Bear something in mind about the whole 'Imperial Xenophobic/racist' thing; GL didn't and has not mentioned anything in his work concerning the subject, other than an unfortunate Imperial Officer refering to Chewie as 'a thing' which was quickly followed by Leia refering to Chewie as 'a walking carpet...' Smacks of racism on both counts if you translate that into our little world and replace Chewie with for example a Muslim...or not if you put aside or the dodgy b-rate additions to the SW mythos since. Think about it before you slate my inbox with hate mail.... It's not really practical for an Empire to dominate the known galaxy in the sole-hands of one particular species(ie humaniti), nor is it realistic, so it's one deep flaw the SW community has accepted without thinking about; as per normal. Anyway; ultimately, I think Tex has banged it fairly square on the head...