101 Star Wars Variations 38: The Rebellion Against the Republic

Given enough time, even the clearest facts can be obscured by history.  Take, for instance, the Rebellion.  Now, I know you believe it was against something called the Galactic Empire, which was supposedly a corrupted version of the Old Republic.  But the truth is, the Rebellion was against the Old Republic itself.

Ideals erode over time.  The more people take something for granted, the more corruption is allowed to sneak in.  No one denies that at the time of Chancellor Valorum's ouster in a vote of no-confidence, the Republic had seen better days.  It was indeed old.  Countless worlds could smell the stench of death.  Palpatine was elected to replace him, and the Senate knew exactly what it was doing, who and what he was, what he was interested in doing, the changes he was likely to make...It was all an effort to make the Republic relevant again.

Naturally it resulted in violent opposition, in the form of the Rebellion.  It became an institution that needed to be gutted.  The Jedi were disbanded and then reconstituted from the ground up, the great experiment that was meant to prove that reform could be done.  The Rebellion succeeded, ultimately, because the experiment was considered a success.  I think the same conclusion was reached in the version of history you know, but it makes more sense when you strip away the lies and distortions, which I don't have the energy right now to regurgitate at length.

Suffice to say, it's the same story, from a certain point of view.