Was the Republic ever NOT screwed up?

[FaxModem1]

Inspired by the Federation Golden Age thread:

Let's face it, thanks to the EU, the Galactic Republic has been on the verge of collapse every few years or so, or was so corrupt it was horrible to live in. So, was there ever a good solid era of the Galactic Republic, or was it always a house of cards?

[Simon_Jester]

The Old Republic had some good centuries, but they probably lie outside the 'focal zone' of the Star Wars continuity. The century where nothing happened except minor scuffles and lots of infrastructure construction just isn't one you want to write stories about.

[Ryan Thunder]

The Old Republic had some good centuries, but they probably lie outside the 'focal zone' of the Star Wars continuity. The century where nothing happened except minor scuffles and lots of infrastructure construction just isn't one you want to write stories about.

You could easily write stories in such a setting. They just wouldn't be enormous galaxy-spanning crises, the outcomes of which inevitably hinge on the actions of a single person or very small number of individuals.

That would be a welcome change if you ask me.

[Batman]

The Old Republic lasted for millenia. Not something that happens when your nation is continually at the brink of collapse.

[Simon_Jester]

The Old Republic had some good centuries, but they probably lie outside the 'focal zone' of the Star Wars continuity. The century where nothing happened except minor scuffles and lots of infrastructure construction just isn't one you want to write stories about.

You could easily write stories in such a setting. They just wouldn't be enormous galaxy-spanning crises, the outcomes of which inevitably hinge on the actions of a single person or very small number of individuals.

That would be a welcome change if you ask me.

The problem with writing stories about such times is that you'd have very little shared context with the rest of the setting- no shared characters, no shared events. The stories would have little in common with the rest of the continuity- arguably, you'd be writing stuff that might as well be standalone SF rather than Star Wars.

That can be done successfully, of course, but I do see the reasons why it wouldn't be a favorite thing for people to do within the franchise.

[Connor MacLeod]

It's not going to be an either/or situation. Things are not going to be "just right" or "straight to hell". you're going to have fluctuating periods of good things and bad things happening, quite possibly simultaneously. Maybe there's no war, but the economy ins ome parts of the galaxy might very well be going to shit. Maybe a in some times a war flares up and engulfs some multiple systems or even sectors of space - that won't neccesarily do anything to the greater scope of things.

IT's the sort of issue that is going to be largely dependent upon POV/context and on scale. I'd say that on the broad (Galactic) scale the Republic was largely stable and went through multiple iterations (At least prior to the EU - I consider the Empire an iteration), but as the scale narrows things look alot less bright or cheery.

[Bellosh101]

As a government that managed to exist for 25,000 years, the vast majority of the Galactic Republic's wars would have been nothing more than historical footnotes in the grand scheme of things. The occasional protracted war would come along, and sometimes the Core Worlds and other economic interests screwed over the Periphery more than usual, but the Republic itself didn't start facing actual existential crisises until about 4,000 BBY and the emergence of Sith revivalist movements. I'd say that was a pretty good record all things considered.

[Darth Yan]

if the tor timelines are to be believed the years between malachor's destruction and the return of the sith was a golden age that was better than most that came before it.

[Jim Raynor]

The Old Republic had some good centuries, but they probably lie outside the 'focal zone' of the Star Wars continuity. The century where nothing happened except minor scuffles and lots of infrastructure construction just isn't one you want to write stories about.

You could easily write stories in such a setting. They just wouldn't be enormous galaxy-spanning crises, the outcomes of which inevitably hinge on the actions of a single person or very small number of individuals.

That would be a welcome change if you ask me.

Totally agree. Any story will focus on just a few main characters. Couldn't they be several members of a military unit tasked with hunting down a space pirate or terrorist group? A senator trying to futiley convince the prosperous but uncaring Republic to intervene on some crappy Outer Rim world? A planetary monarch trying to survive assassination attempts by people trying to seize his throne? A Jedi encountering strange aliens while on a mission? The SW universe is big and varied enough to handle many types of stories, and still be recognizably "Star Wars."

[Batman]

The setting would be. The feeling would not, at least to a lot of people I'd wager. The movies were about galaxy-shattering events, as was most of the novel EU, as were the Clone Wars cartoons. That doesn't mean Wars can't work in less grand settings-I happen to consider the original Han Solo trilogy and the Lando Calrissian one among the best of the EU, and both trilogies had pretty much zero impact on the galaxy at large-but I suspect these days people expect galaxy-shattering out of Star Wars.

