VideInfra78 said:
... the war is not very interesting and I'm not getting any political intrigue. Even though you explained it to me, I still don't see why races that co-existed in a peaceful Republic for thousands of years would just grow to hate each other and end up going to galactic war. Especially if Jedi are in place to resolve disputes. There has to be some impetus, an event or something that divides them.
That's a good angle, VideInfra78. Reminds me that I need to think more about broader social motivations in addition to the ones of individual characters. My backstory for the whole aliens-vs-humans thing was inspired by Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War".
Hyperdrives and cloning are both relatively recent inventions (175 BBY and 135 BBY respectively). These innovations were what spurred the major conflict of the PT, and thus led to the war of the OT.
My story goes that the Core Republic (before it was the Galactic Republic) ruled an area of space mostly consisting of the Human-dominated Core and some of the immediate surrounding regions of space...this was achieved through the use of "hypergates".
The hypergates were stationary FTL ports that sprang from a "gate nexus" constructed in orbit above Coruscant thousands of years BBY.
The invention of the hyperdrive in 175 BBY promised a new era of mobility and freedom for all species, as well as a golden age of peaceful expansion for the Republic. The hyperdrive was far less energy-intensive and could propel a ship far faster through hyperspace than could a hypergate, not to mention that it essentially removed the upper limit in size with regards to starship design. The hypergates were all dismantled as a new era of galactic community was to dawn.
But even that was not to be. At least not for now. The hyperdrive was also an enabler for ever more destructive star wars.
Republic merchants signed off on colonization ventures designed to gather resources from the new worlds and absorb the natives into the Republic. Not every species encountered by Republic explorers wanted to be assimilated. Some were taken in by force, in an "ends justifying the means" manner. On many worlds, the aliens violently retaliated.
Not being able to comprehend that the galaxy's myriad of species did not desire to be governed by a single polity run in the Human manner and by Human aristocratic overlords, a variety of Core politicians demanded military action in order to "civilize" these "savage and brutish" aliens.
It should be noted that the hyperdrive was invented by a Corellian engineer and a Twi'lek physicist, but the role of the non-Human was downplayed and often completely ignored in Core propaganda.
The Unification War began in 150 BBY with a outward surge of Republic troops and ships to "pacify" the outlying settlements and protect Republic colonists. This long and brutal war of attrition between technologically-asymmetrical forces took its toll on the non-Human community's opinion of the Republic.
Throughout the conflict, the secretive Jedi Knights took advantage of new hyperdrive ships to travel the galaxy and locate more of their number. They also educated the populaces of border worlds on how to coexist with their neighbors. This had a considerable effect of reducing the number of battles being fought at any one time, and arguably delayed the collapse of the Republic by over a century.
But eventually atrocities were committed on both sides. In this war, the alien belligerents never united the way they would for the Clone Wars. Their militias were just that: armies. No real navy to speak of.
While the insurrectionists of many worlds were eventually defeated, great unrest was felt in the Republic towards the vast expenditures going to the war.
As the war carried on, the Jedi were increasingly burdened by the pressures of the conflict. Starting in 140 BBY, the Knights llessened the efforts they put towards negotiations with the disparate populaces, and began to bring their own brand of justice to belligerent individuals of both sides.
Leaders on the planetary and sector level recall the appearance of "robed phantoms" sweeping in and personally defeating enemy forces in melee combat, as well as exhibiting strange powers of telepathy and kinesis. They were seen to use "laser swords". This was the Jedi doing their duty as guardians of peace and justice.
The breakthrough of cloning in 135 BBY brought new fuel to the fire of military innovation. The first clones were of Human soldiers, further augmented to gain superhuman strength and reflexes and an unquestioning loyalty to the Republic.
But these clones were not cost-effective to replace due to the difficulty of cloning Humans, thus ending the initiative only three years after its inception. Some of the indoctrination methods for the clones would later be used by the Empire for its Stormtroopers.
It was discovered that some species were more difficult to clone than others. In later years this would give way to a racist belief that the difficulty in cloning Humans was because they were better and "more evolved" than other species. In reality, this was not at all the case. It was easier to clone species that reproduced in large litters, which almost invariably tended to be non-mammalian species.
The endgame of the Unification War was on the planet of Barab I, where Barabel insurrectionist forces had gotten a hold of cloning technology through Bothan spies. Between 132 and 129 BBY, the Barabels' newfound numbers allowed them to outman and outgun the Republic detachment on the planet. As the Barabel king's clone army was poised to overrun and cleanse the last Republic outpost on the world, the Republic was ready to retaliate with an orbital bombardment, willing to kill even the colonists on the planet.
But the Jedi were once again able to intervene with mental powers to bring commanders of both sides together and calm their minds with the Force, after which both parties agreed to a peace proposition. The Jedi had again succeeded in one their key mandates: the prevention of genocide.
By now, the year 129 BBY, the other belligerent worlds had been beaten into submission or convinced to settle differences through alternative means by the Jedi. The Knights faded back into the uncharted star system from whence they came. And the Republic was utterly exhausted from the decades-long conflict. The Unification War was over.
Yoda was the only Jedi who never took a life and who always stuck to the notion of peaceful resolution. He was one of the facilitators of the peace agreement on Barab I. "Wars not make one great." After the conflict subsided, Yoda returned to his homeworld of Dagobah, where he remained until the end of his days.
It seemed that peace had finally come to the galaxy.
But anti-alien sentiment in the Republic would linger.
And the Jedi were no longer as mysterious to the galaxy as they were before the War.
That was not the last time the Jedi would be involved in total war. But by the time of the Clone Wars, circumstances had changed. Cloning technology, banned in the Republic at the end of the War, flourished in the newly-formed League. Also, the League could not have existed in the era before hyperdrive ships became ubiquitous. It was only through this innovation that the malcontent elements of so many worlds could band together and organize a massive front against the Republic...as demonstrated by the League's conquest of Coruscant in 25 BBY.
But perhaps the biggest difference was that by the start of the Clone Wars, there were two Force-sensitives who practiced the ways of the dark side and (either openly or secretly) worked against the Jedi: the ex-Jedi Ceres and Admiral Palpatine. Anakin Skywalker would eventually fall to the dark side as well, and the rest is history...
VideInfra78 said:
Neither the humans nor aliens are particularly evil are they?
No.