What the heck are the Jedi? What exactly is their relationship with the Galactic Republic? We know the Jedi are an official part of the central government of the Galaxy...but in what way? They are sorta like the Knight Templars, warrior priests, who sorta act like a police force, sorta like the spokesmen for the ruling Senate, sorta like priests for the standard galactic religion.
In Star Wars II Clone Wars it is implied that the Republic of Corusant had no standing army or armada...one had to be created by Palpatine (the Grand Army of the Republic). So what the heck did the Senate use to enforce its power on the millions of systems across the cosmos? The Jedi? With their few numbers, compaired to the number of member states, it seems unlikely. Maybe the Republic was more loose (like our UN) than it's later cousin... each regional power enforced its own territory with the Jedi playing (heavily armed) ambassadors of the Senate.
But if this was the case the Senate would have no power at all, just like our UN, and why would anyone (Palpatine) want to take it over? Besides, there is such a thing as Republic Credits so the Galactic government must have had some substantial power. Depending on which books you read the Republic had survived for 20,000 years or so... that's an increadibly successful civilization by any standard. But where did this power and stability come from? You can't tell me that "enlightened self intrest" kept the Republic together all those years.
Maybe Corusant had a military but it was more an alliance of the military forces of the major powers of the Galaxy working. But that sounds too much like the impotent UN of our reality. Again, how can the galaxy have an unified currency and economy without a central power to oversee it all? Well... I guess you could say the EU is like that. And the EU is not much more than the Articles of Confederacy back on the American continent.
So I guess it could work. The Republic of Corusant, with all it's pomp and glory, was nothing more than a glorified committee on trade...
But still I don't quite buy it. In the "Phantom Menace" the Senate seems to have the power to stop the Trade Federation from the blockade of Naboo... but is blocked from doing so by the corruption, beaucracy, and dastardly doings of Palpatine.
Who would have enforced the Senate's will? The Jedi? Maybe Corusant did have a military but it was very weak comparied to the Grand Army that would replace it and later become the industrial war complex of the Empire. Or maybe the Jedi were all that was needed as a military and it was only with the manufactured civil war of Count Dooku/Palpatine that the Jedi were no longer able to deal with war on such a titanic scale.
One last question/comment... in "Revenge of the Sith" when the Jedi Temple is stormed and the Jedi Order wiped out, why wasn't there mass panic and revolution in the streets? Weren't the Jedi the priests of the Galaxy? Wouldn't the population be up in arms with the military destroying what was basically St. Peter's Basilica?
[ May 10, 2008, 03:50 AM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
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First of all...you have a fair bit of free time on your hands at the moment don't you?
Second, you're mischaracterizing the role the Jedi played in galaxy, at least as far as religion goes. The Force was never a universal religion. People had planet wide religions specific to their own culture. Jedi were like curious mystics that people saw as figures of justice who believed in the Force, but it wasn't a religion, not in the sense you imply. The people of the Old Republic weren't Force worshippers.
The Jedi, as I understand it, were more like US Marshals. One or two were often sent to be mediators, but they went with the force of thousands who would follow them if anything bad happened to the first two who went. It was that threat of force that kept most in line and kept them safe. They were also really, really good mediators most of the time. The Republic had military forces, but nothing like the kind of standing army that Palpatine created. Mostly planets were responsible for policing their own borders, and the Republic was only brought into resolve border disputes. They were a much looser confederation of worlds and groups of worlds.
They're also I think a bit more independent than you might think. The Chancellor could request to send them out on missions, but planets could make requests of them individually and they could send out representatives without Senate approval, as I understand it.
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Oh yes Lyrhawn. I do have some free time at hand.
Ok... so I was right in the fact that the Republic was fairly loose... but with a standing army... but nothing as huge as what Palpatine created later on.
So why were the Jedi stationed at Corusant and at the beck and call of the Senate? Master Windu even said the Jedi serve the Senate not the Chancellor.
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Their main Jedi Temple might have been on Coruscant, but it was hardly their only port of call. They had bases and training centers all over the galaxy to test and train kids. And for that matter, we know that the Corellian Jedi were mostly loners. They stayed in the Correllian system and policed their own, and we know that Corran Horn's grandfather worked with Corellian Security, so they apparently liased with regular security forces on a something like a regular basis. In reality I think a lot of them served much more mundane roles. I think there were Jedi healers working on hospitals and liasons with security and military forces, and a great deal of them were sent out to investigate and mediate the various disputes that broke out between interplanetary bodies. Let's say UN Blue Helmets mixed with US Marshals. They were primarily peacekeepers and mediators, but when the situation called for it they swung a mean lightsaber.
Yeah, I'd call them a loose confederation of worlds with a governing body, but it was a parliamentary system also, that's something to consider. I think they would have collapsed under the weight of their own bureacracy eventually without Palpatine.
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Don't forget that in the prequels, Lucas decided to reveal that the Force was not the Living Power that binds all things, but actually the result of "midi-chlorians"...and Jedi and Sith are merely beings who have a higher-than-normal midi-chlorian count.