[Sarevok]

People have grown to expect every day is a galaxy shattering one in Star Wars. It is difficult to do proper world building when reader expectations have been soured so much.

Personally I would love to see stories on the Republic in the same vein as the Inner Sphere in BT. Stories that focus on individual planets and their own politics and wars. That have nothing to do with a super duper meta plot of Republic falling into decay.

[Baffalo]

Honestly, something I forgot to consider when asking about the original Federation Golden Age thread was that a golden age is entirely based on perspective. What we consider as a golden age in the United States, the period from about the end of World War II to about the early 1970's, wasn't necessarily a good time for all. Sure, the baby boomers were growing up and in their teen years, the US went through a massive infrastructure overhaul, everyone had money, it was a generally good time. However, some might consider the 1920's to be America's great golden age that shattered with the Great Depression. In ways, both are correct. For our readers in Britain, as power wained and the British Isles were no longer considered a super power due to the shrinking Empire, yeah, it's not exactly a golden age. Just because it's NOT a golden age for a particular nation, doesn't mean things are automatically bad.

In the case of the Galactic Republic, there are literally thousands of years in which the Republic waxed and wained, some years being worse than others. For the most part, yes, the end years of the Republic were pretty bad, but we also look at it from the perspective that we KNOW the Republic is about to fail. We know the end is neigh. How many times did people believe the Republic was about to collapse throughout history? In KotOR, many of the characters seem to think the Republic is on the verge of collapse, yet it manages to stay together and rebuild after the Mandalorian Wars. Just remember that the most important thing to consider is that what may seem like a golden age to some might not be a golden age for others.

[Connor MacLeod]

The setting would be. The feeling would not, at least to a lot of people I'd wager. The movies were about galaxy-shattering events, as was most of the novel EU, as were the Clone Wars cartoons. That doesn't mean Wars can't work in less grand settings-I happen to consider the original Han Solo trilogy and the Lando Calrissian one among the best of the EU, and both trilogies had pretty much zero impact on the galaxy at large-but I suspect these days people expect galaxy-shattering out of Star Wars.

I dont know, it could work on the small scale. Much of the post-ROTJ novels had small scale stuff despite some implied "galaxy spanning" consequence - especially the X-wing novels.

Alternately they could have been doing much bigger story arcs like they tried with the NJO (although I dont know if that would work without better cooperation.. NJO and many of the "arcing" stories that came after felt like the authors were working at cross purposes more often than not.)

I'd say the best to try that was the clone wars series.. they tended to mix the ideas of a "story arc" with individual stories told in the arc. You also didn't get just Obi-Wan/anakin taking center stage all the time.

40K novels all work on that "small scale" quite frequently. Events might impact a single planet, a whole sector of space, and occasionally an entire segmentum or the galaxy as a whole (or at least, it's implied to be - we never quite see that) but it's not consistent with every novel. You also get much greater variety of characters.

The "scale" issue probably isn't helped by the use of WEG and subsequent material. Whilst I like much of the WEG material (its not nearly as minimalistic as some make it out to be) there are still plenty of ways it was interpreted that ended up with SW being more minimalistic because you really had to delve in to find the details, and it depends on where you delved.

[Connor MacLeod]

Another possibility is that the constant conflicts occuring are the result of the fact the Jedi order was demolished and never re-imposed. Palpy tried to substitue manipulation, intimidation and brute force for Magic Policemen, but he died before he could fully realize that. I also gathered that in the following years of the REpublic and GE, that alot of the control and influence that the megacorporations and Senate exerted is nonexistent. Then you could blame some of it on the Vong deliberately agitating and engineering things to destabilize the galaxy. I imagine THAT is going to have repercussions for some time when coupled with the civil war preceding it and the Vong war after. And given that this happens on a span of decades people have probably become used to the idea that you can't rely on anyone else or the central authority. Hell they seem to actively resist central authority now (What good did the Republic/Empire do for us?)

Given all that, it could be said that the more "natural" state is something akin to what we saw in the Hand of Thrawn duology over Caamas.

[Baffalo]

One of the biggest problems facing all arguments is definitely scale. We think in small terms because we only have our own scales of reference to go by. And those scales are constantly being altered, every day. At one point, yes, we imagine it took forever to get across a thousand miles, on the order of months. Today, you can be in England before the sun comes up. It's hard to imagine how truly epic long distances are when we can't envision them properly. Here on earth, we don't tend to think of things as being far away anymore because we've become used to seeing them on maps and getting there within hours, not months.

