Why was the Galactic Empire so weak?

[Kamiyama]

I just looked up military strength of the Empire in Star Wars, and I walk away appalled.

Not by the military strength of the Empire, no. I am appalled at the Empire's total lack of military strength. The Empire was incredibly weak, and it's mind-boggling that the Empire was able to exist at all, in any capacity.

At the peak of the Galactic Empire's power, it controled 1.5 million inhabited planets, a vast galaxy-spanning territory. However for that massive and mind-boggling galaxy spanning empire, it only had:

1. A measly 25,000 star destroyers. They could keep 1 star destroyer in orbit of 0.016% of their inhabited planets.

2. A measly 20 sector armies, with each sector army consisting of 774,576 combat troops, and a total of 1,180,379 total personnel when you count support personnel. If you do the math, that means the entire Empire army consisted of 15,491,520 combat troops.

For comparison, the USA has 1.5 million combat troops. The USA alone outnumbers one Galactic Empire sector army 2 to 1.

To put this into further perspective, the 1.5 million planets that constitute the Galactic Empire are on average contributing 10 soldiers each to the Galactic armed forces.

3. The Galactic Empire under the command of Palpatine the Sith Lord, was by the numbers the most peaceful organization to exist in the entire history of the galaxy, capable of stationing only 10 soldiers on each of its worlds and could not deploy even 1 star destroyer to 99.9% of its member worlds.

4. What did the Empire spend all of it's tax money on? Clearly its military expenditures couldn't amount to more than 0.01% of its budget.

5. If any member world decided to rebel against the Empire, they could have done so easily, and with 1.5 million member worlds, statistically they should have thousands of rebellions happening at all times of every day. With no military force to speak of, they wouldn't be able to respond to any of them and it's no wonder that a rag tag group of rebels armed with old X-wing starfighters were able to win.

6. The rebellion didn't need Luke Skywalker to win. The rebellion was going to win anyway.

[Magma Dragoon]

The only reason Palpatine is a villain is because of his ominous soundtrack and because Luke and his friends decided to become existential threats to the state by going to the rebel flight academy.

[Hairy Hands Harry]

They could have worked the way the British did. The British never had large numbers of troops in their colonies. They crated an army of locals to keep control. The British were the officers of these militias. Is militia the correct term?
But they don't seem to have had those in America. Unless the history books don't want to mention them.

[MinionJoe]

Two words: Lack of diversity.

[HypersleepyNaputunia]

the planetary governors and fear will keep the outlying systems in check

[bluesky66621]

Originally posted by Tom Macdonald:

Originally posted by MinionJoe:

Two words: Lack of diversity.

well thats not true... some how the clones managed to make a black guy in rogue one.
/smh.

That was Disney didn't keep the cannon of star wars. In reality the clones was created after bounty hunter Jango Fett. The star wars Episode 2: the clone wars explained how it was created.

[Unexpected]

bad writing compared to warhammer

[Arvaos]

Originally posted by RWBY:

the planetary governors and fear will keep the outlying systems in check

The same way that European empires of the past exerted power over their colonies.

[76561199648916059]

The dark side never wins, had they turned good and ruled the galaxy with love and compassion the Jedi wouldn't of kept coming at them

[permanent name]

It destroyed itself in a civil war following palpatine's coup.

After destroying or subjugating almost every other army in the galaxy.

[Utiviroo]

Wasn't travel effectively instantaneous with those star ships, or close enough, like a day or two to cross the whole galaxy.

You don't need lots of ships, if everything a day away. How many uprisings are you going to be putting down, if you already dominated everything more or less?

You only need troops to clear out ground locations, promptly, you can simply starve everyone into submission if you have no morals, if orbital bombardment does not do it.

They spent all their money keeping those storm trooper uniforms clean. Very clean.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

That would have effect if they would travel at sublight or light speeds with years of travel time between locations. Star Wars had very fast FTL so you could basically show up with armada in a moment`s notice.

[permanent name]

also the clone wars subjugated most militaries that would have opposed the empire, before palpatine's coup and civil war.

