Galactic Republic


 * "The Galactic Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. Tales of its founding have been occluded by the haze of intervening millennia, and its rebirth a thousand years ago was regarded as the latest evolution in an unending cycle. Like the greatest of trees, however, the Republic's decline began from within, with a deep rot that was not apparent until it was too late."
 * ―Janyor

The Galactic Republic, commonly known as the Republic and remembered as the Old Republic, was a federal parliamentary republic composed of thousands of worlds spread across the galaxy. Adhering to the Galactic Constitution, the Republic was governed by the Galactic Senate, a legislative body of two thousand senatorsappointed to represent the interests of their respective homeworlds on the galactic stage. The Supreme Chancellor was the leader of the Senate, chosen from among its ranks to arbitrate congressional sessions and represent the Republic as a whole. Coruscant, a planetary ecumenopolis located in the Core Worlds, was the capitalworld of the Republic and, therefore, the headquarters of the Senate and its chancellor.

The Republic emerged centuries before the advent of the Clone Warsin 22 BBY. Aided by the Knights of the Jedi Order, the Republic was reborn following a decisive victory over the ancient Sith Lords. Historyhad begun anew, societal memories and official calendars started fresh, and the time before this reset was forgotten as a dark age, lumped into a collective whole known as the "Old Republic." During the height of the modern Republic, art and commerce flourished under the patronage of the galactic government, allowing member worlds with rich cultures to broadcast their histories across the galaxy in order to generate lucrative tourism. Isolated conflicts remained few and far between, with the Jedi ultimately resolving hostile situations in their earnest pursuit of peace as the Senate's mediators. With ten thousand Jedi Knights serving as keepers of the peace, the Senate saw little need for a standing army of full-time soldiers, and sought to preserve the status quo of which the galactic populace had grown accustomed to.

For years the government collaborated with wordsmiths and artists, using propaganda to cultivate a sense of civic duty, of manifest destiny, and of deep obligation to spread the Republic banner from Rim to Rim. As the Republic entered its twilight years, however, belief in its principles and the unity it generated began to wane. Core Worlders became evermore enamored by fleeting distractions of fame and fortune, and were generally uninspired by the Republic's messages of expansionism. In contrast, citizens of the Inner Rim answered the Republic's call to embrace life on the frontier, having been pushed out of opportunity in the Core, only to grow more disillusioned with a government that they saw as distant, dispassionate, and not worth the membership.

It was at this time that the Sith, having survived and reformed under the Rule of Two, cultivated a secessionist crisis, causing numerous member worlds to secede en masse and form the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Under the firm leadership of Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, the Senate mobilized millions of clone troopers, forming the Grand Army of the Republic in response to the battle droids that composed the Separatist Droid Army. As a result, the Clone Wars began; the specter of wide-spread warfare, which had been long forgotten, became a reality once more. After three long years of conflict, Republic forces pushed the Separatists away from the Core and besieged the remaining military holdouts in the Outer Rim Territories. On the eve of the final victory, however, Chancellor Palpatine shocked the galaxy by accusing the Jedi Order of high treason. The Jedi had discovered that Palpatine was, in fact, Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith who orchestrated and manipulated the war as a means of accumulating dictatorial wartime powers. The clone troopers—secretly programmed to kill Jedi—betrayed and executed their Jedi Generals, complying with the chancellor's command to execute Order 66 without question.

Following the initial Jedi Purge, Palpatine called an emergency session of the Senate and proclaimed himself Galactic Emperor. Hence, the Republic was dissolved—just shy of the millennial milestone that would have marked the thousand-year anniversary of its foundation—and the Galactic Empire was formed in 19 BBY. The New Order ruled the galaxy unchallenged for a generation until the Alliance to Restore the Republic defeated the Empire in the Galactic Civil War, resulting in an armistice between the Imperial remnants and the newly formed New Republic in 5 ABY, one year after Emperor Palpatine's death at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY. Under the era of the New Republic, the Galactic Republic was remembered as a pillar of democracy and liberty. Historians hailed the near millennial age it presided over as "the last era of peace."