Size of the Federation vs Galactic Empire's Size

[Who is like God arbour]

Kane, you know that your notion that these maps are not showing the in the movies mentioned Endor and Sullust is not convincing. You do not believe it yourself. You are only trying to nitpick because you do not want to change your view on Star Wars.

Besides that, if there were indeed several systems called Sullust, why would Vader only say Sullust? I mean, if I were visiting Detroid and someone says to me that there is an event happening in London, I would not think of London, Ontario but the capital of the United Kingdom. That someone would would have to say explicitly that he means London, Ontario. The same applies here. If there is an important Sullust that it is drawn in the map and a Sullust that is so unimportant that it is not drawn in the map, Vader would have clarified which Sullust he means.

On the other side, if you really want to argue that there could be systems who have the same name as other system, the whole map becomes worthless. Because you can't know if there is not another planet called Coruscant or Kuat or Naboo.

Insofar it does make more sense to assume that the systems that are drawin in such maps are the systems we know from the movies (and EU).



Another point is the question how far light years are. On Earth a light year is the distance the light travels in one Earth-year. But how long is the year, which is used as a unit for light-year? How many days has a year and how many hours has a day? How long is an hour? Is it 60 minutes? And is a minute 60 seconds long? And is a second in the Star Wars Galaxy defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom? In the end, could it be possible that the Star Wars Galaxy could be 120.000 light years big and nevertheless be a modest-sized galaxy, smaller than our galaxy?

[Jedi Master Spock]

Since other maps don't explicitly state the diameter of the galaxy there is no contradiction. Certain issues like Endor-Sullust distance can be explained like I showed above.

The Endor-Sullust distance is "fixed" - loosely - in the top level material. Therefore it can be used to derive a contradiction between the two maps.

One map shows a distance of about 0.2 galactic diameters between Endor and Sullust. The other shows a galactic diameter of 100,000 LY. The result is that the two sources, combined, imply that "hundreds of light years" in ROTJ is in fact tens of thousands of light years. It's quite unreasonable to describe tens of thousands of light years as "hundreds of light years," and thus we have, reasonably speaking, a contradiction.

Yes but which Sullust (provided that there are several)

Which is not known to be true.

is the big one? The Sullust at which Rebel fleet gathered might be only a smaller system only significant for that battle while the other one could be a much larger system.

Really? You think that all the other EU sources that mention Sullust don't manage to tie them together? It gets mentioned an awful lot.

The same goes for Sanctuary Pipeline which like Sierra Nevada mountains might not be unique. Or both Sullust's could be located on the same "pipeline." The point is that, even ignoring the fact that Endor-Sullust distance is only vaguely described as "hundreds of ly", there is no evidence that those maps contradict the maps from ITW Episode 1 and ITW Episode 2 both of which explicitly show a 100,000-120,000 galaxy complete with a scale.

Yes, the same thing does go for the Sanctuary Pipeline. It's a major hyperlane that goes from the Endor of RotJ to the Sullust of RotJ. The notion that another Sanctuary Pipeline exists and also starts at another Sullust and ends at another Endor boggles imagination.

Your only real loophole is to try to argue that "hundreds of light years" could mean hundreds of hundreds of light years.

The point is even with as little as 200 or so countries there are name repetition. In a galaxy with million world it is going to be much more likely.
I don't see how you can conclude that because Congos and Koreas are close then Sullusts will be close also. What logic does that follow?
I'm not aware of any events or facts from the films which are incompatible with 100,000ly galaxy.

If you check the here you'll get a complete history of the maps of star wars. You can also get a complete current list of close to 4700 systems that have been identified and located in Star Wars. There's no repetition of names of systems of interest, although there is an indication that unimportant systems are numbered rather than having proper common names.

This is the current continuity-level information on the Star Wars galaxy, and the Endor and Sullust in there are precisely the Endor and Sullust we're concerned with. Their locations and descriptions are tied together in the Atlas, and that's quite official.