In 18 years or so, people would completely forget about the li'l microscopic powerhouses.
Edit to add: I know out-of-film and Expanded Universe sources have tried to give a better explanation of this, but in the prequels themselves it seems as if Force sensitivity and manipulation is primarily due to these organisms. They're even given as the "father" of the main character.
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But everyone has some midi-chlorians, right? It's just that the Jedi have a higher concentration. That's what I always assumed.
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Yes pooka. It is said in the EU (Expanded Universe this time, not European Union) that everyone to some degree is Force sensitive, and everyone has midi-chlorians. In the Death Star novel, one character who turns out to have a Jedi-like connection to the Force is diagnosed with a midi-chlorian count twice as high as normal.
The Jedi were known as mediators, but glorified as warriors. Their religion of the Force was not a state religion, but a science that led to powerful beings that could be capable of feats that would otherwise be impossible. Most of the Galaxy was secular, though there were many individual religions across the planets. The Jedi were not priests, but spiritual warriors who could use their power and philosophy to perform their peacekeeping tasks more effectively and righteously than anyone else.
As demonstrated by the Trade Federation in the Phantom Menace, the Senate's will was weak and its power came from the cooperation of its members and the negotiating power of the Jedi. The planets were separated by so much space that they didn't have too much to do with one another, save a few clumps in a sector. The Jedi were paid for by tax dollars and donations to keep the peace and protect the weak. That changed during the Clone Wars, when even the Padawans were made into high-ranking officers, and their primary purpose became a military one. That became the power shift that Palpatine used to seize control over the Republic, and alienated the public from the notion that the Jedi were peaceful and did not condone violence. Think of it, not as Palpatine's elite blowing up St Peter's Basilica, but as the government putting down a coup by the FBI.
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Blayne Bradley
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The republic had collapsed quite a few times throughout history.
I liken it to a bit like Canada, the government doesnt have the power per se of enforcing its will if they all tried to break away but the carrot of getting money transfers from everyone else if your poor.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Their main Jedi Temple might have been on Coruscant, but it was hardly their only port of call. They had bases and training centers all over the galaxy to test and train kids. And for that matter, we know that the Corellian Jedi were mostly loners. They stayed in the Correllian system and policed their own, and we know that Corran Horn's grandfather worked with Corellian Security, so they apparently liased with regular security forces on a something like a regular basis. In reality I think a lot of them served much more mundane roles. I think there were Jedi healers working on hospitals and liasons with security and military forces, and a great deal of them were sent out to investigate and mediate the various disputes that broke out between interplanetary bodies. Let's say UN Blue Helmets mixed with US Marshals. They were primarily peacekeepers and mediators, but when the situation called for it they swung a mean lightsaber.
Yeah, I'd call them a loose confederation of worlds with a governing body, but it was a parliamentary system also, that's something to consider. I think they would have collapsed under the weight of their own bureacracy eventually without Palpatine.
Of course everything we know about the Corellian Jedi is EU only. So to George Lucas it's not canon. (Personally, I choose my own canon, thank you very much...)
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quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: Yes pooka. It is said in the EU (Expanded Universe this time, not European Union) that everyone to some degree is Force sensitive, and everyone has midi-chlorians. In the Death Star novel, one character who turns out to have a Jedi-like connection to the Force is diagnosed with a midi-chlorian count twice as high as normal.
'Cept the Vong. I doubt they have midichlorians.
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quote:So what the heck did the Senate use to enforce its power on the millions of systems across the cosmos?
Does the US Congress need the US Army to enforce its will on the people of the US?
If a state, any state, requires armed force to maintain its power, it has no power, and is no state.
While the Jedi were similar to US Marshals, enforcing the law as needed, they were not an army to coerce compliance. Local governments, on the City/State/World level also had law enforcement and defense forces as well.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: They don't have midichlorians that I know of. The Vong were totally outside the Force.
They were stripped of the Force. That could mean that Sekot's mom told their midi-chlorians to shut down, or it could mean that they existed without midi-chlorians. Or it could mean that they were deprived of the life force that flows through everything, so the midichlorians don't have anything to tell them.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve:
quote:So what the heck did the Senate use to enforce its power on the millions of systems across the cosmos?
Does the US Congress need the US Army to enforce its will on the people of the US?
If a state, any state, requires armed force to maintain its power, it has no power, and is no state.
While the Jedi were similar to US Marshals, enforcing the law as needed, they were not an army to coerce compliance. Local governments, on the City/State/World level also had law enforcement and defense forces as well.
posted
To answer the initial question, jedi are peacekeepers, mediators, advisors, bodyguards, sometimes police, and in extreme circumstances soldiers.
quote:One last question/comment... in "Revenge of the Sith" when the Jedi Temple is stormed and the Jedi Order wiped out, why wasn't there mass panic and revolution in the streets? Weren't the Jedi the priests of the Galaxy? Wouldn't the population be up in arms with the military destroying what was basically St. Peter's Basilica?