It's the same problem when you look at Star Wars. We know you can cross the galaxy in under a day. You can get to anywhere on the planet Earth in less than a day. So in your mind, what seems huge to you, must be huge to anyone in that galaxy. It's disproportionate scaling. Most of us know what a mile is, or a kilometer, and so we know it's pretty long. So when you have a ship that is a kilometer long, you're supposed to feel impressed and intimidated. Then you say, "Oh, well now imagine one TEN TIMES BIGGER!" Well, ok, that's pretty big. Now go with the Death Star. Yeah... big...

The biggest problem in that case is that it's hard to imagine something that big. I mean, yeah, saying something is the size of a small moon is one thing, but most of us look into the night sky and think... that's not big at all. Because we look at our moon... and it's not that big to us. It's small in the night sky, so you don't respect how truly big it is. We don't have anything to compare it to except by what's down here on the ground. We have nothing to compare it to visually.

[Simon_Jester]

Another possibility is that the constant conflicts occuring are the result of the fact the Jedi order was demolished and never re-imposed. Palpy tried to substitue manipulation, intimidation and brute force for Magic Policemen, but he died before he could fully realize that. I also gathered that in the following years of the REpublic and GE, that alot of the control and influence that the megacorporations and Senate exerted is nonexistent. Then you could blame some of it on the Vong deliberately agitating and engineering things to destabilize the galaxy. I imagine THAT is going to have repercussions for some time when coupled with the civil war preceding it and the Vong war after. And given that this happens on a span of decades people have probably become used to the idea that you can't rely on anyone else or the central authority. Hell they seem to actively resist central authority now (What good did the Republic/Empire do for us?)

Given all that, it could be said that the more "natural" state is something akin to what we saw in the Hand of Thrawn duology over Caamas.

Right.

This is why I despise arguments of the form "Palpatine brought order!" and I've actually seen a few people say this. Palpatine didn't bring order, he brought a galactic civil war that lasted at least fifty or sixty years with only brief interludes, and that's not counting the stuff set a century or more after Yavin (which I'm not familiar enough with to want to comment on).

In short, he knocked over the Republic to create an Empire, and instead created a Dark Age.

[Baffalo]

Another possibility is that the constant conflicts occuring are the result of the fact the Jedi order was demolished and never re-imposed. Palpy tried to substitue manipulation, intimidation and brute force for Magic Policemen, but he died before he could fully realize that. I also gathered that in the following years of the REpublic and GE, that alot of the control and influence that the megacorporations and Senate exerted is nonexistent. Then you could blame some of it on the Vong deliberately agitating and engineering things to destabilize the galaxy. I imagine THAT is going to have repercussions for some time when coupled with the civil war preceding it and the Vong war after. And given that this happens on a span of decades people have probably become used to the idea that you can't rely on anyone else or the central authority. Hell they seem to actively resist central authority now (What good did the Republic/Empire do for us?)

Given all that, it could be said that the more "natural" state is something akin to what we saw in the Hand of Thrawn duology over Caamas.

Right.

This is why I despise arguments of the form "Palpatine brought order!" and I've actually seen a few people say this. Palpatine didn't bring order, he brought a galactic civil war that lasted at least fifty or sixty years with only brief interludes, and that's not counting the stuff set a century or more after Yavin (which I'm not familiar enough with to want to comment on).

In short, he knocked over the Republic to create an Empire, and instead created a Dark Age.

I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a dark age. I did once and was shown the error of my ways. Really, except for a few planets that were banged up (no, do NOT point to Alderaan as a point against that statement), most of the planets seemed to come out of the majority of fighting about the same, if not better. Coruscant had large droids built that can demolish entire blocks and then build brand new infrastructure in its place, the major shipbuilding planets had steady contracts from the stronger governments, except for warzones the average citizens could count on law and order, it seems much better. Yes, there are two warring governments, but any time you have two states that are in direct competition, either militarily or otherwise, you will have planets on the periphery that get knocked around, and Thrawn did his best to take over the galaxy again, but I don't think it was necessarily that bad.

Look at Thrawn. Thrawn maximized his territory gain with the least amount of bloodshed, understanding how his enemy thought. Warlords did their best to carve up the galaxy, and had to be drug out and killed, but that's going to happen when you have anyone who's a tyrant with a military. Most of the galaxy enjoyed relative calm until the Vong War, and that was simply due to the enormous scale of the invasion.

[PainRack]

Right.

This is why I despise arguments of the form "Palpatine brought order!" and I've actually seen a few people say this. Palpatine didn't bring order, he brought a galactic civil war that lasted at least fifty or sixty years with only brief interludes, and that's not counting the stuff set a century or more after Yavin (which I'm not familiar enough with to want to comment on).

