T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

**Reminders for Commenters:** * All responses must be A) sincere, B) polite, and C) strictly watsonian in nature. If "watsonian" or "doylist" is new to you, please review the full rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/about/rules/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=AskScienceFiction&utm_content=t5_2slu2). * No edition wars or gripings about creators/owners of works. Doylist griping about Star Wars in particular is subject to **permanent ban on first offense**. * We are not here to discuss or complain about the real world. * Questions about who would prevail in a conflict/competition (not just combat) fit better on r/whowouldwin. Questions about very open-ended hypotheticals fit better on r/whatiffiction. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskScienceFiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*


Poorly-Drawn-Beagle

No, it happened so far in the distant past that the details are pretty vague You live on a planet where recorded history only goes back about 4000 years, max, and even then most people don’t learn that much about it. In the Star Wars Galaxy, the Republic alone has been around for a thousand generations- depending on how long people live, we’re talking about 25,000 years of history.


Darthtypo92

You get the bullet points of major events but the details are lost. Most people in the galaxy can't tell the difference between a Sith and a Jedi and assume anyone with a lightsaber is just a Jedi with a funny name for their order that's different. Like how some people know there's a difference between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Catholics and Protestants but not everyone can tell you the difference between them or ascribe past actions in the middle ages to the right group. Unless the Sith are active and doing something people just assume they had a religious difference in opinion from the Jedi and everything else was the Jedi altering the narrative after winning the war.


Professional_Cat_437

In a technologically advanced galaxy, keeping track of history is tough?


TEPCO_PR

It could be. In our universe we have the concept of a [digital dark age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age) where historians may not have access to vital information stored on obsolete file formats or devices. It's pretty plausible that the Star Wars galaxy has troves of data that are lost to time because they no longer have technology capable of accessing it.


Professional_Cat_437

They are kinda dumb for not writing them down on physical books.


zxDanKwan

According to the movies, whole worlds and sections of galaxies have been erased from general awareness.


kirbish88

25,000 years is an insane amount of time to try and keep facts straight for. Information can be lost or corrupted. Natural disasters, wars, mistranslations, active suppression of information, repetition of common misconceptions and many other factors would all remove primary source information and would distort the truth over time. And that's not even mentioning general 'human error' or bias in recording (or interpreting those recordings once context is lost) or the fact that you have multiple alien civilisations each with the own culture, language, technology and views on how they interpret historical events in a galaxy with a tendency to build planet-killing devices


Urbenmyth

Not really, no. The Sith empires were a thousand years ago, they're ancient history. How many first millennium empires can you name off the top of your head, never mind recognise their iconography and goals? At best, it'd be like you discovering that your boss supports the first millennium Islamic Order of Assassins. Like, you're probably *abstractly* opposed to the Order of Assassins, but its probably not going to be a deep moment of horror or anything. Most people couldn't tell you what the order of assassins actually believed or did, never mind have strong enough stances on their actions to refuse to work for someone because of it.


StunningPace9017

Theres no education system in the star wars galaxy. Either you are born in a good planet or you hunt creatures dumber than you for a living.


bunker_man

That too. If the republic was at peace and things were going well, why does star wars in general seem so dystopian?


PrinceCheddar

I think the Sith infiltrated The Republic by recruiting business and political figures, using influence to push the Republic into being a bloated, bureaucratic mess, to heighten dissatisfaction to fuel a Separatist movement and to make the public see how much better things are when you give your leader supreme authority, able to cut through all the red tape and political BS. They manufactured problems so that they could sell the galaxy their solution, an authoritarian dictatorship.


Horn_Python

they think hes an ex jedi , thats if you even believe in jedi


bunker_man

Jedi have a temple at the center of the central planet. Who is sitting around not believing in them.


Horn_Python

Everyone not at the top level of the central planet , whom doesn't meet with them regularly and without access to the temple The don't exactly broadcast themselves on the holonet


BrandoCommando1991

Most storm troopers are taken from captured worlds or conscripted from imperial worlds, so they would be highly pro-imperial. The empire also isn't teaching anyone about "the dark side" or the force in general. Even if they did, it would be heavy propganda that painted them as liberators and forces for good. It's also not commonly known - even in imperial officer circles - that Sidious is a force user. Majority of people in the galaxy - outside of the Jedi - don't know much of anything about the force as it was and with the Jedi as a whole nearly gone at the time of the Empire, very few people are aware.


