Republic
The Republic is the ancient democracy that governs most of civilized space. The chief legislative body of the Republic, the Galactic Senate, oversees Republic space from its central seat on the Core world of Coruscant. The Senate is also the Republic's primary tool of diplomacy, and Senators frequently join Jedi to mediate disputes between regional powers. Slavery is illegal, and though indentured servitude is allowed, it is restricted to prevent the exploitation of workers. Spice is legal, but only for medicinal uses.
Agencies
Bureaucracies
The Galactic Republic includes a massive bureaucracy of government-funded agencies, each with its own mission, director, and staff. Some agencies are large and vital to the Republic, like the Republic Tax Collection Agency. Others, such as the secretive Republic Special Weapons Group, are known only to select few.
Not even the Chancellor is aware of every agency, and many continue to receive funding beyond their usefulness. Agency staff and directors are often apolitical, seeking careers in service to facts rather than aiming to score political points.
Bureau of Ships and Services (BoSS)
Responsible for maintaining a database of starship transponders and pilot's licenses going back millennia, BoSS works with customs and law enforcement to maintain and protect the hyperlanes. While formally a private agency, BoSS has a private contract with the Republic to provide its vital services.
Bureau of Sig, Spice, and Slavery
Initially formed centuries ago to combat organized crime, S3 is an intelligence collection and analysis agency. Criminals of the time favored notoriously inaccurate sig blaster gas for its armor·piercing qualities, which almost led to a ban. S3 agents examine the weapons, spice, and slaves recovered from judicial arrests, tracing their histories to create a map of criminal networks. Senate corruption has been voting to erode the bureau's budget, staff, and facilities for decades.
Republic Correctional Authority
The RCA holds criminals in violation of Republic law and those deemed too dangerous for local holdine facilities. Normally staffed by judicial agents with specialized training, RCA facilities now also hold prisoners of war, and in such cases deploy specialized clone troopers as guards. The RCA operates prisons across the galaxy, including many deep-space prison stations and mobile prison ships. Many critics point to the luxurious accommodations at low-security facilities as being incredibly soft on corporate crime.
Republic Treasury
A vast agency with countless offices and bureaus, the Treasury is responsible for printing Republic credits, also known as dataries. Treasury agents investigate currency manipulation. fraud, and counterfeiting. Since leaving the aurodium standard long ago, the Republic has collaborated with major banks like the Bank of the Core, as well as with the Banking Clan, to hold a credit reserve to ensure currency stability. Some economists, experts, and politicians fear that the banks have too much power, and that the Republic relies overly on them.
Space Rescue Corps
The red and black of the Space Rescue Corps is a welcome sign to spacers in distress, and the corps counts some of the best pilots field medics, and mechanics among its ranks. The SRC searches for missing ships, responds to distress calls, and hunts for survivors after space battles. The models it most commonly uses are the nimble Sprint-class rescue craft and, for larger jobs, the disc-hulled Corellian rescue frigate.
Explorers' Guild
The Explorers Guild is a group of Republic scouts dedicated to charting the uncharted and mapping the unmapped. This mission undoubtedly leads them to the most untouched regions of the Outer Rim, where they seek to discover new systems and map new hyperspace routes for the sake of the Galactic Republic. Members of the Explorers Guild often have a lust for adventure and a penchant for the unknown.
Republic Defense Coalition
The Republic Defense Coalition (RDC), also known as the Republic Defense Corps, was a paramilitary organization within the Galactic Republic focused on defense and crisis management. Operating through treaties that granted central government control over planetary defense forces during emergencies, the RDC utilized forces such as the Emissary-class Republic Cruisers and smaller craft. The organization's forces would be activated during crises, and once the threat was neutralized, they would return to their homeworlds, with RDC activities ceasing.
Judiciary
Judicial Department
The Judicial Department, the Republic's primary law enforcement entity, operates out of the Judicial Arcology building, which dominates Coruscant's Judicial Plaza. The Judicial Department, which is subordinate to the Chancellor's office, oversees countless offices tasked with investigating, trying, and sentencing offenders. The collaborative nature of these offices has fed cries of corruption and conflicts of interest throughout Republic history.
The Courts
Most legal issues are resolved locally, covered either by regional or planetary legal systems. Galactic laws primarily concern issues between planets, such as taxation and trade between systems or crimes committed outside orbital space. The bulk of Republic court cases involve large corporations, regional governments, or pirates and outlaws operating across multiple sectors.
