, although other processes were also used early on), to this day there remains little to no documentation of their logistics and combat support system. They did not even have a dedicated medical branch; Naval Biological Group provided all healthcare, and helped to sell the (totally unsubstantiated) idea that the Marines had discontinued the use of clones after the Imperial Senate abolished the Grand Army of the Republic and passed the Biotics (Cloning and Bioengineering) Restriction Act — in essence a beefed-up version of the wartime Decree E49D139.41 — outlawing cloning ("except for purposes of species perpetuation, as regulated by the responsible Ministry of the Imperial State") in the wake of the Clonemasters' Revolt. [13]

Pollux Hax, Palpatine's generalissimo of propagandists, masterminded the multimedia campaign that successfully convinced the galaxy that the old clone troopers were a thing of the past, praising the selfless heroism of the Grand Army of the Republic and at the same time unironically excoriating the Jedi for the "immorality" of their "abominable" support for "human slavery" in having commissioned and led the Grand Army (Hax managed to carry on for over a decade without anyone ever thinking to ask why human slavery was more "abominable" than any other kind — it was with good reason he was called "Grand Admiral of Spin-Doctors" and the "Palpatine of Public Relations"). As an unpaid consultant, Hax was also maestro of the superbly-organized 'grassroots' movement against cloning which had forced the Senate's hand, and oversaw the enormous government secrecy effort which simultaneously kept the public only dimly aware of the Empire's use of human slavery and the continued widespread use of cloning in the form of the ubiquitous Marines. Indeed, it was the success of these so-called "Clone Campaigns" that prompted Mon Mothma's famous grudging acknowledgement of Hax as "a genius — a sick, twisted, deceitful genius; an unscrupulous, unprincipled, untrustworthy genius; a despicable, noisome, unctuous genius — but above all, a genius." As a result of his success, the Commandancy Staff was able to carry on for decades without bothering to explain to anyone what precisely was the origin of the Imperial Marines' manpower; indeed, extant records indicate that the Commandant of Personnel (G1) was never even asked the question by any reporter or journalist; the one time the Commandant of Public Affairs (G9) was asked during testimony before the Senate Committee on the Armed Forces, the incumbent, Legion General Guy à Parnasse, mumbled something recorded by the committee stenographer rather unhelpfully as "(incoherent response)." [14]

Nevertheless, the Marines were a formidable force. The officers commissioned from the Military Academy at Cliffside and the riflemen trained at Imperial Military Training Base, Carida, were some of the finest in the galaxy, and were noted for their rigorous, almost fanatical, devotion to duty. The Marines were the favored service when it came to security and "loyalty police": They were ubiquitous as embassy security and personal security detachments, and Marine Detachments were assigned to every ship in the Navy and every garrison in the Army. A detailed study by the Imperial Academy of Science and Methodology found that while local citizens may sneer and curse at masters-at-arms and military policemen, relatively few were so bold as to even look at provost marshal stormtroopers askance (it is theorized that the dehumanizing effect of the T.I.E. Armored Spacesuit is partly responsible for this difference in attitude). The Marines were the shock troopers of the Empire, famous for striking first, striking fast, and striking hard; what's more, they were also reputed as the most versatile, with whole special-operations divisions specifically trained for operating in hostile environments as varied as the imagination could conceive (including but not limited to sandtroopers, snowtroopers, spacetroopers, scout troopers, seatroopers, bombtroopers, radtroopers, magmatroopers, airtroopers, underminers, and mine troopers). Superior performers received transfer to the elite Imperial Guards units in the Core, such as the famous Guards Legion I, Guards Legion XII, and Guards Legion CXII; the Guards legions in turn provided the elevated recruitment ground for still more rarefied heights, such as the Storm Commandos (Thirteenth Imperial Guards Regiment), the darktroopers of the Black Watch (1st Battalion, Seventh Imperial Guards Regiment), and the scarlet-cloaked Imperial and Royal Guard (1st Brigade, Imperial Guards Legion I); from the Royal Guard were drawn the deadliest and most elite troopers in the whole of the galaxy, the Sovereign Protectors (1st Battalion, First Imperial and Royal Guards Regiment). Together with the Navy's Star Destroyers and TIE fighters, the stormtrooper — and with him, the Imperial Marines' official motto "Morituri Eum Salutamus" — remains one of the most iconic images of the Galactic Empire. [15]

The Imperial Army

Vast beyond the ability of the human mind to truly grasp, the Imperial Army was the largest terrestrial fighting force ever assembled in the whole of galactic history. Like the Marines, the Army was prepared to fight in any environment known to man, from the scorching heat of Serapis's lava fields to the crushing depths of Iskalon's oceans; the Army's proud boast of having the training, motivation, and tools to fight and win on any surface or subsurface in the universe was borne out by a long and impressive list of battle honors whose fields included everything from the asteroids of Teradnix to the subterranean tunnels of Glorfayne. The official motto of the Imperial Army was the somewhat opaque "Tenka Fubu" (an archaic phrase in High Galactic), but this was far less common than the decidedly less friendly unofficial motto "Peace Through Superior Firepower." Nor was this an idle boast; when Colonel General Dmitri Balan was lost his patience after months of stubborn resistance by the Partisans in the mountains of Gor on Walkan-bi, he ordered an artillery strike which literally flattened the entire mountain range — and Balan's 603rd Imperial Army Group did not even control the largest concentration of heavy artillery in the Army. The Navy may have controlled the largest stockpile of WMDs in the Empire, but it would be a fatal mistake to underestimate the firepower of the Army, which was perfectly capable of rearranging continents in its pursuit of the Empire's goals. It is a well-known fact that sightseers who visited the Army Command's headquarters complex at Triumph House (located opposite Unity Gardens on Basilica) often described it as a palace fit for a king; this was not a coincidence. The professional head of the Army, the Chief of Imperial General Staff (CIGS) — who bore the unique rank Marshal General of the Armies, and was dual-hatted as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces (CINCFOR) — was popularly nicknamed "King of Kings Ruling Over Rulers" for the sheer number of heads of state who had surrendered to his forces. The decidedly imperious tone of the CIGS's nickname and the majesty of his headquarters was noteworthy in that — unlike many other such nicknames in the Empire — they trickled down to his subordinates. Army officers, and especially graduates of the Army's premier school, the highly prestigious Raithal Academy, were known throughout the Empire as "Little Kings" (in contrast, Naval officers were simply "Nominals," an ancient nickname whose origins are lost). The tradition was manifested elsewhere, as well. Prisoners of war were commonly called "His Majesty's Guests" (not, contrary to popular belief, a reference to the Galactic Emperor), and rocket artillery units frequently adopted the name "Royal Mail" (i.e., their profession was the prompt delivery of packages on the King of Kings' behalf). The remnants of the Gor mountains were henceforth known as the King's New Tennis Court. [16]

