Time to abandon ship! Oh no! Here we go! Can I persuade you to join us for a drink? It's a tradition. Here, here. Jar Jar, homie, my main man. Quick! Before the separatists attack, get into the escape pod. Hey! This is escape! Then where's the pod? This is escape! Welcome back to Star Wars Escape Pod.
I'm your host, Josh, and we have our co-host, Blake, in the escape pod this week to chat all about the economics of the Galactic Empire, which is actually an article published by Rakesh Sharma on Investopedia about three years ago. And we've been wanting to chat banking for a little while, so if you've ever had questions about banking in Star Wars without sounding boring, oh my goodness, let's just dive right in. Another happy landing. All right, welcome back. Hey, good to be back.
How many listeners are still listening, do you think? Did they all drop out? I think they all dropped out as soon as I said banking, yeah. Ran to the hills. Exactly. Did you talk about anything more boring? You know, it's one of those things, I guess, and we're going to try and keep this interesting with this article, which has been very well written in my opinion, but we've been wanting to talk about, at least I've been wanting to talk about banking for a little while.
Does that mean this was your suggestion? It's so long ago, I don't remember. It is just such a, yeah, it is. It's just such a big part of Star Wars, you know, like money and banking have so much to do with the prequels, it has so much to do with the Empire and how it operates. It has so much to do with what comes later. It has everything to do with what the heck happened with the First Order. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And we're actually going to talk about that.
So, yeah, I thought it was actually like just a really interesting subject and it sounds boring on the face value side of things. You know, you take one look at the headline and you're like, oh, well, you know, screw that episode. Like, I don't want to listen to that. Or put a fake title. We've lured you in. That's right. But hopefully we're able to make this somewhat fun and interesting.
And, you know, you might learn a lot more about the inner workings of the lore, how things like that worked in Star Wars. We're going to be trying to making connections to... How did they fund the Clone Army? Yeah, yeah. Lots of stories that we can make connections to, things like that. So we're going to go through this article and, you know, it's not going to take us all night, but it is slightly longer.
So that's a good thing, though, because it provides lots of evidence for backing up how the system works. So this has also been fact-checked by... Oh, my goodness. What's her name? Suzanne. I don't know how to pronounce her last name. I think it's Vilhaug, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. There might be a silent K. And it's reviewed by a third person, Dorotha Clemon. So this is, once again, Investopedia. And if I can remember to put this link down in the description, I will.
But it was updated on August 4th, 2022. So it's very well that the article could actually be older than that, but definitely newer than The Rise of Skywalker. And that's kind of key because what you were saying about the first order and the final order. So many questions. Yeah, so many questions. Right. So without further ado, let's just dive right in. Okay, so here's the article.
The ninth episode in the Star Wars saga, The Rise of Skywalker, premiered in theaters around the world in December 2019. The movie continued the stories of Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren. Fans were ecstatic to see their favorite characters come back in this film by J.J. Abrams. With its themes of intergalactic travel, colorful sets, and quirky creatures, the science fiction series might seem far-fetched to people who can't tell the difference between Tatooine and Jakku.
In fact, the Star Wars saga is underpinned by an economic and political system inspired by and derived from real-world events. But the economics of the Galactic Empire can sometimes seem as mysterious as the ways of the Force. Without a galaxy full of taxpayers, how is the Empire getting money to fund and making the deployment of new fleets of Star Destroyers and planet-killing super lasers like the Death Star? Apparently, dark-side economics are more effective than supply-side economics.
Alright. There's your intro. Key takeaways. The Star Wars economy is galactic and governed by the precepts of modern trade where planets exchange products and services and the intersection of trade routes benefits the closest planets. Those would be probably the planets close together or planets close to the core. Yeah, that makes sense. It's easier to transport stuff between them. Exactly. Another key takeaway here.
There are thousands of currencies used on individual planets, but both the Republic and the Empire support galactic credits. And it's worth noting that when the Empire becomes the Empire, the physical credit that they use is different between the Republic days and the Empire days. And I only know that because it's come up twice. Once, I think we've seen it in the Mandalorian or in the other live-action, the recent live-action show, we've seen physical Imperial credits.
And two, because Galaxy's Edge and Disney World or Disneyland sells two separate types. One of them is the Galactic Republic credits. The other one is the Galactic Empire credits. And they do look different. They're even differently shaped. Yeah, the Imperial ones have the Empire logo on it and they're more square and stubbier. And then the Republic ones are a bit longer and they have these little notches in them that have, they're almost like little symbols.
