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The Republic Revolution

One aspect of the series that I never found adequate room to more articulately lay out in The Secret History of Star Wars is the development of the Republic, its transformation into the Empire, and the fall of the Jedi, and just what the details of the original history were at the time of the first film. Lucas' earliest notes that he created in 1973 were in development of this, as he had to first sketch out the world and it's history before he could populate it with characters. Combining influences such as Dune and Foundation with real-world elements taken from the samurai and the then-current Nixon melodrama, Lucas initially envisioned a Galactic Empire that was once prosperous but had slowly been corrupted by its rulers, turning into a fascist state that instigated a civil war as rebels fought back against the tyranny. All of Lucas social and political beliefs can be found in this history--disdain for the the monotonous bureaucracy whose procedures obstruct justice and manipulate control behind the scenes, corporate take-over and commerce monopolising, bribery and corruption of elected officials, and the slow replacement of freedom with control in the name of state security. The earliest version of this world in the rough draft was not known as a Republic but rather a peaceful Empire which was then overtaken by a Hitler-esque tyrant called Cos Dashit, who outlawed the Jedi and enlisted the rival Sith knights to hunt them down in the effort to squash the rebellion that had formed.

The opening crawl in this 1974 draft stated: "Until the recent GREAT REBELLION, the JEDI BENDU were the most feared warriors in the universe. For one hundred thousand years, generations of JEDI perfected their art as the personal bodyguards of the emperor. They were the chief architects of the invincible IMPERIAL SPACE FORCE which expanded the EMPIRE across the galaxy, from the celestial equator to the farthest reaches of the GREAT RIFT. Now these legendary warriors are all but extinct. One by one they have been hunted down and destroyed as enemies of the NEW EMPIRE by a ferocious and sinister rival warrior sect, THE KNIGHTS OF SITH."

Starting with the second draft, however, the key changes were made which survived into the final film of 1977. These related mainly to the civilization being a Republic with a great Senate that grew corrupt, with the bureaucracy allowing a senator to become dictator, the public manipulated into accepting his tyranny due to the prevalence of war and crime, and corporations entangled in the bribes and payoffs that facilitated this mockery of justice. Here not all of the senate was corrupt and under the payroll of the bureaucracy/Emperor (the ruler essentially being the figurehead of these true manipulators) and so they rebelled, initially through political means such as an attempted impeachment trial. The Jedi sided with the rebellion, but soon a failed coup d'etat turned the public against them, and they were disbanded and outlawed by the new Empire, who had built up substantial military force by then. The Sith knights were then enlisted to hunt down the survivors who had not been arrested and executed, and though the Jedi eventually tried to regroup they were ultimately destroyed. In draft three and four, Lucas developed that Vader was a prime factor in their demise; he had secretly betrayed them and began assassinating them before they were officially outlawed, and the Emperor began assassinating the senators that opposed the Empire as well. Eventually Vader was provided with an elite team of soldiers to destroy the survivors that had dispersed; Ben Kenobi and Annikin Skywalker were the last survivors, and though Vader was successful in killing Skywalker he was defeated by his former master, Kenobi, and in 1977 it was decided that his wounds upon this battle on the site of a volcano resulted in his suit which was a life support device. It was also decided at this time that the Emperor was a sincere tyrant, whom had maintained control of his dictatorship and had Vader as his personal emissary--in contrast to the novel, which contained statements indicating that not only was the Emperor a front for the power-hungry bureaucrats, but that there had been several successors to Emperor Palpatine since the Empire's formation.

Significant changes were made in the sequels of course. First Vader and Anakin were combined and the Emperor made into a tyrant who not only was a genuinely powerful ruler in league with the bureaucracy (as opposed to the bureaucracy secretly being the true menace) but whom was actually a Sith Lord that lured Anakin to the darkside; here the other Sith were eliminated from the story with Anakin as the Emperor's personal commander. In the prequels, Lucas developed that the Empire was actually born out of a civil war as a faction of Separatists fight for independence from the Republic--the "war and terrorism" originally intended as the corroding social structure of the state was now turned into an epic battle. In here it was also combined with the Clone Wars--in draft three of Star Wars Lucas had developed that the Jedi were once involved in a great war called the Clone Wars that occurred long ago. There wasn't a specific story to it but during Empire Strikes Back Lucas eventually developed that this Clone War was the result of "Imperial Shocktroopers" waging war as they tried to overtake the Republic, which the Jedi were successful in defeating--one of the survivors from this evil Shocktrooper army was Boba Fett. In this version it may be surmised that the clones of the Clone War were the Republic stormtroopers, created in response, a speculation given credence since they were now revealed by Lucasfilm as being clones (in the original 1977 version the Republic had ballooned its military force due to the increasing social strife, which resulted in a ready army once it was turned into the Empire, that it could continue to maintain order with; the stormtroopers were also to be normal military recruits). In the prequels of course this Clone War was moved much more forward--in the Empire Strikes Back version it had already been moved forward--so that it coincided with the Emperor's rise and was actually an artificial manipulation orchestrated by the Sith, who were planning on taking back the galaxy after being defeated a millennia earlier. The Emperor was the latest in the secretly-surviving twosome, called Darth Sidious. Here the Jedi meet their doom through the clone war soldier's programmed eradication in "Order 66" which sees them killed while in battle; the Jedi also were developed in having a central temple which allowed death squads to wipe out the remainders, with Vader eventually hunting down the few that remained. Here Yoda, developed during Empire Strikes Back   as a powerful Jedi elder and now developed as the head of the entire Jedi order, survives with Ben Kenobi, while the attempted assassination of the Supreme Chancellor is used as a means of transitioning into the Empire and disbanding the Jedi order, which was now portrayed as corrupt itself.

