Though the Star Wars prequels were nowhere near as good as the original trilogy, the political intrigue in the waning days of the Republic are interesting. The real "take home" lesson is that radical reorganization of a society doesn't require radical new organs of the state to be invented from whole cloth. Existing organs of the state are subtly manipulated and changed in such a way that they become the new regime's enforcement arm without even realizing it.
The two main ingredients of a successful coup are banality and plausible deniability. Banality, i.e. hiding intent among all the other alphabet soup of boring government agencies; and plausible deniability, i.e. a reasonable sounding explanation that most will accept, and if you don't accept it well that's because you're just a bit too paranoid aren't you?
I keep thinking back to Obama's proclamation that we need a civil security force that rivals the military in its funding and mission. Why endure the controversy of trying to create such a force when you can just prepare existing agencies into becoming that force, de facto. The agencies themselves may not even realize that's what they are becoming.
Going back to the Star Wars example, Order 66 was the final trigger of that Republic's transformation to dictatorship. The order was hidden in plain sight, just one of hundreds of contingency orders, each of them bearing the plausible deniability of "yeah we know this is so unlikely it sounds ridiculous, but we're just trying to brainstorm for the most bizarre possibilities".
Also look at the July 20 plot against Hitler. It was attempting to use the Third Reich's own "Valkyrie" contingency plan as a vehicle to round up and arrest the leading Nazis, using their very own state organs against them. It might have worked if not for a heavy oak table leg between Hitler and the bomb.
