Imperial Military

The Imperial Military, also known as the Imperial armed forces or Imperial Service, was the armed forces of the Galactic Empire, and successor to the villainous Republic Military. It was responsible for carrying out military operations throughout the galaxy as well as maintaining order on Imperial member worlds, governorships, colonies, and protectorates.

The Imperial Military was a massive organization, as Palpatine did nothing to halt the massive military build up that had produced an army of troopers and enormous weapons of mass destruction following the Clone Wars. Its ranks are filled with tens of trillions of regular army soldiers, trillions of fleet crew, and a sizable force of stormtroopers.

The Imperial Military was under the direct control of Imperial High Command. Although the Galactic Emperor acted as the Commander-in-Chief of the Military, Palpatine rarely ever left the confines of his palace on Coruscant, leaving a relative few military personnel ever actually seeing him face to face. The next highest rank is that of the Supreme Commander. The individual who held this title had complete control over the Imperial Military, and answered only to the Emperor. In the absence of an official Emperor, the Supreme Commander often became the de-facto leader of the Empire, as was seen in the cases of Darth Vader. It had two main branches—the Imperial Army, and the Imperial Navy.