THE LAST ERA OF PEACE
During the height of the Galactic Republic, the specter of widespread warfare had been forgotten. A full-scale war had not rocked the galaxy in centuries. The last great conflict, having been waged for the soul of civilization itself, was a decisive war fought between the Jedi Order and the Sith Lords. The Republic victory was so definitive that it reinvented itself, resettling its capital on Coruscant after a devastating ouster. History reset its chrono on this date, and from that moment, the modern Galactic Republic was born. Societal memories and official calendars started fresh, and the time before this rebirth was forgotten as a dark age, lumped into a collective whole known as the “Old Republic.”
Lined with stylized depictions of ancient humanoids, the Avenue of the Core Founders is a broad promenade leading to the massive Senate rotunda. The sundrenched concourse, at a rarified plateau atop the stacked levels of the megacity, was often presented as the visualized ideal of Republic sophistication.
That is not to say that there weren’t isolated conflicts in this new era. With any society, there are failures of diplomacy and communication that can be resolved only with cannon and carnage. These were blessedly few, and many were quelled in their earliest stages by the earnest pursuit of peace by the Jedi Order. Jedi negotiators settled disputes before they inflamed war. The Jedi Code itself evolved to include provisions that would keep the Jedi Knights apart from such conflicts. The Jedi were keepers of the peace, not soldiers. As such, Jedi were rarely viewed as warriors, and their faces did not adorn messages of propaganda.
The simpler times of peace in the Republic allowed for leisure activities to achieve galactic attention. The Boonta Eve Podrace, though based beyond the Republic’s borders in the independent Outer Rim, garnered coverage and attention even in the Core Worlds.
The government artwork of this time was largely about preserving the status quo. Peace was good for commerce; as such, the art beautified the distractions that member worlds offered in the name of lucrative tourism. Worlds with rich cultures, like Naboo, broadcast their histories to neighboring planets. Even far-flung worlds with shady reputations like Tatooine tried cleaning up their image to attract visitors for such events as the Boonta Eve Classic. During the Chancellery of Finis Valorum, initial work began on millennial celebrations that would have marked the thousand-year anniversary of the Republic’s foundation. Such exploration of logo designs and artwork now stand as an ironic artifact of a myopic regime, since the Republic dissolved before any such milestone could be reached.
The titans of business, like the massive Trade Federation, funneled vast amounts of their limitless capital into spreading the word of their essential services to the galaxy. They attempted to foster goodwill and influence in the Republic to detract from their legally questionable practices in the less patrolled regions of the galaxy. Their propaganda was part of a vast brand-building effort to ensure a steady flow of profits reaped on the backs of the unfortunate.
Appealing to the comfortable by-products of avarice proved effective for such entities as the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, and the Corporate Alliance. But outsider artists objected and made their disagreements visible in select but well-publicized outbursts of anti-corporate propaganda. Such deep-pocketed enterprises as the InterGalactic Banking Clan could paper over any protest with only a fraction of the interest earned on their troves. In cases where an outraged artist proved particularly obstinate, these corporate barons could use force—droid soldiers and garrulous lawyers were armed to make troublesome artists disappear.
In contrast, institutions like the Jedi Order did little to cultivate their image or build their mindshare of the Republic’s populace, relying instead on historic precedent. This proved a difficult proposition, as the galaxy strongly favored looking to the future rather than the past.
With eyes toward expansion into the uncharted reaches of the Outer Rim, the traditions of the Core became passé. Opportunity beckoned from beyond the borders of the Mid Rim worlds. The congested planets of the interior were saturated with messages of promise lying outward, a reversal from long-held notions that Coruscant represented the icon of advancement. Republic wordsmiths and artists collaborated to create a sense of civic duty, of manifest destiny, and of deep obligation to spread the Republic banner from Rim to Rim.
For the well-settled and wealthy elite of the galaxy’s most crowded centers, such notions were quaint but uninspiring. It was the citizens of the Inner Rim, those who had been crowded out of opportunity in the Core, who answered the call for new life in the frontier of the Outer Rim. The Core Worlders became more enamored with the fleeting distractions of fame and fashion, transitory fascinations with sophistication that left little room for messages of faith or tradition that the Jedi exemplified. The lack of representation in the galactic mindshare undoubtedly fixed their future, as dark forces were on the rise that would poison the public sentiment toward the Jedi in the decades to come.
Russell Walks
SETTLE THE OUTER RIM
Artist Unknown (Eleven Star Marketing)
Deep space imagery meant to evoke adventurism and mystery was common in the Eleven Star Marketing’s campaign launched on behalf of the Republic Ministry of Economic Development. Even the most superficial digging into corporate relations will uncover that Eleven Star, based out of Cato Neimoidia, was also the public relations agency for the Trade Federation. The wanderlust-stricken souls stirred into action by these messages would be guided toward Trade Federation–controlled hyperspace routes with corresponding tariffs and registration fees. Such lucrative administrative overlap was frequently cited as “inevitable,” particularly by the Republic politicians who met with Federation lobbyists to ensure said inevitability would occur.
