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New Order

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"The New Order does not exist to bring order to anything. It is not the bright strong energy that lifted us from the Clone Wars and the Republic's corruption. It's not the maker and the organizer and the fixer that you thought it was when you buttoned on your junior-officer uniform. […] The real purpose of the Empire is to give people like Vader the power to do anything they want. The bureaucracy, the ideology, the gleaming system we so admire—it accretes around that central core of cruelty solely because a bureaucracy allows us, the followers, to rationalize our participation through laws and protocols. […] There is no restraint or principle at the center of the New Order. And that is why people admire it. The Empire does all the things that people secretly believe should be done with power."
―Canonhaus thinks about the New Order[7]

The New Order was the official political ideology and atheistic state religion adopted by the First Galactic Empire, and was enforced by COMPNOR, with the Grand Architect of the New Order responsible for its political message.

History[]

"My son has a big mouth and is prone to outrageous speeches, but he's not a rebel. He'll see the value of the New Order when he grows older."
―Captain Hiram Zataire, to ISB Agent Alexsandr Kallus[8]

When Sheev Palpatine proclaimed himself Emperor in front of the whole Galactic Senate, he promised that his new regime would usher in a thousand years of peace by ending the corruption and ineptitude of the old political system of democracy.[6][9] Born out of the Galactic Republic's Commission for the Protection of the Republic, the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order bureau was established by the Empire.[3] An individual designated as the Grand Architect of the New Order, such as Governor Everi Chalis of the planet Haidoral Prime, helped to build out the New Order.[1]

Ideology[]

Overview[]

"All you have to do is have faith! The Empire will come for us! That's our Emperor's promise. The promise of order throughout the galaxy. Freedom and protection for all."
―Stormtrooper TK-830, a true believer in the Empire[10]
The Galactic Empire wanted its citizens to define themselves by its existence instead of thinking of themselves as citizens of their homeworlds.

The Galactic Empire wanted its citizens to define themselves by its existence instead of thinking of themselves as citizens of their homeworlds.

The stated chief values of the regime were order, control, and the rule of law.[11] However, the Declaration of Rebellion issued by the Alliance to Restore the Republic against the Imperial regime invoked the language of law and democracy to assert that the Empire ruled via systematic oppression that imposed unjust laws without the consent of the governed. Other values included unity through civic pride, patriotism, militarism, and the supremacy of the state under a cult of personality for Emperor Palpatine—fascism.[12] The Empire's ideology also defined being an "Imperial" as its own personification and hoped to turn its recruits into individuals more interested in defining themselves by the Empire they existed under, instead of by the planetary cultures they hailed from.[13]

Supremacy of the state[]

The most immediately visible aspect of the Empire's ideology were its militarism and belief in an unchallenged, totalitarian state, all done in the name of maintaining stability and a safe and secure society.[14] The Empire and any action by it was justified in the name of order, safety and peace, any enemy of the Empire was branded a terrorist, a criminal and a dangerous agitator with no sort of nuance, for example characterizing them as nihilistic anarchists with no agenda beyond destructive hatred for civilization.[15] Actions against Imperial personnel and resources such as the Aldhani heist[16] or the constructed incidents in the Suppression of Ghorman were described as unforgivable and savage atrocities, with those fallen in the military seen as Imperial patriots while civilian deaths were left underported.[17] These concepts of strength and power were also obsessively repeated, usually with military imagery, in Imperial propaganda pushing the New Order,[12]

The prevailing attitude among large chunks of the population was that victims of the Empire had brought their own doom upon themselves by "not following the rules", and that there was nothing to fear for peaceful, law-abiding citizens.[18]

The most common justification for Imperial crackdowns on civil liberties was maintaining stability and security, as promised in the Proclamation of the New Order, and was strongly linked to Imperial militarism. Wilhuff Tarkin argued only a strong and growing military could protect the people from pirates, warlords and slavers[19], while the Emperor pushed the the creation of Stormtrooper Corps through the Senate citing the need of protection and security to build a strong Galaxy.[20]

Prejudice and discrimination[]

Xenophobia and humanocentrism were key points of New Order policy and were justified by Imperials as a natural extension of purported the human right to rule.[21] According to the Imperial ideology, the best way to protect one's homeworld was to strength the Empire it existed as part of.[13] The New Order enforced the supposed "natural hierarchy" of the galaxy, justifying the exploitation of worlds further out in the galaxy in the name of shipping their resources and wealth inward to Coruscant and other Core World planets.[18]

