Popverse's top stories of the day

• Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon has asked the voice actors to stop participating in fan projects including even voice actor memes
• MEMBERS ONLY: Marvel Matters: The cursed chalice of Marvel Studios' success, and the broken cinematic universe dreams it gave Hollywood
• WATCH NOW: Ortegas or Melissa: We play Who Is More Likely To? with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Melissa Navia

The Star Wars franchise is not known for its subtlety, especially in the way it portrays its villains. George Lucas was very open about how he drew inspiration from real-world regimes when designed the Empire. Everything from their uniforms to their tactics was inspired by the fascist and totalitarian governments of the past. So for Dr. Chris Kempshall, who is a historian who focuses on the First World War, writing a book about the actions of the Galactic Empire hit uncomfortably close to home. 

Dr. Kempshall’s book, The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, is an in-universe book detailing the actions that the Empire took to establish itself and to maintain its dominance in the galaxy far, far away. That includes creating atrocities for the fictional fascists to perpetrate for the sake of power. As he told a panel at Star Wars Celebration 2025, he would pitch new, terrible actions for the Empire to his editors at Lucasfilm Publishing.

Each time, he said to himself, “There’s no way that this is going to make it into the book. And… Oh, no, actually they seem to be fine with it. Wow. I’m gonna have to redraw the lines and try to find where the stopping point is.”

Of course, it wasn’t like he was pulling these ideas from thin air – Dr. Kempshall just had to look to human history for inspiration for his fictional fascist empire.

“Did, as a historian writing a book about the Galactic Empire, did anything in there feel realistic?” he asked, partly to himself during the panel. “I mean, maybe a few bits.” It is worth noting that this last bit was positively dripping with sarcasm.

However, rather than portray the Empire as a foil to any particular government past or present, Kempshall tried to write the book with the sense of dread of someone who had the unfortunate job of trying to document these terrible events.

“What we wanted to draw on was the feeling of looking back on these things and what it feels like to feel this kind of despair and this horror and to not really know what you’re supposed to do about it and transmit that feeling of kind of real-world concern that kind of existed as I was writing the book in the back of my mind.”

Of course, you’re free to interpret the actions of the Galactic Empire however you like. And, if the events depicted in The Rise and Fall of Galactic Empire feel familiar to you, maybe it is because all art is a grim reflection of our world.

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.