Well, okay…I don’t stan them.
But I have mixed feelings about them.
As a kid I was really into Star Wars and looked up to the Jedi, so I think it’s a hold over from that.
The Jedi are flawed, foolish, short-sighted and kind of cowardly (among other things) and The Republic is a stagnant beasts with an inefficient anachronistic and byzantine system where the worst kind of poverty has existed for millennia.
…But I still kind of like them, despite their tragic faults.
Well…Idk if I like The Republic as depicted in Star Wars, in some ways I hate it.
But the idea of a galactic society where hundreds if not thousands of peoples and cultures are brought together to coexist is one I really like, and I can understand in the early days why the Jedi would of supported the creation of such an organization.
Of course it is just that, an idea , and the lore is filled with the many ways The Republic as a bourgeoise order failed these ideals.
Ultimately I think the Jedi erred in so closely associating themselves with and mooring themselves to a state.
Their understanding of the force and themselves is also incomplete or lacking, I think.
But at the end of the day I still like the little space wizard monks.
I respect their aim in controlling their emotions (even if it often materializes in suppression instead) and in being diplomats and peacekeepers for the galaxy (even if it often materializes in propping up an unjust status quo).
But now I am starting to ramble about children’s media, which is an unforgivable crime, so I’ll stop.
I mean, the French Revolution can be a good thing and the Liberal Capitalist State bad at the same time.
Puts on gigantic nerd hat
That said I love a stupid argument about fictional universes.
In Legends (and increasingly in the new canon as Filoni et al shove KOTOR back in), the first iteration of the Republic was formed in 25,000BBY by the former mostly-human slaves of the Infinite Empire (chiefly by a group of former praetorian guards of a petty post fall warlord), as such they had a very liberal and decentralised constitution, one that allowed a wide variety of polities to join, as long as they didn’t have formal slavery.
There were several major reformations, The Republic in ep 1 is the same Republic in the same way the Qing Dynasty of China was the same government as the Xia Dynasty, but the ossification we see in Ep 1 is literally the weight of a system designed for completely different post dark-age material conditions, like if the government of Charlemagne survived and was trying to be a Liberal Democracy. The foundation is no longer fit for purpose.
The Jedi were not integrated with the Republic until the Great Hyperspace War in 5000BBY (1000 years before KOTOR) that followed discovery of the True Sith. They’d allied and occasionally involved themselves with Republican affairs in the preceding iterations of the Republic but never become a formal part of the system.
So the Jedi have spent the last 5000 years defending several iterations of the Republic (the current canon states the Republics current form is only 1000 years old) which is based on a 25,000 year old political ideology. Yeah, they’re corrupt, decadent, and stagnant. How could they not be?
The Jedi were not integrated with the Republic until the Great Hyperspace War in 5000BBY (1000 years before KOTOR) that followed discovery of the True Sith. They’d allied and occasionally involved themselves with Republican affairs in the preceding iterations of the Republic but never become a formal part of the system.
Huh, I thought it was earlier than that, I guess what do you mean by “formal part.”?
My lore knowledge isn’t that in depth, where the Jedi just a member culture of the Republic with considerable respect/influence before then? or like…an allied partner kind of like the Bothans?
How old is the Jedi Temple?
I imagined they became more active participants when they moved their temple there, but at the same time I think I remember stuff about there being many prominent temples across the galaxy, so it could have existed before but the centralization of the coruscant temple’s authority could coallign with those events.
Was this new involvement born from the Jedi’s active participation in The Great Hyper Space War, or the preceding Century of Darkness a millennia before?
So the Jedi have spent the last 5000 years defending several iterations of the Republic (the current canon states the Republics current form is only 1000 years old) which is based on a 25,000 year old political ideology. Yeah, they’re corrupt, decadent, and stagnant. How could they not be?
If I remember right the current iteration emerged from political reforms that took place after the New Sith Wars, which was basically created to correct the contradiction in Obi-Wan saying the Republic lasted for thousands and thousands of years in ANH, and Mundi saying something like “The Republic has existed for a thousand years” in one of the prequel films. lol.
Tbh, it used to bug me that there really wasn’t any power besides the Hutts and sporadically the Sith Empires that rivaled and challenged The Republic, but recently I have come around to the idea.
