Serious overthinking incoming...

Oh, so, the Empire in Star Wars. Other than the Emperor's personal power trip, what IS it? What is its moral basis, its socio-economic basis, its legal framework?

Seems to me that we know two things about the Empire (other than, y'know, evil). One, it's racist. To be precise, speciesist. In a galaxy full of non-humanoid races, every Imperial employee we ever see is humanoid (and mostly white tbh, but...)

Two, it's broadly atheist. We don't know if religious belief is banned, but it's certainly looked down on. You don't criticise the religious beliefs of *the Emperor's personal enforcer* unless you feel the regime backs you on this.

And we know the monks in the temple in Jedha have been driven out, and (if I remember rightly) the temple destroyed.

We might surmise the Empire's attitude is like the early Soviet Union: "we hate it, but as long as it's just a few peasants and old women, we'll leave it to die out naturally rather than cause a backlash by cracking down."

And... that's about all we know.

So what's the economic system? Is it centralised, like Communism? Well, there are slave labourers for sure. But there are also private businesses and family farms (and organised crime, but they thrive everywhere), so I presume not.

So it's some form of capitalism, but with a strong military and a top-down, non-democratic government. The character of Krennic in Rogue One suggests a crony system, where who your parents know determines how high you rise.

Given the whole midiclorian thing (which presumably Sith believe too?), the Emperor would probably put great store in bloodlines and family, and we could expect some level of eugenicist policies. Blood matters.

Back to economics: how do you support a military that size? Either you're pouring huge amounts of GNP into it - which is trickier in a capitalist system than a socialist one - or, like ancient empires on Earth, you support it by constant conquest and seizing resources.

That would certainly sit well with the speciesism. Conquer the 'barbarians', take their resources. However, you'd think that in the roughly twenty years that the Empire existed, they'd have run out of planets to conquer and loot.

So this is a society on a permanent war footing, taxing businesses and nationalising resources to keep the army operating in order to keep control.

But what's it all about? Other than the Emperor retaining power just because? What does the official propaganda look like? What are they for and against?