The Ministry of War managed the Army's administration in much the same way Mininav did for the senior service (and the Minister of War had much the same relationship with the CIGS that the Minister of the Navy had with the 1SL/CNO); in addition to Miniwar, Army silent fractions typically owned the Munitions, Colonies, and Industry portfolios, and jelligatoring was as rampant among the senior Little Kings as it was among senior Nominals. But the King of Kings was decidedly more autocratic than the King of All Space, and instead of a collegial board like the Admiralty, the Army itself was run by the strictly top-down Imperial General Staff (IGS). Where the Space Lords and bureau chiefs were nominally equals, the CIGS's subordinates were unambiguously inferior vice, deputy, and assistant chiefs of the IGS, in charge of such offices as personnel, intelligence, operations, logistics, war plans, communications and autoprocs, and civil affairs; in most cases, the office chiefs continued to use such traditional titles as adjutant general, quartermaster general, and surgeon general. In addition were certain subject-matter commands dealing with specialized fields like special operations, medical, military engineering, signals, research & development, training & doctrine, security, and legal affairs. Like the Supreme Commander's Staff, the IGS formed a distinct corps of GECOs within the Army; graduates of the Command and General Staff College Nimur Chabir alternated between command of units on colonial duty and service on the IGS, simultaneously strengthening Army Command's hold on its disparate forces — no mean task, considering the authority of the Regional Governors and the Governors General over the forces within their areas of responsibility (which left Army Command naturally suspicious of the entire College of Moffs) — and ensuring that the IGS itself was composed entirely of professional military experts with extensive experience both in combat and in staff work. The work load was ferocious; Little King's working for the IGS often worked twelve to fourteen hour days, drafting reports and contingency plans, conducting detailed studies, and managing enormous dockets of flimsiwork. The War Plans Office (G5) had case scandocs prepared for some seven million different war scenarios; some of them were sufficiently advanced as to have qualified as doctoral theses in military science. The IGS has been regarded by many strato-psychohistorians as the most potent weapon in the Army's entire arsenal. [17]

Unlike the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Marines, the Army was largely structured for war of attrition and occupation rather than war of maneuver. Consequently, it was not nearly as flexible; because of the Army's larger organizational mass, it took considerably longer to mobilize for deployment (with the natural side effect that once it got moving, it was proportionately more difficult to halt). The reverse side to this coin was that the Army's logistics train and its ability to reinforce its units were similarly subject to the force of momentum; it was a great deal easier to move a numbered starfleet or Marine Expeditionary Force from one Sector to another than it was to shift a numbered army or army group. To compensate for this, the IGS instituted a policy of widespread use of the sepoy model, whereby Imperial GECOs and NCOs were seconded to auxiliary militaries to form a professional cadre facilitating integration into the Imperial system (the model was used sporadically by the Navy, and was exceedingly rare in the Marines and Intelligence); service as "military advisors" with the sepoy forces was less prestigious than service in the AFI proper, and to compensate these "Native" officers and NCOs for the loss in prestige, they received additional pay and allowances, and frequently served in positions several grades higher than their actual permanent ranks, as when Lieutenant Colonel Pal Gernadon served as a general of infantry (equivalent to an Imperial major general) in the Galrai Protectionary Force. It was fairly common for corporals and sergeants to serve as "Native" sergeants major or warrant officers, with more senior NCOs serving as subalterns, company officers as field officers, and field officers as general officers; members of the auxiliary militaries who distinguished themselves could become Governor's Commissioned Officers (GCOs), and serve with the AFI proper. Additionally, the Army aggressively pushed for allied militaries to integrate, reserving millions of slots in its finest training institutions, in a bid to standardize military practice throughout the Empire. These policies would eventually come to full fruition with the rise of the "bait-and-switch" strategy during the Civil War and beyond. [18]

Imperial Intelligence

Whereas the other branches projected images of themselves covered in glory and honor, Imperial Intelligence went out of its way to appear as sinister as possible. Intelligence officers and men demonstrated peculiar behavior in public; in conversation with outsiders, they would often casually reveal an unsettling familiarity with people's personal affairs (most famously when a deputy director testifying before the Senate riposted a question about Intelligence's funding by blandly mentioning certain questionable charges appearing on a hostile Senator's most recent bank statement). They made cryptic responses to simple questions, used peculiar terminology, and frequently implied that they know far more than they let on about just about any subject. "The All-Seeing Eye" (as it was often known) made no effort at presenting a friendly face. Even Intelligence's motto was decidedly more unpleasant than its counterparts'; where the others made grand claims of fidelity or strength, Intelligence opted for the unsettling "Semper Te Spectat" (the unofficial motto was equally dissonant: "Out of Sight, Out of Mind"). Intelligence made frequent use of its rights under various Decrees and orders in council to decline to answer inquiries from the Senate about funding and operations, and the professional head of the service, the Superintendent General of the Ubiqtorate — the actual title was rarely used outside of official documentation, as most referred to this officer by his unique rank of Director of Imperial Intelligence — rarely appeared before the Senate Committee on the Armed Forces. With its 'black' budget and close ties to the Ruling Council and the College of Moffs, Intelligence had little need of placating the Senate; what's more, its controlling interest in the Interior and Information portfolios made it unwise for a politician with something to hide to meddle in Intelligence's affairs. Although the allegations were never proven, Intelligence was accused of routinely feeding incriminating or embarrassing materials on its critics to the holomedia. Intelligence Command played dirty, and it played for keeps; few Senators cared to venture anywhere near its headquarters, the Panopticon. Even there, Intelligence was different; where Naval Command and Army had palatial headquarters complexes at Unity Gardens and Triumph House and the Central Command had a largely functional complex at The Citadel, Intelligence Command's headquarters were contained in a single building, an featureless black monolith on the northern stretch of Basilica (and featureless it was: there was absolutely nothing on the surface, no external antennae, vents, windows, or even doors). The Panopticon's size was prodigious, but it was its shape and appearance that made it famous: Millions of citizens reported feelings of unease, discomfort, and even fear and nausea at the mere sight of it, leading to rumors that Intelligence was using hurlothrumbic gases or mind-control waves to enhance the monolith's sinister appearance — and declassified records have revealed that the Panopticon was deliberately constructed according to precise specifications to cause visceral psychological distress in as many species as possible. No one was ever seen to enter or exit the Panopticon, thus leading to the famous stack of subpoenas left piled out front. Further enhancing Intelligence's reputation for unnatural awareness, no Intelligence officer was ever late to a court or Senate hearing, despite the subpeonas being left obviously undelivered in front of the building. [19]

