The question appeared in mind during our year-long game. Time and again my players would say 'why is Empire so bad?', 'I have nothing against the Empire'. Sure, they were often shot at by the stroopers, or chased by TIEs, but they accepted this because hey, they were criminals, and authorities were supposed to do these things.

So I slowly introduced more evil aspects of the Empire and plan to escalate when we resume gaming after holidays.

Those evil elements are based upon the Nazi Germany and what they occupation forces did for example in Warsaw in Poland between 1939-45. So things like

- round-ups in the streets and mass, public execution of random citizens (in retaliation for rebel strikes)

- sudden visits of ISB at night and people disappearing

- cult of the leader - so huge portraits of Palpatine and other Imperial officials, streets and schools named after the glorious leader etc.

- huge corruption and influence of Imperial politicians and representatives (placed on officially 'affiliated' planets)

I'm considering ghettos for aliens, but that might be a little too much, since non-human races are everywhere. But places "For humans only" - why not?

So, how evil is your Empire? Are your players taking this 'evilness' for granted?Or is it 'just a government' for them?

Pretty evil. A lot of the lower ranked officers and personnel honestly mean well but the highest ranks are almost purely rotten. while there are some Imperial admirals, generals, planetary governors and even a couple of Outer Rim Moffs in our campaign who are legitimately trying to do the right thing, and doing their best to tap dance around a lot of the more evil Imperial edicts and programs without being noticed they are so badly outnumbered and out-influenced by the evil elements in power that their only hope of surviving is not being noticed by Coruscant or Imperial High Command.

A couple of sessions ago we got hired by one such Moff to arrange an incident to divert an Imperial inspection team from its planned visit to his sector. A number of ships belonging to Imperial allied corporations that passed through one port in a nearby sector somehow ended up with armed explosives in their cargo.

Really bad but with some exceptions.

Tiranic, Imperialist, militaristic, despotic, racist, ¿sexist?, (non-canon woman have been seen yet) BUT I use to put there some people that just think that its doing "the right thing" to protect the galaxy. Officers that sometimes are ashamed of his own mates actions and old Republic conversed hero that are still confused about what to do. Some of them believe that some extremist actions are admisible, but sometimes the effects of that actions made them doubt about pain inflicted on innocents.

The tendence is that they are the bad guys BUT with some people that feel that doesn't fit there but its afraid about if there is something else without the Empire.

I'm actually living in a country that still have a lot of monuments, symbols and followers of fascism. I talked with some people that still uses sentences like "with Franco (spanish dictator) we lived so much better" or that doesn't consider the was he a dictator, they believe that "only" was a "totalitarian leader".

Empire essence is bad but not every Imperial is a bad guy.

Since I'm revamping my game for 135 ABY, the Empire is fairly gray (ranging from the very light gray of the Imperial Mission to the darker shades of Imperial Intelligence) with the Sith sitting as a black stain dripped over it. Of course, the Galactic Alliance remnants aren't totally pure either.

Speciesist, sexist, racist, fascist, elitist, bio-chauvinist.

But the maglevs run on time.

It's like they were designed to be mowed down, guilt-free.

My Empire is currently the new shining knight in white armor bringin peace and order to the galaxy.

*lets the flame pass around himself*

Ok, it is 19 BBY, the Clone Wars just ended and the Imperials are busy restoring trade lanes, hunting pirates and dissidents, toppling hungry megacorporations and driving out crime syndicates. Which is why i chose that time for my group, since most have seen a few TCW episodes and i can play around with all the systems and crime syndicates they know while still being able to introduce them to new things.

Not to mention having only 1 'big brother' in form of the Empire makes it easier for me too.

Sure, several species get the short end of the stick, with total suppression, bombings, raids and even genocide.

But the majority of the galaxy is just happy that that **** war ended.

Not evil, just amoral. As long as a Moff is meeting his production or taxation quotas, no one cares what he's doing.

So, if Imperial forces show up at a rebellious planet, they can solve the problem through:

-Diplomacy

-Bribery

-Targeted assassinations

-Rigging the local elections so pro-Imperial candidates win

-Wide scale rounding up of the population

-Large scale destruction and terror campaigns

An admiral that just blows stuff up every time he encounters a rebellious populations isn't going to last long.