And the Atlas puts them respectively in H-17 and M-17, i.e., about the distance indicated on the two maps that we've seen that actually identify the locations of Endor and Sullust. Which brings us directly to the core problem:

In continuity, the maps indicate both a ~100,000 LY diameter and a galaxy that is only a handful of times the diameter of the distance between Endor and Sullust.

In the G-level RotJ novelization, we have an indication that the distance between Endor and Sullust is "hundreds of light years."

From these three pieces of information, we have a problem. Either the continuity materials are wrong to indicate a diameter of ~100,000 LY, the continuity materials are wrong to indicate that the Sanctuary Pipeline is a substantial fraction of the galactic diameter in length, or the RotJ novelization's description is grossly misleading and inaccurate.

Pick what you want. Myself, I consider the G-level more authoritative than the C-level, so I'm saying it's one of the first two.

Well clearly if a planet is in the Federation it can be said it is a member of the Federation.

Clearly not. There are three known statuses for planets:

-Protectorates (such as Haven)
-Members (which are not the same thing as protectorates)
-Claimed territory (which might not even be inhabited, e.g., Galorndon Core)

The issue is whether "member" is some kind of official political/administrative status within the Federation not shared by other planets.

We know that Federation membership is something that planets apply for, sometimes a century after allying themselves with the Federation. We know there are very specific requirements for a planet to become a member, some of which we have heard about. Applications may be accepted or rejected.

We know, in other words, that there is a great deal involved with being a member of the Federation as opposed to being an ally, or a protectorate, or claimed by the Federation as territory.

To say that Federation expanded between 2260-3270 because we have, on occasion,

On numerous occasions.

seen it admit new members or start up a new colony is like claiming that information about Russian population declining from 148 million in 1991 to 142 million today must be incorrect because we visited Moscow hospital and saw many women giving birth to children.

Starting new colonies on many occasions.

Again, see the point about terraforming. If there was a policy shift in the Federation towards abandoning small colonies, we would not have an active terraforming industry moving forwards. We would not expect Cestus III to be a lively active settlement in DS9 after being destroyed in TOS; it was both a small colony and a remote colony.

We would not even expect that Picard would have any interest in inhabitable planets. What should it matter, finding inhabitable planets, if you're giving up the idea of spreading colonies out into space?

You simply make up that Kirk and Picard aren't talking about the same thing when neither provides any specification to his number other than "planet" or "world" and then say we have "ruled out" the possibility that they are talking about the same thing. We didn't rule anything out. You just made it up.

No, it's not made up. It's also all over the "official" materials - some of the promotional material for the Star Trek movie said that the Federation had 700 colonies in the 2250s.

No it really isn't an assumption we need to make nor is it even a justified one. This reasoning is again based on outright inventions on your part

Not really. Watch ENT.

There is zero presented evidence that Federation is larger than 1000 system

Actually, there's the fact that Kirk said so, combined with all the indications we have of Federation growth.

There's also the minor detail that the Federation claims as territory systems that it does not even inhabit, in addition to subject colonies (most of which are minor and only seen once).

and as of 2370s Picard, Sisko and Janeway have all put the number at 150 planets. The fact that Federation could have thousands of small colonies is as irrelevant as the fact that Republic could have hundred million small colonies given Coruscant's population. What theoretically could be is irrelevant. We are discussing about what is.

And the most reasonable interpretation of what is: The Federation has thousands of small colonies.

Now, is it certain? No. However, it's quite a bit more likely than not. We're not trying to establish absolute maximums or absolute minimums; we're trying to make an educated informed guess that fits with all of the evidence.

We have indications of growth; we don't have indications of a massive abandonment of colonies. We have every reason in the world to make the connections I'm making, and none to follow your conclusions. Your entire argument boils down to unsupported hypotheticals with no supporting secondary evidence.

Picard and Sisko are talking about political organization; Kirk is talking about people. Even something as small as that is supporting evidence for seeing a distinction between the two.

Federation is on three separate occasions, by three separate people stated to consist of 150 planets. Not "member" planets or homeworld planets or important planets but simply planets. What happened a century ago in Kirk's time is about as relevant as the total land area of British Empire in 1910 for today's UK.