Yeah, those are the ones I was thinking of. Yeah, a bit more rectangular. And if anyone's played the board game Star Wars Outer Rim, you'll be familiar as to sort of the general shape, although those are about to scale. So, all right. Manufacturing operations for multi-planet corporations are primarily based in the corporate sector. Oh, I wanted to quickly say, you can almost think of the galactic credit as the equivalent of like the US dollar.
Yeah. Kind of accepted everywhere, but a lot of places have their own currency. Yeah, and this is actually something that I definitely know that this article brings up as well. Manufacturing operations for multi-planet corporations are primarily based in the corporate sector, which functions as a free trade zone of sorts. So, maybe just keep that in mind.
Several organizations linked, sorry, several organizations inked trade agreements to set up consortia or guilds to maximize profit and wield influence within the Senate. So, can you think of a... Trade Federation? There you go. Trade Federation, the Techno Union. Right. The Banking Clan. Yeah. So, we can already think of a number of consortiums, is the right word? Is there like a galactic bureau of currency?
I guess one of the key takeaways here is what it's saying is there's just several organizations that exist as sort of a unified company of sorts that operates under a singular umbrella. And that's something to think back to the Clone Wars and the Phantom Menace when we're looking at what Newt Gunray does in aligning himself with Darth Sidious.
He's not bringing the whole Trade Federation with him, and that's something that Lott Dodd of the Trade Federation, who is one of the representatives in the Senate for that company, he constantly says and reminds the Senate that Newt Gunray is an extremist and does his own thing. Right. He's not representing their entire people. Exactly. And Newt Gunray, right until the very end of Revenge of the Sith, is part of the Separatist Alliance, it seems, because he's always there.
He's always in the plot of being part of the Separatist Alliance. And that's the Trade Federation. And yet, Lott Dodd is still part of the Republic, and he's there right to the very end as well. Right, so kind of playing both sides a bit there. Yeah, and it's one of those weird things. And same with the Banking Clan. There's definitely an arc in the Clone Wars where they talk to... It's not San Hill, because he's obviously the Separatist Banking Clan guy from the MUNES, you know, place.
But there's also a guy who represents the Banking Clan within the Republic. And I remember there was a few characters that talked to him about loaning money out for more clones and basically, there's only so much money to go around. And it's like they're funding both sides of the war, essentially. Yeah, exactly. Because isn't there a Clone Wars arc where they go into the bank and it's empty? Yeah, it was like, where's all the money?
Yeah, because it all had been loaned out to both sides to fund the war. Yeah, it was just numbers being moved back and forth, essentially. Yeah, exactly. So, next section of the article here, the similarities between the Galactic Republic and the modern global economy. So this is kind of where maybe some of these mysterious things might actually start to make sense for you guys. The scope of the Star Wars economy is galactic and governed by the precepts of modern trade.
In this system, planets exchange products and services with each other. Trade routes traverse multiple planetary systems. Not surprisingly, planets located at the intersections of major trade routes benefit from their locations. For example, Bothaway, a planet located in the mid-rim of the galaxy and referenced in the Clone Wars animated series, is located at the intersection of four main trade routes.
It is known for its trade in technology and because of its location is a popular venue for trade negotiations. Not all mid-rim planets are used for trade. Some are venues for robberies and plunder. An example is Kijimi, a frigid and mountainous planet that is home to spice runners of Kijimi, a group of smugglers, and so on. There are thousands of currencies used on individual planets and by different societies.
I think some examples might be in the Mandalorian, we saw one called Calamari Flan, was it? I always want to say Calamari Flem, but I don't think it's Flem. I was going to say Flynn, but I don't think it's Flynn either. I think it's Flan. And in Solo, a Star Wars story, all that crap on the table, it's all from different currencies from different worlds. There's credits as well, but there's also other currencies in the mix. Not all mid-rim planets are used for trade.
Some are venues for... Oh, sorry, I already said that. There are thousands of currencies used on individual planets by different societies. However, both the Republic and the Empire supported galactic credits. These credits were most useful on inner-rim planets, which were closer to economic and trade hubs. Once a ship got farther into space and reached the outer rim of the planets, credits supposedly would lose their value.
This issue is most evident when Qui-Gon Jinn attempts to buy parts from Padme's ship from Wado's junkyard, but Wado refused to take Republic credits. Which is ironic because they're one planet away from Naboo. They didn't even have to use hyperspace. Well, no, it's not one... That was Geonosis. You're thinking of Geonosis, that is one system or one planet away. But it is weird that they had to, like... I don't know. Am I remembering this wrong?
Because they get past the blockade in Phantom Menace. I don't think they jump. They're on their way to Coruscant. I think they do jump, but they have to drop out of hyperspace because they're running out of fuel or something. Or the hyperdrive is broken. There's a leak. That's why R2 had to fix it. So the closest detour was Tatooine. If you look at a galactic map, I'm sure there's like a... They're very close to each other. Yeah, closer, I think, than one would maybe expect.