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

That would have effect if they would travel at sublight or light speeds with years of travel time between locations. Star Wars had very fast FTL so you could basically show up with armada in a moment`s notice.

yeah the idea of any campaign lasting more than a year or two is silly given the travel times.

imagine tf2 where people could just teleport places instead of walking, so as soon as one side starts to win it just snowballs instantly.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Originally posted by permanent name:

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

That would have effect if they would travel at sublight or light speeds with years of travel time between locations. Star Wars had very fast FTL so you could basically show up with armada in a moment`s notice.

yeah the idea of any campaign lasting more than a year or two is silly given the travel times.

imagine tf2 where people could just teleport places instead of walking, so as soon as one side starts to win it just snowballs instantly.

That was very well demonstrated in the Hyperion Cantos where you had instant teleportation gates built in star systems and portal ships but slow FTL travel so if you lost the main teleportation gate in the system that combined all the smaller ones there then you would immediately have years of travel time with spaceships.
They had big strike groups too that could be instantly teleported into the systems through gates and if you managed to blow up the heavily guarded main gate in the system they would still show up in a few years or a decade or so from nearest system with the portal ship and small strike force to guard it and would instantly teleport in the main strike group.

[Morkonan]

I'll bite...

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

...
1. A measly 25,000 star destroyers. They could keep 1 star destroyer in orbit of 0.016% of their inhabited planets.

If you're the only one that has a Star Destroyer, the people that don't have one think your's looks pretty big....

2. A measly 20 sector armies, with each sector army consisting of 774,576 combat troops, and a total of 1,180,379 total personnel when you count support personnel. If you do the math, that means the entire Empire army consisted of 15,491,520 combat troops.

Nations that have large standing armies have them because they believe they might need them. If there isn't a threatening enemy of worrying capability and nothing left to conquer... Well, professional militaries are very expensive. As it was, the Empire was the emperor's toy.

To put this into further perspective, the 1.5 million planets that constitute the Galactic Empire are on average contributing 10 soldiers each to the Galactic armed forces.

I don't know all the lore, but there's evidence that independent or planetary peacekeeping forces did exist.

I'll also point out that smugglers worried about being caught, especially by Imperial units. Even on a backwater nowhere planet where the most popular crop is sand, there was an Imperial presence, Stormtroopers manning mundane posts, and a Star Destroyer in orbit.

Smugglers would not have worried about getting caught if those units/ships were uncommon and were not a threat. So, perhaps your force estimates are off? (Or somebody's... or the world-creation wasn't focused on "realism." :))

4. What did the Empire spend all of it's tax money on? Clearly its military expenditures couldn't amount to more than 0.01% of its budget.

Apparently, building lots of different looking sorts of stuffs that blow up real gud... But, it was probably a mix of healthcare costs and resource extraction, like floating cities to mine gas and big automatic lava foundries to melt lava stuffs and things, just because lave is awesome.

5. If any member world decided to rebel against the Empire, they could have done so easily, and with 1.5 million member worlds, statistically they should have thousands of rebellions happening at all times of every day. With no military force to speak of, they wouldn't be able to respond to any of them and it's no wonder that a rag tag group of rebels armed with old X-wing starfighters were able to win.

But, the Rebels didn't win... At least not the "movie" Rebels. AFAIK, from my internetz research efforts, the Battle of Jakku was the defining victory. And, that was achieved only after Endor when the Rebellion's successes apparently encouraged others to join in a formal Alliance.

In essence, what you're describing did occur as you say. :) But, it just wasn't in the movies. I guess huge ginormous splosion battlez that redefine an entire fictional galactic world's setting in an epic story aren't worthy of being on film...

" Giant battle? What? No, too 'spensive. Just tell 'em it happened and we'll use the budget for funny looking antelope bison cows mooses that we can ride through an alien casino. They're already making the molds for those at the toy company."

6. The rebellion didn't need Luke Skywalker to win. The rebellion was going to win anyway.

The Rebellion need victories to convince others that it was possible to win. They needed a young bright-eyed reluctant hero that held himself to a higher standard and sought to achieve something meaningful, for the right reasons, to blow the #%#^ out of something big. :)

[permanent name]

The Force presents actors to ratify what is already happening. The Rebellion didn't "need" Luke, he was just a symbol of the Force supporting them.

The issue with comparing the Force to God, which is the closest analogue to this phenomenon in real-world politics, is that the Force is a cruel jailor that ping-pongs the entire galaxy without feeling or care. Vader was the Force signing off on the Empire just as much as Luke was the Force signing off on its dissolution.

As such his overall role is significantly less important than, say, R2-D2. He's less a symbol of the Republic or the Alliance and more a nebulous moral harkening to the Jedi; who, on the whole, were evil.