Actually, no. The British Empire has been giving up territories; the Federation has gained territories.

Since Picard, Janewas or Sisko simply said planets there is no reason why Mars wouldn't be in the count regardless of what is its administrative status within the Federation.

Nothing, in other words, except your incorrect conjecture that all planets subject to the Federation are members of it.

[Kane Starkiller]

Yes but which Sullust (provided that there are several)

Which is not known to be true.

Of course, I never said it was. Merely that it is one possible explanation for the apparent contradiction thus there is no need to discard either map.

Really? You think that all the other EU sources that mention Sullust don't manage to tie them together? It gets mentioned an awful lot.

I'm sure the creators of the other maps had the Sullust from the movie in mind when they made the map. I'm also sure that none of them read the ROTJ novelization so carefully to catch on the "hundreds of ly" line and even if they did they didn't take the line as explicit and precise measure of distance. Under suspension of disbelief we can come up with explanation for apparent discrepancy by looking at real world examples.

Yes, the same thing does go for the Sanctuary Pipeline. It's a major hyperlane that goes from the Endor of RotJ to the Sullust of RotJ. The notion that another Sanctuary Pipeline exists and also starts at another Sullust and ends at another Endor boggles imagination.

Your only real loophole is to try to argue that "hundreds of light years" could mean hundreds of hundreds of light years.

You haven't addressed my point that there could be more than one Sanctuary pipeline nor have you addressed my point that both Sullust's could be on the same hyperlane other than declaring it "boggles imagination" which is an irrelevant subjective statement.
"Hundreds of ly" is not realy precise and within the novel wasn't even attempted to be an accurate description of distance between Sullust and Endor but more of a decription of how fast hyperdrive was ("It was hundreds of ly but in hyperspace all time was moment" or something to that effect).

If you check the here you'll get a complete history of the maps of star wars. You can also get a complete current list of close to 4700 systems that have been identified and located in Star Wars. There's no repetition of names of systems of interest, although there is an indication that unimportant systems are numbered rather than having proper common names.

Again I never said I have evidence of name repetition merely that it is a possible explanation for the apparent discrepancy along with several other possibilities.

This is the current continuity-level information on the Star Wars galaxy, and the Endor and Sullust in there are precisely the Endor and Sullust we're concerned with. Their locations and descriptions are tied together in the Atlas, and that's quite official.

And the Atlas puts them respectively in H-17 and M-17, i.e., about the distance indicated on the two maps that we've seen that actually identify the locations of Endor and Sullust. Which brings us directly to the core problem:

Atlas doesn't explicitly disprove the existence of another unmentioned Sullust system but it does however state:

-

-

The explicit data regarding the size of the galaxy, coming from several independent sources, is clear. All of the counterexamples you have shown can be explained in several ways so that there is no contradiction.

In continuity, the maps indicate both a ~100,000 LY diameter and a galaxy that is only a handful of times the diameter of the distance between Endor and Sullust.

In the G-level RotJ novelization, we have an indication that the distance between Endor and Sullust is "hundreds of light years."

From these three pieces of information, we have a problem. Either the continuity materials are wrong to indicate a diameter of ~100,000 LY, the continuity materials are wrong to indicate that the Sanctuary Pipeline is a substantial fraction of the galactic diameter in length, or the RotJ novelization's description is grossly misleading and inaccurate.

Pick what you want. Myself, I consider the G-level more authoritative than the C-level, so I'm saying it's one of the first two.

No one is doubting the novelizations status as G-level canon merely the intended precision and accuracy of the "hundreds of ly" line. As said before there are several ways of reconciling those sources without discarding anything. It is simply not the problem you make it out to be.

Starting new colonies on many occasions.

Again, see the point about terraforming. If there was a policy shift in the Federation towards abandoning small colonies, we would not have an active terraforming industry moving forwards. We would not expect Cestus III to be a lively active settlement in DS9 after being destroyed in TOS; it was both a small colony and a remote colony.

We would not even expect that Picard would have any interest in inhabitable planets. What should it matter, finding inhabitable planets, if you're giving up the idea of spreading colonies out into space?

