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General appearance of Empire vs. Republic


iamef

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I am sure this may have been asked before, but perhaps the force was not with my search... Anyway, in this game, much of the Empire has a styling that, to me at least, is very reminiscent of the styling of the empire in the original trilogy, and the republic also follows this general theme, being very similar to republic themes of the original trilogy movies. This is most obvious to me in the capital ships, NPC armors, and of course personal starships. However, from what I know from watching the Clone Wars series and the prequel trilogy, it was essentially the republic technology of the time that became the Empire technology under Palpatine, i.e. the stormtrooper look, star destroyers, etc. can someone explain to me how that has come about from a story/timeline perspective?
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From a storyline perspective, you say?

 

To be honest, I have wondered about the same thing myself. My guess would be that since we know that SWTOR's Sith Empire will fall at some point, the Republic seized its weaponry and tech. Kind of like spoils of war, you know. And after that they slowly integrated the Empire's tech and weapons into their own. Hence, by the time of the movies, the Republic's Star Destroyers during the Clone Wars are simply a modern version of the Sith warships that were captured, studied and integrated millennia ago.

 

That's my theory, at least.

 

The real (non-storywise) reason is that these looks are considered iconic and easily recognizable in Star Wars fandom.

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From a storyline perspective, you say?

 

To be honest, I have wondered about the same thing myself. My guess would be that since we know that SWTOR's Sith Empire will fall at some point, the Republic seized its weaponry and tech. Kind of like spoils of war, you know. And after that they slowly integrated the Empire's tech and weapons into their own. Hence, by the time of the movies, the Republic's Star Destroyers during the Clone Wars are simply a modern version of the Sith warships that were captured, studied and integrated millennia ago.

 

That's my theory, at least.

The problem is that we do see the Republic military at various points between SWTOR and the prequels - especially during the Ruusan campaign and during the fifty years immediately preceding the Clone Wars - and most of those design choices are simply not there.

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The answer is that the makers of the game want you to compare the Old Republic to the New Republic, and the Sith Empire to the Galactic Empire. And they don't want to scare people off by explaining things to them, unfortunately for them, the fans of the game are star wars fans, and we can see the stupid flaws in all their detail.

 

There is no real story perspective answer, just a desire to conform with what the general public thinks should be, or what the designers thought the general public would expect to see.

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I always wondered about that too! I have got the impression that the troopers sort of look a bit storm troopery at times depending on what they wear. Notice there are no real storm trooper classes on the imperial side, the agent is more like an operative and dresses alot like military officials (like nida etc) rather than cannon fodder.

 

on the other hand It could be that the rebels in the original trilogy remember this time as a I won't say better time but at least a prosperous time for their neck of the galaxy in terms of political strength. Therefore they may want to evoke that image to gather strength for what they were fighting for.

 

As for the Clone wars era republic, I'm not exactly sure why they would start to look like their former enemies but It could have something to do with Palpatine or It could just be an enormous coincidence.

 

Even worse than that, It could be after the fall of the empire, it was either forgotten about or even raided, taking their military ideas

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I always wondered about that too! I have got the impression that the troopers sort of look a bit storm troopery at times depending on what they wear. Notice there are no real storm trooper classes on the imperial side, the agent is more like an operative and dresses alot like military officials (like nida etc) rather than cannon fodder.

 

on the other hand It could be that the rebels in the original trilogy remember this time as a I won't say better time but at least a prosperous time for their neck of the galaxy in terms of political strength. Therefore they may want to evoke that image to gather strength for what they were fighting for.

 

As for the Clone wars era republic, I'm not exactly sure why they would start to look like their former enemies but It could have something to do with Palpatine or It could just be an enormous coincidence.

 

Even worse than that, It could be after the fall of the empire, it was either forgotten about or even raided, taking their military ideas

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I don't know what justification there may be to explain the obvious similarities. But the question that should be asked falls outside the realm of the lore, I think. The question that should be asked is this: Should the tech look like what it did in the Trilogies (do not twist it around, we all know why BioWare chose to make it alike).

 

I think the answer to that question is no. Because the Pub troopers look like Clone Troopers, the Imp troopers look like Stormies, the Mandalorians look like Boba/Jango Fett, there are droidekas, Imperial craft all looks like Sidious' empire, and the Pub starships look like the Rebel ones. Some similarity would be very much welcome. But all of it, made to look like it was in the Trilogies? Takes credibility away.

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