How would you do the Galactic Empire differently?

[Avernus]

I think one minuscule detail about the Empire was the apparent lack of Palpatine statues littered across the empire lenin statue style, except with an anti tamper device to keep rebels from trying to deface it.

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Now I'm imagining the Death Star built to look like a gigantic Palpatine-head, with one of the eyes being the superlaser emitter.


"Only a Sith could conceive of something that combines such genocidal lethality with equally monumental bad taste."

 

[King Washington]

Whenever I think about the Star Wars Factions I always think, "Man, if they were more like the two major factions in Legend of the Galactic Heroes, this would be so much better."
With that in mind...
I would have liked to see more Empire doing a better job showing that there are people supporting them and the reasons for it. Even if it was showing overwhelming support in the more developed worlds or industrial worlds whose economy has been boosted by their reckless spending. But every single time we are told that they have support while being absolutely hated by everyone and oppressed and wanted to rebel.
Yes I understand the whole Republic/Jedi = Good, Empire/Sith = Evil. But I would have liked it if they made them less cartoon evil/stupid.

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The Galactic Empire's historical inspiration where the guys who thought slaughtering a hundred million people in Eastern Europe and turning the entire area into a settler colony was a good idea.

 

[Space Jawa]

I'm doubling down on this. The Endor ground fight would've been better and funnier if the ewoks had a bunch of cobbled-together weapon systems, shitty jetpacks, sticky bombs, etc. Plus, the imperials would've seemed less lame than they did running away from tiny arrows, plus it would've produced better toys and merchandise. It's win/win/win.

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There's a bit from the Essential Guide to Warfare that I think puts a great spin on this, giving a first-person perspective of the Stormtrooper vs Ewok battle as a Vietnam Horror Story type account. Home terrain advantage, bows engineered for leverage, arrows tipped with nerve toxins, spike pits, Ewoks piling on troopers to pull their helmets off to hack them to death; the guy telling the story describing his experiences as if it's the Ewoks who are committing the real atrocities of war.

When you consider that the Ewoks were well ready to eat the heroes before Luke convinced them that 3P0 was a god, I think the Ewoks are underrated. Their cute teddy bear appearance just makes them all the more dangerous.

I kind want to see someone in the empire try and create a stormtrooper training regime that resembles something out of the Combine/Cerberus assault troopers where there is zero defection rates because they are subject to invasive surgery and given actual killswitches as he addressed a notable flaw with biochips was Rex and dubs the project "Kingslayer". A weakness of the Empire's is a defecting stormtrooper is someone with experience andnintel. With every stormtrooper having their vital signs cut using the Killswitch for attempted defection or interrogation means less information and skilled soldiers

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That would had been the intended goal of the Empire's final product, naive recruits come in, fanatical suicidal soldiers with zero defection rates comes out. Perfect way to stem the military capabilities of the rebellion that is perfectly in line with Empire policy. Imagine what would happen if Finn had a similar procedure happen to him, the plot of Force Awakens would be very different.

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Given what went on with the Ssi-Ruuk and the later droids the Clone Emperors used (some of which I think were actually piloted by surgically implanted pilot brains), I'm wondering if Palpatine wasn't planning on trending towards more easily controlled troops anyway, he just didn't have an opportunity to properly implement them before he died.