Galactic economy: enemy of the Sith?

[vanir]

I wanted to start a little discussion about the sheer cost of warfare in the Star Wars galaxy, notably the cost of space fleets with which to wage war.

In the early period it was noted the Republic did not have a tremendously huge fleet and military. For the most part it relied upon the peace keeping abilities of the Jedi Knights and spent the majority of its overall economy upon improving the quality of life for all life forms in the galaxy. The objective was a reign of peace and prosperity for all.

The Sith were war mongers. By stripping virtually all the resources of a few systems they produced a battle fleet which rivalled that of the entire Republic. It was only the Jedi Knights who turned things around, and the cost to the Republic was nevertheless severe.

Let's look at the Imperial era, the cost of a single Imperial-class Star Destroyer was said to have been the industrial output of an entire Sector. Only one Super-class Star Destroyer could be assigned to each of the four regions (plus one assigned to the Imperial Royal Fleet) because there simply wasn't the logistics to produce or maintain any more than this. Six Star Destroyers were assigned to each flagship and up to thirty lesser vessels (cruisers, frigates and corvettes) to each Star Destroyer.

Based on these numbers alone the Empire was compelled to continually conquer worlds and strip them of all resources, also to introduce sanctions which would reduce the average quality of life throughout all the outlaying regions of the galaxy, with the sole exclusion of the Core Worlds (which was deigned as the galactic aristocracy and essentially lived off the backs of the rest of the galaxy in the Imperial system).

This was ultimately the Sith way of life, the strong were deserving and the weak deserving of disregard and abandonment.

I think this is an important point in political themes for stories with any large scope set in the Star Wars galaxy.
What do others think about it all?

[machievelli]

The statement assumes a massive cost per unit in the fleet. Something with the cost mentioned even for a simple Star Destroyer is greater than would make sense.

The statement of cost is specious. The Imperator (I) class according to wookiepedia costs 3.88 billion credits. Without an exchange rate, we may never know

As an example, the United States at the end of WWII had built almost 50 carriers capable of carrying about a hundred aircraft each, over a hundred smaller ones from light carriers (50 aircraft) and 'Jeep' carriers (30 aircraft). Yet we now have only eight carrier battle groups with a Nimitz class carrier assigned to six of them. Those cost about a trillion dollars apiece to build, and about 5-6 million a year to maintain ignoring the Carrier Wing assigned, which jumps the cost to about 40 million.

The initial cost of the ship is steep, but as you can see, the cost of upkeep is a pittance in comparison. My original statement show the difference between a wartime economy. Before the Nuclear Enterprise we still had 25 carriers still in service, but reduced that number to allow newer ships to be built, but as I said, along with the Big E, only eight so far.

[vanir]

So are we saying the Sith run on a wartime economy as a standard measure, whilst the Galactic Republic runs on a peacetime economy?

It has been mentioned in EU that the New Republic ca.7ABY could only afford to crew and maintain two captured Imperial-class Star Destroyers. Just one Super-class Star Destroyer would've broken their recovering economy.

Meanwhile the Imperial remnant still had at least six Imperial-class and several Victory-class Star Destroyers active, and the resurrected Palpatine managed to construct, equip and service a single Eclipse-class with plans to build a fleet of Sovereign-class. But all these administrations notably use slave labour and are known for stripping planetary resources arbitrarily whenever the opportunity arises.

Coruscant at the time was defunct in terms of serious industry, ravaged by civil war.