Star Wars Proved That the Sith was the Empire’s Biggest Problem
A classic Star Wars comic highlighted the problems the Sith brought to the Empire, and clarified that the Dark Lords were more hindrance than help.
As has been shown numerous times through such shows as Star Wars: Rebels and Star Wars: Andor, there are many members of the Galactic Empire who are not as cartoonishly evil as their government appears. However, the major problems that stop the Galactic Empire from being anything but a brutal totalitarian regime comes from its foundational roots. It was started as a means of power for the Sith Lords Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, both of whom ferment the Empire’s worst aspects.
During Dark Horse Comics’Star Wars: Empire: Betrayal miniseries, a coalition of Imperial Moffs and Clone Troopers recognized how the arrogance and unseemly brutality of their Sith leadership greatly hurt the Empire. Thus leading to a massive ‘Anti-Sith Coup’ led by the notorious Grand Moff Trachta to usurp Darth Sidious and Darth Vader. This was an act that could have dramatically changed the Galactic Empire if it had succeeded.
One of the biggest problems that came from the Sith leadership was that Darth Sidious as Emperor Palpatine promoted ideals of competition within the Galactic Empire. This was largely inspired by the Sith Order’s ‘Rule of Two’ philosophy, wherein a Sith Apprentice can only surpass their master once they kill their master. This developed a self-serving ideal based around competition rather than cooperation. This encouraged other Imperials to arrogantly compete against one another, seeking only to bolster their careers by rising up the autocratic hierarchy by any means necessary, even at the expense of other members of the Empire.
The brutality caused by Darth Sidious and Darth Vader no doubt caused a massive problem with Imperial morale. This was made worse by other members of Imperial leadership who were encouraged to enforce the same form of cruel leadership onto their underlings. As shown through the rebellion of Ferrix during Disney Plus’ Star Wars: Andor series, the people of the Empire could only take so much of the Sith-indorsed cruelty before defying the Empire. These were some of the reasons that led Grand Moff Trachta to begin his coup to overthrow Emperor Palpatine, however, as Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars: Empire: Betrayal showed, the faults the Sith imposed onto their Empire made such a goal impossible.
When Grand Moff Trachta initially posed the idea of his coup in Star Wars: Empire #1 (Scott Allie, Ryan Benjamin, Curtin P. Arnold, Michelle Madsen, and Dave Stewart), he centered his plot around the idea of putting an end to Emperor Palpatine theocratic rulership for the sake of a more benevolent and logical government akin to the Old Republic. Unfortunately, the very ideals that Trachta saw as a weakness to the Sith leadership proved to be the cause of his own downfall. For despite his own criticisms regarding Palpatine’s belief that he could not be defeated, Trachta also thought that both himself and his coup were infallible. This caused Trachta to be very surprised when his underling Moff Kadir killed him in Star Wars: Empire #3 and tried to co-opt leadership of the ‘Anti-Sith Coup’ for himself.
Thus, resulting in the entire conspiracy ending in chaos when Kadir’s own arrogance caused him to die at the hands of Palpatine in the following issue. The ultimate weakness of the Galactic Empire was exposed, that being its principle of ‘every man for themselves’, causing the most well-conceived plans to go awry. Grand Moff Trachta’s coup to overthrow the Sith had merit and could have made great changes to the galaxy-spanning government. However, in the end Trachta ultimately cared about bolstering his own power and his arrogance caused him to fall for the same mistakes that caused the Galactic Empire to fail.
