Galactic Senate Chamber

The Galactic Senate Chamber, also known as the Grand Convocation Chamber, the Senate Rotunda, the grand audience chamber, or simply as the Senate Chamber, was a large, open area contained within the Galactic Senate Building on the planet Coruscant. The chamber was the meeting hall for the Galactic Senate of the Galactic Republic and the center of political activity.

It was lined with 1,024 repulsorpods for the senators and representatives from the various political delegations, with some delegations, such as the Naboo delegation, having their own pod, while other representatives had to share. The platforms could detach from the walls of the chamber, which was equipped with voice-amplifying microphones, translators, and hovercams that recorded the various proceedings. At the center of the chamber was the Chancellor's podium, itself extended from the "working office" of the Chancellery Secretariat, where the Supreme Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor would preside over meetings of the Senate.

During the Clone Wars, since the Infiltrator demolition droids blow up the central power distribution grid on Coruscant goes the mandatory blackout, even to stop the vote for the bill to de-regulate banking conglomerates, the repulsorpods and the chamber goes to the emergency power mode.

It was in the Galactic Senate Chamber that Chancellor Sheev Palpatine proclaimed the formation of the Galactic Empire with himself as emperor in front of the newly christened Imperial Senate. Many of the repulsorpods were later damaged when Sidious and Jedi Master Yoda threw them at each other while dueling.

In the early Imperial Era, the podium had changed and replaced the senate symbol with the Imperial crest. During the Imperial Era, at the bottom of the podium, it replaced the symbol of the Republic with the Imperial crest, and the repulsorpods had changed and added the Imperial crest.

Text and facts from the “Galactic Senate Chamber” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.