Isn't there a story about how... I forget the name of the system, but how the fact that Anakin and Tatooine and Palpatine on Naboo and Tarkin from Eriadu are all within a very, very small distance of each other. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And if anyone has the Star Wars Timelines book, I think there's a galactic map, like an updated one, included with that. Or maybe it was the one from Celebration, the last Celebration they did, which included an external fold-out map.
Really cool. I want one of those. I wish they sold those. It's weird that they don't. It is, yeah. It's been a while since they've had an updated map. I do have the original Legends continuity Star Wars Atlas, is what it's called. And it's fantastic for seeing the history of the EU and all the maps, and in each individual map there's areas where it's zoned sections off and said, this belonged to that group or that government and this belonged to these people.
So you can visually see the progression of certain wars and stuff like that. It's very interesting. But I would like a new canon version because at this point it's like 10 years old. Everything's changed a lot. Yeah, it has changed a lot. So regarding Wado, that seems somewhat unrealistic as the US dollars can be exchanged for local currency almost anywhere on Earth.
Perhaps Republic credits cannot be used on Tatooine because of sanctions against planets that violate the Republic's anti-slavery laws. Maybe. We've never actually had that detail. Yeah, that's a good question, actually. Because we know it's under the rule of the Hutts. I think another reason is some businesses in today's society would have a cash-only agreement with their clientele or their customers.
If you ever go to a food vendor or something like that, sometimes they might just say cash only. And they might say that for tax purposes. They might say that for convenience of not needing to pay a debit or visa fee whenever they make a transaction or a sale. But Wado's just really stubborn. He just wants cash and he doesn't want Republic credits. Is there any reason you think that Qui-Gon didn't think to just go somewhere else and exchange it and then come back?
I guess that was the place in town that had the part that they needed. But it doesn't mean he couldn't exchange the currency. Maybe he had a fee somewhere else. It must be that the whole planet just has something against Republic credits. I think they're onto something here with sanctions against the core worlds, you know what I mean? On some planets, economic development was so primitive that barter dominated trade.
On Jakku, where Rey grew up after being abandoned by her parents, she worked as a junker. She sold parts to Unkar Plutt for portions of food instead of cash. That's just because he's cheap? Yeah. That'll be one quarter portion. The only thing that matters on a planet with so little development is eating enough to stay alive. Some economists have theorized that Rey's profession hints at an active recycling economy in the interplanetary system. She does not scrap for raw metals.
Her focus is on engineered and designed components, meaning that the Star Wars economy places a high premium on finished goods rather than raw metals. In this respect, they are not different from the human race, which ascribes more value to finished goods. Also, the economists have pointed to the fact that constant warfare results in the destruction of metal. Therefore, there must be an abundance of metal in space. Well, Jakku has a lot of it, though. There is that. Okay, next section here.
A sectoral economy. Much like multinational corporations whose operations span multiple economies and geographic areas, intergalactic firms operate across several planetary systems and sectors. However, their manufacturing operations are primarily based in the corporate sector, which functions as a free trade zone of sorts. Located in the Outer Rim, the corporate sector was established to free businesses from the political machinations of the Senate.
The corporate sector's tax code is a simplified version of individual planet tax codes. Companies with activities in the sector paid a single tax to the Republic and subsequently the Empire. Under the Emperor, the corporate sector's operations expanded to include 30,000 planetary systems, and the corporate sector authority was established to administer the sector. With me so far? Nope. That's a lot to take in. All right, we'll keep going.
To make trading easy, several organizations inked trade agreements to set up consortia to maximize profit and wield influence within the Senate. The Commerce Guild, which we've heard about in the movies, which pursues trader and business interests, is the most powerful such guild. Two of its leading members are the Trade Federation and the Intergalactic Banking Clan.
I guess the Trade Federation and the Banking Clan are members of an even greater thing, which is the Commerce Guild, is what they call it. As its name implies, the Trade Federation is a consortium of businesses and traders. The Intergalactic Banking Clan is a bank system that controls finances in major parts of the Republic.
The latter played a prominent role in the Confederacy of Independent Systems, otherwise known as the Separatist Alliance, that broke away from the Republic during the Clone Wars. Both organizations supported Darth Sidious without knowing he was simply using them to gain power as Chancellor Palpatine. So there you have it. Actually, this sounds, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds kind of like the...
So that would have been run because there's obviously a divide between the two sides. So the Republic would have been like the SWIFT banking system and then the Separatists would be basically creating like BRICS. You've heard those terms recently. They've been in the news. I have indeed. Okay, yeah. The SWIFT is the American-based currency exchange and trade, and then BRICS is, I guess, somewhat Russian, but arguably they're trying to do it together as a team.
