New Order/Legends

"Under the Empire's New Order, our most cherished beliefs will be safeguarded. We will defend our ideals by force of arms. We will give no ground to our enemies and will stand together against attacks from within or without. Let the enemies of the Empire take heed: Those who challenge Imperial resolve will be crushed."

- Palpatine in his Declaration of a New Order

The New Order, also called the New Imperial Order and the New Era of Power, was the name given to Emperor Palpatine's political program, which was the underlying ideology of the Galactic Empire. It was institutionalized in a number of Imperial organizations, most dramatically the Stormtrooper Corps, and was supported by COMPNOR and its powerful sub-agency, the ISB.

History
The New Order has its origin in Declaration of a New Order by which Palpatine established the Empire in 19 BBY. It had been used earlier by the CIS.

Many people of the new Empire enthusiastically supported the vision outlined in the Declaration of a New Order, largely due to the violence that had plagued the Galaxy for so long. Many Senators wholeheartedly supported the new government while a number of more cautious Senators chose to watch and wait to see how the new government would handle the affairs of state. It promised to trade frailty for strength, chaos for order, and uncertainty for decisiveness.

It began to lose support after increasing authoritarian nature of the Empire. It endured, with and without Palpatine, in one form or another, for at least one hundred and sixty years. That it lasted this long is no credit to Palpatine, for in the end it had never truly been intended to operate without him; it fell to others&mdash;to Gilad Pellaeon and, later, to the Fels&mdash;to try to find a new relevance for it, to give it a new lease on life as a "New Order with a Personal Face."

Ideology
The New Order arose as a result of the failures of the Galactic Republic, which was decentralized and often found ineffectual in resolving disputes between its more powerful members. The Empire was championed as a strong unifying solution to this problem. It criticized the perceived decadence and weakness of the Republic, and advocated an authoritarian and militaristic social and political culture.

Chauvinism
The New Order's ideology was pervasively chauvinist, possibly due to its military origins. The armed forces were almost entirely male, as were most of the Emperor's advisors. However, there were notable exceptions.

Culture
The culture of the New Order was ascetic and minimalist. These aesthetics were encouraged throughout the Galaxy by the Coalition for Progress, an arm of COMPNOR. During its short existence, the Empire was not particularly brutal in the suppression of artistic culture, as it was primarily interested in military and political dominance. However, pressures from the New Order left their mark on the art of the Imperial period.

Xenophobia
The New Order was intrinsically tied to a Human-supremacist vision of society. Aliens were rarely accepted into formal Imperial organizations. They were also often the target of exclusionary policies, perhaps as a result of the stigma surrounding the alien-based Confederacy of Independent Systems. In some cases, sentient aliens had been virtually exterminated by the Empire (infamously, the Empire occasionally used an ecological act permitting the eradication of dangerous species to justify military operations against sentient species).

Appearances

 * Republic HoloNet News Special Inaugural Edition 16:5:24
 * The Farlander Papers
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope novelization
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi novelization
 * X-wing series
 * I, Jedi