How not to rule a galaxy, or: the inevitable tyranny of all attempts at centralism

In many ways, Star Wars presents us with a millennia-spanning historical cycle that is defined by the struggle between centralism and decentralism. (I base myself purely on the original continuity here, given the massive amount of information that the old Expanded Universe provided. The new Disney continuity is so muddled and under-developed that any attempt at analysing it in this way would be pointless.)

There is clear evidence that, intentionally or otherwise, the history of the galaxy far, far away was written with a cyclical model underpinning it. In one way, this is reflected in the recurring threat of the Sith. They are ruthless, competitive and power-hungry. Over time, they fight a struggle for dominance among each other, which leads to the strongest and most ruthless of them assuming overall leadership. That one establishes a Sith Empire, and goes on a campaign of conquest. If he is defeated, the Sith warlords almost immediately turn on each other, and their internal struggles begin anew. If he succeeds, his lieutenants turn on him during the subsequent peace, and then turn on each other. The Empire collapses and the internal struggles of the Sith begin anew.

In either case, this leads to a long period where the Sith are not a major threat to the rest of the galaxy, and there is peace. Until, in due time, someone unites the Sith again, and the whole cycle begins anew. All this suggests that the ideology of the Sith does not lend itself to the formation of a stable society. But the principles on which the Galactic Republic was founded, apparently, do lend themselves to such an undertaking. The Republic, no matter how many times it is assailed, keeps rising again— and keeps thriving. And not only is the Republic fundamentally different from the successive Sith Empires in this regard; it is fundamentally different from every authoritarian attempt to dominate the galaxy.

This bears further scrutiny. It stand to reason that the Sith Empires would be unstable, because back-stabbing is an intrinsic part of the Sith way. But the Sith are not the only conquerors and tyrants that the Republic has had to contend with over the millennia. All other authoritarian regimes have proven to be just as unviable as the Sith Empires. From a Doylist perspective, one can argue that this kind of recurring pattern just crept into the setting because "good republic versus evil empire" is the default set-up and the writers keep going back to it. And at the end, the good guys win. But I don't believe that fully explains it at all. I rather think that this persistent recurrence stems from the fact that authors run into an inevitable reality: on a galactic scale, authoritarian rule doesn't work.

More specifically: it is centralist rule that doesn't work, and on a galactic scale, all centralism must by definition be authoritarian. This is my attempt at identifying the fundamental rule that lies at the basis of all galactic history in Star Wars: there is an endless competition between (inherently peaceful) decentralism and (inherently coercive) centralism. All decentralist systems of governance have certain weaknesses (precisely because they lack a strong, pro-active central authority), so it becomes inevitable that periodically, centralists will manage to take power, whereupon they will impose their will on the galaxy. This authoritarianism engenders resistance, which ultimately triumphs, at which point decentralism (and therefore peace) will be restored.

This cycle repeats without end. The Sith are merely the most obvious and extreme incarnation of the centralist-authoritarian impulse, yet every single attempt at centralist rule fits into this pattern. Note that every time that the Republic itself became increasingly centralist, this went hand-in-hand with increased authoritarianism— and culminated in a galactic conflict that ultimately led to the restoration of liberty (meaning decentralism).

Of particular interest is that on a galactic scale, there is no "middle ground" between centralist tyranny and radical decentralism. You get either the one or the other. Anything other than decentralism must automatically imply tyranny, because nothing other than that will keep the whole thing from falling apart. Basically: if Coruscant gets too controlling, increasing parts of the galaxy will want to get out from under Coruscant's rule. Coruscant can then either A) restore local autonomy, or B) let the unhappy systems secede, or C) keep them in line by force. This means you are limited to a mere three outcomes, namely A) a decentralist united galaxy, B) a multi-polar divided galaxy, or C) a centralist tyranny over the whole galaxy. Those are the only flavours you're ever going to get, on that scale.