Yeah. Yeah, here's another guild out there called the Mining Guild. We've heard about the Mining Guild numerous times through Star Wars Rebels, some of the books as well. A lot of the books actually bring up the Mining Guild for some reason. I feel like in fantasy worlds and shows, it's just like an easy go-to. Yeah, yeah. It comes up a lot. It totally does. I can see it in Middle Earth as well, the Dwarven Mining Guild.
Yeah. But yeah, that's a little bit about Commerce Guild, I guess, as well as many other guilds. Bounty Hunters Guild. Yeah, Trade Federation, Banking Clan. Any group, or almost like a union, right, where you can fight on their behalf as a full group. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so next section here, how the economic blockade of Naboo transformed the Republic into the Empire. Very interesting.
In response to increased taxation of trade routes, the Trade Federation blockaded the planet of Naboo with a fleet of battleships. The exact reason for the blockade is uncertain, but there are several theories regarding this. In his novel, Star Wars Darth Plagueis, James Luceno outlined the possible reason for the Naboo invasion was plasma energy.
According to James Luceno, Naboo is rich in plasma and had a major mining and refining facility financed with a loan from the Intergalactic Banking Clan. The planet sold plasma energy to the Trade Federation at fixed prices. In turn, they marked up the prices for a substantial profit. James Luceno's novel is no longer part of Star Wars canon following Disney's restructuring of the expanded universe, but it makes logical sense.
Remember, Naboo was situated in the outer rim of the galaxy and probably had little to no taxation. Taxation of trade routes would have increased transportation costs for the members of the Trade Federation and cut into their profits. That said, their blockade was simply an excuse for the Trade Federation to invade Naboo.
The Trade Federation was under the influence of Darth Sidious, who was also Senator Palpatine of Naboo at the time as well, and the invasion set off a chain of events that led to Palpatine being named Supreme Chancellor and declaring himself Emperor. So I guess the invasion definitely had more than one purpose.
You know, the invasion of Naboo was not only to help cement Palpatine's role in the election for chancellorhood, but it was also a very practical way to secure a planet rich with a resource called plasma. And that's something we actually talked about, I think, when we did our novel review for Darth Plagueis, was that... A while ago now. Yeah, and the Duel of Fates takes place in the big areas... In the refining center.
Yeah, I think that is supposed to be plasma, what we're seeing in those tubes. Where are they? Just some cool sci-fi place? Yeah, I'm pretty sure in the novelization it's supposed to be plasma. Admittedly, I've never put a lot of thought into why they're blockading, because I just assume it's a non-legitimate reason, it's just an excuse for them to be there on behalf of Sidious and his reasons. Yeah, and this is also in response to the taxation of trade routes as well. So, I guess there is...
Which, does that mean that that was a new thing before that happened? There was no taxation of trade routes? It was something that they... It's actually... Increased. It's actually in the opening crawl of... Phantom Menace. Of the Phantom Menace, yeah. So, the opening crawl reads... Oh, you failed me, Wikipedia. It's not there! Okay, here's the opening crawl. It's here. Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic, and taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.
That's the first paragraph of the opening crawl to the Phantom Menace. So, I guess it's just like everywhere, you know? Like, okay, prices are going up, you know? Things are getting more expensive. Guess what? We're just gonna move in here and blockade the planet. Because the Trade Federation are essentially intergalactic truckers, right? You know, honestly, I kind of wish I knew a little more as to what they did. It sounds like they mostly just do transport between systems. It sounds...
Like you would hire them to get your... What are they? Juba fruits? Yeah, yeah, exactly. To, like, Coruscant or something. Like, first and foremost, they are a shipping conglomerate. Yeah. Basically, yeah. I guess they're probably... I guess they're more like one of the bigger companies that are doing the ships across the ocean, as opposed to, like, a trucking company. Yeah, because they also have their own private military, which is the droid armies. Right, which... I'm just saying...
I'm trying to just compare it to what we have here on Earth. I could see... If the oceans weren't protected by countries, I could see shipping companies having their own armed protection. Yeah. And this is part of the reason why Padme's, like, reason for the blockade not being fair. You know, like, they're claiming that it's in response... Or they do it as a form of saying, hey, like, prices are going up, we're going to blockade the planet for some reason. It feels like a big step.
It seems like... It's like there's a bit of a disconnect there, but that's why this article goes into detail with quoting the Darth Plagueis novel, and that's a very, very smart thing to do, because I've always personally considered the Darth Plagueis novel very close to canon. Like, there's nothing that really overrides that story, I don't think. No, it seems to fit pretty well with what we know about Phantom Menace. Yeah. All right, so here's how it happened.
