Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

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Who is like God arbour
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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Who is like God arbour » Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:27 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Now, the erroneous placement of two planets on the chart wouldn't rule out the whole source, right?
That's not what I said, is it?
I merely said that it does compromise the whole source and one should be very careful when using it. And of course, if we are talking about the size of the galaxy and the amount of inhabitable planest in that galaxy, there are subsequent errors. In a small galaxy are less planets than in a huge galaxy. Insofar I think that the by that source given size is as compromised as the by that source given amount of inhabitable planets.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Did you already post a picture/scan of the Atlas' map in this thread ? I'm not sure, I've seen one, but there just are so many on Internet, I can't recall.
No, I did not yet post a scan of the map of the Essential Atlas.

But here it is:
    • Image
The distance between Endor and Sullust is less than four times the diameter of that galaxy in that map.

If that galaxy is supposed to have a diameter of 120.000 light years, the distance between Endor and Sullust has to be 30.000 light years.

That would contradict the in the novel » Return of the Jedi « given information that the distance between Sullust and Endor is only hundred of light years. No one would speak of hundred of light years if 30.000 light years are meant.

It would be as if one would say that London, UK is only hundred of kilometers away from Sydney, Australia.

Everyone would say thousand of kilometers as thousand of light years would have been used if the distance between Endor and Sullust were 30.000 light years.

Logical conclusion: the scale is wrong and the galaxy has maximal a 50.000 light years diameter. Even that would mean that the distance between Endor and Sullust is still more than 12.500 light years.

If we assume a distance between Sullust and Endor of only 5.000 light years (50 times hundred light years), the galaxy would have a diameter of only 20.000 light years.

And of course, the amount of inhabitable planets are depending on the size of the galaxy.

If the size of that galaxy in that source is wrong, it is only plausible to assume that the amount of inhabitalbe planets are also wrong. At least this information is compromised.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Kane Starkiller » Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:57 pm

IIRC the line is "hundreds of ly" and not hundred ly. Usually "hundreds" is not considered to be more than a thousand but it is not explicitly so.
In any case that single line is not sufficient evidence to throw out source after source which explicitly peg the galaxy at 100,000ly especially sources like Essential Atlas which is specifically written to discuss the size and layout of the galaxy and does so in great detail.

Speaking "off the record" I don't see people convincing the wider audience to throw out entire chunks of detailed information because a single imprecise line written 30 years ago "G level", "C level" and whatever level of canon notwithstanding.
IMO insisting on a "small" SW Galaxy of 1000ly will only push sites and people pushing it into irrelevance.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Youngla0450 » Fri Jul 09, 2010 5:16 pm

You guys are wrong. The galaxy is 120,000 light years across!

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:14 pm

Who is like God arbour wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Now, the erroneous placement of two planets on the chart wouldn't rule out the whole source, right?
That's not what I said, is it?
I merely said that it does compromise the whole source and one should be very careful when using it.
Not more than with any other source where errors can creep in.
I apply the same level of scrutiny to all of them.
The only exceptions are the stuff tainted by the wretched stench of the malevolent Saxton, which are no errors but scriptures meant to poison the minds of young Star Wars fans. Of course.
And of course, if we are talking about the size of the galaxy and the amount of inhabitable planest in that galaxy, there are subsequent errors. In a small galaxy are less planets than in a huge galaxy. Insofar I think that the by that source given size is as compromised as the by that source given amount of inhabitable planets.
The amount of inhabitable worlds given in the Atlas fits with a galaxy that is that wide.

As for the distance between Sullust and Endor, it's unfortunate that this crucial detail was missed by EU writers. I'm equally surprised that the novelizations have not been meticulously scanned into databases as to avoid that kind of mistakes. But they're probably continuing upon the base of WEG, who did a good job back then, but weren't 100% right.
Kane Starkiller wrote:IIRC the line is "hundreds of ly" and not hundred ly. Usually "hundreds" is not considered to be more than a thousand but it is not explicitly so.
In any case that single line is not sufficient evidence to throw out source after source which explicitly peg the galaxy at 100,000ly especially sources like Essential Atlas which is specifically written to discuss the size and layout of the galaxy and does so in great detail.
I'm not offering a solution here, but it's beyond a stretch to argue that hundreds should correspond to something like twenty to thirty thousands.
Most logically, the author would have said thousands, or tens of thousands, or perhaps many thousands.
It just does not fit.
Now, we have to retroactively claim that whoever said hundreds in the novelization was wrong, because of the EU's facts.
Speaking "off the record" I don't see people convincing the wider audience to throw out entire chunks of detailed information because a single imprecise line written 30 years ago "G level", "C level" and whatever level of canon notwithstanding.
IMO insisting on a "small" SW Galaxy of 1000ly will only push sites and people pushing it into irrelevance.
I consider it to be precise enough as to rule out anything beyond 1000 LY at best. And therefore the treatment of that information according to the canonical policy which includes the EU is important. But I recall reading conflicting information about the status of material that's present in the novelization and was not present in the movies.
Some say it's C canon, some say it's part of the special sources approved by Lucas and that make it G canon as a whole.