The following is as thorough a re-construction of the original conception of the Republic's revolution as I can find. These sources mainly are: the second draft screenplay (1975), the novelisation (1976), and comments Lucas made in 1977 (taken from the Carol Titleman interview in Rinzler's Making of). The second draft does features a number of apocrypha elements--specifically those relating to Darklighter and The Starkiller, who would transform into Darth Vader and Annikin in the next draft--but otherwise should be considered valid. You will also see a few subtle transformations with Vader and the Emperor as they are slowly linked together and made more powerful in the 1977 sources.

The Second draft, 1975:

"For thousands of years, [the Jedi] brought peace and justice to the galaxy. At one time there were several hundred Jedi families, but now there are only two or three...As the Republic spread throughout the galaxy, encompassing over a million worlds, the GREAT SENATE grew to such overwhelming proportions that it no longer responded to the needs of its citizens. After a series of assassinations and elaborately rigged elections, the Great Senate became secretly controlled by the Power and Transport guilds. When the Jedi discovered the conspiracy and attempted to purge the Senate, they were denounced as traitors. Several Jedi allowed themselves to be tried and executed, but most of them fled into the Outland systems and tried to tell people of the conspiracy. But the elders chose to remain behind, and the Great Senate diverted them by creating civil disorder. The Senate secretly instigated race wars, and aided anti-government terrorists. They slowed down the system of justice, which caused the crime rate to rise to the point where a totally controlled and oppressive police state was welcomed by the systems. The Empire was born. The systems were exploited by a new economic policy which raised the cost of power and transport to unbelievable heights. Many worlds were destroyed this way. Many people starved...During one of his lessons a young PADAWAN-JEDI, a boy named Darklighter, came to know the evil half of the force, and fell victim to the spell of the dreaded Bogan. He ran away from his instructor and taught the evil ways of the Bogan Force to a clan of Sith pirates, who then spread untold misery throughout the systems. They became the personal bodyguards of the Emperor. The Jedi were hunted down by these deadly Sith knights."

The novelisation, 1976:

"Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.
So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic was rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.
Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to unite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.
Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.
Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used the imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions.
But a small number of systems rebelled at these new outrages. Declaring themselves opposed to the New Order they began the great battle to restore the Republic…"

Lucas interviews, 1977:

“In the Old Republic, all the systems sent their representatives to the Senate. It wasn’t an Imperial Senate; it was a Republican Senate, which made the decisions that controlled the Republic. There were 24, 372 systems in the Galactic Senate. The Senate would vote in a Chancellor or an overseer who would work for four years as the leader of the executive branch of the the Republic. You were only supposed to be able to run for one four-year term—you were only eligible for one term.
What happened was one of the Chancellors began subverting the Senate and buying off the Senators with the help of some of the large intergalactic trade companies and mining companies. Through their power and money, he bought off enough of the senate to get himself elected to a second term, because of a crisis. By the time the third term came along, he had corrupted so much of the Senate that they made him Emperor for the rest of his life.
Giving the Emperor that title for life and doing away with the elective processs was all done with a lot of rationalizing. Many in the Senate felt that having elections and changing leaders in the time of an emergency disrupted the bureaucratic system. And the bureaucracy was getting to be so big that changing leaders made it impossible to have any effect on the system and make it work—moreover, the bureaucracy was running amok and not paying attention to the rulers. So they reasoned that the Emperor could bring the bureaucracy back into line. So the Emperor took control of the bureaucracy. The Galactic Senate would meet for a period that was similar to a year, but after it became the Imperial Senate, the meetings were less and less frequent until finally the meetings were only once a year, and they were very short.
With the bureaucracy behind the Emperor, it was impossible and too late for the Senate to do anything. He had slowly manipulated things; in fact, it was he who let the bureaucracy run amok and therefore had blackmailed the Senate into doing things because he was the only one who really had any power over the bureaucracy. It was so large there was no way to get things done, but he knew the right people; the key people in the bureaucracy were working for him and were paid by the companies.
When he became Emperor, a little over half the Senate as it turned out was not involved, was not corrupted—and they reacted strongly against the whole thing. There was a rebellion in terms of the Senate against the Emperor; they tried to oust him legally and have him impeached. But many of the Senators who were fighting the Emperor at that time mysteriously died. The Jedi Knights were alerted immediately and they rallied to the Senate’s side. But there was a plot afoot and when the Jedi finally rallied and tried to restore order, they were betrayed and eventually killed by Darth Vader.”

“When the Jedi tried to restore order, Darth Vader was still one of the Jedi. What he would do is catch the Jedi off-guard and, using his knowledge of the Force, he would kill the Jedi without them realizing what was happening. They trusted him and they didn't realize he was the murderer who was decimating their ranks. At the height of the Jedi, there were several hundred thousand. At the time of the Rebellion, most of them were killed. The Emperor had some strong forces rally behind him, as well, in terms of the army and the Imperial forces that he'd been building up secretly. The Jedi were so outnumbered that they fled and were tracked down. They tried to regroup, but they were eventually massacred by one of the special elite forces led by Darth Vader. Eventually, only a few, including Ben and Luke's father, were left. Luke's father is named Annikin.”

07/27/07

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