In short, he knocked over the Republic to create an Empire, and instead created a Dark Age.

As opposed to the routine, large wave of refugees swarm that Anakin and Padme were able to immerse themselves in?

We aren't told much about the state of the Galactic Republic at this point, but the very fact that while the Republic was supposedly so rich, so powerful that it was immune to attack from outside, but so corrupt that large scale migration/refugees were moving around its borders, large interscale conflicts between autonomous members like the Trade Federation, conflicts between senate members in the form of small skirmishes leading up to wars, trade disruption and monopolies, the sheer income inequality that justified the sale of handcrafted, invididuality produced starship based economy described in TPM BTS, which died a natural death as mass produced, industrialised starships flooded the economy....

While Palpatine state featured many undesirable elements, such as a nationalised, state economy that provided favouritism to several nepotic corporations such as Kuat, the empowerment of the Guilds against small businessmen(Lando vs Mining Guild) and etc. it replaced all the above conflict and disruption with a small scale rebellion that escalated to a serious war only after Palpatine died.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a dark age. I did once and was shown the error of my ways. Really, except for a few planets that were banged up (no, do NOT point to Alderaan as a point against that statement), most of the planets seemed to come out of the majority of fighting about the same, if not better. Coruscant had large droids built that can demolish entire blocks and then build brand new infrastructure in its place, the major shipbuilding planets had steady contracts from the stronger governments, except for warzones the average citizens could count on law and order, it seems much better. Yes, there are two warring governments, but any time you have two states that are in direct competition, either militarily or otherwise, you will have planets on the periphery that get knocked around, and Thrawn did his best to take over the galaxy again, but I don't think it was necessarily that bad.

Look at Thrawn. Thrawn maximized his territory gain with the least amount of bloodshed, understanding how his enemy thought. Warlords did their best to carve up the galaxy, and had to be drug out and killed, but that's going to happen when you have anyone who's a tyrant with a military. Most of the galaxy enjoyed relative calm until the Vong War, and that was simply due to the enormous scale of the invasion.

I'd argue that the ongoing warfare was more violent than the last decades of the Republic- which, yes, were bad, but you didn't have the same scale of violence. And the disunity of the galaxy during the Vong era contributed to their ability to do so much damage.

Basically, my view is that Palpatine is at fault for having created an empire so oppressive that it would predictably create a rebellion to overthrow it- and for deliberately fucking up the succession process so that he could not be replaced, and for assorted sabotage referenced in the Dark Empire storyline. In general, the Empire managed to establish peace over most of its territory, but the same could be said of the Republic- discounting the chaos of the Clone Wars which Palpatine had a major hand in starting.

If we really want to look at whether Palpatine's plans brought "order" to the galaxy, we should compare, say, 30 years before Yavin to 20 or 30 years after Yavin. I don't think the comparison is favorable- yes, the old Republic had a lot of very real problems, but Palpatine didn't fix them; he just replaced them with different ones under the Empire and then allowed the whole thing to go to pot after he started pulling crazy crap during the original-trilogy movie period. The post-Palpatine period was a dark and violent time in many respects, and I think a lot of the blame for that ought to fall at his feet.

[Baffalo]

As opposed to the routine, large wave of refugees swarm that Anakin and Padme were able to immerse themselves in?

We aren't told much about the state of the Galactic Republic at this point, but the very fact that while the Republic was supposedly so rich, so powerful that it was immune to attack from outside, but so corrupt that large scale migration/refugees were moving around its borders, large interscale conflicts between autonomous members like the Trade Federation, conflicts between senate members in the form of small skirmishes leading up to wars, trade disruption and monopolies, the sheer income inequality that justified the sale of handcrafted, invididuality produced starship based economy described in TPM BTS, which died a natural death as mass produced, industrialised starships flooded the economy....

While Palpatine state featured many undesirable elements, such as a nationalised, state economy that provided favouritism to several nepotic corporations such as Kuat, the empowerment of the Guilds against small businessmen(Lando vs Mining Guild) and etc. it replaced all the above conflict and disruption with a small scale rebellion that escalated to a serious war only after Palpatine died.

Palpatine seems to cause himself more grief than anything else. If you look at the Empire in the original trilogy, we see a large military organization whose sole intention is to hunt down and kill the rebellion. That's all we see. We don't see any other goals, just the stomping out of anyone who opposes the rule of the Emperor. And really, this one minded attitude is common throughout Star Wars to a startling degree. Everyone focuses so intensely on a single goal and go at it all-or-nothing no holds barred do or die. And when they fail... everything goes to shit because they weren't thinking about what happens if they fail, or even when they succeed.

