Starfleet Jedi

OK, why have I asked these questions?



I have asked me, how big the STAR WARS galaxy is.



That’s an easy question for the STAR TREK galaxy. STAR TREK is set in the future in our very own Milky Way. And the Milky Way is well known. It is a barred spiral galaxy, which main disk is up to 100,000 light-years (30.000 parsecs) in diameter and - outside the Galactic core - about 3000 light-years (920 parsecs) thick. The Galactic core itself is 16.000 light years (5000 parsecs) thick. It is composed of circa 300 billion stars.



But about the STAR WARS galaxy, I couldn’t find many official data.

Some STAR WARS fans say, as it would be a well known matter of fact that the STAR WARS galaxy is up to 120,000 light years (37.000 parsecs) in diameter and is composed of circa 400 billion stars. They even say, that around half of these stars have planets that could support life and that 10% of those developed life, while sentient life developed in 1/1000 of those (about 20 million). That contradicts all what we know about astronomy and the premises for the becoming of life. But there are no references from which they want to have their data.



I think, this phantasm contradict the only official source, I have found in the novel A New Hope, written by George Lucas himself.


Page 111:
The tridimensional solid screen filled one wall of the vast chamber from floor to ceiling. It showed a million star systems. A tiny portion of the galaxy, but an impressive display nonetheless when exhibited in such a fashion.



Page 163:
Vader stared at the motley array of stars displayed on the conference-room map while Tarkin and Admiral Motti conferred nearby. Interestingly, the first use of the most powerful destructive machine ever constructed had seemingly had no influence at all on that map, which in itself represented only a tiny fraction of this section of one modest-sized galaxy.



From these, we learn that the STAR WARS Galaxy is only a modest-sized galaxy and that a tiny portion of the galaxy has only a million star systems.



The first question would have to be, how big a modest-sized galaxy is.



We all know the dimensions of the Milky Way. But we have to consider, that the Milky Way is exceedingly big. The by far most galaxies are not bigger than 20.000 light years (7130 parsec) in diameter. The smallest galaxy known, POX186, is only 1.600 light-years (490 parsecs) in diameter and has only 10 million stars.

For example, computer simulations have shown, that the local group consists of 300 to 500 galaxies. But only circa 40 galaxies are known. And there are only two huge galaxies, the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy, in the local group. But these two galaxies together have 95 % of the visible mass of the local group. That means that the other 38 known galaxies have only 5 % of the visible mass of the local group and therefore are very small in comparison to the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.



This all considering, the average galaxy is only 15.000 light-years (4600 parsec) in diameter. Under these circumstances, a modest-sized galaxy could be only 10.000 light-years (3070 parsec) in diameter. If you look at the dimensions of the most galaxies that is, by all means, a respectable dimension.

But it is only circa 10 % of the Milky Way. The difference in size would look like that.



And if the tiny portion of the galaxy has a million star systems and a tiny portion is 1% of the whole galaxy, the galaxy would have 100 million star systems. And even if it would only be 0,1% of the whole galaxy, these would still consist of only 1 billion star systems.



And, as far as I know, neither the Republic nor the Empire was stretched across the whole galaxy.



I think, that this put the whole “the Empire is bigger than the Federation”-argument into a new perspective. Sure, it may have more members (if you could call it members in an Empire). But if the STAR WARS galaxy is a modest-sized galaxy, the United Federation of Planets could be nearly as big as the Empire.



What are your opinions?

Both Palpatine and Ben have said 'thousands' of systems. The next highest canon says a million. It would have been quite a daunting task to go from a few thousand or even several hundred thousand of systems to a million in such a short time span, where all the systems included in the numbers were only just at the colony level and up in terms of settlement...unless the systems were really close together and you included uninhabited systems.

In the ANH novel, Tatooine is said to be a system of the Empire, but even what we're shown is large open spaces betwen settlements, even during the Republic era. Yes, we only see one part of the planet, but there's nothing to indicate that there are larger settlements. Darth Maul says in the ep 1 movie that the planet is sparsely populated, saying that it'll make it easier to find the Queen when he talks to Palpatine on Coruscant.