Imperial Intelligence differed from the other branches in that it was relatively young. The Imperial Navy and Imperial Army were "upgrades" of the Republican Navy and the Republican Army, while the Imperial Marines were descended from the Grand Army of the Republic. In contrast, there was no single Republic unified intelligence service handling all disciplines of intelligence (espionage, sabotage, covert operations, cryptography, &c.) the way Imperial Intelligence did for the Empire; the Republic's intelligence needs were performed by a community of agencies, with little to no communication or coordination with each other. The deficiencies of this system were painfully clear by the time the Count of Serenno's Separatist movement had appeared, and with every indication the Senate had no intention of fixing things, Armand Isard, Director, Senate Bureau of Intelligence — "Palpatine's Left Hand" — arranged a private meeting with his counterparts the Administrator of the Republican Security Organization, the Chairman of the Interstellar Consortium on Technology, and the Chief of the Special Acquisitions Branch of the Library of the Republic, where they agreed to pool their resources and establish a secret steering committee to provide leadership and direction for the entire community. Thus was born the Ubiqtorate, whose full membership remains unrevealed even to this day (records remain unclear as to how many of the "Silent Four's" subordinates were aware of the secret steering committee). Over time, the Ubiqtorate evolved into a secret society, with some of its members having no official role at all; Ubiqtorate members spread out, infiltrating corporations, universities, banks, and even governments (in 45 rS, it was discovered that Corulag's Senator Foghorn Ashton of Ashton-on-Rhyne, the eccentric Ranking Opposition Member of the New Republic's Council on Security and Intelligence, had been a member of the Ubqitorate for 30 years). There was no general staff to oversee Intelligence; the Ubiqtorate controlled strategic direction and policy, which was distributed to the branches anonymously (the Superintendent General was the only acknowledged member of the Ubiqtorate, and both Isard and his successor, his daughter Ysanne Isard, variously pretended that they were merely mouthpieces of the Ubiqtorate, that they were the entire membership of the Ubiqtorate, or that the Ubiqtorate did not exist; rumors abound that the Minister of Security, Intelligence's counterpart to Mininav and Miniwar, was also always a member). Beneath the Ubiqtorate were the autonomous divisions, the Inquisitorius, the Bureau of Adjustments, the Internal Organization Bureau (IntOrg), the Analysis Bureau, the Bureau of Operations, the Bureau of Intelligence, the Sector Plexus Bureau, and the Bureau of Regulation. Beneath these branches were the subject-matter branches, dealing with such matters as internal security and counterintelligence, signals intercept, cryptanalysis, interrogation, surveillance, espionage, assassination, counterinsurgency, and counternarcotics. [20]

The All-Seeing Eye was the most notorious among its brethren in the AFI. For one thing, it was the only branch of the AFI that was openly comfortable with its decidedly unfriendly role: The Assassination Branch was openly unapologetic about its mandate to kill people outside of combat (even bounty hunters employed by the Office of Criminal Investigations were supposed to take their quarries captive unless it proved impossible), and Destabilization Branch (Destab) made no pretense that its function was anything but "taking the fabric which holds a people, society or government together and unraveling it." On one of the rare occasions he appeared before the Senate, the longtime Sub-Director (Operations), Executive Director Sir Miklos haut Rezhdenyei, stated quite matter-of-factly that the Bureau of Operations had the largest stockpiles of hurlothrumbic agents, hallucinogens, psychoactive drugs, and truth serums in the known universe. Interrogation Branch's use of psychic probes, hypnotic suggestion, and mind-weakening drugs was the subject of widespread (and accurate) rumors, and the dealings of the Inquisitorius were the stuff of nightmares; other rumors (equally true) circulated of secret torture chambers and detention camps, including the notorious Lusankya penitentiary, ultimately revealed to be on board a Super Star Destroyer secretly buried in the cityscape of Imperial Center about fifteen kilometers west of the Panopticon — nor was the Lusankya the only nasty surprise kept hidden by Intelligence, who was also responsible for selecting and screening the population imported to Palpatine's narcotic paradise world of Byss. Despite the existence of laws expressly prohibiting it, it was common knowledge that Intelligence routinely spied on Imperial citizens and employed a vast network of billions of informants and informers. More so than any other agency of the Imperial State, Imperial Intelligence routinely and flagrantly violated Imperial law, engaging in countless crimes and atrocities ranging from unlicensed bio-experimentation on non-consenting sapient beings to outright murder and cultural annihilation (in one case, Intelligence's cloak-and-dagger intrigues resulted in the extinction of an entire species by the inadvertent destruction of its gestalt consciousness; data from the incident resulted in the successful creation of a psychocidal weapon of mass destruction known to have been used at least 38 times). As the Revisionist school has long maintained, Intelligence got away with it for decades because their behavior had left most Senators uncomfortable with the thought of confronting them. So long as Intelligence's outrages remained in the periphery or maintained plausible deniability, the Senate's cognitive bias kept them off the political radar. It was all there in the unofficial motto: "Out of Sight, Out of Mind." [21]

Endnotes

[1] The Republic is described in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker as being "like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack." The Empire's superiority in terms of hard power is derived from The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition's claim that Palpatine "used political threats and vague promises of foreign invasions to spearhead the most massive military build-up the Known Galaxy had ever seen" (the Imperial Sourcebook quotes "The Imperial Army — A Guide to Army Training for New Recruits" as saying that the Imperial Army is "the largest army that the galaxy has ever seen"). The identification of the Clone War era Republic with the Empire (despite the legal change not yet having taken place) is seen in "The Search Begins" (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 68), in which the Mandalore (né Fenn Shysa) comments that "when Palpatine made his move to set up a Galactic Empire, the Government o' Mandalore sent us inta the Clone Wars on the Emperor's side."

Psychohistory is defined in Isaac Asimov's Foundation as "that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli," where "the human conglomerate is sufficiently large for valid statistical treatment"; its existence within the Star Wars universe is unattested.

