Empire At War Patch

[Ogier Dudley]

AnEmpire is a political construct in which one state dominates over another state, or a series of states. At its heart, an empire is ruled by an emperor, even though many states in history without an emperor at their head are called "empires".

Sparta was the leader of a league of states but had little interest in interfering with their domestic politics. Athens, by contrast, also led a league but forced a supervised Athenian-style democracy on its supposedly independent members. Sparta was a hegemonic state, the strongest of a group, while Athens was interventionist and thereby imperial. The fact that Athens replaced tyrants with democratic government did not affect the imperial nature of this relationship.

An empire is an unequal relationship between a core state and a periphery of one or more states controlled from the core. On the simplest level, control means military occupation or other formal political intervention, but it can also cover informal economic or cultural influence. Economic pressure by itself has frequently been enough to manipulate governments. Religion, ideology or other cultural forces have habitually accompanied political or economic persuasion.

The culture of the periphery, however, can exert its own pull and threaten to absorb a conquering power, most famously in the case of the Mongol conquest of China. As such, cultural imperialism is not a necessary component of empire.

In fact, neither is cultural difference per se, given the difficulty of deciding where one culture ends and another begins. In the modern era, the borders of the nation state have tried to settle this matter, but the nation state itself formed around a core state that standardized language and other aspects of culture in a way that typically alienated outlying regions. In the end, the acid test for cultural identity has remained solidarity in the face of a common enemy and this is a test most empires have at some stage passed.

The core state is the place to look to find various motives for expansion, from the dream of imposing an imperial peace on squabbling states to the desire for economic exploitation, lust for the glory of conquest or zeal for evangelism, religious or ideological.

The periphery is the place to look for crucial resistance or collaboration. Specifically, the fates of many empires have hinged on peripheral leaders deciding where their best interests lay. Often, the core can provide an account of an empire's rise, while the periphery better explains its persistence.

Examples of Empires in the ancient world include those of Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, that of the Hittites, the Egyptian, the Persian, the Macedonian, the Inca, the Aztec, and, most famously, the Roman.

World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization. For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide.

Edited excerpt of Atlas of Empires by Peter Davidson. 2011 New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd. Republished with permission.Original definition by Peter Davidson. Submitted by Jan van der Crabben, published on 11 May 2011. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Copyright. You cannot use, copy, distribute, or modify this item without explicit permission from the author. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University.Our publication has been reviewed for educational use by Common Sense Education, Internet Scout (University of Wisconsin), Merlot (California State University), OER Commons and the School Library Journal.Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia.

The Galactic Empire, also known as the First Galactic Empire and simply as the Empire and later as the Old Empire, was the dictatorship that replaced the Galactic Republic at the end of the Clone Wars. Though the Empire rose to power by promising to bring order to the galaxy, it oversaw a period of harsh military rule and aggressive expansion. The subsequent Imperial Era would last only two decades, for it was eventually overthrown by the Alliance to Restore the Republic in the Galactic Civil War, but not before the sovereign star systems of the galaxy had been largely conquered and oppressed by the Empire's forces.

The First Galactic Empire traced its origins to a Sith conspiracy to destroy the Jedi Order and regain control over the galaxy. The Empire was secretly controlled by the Sith, for the Galactic Emperor was, in fact, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, whose reign was enforced by his apprentice, Darth Vader, who acted as Commander-in-Chief. Rising to power on a groundswell of populist support, and capitalizing on anti-Jedi and anti-droid sentiment and human-ethnocentrism manufactured by the destructive Clone Wars, Darth Sidious appointed himself Emperor at the end of the conflict by promising security and stability to the war-torn Republic. Gaining the overwhelming approval of the Galactic Senate, Darth Sidious staged a coup by the Jedi, and oversaw their subsequent purge from the galaxy, assisted by his right-hand, Darth Vader.

