A Canonical Size for the Star Wars Galaxy?

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: A Canonical Size for the Star Wars Galaxy?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:10 pm

359 wrote:Then again, Endor and Sullust are described as being "hundreds of light-years" apart in the novelization for Return of the Jedi.
So between 200 and 999 LY.
A mid-range figure would be 600 LY.
Galaxy got squeezed.

IIRC, Sullust is even described as a blue planet btw. A far cry from the overcooked crumble surface depiced in all Legends stuff.
But that would put the galaxy at ≈4,000 ly in diameter using 1000 ly for the trip. If we push the use of "hundreds" out to something like 'fifteen-hundred' light years approaching a limit of 2,000 ly, which is reasonable verbal usage of the words, we get a galaxy that is ≈8,000 ly in diameter. However, from TCW: "Supply Lines" we get that the galaxy can not reasonably be that small in order to fit with that episode as seen here.

So we can say with certainty that the galaxy is not large, and is of small and modest size, but we can not pinpoint exactly how large it is. I would guess it would be in the 20,000 ly - 30,000 ly range.
The editors of the Disney EU are lazy and copy/paste all EU stuff without checking twice. I don't even think they've read one single movie novelization once in their life.
That reboot was pure shite in so many ways.

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Re: A Canonical Size for the Star Wars Galaxy?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:20 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:Well, the two systems can't necessarily adjacent to one another, just that one is 2,000 parsecs closer than the nearest fleet. As far as zig-zagging goes, we have seen in "Shadow of Malevolence", the Malevolance had to actually go 15 parsecs out of her way to go around the Kaliida Nebula to get to the Republic's Kaliida Shoals Medical Center to attack and destroy it. So direct routes straight to a destination are not always guaranteed. But I find it curious that Toydaria is not listed on this map. It would really help pin a lot down, if it was.
-Mike
And this great detour might be due to the nearest "mapped" route being simply that far.
Then, if the entirety of the region is so poorly mapped, even reaching the most preferable path to reach a better speed would still force the Malevolence to fly out of the outbacks first, and perhaps even back into them a bit later on.
We know that the conception of hyperlanes since TCWS is very strict in that they are almost literally circulation hallways, mapped conduits of utter importance to navigation.
So the big 15 parsecs detour could have very well reduce the Malevolence to some crawling FTL speed.
However, how long would it take for fighters directly pushing through the nebula at STL? The episode was short and didn't really imply anything long. That nebula was perhaps not that expansive and limited to dozens of AU.
But it would still retain a large of its deceased star's mass, thus being an inflated obstacle to the ship's hyperdrive, which crew apparently hadn't exactly run the calculations at all.

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Re: A Canonical Size for the Star Wars Galaxy?

Post by Darth Spock » Thu Mar 24, 2016 4:50 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote: The editors of the Disney EU are lazy and copy/paste all EU stuff without checking twice. I don't even think they've read one single movie novelization once in their life.
On that note, there isn't even much point in trying to scale that cruddy map, the EU atlas put the SW galaxy at about 120,000 LY diameter spiral. When the Disney merchandising machine gets around to printing a new "canon" atlas, or video game, or coloring book, or whatever, I'm sure they'll slap that number on it. Oops, never mind, it's already done, apparently it's over 100,000 LY across, according to the novel "Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure." Well, that was easy. Of course the cleanup of messy, inconsistent canon won't be.
That reboot was pure shite in so many ways.
It was that bad? I still haven't seen it, have to wait for DVD. I got the novel, but still haven't had a chance to make much headway in that either.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Mike DiCenso wrote:Well, the two systems can't necessarily adjacent to one another, just that one is 2,000 parsecs closer than the nearest fleet. As far as zig-zagging goes, we have seen in "Shadow of Malevolence", the Malevolance had to actually go 15 parsecs out of her way to go around the Kaliida Nebula to get to the Republic's Kaliida Shoals Medical Center to attack and destroy it. So direct routes straight to a destination are not always guaranteed. But I find it curious that Toydaria is not listed on this map. It would really help pin a lot down, if it was.
-Mike
And this great detour might be due to the nearest "mapped" route being simply that far.
Then, if the entirety of the region is so poorly mapped, even reaching the most preferable path to reach a better speed would still force the Malevolence to fly out of the outbacks first, and perhaps even back into them a bit later on.
We know that the conception of hyperlanes since TCWS is very strict in that they are almost literally circulation hallways, mapped conduits of utter importance to navigation.
So the big 15 parsecs detour could have very well reduce the Malevolence to some crawling FTL speed.
However, how long would it take for fighters directly pushing through the nebula at STL? The episode was short and didn't really imply anything long. That nebula was perhaps not that expansive and limited to dozens of AU.
But it would still retain a large of its deceased star's mass, thus being an inflated obstacle to the ship's hyperdrive, which crew apparently hadn't exactly run the calculations at all.
Eh, that episode was pretty wonky with its treatment of navigational details. If the dialogue and charted course on the display on the Malevolence was of any value at all, the Malevolence would have had to have been giving a comparatively small nebula an extremely wide birth, and even then, for STL fighters (even assuming they were traveling through the nebula at a very high percentage of C) to get there first the Malevolence would have to have been going only a couple of C, and of course that won't work since those 15 parsecs would then take years to traverse, and even scrapping the indications given within the episode the CW timeline just won't allow that. My personal head-canon for that mess was that the fighters may have been able to make some FTL jumps through the nebula, but had to make several stops to navigate the more hazardous portions, and line up the next jump. This, and like the Malevolence was having to do, dropping in and out of hyperspace to adjust course always seemed rather likely to me, even during the OT, such as when Luke was heading for Degobah, flying on manual and chatting with R2, he was obviously not in hyperspace during that rather lengthy scene.

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