The whole thing with the Trade Federation in Episode I

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Remember in Episode I when the Trade Federation blockades and then subjugates the world ruled by Natalie Portman, Naboo? Remember when the Jedi Liam Neeson kept saying there's no "logic" in the Federation's move, no "sense"? If you think about it, it doesn't make much sense.

You know those huge ships the Federation used to blockage Naboo? Those are freighters! You see, the Trade Federation is a for-profit shipping company, basically. Yet, what were these freighters being used for? They were't shipping anything, except armies, starfighters, and other materiel. And these are the Trade Federation's biggest freighters! A substantial percentage, anywhere between a 6th and a 3rd of that big freighter fleet was converted to battleships, those big money-makers for the Trade Federation! Basically, the Trade Federation gave up the sales that would have come from shipping in order to have friggin' battleships, not designed simply for self-defense (like just about all ships in Star Wars are), but to blockade and subjugate whole worlds!

Not only that, but they put a lot of money into droid armies and landing craft, as part of that subjugating-whole-worlds thing. Naboo, their target, was a major client of the Trade Federation, the Federation getting a really good deal on transporting plasma from Naboo, on which plasma, an important energy source, was abundant. Yet they shut down all shipments upon blockading the world. By invading Naboo, they risked having the Federation shut down by the Republic.

How did such bad decision-making get to the top of this huge, successful conglomerate? It has to do with the fact that the board of directors for the Trade Federation, called the Directorate, was a major check on the viceroy's power. Only problem is that Darth Sidious, in Cloak of Deception, engineered a complicated plot that wiped the Directorate out, giving the viceroy, whom the Sith Lord control, free reign over the Trade Federation. Otherwise, the Directorate would have put a stop to any such plan to convert freighters to battleships, to blockade a major client world, and to subjugate that world, risking the organization's existence.

Darth Sidious got the Trade Federation to subjugate Naboo partly by badmouthing his alter ego, Senator Palpatine, making Palpatine look like a threat to the Trade Federation. Of course, Palpatine was looking for that sympathy vote to become Chancellor.

Sidious created the situation, right? The Trade Federation might not have technically been all that in terms of military power, but Naboo also did not have really any of its own. That it sounded far fetched that the Federation would do it meant that the Republic would be slow to act, that he could choose when to reveal that information. He most likely had two goals that were actually reached although possibly not the exact way he planned, it was to build up his own political power by playing the victim against someone who he knew would not act, getting voted as the Chancellor. He likely promised the Federation power, as a Sith that excelled at deception they were under his thumb, and he knew that the end of the event would also make the Federation and other worlds to create their own faction which he would later use to take full control, and an army was already being made.