As far as anti-alien stuff goes, this is more a case of favoritism, giving all the juicy government contract to human-owned companies and promoting humans over aliens (unless the alien is clearly superior).

The Empire is about getting sh*t done.

Even though Luke said he hated the Empire, he was still planning on joining the Imperial Space Academy.

Not as evil as in the above examples.

Sure, they are still very, very evil but in a "I don't mind a ten or twelve year old seeing this" kind of way. There are no mass executions, no ghetto's, no cruelty, no real-world comparison to nazi Germany, etc.

They are human-centric and this translates mostly into the fact that all positions of power are in human hands and humans get the benefit of the doubt in most cases but there is no clamp down or degeneration of non-humans as this seems like something even the grand Empire wouldn't be able to pull off with all the non-human races around.

Also, I like my Star Wars to be dark and suspenseful but not "having my blood run cold" cruel in a Schindler's List kind of way.

I strongly believe that SW Rebels will clarify a lot what is EXACTLY the Galactic Empire. Until the moment he only have a lot of non-canon references and only a few non-canon ones.

Rebelion Era is my favourite one. I'm wishing to see finally what's the true face of the Empire! It's trully racist? Why use an alien inquisitor and his first aprentice was a zabrak?

Maybe there is more myth than reality. I'm really exited about Rebels

The Empire is rather amorphous and of course composed of many individuals all with different motivations and levels of morality. As an organization it is clearly evil. The level of coordination, design, planning, the sheer logistics involved and construction of Death Stars would be staggering. They were building small planets that could, and did, annihilate terrestrial worlds.

They conquered whole worlds and enslaved entire populations.

I'm sure on an individual level there were even high ranking officers who potentially never were part of any operation that wasn't completely above board and what any decent and honorable military would typically would be doing, they may never have been exposed to the true level of depravity Palpatine was visiting on the galaxy. I'm sure a lot of them defected to the other side in time.

I think the destruction of Alderaan would have been a tipping point in a lot of people's minds and really helped the Alliance pick up steam. Up to that point it was subversive Rebel scum and their propaganda, afterwards it wasn't propaganda anymore.

In the erstwhile EU there totally were alien ghettos. On Coruscant/Imperial Center, there were "alien protection zones."

I'd be careful with tying the Empire to Nazi Germany. There are, to be sure, many similarities between the two, but the Empire is not a carbon copy of the Nazi regime. So if something doesn't fit with Star Wars (for example, from all I can remember the whole "cult of the leader" thing is something that is absent from the Galactic Empire), don't hesitate to draw those distinctions. There are many differences between the personalities and leadership styles of Palpatine and Hitler. The most striking example is that Palpatine actually succeeded in conquering the galaxy and Hitler wasn't a Force-wielding Sith Lord.

Also, the ISB was super secretive and very good at their job. If there were disappearances, you didn't hear about them. Only those closest to the kidnapped had any inkling, and if they spoke out, they were quietly dealt with as well.

Finally, consider the "Heroes on Both Sides" aspect. Just because someone belongs to the Empire (Soontir Fel, Gilad Pellaeon, potentially Admiral Corlen in the Beginner Game) doesn't make them EEEVIL. Palpatine, yes. Tarkin, yes. There are many leaders within the Empire that are rotten at the core. But the Imperial Machine as a whole has the feel of "dedication to a 'righteous' cause," not "evil for evil's sake."

COMPFORCE has a fairly heavy-basis on the State and Leader to motivate, indoctrinate its personnel and to some extent so does the Stormtrooper Corps. The Military, both Navy and Army have fairly secular power bases they try to keep to themselves, tow enough of a line to keep their comissions and resent the presence of Ubiqtorate, ISB and COMPFORCE in their ranks quite considerably.

That is essentially a political mechanic based more on Stalinist communism, rather than the slightly more familiar Fascist ideologies from the 1940's era. Plus, there is a great deal of inter-responsibility which causes conflict between the seperate security groups within the Empire itself to squabble over 'who does what', sort of like playing off the KGB against the Military, then the Military playing off against the Political forces like Moffs.

