“Ladies, gentlemen, and beings of all kinds, the Chancellor of the Galactic Alliance.”
The shot hummed to life, showing Auteme sitting at a desk. Not the desk of the Chancellor’s suite, but one of humble wood, with Auteme set against a simple background. She was dressed casually, wearing a blue shirt, with a light gray robe over top, as though she’d been caught for a chat in the evening. The lighting was warm.
“My friends, I’d like to take a few minutes to speak about Imperialism, and the crisis we are in. Of course, I’d get it if you thought – ‘is it really the time?’ – and you’d be quite right. The Brotherhood of the Maw, an existential threat to our nation, is not yet defeated; I don’t want to distract from the work we need to do to end that threat and return our worlds to safety. Unfortunately, the Empire seems intent on forcing my hand, so I must respond.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the news, so I’ll keep things brief. The Empire, our northern neighbor and once-ally, has attacked Ilum in force. A massive fleet, the largest ever mustered by the Empire, entered the system last week and attacked our Defense Forces stationed there. Our forces mounted a counterattack and were able to drive them to rout, but the Imperials have made their intentions crystal clear in this attack. First, they had begun strip-mining the planet to find deposits of kyber crystals. Second, a prototype weapon of massive power was used in the fighting. And third, the simple fact that they chose to attack us now.
“I’ll address the third point first. Again, last week, had you asked me what the most pressing issue for the Alliance was, I would have said the Maw. They are dangerous, powerful, and a threat we must take seriously and fight with our full strength. This is exactly what makes this attack so startlingly petty and counterproductive. We have only just started to turn the tide in our war with the Brotherhood, and even as we begin to approach a moment of triumph and peace, the Empire strikes us from behind, refusing to let the fires of war die down, no matter who they would fight. This is who they are. They must have an enemy; no matter who it is, they must have someone to fight, someone to tell themselves they must be protected from. It is a justification for why an absolute minority of people must have massive, unrestricted power.
“It can be tempting to believe this is a new problem. The Empire has certainly gone through changes in recent years; the Triumvirs certainly seem different than Tavlar or Fel. We must resist this narrative. The Empire – and, for that matter, any Imperial or autocratic institution – can lead nowhere other than war and strife, restless battle, paranoia, oppression, tyranny. Remember that this is not a new problem; even when the Sith Empire was beginning to fail, the Empire set out to fight us, leading to that brief conflict on Yinchorr. There is no time when the Imperials have decided there were better things to progress towards. They must always find someone to fight, for without enemies, they cannot justify their own existence, their ‘tendency’ towards ‘order’. They see the Sith and find an easy enemy – and this is right, because anyone of sound mind and ethical thought would oppose the Sith. But the instant they sense the Sith’s weakness, their failure and decline, they look for another enemy. We have always been neighbors, and always had tension with the Empire. This is no error of leadership; Tavlar, Fel, Rausgeber, Barran, Tal – they are parts of the same system, symptoms of the same sickness.
“The cure will be a difficult thing to acquire. This is a disease that can take the galaxy by storm, enticing us to put our heads down and simply destroy all the ‘others’ for the sake of our own security. I am no Imperial. I have no desire for more war, for battle with the Empire. But we must recognize that this is not the same battle that we make against the Brotherhood.
“Imperialism is a leech. It grows effectively in our democratic society, shielding itself from criticism by claiming its freedom to speak, its equality as a political ideology. And some of us pause, and say, ‘perhaps they should be allowed to speak’, when that is exactly what they seek; and they will speak, and speak, and speak, until it is the only thing being said, the only media we can see, the only narrative being given. And then it rises, shatters our freedoms, and becomes an Empire of its own. Though this iteration came about within the Sith Empire, Imperialism itself is a problem for a galaxy that seeks liberty.
“Not soon after its rise does imperialism become a backlash, same as the Sith ideology. No longer is the Empire resistance, ‘defiance’, it is the very sort of power it sought to destroy. It is no coincidence that they have named themselves in the same vein as that old Galactic Empire, the one headed by a Sith, a Sith who used kyber crystals to fuel a weapon powerful enough to break a planet, the very same crystals the Empire mined Ilum for. Must we wait for the genocides to begin? For more freedoms to be taken in the name of order and stability? The Empire has progressed in its subjugation of the Tion Cluster, a democratic group of worlds. Do we not know who they would subjugate next?
“But, as I have said, I am not an imperial or an autocrat. I will not encourage us to see the whole Empire purely as an enemy, because they are not. There is a similar strength in the people there as there is here in the Alliance. It is those people who rose up against the Sith to see something better. These are people who worked tirelessly to escape, defy, transform their nation, only to have their search for freedom twisted and corrupted by the Imperial ideology. What we must do is not by strength of arms but strength of heart; this is a test of our spirit and unity. We must be able to understand why imperialism is bad, why we must oppose it, and what we can do to ensure change is once more made by the people under the Empire.
“We’ll be seeing a lot of propaganda, a lot of whataboutism, a lot of misdirection. We must be wary of the narratives that will be spun, the dirt that will be dug up; I encourage you to stay informed and find sources of information you can trust to stay informed of the situation.
“In the coming days, weeks, and months, the Alliance and GADF will be taking the necessary security precautions to keep our worlds and citizens safe, in case the Imperial leadership once more decides that we are the enemy. Splitting our collective attention may be a difficult thing to do, but as I said earlier, this is a familiar situation, and I know we are strong.
“And, because this is a familiar fight, it is one we should be fighting not only now, but for the future as well. As such, basic standards for education within the Alliance will be updated to include sections about Imperialism and its relationship to the Alliance and other democratic nations. Our children should grow up understanding what Imperialism really is; another obstacle we must overcome to reach true freedom in our galaxy.
“Thank you for joining me. Good day, and good night.”