Ebenn Q3 Baobab is mentioned to have been two-time Laureate of the Empire in the Galactic Phrase Book & Travel Guide. His description of Palpatine is paraphrased from English playwright William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

[2] The unattested name 'Armed Forces of the Imperium' is preferred herein to the canonical 'Imperial Armed Forces' (mentioned in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook); it is based on the occasionally-used British name 'Armed Forces of the Crown' and the term 'Executive of the Imperium' mentioned in "Soldiers of the Empire!" (Star Wars Official Poster Monthly No. 4). The stormtroopers — specifically said to be a separate branch of service from the "Imperial army and navy" in the "Technical Journal of the Imperial Forces" (The Official Star Wars Technical Journal No. 2) — are identified as the Imperial Marines in "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation" (Galactic Battlegrounds: Prima's Official Strategy Guide), and Imperial Intelligence is called "an official arm of the military" in the Death Star Technical Companion.

The Rebellion Era Sourcebook notes that after his acclamation as Galactic Emperor, Palpatine "increased military budgets across the board, from research and development to recruitment." The armed forces' massive growth after the Battle of Yavin is derived from the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook's claim that "since the destruction of the Death Star, the Emperor has shifted the focus of his limitless military and industrial power almost exclusively toward crushing this upstart Rebellion; as a result, the Imperial Armed Forces have nearly doubled in strength."

The Core Rulebook describes Imperial officers as being "admired, respected, and in some cases, feared," and Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope adds that "those that distinguish themselves [...] can go on to become the authority over entire star systems, and consequently become entitled to all of the many fringe benefits accorded the position." The Hero's Guide Web Enhancement: Character Templates and Prestige Classes desribes Moffs as being "drawn from the upper crust of the Imperial military," and that "for the shrewdest and most ambitious officers [...] the rewards are well worth the risks."

Strike Force: Shantipole establishes that the 194-million-credit Nebulon-B frigate costs "less than one twentieth of the price of an Imperial Star Destroyer" (i.e., no less than 3.88 billion credits), and Specter of the Past intimates that the Imperial Starfleet included at least twenty-five thousand Star Destroyers. To wit, the Armed Forces spent more than 97 trillion credits on the purchase of Star Destroyers alone, not counting the costs of fuel, ordnance, and maintenance, let alone the cost of training and supporting ship's companies to crew them, or the expenses implied by a support infrastructure (to say nothing of the cost of other warships, support ships, fighters, bombers, and other small craft, and the entire body of the Imperial Army, Imperial Marines, and Imperial Intelligence).

According to the Imperial Sourcebook, the Imperial Army stations no fewer than "774,576 troops and 1,180,309 personnel in total," indicating a lower limit of 4.7 billion soldiers on garrison duty (the Empire contains at least two Regions of "thousands" of Sectors). These figures' unsatisfactory nature is illuminated by Coruscant and the Core Worlds, which claims that Kuat Drive Yards' main shipyard alone "employs billions of beings."

[3] The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, Second Edition states that Palpatine "used political threats and vague promises of foreign invasions to spearhead the most massive military build-up the Known Galaxy had ever seen." Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-Sections states that "the Imperial Starfleet will justify its existence in unending war against Separatist holdouts, dissident rebels, and even, it is rumored, deterring barbarian invaders from outside the galaxy." Star Wars: The Visual Guide says that "the Imperial Navy's key directive is to combat space piracy and transport military personnel," and Pirates & Privateers notes that "piracy provided an excuse for many of the Empire's excesses: increased shipbuilding (ostensibly to suppress pirates), restriction and increased registration of civilian ship's weapons (to cut the flow of arms to pirates), garrisoning of worlds (to provide security against pirate raids), and even increased voluntary enlistment (hundreds of thousands of young people signed up to "Join the Crusade against Piracy and Restore Order to the Galaxy," to quote an early recruitment poster)." It goes on to say that "the Empire seeks to assert and maintain control of all known space," that "aside from responding to the threat posed by the Rebel Alliance and hunting it to extinction, the Empire also seeks to control and assure safe passage of commerce," and that "protecting civilians from the dangers of space remains a primary Navy mission — piracy has traditionally been the target of Navy attention when no overt military threats loom."

The Armed Forces' role in law enforcement is less explicit. Pirates & Privateers notes that "Imperial controlled systems are patrolled by Imperial Customs ships and Sector Rangers, as well as whatever Naval forces are in the area"; it goes on to say that "the duties of a patrol force include law enforcement, planetary customs support, search and rescue, orbital boarder patrols, general security patrols, and on-station hyperspace jumps zone duty," and that "increasingly the Empire is assuming these duties, but few system governments are thrilled at the idea of leaving their security in the hands of the remote and uncaring Empire" (the descriptor "remote" implies that the rise in Imperial policing is in the periphery rather than the Core). The use of martial law to supercede normal governance is derived from Children of the Jedi, in which the Will cites the Senatorial Amendments to Constitutions of New Order (Decree 77-92465-001) as establishing that "all military offensives shall be considered under law as states of emergency, and subject to the emergency military powers act of the Senate."

[4] The Core Rulebook states that most Imperial officers are "inducted straight into officer training academies, instructed in doctrine, leadership, and tactics, and then awarded commissions"; The Far Orbit Project establishes that these academies offer "both Army and Navy undergraduate and graduate programs." The Imperial Sourcebook identifies the Army's as Imperial Army Officer Training Academies (foremost among them the Raithal Academy) and the Navy's as Sector Naval Academies (foremost among them the Imperial Naval Academy); "Into the Core Worlds" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 7) reveals that both Raithal Academy (along with its "sister school" Corulag Academy) is a "branch of the Empire-spanning Academy" (note that the Academy par excellence lacks any disambiguation). The Military Academy at Cliffside on Carida was the premier Marine service academy, first clearly seen in Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire. The Star Wars Sourcebook mentions the Imperial Naval Academy on Prefsbelt IV, while the Imperial Space Academy is mentioned in Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama (both the Star Wars Encyclopedia and A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Third Edition conflate the Space Academy with the Academy proper).

Imperial commissioned officers — the term "Galactic Emperor's Commissioned Officer" is unattested — are described as carrying sabers at ceremonials in the Star Wars Sourcebook (a "Naval sword") and The Hutt Gambit (a "ceremonial officer's saber"); in the latter, the breaking of the officer's sword is part of the ceremony of degradation for an officer dismissed in disgrace. Officers' automatic advancement is derived from Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope, which notes that "unlike some military organizations, promotion of Imperial officers is mandatory within a certain amount of time, unless adequate proof of incompetence or dishonesty exists" (the Star Wars Sourcebook describes naval aviator T. Alvak's advancement to "Flight Leader" by a promotion board, which may be required for early advancement)."Soldiers of the Empire!" mentions that retired stormtroopers are generally sent to the "Troopers' Rest camp on the holiday planet of Sochi" (the Star Wars Sourcebook also describes "designated Imperial R&R [rest and recreation] planets"); the practice of bestowing dachas on senior officers is unattested.

