rex-sidereus:

do you ever just think about how wild star wars are politically.

• like, there is the neoliberalism of the old republic, with the textbook neo-marxist core-periphery model of the greater galaxy. 
• then there are the jedi, which are an enormously ancient and powerful institution that benefits from and enables the republican-corporate structure, but refuses to take direct involvement in its policy, 
• this leaves an enormous power vacuum which is happily filled by the super secret red glowstick cult of the sith. 
• and then dooku drags the jedi from his weird neoreactionary hereditary aristocracy ground, which is still somehow more refreshing. 
• same thing goes for the separatist confederacy, which is mostly a network of megacorporations and planets dependent upon them, which are somehow a less stiffening alternative for many.
• and then there is grievous, ventress and others from worlds existing outside the dominant framework of republican politics, but ravaged by capitalism and conflict and stripped of an identity beyond their utility, becoming the eventual wildcards. 
• the entire worlds like mandalore, powerful and prominent enough to be of weight on the galactic scene, but ultimately uninterested in the galactic politics as framed by the republic, because their domestic problems are more pressing. 
• what ever the hell is going on in the hutt space and underworld, raw capitalism functioning outside the state system

• then there is the extremely militarized administrative structure of the empire, which drives itself to autocanibalistic destruction trying to keep all of the above under control.

• pockets of limited autonomy exist under the empire, mostly in places whose established hierarchical administrative system allows for easier management.

• the super secret red glowstick cult of the sith becomes even more secret, as things do within the mechanism of authoritarian states, which creates another vacuum, as their power is not backed up by ideological representation.
• our beloved farmboy goes to pick up some power converters from the toshi station, and stumbles upon the said ideological vacuum with a blue glowstick in his hand. 
• the rebel alliance, which is the oddest mix of generational royalty unhappy with the empire taking over the power they have over their individual planets, and straight up space anarchists from the worlds previously disfranchised by the republic and bombed by the empire.
• the rebels politicize the jedi teaching as the core of old republican values, going off them as their platform (may the force be with you), even as the old jedi order pointedly stayed away from policymaking. 

• the sequel trilogy, which refuses to address any of this.