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| - After the end of the Onderon Crusade the fortunes of the Empire continued to fade. System after system began to break away, ignoring the authority of the core worlds. As urbanized planets depending on outside sources of food and other vital supplies, the populations of many core world planets, including Coruscant, began to suffer deprivation. Events surrounding the abdication of the Empress Talmerith are obscure. Whether she willingly abdicated, abdicated in the face of an ultimatum, or simply fled upon seeing the approach of General Selkisto's forces, is unknown.
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| abstract
| - After the end of the Onderon Crusade the fortunes of the Empire continued to fade. System after system began to break away, ignoring the authority of the core worlds. As urbanized planets depending on outside sources of food and other vital supplies, the populations of many core world planets, including Coruscant, began to suffer deprivation. Events surrounding the abdication of the Empress Talmerith are obscure. Whether she willingly abdicated, abdicated in the face of an ultimatum, or simply fled upon seeing the approach of General Selkisto's forces, is unknown. General Selkisto, staunch supporter of the Onderon regime of Queen Hyacinth, had turned his energies to realizing his bold strategic vision of a revanche against the Coruscanti elite. Starting with a small force of republican fighters on Chandrila, General Selkisto traveled to far Bakura to recruit clone troopers from the Grand Army of the Republic ("GAR"). Reappearing in the core at the head of a large fleet, General Selkisto struck not at Onderon, as expected, but at Coruscant itself. The flight of Empress Talmerith left General Selkisto in possession of the ancient galactic capital. Once in control of Coruscant, General Selkisto sought to encourage the return to the days of more democratic rule in the form of a republic. In this he was only partly successful. Voted into the role of Chancellor, General Selkisto built up a representative Senate, but owing to numerous external threats was not able to disband the large clone army he had gathered. After extending his patronage to the nascent Velmoran democracy, which included many lucrative military-industrial contacts, General Selkisto brought many planets back into the fold, and opened the upper Perlemian as far as Rhen Var. Christopher Fel came to an Empire torn by war and dissension, with many systems in the act of secesion and open rebellion. Working with Chancellor-for-Life Selkisto, Christopher Fel pressed his claim for the Fel throne on Coruscant. This triggered an immediate conflict with Executor Ardonis Commodore, and the Onderon Royal House of Queen Astra. Possible involvement with the Sith on the part of the Onderon Royal House gave Chancellor Selkisto the propaganda he needed to drive a wedge between Onderon and the rest of the Republic. With the political alliance complete between the Chancellor-for-Life and the young Fel Emperor, the Emperor with the support of a compliant Senate was able to rebuild the economies and military forces of the core worlds. With an Empire now extending from Ord Mantell to Rhen Var in the north, and as far as Ukio in the south, the Imperial Republic reasserted itself as the largest power in the galaxy. Many worlds still retained some semblance of independence: The Bastion remnant gave strong support to the Fel Dynasty, but never fully joined with the core worlds. Naboo and Taris retained their traditional neutrality, and the Tatooine outpost continued on its wayward path, accepting the authority of the core worlds in name only. And while Nar Shaddaa had nominally remained part of the empire under Empress Talmerith, the new Imperial Republic was never able to wrest full control of the notorious smugglers moon from the grasp of numerous powerful Hutt clans. Indeed, encountering a second Hutt renaissance, the newly formed Imperial Republic found itself facing numerous petty local Hutt lords all along its eastern and southern periphery. As events in the wake of the rise and fall of Klugga the Hutt show, the north was as always never able to gain full control of the "galactic south," a perennial issue for the core worlds even before the Talmerith Dynasty. Two examples serve to illustrate this. The first was the difficulty controlling the trade in ryll from Ryloth. Though heavily regulated by the Senate, trade routes to Ryloth were controlled by numerous contending criminal gangs and Hutts. Traders to the south had to contend with several small but experienced pirate fleets whenver trading near Tatooine or Ryloth. Second was the continued difficulty supplying the Talz with adequate food supplies on their frozen homeworld of Alzoc III. Unwisely promising food aid to the Talz, the Emperor had difficulty fulfilling his promise despite considerable investment of fleet resources and investment by Coruscanti bankers. Troubles continued to the far west, too. Although General Selkisto had used clone troopers of GAR to "liberate" Coruscant, conflict emerged between clone units loyal to Chancellor Selkisto and and forces loyal to Executor and remnant leader Ardonis, a conflict that had a negative influence on relations with Bakura. Numerous other hot spots remained for the Imperial Republic to deal with- a brief military dictatorship on Corulag by Imperial Pretender Lord Raiden, the inability to eliminate the Red Fury pirate stronghold in the Cularin system or small armed smuggler groups operating in the Dagobah asteroid fields. Many Outer Rim worlds refused to accept the authority of the core. On the whole, the Imperial Republic brought peace and stability to a wide swath of the galactic core and the galactic north, leading to a brief renaissance of trade, economic growth and the arts. While never able to shed its image as a military state (for which it cannot be faulted, given the times), the Imperial Republic did much to halt the collapse of galactic civilization wherever it was able to extend its hold.
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