Youngla0450 wrote:You guys are wrong. The galaxy is 120,000 light years across!
Don't feel obligated to post if you don't have anything good to say. Didn't JMS tell you that you already were walking on thin ice or something?

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Praeothmin » Fri Jul 09, 2010 7:39 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Now, the erroneous placement of two planets on the chart wouldn't rule out the whole source, right?
Did you already post a picture/scan of the Atlas' map in this thread ? I'm not sure, I've seen one, but there just are so many on Internet, I can't recall.
It's not 2 planets, but at least 4.
Endor and Sullust in the ROTJ novel (G-Canon), and Tatooine and Geonosis, no farther apart then "a parsec" in AotC (G-Canon as well).
They would have to be placed erroneously on all the existing maps.
And as you, I and WILGA have said repeatedly, no one would have used "hundreds of LY" if the planets had been 10 000 or 30 000LY from one another.
Completely ridiculous.

And if our Milky Way Galaxy can contain 400 Billion stars, I don't see why a 10 000 LY Galaxy could not contain 1 Billion "inhabited" star systems.
And where the heck did we go from "10 000 systems changing allegiances is bad" in the PT, "a million systems" in ANH to more then a BILLION systems in the EU?
The amount of inhabitable worlds given in the Atlas fits with a galaxy that is that wide.
It can also fit in a 10 000 LY Galaxy…

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Kane Starkiller » Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:29 pm

Atlas actually portrays the Geonosis and Tatooine consistently with the films:
Image
Again the difference is between clearly stated distance of less than a parsec and a more vague "hundred of ly". While it wouldn't be justifiable in any way to claim that hundreds of ly is actually thousands of ly in and of itself at the same time it is possible to reconcile the map and the number seeing as how it is imprecise and not explicit like the Tatooine-Geonisis distance.
Praeothmin wrote:And where the heck did we go from "10 000 systems changing allegiances is bad" in the PT, "a million systems" in ANH to more then a BILLION systems in the EU?
Coruscant alone has a population of 5 million Tatooines and industrial capacity probably hundred million times greater than Tatooine. Clearly the issue is what is the population and industrial capacity of those 10,000 worlds not merely their number.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Trinoya » Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:39 pm

Reviewing the data here, as well as the modest sized galaxy statement, I'm more inclined to believe in a smaller SW galaxy than 120,000 LY statement.

That said... I believe I agree with Kane in regards to the validity of this source. It may be erroneous but I do not believe it should be entirely disregarded, merely disregarded for distance (but general relation to one another would be correct I feel)

Now then, knowing how I feel in regards to it being a smaller galaxy folks you'll still be hard pressed to convince me, or others for that matter, that it's substantially smaller. I'm somewhere between 80-95,000 light years at this point, and I'm leaning higher. I might be inclined to believe that the empire is 10-30,000 light years across, but certainly not the galaxy as a whole. Simply put I feel that even G cannon supports higher numbers, otherwise the neighboring galaxies would have to be... well.. what.. like... 1000 light years across according to the AOTC map if we go with 10,000 ly galaxy?

... Nope. Not buying that.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sun Jul 11, 2010 5:54 pm

What actually very interesting about the Atlas is the population density map. The specific units used may or may not make too much sense if you try to think about them too much, but it's neat looking. Looks something like an asymmetric spiderweb of sorts - Imperial population is concentrated heavily around key hyperlanes and the core.

I'm with Mr. Oragahn here - whoever drew the first map simply didn't notice the line in the ROTJ novelization about "hundreds of light years." Or more likely, whoever came up with the idea that the Sanctuary Pipeline was a big deal didn't notice it, and then they built the map around the hyperspace routes they were aware of, stringing them together as best as they could.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Jul 11, 2010 6:27 pm

So the population map that's in a low resolution at Wookieepedia is from the Atlas? I found the numbers rather interesting. Notably the concentration and number of worlds which would need to be numbering many billions or more to let the quadrillions of people statement be accurate.

We see that billion-capita planets aren't even that numerous in other EU sources. There even are important worlds which come with sub-billion figures from the RPG books.

