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MrNexx
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Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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Location: San Antonio
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 Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:41 am Post subject: Guild of Bounty Hunters |
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In the waning days of the Old Republic, the Guild of Bounty Hunters was an archaic, neglected institution, replaced by freelancers and ad hoc systems. In theory, the Old Republic partially maintained order through Guildsmen; legal bounties were placed upon miscreants and registered with the Guild, and Guild-certified Bounty Hunters would seek them out and return them for the bounty. Many Guildsmen worked with crews, who may or may not be themselves certified bounty hunters, but they could spread a degree of the Guild's protection over registered members of their crew... but only the Guildsman could collect the bounty.
However, with the ascendance of the Jedi Order and its greater involvement in the politics of the day, the Guild of Bounty Hunters received fewer and fewer commissions. Why pay bounty hunters, when the Jedi were there? Many Guildsmen sought freelance work, less constrained by Republic laws. Whereas a Guild Bounty Hunter would once sponsor members of their crew into the Guild, now they didn't bother. The reputation of Bounty Hunters, once that of a necessary evil, became that of the thugs and enforcers of crime bosses and unscrupulous corporations.
After the Battle of Endor, the Guild of Bounty Hunters saw a slight resurgence. The diaspora of Imperial officers and war criminals, combined with the reduction of military force, left the nascent Republic with a need for semi-independent operators to deal with those on the run from the law... and an organization to control them. The ancient Guild of Bounty Hunters was revived, and the official bounties once again kept it fat. Guild Leaders petitioned to be able to accept outside work, as well, and the New Republic allowed that the guild could accept independent work, but that such work would need to be vetted, and bonds posted against liability for damages.
(Just something I played with on the way to work this morning, thinking about Aftermath: Life Debt)
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Sutehp
Commodore
Joined: 01 Nov 2016
Posts: 1797
Location: Washington, DC (AKA Inside the Beltway)
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| Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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I haven't read of of the Aftermath books, though I started the first one and was meh about it just after Wedge got his ship tractored into a Star Destroyer...which is to say I lost interest in the book no more than 20 pages in. 
Most of what I know about the Bounty Hunter Guild is from Tales of the Bounty Hunters, but that's Legends continuity, so YMMV.
As for the "ascendance" of the Jedi Order you mentioned, Nexx, hasn't the Order been around since before the founding of the Old Republic? You made it sound as if the Jedi Order recently supplanted the Guild during "the waning days of the Old Republic" (your own words) when the Order hadn't changed its mandate for a thousand years until the Clone Wars began and the Jedi Order made the switch from peacekeepers to wartime generals. This is the time when Palpatine was working to minimize the influence of the Jedi Order, so how could the Order's influence crowd out the Bounty Hunter Guild at this time? It seems the reverse would more likely be true.
And I don't know of any evidence that there was ever a time when the Guild had a larger role in policework/peacekeeping than the Jedi during the Old Republic.
Then again, if this is your own revised history for your own SWU, then never mind.
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MrNexx
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Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 9:15 am Post subject: |
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| Sutehp wrote: | I haven't read of of the Aftermath books, though I started the first one and was meh about it just after Wedge got his ship tractored into a Star Destroyer...which is to say I lost interest in the book no more than 20 pages in.
Most of what I know about the Bounty Hunter Guild is from Tales of the Bounty Hunters, but that's Legends continuity, so YMMV.
As for the "ascendance" of the Jedi Order you mentioned, Nexx, hasn't the Order been around since before the founding of the Old Republic? You made it sound as if the Jedi Order recently supplanted the Guild during "the waning days of the Old Republic" (your own words) when the Order hadn't changed its mandate for a thousand years until the Clone Wars began and the Jedi Order made the switch from peacekeepers to wartime generals. This is the time when Palpatine was working to minimize the influence of the Jedi Order, so how could the Order's influence crowd out the Bounty Hunter Guild at this time? It seems the reverse would more likely be true.
And I don't know of any evidence that there was ever a time when the Guild had a larger role in policework/peacekeeping than the Jedi during the Old Republic.
Then again, if this is your own revised history for your own SWU, then never mind. |
This is mostly me pulling things out of my @$$, so if it conflicts with the established canon, I don't mind. And I had a bunch of problems with the early parts of Aftermath, too... it takes the book a bit to settle in to itself, and Wendig's POV hopping exacerbated the problem.
As for the ascendance of the Jedi Order, this was partially inferred from stuff in the Clone Wars... a sense that the Jedi Order had gotten overly involved in politics, and lost their way. While their mandate hadn't changed, there was (for me, at least) a sense that they'd stopped functioning as peacekeepers, and stepped into the role of police, which is a somewhat fine distinction. Rather than stepping into conflicts that were brewing and seeking to find solutions, they sought to head off conflicts in the interest of the Galactic Senate, rationalizing, perhaps, that if peace was maintained, then the net would be good, but overlooking the effects of maintaining the interests of the government over the interests of the people.
The older order (perhaps even 50 or 100 years BBY) didn't get involved in tracking down criminals, unless they were significant threats to life. The newer order seemed quite willing to do that, which would displace legal bounty hunters to working with the crime syndicates. Palpatine wanted to decrease the influence of the Order, but that's because he found himself at a time when the Order was ascendant.
A comparable analogy would be in US politics (and not going to talk about current events at all). The duties of the President and Congress haven't changed on paper that much in 200+ years, but there's been a waxing and waning of power between them... at times seeing a strong Congress, other times seeing a strong President, and others a closer parity between the two. Still the same mandate... but differing interpretations and leaders shifting the balance of power.
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"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/ |
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