The Empire pursued what it called High Human culture[22], the ideal that humans had a unique potential, being the most widespread and supposedly most advanced race in the Galaxy, downplayed contributions of Non-Humans to society ane looked down on themnd Droids.[23] The idea of uniformity pursued by the Empire, despite the formal ban on discrimination that existed in its ranks, was heavily based on humans or near-humans, and led to endemic bias.[14] In his book The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, historian Beaumont Kin wrote about his belief that the Imperial system ultimately encouraged all sorts of prejudice by the hands of its officials to justify their cruelty, even though only some were part of a common platform. The Empire maintained an Alien Protection Zone ostensibly for the safety and autonomy of non-humans on Coruscant, but really as a segregated, impoverished and often raided neighborhood, and used fabricated evidence of inferior intelligence to segregate non-human students and teachers on Talus by will of its xenophobic governor.[18]

For Palpatine was venerated as the best, most important being to have ever lived, traits of his (specifically his being a human male) could be argued by Imperials to be inherently superior on their own, even thought the Emperor himself looked down on all creatures indiscriminately.[18] Imperial propaganda used the imagery of soldiers[12] and even of popular athletes to create the image of the perfect Imperial citizen as a physically fit, young human man.[18]

The Empire also pushed heavily propaganda against the Jedi to justify their extermination, with works of propaganda showing them as charlatans and shadowy agitators who twisted the minds of the youth and plotted against the Empire, while at the same time (through censorship and systemic destruction of their culture) emphasizing the importance of forgetting about them.[18][12]

Cult of Personality[]

Fundamental premise of the New Order was the necessity for an enlightened strong figure to rule the Galaxy with near absolute power, and Sheev Palpatine, despite the extreme reclusiveness he adopted as Emperor, was revered as the only being capable of acting in that role.[18]A cult of personality had already formed around him during his tenure as Supreme Chancellor, as evidenced by Clone War era propaganda[12], posing him as the savior of civilization from the onslaught of war and the separatist threat. For Palpatine planned to live eternally, no plan for succession was in place, only a Contingency that would punish the Galaxy and prepare it for his resurrection if he was killed.[22] The Emperor was propagandized as the guardian of the Galaxy's beings, but, in reality, he believed that it was the responsibility of an Empire to protect its ruler, not the other way around, and that failure to do so warranted death.[23]

Base of Support[]

The Empire's officious tone was appealing to dissatisfied youths who felt powerless and victimized. To them, the Empire offered a chance at retribution and an intoxicating brand of power. [12] Young men, especially humans, from remote or impoverished planets would often join the military for economic security, a sense of purpose and novelty or to gain a way out of said world.[15][16][18]

Beaumont Kin described the demographic the Empire was most successful at, and most eager, getting support from as well-payed employees, property owners and generally reasonably well-off beings, as well as people with families, from mainly the Core Worlds. This demographic had suffered the insecurity and austerity of the Clone Wars and was willing to renounce seemingly abstract liberties and overlook atrocities as long as the Empire maintained a sense of stability (which led, for example, to Imperials over-harvesting and starving whole planets just to keep food prices in the Core stable).[18]

Canonhaus, an Imperial officer in the Empire's naval branch, came to believe that there was no desire for "order" at the heart of the New Order ideology. Instead, he came to realize the Empire and everything that made it up only existed to give figures like the Sith Lord Darth Vader the power to do whatever they so wished. Through the Imperial bureaucracy, any action the Emperor or Vader wished to carry out—no matter how cruel—could be justified by their followers, who would then follow the Sith Lords' command.[7] Stormtrooper TK-830 was a true believer in the Empire's promise of "order" and, even after being abandoned for several days, believed the Empire would look after him. According to TK-830, the Empire promised freedom and protection to everyone on the galaxy, something that fellow stormtrooper Hoyel—himself a secret rebel sympathizer—thought was ridiculous.[10]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Battlefront: Twilight Company
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Star Wars: Battles that Changed the Galaxy
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Tarkin
  4. ↑ Rebels-mini-logo Star Wars Rebels — "Empire Day"
  5. ↑ Star Wars: Galactic Atlas
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "The Final Order" — From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back
  8. ↑ The Rebellion Begins
  9. ↑ Servants of the Empire: Edge of the Galaxy
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Wolf Trap" — From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi
  11. ↑ Aftermath
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lost Stars
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Thrawn (novel)
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Star Wars Rebels: A New Hero
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
  17. ↑ Andor logo new Star Wars: Andor — "Welcome to the Rebellion"
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 18.7 18.8 Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire
  19. ↑ Tarkin (novel)
  20. ↑ TBBtemplate Star Wars: The Bad Batch — "Truth and Consequences"
  21. ↑ Aftermath: Life Debt
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
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