The practice of secondment is conjectured to explain the frequent appearance of officers in civilian posts.

[5] The Imperial Sourcebook describes Navy basic training as taking place at "fleet camps," and Army basic training at "drop camps" ("You're in the Army Now!", The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 2, sets Army basic training at "basic training camps" instead). Specialty training for the Navy took place at "advanced schools for further education in the technical specialties of their assigned branches" (Imperial Sourcebook), and for the Army at "advanced training centers" and "special environment operations camps" ("You're in the Army Now!"

The rate of master chief petty officer is seen in Death Star; the rank of sergeant major is seen in Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire. The rating of boatswain's mate is implied by the existence of the warrant officer rank of boatswain ("Bosun"), as seen in The Far Orbit Project. The rank of master technarch (the Intelligence equivalent to master chief and sergeant major) is unattested (as is, for that matter, the term "His Imperial Majesty's Enlisted Man").

[6] The swift advancement of the Armed Forces is demonstrated in The Empire Strikes Back (in which a post captain is advanced to fleet admiral), "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation" (in which two corporals are advanced to first sergeant), and (most strikingly) in The Stele Chronicles and TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide (in which a naval aviator is advanced from first obtaining his commission to post captaincy within rather less than one year).

The Imperial Sourcebook states that "it is not unknown for a commander to be summarily executed for his violation of Surface Operations Training Doctrine, and then have his methods evaluated and subsequently adopted as new doctrine."

[7] The Imperial Sourcebook mentions the "Imperial military high command" as one of the groups that "can seize control of sector group fleets at any time." The term Imperial Command is seen as a number of sources (e.g., the Star Wars Sourcebook), as is High Command (e.g., "The Longest Fall," The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 11). Its role as a replacement for the War Council Advisory Panel (mentioned in Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Guide as having been "responsible for the deployment of clone specialists" during the war) and the unattested Supreme Defense Council is conjectural, as is its specific place in the Imperial system of command and control.

The title Supreme Commander is first mentioned in Dark Empire, in which Luke Skywalker is said to have "taken his father's [Darth Vader's] place as the Emperor's protégé and Supreme Commander of the Imperial forces" (capitalization in original); the Supreme Commander's role as head of the High Command is conjectural. The expansion "Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet" is cited for Fleet Admiral Gilad Pellaeon (of the Imperial remnants in the Outer Rim Territories) in Specter of the Past, but this is a more restrictive title, and the unattested form SCAFI is preferred herein for its closer identification with the original description.

High Admiral Terrinald Screed first appeared in "Tail of the Roon Comets" (Droids); his role as Supreme Commander is conjectured from Rebellion, which describes him as "formerly the Emperor's right-hand man and a distinguished military commander" (the Star Wars Encyclopedia adds that he was "one of the Emperor's top aides during the early days of the Empire." Admiral Teren Rogriss's tenure is unattested, but inspired by his command of the large Imperial campaign to reconquer the late Warlord Zsinj's holdings (mentioned in Starfighters of Adumar). Grand Admiral Thrawn's place as Supreme Commander is conjectural (his official position in the Empire by the time of his campaign in The Last Command has never been clarified).

[8] The Battlefield Holographic Control Interface (BHCI) is Grand General Brashin's pet project in Force Commander, although its specific use and origin here is unattested (as is Brashin's staff service on the High Command).

The Imperial Military Oversight Commission and the Imperial Commission on the Conduct of the War are both mentioned in the Star Wars Sourcebook, although there is no canonical relationship with the High Command; the Military Oversight Commission and Senate Budgetary Committee's opposition to the Imperial Star Destroyer is described in the same source, which notes that the Navy carried the debate by use of "a combination of bribes, political pressure and a rash of mysteriously-crushed tracheas" (note that the official description of this conflict was over the design and construction of the Imperial class; the treatment here revises this to its mass production, as Revenge of the Sith: Incredible Cross-Sections establishes that the ship was already in service as the Imperator class prior to the formal creation of the Empire). Screed's role in the controversy is unattested.

The Imperial Sourcebook describes an Admiral Jerjerrod testifying at the "Senate Security Hearings, Naval Subcommittee, Procurement Panel" during "the days of the Old Republic." The context makes clear that this testimony took place before the Clone War, making it highly improbable he is the same man as Moff Jerjerrod from Return of the Jedi; his retirement and subsequent service as an Imperial Senator are unattested.

The Star Wars Sourcebook adds that "some of the Empire's top designers have criticized the decision not to go ahead and give the new ship [the TIE interceptor] hyperdrives, but Imperial Command has a long-standing commitment to Star Destroyer-based starfighters."

[9] The Imperial Sourcebook notes that "Imperial military high command" is one group that "can seize control of sector group fleets at any time."

The Star Wars Sourcebook notes that "much of the Imperial Navy is permanently deployed in reserve in the Galactic Core, ready to swiftly respond to any threats, anywhere" (the Star Wars Encyclopedia goes further, saying that "all told, the Empire built more than 25,000 Star Destroyers, holding half of them on reserve in the Galactic Core to protect key military, industrial, and political systems" and "could strategically deploy the ships anywhere at short notice"). Goroth: Slave of the Empire mentions "a task force of Star Destroyers" appearing to depose the unduly independent "Trans-Nebular Sector Moff," whereupon "the majority of the task force quickly moved on" because "there were other provinces that needed the same 'shock treatment' as the Trans-Nebular Sector," detaching "a small force that would become the core of a new sector fleet" (i.e., the task force was sufficiently large and powerful as to overwhelm a Sector Command, and then to detach the core of a new Sector Command before proceeding to campaign elsewhere).

Azure Hammer Command is identified as the military/naval component of Imperial Center Oversector in Coruscant and the Core Worlds.

Tarkin's desire to usurp the throne of the Galactic Empire is mentioned in a number of sources (e.g., The Essential Guide to Characters). The specific strategic strength assigned to the central strategic force is derived from General Dodonna's remark in A New Hope that the Death Star wielded firepower "greater than half the Starfleet."