Palpatine was always trying to be the manipulator, trying to play everyone off against each other. He never really thought about what would happen if he lost control. Mostly because I think he was blind to the possibility that he would EVER lose control. Because of this blindness, he allows Luke into his private sanctum in the hopes of corrupting him (that sounds naughty >.<). When Luke resists, Palpatine tries to fry him and expect Vader to just sit there like a good cyborg and let it happen. So he was completely blind to Vader's betrayal.

I'd argue that the ongoing warfare was more violent than the last decades of the Republic- which, yes, were bad, but you didn't have the same scale of violence. And the disunity of the galaxy during the Vong era contributed to their ability to do so much damage.

Basically, my view is that Palpatine is at fault for having created an empire so oppressive that it would predictably create a rebellion to overthrow it- and for deliberately fucking up the succession process so that he could not be replaced, and for assorted sabotage referenced in the Dark Empire storyline. In general, the Empire managed to establish peace over most of its territory, but the same could be said of the Republic- discounting the chaos of the Clone Wars which Palpatine had a major hand in starting.

If we really want to look at whether Palpatine's plans brought "order" to the galaxy, we should compare, say, 30 years before Yavin to 20 or 30 years after Yavin. I don't think the comparison is favorable- yes, the old Republic had a lot of very real problems, but Palpatine didn't fix them; he just replaced them with different ones under the Empire and then allowed the whole thing to go to pot after he started pulling crazy crap during the original-trilogy movie period. The post-Palpatine period was a dark and violent time in many respects, and I think a lot of the blame for that ought to fall at his feet.

Gee, let's take a Republic with absolutely no military whose only threats were from giant monopolies that did what they wanted, who had so far only invaded one planet in the Republic. One. Now let's compare that to an organization that has a military larger than anything seen in the galaxy in thousands of years. Now let's take humans who know they are in command of large ships of war and know that the big boss has been killed and that there's no clear command structure. It's not hard to see why they'd become warlords. They want power, have probably always craved it, and have the means to take it.

Comparing the Republic and the Empire is like comparing day to night. The differences are just too vast to really compare to. The Republic died when Palpatine took the reigns of permanent power, and since that point the entire galaxy was held under the rule of an iron fist. Yes, Palpatine deserves some blame, but part of it is simply the situation at the time.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd argue that the ongoing warfare was more violent than the last decades of the Republic- which, yes, were bad, but you didn't have the same scale of violence. And the disunity of the galaxy during the Vong era contributed to their ability to do so much damage.

Basically, my view is that Palpatine is at fault for having created an empire so oppressive that it would predictably create a rebellion to overthrow it- and for deliberately fucking up the succession process so that he could not be replaced, and for assorted sabotage referenced in the Dark Empire storyline. In general, the Empire managed to establish peace over most of its territory, but the same could be said of the Republic- discounting the chaos of the Clone Wars which Palpatine had a major hand in starting.

If we really want to look at whether Palpatine's plans brought "order" to the galaxy, we should compare, say, 30 years before Yavin to 20 or 30 years after Yavin. I don't think the comparison is favorable- yes, the old Republic had a lot of very real problems, but Palpatine didn't fix them; he just replaced them with different ones under the Empire and then allowed the whole thing to go to pot after he started pulling crazy crap during the original-trilogy movie period. The post-Palpatine period was a dark and violent time in many respects, and I think a lot of the blame for that ought to fall at his feet.

Gee, let's take a Republic with absolutely no military whose only threats were from giant monopolies that did what they wanted, who had so far only invaded one planet in the Republic. One. Now let's compare that to an organization that has a military larger than anything seen in the galaxy in thousands of years. Now let's take humans who know they are in command of large ships of war and know that the big boss has been killed and that there's no clear command structure. It's not hard to see why they'd become warlords. They want power, have probably always craved it, and have the means to take it.

Comparing the Republic and the Empire is like comparing day to night. The differences are just too vast to really compare to. The Republic died when Palpatine took the reigns of permanent power, and since that point the entire galaxy was held under the rule of an iron fist. Yes, Palpatine deserves some blame, but part of it is simply the situation at the time.

...Um. I'm not sure we actually disagree.

My point is that Palpatine deliberately engineered the situation that led to this situation.

