GalacticTurtle on Nostr: FUNNY YOU MENTION THAT!!!!! Ahem. In the era of the New Republic, the newly formed ...

FUNNY YOU MENTION THAT!!!!! Ahem.

In the era of the New Republic, the newly formed Galactic Senate fell into two unofficial political parties. The Populists favored planetary sovereignty over the authority of the central government (much like the Separatists during the Clone War). The Centrists favored the overall authority of a centralized government over independent factions.

Basically, once the rebels blew up the bulk of the Imperial governing body, Operation Cinder was launched giving most remaining Imperial fleets the order to go full scorched earth on whichever planets they controlled before going out in a blaze of glory in a final battle over Jakku. The ruins of that battle ended up creating the local scrapping economy there which formed the basis for Rey's entire childhood.

The fleets that weren't given that directive (the most fanatic and loyal followers of the Emperor) were instead given a remote location out in the Unknown Regions to go to where they would spend the next few decades forming what would later become the First Order and procreating with each other to create a super insane Hitler Youth Club that Kylo Ren would eventually bully during his temper tantrums.

Meanwhile back in the center of the galaxy, the New Republic makes itself official mainly amongst the core worlds and the inner rim systems. While these planets benefitted the most from Imperial rule prospering economically (the mid and outer rim systems were destroyed through being harvested for all their raw materials and fell under martial law) the wealth of the upper class remained undisturbed in the power switch. Imperial factories became New Republic factories with just a change of signage. Slavery went from being officially allowed back to being unofficially allowed.

Under the New Republic, the outer rim fell into chaos. Martial law disintegrated overnight and Imperial troops were replaced by pirates and organized crime rings. Some systems became small fiefdoms for Imperial remnants run by Imperial officers-turned-warlords, the ones who ignored Operation Cinder and weren't selected to help form the First Order. But those remnants were largely unstable and fell within a few years. Moff Gideon from the Mandalorian series was one of those warlords.

So the mid and outer rim joined the New Republic with their own senate representatives slowly but surely. Still, many of those officials were loyal to the former Empire or simply thought the New Republic was shit and wanted to participate in this new central government as little as possible. These are the senators who primarily made up the Populists.