Palpatine voted for the trade routes to be taxed, giving the Federation a reason to invade Naboo. They had... That had the effect of making Supreme Chancellor Valorum look weak. Valorum was kicked out of office with a vote of no confidence. Basically, they impeached him. Palpatine was then elected out of sympathy for the suffering of his home planet of Naboo.
Eventually, Palpatine would convince the Galactic Senate in a move spearheaded by Jar Jar Binks to give him emergency powers to deal with the ongoing Separatist crisis. Of course, Palpatine was behind the Separatist movement as Darth Sidious as well. These new powers and the Jedi eliminated following Order 66. All of that was a result of that. Palpatine had little trouble installing himself as Emperor and reshaping the galaxy in his image.
So, that's kind of where it all starts, and that's why the Phantom Menace starts where it does. I think a lot of people think, okay, why is this movie so fixated on taxes and trade routes? And it doesn't seem like it's relevant, but it is. Especially when you think about Star Wars as a series that's aimed at kids. I'm talking about taxes and trade routes and stuff. Let's be honest. No skeleton crew, that's for sure. When I first watched Phantom Menace, that went way over my head.
Yeah, it did. It did for me too. I would have no idea what it is. But that's the amazing thing about a movie like that. In general, I find myself watching a lot of movies now, which are at least very deep movies that I have a lot to go back to and notice things or understand things that went over your head the first time around or the third time around or whatever. And I always appreciate that about a movie. There's always something more to notice.
There's always something more to enjoy and understand. Yes, it might not be the ideal way to start what most people would expect to be a kids movie. But it's also just one of those things that when you go back to it later, all of a sudden there's just another level of detail there which is just so wonderfully constructed into this greater plot line of why there's a guy that controls the galaxy. How can this happen? How did people let this happen? And it's there in the movie. So it's great.
The full story is there from the beginning. And we'll talk about the ending later. But yeah, I find The Phantom Menace a very strong foundation for that plot. And that's what makes The Darth Plagueis Novel so great as well is that it gives The Phantom Menace a whole other level of depth as well because it expands on this plot around the moon. I feel like The Plagueis Novel did for Phantom Menace what the 3D Clone Wars did to the attack of the clones in Revenge of the Sith. Yeah, 100%.
Just adding detail. George did such a good job creating such a deep world that honestly you couldn't explain all of it in a two-hour movie. So they're getting this novel, this series to really expand that out and kind of explain it all with more detail. It brings a lot of that depth that George had created to the forefront. 100%. Our next section of the article is called The Star Wars Economy and Nazi Germany.
Star Wars creator George Lucas once said that he incorporated aesthetic and thematic elements from Nazi Germany into his vision of the Galactic Empire. The comparison is interesting because both the Galactic Empire and Nazi Germany came into being on the back of an economic crisis. In fact, there are several economic and political similarities between Nazi Germany and the Galactic Empire. For example, Nazi Germany was characterized by a readiness for war and its military might.
The National Labor Service mandated that each German male would have to complete a compulsory training at the organization. Typical tasks during National Service included planting forests, digging ditches on farms and building a network of motorways. The autobahn was constructed during this time and Hitler set a goal to increase the size of the German army to 500,000. Trade unions were banned and everyone was required to enroll in a central labor organization controlled by Nazi chieftains.
The Galactic Empire had a similar economy that was ready for a state of war. The Death Star, which was a space station with a planet-destroying superlaser is the perfect example of this militarization of the economy. It consisted of state-of-the-art weapons systems and artillery. In addition, entire planetary systems within the mid and outer rims were dedicated to the construction of the clones and war machines.
A number of ideas in my head I'm sure we can all think of a few but of course a big Star Wars Rebels plot seeing as that's fresh in my mind since you and I did Rebels Talk just about a year and a half ago was Sabine's story arc in which it's revealed that she helped the Empire construct a very powerful weapon that can rip through Beskar armor. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and fry the wearer, right? And that was an Imperial weapon project.
Another one, Andor, you know obviously using prison labor for the construction of Death Star parts. We got the shipyards at Fondor and Corellia both creating Star Destroyers for And TIE Fighters too. The Empire, and yeah, TIE Fighters. I know in Rebels they also go to they sneak into a manufacturing facility for AT-STs instead of speeder bikes.
Yeah, and simply put the Empire loves ruling with fear and that's maybe one reason why they upkeep this whole thing but one would also wonder what's the need, you know? Well, in the EU it's because Palpatine knew that the use of Val were coming. Yeah, and the old expanded universe I guess that's maybe one reason. Within the newer canon though I guess if we're to try and fit this in with what we know from the sequels I guess maybe he's planning for that whole new, what's it called?