Joe Corroney
TAXATION WITHOUT FEDERATION
Ganamey Davloterra
Originally commissioned as a Core-edition insert in a HoloNet News weekend issue, this striking piece spread throughout the Mid Rim as unauthorized reproductions transmitted via personal infocache nodes as well as physically printed adverslicks. The taxation of trade routes was a thorn in the side of the Senate as it attempted to curtail the massive influence of the Trade Federation. However, Neimoidian spin doctors painted this and other protest imagery as a blatantly racist campaign. The fat Neimoidian plutocrat was a popular stereotype, and this piece bolstered it with unfortunate overtones of duplicity and rapaciousness.
Russell Walks
SAFE IN OUR HANDS
Nute Gunray (concept); Artist Unknown (Eleven Star Marketing)
The Neimoidian language has no word for “nurturing.” The concept seems absent from the species’ psychology. Early Neimoidian development is a cutthroat competition for food and attention, as near-helpless developing Neimoidians clamber for dominance and survival. Therefore, this advertisement’s attempt—said to be authored by Viceroy Nute Gunray himself—to convey stability and guidance cannot help but be colored with underlying images of strength, dominance, and quite literally, underhanded manipulation. Some saw it as Gunray’s dream made clear—to own all of Coruscant as yet another shining bauble in a collection of misbegotten gems. Under Gunray’s tenure, the Trade Federation would loudly counter such claims as common anti-Niemoidian prejudice.
Rosanna Brockley
VOTE YES ON PROP 31-814D
Artist Unknown
Anti–Trade Federation protestors reffocused their rhetoric in future messages and images, keeping depictions of the Neimoidians out of their artwork to avoid confusing matters with cultural insensitivities. Their tactic favored simple messaging meant to cut through the obfuscation favored by Trade Federation lobbyists, and simplified the argument to the most universal bottom line: money. The inefficiencies in the Republic led to insufficient funds to cover the most prized of services. Why shouldn’t the corporations pull their weight?
Steven Thomas
INVEST WISELY
Rush Clovis (concept); Tantagru Motts-Danel (execution)
The InterGalactic Banking Clan likewise had an image problem during the last days of the Republic. Despite the best efforts of several highly placed executives on its board, the ruling Core Five (composed entirely of Muuns) simply never understood the need to cultivate trust and stability in their messaging. To these reclusive, statuesque beings cloistered in the snow-swept peaks of their native Scipio, the dominance of Muuns over galactic finances was simply a given. The Muuns had kept the credits flowing since the earliest, darkest days of interstellar exploration, and so it should continue uninterrupted into the future. Creatively compromised communications campaigns became an unsuccessful mix of metaphors, Muun iconography, and Banking Clan hardware with words of encouragement that seem distant and disconnected.
Rosanna Brockley
NABOO CORONATION
Palo Jemabie
When historians look back at the Republic with a sense of longing for artistic elegance and refinement, they often cite Naboo as the idolized zenith of cultural sophistication. Every act carried out by the Naboo people, whether a lowly laborer or a royal courtier, is steeped in tradition and adorned with symbols. Theirs is a culture that takes pains to protect their traditions and keep impersonal modernity out of their daily lives. This may make the Naboo people seem odd or off-putting to others, and has long been a source of contention between the colonists and the native Gungans.
Naboo saw the coronation of Queen Amidala as the ultimate expression of cherished values. Amidala was not the youngest queen ever elected, but at age fourteen, she was certainly the youngest in centuries. The notion of electing so young a monarch underscored the emphasis the Naboo people placed on educating children, and their desire to keep cynical manipulators of the type tempered by decades in politics out of their local government.
Russell Walks
MILLENNIAL CELEBRATION INVITATION
Naveela Betuine (concept and layout); Dashira Dobeq (final execution)
A near-final representation of the millennial invitation that had undergone no less than 250 revisions by Chancellor Finis Valorum, this piece ultimately never saw distribution. Concerned with his deteriorating public image, Valorum rejected earlier iterations for being too cold, too warm, too exclusive, or too directionless. Such indecision was a common characteristic of Valorum’s final months in office. Ultimately, the Chancellor delegated such design decisions to his friend and supporter, Senator Sheev Palpatine of Naboo, who recommended this design. The central figure is Sistros, an ancient lawgiver that helped set the original constitution of the post-Sith Galactic Republic in order. Palpatine suggested the icon as a binding representation of the galactic multitudes, whose faceless aspect could act as a cipher for the many humanoids in the galaxy.
Kilian Plunket
THE SPORT’S GREATEST RIVALRY
Codenka Mafurias
Before the outbreak of war, the twilight of the Republic was an era of distractions, with citizens from all walks of life following escapist pursuits. Historians rebuke the people of this last age for being taken in by such circuses when their attentions should have been focused on the malfeasances and corruption in the Senate and other governing institutions. But events like the professional podrace circuit sold pre-packaged narratives that spoke to the intrinsic need of stories: tales of heroes and villains pitted against each other in arenas of escalating complications. Had Codenka Mafurias, a talented illustrator from Malastare, been able to describe the dramas of politics with the deft hand she displays in this piece that pits underdog Ben Quadinaros against arch-rival Sebulba, perhaps more people would have been invested in the coming collapse of comfortable civilization as we knew it.