[10] The Imperial Sourcebook notes that "the need for a TIE escort carrier became apparent after the Battle of Ton-Falk," whereat "two Imperial frigates and a Dreadnaught were lost due to, as Naval Command reported, 'inadequate TIE support'"; it also mentions that "following the Battle of Yavin, Naval Command experienced an exaggerated but understandable case of phobia concerning Rebel starfighters." In both cases, Naval Command is seen to have the final word in the construction of new ship classes; its position as the overall command apparatus of the Imperial Navy is conjectural.

The Imperial Ministry of InterGalactic Transit (sic) is mentioned in "A Free-Trader's Guide to Sevarcos" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal Vol. 1, No. 2), and the Imperial Space Ministry in Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters. The Imperial Survey Corps (ISC) is mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook, and the Space Rescue Corps (SRC) in Heroes & Rogues.

The Imperial Naval Academy (location classified) is mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook, as is the fact that "an admiral in the Imperial Navy commands forces over 10 times as great as an admiral did during the Old Republic." The motto "Service, Fealty, Fidelity" is mentioned by Fleet Admiral Holt at an "Academy cadet indoctrination speech" quoted in the Imperial Sourcebook.

[11] The Admiralty is mentioned in Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope, which comments that "no longer is the Admiralty just a stage before a healthy retirement or the first step toward the lucrative military consulting and procurement offices." Its specific role at the head of Naval Command is conjectural (the full name "Board of Admiralty" is unattested, as is its composition). The Line Branch (Deck, Logistics, and Administration Divisions), Flight Branch (Flight), Fleet Support Branch (Engineering Division and Technical Services), and Support Service Branch (Ordnance, Gunnery, Communications, Biological, and Astrogation) are all mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook.

[12] The Imperial Sourcebook states that "a Sector Group can be expected to contain at least 2,400 ships, 24 of which are Star Destroyers, and another 1,600 combat starships," then adds that "thousands of Sector Groups are at the Emperor's command as he seeks to bring the galaxy firmly under his control," while elsewhere it mentions that there regions "can contain from as few as three to upwards of thousands of sectors" (emphasis in original). The Star Wars Encyclopedia says in turn that "all told, the Empire built more than 25,000 Star Destroyers, holding half of them on reserve in the Galactic Core to protect key military, industrial, and political systems" (hitherto treated herein as belonging to the Empire's mobile strategic force). Seeing that thousands of Sector Groups implies the existence of no fewer than 48,000 Star Destroyers deployed to Sector commands, an additional force of no fewer than 48,000 Star Destroyers must have existed in strategic reserve, to wit, the Empire at its height boasted of no fewer than 96 thousand Star Destroyers alone, plus at least 3.2 million more "combat starships" and 1.5 million support ships (this latter body of more than 4.7 million ships being only those deployed to Sector Groups; it remains unknown what ratio of Star Destroyers to lesser warships and support ships was maintained for the mobile strategic forces). It should be noted that this does not take warships larger than the common Imperial Star Destroyer into consideration, and assumes that there is only one Region with two thousand Sectors (even if only one Region has "thousands," it could contain significantly more than merely two thousand). Revenge of the Sith reveals that a coalition of two thousand Sectorial senators was insufficient to break Palpatine's supermajority in the Senate, indicating that the late Republic contained at least 4,001 Sectors, which would yield an Empire of no fewer than 192 thousand Star Destroyers, 6.4 million combat starships, and 3.1 million support ships (Coruscant and the Core Worlds does reveal that the Empire reorganized existing Sector borderss, and Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds shows the Empire also dismembered client states to form new Sectors).

The Sector Group and Sector Army are identified as the Navy and Army components of a Sector's unified forces structure in the Imperial Sourcebook (Before the Storm notes that the Imperial order of battle identifies such a grouping as a "combat command," hence the unattested term "Sector Command"); the strategic force's naval component obviously cannot be composed of Sector Groups (which are defined with reference to particular Sectors), and the OB in Before the Storm explicitly mentions forces "assigned to every fleet and combat command," implicitly contrasting fleet forces with combat command forces. For clarity's sake, this separate category of fleet is identified herein with the term "starfleet" used in The Empire Strikes Back: The Original Radio Drama and Return of the Jedi: The National Public Radio Dramatization to refer to a discrete naval echelon (as opposed to the Imperial Starfleet mentioned in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, referring to the spacegoing component of the Imperial Navy). The firepower of the 'combined starfleet' (which contains half the Star Destroyer battle force) is derived from the statement in A New Hope that the Death Star's total firepower was "greater than half the Starfleet."

Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters explicitly states that "the Empire controls virtually all of the bulk cargo vessels plying the spaceways," either "directly through Imperial ownership" (i.e., the spacelift command and fleet auxiliary force) or "indirectly through intimidation of large shipping corporations" (the remainder of the merchant navy), and goes on to say that "roughly one-third of the large ship cargo carried in the galaxy is war materiel for the Empire's forces."

The Star War Encyclopedia describes the Academy par excellence as an "elite educational and training institution" that "turned unseasoned youths into highly trained members of the Exploration, Military, and Merchant Services," and notes that "under Emperor Palpatine, the Academy slowly became a training ground for Imperial officers"; Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker establishes that there was some concern that Academy graduates who'd opted for mercantile service might be conscripted into the Navy against their will. "Darklighter" (Empire Nos. 8, 9, 12, and 15) shows an increasingly militaristic merchant navy, wearing navy-style uniforms, operating Navy-grade combat equipment (including TIE/ln space superiority starfighters), undertaking armed patrols of space, and engaging pirates and armed insurrectionists, whose officers were trained at the Academy by instructors in Imperial uniforms on Imperial equipment, and who were encouraged to identify with the Empire rather than the merchant service.

The autonomous Bureau of Ships and Services (BoSS) is described in Cracken's Rebel Field Guide as "one of the oldest institutions in the galaxy," "as much a star-spanning tribe as it is a civil bureaucracy," which maintains a "long-standing policy of neutrality, such that "each power that rules or manages the galaxy simply inherits BoSS." Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters identifies it as a bureau of the Imperial Space Ministry, but Platt's Starport Guide notes that "it's not really a bureau attached to any government or other institutions like other bureaus; it doesn't owe loyalty to anyone."

