text: As a military dictatorship based upon fear and terror, the Empire is an explicitly villainous force with linguistic and visual traits directly reminiscent of Nazi Germany. For example, their armored forces known as "stormtroopers" are named analogously to the Sturmabteilung (often known as the SA), a paramilitary entity created by the Nazis in 1920. Their best-known weapon is the iconic Death Star, a Moon-sized space platform that can destroy entire planets.
  In the Star Wars universe, the fall of the Galactic Republic and its replacement by the Galactic Empire – as depicted in Revenge of the Sith – recall the historic fall of the Roman Republic and its replacement by the Roman Empire headed by Augustus.
  The term "galactic empire" has, perhaps because of association with the Empire from Star Wars, gained a pejorative meaning.
  Foundation and CoDominium
  In contrast to Star Wars, the galactic empires from the Foundation universe and the CoDominium universe are relatively benign organizations. Much of the plot of the Foundation series, authored by Isaac Asimov, revolves around who can best and most quickly revive the fallen galactic empire; it is taken for granted that this is a positive and worthy aim. In writer Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series, members of the empire often work to maintain the best interests of humanity despite efforts by violent political extremists to pursue their own ends.