The Final Order movement that he has at the very end. Yeah, I think it's something like that. Yeah, but you know on the surface it's like I don't think anyone in the Empire believed that the Rebellion would take down the Empire. You know, and I don't think it's a reason for them to continue making all these massive ships and stuff, you know? It's like they No, but it gives them an excuse to keep doing it. Oh, for sure. They have that to rule over everyone else. Yeah, 100%.
And you know it's interesting seeing these comparisons between clearly the characteristics are kind of the same. But yeah, yeah. Dedicated to the construction of lots of war machines. While the Star Wars prequels make numerous mentions of trade unions in the Republic such as references such references are absent in the original trilogy as such they probably were banned by the Galactic Empire or George Lucas hadn't yet thought of it.
In fact the production process for machines was not labor-intensive. Instead, it was a process dominated by droids themselves. As an example, Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones provides a glimpse of humanity's machine-dominated future. In one scene, Padme, Anakin Skywalker C-3PO and R2-D2 are nearly killed trying to make their way out of a droid manufacturing factory on Geonosis. Machines making machines. That's right.
It's interesting actually to think about it now because we see that happening where there's a giant facility which is pumping out droids almost like a toy factory, right? And then in the future we go to Karelia and there's people making Star Destroyers, even TIE Fighters kind of by hand. They're like cutting sheet metal and putting it together. And then there's Elon Musk's Tesla factory which is like some crazy percentage of the car done completely automated.
That's how he's making it cost-effective. Interestingly, as one moves away from the core worlds economies become less oriented towards machines, like what you were saying. In the Outer Rim planets, other industries such as energy and agriculture dominate. This difference is reflected in architecture. For example, the core world Coruscant is a high-tech society with skyscrapers and flying cars. The Outer Rim planet Tatooine is a relatively primitive place in comparison.
On Tatooine, many structures are made of adobe and moisture farmers eke out an existence producing water. The difference in their fortunes is a testament to the economic power of the strong central government based on Coruscant. How do you explain Geonosis? Well, I mean Geonosis is not even inhabited by humans. Just the Geonosians, yeah.
I mean, I get that they are crazy, but I guess you could argue that they're just so crazy within the engineering, just as a people that's why they also were chosen or forced to make the Death Star. That's the end of the article. It didn't explain how the First Order got all that money.
So I guess that leads us to our final conclusion here is I mean, there is evidence sprinkled through, and I'll just say this up front because I'm sure we're going to miss some things, but there's evidence sprinkled through some of the material leading into The Force Awakens as to where the First Order got their money. One of the novels is called Bloodline. It's a novel featuring General Gaia Organa prior to the whole sequel stuff. It's about seven years before.
Is Palpatine embezzling the whole time? No, Palpatine is completely absent from that book because this is still written in a time in which that wasn't even part of, not even on the agenda for characters to bring back. This novel was prior to The Force Awakens when it came out. So they essentially kind of made a story where very wealthy individuals or smaller companies, not maybe as big as the Trade Federation, but had almost been put in this secret banking thing.
Almost like a group of people that are all investing into another empire. Like a grassroots sort of building of an empire? Financially? Yeah, if my memory serves correctly, I think it was kind of like that. Were they legitimate or were they just shell companies? No, it was legitimate because part of the plot is she goes to investigate one of these places where money is flowing through. There's some evidence that... Oh man, it's been years since I've read this book.
But she finds a small militia there and it's sort of the beginnings of what would be like a training base or training camp for First Order Stormtroopers, I believe. I think that's what they were insinuating in the book. This is before all the Hux stuff? Yeah, yeah. This would have been perhaps supervised by Brendal Hux. So this novel came out before The Force Awakens and it's sort of interesting when I think about it because maybe at some point
I'll re-read it. I remember it being not bad, but I don't think the author, Claudia Gray, I don't know how much she had to work on at the time because they were trying to keep the plot of The Force Awakens very hush-hush. Yeah, there was basically nothing. I don't remember anything really getting out before the movie came out. It left us in all such great
anticipation. Yeah, and they were also trying to, I mean it's very apparent when you watch the movie, but they really tried to stay away from explanation of finances and politics stuff. Yeah, it felt like they were because they didn't really talk about that much really in the original trilogy, right? No. In the prequels, it was kind of abundant because that was like a central theme. They were trying to emulate the original trilogy kind of take on it. Yeah. It's harder to explain away.