After 3 years of the jedi serving as generals and commanders of the Republic army, I don't see how anyone could view them as gentle, defenseless holy men; the way that you or I would see an order of priests or monks. Even before the Clone Wars, jedi were probably a lot more well known for the peacekeeping/police function than for anything else. Notice how in Eps. II when Obi-wan and Anakin violently apprehend the bounty hunter Zam Wessel (sp?) in a public bar, Anakin just declares it "jedi business" and everyone is unconcerned.
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Blayne Bradley
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I remember how in "Taiko" when oda Nobunaga massacred Warrior Monks, burnt their temples while there was "unrest" per se in how it created more enemies then it destroyed the population of Japan didn't rise up against the Oda, after all these monks should've been able to defend themselves.
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Blayne....how often in our history have we needed it? There are always people who want to force others to do what they want. The art in governing is how little force it takes to make things happen within a country, not how much of it is possible.
At least we don't stave our own population into submission. If we did we might be your favorite country.
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The way I've always seen it, there were always various sects of the Jedi Order that weren't officially part of the Council and didn't necessarily follow the Jedi Code or hold any allegiance to the Republic, the Corellian Jedi would be a great example of that, as would Qui-Gonn Jinn, to a certain extent. The Sith also seem to have started as one of these split off groups. You could kind of equate that to religion in our own life, there's the official heads of the religion and then most of it's members do their own thing.
It's implied by some of the EU books and comics that the extermination of the Jedi took a long time to complete after the events of ROTS. So an event like the attack on the Jedi Temple wouldn't have inspired total panic among the denizens of the Republic because as far as anyone knew, most of the Jedi were still alive, fighting the war, or were minding their own business in their home systems.
The Republic did have a military before the clones showed up. In the KOTOR games there's a Republic Military and the ship in the first scene of Phantom Menace is a Republic Cruiser that's been stripped down for diplomatic service. The way I imagine it, the Republic's need for a military didn't include much in the way of ground troops but was primarily a naval force to enforce interstellar matters, allowing individual systems to provide their own ground defense. That would explain the need for an army of clones to fend off the separatist movement.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: At least we don't stave our own population into submission. If we did we might be your favorite country.
??? Who would that be?
In any case, the idea that a state that requires force to maintain its power is somehow not a state is a relatively recent idea which may or may not be applicable to the vast number of nations throughout history and is somewhat unique to our flavour of democracy.
Indeed, that sort of definition would exclude pretty much all states from the ancient world all the way up to, what, the 18th century? We're stretching even more when we say that the same must apply to the Star Wars galaxy in which they still have actual inherited royalty (perhaps with divine right), actual slavery, trade guilds, so forth.
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quote:The Republic did have a military before the clones showed up...
Then what was the big deal about activating a standing army for the first time in living memory?
I think it was a matter of scale. They had ships, I mean obviously they did. Kamino didn't give them an army AND a fleet. Those ships they had on Day 2 of the war didn't materialize from nothing. I think they had a defense force of sorts, obviously they had something on hand to deal with various conflicts that might emerge. But the Grand Army of the Republic was a force on a scale that was unlike anything in recent memories, probably since the Sith Wars.
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quote:The Republic did have a military before the clones showed up...
Then what was the big deal about activating a standing army for the first time in living memory?
I think it was a matter of scale. They had ships, I mean obviously they did. Kamino didn't give them an army AND a fleet. Those ships they had on Day 2 of the war didn't materialize from nothing. I think they had a defense force of sorts, obviously they had something on hand to deal with various conflicts that might emerge. But the Grand Army of the Republic was a force on a scale that was unlike anything in recent memories, probably since the Sith Wars.
The first ships came from Rothana Heavy Engineering, in a collaboration with Kamino. Afterwards, most of the ships were built by Republic manufacturers like Kuat Drive Yards.
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I didn't know that about Rothana. I thought KDY, Sluis Van and Fondor had just been there forever making ships.
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hey didnt th rpublic use robots also to keep peace what about the battle droids not under dooku/trade federation control
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Telp, I think part of the problem in the comparisons you're making is that you assume that since the UN currently is fairly toothless that such a body must always be toothless.
the way I've always understood the old republic was as some kind of combination of say the UN, EU (economically) and NATO. So while the republic itself probably had little-nothing in the way of a standing army or possibly even navy it didn't mean that they had no influence/power.
Look today at the UN. On a UN-authorized peacekeeping mission the forces involved will be labelled as "UN Peacekeepers" even though any given unit will be Swiss or Australian or French or US etc... This is also an easy explanation of references to "republic cruisers" and the like. They could have been ships officially from some specific planet on temporary or permanent "UN" duty, or part of some kind of small internal military force.
Also consider that after 20000 years of relatively stable civilization the need to maintain a large centralized military force is probably pretty small. In times of peace it's reasonable to assume that most forces would have been small and/or engaged in their own internal conflicts. Only those organizations with the resources to create droid or clone armies at the drop of a hat would have been able to come up with large forces in a short period of time.
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quote:Those ships they had on Day 2 of the war didn't materialize from nothing.
Maybe I don't remember it well, but wasn't that the exact purpose of the Star Forge? Rapid, large scale production?
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