[13] The standard stormtrooper's armor is said by "Soldiers of the Empire!" to be made of "Impervium" (presumably a trade name; The Visual Dictionary calls it "plastoid composite armor"). The "Technical Journal of the Imperial Forces" claims that the stormtroopers "operate independently of the military and answer directly to the Emperor" with "their own chain of command" (hence the non-canonical Commandant General's special relationship with the Emperor and the Ruling Council). Central Command is mentioned in Crimson Empire, but its status as the headquarters of the Imperial Marines is unattested.

"Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation" indicates that at least 40 per cent of all stormtroopers belong to a single clone template of "GeNode," and mentions the existence of at least three other templates. "Soldiers of the Empire!" describes a different cloning process used to produce stormtroopers; the interpretation here is that the GeNode process is the most commonly used, but others remain in limited service. "Stormtroopers" (Star Wars Databank) states that "the health of stormtroopers was the responsibility of the Naval Biological group (sic)," while the Imperial Sourcebook refers to it as "Biological section" and says "they are directly responsible for the health of stormtrooper units." The Dark Empire Sourcebook calls cloning "a science of infamy and horror to most citizens of the galaxy due to the pain of the Clone Wars," and calls it a "long-banned technology"; "Republic Stifles Non-Military Cloning Research" (CIS Shadowfeed Dispatch 14:7:01 Edition, Star Wars Insider No. 68) notes that the Senate passed Decree E49D139.41, which "effectively prohibits all non-military cloning activity throughout its member worlds," during the Clone War (it did not, however, outlaw cloning altogether). Captain Gilad Pellaeon reflects in The Last Command that "given the destruction they'd unleashed on the galaxy, Pellaeon had always assumed the clonemasters had eventually found at least a partial solution to the problem [clone madness]," and in Heir to the Empire that "the early clones — or at least those the fleet had faced — had been highly unstable, both mentally and emotionally" (thus establishing that the Clonemasters produced unstable clones who had fought against Republic or Empire — the text is unclear on this point — , thereby separating them from the Kaminoan cloners of Attack of the Clones).

The Marines' lack of support infrastructure is established by the Imperial Sourcebook, which comments on their "complete lack of support personnel," saying that they "do siphon off some supplies from the normal chain of logistics, but not nearly enough to support a force as large as the stormtroopers appear to be," and "whether they can somehow 'live off the land,' have a shadow network which resupplies them in order to enhance their mystery, or really not be in need of resupply is simply not known."

[14] Pollux Hax appears in The Illustrated Star Wars Universe, in which he is identified as the former "chief of the Emperor's propaganda dissemination section." The campaign to disguise stormtroopers' origins as clones is conjectured from the deliberate engineering of GeNodes not to realize they are clones ("Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation") and from the general shock and dismay at the thought of Grand Admiral Thrawn's overt use of clones (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command), despite the prevalence of clones in the Imperial Marines ("Soldiers of the Empire!", the "Technical Journal of the Imperial Forces," and "Pax Empirica — The Wookiee Annihilation").

The Empire's secret involvement in human trafficking is seen in "The Search Begins" and "Death in the City of Bone!" (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 69), and mentioned in the context of sex slavery in The Paradise Snare.

[15] The Imperial Military Training Base, Carida, appears in Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire, which states that it is "home to more than one hundred and fifty thousand recruits, cadets, and instructors," and goes on to observe that the Military Academy at Cliffside "took up less than one-tenth of the sprawling base, but produced a high percentage of the Empire's officer corps."

The ubiquity of the stormtroopers is explicitly stated in the Imperial Sourcebook, which notes that they are "the Empire's calling card" and "wherever the Empire goes, stormtroopers will be found, acting as ship's troops aboard Star Destroyers, accompanying visiting dignitaries to outlying worlds, and maintaining garrisons on trouble-torn worlds"; their status as shock troopers is established as "the ability to rapidly overwhelm and capture energy positions makes them the first choice for leading assaults on important worlds," and were often "used to clear away the enemy's first line of defense and establish a ground base to allow the unopposed landing of transports carrying regular Army units," whereupon they were "withdrawn once they have secured a landing zone." Likewise their status as loyalty police: "While stormtroopers continue to do his bidding, no decree passed by the Emperor will ever fail to be implemented," and "contingents of stormtroopers aboard Imperial Navy vessels ensure that no Navy captain or admiral will actively disobey the Emperor's wishes."

The Imperial Academy of Science and Methodology is mentioned in "Old Corellian: A Guide for the Curious Scholar" (The Official Star Wars Adventure Journal No. 7).

The stormtrooper's standard armor is identified as the "T.I.E. Armored Spacesuit (sic)" in "Soldiers of the Empire!"; the unusual deference of the common citizen to stormtroopers is first seen in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker ("No one stared angrily back at them; no one shouted imprecations or mouthed obscenities. These armored figures moved with the authority of the Empire, their sidearms boldly displayed and activated."), while Cracken's Threat Dossier has a New Republic Intelligence (NRI) analyst, Captain Baden Lathe, noting that "it was a proven fact that whenever stormtrooper numbers began to dwindle, so too did the people's confidence in Imperial rule."

Sandtroopers appear in A New Hope, snowtroopers in The Empire Strikes Back, and scout troopers (also called "stormtrooper scouts") in Return of the Jedi. Spacetroopers were introduced in The Star Wars Sourcebook. Seatroopers first appeared in "The Iskalon Effect" (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 74), and were reintroduced in Battle for the Golden Sun. 'Bombtroopers' — the name is unattested — appear as a stormtrooper bomb squad in "Coffin in the Clouds!" (Star Wars Vol. 1, No. 56). Radtroopers appear in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, while magmatroopers, airtroopers, and underminers are mentioned in The Visual Dictionary. Minetroopers appear in "A Free-Trader's Guide to Sevarcos." The Storm Commandos appear in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, and the darktroopers appear in Dark Empire II; the Imperial Royal Guard is first seen in Return of the Jedi, and the Sovereign Protectors in Dark Empire (but were first identified in the Dark Empire Sourcebook). The Imperial Marines' use of the term "legion" vice the Imperial Army's "battlegroup" or the Republic Army's "division" is confirmed in the Imperial Sourcebook.

[16] Iskalon is a water world first seen in "The Iskalon Effect"; "You're in the Army Now!" reveals the somewhat surprising fact that submarine warfare is the responsibility of the Army, mentioning the existence of the Deep Ocean Operations Camp among the Army training facilities on Sirpar (presumably a component of Imperial Military Training Base, Sirpar, by analogy to Imperial Military Training Base, Carida in Dark Forces: Soldiers for the Empire). A surface flotilla of the Empire's 'wet navy' is seen in Galactic Battlegrounds.

