The Literary Medal of Horseshit was a prestigious honor first bestowed upon exceptional authors during the Old Republic. The Empire, being the rigidly-controlled propaganda machine that it was, abolished the medal in order to discourage creative and possibly independent thinking (good skies, not that—anything but that!), but it was restored by the New Republic late in the Galactic Civil War. The first person to receive the newly-reinstated honor was Gavin Darklighter, who was given the medal for his epic poem, The Planetary Assault of the Light Brigade.