Galactic empire

• 1. One Empire, Every Planet

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  A galactic empire is a single centralized political power that rules most or all of the habitable planets in a fictional galaxy. It is one of science fiction's most familiar settings. Galactic empires turn up most often in space opera and science fantasy, though other sub-genres use them too. Some stories put the empire at the center and follow it as it grows, declines, or both. Others treat it as scenery, a vast political backdrop behind the characters' own struggles. Writers who invent such an empire have to decide what it should resemble. They also have to decide whether the listener should admire it, fear it, or watch it collapse. Two famous examples, one from Asimov's Foundation books and one from Star Wars, answer those questions in very different ways, and each one borrows from real human history.

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• 2. Rome Among the Stars

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  Asimov was explicit about the pattern behind the Galactic Empire in his Foundation books, which depict that empire's fall. He said it was modeled on the Roman Empire. His direct inspiration came from the historical writings of Edward Gibbon. The borrowing went beyond the broad outline of rise and decline. Asimov based some individual characters on real historical figures. This habit is common, since galactic empires are in many cases consciously modeled on historical empires of Earth. One Asimov novel pushes the parallel down to the level of a single province.

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• 3. A Province Called Earth

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  In Pebble in the Sky, the planet Earth is a poor and backward province of the Galactic Empire. Asimov modeled that setting on Judea under Roman rule in the 1st century AD. The Earth of the novel is sharply divided, just as historical Judea was. On one side are those who accept Imperial authority. On the other are fanatics called the "Zealots," who hatch plots of violent and bloody rebellion. The book treats the Zealots as its clear villains. A very different galactic empire reverses that moral arrangement, with the empire itself cast as the villain.

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• 4. Stormtroopers and Terror

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  The Galactic Empire of Star Wars is a military dictatorship that rules through fear and terror. It is an explicitly villainous force, and its language and visual style deliberately recall Nazi Germany. The clearest example is the name of its armored soldiers, the stormtroopers. That name is formed in the same way as Sturmabteilung, a paramilitary organization created by the NSDAP and often known as the SA. The real organization dates to 1920.

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