General Balan is mentioned as having celebrated a triumph in recognition of his reconquest of Coruscant in the Dark Empire Sourcebook; his given name and specific rank of colonel general are unattested (as is, for that matter, the massive artillery bombardment attributed to him herein).

Army Command is mentioned by name in the Imperial Sourcebook.

[17] The general staff's extensive paper work is conjectured from the note in the Imperial Sourcebook that the entire seventh chapter is composed from "various reports from Army Command to Grand Moff Selit in response to the Grand Moff's request for suggestions on dealing with rebellious elements entrenched upon worlds in his sector of influence," and the statement that Army Command was evaluating the Atgar 1.4 FD P-Tower light anti-vehicle laser cannon for "inclusion on the updated standard issue list."

[18] The Imperial Army's focus on war of attrition vice war of maneuver is derived from the Imperial Sourcebook, which states that "often stormtroopers are used to clear away the enemy's first line of defense and establish a ground base to allow the unopposed landing of transports carrying regular Army units," that "the Army, in these situations, is used to mop up resistance and maintain an Imperial presence," and that "except in systems where prolonged struggles threaten to disrupt the Empire's industrial capacity or weaken its strategic positions, stormtroopers will be withdrawn once they have secured a landing zone" and "the complete subjugation of a world is left to the Imperial Army." The same source also explicitly states that "stormtroopers can be transported and deployed far more rapidly than regular Army units, who rely on large transport ships or the Navy for interplanetary travel."

The Imperial Sourcebook mentions that "when Imperial troops are working with auxiliaries local to the planet of operation," the unit commander is "expected to allow the native units to operate unit sizes most closely matching the Imperial Army equivalent, but not completely force the Imperial method of operation upon allies." Elsewhere it is mentioned that the Golan Arms DF .9 anti-infantry battery is "'officially' only available to the Empire or Imperial allied military forces."

The authority to appoint locally-commissioned officers is derived from the claim in The New Essential Guide to Characters that Corporal Natasi Daala's commission as a fleet admiral was "an unofficial promotion outside of Coruscant's naval hierarchy, but a legitimate one among Tarkin's forces in the Outer Rim."

[19] The office of Director of Imperial Intelligence first appeared in Rogue Squadron; it is treated herein as the personal rank of the professional head of service rather than the title, but this usage is not canonical.

The Imperial Sourcebook contains an organization chart showing Imperial Intelligence directly responsible both to "Moffs and Grand Moffs" and to "The Emperor."

Planet of Twilight mentions "the perfumes and incense and subtle hurlothrumbic gas with which the Emperor had flooded his court hall," which triggered an involuntary reaction of fear and anxiety. The adjective 'hurlothrumbic' is clearly derived from Dr. Lorenz Hurlothrumb, late of the Encephalo-Research Division of the Imperial Medi-Center, who in The Game Chambers of Questal created the Hurlothrumbic Generator, a device that "produces waves stimulating the base of the brain, causing unexplainable, but perceptible, fear in the victim," and can induce reactions ranging from "mild anxiety and sweating" to sending "any creature screaming for cover."

[20] The origin of the Ubiqtorate as a secret steering committee of the unofficial merger of the Republican Security Organization, the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, the Interstellar Consortium on Technology, and the Special Acquisitions Branch of the Library of the Republic is described in the Imperial Sourcebook (the title Director, Senate Bureau of Intelligence, is the only one attested). Armand Isard is confirmed as Palpatine's SBI Director in "Isard Spearheads Republic Intelligence Reform" (HoloNet News Vol. 531, No. 50), and was confirmed by Rogue Squadron to have served as Director of Imperial Intelligence (the same source confirms that his daughter Ysanne Isard also served in this office).

The Imperial Sourcebook notes that "the members of the Ubiqtorate are anonymous," "unknown to their subordinates," and "likely to be acquainted with the identities of perhaps a third of the members, and to have personal contact with only a handful." Its nature as a secret society infiltrating other spheres of society is derived from the Lords of the Expanse Gamemaster Guide, which reveals that Carill Benton, the CEO of Data Equity Management, Incorporated, an information management company serving companies in the Tapani Sector, is actually Devton Cirrilla, "an Imperial Ubiqtorate official" who uses his company as "his main source of information to keep tabs on the Tapani sector" and is "well-respected in the Ubiqtorate for his bold ideas and successfully implementing the DEMi charade."

The Imperial Sourcebook states that the Ubiqtorate "oversees all of the activities of Imperial Intelligence at the highest levels" and "formulates strategies for the bureaus of Imperial Intelligence or, as has recently become common, presents the bureaus with a set of goals and very broad grand strategic considerations and asks them to plan an effective strategy"; "details and tactical considerations are decided by the appropriate bureau or branch."

The Rebellion Era Sourcebook calls the Inquisitorius "a secret division of Imperial Intelligence." Adjustments, the Internal Organization Bureau (IntOrg), Analysis Bureau, the Bureau of Operations, Intelligence, and Sector Plexus are specifically identified by the Imperial Sourcebook; each of the subject-matter branches are also specifically described (with the exception of counternarcotics) as being subdivisions of the bureaux.

[21] Assassination Branch, Destablization Branch (Destab), and Interrogation Branch are specifically named in the Imperial Sourcebook (the description of Destab's function is quoted verbatim from its official specialization). The use of hypnotic suggestion in interrogation is established in Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama, while Return of the Jedi mentions the use of "mind-weakening chemicals"; the Princess Leia of Alderaan recalled vivid memories of "efficient pain-droids" using "needles, pressure points, fire-knives, electrojabbers," but Darth Vader explicitly rejects the use of actual physical torture in Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama, saying that she was "specifically trained and prepared to withstand conventional questioning," and would require "levels of pain so high as to risk killing her" — hence his use of "mind-drugs and tele-suggestions" to inflict "phantom pain" instead of the real thing (therefore, the Princess Leia's recollections of having been tortured are in fact false memories).

The Imperial Office of Criminal Investigations (IOCI) is an independent agency first mentioned in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, which confirms its practice of employing bounty hunters to collect bounties posted to the Imperial Enforcement DataCore.

Lusankya was first mentioned in Rogue Squadron, and was revealed to be on board the Super Star Destroyer Lusankya buried in the cityscape of Coruscant in The Krytos Trap.

Intelligence's role in the creation of Byss's population is explicitly mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook.

Intelligence's participation in unethical biological experimentation is seen in Rogue Squadron, in which it engineered the deadly Krytos virus to affect only nonhumans.