Personally I attribute it to being a pretty cool and mysterious phrase to drop right into a story, attributed to a character that was truthful, but exceedingly cryptic as an individual whom was trying to impress a sense of duty on an impressionable young man, hoping one day he would kill a pair of sith lords. 1000 generations is cool, yeah, awesome. Qui-Gon would be proud of that one.

The answer is Yes; the Republic is pretty old and so is the Jedi. Kinda in the same vain as "Making the Kessel run in 14 parsecs" or something. It's just some jargon that the characters drop that mightn't be necessarily precise; but the characters in the universe know what is meant because they live in that universe (Though whether Obi-Wan thought Han was impressive or just full of Tarntarn is another question. It's a lukewarm argument.). Lucas basically was world building and adding and dropping details as he went on like a GM would so I wouldn't take any of the concrete statements of star wars all that seriously as characters, like people will embellish things frequently to their benefit which from a certain point of view, might be right. It's how Lando makes a living after all; that guy just ends up faking it until he makes it. But needless to say, I wouldn't necessary take characters at what they say as a concrete answer. Embellishment is a key trait of humanising literature and chances are facts are pretty fluid in even the most serious of media. XD

As for breaking laws, yeah. The Trade Union committed some serious war crimes with potential for genocide in the blockade of Naboo, fast forward some years later and the same vice-roy is still in charge despite being arrested, blood on his hands in the Naboo Throne room and forced to surrender. I kinda get the feeling that "breaking laws" and "accountability" relies on individuals in the republic being interested in holding the represented accountable. We don't know much about the laws of the land but I get the impression that the Republic never really took the battle of Naboo all that seriously; it was a conflict that took place somewhere far away and they probably slapped a fine on the trade union for overstepping their mark. Kinda astounding really how a figure could do those kind of things yet it doesn't seem to threaten the end of that guy's political career like it would in our world. It was only when a gigantic uprising came about and the Jedi tried to assassinate the supreme chal in his office did the republic really become invested in anything beyond their own backyard politics.

I guess the bigger the galaxy, the smaller the problems seem to be until it happens right on their doorstep.

What if the jedi are just older than the republic?

7 hours ago, Daeglan said:

What if the jedi are just older than the republic?

They probably are.

22 hours ago, Daeglan said:

What if the jedi are just older than the republic?

Deep dive time. XD

In the same way that our modern religions are really old; even christainty can trace many of it's modern practices to the subversion of pagan practices. Easter instead of the Fertility festival (Rabbits being, naturally fertile creatures.) Christmas/Winter Solice and so fourth. Even though Christianity is a relatively young faith that fragmented off from Islam and Judaism, it's core ideas that make up the greater whole are ancient. I imagine that was the kind of feel Lucas/some other writers wanted to give when the Jedi and Sith were offshoots of one another, that these organisations are just so old that they barely resemble each other despite once having very similar core tenants at one point in time. Likewise the Jedi have likely assimilated a lot of force cultures into their umbrella as history went on, this is something that star wars has never addressed.

Goes without saying, I'm not a religious man as I believe that mankind alone has accountability over their own fate and simply shoves off that responsibility onto some parental figure to redirect the burden elsewhere; which is kind of what happened to the Jedi. They stopped holding themselves accountable to the greater galaxy and instead just pandered to this ideal of the Republic as this bastion of truth and foundation for the galaxy despite being fundamentally arrogant and lazy people whom had decided simply to let the grass grow. Only Qui-Gon, a man who believed so passionately in his goals of serving the people that he undertook a personal pilgrimage to liberate Naboo and ultimately instruct this young man he had faith in was noble enough to take the path of difficulty and self sacrifice that no other man of his order wanted to commit to. The moral of the story is that having an ideology doesn't make a person great; but using those tenants as a tool to aspire to might be useful as Qui-Gon aspired to live up to the spirit of the Jedi, not the text as was written.

Hmmm, that was a weird tangent to go on. I swore as I get older the more interesting ideas are.

4 hours ago, LordBritish said:

... Christianity is a relatively young faith that fragmented off from Islam and Judaism ...

... core tenants ...

Christianity did not fragment off from Islam. One could argue that point in the opposite direction though.

As for the second line ... the term that you want is "tenets". Tenants are people who live in rented apartments, etc.

Yeah, wasn't it a Christian heretic who got the guy started on it?

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yeah, wasn't it a Christian heretic who got the guy started on it?

I'm not claiming to be a religious studies expert (or any form of theologian, which is something different), so I can only suggest that you check some reliable sources.

4 hours ago, LordBritish said:

... Only Qui-Gon, a man who believed so passionately in his goals of serving the people that he undertook a personal pilgrimage to liberate Naboo and ultimately instruct this young man he had faith in was noble enough to take the path of difficulty and self sacrifice that no other man of his order wanted to commit to. ...

Out of curiosity, is the "young man" to whom you are referring Anakin or Obi-Wan?

(And there were also women in the Jedi Order, plus most likely beings with other genders/biologies.)

Fair enough. It’s been a while since I’ve done some research so it might be time to pick up the books and do some research. Just the core of my statement is that many of the dates that make up our core holidays can be dated way back, mainly because they were pagan holidays that were adapted to minimise disruption to the calendar.

I was referring to Anakin. Rather interestingly was that Obi-Wan was probably as much as a contributing factor to Anakins fall as anything, as unlike Qui-Gon he just didn’t have the flexibility of his master to bend the rules.