He provoked the Clone Wars (though something like them might have happened anyway, he very much fanned the flames).

He destroyed the Jedi, who during the Republic had been a fairly strong guarantee that the galaxy's basic political stability and peace would be maintained.

He created the vast battlefleet that was to go on to fuel the warlordism that came after his death.

He designed the Imperial political structure specifically to avoid there being any chain of command in the event of his death, so that the galaxy as a whole would be plunged into chaos rather than being united under any one person capable of claiming the Imperial throne.

So when you say "part of it is simply the situation at the time..." Palpatine engineered that situation. This is why I consider him responsible for much of the ensuing death and destruction and waste: he took a galaxy that was ruled by a dysfunctional but basically stable state, and turned it into a massive civil war.

[PainRack]

Palpatine seems to cause himself more grief than anything else. If you look at the Empire in the original trilogy, we see a large military organization whose sole intention is to hunt down and kill the rebellion. That's all we see. We don't see any other goals, just the stomping out of anyone who opposes the rule of the Emperor. And really, this one minded attitude is common throughout Star Wars to a startling degree. Everyone focuses so intensely on a single goal and go at it all-or-nothing no holds barred do or die. And when they fail... everything goes to shit because they weren't thinking about what happens if they fail, or even when they succeed.

And? The fact remains that all the things that was supposedly "bad" in the Galactic Empire existed in the old Republic. Refugees, slave trade... Given the EU material, one can easily argue that conditions in the GE was better for an increased majority of people, offset by making aliens and other "lesser" classes worse off.

Basically, my view is that Palpatine is at fault for having created an empire so oppressive that it would predictably create a rebellion to overthrow it- and for deliberately fucking up the succession process so that he could not be replaced, and for assorted sabotage referenced in the Dark Empire storyline. In general, the Empire managed to establish peace over most of its territory, but the same could be said of the Republic- discounting the chaos of the Clone Wars which Palpatine had a major hand in starting.

That's actually an interesting question.

How responsible was Palpatine for the inate corruption of the Old Republic Senate and etc? The flaring up of intercine conflicts, the tying up of the Senate so that it could not intervene in matters like Naboo, the continual use of Jedi to resolve issues as opposed to alternate Republic organisations, the weakening of the Judicals.......

[Darth Tedious]

That's actually an interesting question.

How responsible was Palpatine for the inate corruption of the Old Republic Senate and etc? The flaring up of intercine conflicts, the tying up of the Senate so that it could not intervene in matters like Naboo, the continual use of Jedi to resolve issues as opposed to alternate Republic organisations, the weakening of the Judicals.......

'Not very' was the impression I got. Palpatine wouldn't have been able to manipulate/engineer things as he did without the inherent corruption in the Republic. Although it's clear he had put in some ground work before TRM, I highly doubt he was responsible for Chancellor Velorum's nature as an easily bought leader.

It seems most likely the Jedi were the only thing keeping the galaxy together (and even then, not always doing a perfect job of it- see Dooku's backstory and his reasons for leaving the Order).

[Havok]

Christ people. Palpatine was only in his 60s or maybe his 70s at the time or ROTS. How much influence do you think he fucking had as a baby or a teenager or even a young adult.

Now if you wanna talk about the 1000 years of Sith corrupting the Republic, maybe. Even still, it is clear that they took advantage of a very successful system that had slowly become soft and corrupt because of that same success.

PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND:

You can not correlate or judge what you see on screen with the garbage that has been written about the Republic in comics, novels or video games BECAUSE George Lucas doesn't do that when he writes movies or tv shows. They have to be analyzed as separate entities because the history of the movies as they are written and presented are not the history that is presented in the EU.

[Broken]

Now if you wanna talk about the 1000 years of Sith corrupting the Republic, maybe. Even still, it is clear that they took advantage of a very successful system that had slowly become soft and corrupt because of that same success.

Indeed, I was wondering if anyone would point this out. I find it highly unlikely the Banite Sith Order was sitting on its hands for a thousand years waiting for someone like Palpatine to come along with his masterplan. Even if they did not have a playbook the Sith were working out of, they would doubtlessly be working to build up a power base in order to get all those off the books pieces of kit like the Sith Infiltrator that Darth Maul flew. Given the hatred the Sith bore the Jedi, I would find it hard to believe the Sith did not stir up trouble just to keep the Jedi busy and not achieving a greater understanding of the Force since that could lead to their own discovery. Weakening the Republic and ramping up discontent seems like par for the course for a small, secretive religious order bent on destroying their rivals and subduing the galaxy to their will.