When you watch the original trilogy, you have no context. Then watching the sequel trilogy, you know it came after the original trilogy. So you're like, where did it come from? Yeah, exactly. There is sorry, it's six years, not seven years. There is the novel Bloodline. So if anyone is curious in reading perhaps how the First Order got their financial backing, this might actually be a book for you. Was the First Order also involved with gambling, like running
casinos? Am I crazy? I think they, oh, you're talking about episode eight? You're talking about Last Jedi stuff? It might have been that as well. It might have also been from that Resistance animated show. Yeah, there was some little tidbits in Resistance about it. Yeah, and I remember reading something somewhere I think it's more or less just very wealthy individuals that are essentially supporting It's hard for me to imagine that much money coming in to turn an entire planet into a giant gun.
I know, right? So, yeah. I know. I still think the idea of turning a planet into a giant weapon is kind of ridiculous. Yeah. So, anyways. It absorbed a sun. To power it is the only way to power it. Destroy its own sun. We don't talk about these movies much. I often forget that they did stuff like that. Wait a minute. As far as the Final Order goes, that was definitely funded by some contingency of Palpatine's. He survived and has had people working behind the scenes this whole time.
It is interesting too, though, just with the fact that, as we've seen in Rebels, the Empire had to be pretty particular with what it chose to invest in. It had a lot of projects, but it couldn't fund all of them. Palpatine often had to pull the plug on stuff that he didn't think was worth as much time
and money. Yeah, that's why we had a feud between Thrawn and Tarkin because one of them was trying to get the Death Star project up and Thrawn was trying to make a case for his Tide Defender project being significantly more strategically better. Advantageous. Yeah, advantageous. He was saying, what we need is better ship-to-ship combat. That'd be much better for policing and running a galaxy than one
giant space weapon. Basically, one is ruling with implied force and the other one is ruling with fear. Yeah, so yeah, as far as the final order, I mean, yeah, I think it's worth not reading too much into it because there isn't going to ever be enough explanation for how that works. And I think that's what's so great about... Do we have an entire podcast to come up with this? Like, theories and stuff? This is the answer? Yeah, I'd probably not. Don't look into it?
I don't want to spend too much time on... Yeah. I think the takeaway from all this, though, is really just out of the world that George Lucas created there was a working system, right? And it was based on reality. It was based on real-world things and it can be completely translated into this fictional world. It's just cool to see and it is understandable. It's not this... George put a lot of thought into every single piece of his world. Very much so, yeah.
He had a long time to work on it, granted, but put a lot of thought into it. Yeah, definitely. Well, I think we'll call it there. Let's just transition over to the cantina for a little banter and then we'll wrap things up. How many bake sales do you think the first order had to run to fund that thing? Too many. Alright, so. That is the end of our main meet today. Intergalactic Banking and Finances, but...
If we did miss anything, especially around the first order stuff, please send it to us or we will bring it up in a future episode and correct ourselves. Yeah, or better yet, drop a comment. I mean, like, you know, we don't get enough people commenting down below on the YouTube. That's true. Or on the Spotify comments. I mean, that's a thing now. So, yeah, if you're listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment. But yeah, definitely let us know or you can send an email, like you were saying.
Just let us know what we missed, especially with the sequel stuff. We're not as attuned. There's been a lot coming out over the last number of years. There has. There has, yeah. Alright, something new this year that I think we want to do. At least, it's been on our ideas list for a long time and I just wanted to talk about it. Star Wars 101. It's something that I think you brought up at one point.
Somebody suggested it and I think, kind of like today's banking article, but more so just our own explanation, rather than reading through an article, is what we'd like to do is start explaining very basic, fundamental things about Star Wars to perhaps audiences and people that might not be as familiar. Make a little sub-series of... Darth Vader, bad. Luke Skywalker, good. What are the different sides of the force? What is the Jedi Order? What is the Republic? What is you know, what is the...
What's a clone trooper? I don't know, just like very basic stuff that might kind of help bring someone in. So, if anyone has any good ideas out there as to what you would like to hear a one-on-one, or sorry, a 101. Do a 101. A one-on-one. A 101 one-on-one. There we go. Definitely let us know. And we'd love to get any ideas. This goes hand-in-hand with our What Happened series, which we've been doing for a number of years now.
Which has been very character-focused and going through character stories beginning through the end as to where they are in the canon so far, and all their appearances through all the stories. And normally we try and do those when a new show is coming out, or when a new animated series is coming out, or a movie, or whatever we'll catch people up on that character and explain kind of where they've been, what's the character story
looking like. So, the one-on-one is kind of supposed to be a bit like that, but a bit more simple and not character-focused. It's more supposed to be about something, or like a place, or like whatever. Something that might be... A history of YT 1700. Yeah. Something very relevant to the movies. If you were to take someone through the Star Wars movies for the first time, what's a very fundamental thing that might contribute to their understanding of that movie, right? So, yeah, there you go.
