Empire or rebels?

@Keaten I like the gray Jedi, but what you may not know is that the Republic and the Rebellion are two separate entities. The Republic was a galactic alliance and decision-making body between regional governments -- sorta like the EU in real life -- that waged war against a rebelling faction known as the CIS. During the war (the Clone Wars), the Rebellion suffered democratic backsliding as the head of the Senate (a powerful Sith Lord) took control of the entire government from within.

During this transition from Democracy to autocracy, the head of the Senate (now known simply as the Senate) issued an order to commit genocide against the Jedi (who the Republic had previously supported). The resulting autocracy is what we know as the Empire. The Rebellion is the group that formed out of basically nothing to oppose the Empire's authoritarian rule. The Jedi support the Rebellion and vice versa.

@BlueVeins Wow! I didn't even know that. I thought that the Republic and Rebels were the same. I didn't even know about the CIS. That is completely new to me. I would support the Rebels as well.

@Keaten Yeah, it's a surprisingly complicated lore. The CIS is kind of a mix between good and evil. The autocrat who I mentioned earlier gained power by playing both sides of the war, and that involved manipulating the CIS to do some horrible shit. But the CIS's original political goals were not evil. There were also other Sith Lords involved in the CIS's operations in order to counter the Republic's Jedi, and they kinda took over the show. Really sad story.

@BlueVeins Like I said, pragmatic

@BlueVeins That's crazy, yet so relative in today's world. It seems the only ones you can root for on the ones caught in the middle which seem to be the Rebels.

@Keaten Well remember, the Rebellion and the Empire are the only factions during their existence; the Jedi are too few to operate as a separate entity. The Clone Wars were always murky and 'gray,' but the Rebellion generally operated in a very black-and-white, good-vs-evil setting. There wasn't really a middle.

@BlueVeins Ah! You're right. Thinking back on it, the sides were very strict! So, where did the rogue Jedi come from?

@Keaten I think they existed during the time of the Republic. The Jedi Order (basically the Jedi equivalent of the Catholic church) was allied with the Republic. The problem was, the Jedi Order was a shady religious organization with lots of power in a very small group of people, and the Republic was a bloated, fallible secular democracy. They distrusted each other, and largely for good reasons. The rogue Jedi, to my understanding, disagreed with the Jedi Order's strict, conservative teachings and/or their closeness to the Republic, so they kept their distance.

While we're on the subject, most Sith Lords are just Jedi who went on crazy power trips and started killing people for fun. The Jedi order was all about suppressing emotions, and that's why they kept suffering the exact same tragedies over and over and over again. BTW, they were disbanded when the anti-Jedi genocide occurred.

@BlueVeins Everything is making a lot more sense now! I had no idea it was like that. It seemed like the Jedi Order was the righteousness that others came to for guidance and protection. I did notice how some of the Sith were former Jedi students who usually seemed hellbent on getting revenge on their masters.

@Keaten Yeah. For a series of action flicks as cheesey as Star Wars, there's a lot of moral complexity and nuance. I really recommend seeing the movies, because they're really interesting when you know what's going on and stuff.

@BlueVeins Yeah. I am going to go back and rewatch the trilogies. I know I missed a lot, lol.