"Many occasions" and "on occasion" are completely subjective statements and putting "many" doesn't advance your argument in any way. You ignored my Russian population analogy which was the main argument. Say again: if in 2260 Federation was said to have 1000 planets and in 2370 it was said to have 150 planets then the number of planets is obviously decreasing or decreased. That you can find incidents (or "many" incidents) of new planets being added means nothing unless you can prove that loosing or abandoning planets (or mortality in Russian analogy) is lesser than adding planets (or childbirth in Russian analogy).
Yes Federation is terraforming some planets and Russians are constructing new apartments and buildings. It doesn't mean that Federation didn't loose planets any more than it means Russians didn't loose population.

No, it's not made up. It's also all over the "official" materials - some of the promotional material for the Star Trek movie said that the Federation had 700 colonies in the 2250s.

Unless you can find me a quote of Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Janeway specifying anything other than "planets" when giving their numbers then, yes, it's made up. 750 Federation colonies in 2250 pretty much agrees with Kirk's statement of 1000 colonies accounting for changes in the timeline. However I never disputed Kirk's number and the number has no bearing on the situation 120 years later.

Not really. Watch ENT.

You'll have to be more specific.

Actually, there's the fact that Kirk said so, combined with all the indications we have of Federation growth.

There's also the minor detail that the Federation claims as territory systems that it does not even inhabit, in addition to subject colonies (most of which are minor and only seen once).

You still haven't addressed my point that adding new colonies doesn't prove that overall the Federation grew. See above.

And the most reasonable interpretation of what is: The Federation has thousands of small colonies.

Now, is it certain? No. However, it's quite a bit more likely than not. We're not trying to establish absolute maximums or absolute minimums; we're trying to make an educated informed guess that fits with all of the evidence.

We have indications of growth; we don't have indications of a massive abandonment of colonies. We have every reason in the world to make the connections I'm making, and none to follow your conclusions. Your entire argument boils down to unsupported hypotheticals with no supporting secondary evidence.

Picard and Sisko are talking about political organization; Kirk is talking about people. Even something as small as that is supporting evidence for seeing a distinction between the two.

How does my argument boil down to unsupported hypotheticals when I'm simply parroting what I heard Picard, Sisko and Janeway say? They say flatly that Federation has X PLANETS. Those statements stand for themselves and it's not even necessary to be aware of Kirk's statement at all seeing as how it was uttered 110 years ago.
Your argument depends on your quiet implication that "adding colonies" and "Federation growing" are synonimous when they are not.
In the end of paragraph you simply restate that Picard and Sisko are talking about political organization and Kirk about people when all three including Janeway talk about planets. In other words you are simply inventing things out of thin air as I said.

Actually, no. The British Empire has been giving up territories; the Federation has gained territories.

The point of the analogy is that a political entity can change drastically in a century and that Picard's statement stands on its own. It was not like Kirk's line came two weeks before Picard. As for Federation growing it had 1000 planets in 2260 and 150 in 2370. It's shrinking. If you have proof these statements are incorrect provide the evidence. Not assumptions, explicit evidence.

Nothing, in other words, except your incorrect conjecture that all planets subject to the Federation are members of it.

Let me put it another way: do you have any evidence that administrative status of Mars is any different than administrative status of Vulcan or Andor?

[Praeothmin]

The point is even with as little as 200 or so countries there are name repetition. In a galaxy with million world it is going to be much more likely.
I don't see how you can conclude that because Congos and Koreas are close then Sullusts will be close also. What logic does that follow?
I'm not aware of any events or facts from the films which are incompatible with 100,000ly galaxy.

Both Congos are bordered by the River Congo, so they have to be next to one another, and the two Koreas were once 1 country.
There are no two countries with the same name at opposite ends of the world...

The events have been mentioned already, but you can ignore them as you wish, it doesn't make them disappear...