Its destructive, wasteful and really good at stopping one group from assuming too much power and threatening their leader if they're too busy watching one another.

The funny thing though is that even if they pop the Deathstar, kill Palps. All that would really do is cause extensive Balkanisation (like Yugoslavia for example after it split) as all those billions of troops, sector moffs and 10's of 1000's of warships just pick sides and various warlords declare themselve Emperor. By themselves, one sector fleet and all the Imperial forces in it is more than the rebels had at their peak by the battle of Endor, even if you where to split them in half due to attrition, they'd still realistically (without any plot armour) would be an a serious threat to **** near anyone!

Yes, I know that not all Imperial officers were evil and it's not a copy of real regimes etc. I'm just wondering how you are showing that the Empire is bad, how is it present in your games, how your characters experience it. Is it direct (eg. they see a street round-up) or indirect (a contact they had disappeared, some say ISB was involved). Perhaps you are right about the cult of the leader - but maybe cult of the Empire as such? Symbols everywhere, "Our fleet protects you" posters everywhere...

We all know that the Galactic Empire was formed in response to the growing escalation of conflict with the Seperatists who were fighting to leave the Republic because of its excesive taxation. Palpatine was, of course, behind both the taxation and the Seperatist movement and planned the conflict and it's gradual escelation to steadily increase his political power over time. He created the Galactic Empire (publicly) to eliminate the need for debates and votes for military actions.

His goals were to eliminate the Jedi and maintain control over the aspects of galactic polotics, comerce and infrastructure that allow Palpatine to perpetuate his rule. Publicly, he still needs a conflict to justify him holing on to these "emergency powers" that he promised to lay down once the crists was over. Which, in my mind, means he wants the Rebels to exist and may even support them (although minimally) through back channels.

I wrote all that because I think motivations are very important when trying to figure out how to portray any antagonist.

So anyway, Palpatine has this large clone army that were engineered to obey orders, but after decades of war, you have to figure that those numbers were diminished, so it's time to recruit, right? I figure that most of the officers would have to possess "moral flexibility" and the closer to Palpatine they are, the more "flexible". But I don't see all of the officers this way. Some no doubt were eventually promoted from the non-clone troopers to office after millitary victories and for political reasons. Maybe some were decent law enforcers that were popular among the troops, and of those new troops that replaced clones, you probably have a mixed bag of brutes who get off inflicting pain on others as well as "normal" soldier types.

Demographics factor in as well.

So we have an Empire that is trying to kill off the Jedi (their "serious" opposition) while trying to keep in existance a rebellion that is large enought to seem like a threat, but doesn't have enough power to do any real damage. Meanwhile trying to appear like a large, imposing and ever present big brother who will beat you down if you step out of line, but who really only means the best for you. So what does all that crap mean?

In my games, it's localized, covered up cruelty that targets any parts of society that may support rebels (they don't want them to actually become the threat they tell everyone they are) and large scale, public displays of protection against their enemies while hunting down or converting any force users. The Empire may use outside groups that are either directly or indirectly controlled by them if Empire involvement may hurt their goals, but otherwise they'll want the locals to know it was them, and if they ever dare do that bad thing again, they won't get a third chance!

They are cruel enough to get their point across, but so bad that support for the Rebellion swells enough to make them a legitimate threat (they really didn't see it coming), unless you're a Force user, then they'll stop at nothing to corrupt or kill you. Never underestimate the power of the Dark Side!

My Empire kicks puppies and steals candy from babies.

Anyway, I view the Empire as being evil at the top but in practice its not too different from the Republic before.

The specism, and favoritism of Humans, is only prominent in who is allowed to serve in the Military. There is also casual specism in every day life which has always existed.

Palpatine is encouraging human supremacy through the New Order, but its a slow process. He can't directly oppress aliens yet because there is simply too many of them. The Empire has a very tenuous hold on its worlds. They simply lack the manpower to properly control the population. All they can do is project a false sense of power to keep people in line.

I think it is painted in broad enough strokes in the movie between actions and the caricatures a GM can make the Empire as evil as they need it to be, or not.