The Empire stood virtually unchallenged during its rise to power, with the backing of the Imperial Senate and the spreading of its massive technological military force across the galaxy and began a major expansion and encroaching into the unexplored regions. At first, the Galactic Empire was a constitutional monarchy in basic theory, however it gradually evolved into a stratocracy as the power of the Imperial Senate waned. However, numerous insurgent cells sprang up against the Empire and gradually united to initiate a growing rebellion, winning its first major victory over Mustafar in 4 BBY. These rebel groups eventually formed the Rebel Alliance in 2 BBY, and achieved its first major victory with the theft of the Death Star plans on Scarif, which, in turn, led to the destruction of the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in 0 BBY. The following years saw initial Alliance successes until a major Imperial victory on Hoth in 3 ABY, but the Empire suffered a devastating defeat one year later at the Battle of Endor. During the battle, Darth Sidious was slain at the hands of his former disciple, the redeemed Anakin Skywalker, who himself died shortly thereafter, marking the end of Sith rule and the deterioration of the Empire and the resumption of the Galactic Republic, the New Republic.

With the deaths of the Emperor and his top lieutenant, factionalism overcame the Empire as it fractured into breakaway fiefdoms led by splinter Moffs, admirals, and generals, many of whom ignored Grand Vizier Mas Amedda's authority at the capital and became warlords as the Empire continued to fight the Republic. The Imperial Navy came to be publicly led by loyalist Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, though she was a figurehead for Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax. Ultimately, Rax seized control over the loyalist forces, removing Sloane from power and becoming Emperor-in-effect through his new position as Counselor to the Empire. Under Rax's command, the Empire made its final stand at the Battle of Jakku in 5 ABY, ultimately losing to the New Republic and capitulating to it with the signing of the Galactic Concordance. The New Republic then formally replaced the Galactic Empire as the galactic government.

In the years after, several Imperial holdouts continued to resist the New Republic, while the First Order derived legitimacy by claiming Imperial legacy, and that began a clandestine armament program. They were unaware, however, that they had been manipulated by a new hidden conspiracy, for secret cultists on the lost world of Exegol attended to the spirit of Darth Sidious, and constructed a fleet built to herald a new Sith Empire. The cult efforts ultimately failed, however, for they were opposed by the Resistance and Jedi Order, leading to an end of the First Order.

The Imperial ideals of the Galactic Empire could be dated back to the Sith Empire of the Old Republic's time period.[23] Following the defeat of the Sith during their final war with the Jedi Order,[5] for at least a thousand years, the dominant governing body of the galaxy was the unicameral, parliamentary, and democratic Galactic Republic, which was governed by the Galactic Senate and led by an elected Supreme Chancellor.[22][24]

In the last decades of its existence, the Republic Senate became embroiled in bureaucracy, rendering it woefully ineffectual as a governing body. Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith known publicly as Senator Sheev Palpatine of Naboo, privately lamented the declining state of the Senate, noting that the Republic was "not what it once was."[24][25]

In the decade that followed, Sidious secretly manipulated galactic events to the extent that war became inevitable. Besides persuading a dead Jedi Master, Sifo-Dyas, to create a secret clone army, he also tasked his Sith apprentice, Darth Tyranus, with exacerbating political tensions in the Republic and engineering a Separatist Crisis. These actions would culminate in the outbreak of the Clone Wars held on Geonosis, the last conflict of the Republic, while Sidious himself "reluctantly" accepted emergency powers from the Senate.[22][3] The Clone Wars, Sidious planned, would further make people in the galaxy grow bitter with the Republic[26] while he centralized his power to sweep away the Republic and Jedi.[3]

Since the onset of the Clone Wars[6] in 22 BBY,[27] the Republic endeavored to strengthen its security and stability through the creation of new organizations such as the Commission for the Protection of the Republic (COMPOR), which utilized propaganda to increase public morale, promote patriotism, and foster anti-Separatist sentiment within the general population.[6] As the Republic became increasingly centralized, however, Chancellor Palpatine's powers continued to grow through additional assets ceded to the Office of the Chancellor, including the galactic banking system that was placed under his direct oversight.[28] This gave Sidious the finance he needed to build his empire.[29]

3a8082e126