[Kane Starkiller]

I'm ignoring nothing but you peculiar contention that "SW planets are more like Earth countries than cities" whatever that meant in this context. The mention of cities (like Londons), mountains (like Sierra Nevadas) or countries (like Congos) is simply to demonstrate several cities/countries/geological formations/whatever can have the same name. I really don't understand what point you think you are making when you decide to concentrate on countries which happen to be close to each other.

[Praeothmin]

I'm ignoring nothing but you peculiar contention that "SW planets are more like Earth countries than cities" whatever that meant in this context. The mention of cities (like Londons), mountains (like Sierra Nevadas) or countries (like Congos) is simply to demonstrate several cities/countries/geological formations/whatever can have the same name. I really don't understand what point you think you are making when you decide to concentrate on countries which happen to be close to each other.

Planets are more like countries because they have representatives in the Senate, just like countries are reprensented in the UN.
Individual cities are not.
The UN is akin to the Republic Senate a lot more then it is to country's Government.
They are free to use their own rule on their world, can leave the Republic as they wish, and even have the right to have their own armies, fleets and commerce rules, just like countries.
Cities do not.

And as others mentioned, if there were more then 1 Sullust system, it would have been mentioned in the EU before.
And it would certainly be mentioned here:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sullust

[Kane Starkiller]

Political standing of the planet is completely irrelevant, for name repetition it is the numbers that matter. Countries are unlikely to have more than a few repetitions because there is only 200 hundred of them while cities names will be repeated many times since there are thousands of them.
Secondly I never said that there actually is another Sullust and that it is mentioned in the EU merely that it could be an explanation for the apparent discrepancy thus allowing us to reconcile both sources.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Of course, I never said it was. Merely that it is one possible explanation for the apparent contradiction thus there is no need to discard either map.

It's an absurd explanation. End of story.

"Hundreds of ly" is not realy precise and within the novel wasn't even attempted to be an accurate description of distance between Sullust and Endor but more of a decription of how fast hyperdrive was ("It was hundreds of ly but in hyperspace all time was moment" or something to that effect).

It's not really precise - however, it's also absurd to use "hundreds" to describe tens of thousands.

Atlas doesn't explicitly disprove the existence of another unmentioned Sullust system

No, but it provides a precise correspondence between the map and the known Sullust, and the map and the known Endor. The entry for Endor precisely describes the Endor of the movie, and indicates its grid location is H-16. The entry for Sullust precisely describes the Sullust of the movie, explicitly stating that "the Rebel fleet gathered in the Sullust system to use that same Pipeline as an attack corridor," and indicates its grid location is M-17.

As I said, your attempt at excusing the contradiction is completely absurd. We know exactly that these are the systems they are supposed to be and exactly where those systems have been placed on the official SW map. Your "explanation" does not follow the official "continuity-level" materials.

The explicit data regarding the size of the galaxy, coming from several independent sources, is clear. All of the counterexamples you have shown can be explained in several ways so that there is no contradiction.

They can only be "explained" via creative explanations of the same level reasonableness as presuming that "light year" and quite possibly "star" have been redefined, such that the Star Wars galaxy contains a high density of brown dwarfs and one Star Wars light year is in fact 1/10th of one RL light-year.

In other words, patent absurdity.

You ignored my Russian population analogy which was the main argument.

Not at all.

With regard to Russia we have reasons to realize the Russian population is declining if we watch. There's a lot of mortality, a lot of emigration, families tend to be small.

Conversely, we have no such indications to support your hypothesis that the Federation is shrinking, and, in fact, numerous contrary indications.

Say again: if in 2260 Federation was said to have 1000 planets

Except Kirk doesn't actually have a thing to say about what the Federation is comprised of. He simply said "we've spread out to a thousand worlds." He's talking about the movement of people. Sisko and Picard are both talking about the political structure of the Federation. There is no conflict between those statements at all.

This is nowhere near as creative as the mental gymnastics you're engaging in to try to pretend there are extra Sullusts and Endors distorting the appearance of the Star Wars galaxy map. It's straightforward and quite orthodox to assume that Federation colonies generally do not have member status, and similarly straightforward to take Picard and Sisko's statements as being about a federation of 100+, 150+ members.