I strongly believe that SW Rebels will clarify a lot what is EXACTLY the Galactic Empire.

I think I have seen mention that the first episode of Rebels revolves around the Empire bringing in Wookiee slaves to build ships on the main characters home planet.

--

There is a deleted scene from ANH where Biggs tells Luke that the Empire is nationalizing commerce in the central systems, and soon everyone will be slaving for the glory of the Empire.

So if you want to have the Empire antagonize your players, a good way would be to have the Imperial Bureaucracy revoke their citizenship, confiscate all their stuff and pack them off to pick space cotton on a plantation to make uniforms for the Empires armies.

The Empire has a very tenuous hold on its worlds. They simply lack the manpower to properly control the population. All they can do is project a false sense of power to keep people in line.

This is where Tarkin doctrine came in: "Fear will keep the local systems in line."

So if you want to have the Empire antagonize your players, a good way would be to have the Imperial Bureaucracy revoke their citizenship, confiscate all their stuff and pack them off to pick space cotton on a plantation to make uniforms for the Empires armies.

There are many leaders and people in the empire that are evil, like we see in the movies. The empire is a brutally efficient authoritarian regime to be sure, but there are many good people in it.

I try to play it that most people in the empire are unaffected by much of the civil wsr, many support the empire because it has mafe space safer. The empire has a no nonsense policy with criminals. Surrender or be destroyed. Crime is down, but so is freedom.

The setting relies on an evil empire. Without the government being a hive of scum and villainy, the themes that make Star Wars Star Wars break down.

If you want to keep it plausible the real world isn't a bad place to start. There's 1940's level fascism, 1950-80s communism, modern communism, China, North Korea. Even the modern West uses techniques and does things that our ancestors would have found repulsive (and vice versa). Drone assassinations (battle droids), ubiquitous spying in the name of fear (ISB), and government over-reach are all apart of Western life.

Many laws passed today were created to protect someone or something, but have unintended side effects that protect vested interest (banks/companies too big to fail) and stifle small enterprise. Is it hard to imagine that an evil mastermind Sith lord would have trouble exploiting this human tendency?

I mean it's really easy to do. Find some well meaning do-gooder who wants a law you can exploit later. Give them the backing and spin doctors they need and bang you have horribly repressive government the masses think they adore. That was a bright point in the prequels. Lucas understood just how easy it is to manipulate the shallow thinkers.

The Empire has a very tenuous hold on its worlds. They simply lack the manpower to properly control the population. All they can do is project a false sense of power to keep people in line.

This is where Tarkin doctrine came in: "Fear will keep the local systems in line."

Indeed,

although its kinda silly when you think about it. Obviously in this massive Empire of millions of inhabited worlds and quadrillions of people, only a few thousand had the stones to rise up.

The inhabitants of Star Wars are obviously, as a group, the biggest collection of pansies ever seen in Sci-fi.

Quadrillions of beings equals a lot of opinions, tough to organize, angry mobs don't overthrow large sophisticated governments. Given that the people did, in the form of the Rebels, rise up and depose Palpatine in essentially 20 years on a galactic scale is actually pretty speedy.

I've never had the impression the Movie version of the Empire is anywhere near as large as the EU version though. I think it might get a bit of a downgrade in population and number of planets in the New Canon.

How evil is the Empire? I've had some cause to think about that in my campaign, where my PCs have found themselves wrapped up in Imperial machinations a couple of times now.

Personally, my point of view tends toward the Timothy Zahn model of the galaxy. Palpatine was definitely evil, but he was also brilliant. Case in point: the Death Star. You can argue the logic or illogic of the Death Star all you like, but if you didn't like the Empire for whatever reason, how would you feel knowing that at any time, your world could be destroyed and there was nothing you could do about it? What would be the tipping point for the Emperor deciding to use the Death Star on a planet? The sheer uncertainty of whether certain destruction was about to be rained down upon you would keep a lot of people trying to follow the laws of the Empire as best they could. However, destroying a planet? Unquestionably evil. It's more or less genocide.