Naboo is another example. We see huge sections of open fields where some animals graze and that planet was a member of the Republic and, most likely, a member of the Empire by the OT. It is likely that many systems are like that. Take the Mon Calamari. They are a bipedal fish. Most likely, they've got settlements both on land and in the water of their planet, an underwater one possibly something like gungans have on Naboo.

My guess would that planets, like Coruscant are not the rule. Most are probably like lands of old...large sections of land spread out between cities with forrests and swamps and such. This would also be the same with star systems, too. There are thousands and maybe many hundreds of thousands of inhabited systems, but there are many around each that aren't. That's the sense I get of the galaxy.

Plus, even if we assumed that Palpatine was being accurate (and not figurative) when he says the sith will rule the galaxy and speaks of the first galactic empire, that would make the galaxy a small one.

Modest size galaxy is the part many pro-Milky Way galaxy size people say is not anything accurate. 120,000 [Edit: LYs] is an idea possed for the Milky way because of recently (within the last few years) finding and adding an arm or a few to what we already knew of the Milky Way. The percentages for life potential and actual life bearing planets I think came from additional EU sources. Unfortunately, there's nothing in the Films only universe on this.

THe word 'tiny' is too general a word, just as the word 'modest'. However, I just thought of something and it took some researching, but I did find something that can help support a smaller than Milky Way galaxy idea for the SW galaxy.

First off, let's talk about the galaxy maps of the the SW galaxy. We've just got 2 pictures: Padme's and the archives. We can all agree that Padme's looks incredibly funky and makes no sense, so that one is tossed out for inaccurancies. Besides, it we took Padme's to really be accurate, the idea of a modest size galaxy to those of the Empire and the Republic is so damn small. It'd border on insanity.

So, let's look at the one in the archive on Coruscant.

***And Darkstar, check this out.***

This one looks more like ones we'd find on science sites and in scientific publications. The archive one I'm using can be seen at the bottom of the page here:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWkamino.html

I'm choosing the zoomed in one because of what it shows us in the image that I'll be getting to shortly. On this page here is an image of the Milky galaxy:

http://physics.uoregon.edu/~courses/Bra ... 23_002.jpg

This image was part of a page ( http://physics.uoregon.edu/~jimbrau/ast ... ter23.html ) with other images that was posted on April 4, 2001 and the link on the page to this image is called "Structure of the Milky Way".

Now, both of these images are not drawn to the same scale, I'm assuming, but that isn't even necessary. I haven't done any scaling calculating with pixils (I could figure it out--I think it's just a relationship comparrison, but with the different zoomed in levels for the images, I'm not sure what would be done, so eyeballing is the best thing to do at the moment), but maybe someone else can do it, however to get my point across, eyeballing can show evidence of my point.

It's a given that both the density and size of a galaxy core is gonna increase the more you increase the length of a galaxy. What's important in the archive image at the bottom of the STSWkamino.html page is that above and below the horizontal disk of the SW galaxy, there is a line traveling around the edge of the galaxy approximately (with the angle the image is at, we can't say for certain, but judging the way the galaxy itself looks, it seems to follow the perimeter).

Now, by just eyeballing...look how far away the outer edge of the SW galaxy is from the core. The whitened area in the center seems to be higher than the fainter blue of the surrounding arms and curves into a higher section at the dead center of the galaxy (which I'm calling the bulge-the galactic core would consist of this bulge and the surrounding horizontal part that shares the same brightness level of white, as well as the white-blue part around it).

The 2 lines that follow the perimeter of the SW galaxy can also help you create a "circular box" in your mind that the SW galaxy fits into, including all of the bulge of the core. This is why I'm using the bottom image. The unzoomed in ones makes the lines much harder to see.

Now, go back to the physics.uoregon.edu image and eyeball how far the outer edge is from the core (consisting of both the bulge and the horizontal part that blends into it); create another circular box for this one, if you want. The physics.uoregon.edu image is one of our galaxy.