Kirk's statement is the only thing odd, but it makes perfect sense in the context of referring to colonies, which is in turn what we'd expect Cochrane to be interested in - people, not politics.

We know the four founding members of the Federation: Earth, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar. At least three of those polities claimed territory outside their home system, the Federation only has four founding members that we know of. Not Mars, not Alpha Centauri, just Earth, Andor, Tellar, and Vulcan. Four-way treaty, big signing ceremony in "These are the Voyages..."

Do you think each of the ten extra Earth colonies got another vote on the Council?

and in 2370 it was said to have 150 planets then the number of planets is obviously decreasing or decreased. That you can find incidents (or "many" incidents) of new planets being added means nothing unless you can prove that loosing or abandoning planets (or mortality in Russian analogy) is lesser than adding planets (or childbirth in Russian analogy).

Yes Federation is terraforming some planets and Russians are constructing new apartments and buildings. It doesn't mean that Federation didn't loose planets any more than it means Russians didn't loose population.

Buildings fall apart over time. We expect to see construction regardless of the changes in population.

Planets don't. When you have a planet, it's good to go for several billion years. Terraforming it takes a long time and a lot of energy. You would not see an active terraforming industry in the TNG era if the Federation was losing rather than gaining territory and if it were abandoning formerly viable colonies in order to concentrate its population. And yes, given the addition of new alien planets to the Federation and the presence of terraforming projects, we are talking about something along the lines of abandoning 95% of all old colonies.

We would expect to see evidence of that. And we don't. And we do see a healthy terraforming industry. That's two major problems with your interpretation of Kirk's statement.

Unless you can find me a quote of Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Janeway specifying anything other than "planets" when giving their numbers

Each one of the latter is clearly discussing the political structure of the Federation. Which means, strictly speaking, members. Which means, in other words, a highly specific status that must be applied for and approved by the Federation Council - something that's a big fuss, and something that's very often denied to applicants. Which means, in other words, something that is not going to be done lightly for every small colony. There are a large number of conditions on Federation membership.

And if you think about it, you'll doubtless realize that approving colonies for full membership rather than simply leaving them under protectorate status (which we know exists) is a huge political can of worms. We know that the Federation government is, in fact, not dominated by humanity, even if Starfleet is, and a policy of approving colonies as members would skew representation rapidly towards fast colonizers with small colonies on a lot of planets.

How does my argument boil down to unsupported hypotheticals when I'm simply parroting what I heard Picard, Sisko and Janeway say? They say flatly that Federation has X PLANETS.

Actually, no, they do not say the Federation has X planets. They say instead that they Federation consists of X planets. There's a semantic distinction between what they're saying and what you're claiming they're saying. What do federations consist of? Members. In this case, member planets, since it's a federation of planets.

Flatly from their statements alone, we conclude that this is a count of member worlds. Flatly from the existence of protectorate status, our knowledge of member worlds, and the number of colonies we've seen presented, we can be pretty sure that Sisko's count of "over a hundred worlds" does not include colonies.

We have no clue how many colonies, allied systems, and other protectorates are floating around out there in the 24th century. None at all... except for Kirk's comment about having spread out to a thousand systems, which suddenly gives us data about colonies, since it's a remarkably high number to be members - unless, for whatever reason, the Federation used to count colonies as members, and then revised the criterion for membership.

Which would boil down to precisely the same case that I'm describing. We have no clue how populous those colonies are, but it stands to reason most of them should be individually fairly small.

Let me put it another way: do you have any evidence that administrative status of Mars is any different than administrative status of Vulcan or Andor?

Yes. Both Vulcan and Andor are explicitly stated to be members - further, we know they are founding members - of the Federation. Mars is never so described. Mars, moreover, is seen to share some kind of political affiliation with Earth prior to the signing of the Federation Charter.

[Kane Starkiller]

No, but it provides a precise correspondence between the map and the known Sullust, and the map and the known Endor. The entry for Endor precisely describes the Endor of the movie, and indicates its grid location is H-16. The entry for Sullust precisely describes the Sullust of the movie, explicitly stating that "the Rebel fleet gathered in the Sullust system to use that same Pipeline as an attack corridor," and indicates its grid location is M-17.