You would need a million of planets with billions of people on them to get into the quadrillion range. And yet full or near full ecumenopolis worlds like Coruscant, which is practically the crown of all when it comes to pop, is in the trillion I think.
If there were only Coruscants in the galaxy, you'd need thousands of them.
I don't know many such planets. There's the KOTOR one with the orbital continent thing, Taris, which apparently grew into a near-Coruscant planet as well, there's perhaps Christophsis, but it's not exactly hyper extensive at all, there's another one that's like halfway between Christophsis and Coruscant, but bathed in purple hues iirc (perhaps Corulag, I recall the name really sounded close to Coruscant, and I thought that wasn't very imaginative, but Corulag is a satellite world so it kinda makes sense in fact, or could be Metellos).
To a smaller extent, there's Nar Shaddaa (I love the setting, but that's because of Jedi Knight :p) that's listed. Now, that's not a lot.
Things not helping, the new CGI shows tends to show lightly populated worlds, even when they're like member worlds of very well known races in SW.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Kane Starkiller » Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:59 pm

Just because a planet has lightly populated locations doesn't mean that the planet as a whole has a low population. An extreme case would be Geonosis which appears as a bland desert on the surface yet its population is 100 billion living in underground hives.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Praeothmin » Mon Jul 12, 2010 10:27 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote: Coruscant alone has a population of 5 million Tatooines and industrial capacity probably hundred million times greater than Tatooine. Clearly the issue is what is the population and industrial capacity of those 10,000 worlds not merely their number.
That's not what I meant.
What I meant was, in the PT, having 10 000 systems leaving was bad.
Now It don't really care how important they were industrially, 10 000 system making a difference in 1 billion inhabited systems?
I can't buy that...
Trinoya wrote:It may be erroneous but I do not believe it should be entirely disregarded, merely disregarded for distance (but general relation to one another would be correct I feel)
That's what people are saying: disregard the distances, but not the placement of the planets...

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:09 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:Just because a planet has lightly populated locations doesn't mean that the planet as a whole has a low population. An extreme case would be Geonosis which appears as a bland desert on the surface yet its population is 100 billion living in underground hives.
But the Geonosians are really one kind of a species, very isolated. They stick out compared to all the humanoid main races in the galaxy, who don't tend to live solely in giant grotto inside out spires. :)

When Palpy talked about uncounted quadrillions, was he eventually speaking of all the people Anakin could potentially rule when the Empire would be in place and expanded according to the Sith's plans?

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Kane Starkiller » Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:56 pm

Praeothmin wrote:That's not what I meant.
What I meant was, in the PT, having 10 000 systems leaving was bad.
Now It don't really care how important they were industrially, 10 000 system making a difference in 1 billion inhabited systems?
I can't buy that...
I don't understand what seems to be the problem. If those 10,000 systems comprise 30% of Republic GDP then their secession will be bad regardless of the fact that we are talking about only 10,000 planets. Japan consists of 6,852 islands but if one of them, namely Honshu, tried to secede that would be the end of Japan as we know it. Even though Honshu comprises only 0.015% of the total number of islands it comprises 81% of the population.

Praeothmin wrote:That's what people are saying: disregard the distances, but not the placement of the planets...
Like I said you aren't likely to find people outside this board who would agree with that. Atlas especially discusses the diameter of the galaxy, diameter of the deep core and the thickness of the galaxy as well as the number of stars and it all points to a large 100,000ly galaxy. Since "hundreds" technically allows for tens of thousands of ly since they do contain "hundreds" although it sounds silly there is no real justification in throwing out all those sources.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:But the Geonosians are really one kind of a species, very isolated. They stick out compared to all the humanoid main races in the galaxy, who don't tend to live solely in giant grotto inside out spires. :)
Oh sure I'm definitely not saying that any desert like planet is actually hiding billions. The point is that just because a planet appears to be lowly populated doesn't necessarily make it so.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:When Palpy talked about uncounted quadrillions, was he eventually speaking of all the people Anakin could potentially rule when the Empire would be in place and expanded according to the Sith's plans?
The Atlas is pretty specific about that:
Image
Galactic Empire is responsible for more than 100 quadrillion beings so that is the number directly under Imperial control.

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Praeothmin » Tue Jul 13, 2010 1:54 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:I don't understand what seems to be the problem. If those 10,000 systems comprise 30% of Republic GDP then their secession will be bad regardless of the fact that we are talking about only 10,000 planets. Japan consists of 6,852 islands but if one of them, namely Honshu, tried to secede that would be the end of Japan as we know it. Even though Honshu comprises only 0.015% of the total number of islands it comprises 81% of the population.
While your point has some merit, as always Kane, your analogies are a bit far fetched... :)
Honshu wanting to separate would be like the Core systems of the Republic, including Coruscant and Alderaan, wanting to separate.
The problem with this is, it is clear that while important, those systems, according to the systems we hear from in TCW, are not Core systems, they are systems on the outskirt of the Republic, such as Geonosis, Ryloth, Toydaria, Rodia, etc...
And 10 000 systems out of 1 billion means 1 "island" is equal in GDP to 1 hundred thousand islands... Still hard to believe...

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Re: Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

Post by Kane Starkiller » Tue Jul 13, 2010 2:21 pm

I was not attempting to draw an analogy between Honshu and Core Worlds but between "island" and "system". They are geographical or astronomical terms that tell us nothing about their economic or strategic importance. Not to mention that armed rebellion and secession are not matters a state takes lightly no matter how "small" the seceding territory is.

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