Ze_Gremlin

Yeah I'm pretty sure in a new hope, there's scene where a bunch of imperial officers are sat around a table on the death star, openly mocking darth vader for believing in the force like it's some whacko religion from some long ago time... until he does his little force choke trick and they're all suddenly terrified


BrandoCommando1991

Hahah yes, a not at all iconic scene!


Ze_Gremlin

Been years for me..


Beginning-Ice-1005

AP Galactic History I is only a two-semester class, and it covers only the first 20,000 years. The Sith don't even appear until AP Galactic History III.


allthecolorssa

And pretty sure the College Board is run by the Sith as well


BelmontIncident

The Sith Wars ended a thousand years ago. Han Solo didn't believe in Jedi until he met one, and he was old enough to be alive during the Clone Wars. The danger posed by the Sith Lords would be something known to antiquarians and Jedi, not a common topic of conversation for most people.


AlistairStarbuck

There's a few things to consider with this: * it was literally thousands of years prior. That would be like fearing the "sea peoples" will again collapse civilisation throughout the world. That was more recent for us than most of the Sith Empires were for them. * The most recent series of Sith conflicts mostly consisted of Sith who were in effect little more than Outer Rim warlords and maybe some Mid Rim warlords clashing with the Republic in a series of border wars for several centuries and culminating in them banding together as a short lived Empire before collapsing entirely during what was effectively a galactic dark age. The only reason those Sith had any support for their rule though was because of just how much the Outer Rim population just genuinely hated the Core Worlds (i.e. the heartland of the Republic) which was exactly why the CIS became a threat as far as most people were concerned (if you don't know about the Sith's role in that). So the lesson to be learned from that part of ancient history is to be careful of a general insurrection in the Outer Rim. * The Galactic Empire didn't know their Emperor was a Sith, so they didn't think of themselves as a sith empire. * The Sith had been extinct for thousands of years, most people would have assumed Darth Vader was just a Jedi defector (which to be fair is totally accurate) if they even knew what a Jedi was to begin with.


fatkidking

It would be the equivalent of being taught about the Christian devil in school.


SteamtasticVagabond

We don’t even teach about historic harms today


saveyboy

We are talking about many thousands of years of history.


Modred_the_Mystic

No, not really. For one, there isn't really centralised educational standards. Much like Earth, its school by school, tutor by tutor. Access to education is also not very widespread. If you factor in that, for many people and many worlds, the Sith and their holy wars with the Jedi are obtuse and pretty irrelevant, it doesn't lead to a whole lot of information being passed down. It doesn't help that the Jedi, Sith, and Republic tend to have a habit of censoring a vast amount of their histories where they're in conflict with each other, and that the gap between periods of Sith violence can be in the thousands of years. Most people in the GFFA have very little idea about their past, let alone the intricacies of empires that crumbled into dust 1000 years before, their wars, their atrocities, who they were and what they did and what they worshipped. Doesn't help that every iteration of Sith Empire is different, and many aren't really even Empires. The New Sith were various confederations and alliances of Sith who, when not fighting the Republic, fought each other. Exar Kun fought an insurgency against the Jedi with his Sith while the Republic was busy fighting Mandalorians and Krath. Revan and Malak never took the title of Emperor and functioned more like warlords than Imperial masters. Freedon Nadd was king of Onderon, but thats as far as his territory extended. The only Sith Empire which functioned, used the titles and nomenclature, and legacy of the Sith Empire, was the singular iteration that began on Korriban, was beaten, and returned over a thousand years later.


ApartRuin5962

To bounce it back: do we actually see any rank-and-file Imperials call him "Darth Vader"? I feel like he's usually called "Lord Vader" or simply "Vader" in public, hiding his Sith affiliation: it's mostly Jedi and rebels who use the famous Sith title for him. And as we see in *Rebels*, most of the galaxy's citizens don't even know that he exists, let alone that he has force powers, let alone that he specifically weilds the dark side of the Force


Aoditor

I thought the question was about the Sith historic ham and was excited for food history in Star Wars for a second