As I said, your attempt at excusing the contradiction is completely absurd. We know exactly that these are the systems they are supposed to be and exactly where those systems have been placed on the official SW map. Your "explanation" does not follow the official "continuity-level" materials.

As I said there are several possible explanation. This still leaves the description in the novel as imprecise. Not to mention that the very same Atlas explicitly gives 100,000ly diameter for the galaxy and 7,000ly diameter for the deep core itself.
In the end if you demand of every source to be in perfect 100% agreement with all other sources you won't have much left. This is your call but don't think you'll find many people who will agree with such criteria.

Not at all.

With regard to Russia we have reasons to realize the Russian population is declining if we watch. There's a lot of mortality, a lot of emigration, families tend to be small.

Conversely, we have no such indications to support your hypothesis that the Federation is shrinking, and, in fact, numerous contrary indications.

How can you, personally, "watch" the Russian population decline? You can either trust the statistics or not.

Except Kirk doesn't actually have a thing to say about what the Federation is comprised of. He simply said "we've spread out to a thousand worlds." He's talking about the movement of people. Sisko and Picard are both talking about the political structure of the Federation. There is no conflict between those statements at all.

In other words you are saying that he simply listed all of the planets "we" is inhabiting which may or may not be part of the Federation? How does this contradict the 150 number Picard gave?

This is nowhere near as creative as the mental gymnastics you're engaging in to try to pretend there are extra Sullusts and Endors distorting the appearance of the Star Wars galaxy map. It's straightforward and quite orthodox to assume that Federation colonies generally do not have member status, and similarly straightforward to take Picard and Sisko's statements as being about a federation of 100+, 150+ members.

Kirk's statement is the only thing odd, but it makes perfect sense in the context of referring to colonies, which is in turn what we'd expect Cochrane to be interested in - people, not politics.

We know the four founding members of the Federation: Earth, Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar. At least three of those polities claimed territory outside their home system, the Federation only has four founding members that we know of. Not Mars, not Alpha Centauri, just Earth, Andor, Tellar, and Vulcan. Four-way treaty, big signing ceremony in "These are the Voyages..."

Again neither Picard nor Sisko nor Janeway specify they are talking about "members" in any official terms. They are simply talking about planets and you have shown zero evidence that Picard and others wouldn't list colonies in their count.
You keep trying to confuse the issue by drawing me into discussions about internal administrative divisions of Federation when they are irrelevant to the number of geological formations- planets.

Do you think each of the ten extra Earth colonies got another vote on the Council?

What difference does that make? Picard said 150 when Liliy asked him how many planets are there. He never went into specifics of Federation administrative division. Neither did Sisko or Janeway.

Buildings fall apart over time. We expect to see construction regardless of the changes in population.

Planets don't. When you have a planet, it's good to go for several billion years. Terraforming it takes a long time and a lot of energy. You would not see an active terraforming industry in the TNG era if the Federation was losing rather than gaining territory and if it were abandoning formerly viable colonies in order to concentrate its population. And yes, given the addition of new alien planets to the Federation and the presence of terraforming projects, we are talking about something along the lines of abandoning 95% of all old colonies.

We would expect to see evidence of that. And we don't. And we do see a healthy terraforming industry. That's two major problems with your interpretation of Kirk's statement.

Buildings don't fall apart enough to account for all construction. Secondly I'm talking about new construction and expansion that is occurring in Russia not merely replacement.
Also who is to say that artificially terraformed planet will last billions of years? Also there is the issue of distance and the energy consumption and cost of trading with a planet thousand of ly away even if it is Earth like. Also we don't know how hospitable most of the colony planets really are. A global antartica would still be an Earth like M-class planet. Furthermore terraforming a less hospitable but closer planet might be more economically viable. Suffice to say you still haven't provided any evidence that Federation, overall, is growing.