The reason I keep mentioning scale is because it is perhaps the crucial factor in all of this. The issue is that there is no way that Coruscant can adequately legislate—in any meaningful detail—the lives of countless sentients belonging to vast numbers of highly diverse species and cultures. Their needs are too different. We're talking about countless species with totally different physiologies. You can't just make their wildly divergent needs magically align. So centralist rule cannot ever be anything other than minority rule. One species, or a small group of them, will have the real power. All the others will be under the yoke. Centralism therefore means tyranny. It means Coruscant making laws that are totally unsuited to Twi'leks or Bothans or Ithorians.

The only way to run a galaxy in a manner that respects the endless diversity of its inhabitants—and the endless diversity of their needs—is to restrict yourself. To only do the basic things, and to leave everything else to the peoples themselves. To let them make their own laws, suited to their culture and their species. In other words: decentralism.

It is no co-incidence at all that Palpatine used "Human High Culture" are a core element of his policies. His centralism was humanocentrist, and that was by design. It would be impossible to centrally make laws suitable to everyone, so he decided to make laws suitable for (many) humans... while totally shafting all the other species. Because he knew damned well that centralism on that scale is going to fuck over a lot of people. But he also knew humans were by far the most numerous people in the galaxy. So that was the obvious demographic for his plot of creating an ethnic "overclass".

And even then, even humans themselves (as a group) were still too diverse. Palpatine catered to the densely populated (and human-dominated) Core, while screwing over the outlying systems— human or otherwise. That, too, is an inevitability of all centralism. It serves the centre. And it does so at the cruel expense of everyone else. This is why the bad guys in Star Wars have practically always been centralists. Given the context, it's impossible for them to achieve their aims without ruthless tyranny and unimaginable racism.

You can have a galactic government that is decentralist and that at least aims to respect the rights of all. You can also have a galaxy divided into regional powers (presumably mono-species or consisting of a few species whose interests align very closely), which could then be correspondingly more centralised. Or you can have a galactic government that is centralist, which inevitably means that the most 'central' group (the most numerous and powerful one, generally, so most often Core-based humans in Star Wars) will be in charge, and everyone else gets to live as a colonial subject.

On a galactic scale, centralism means imperialism. It cannot mean anything else. And you can't ever have non-imperialist centralism. Because being non-imperialist means that you have to respect it when people of other ethnicities/species want to govern themselves. Which means you have to allow them to split off from your centralist galactic regime— allow them the right to declare independence. Which they will then do. Which automatically leads to a multi-polar galaxy, and thus brings an end to the centralism. Peaceful centralism is a contradiction in terms. If it is tried, it will lead to secessionism in many places (which you must then respect, because if you don't, you're a colonialist tyrant). So if you want to keep the galaxy united, you must either be so decentralist that nobody really wants to secede... or you have to be tyrant and prevent your colonial slaves from seceding.

For this reason, there are no "centralist good guys" in Star Wars, and there never can be. The very nature of centralism implies coercion and evil. The history of the galaxy far, far away correspondingly paints a detailed picture of a peaceful, decentralist galaxy-spanning civilisation that is periodically thrown into horrible war when yet another centralist lunatic attempts to impose his will by force. The lunatic is inevitably defeated, and his tyrannical ways are so reviled that the people demand renewed commitment to, and respect for, their intrinsic autonomy. Which is then granted, followed by blessed peace— until the next centralist lunatic comes along to give it a shot.

There is no doubt that every single time in its history that someone attempted centralist rule—from the Pius Dea crusades to Revan's attempts to Palpatine's Empire, and every other instance one might care to name—it ended in tyranny and unimaginable bloodshed. And not only is every attempt at centralism tyrannical, but practically every attempt at tyranny is also centralist. Almost every single time of strife and conflict on a galactic scale was caused by someone trying to impose centralist rule.

Not all villains are centralists (just most of them), but it is abundantly clear that all centralists are villains.