Just something to think about. I think it's something we might end up doing at some point this year. Like the Rule of Two? Yeah. Rule of Two, that's a good one. I'm sure we'll think of a number of things, but just a heads up, that might be... Taxation on trade routes and banking? Yeah. Thankfully this article did all the heavy lifting for us, so yeah. But yeah, anyway, just throwing it out there. If anyone has any ideas,
we'd love to hear from you guys. Other great sub-series that we have on the show going into the new year, this is worth noting. You can find all our previous episodes on a spreadsheet called Podcast Archives, and that's always in the description down below. It's also found on our link tree, which is also
a link in the description below. And it's basically a spreadsheet that you can find You can do a webpage keyword search and find titles of different things that might be relevant to an episode you want to look for, or whatever. You can also see the dates as to when they were published, which will help you scroll back and find the episode you're looking for in your podcast app.
And as a little bonus, we've got a column in there for the YouTube version, which if you like watching on YouTube, then you can hit that link there as well. So it's a good way to find what you're looking for. Yeah, you can find, what are some sub-series we've done? What Happened is one. We've got Rebels. Clone Wars. Pretty much all the series, all the live-action ones that have come out recently. Yeah, the After Shows for every single Disney Plus show. We've got a commentary track
series in there. Including Ewok Adventures. Holiday Special, twice. There's two holiday specials. I feel like we need to do it every year. Oh, jeez. We're going to get more and more quiet. Less and less plays. We also have a series that, well, we did one episode of these called The Star Wars Archives, and it's based on the copies that we have here. The TASGEN Star Wars Archive books. So I'd love to do more of those this year. And we've done some... Did a LEGO Star Wars special? Yeah.
Some series we've done, though. We did a RIP Star Wars one of all the cancelled Star Wars movies, shows, video games. We've done various interviews with people involved in the galaxy. Special guest episodes. Yeah, lots of stuff. You can go to our webpage, our homepage on the website. Top link in the description. And there is a tab called Subseries, which you can click on and find all the subseries we've ever done. There's a whole list of them. And you can also look up playlists on Spotify.
We've even done trivia, if you like trivia. Oh, yeah. I don't know if we've made a subseries for trivia, but... You should probably put them all together in case someone is just feeling trivia. Yeah, fair enough. But yeah, going into the new year, I just thought, man, it might be worth taking the time to talk about that kind of stuff as well. Do you have anything else you wanted to bring up? Man, just I guess I'm getting excited for Celebration.
It's so close. Celebration is April 18th to the 20th and it's in Japan. Tickets are completely sold out across the board. I'm not surprised, man. Yeah, every version of it. I think even if you bought a ticket this late, you'd be having a hard time finding a hotel. Yeah, yeah. Even kids passes, it's all gone. Every variation of the pass for every age group, every time of day, gone, gone, gone. It's going to be a packed
event. And for those of you who don't know, you can actually, well, for the last two celebrations, I think it is, they have done online versions. Like they've- Streams? Yeah, they've done streams, yeah. And they haven't streamed every single panel. No, some of them are exclusive. Yeah. They often do the main stage and then I think some of the big ones with people from Lucasfilm. Yeah, and they've also put together what's called, I think it's called the Star Wars show stage
or something like that. It's the stage that they have in the sort of main convention hall. Yeah, they're just, I don't know if that's the main, I think the main stage is actually in a convention hall, but like the stage in which they just bring actors out for the heck of it for five minutes and then they'll have that. If it's like the one we went to, then it is like amongst all the different booths installed, people selling stuff. There's like a big chunk in the corner and it's like a big stage.
Yeah, it's usually like nicely dressed up and stuff like that. So yeah, we'll hopefully catch some of that on YouTube and I think we'll do our best to, as the last two celebrations have gone, we've done like a 20 minute, 30 minute episode recap kind of thing each day we get together and just talk about all the new announcements and stuff like that. Very exciting, coming up soon. Very, very exciting stuff. I can't wait to figure out what this new
animated series is going to be. Yeah, and I think there might even be more than one, so I guess we'll have to wait and see if that is the case. Come on, Jedi Adventures 2. Young Jedi Adventures 2. With Andor Season 2 coming out right after celebration. It's going to be a fun April, May to say the least. All right, Sir, thank you so much for joining as always. It's always a pleasure. We'll catch you in the next one. See you out there. Keep flying. All right, thank you so much
to our audience for tuning in. We really, really appreciate it. And if you're on Spotify or Apple Podcasts right now, you can leave us a five-star review. That really helps us out a lot. Helps other fans find the show and the search results and always gives us a good feeling when we see that people enjoy this podcast. So be sure to help us out with that. That would be amazing. May the Force be with you. We'll see you in the next episode of Star Wars Escape Pod.