So, having said that, while Palpatine was more than wiling to rule through fear, I think he was also smart enough to realize that the population of the galaxy needed to be pacified. His speech to the Senate revolved around the mantra "Safety, security, justice and peace." He'd gotten elected to the position of Supreme Chancellor based on essentially the campaign promises a United States presidential candidate might make. He also realized that he would have to keep the majority of the population happy, or at least content enough to not rebel, so he probably make some decisions which were beneficial for the galaxy at large. This isn't too surprising--after all, one of the points that has been made about Mussolini that was brought up in a previous post is that he made the trains run on time.

That being said, the Galactic Empire was rife with injustice. The ISB is the sci-fi equivalent of the Gestapo, while Imperial Intelligence is the CIA combined with the NSA, only without those pesky legal restrictions. Almost everyone in the Empire is vying for a promotion to the next level, which leads to almost endless corruption and backstabbing. This creates an atmosphere in which those in power, from the Emperor himself down to the lowliest Imperial starport manager, is willing to abuse their power or make under the table deals to get ahead. Yes, there is a significant number of people at every level who believe in the Empire, in Palpatine, and in the ideals of the Empire and their position. However, it's more likely PCs will run across, say, a customs officer who wants a bribe or a customs officer who will bust the PCs on every little charge he can think of.

Then there's the creation of second-class citizens. Slavery is legal in the Empire. That's a bad thing right there. Any merchant can get hit by a slaver and find him or herself spending the rest of their life in squalor and forced labor. If you're a certain type of alien, it's almost a certainty. Anyone not a human being is a second-class citizen, which is scary if you think about what must be the ratio of humans to aliens in the Star Wars galaxy. It's essentially apartheid.

If you think about it from the perspective Palpatine knew what he was doing, the Empire is essentially a never-ending machine of corruption. Second-class citizens and selective legalized slavery mean an increase in crime and underworld activities which will keep the Imperial law enforcement (and a good chunk of the Imperial military) busy, while the corruption in Imperial government will keep the ISB and Imperial Intelligence busy. The success of the Imperial military and Imperial Intelligence and ISB agents mean that the demand is still going to be present for illegal activities, both among the second-class citizens and in the Imperial power structure itself as new blood moves in and starts trying similar tricks. Everyone is busy pursuing everyone, and at the center of all these schemes and plots and machinations sits the Emperor, watching everyone chase someone else's tail, with himself running his schemes as he sees fit. He must have been annoyed when the Rebellion came up, but it was a chance for him to tighten his grip and justify the creation of the Death Star. What better weapon to deter terrorism (or a very lenient definition thereof)?

Not to nitpick, but slavery in everything but the name was legal in the Republic as well.

One of the biggest advantages for Palpatine was the re-centralized military. Not only did he directly control the military, by reorganizing them into the sector fleets and more or less equaly distributing them throughout the galaxy sectors that were a smugglers paradise suddenly became rather law-obidient.

That is why Empire officers dream about the 'good old days' of the Reconquest of the Rim (19-17 BBY) when they reestablished trade routes, drove out pirates and crime syndicates, yadda yadda yadda. Has been said before.

As for the balkanization of the Empire: Sure, some parts would break away. But that many?

Don't get me wrong, people can make a whole lot of stupid things. However to get the job of a Moff or even Grand Moff with all that pressure and backstabbing (both military and political) you had to be very smart to get that position.

So now imagine you are a Grand Moff, the undisputed leader for your oversector. You hear about Endor, how the Emperor and his lap-dog Vader bought the farm.

Your usual contacts and administration on IC still work fine since the Emperor did not run the day-to-day business.

The only two persons who could REALLY tell you what to do are dead.

What will you do?

Consider that the ones who killed your boss are still around.

They get support from several words that reject the Empire.

These same guys want to topple the tyranny of the Empire and restore freedom. Which means they want to get rid of you.

They even have starships that can take on a Star Destroyer (MC80s).

Will you really leave the Empire, with all the support in can give you to carve out a little kingdom that is so much more vulnerable to get taken by the Rebels?

Or are you going to stick with the Empire (and therefore 2/3rds of the known galaxy) to squash those upstarts?

Sure, some guys will take option 1. But that many as in the Legends EU? Not to mention their other shortcomings.