In a dystopic marxist kind of way I like the idea of this gigantic galactic bourgeoise republic that integrates and assimilates every culture it meets.
where the Jedi just a member culture of the Republic with considerable respect/influence before then? or like…an allied partner kind of like the Bothans?
A member culture I think, one with several worlds, an errant knight tradition and a sporadic involvement in Republic military actions and politics (they even arrested a chancellor once) but no bigass central temple on Coruscant and meddling in the structure of government until around 5000BBY. It was started, I think by the aftermath of the HYD, but solidified later with the GHW.
Their second major homeworld, Ossus was destroyed around this time, their first Tython was abandoned after the first schism, since the planet responded tectonically to an overabundance of dark or light side users. Ahch-to I think is being retconned as one of the places force-sensitive refugees with proto-Jedi philosophies come from to Tython around 35,000BBY (Jedi be old).
You’re right about the New Sith Wars.
There are and have been Republic threatening powers, and there are the Chiss and the (sigh) Vong. The Republic is really restricted to its major trade lanes. Most of the Galaxy is hard to get to.
I’m glad there are other marxist who have over analyized the symbolism/overarching narrative of star wars as much as me.
Galactic Republic = 👎
United Federation Of Planets = 👍👍👍👍👍👍
I have seen some of TNG, and like…there is something compelling about The Federation, but at the same time Star Trek has always felt so sterile and uniform to me.
Most of the main aliens just seem like slightly different humans, I mean…Star Wars has a similar issue, but less so I feel like.
It also doesn’t help that we view it all from the perspective of military officers in a state of the art spaceship.
Which I find less compelling then smugglers, rebels, and magic monk knights in junky starships.
Still want to check it out at some point though, and the society itself is more functional and better than The Republic.
Most of the main aliens just seem like slightly different humans
The largest reason for this is budget, but yeah it’s a valid critique!
It’s also a major minunderstanding to think of TNG’s Enterprise as a military ship. It’s a science and exploration vessel before all else, and the vast majority of problems are solved via diplomacy. The reason their starship is so state of the art is because it’s a vision of a post-scarcity society. It’s an excessively optimistic show that has strong roots in communism being the correct version of the future.
I mean, I realize all of that, but it is still very rooted in a sort of military structure. It simultaneously interests me and deeply bores.
Like I remember one scene where like…Picard and Worf are arguing and grappling with the morality of a trial and I find that sort of conflict compelling in their universe where there is less material reasons for wars and stuff.
It’s also interesting in how you as a post-scarcity society interact with other societies that aren’t.
Like I said though, it can feel sterile, also lacks space magic.
I remember a scene from TNG that has always stuck with me, I have no idea what episode it was in or what it was about, but Riker goes to unwind after a long hard day of work, and he goes to his private cabin and turns on a video of a pair of women playing the harp.
And I just thought god, it would be so miserable if I spent my entire day working in the Navy and then what I did for fun was listen to a pair of women in togas play individual harp notes.
I’m kind of in a weird place where I find the Jedi really cool viscerally, but I hate them on an intellectual level. So it makes sense that my favorite Star Wars properties (Kotor2 and The Last Jedi) have cool lightsaber fights and also talk about how the Jedi suck ass
There needs to be a Jedi Karl Marx so the Jedi can understand historical materialism as well as the force influences galactic events and to show them a path out of The Republic’s bourgeoise ideology.
Other then that they have almost the right idea, I think…almost.
I’m not sure how materialism works in Star Wars when the Force basically enforces idealism. Even Kotor2, which goes out of its way to show that the average person doesn’t really care about the difference between Jedi and Sith, still does demonstrate that history in SW is a matter of dueling ideas rather than class warfare.
The series has always been at least mildly critical of the Jedi. Part of Luke’s journey in the OT is understanding that he needs to not listen to Obi-Wan/Yoda about how to deal with Vader when their decisions are what created him in the first place. The prequels, Last Jedi and Kotor just build on those themes. Jedi fanboys always weird me out, because they’ve always been portrayed as generally on the right side of things, but arrogant and extremely flawed. Can’t wait for the new Kotor though.