Sentients' rights cases also work their way through the Republic court, sometimes appealing all the way to the Republic's Supreme Court. The courts have a small army of prosecutors, barristers, bureaucrats, researchers, and subject matter experts within their ranks for trying cases.
Republic Office of Criminal Investigations
The ROCI manages subordinate law enforcement agencies and the Republic Enforcement DataCore, which tracks Republic bounties ROCI sector coordinators oversee regional judicial forces and liaise with local law enforcement to smooth over any jurisdictional issues. The ROCI also coordinates with the Jedi Order when Jedi accompany official Republic investigations.
Republic Security Force
Known as “judicials,” Republic Security Force agents, recognizable for their blue or red tunics, are the Republic's primary law enforcement agents. Judicials investigate corporate and government entities, as well as combat pirates and organized crime. They maintain a sizable fleet of ships to support local patrols, far-flung investigations, and counterpiracy operations.
The judicials frequently work alongside the Jedi. While some members resent the Jedi Order's privileged status, most respect Jedi insight. However, judicials are concerned with acquiring evidence for courtroom justice, whereas the Jedi sometimes mete out their own, streamlined brand of justice, creating friction between the two groups. Still, regardless of personal feelings, most judicials treat the Jedi with professional courtesy.
Sector Rangers
Assigned to a sector of space, Sector Rangers pursue criminals deemed too dangerous for local officers. Members of one of the oldest law enforcement institutions in the Republic, the Sector Rangers are highly capable trackers and warriors. They operate alone or in small crews to hunt the worst of the worst, and they have the legal authority to deputize willing locals in the pursuit of dangerous criminals. Special Enforcement Officers (SEOs) are the Sector Rangers' elite and have the jurisdictional freedom to cross sector boundaries in pursuit of their targets. SEOs frequently work alongside Jedi to bring the most dangerous criminals to trial, whether that occurs inside a local courthouse or Republic courtroom.
The Senate
Most business occurs either on the floor of Coruscant's Senate rotunda or within various adjacent Senate offices. The rotunda interior is a large sphere containing more than a thousand Senate pods. There are far more Senators than pods in the rotunda, and as such, only the most senior member worlds enjoy a pod assignment. Other pods are reserved for those with business on the day's agenda, and some are set aside for Senators present in a nearby facility, engaging in debate via hologram remotely. It is unofficial Senate practice for those Senators with pod assignments to exchange use of their pod for favors. To join the Republic, regions must satisfy a variety of population and governing requirements to become a “functional constituency,” typically an entire system of space holding to the Republic’s values. Senate elections determine the senior Senator for a constituency, though a runner up, traditionally from a minority species or ideology, is named junior Senator. While a junior Senator can only cast votes if the senior Senator is absent, they can still accept committee seats and chairs, and they receive the same briefings as their senior counterparts.
The Senate is divided into three main political parties: the Core, Rim, and Militarists. The Core advocates for more centralized government power, often including more taxes to fund programs aimed at expanding and elevating civilization in such a way as to make the rest of the galaxy more like the Core planets. The Rim Faction usually votes against taxes and centralized power in favor of systems’ rights, arguing that Coruscant for example, wouldn’t know what was best for Ryloth. A third group, known as the Militarists, often vote with the Core, but is focused on restoring a centralized military. Its members cared little for economic issues, concentrating instead on checking Hutt expansion and crushing both pirates and organized crime. For this, they favor a formal Republic military instead of the ad hoc network of planetary defense forces supplemented by Judicials and Sector Rangers.
Chancellor & Vice Chancellor
The Supreme Chancellor oversees much of the Republic bureaucracy and appoints directors and chiefs of the countless government agencies within his purview. These bureaucrats compete with Senators and lobbyists for the Chancellor’s time, hoping he'll use his executive power and influence to turn the gears of democracy in their favor. The Vice Chancellor is second only to the Chancellor, and would succeed him automatically should he be unexpectedly relieved of his position.
Ranks
- Chancellor
- Vice Chancellor
- Senator
- Judicial
- Defense Coalition - A volunteer militia composed of citizens from various Republic-allied worlds, who help defend and protect it and its interests throughout the galaxy.
- Citizen
- Outlaw