The Empire was one of the most evil regimes the
galaxy ever endured, fielding vast armies of indoctrinated minions to squash even the slightest
trace of resistance. From the rank-and-files of the Imperial Army to the elite Imperial
Stormtroopers, the Empire’s soldiers were some of the most well trained and brutal in galactic
history. But how did they get so skilled, and so cruel? How did the Empire train its recruits?
In this video, we’ll tell you the secrets of the Empire’s training academies, as well as
the horrors they subjected their recruits to. The Empire inherited a lot of
already-prestigious military academies from the Republic. Many of these
institutions were thousands of years old, while others had been hurriedly founded during
the Clone Wars when the Republic Military was reestablished. The Empire’s academies
varied wildly in who they trained and how they trained them. Some academies were pretty
mundane, like the Corulag Academy, while others were nightmarish establishments that scarred
recruits for life - those who survived, anyway. The first academy we’ll discuss today wasn’t too
horrific, but it had a few creepy traditions that we think make it worth mentioning. This was the
legendary Prefsbelt Academy, formally known as the Imperial Naval Academy, since its location
on Prefsbelt IV was classified despite everyone and their mother knowing where it was. The
Prefsbelt Academy was over ten thousand years old and founded by Pers Pradeux, the father
of the post-Pius Dea Republic Navy. It was built on twelve peaks, each named after famous
naval battles of old, so the site was steeped in history. Virtually every famous Republic or
Imperial naval officer studied at Prefsbelt, and from them thousands of weird traditions
arose. The weirdest, and the reason we’re giving Prefsbelt a mention here, happened during
graduation ceremonies. In the middle of Naval Academy graduations, new midshipmen would march in
complete silence down a kilometers-long passage to the crypt where Pers Pradeux was entombed. There,
they would graduate and dedicate themselves to the naval service over Pradeux’s tomb, following
which they received their assignments. Prefsbelt Academy was certainly weird, but that
ceremony was nothing compared to what other Imperial academies put their trainees through.
Consider Raithal Academy, which trained recruits to serve in the Imperial Army. Where Prefsbelt
put its trainees through a culty ceremony, Raithal subjected them to a year-long program of pain and
suffering, just like most real-world high schools. Notable parts of the Raithal Academy’s training
regimen included over a thousand hours spent in tactical simulators, extensive indoctrination
into the Empire’s New Order ideology, and even live-fire exercises, during which trainee
teams often took casualties. In particular, Raithal recruits had to survive a mock siege for
sixteen days straight, and a week in simulated interrogation, a particularly notorious part of
the program that many recruits didn’t survive. Keep in mind that these recruits weren’t
even special - they were being trained for the Imperial Army, not any of the more elite
units. Recruits for those suffered even worse. Recruits meant for the Stormtrooper Corps trained
at the Academy of Carida, nicknamed Cliffside Academy due to its location on, well, a cliffside.
Unlike the secretive Prefsbelt Academy, the Carida Academy was public knowledge; indeed, it pretty
much defined Carida as a planet. Carida’s moon, appropriately nicknamed the Mascot Moon, even had
the logo of the Carida Academy carved into it. This could be seen from the Academy until 8
BBY, when a madlad recruit tried to blow up the seal with some stolen antimatter as a prank,
only to accidentally blow up the entire moon. Carida’s two-year stormtrooper training program
was infamous for its brutality. Indoctrination at the academy was particularly extreme, with cadets
stripped of every facet of their individuality, names including, with the goal of turning them
into empty vessels for the Emperor’s will. Recruits at Carida were expected to suppress all
emotion as a form of self-discipline, with even the slightest display of feeling punished with
torture at the hand of the academy’s staff. But it wasn’t just those who failed who were tortured;
instructors at the Academy of Carida regularly used suffering as a training tool as well as a
punishment. Recruits were deliberately deprived of sleep for extended periods, pushing them to
the brink of sanity and physical capability. Life-fire exercises were common at the Carida
Academy, so much so that every major arms dealer in the galaxy had a facility on Carida to supply
experimental weapons for stormtrooper hopefuls. Live-fire training was also conducted for
desert and underwater warfare scenarios, wilderness survival, and unarmed combat, which
pushed recruits to the extremes. At the Carida Academy, most recruits were sent to the medical
bay at least once. Some washed out due to the sheer intensity of the training, while others died
during exercises, much like at Raithal. At the end of their training, prospective stormtroopers
were assigned an Omega Mission, a live-fire challenge that weeded out any last stragglers
that were deemed too weak to be stormtroopers. Even the graduation ceremony at Carida Academy
was potentially deadly. The ceremony involved an elaborate march across the Academy grounds,
and since the Academy was located at the top of a five-hundred-foot cliff, this meant prospective
stormtroopers were marching right on the edge of an abyss. Graduates had to march in a tight
formation that left no margin for error. If commanders failed to shout orders to
turn at the right moment or the cadets failed to stop in time, some of the would-be
graduates would step from the edge and plummet to their deaths. By 1 BBY, 36 cadets
had died in this manner. Fortunately, that was where the cruelties of the
Carida Academy ended. After the march, the graduates were treated to a nice ceremony
that, unlike at Prefsbelt, didn’t involve any weird rituals. All told, Carida Academy’s
cliffside march was a pleasant graduation ceremony compared to what the Empire’s most brutal
training facility had in store for recruits. The Empire’s most horrific training
facility was also its most secretive. Located on desolate, obscure Yinchorr,
this was the Imperial Royal Guard Academy, the camp which trained the Empire's most elite.
Despite training only the best of the best, the Royal Guard Academy wasn’t nearly as
prestigious as the other Imperial academies we’ve discussed today. Those who knew about
it spoke of the Royal Guard Academy with fear, knowing only that it was a terrible place that
few recruits were sent to and that few left alive. As you might expect from the name, the
Royal Guard Academy trained recruits to serve as one of Emperor Palpatine’s personal
guards. Trainees at the Yinchorr Academy went through everything the Carida recruits endured and
worse, suffering through immense physical torment, indoctrination and the destruction of
the self, and long-term deprivation. Sparring was a major part of the training
regimen on Yinchorr, with recruits often pitted against each other to hone their skills.
For some exercises, trainees fought alone, while for others they fought in pairs, ensuring they
knew both how to rely on others and themselves. What made the Yinchorr Academy so brutal was
less the training and more the steep price of failure. There was no expulsion or washing out on
Yinchorr. Recruits who failed were simply killed. Since most of the Yinchorr Academy’s training
regimen involved sparring between recruits, this meant the vast majority of any
given class was guaranteed an execution, with the training regimen slowly weeding out
the weak until, after a full year of brutality, only the best of the best remained. Sometimes
not even the best were safe. One year, when Darth Vader paid a visit to the Yinchorr
Academy, he selected the best trainee and killed him to prove that not even the best warriors
were a match for the power of the Force. At the end of the Yinchorr Academy’s training
regimen, the surviving recruits were subjected to one final test, which the Emperor
personally oversaw. This final test was a free-for-all fight to the death in an arena
called the Squall, which featured many deep pits for trainees to fall into. Only a handful
of the trainees would survive this final test, following which they would swear unconditional
obedience to the Emperor and become Royal Guards. The worst part about this is that most
Yinchorr Academy trainees didn’t even sign up to join - they were recruited from
the ranks of the Stormtrooper Corps’ top squads and essentially forced into
this nightmare. Now that’s cruel. They don’t do military training like
they did in the old days - the damn young people of today just don’t have the
guts to die in training for no good reason. But what do you think? If you had to choose,
would you rather die at Carida or Yinchorr? Feel free to post your
thoughts in the comments below.