Even assuming a range of 80,000 to 120,000 for the physics.uoregon.edu image, this would put the SW galaxy at a smaller range. That smaller range (whatever it is) is thought of as modest, taking the ANH novel quote and the AotC movie picture. It doesn't make it as small as Padme's image would put it at, but it is still smaller than the Milky Way.

What I would like to hear now (aside from any calcs anyone does on determining just what the size is, based on this comparrison method) is something that refutes this idea and helps prove the 120,000 size galaxy idea.

The notion that ~1/2 of the stars in the SW galaxy have planets and are part of a star system comes form a Qui Gon quote in TPM when he's talking to Anikin after they first get to Coruscant (I haven't seen that film in like 3 years so I can't be more specific).

Also, I'm pretty sure the ANH novelization wasn't written by Lucas.

I'm wondering if the million star systems in the map are supposed to be the entirety of the Empire? If so, then the Empire controls a "tiny" portion of its "modest" galaxy.

I thought he wrote it, but used someone else's name instead.

Alan Dean Foster was the ghostwriter on the original star wars novellisation.

The same contract gave him the opportunity to write "splinter of hte minds eye" very soon afterwards.

According to wikipedia, GL and ADF co-wrote the ANH novelization.

By "co-wrote," most have come to the conclusion that this meant Foster actually did all the work of writing it, while Lucas gave him outlines, scripts, and reviewed it as an editor.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:By "co-wrote," most have come to the conclusion that this meant Foster actually did all the work of writing it, while Lucas gave him outlines, scripts, and reviewed it as an editor.

Which stands in contast with EU stuf, which Lucas doesn't even read, let alone edit.

The map in "Vector Prime" also suggests an SW galaxy below 10000 LY

The map in "Vector Prime" also suggests an SW galaxy below 10000 LY

Really?
How?

See the map:
http://img455.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... allwk3.jpg

The green line is a distance between Sullust(yellow dot) and Endor (red dot)


Per ROTJ, this is "hundreds of Light Years", so 200-1000 LY.

The blue line is the diameter of SW galaxy. Go figure.

Damn. The most that map puts it at would be around 5,000 LYs wide max and about a thousand minimum.

I have added a poll.
It would be goo, if you can give your reasons for your poll.

SailorSaturn13 wrote:See the map:
http://img455.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... allwk3.jpg

The green line is a distance between Sullust(yellow dot) and Endor (red dot)


Per ROTJ, this is "hundreds of Light Years", so 200-1000 LY.

The blue line is the diameter of SW galaxy. Go figure.

Thank you.

I don't know "Vector Prime". What canon is it?

Would it in conjunction with the "modest-sized galaxy" from the novel "A New Hope" overrule other figures from other Star Trek books, which are not the novels to the movies?

Who is like God arbour wrote:I don't know "Vector Prime". What canon is it?

It is an EU Novel, and therefore C-canon.

Socar wrote:

Who is like God arbour wrote:I don't know "Vector Prime". What canon is it?

It is an EU Novel, and therefore C-canon.

That doesn't answer the question I have asked for the competitions between the different novels. It seems, that there are other novels, in which is said, that the Star Wars galaxy is 120.000 light years in diameter. But this is mutually exclusive. Only one figure can be right. The Star Wars galaxy can't be 120.000 light years in diameter and at the samen time only 10.000 light years in diameter.

Which firgure is deciding?

I think, that the map from "Vector Prime" is more consitent with the "modest-sized galaxy" from the novel "A New Hope", than a galaxy with 120.000 light years in diameter.

Regardless how one defines 'modest-sized' exactly, a galaxy, wich is with 120.000 light years in diameter bigger than the most galaxies known, is never modest-sized. Insofar the novel "A New Hope" has overruled such a figure.

If there are no contradictory figures from higher or coequal canon, the with the map from "Vector Prime" indicated size of the galaxy should be applicable. That would be a size between 5.000 and 10.000 light years in diameter.

That is consistent with my thought, how big a modest-sized galaxy would be. Not that my thoughts are deciding. But I think, it is interesting, that a novel, which I have not known, has come to the same conclusion.