Actually, no, they do not say the Federation has X planets. They say instead that they Federation consists of X planets. There's a semantic distinction between what they're saying and what you're claiming they're saying. What do federations consist of? Members. In this case, member planets, since it's a federation of planets.

Flatly from their statements alone, we conclude that this is a count of member worlds. Flatly from the existence of protectorate status, our knowledge of member worlds, and the number of colonies we've seen presented, we can be pretty sure that Sisko's count of "over a hundred worlds" does not include colonies.

We have no clue how many colonies, allied systems, and other protectorates are floating around out there in the 24th century. None at all... except for Kirk's comment about having spread out to a thousand systems, which suddenly gives us data about colonies, since it's a remarkably high number to be members - unless, for whatever reason, the Federation used to count colonies as members, and then revised the criterion for membership.

Which would boil down to precisely the same case that I'm describing. We have no clue how populous those colonies are, but it stands to reason most of them should be individually fairly small.

Actually they say that 150 planets are "in" the Federation. Since the term "planet" encompasses both homeworlds and colonies then 150 is the total number. Kirk's comment about spreading to 1000 worlds as you say might even include planets not under Federation jurisdiction.

Yes. Both Vulcan and Andor are explicitly stated to be members - further, we know they are founding members - of the Federation. Mars is never so described. Mars, moreover, is seen to share some kind of political affiliation with Earth prior to the signing of the Federation Charter.

California is not a founding member of US. It still has the same status as Virginia.

[Praeothmin]

Political standing of the planet is completely irrelevant, for name repetition it is the numbers that matter. Countries are unlikely to have more than a few repetitions because there is only 200 hundred of them while cities names will be repeated many times since there are thousands of them.

Actually, city name repetitions are more likely to happen because 1 city (or town) will have a name that carries a history with it, and others will want that name for sentimental reasons, like London, Cambridge, etc...
But most cities in the world, and there are many thousands, have unique names proper only to them.
There is only 1 Ottawa, and only 1 Quebec, 1 Peking, 1 San Francisco...

Secondly I never said that there actually is another Sullust and that it is mentioned in the EU merely that it could be an explanation for the apparent discrepancy thus allowing us to reconcile both sources

Which would be good if there were any indications there were more then 1 Endor and more then 1 Sullust, but there are none.
And all the maps put Tatooine and Geonosis about 1/20th to 1/30th of the Galactic disk away from one another.
Since Naboo is similar to Earth, it stand to reason it has a similar rotation around it's sun, thus a parsec for Naboo should be the same as our parsec.
Since our parsec is 3.26LY, then Amidala's parsec is also most probably 3.26LY.
So Tatooine should be less then 3.26LY away from Geonosis, which doesn't fit in a
100 000LY SW Galaxy.

[Kane Starkiller]

Additional information about the scope of the Galactic Empire from page 8 of the Essential Atlas:

Billion inhabited systems, 69 million with representation, 1.75 million full members, population 100 quadrillion.

Breakdown of habitable planets in the Galaxy per type of star:

7.35 billion habitable planets.

[Youngla0450]

So out of a billion inhabited systems, only 70 million are part of the Galactic Empire! Please.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Wow, needless to say, the arguments on either sides are rather good. The build of argumentation strength is nearing the "oh noes, not that thread again" levels.
I really can't tell which side is more correct. It is clear though that as far as the EU is concerned, aside from small mistakes or neglected details, it goes for a 120K LY wide galaxy and lots of inhabited worlds.
That said, even with its 1 M worlds, the Empire looks like it controls a very, very small amount of the galaxy if there are billions of inhabitable worlds.

[Who is like God arbour]

If the Essential Atlas is wrong when it shows Sullust and Endor at a distance of more than 20.000 light years - definitely not only hundred of light years - than it is only consequent to take it as source only with outmost caution. The chances are good that other things are wrong too only because there have to be subsequent errors.

Either the position of Sullust and Endor on that map are wrong or the scale of that map is wrong. But seeing that Sullust and Endor have the same relative position on other maps too, it seems more plausible to assume that the scale of that map is wrong. And of course, if one assumes a 120.000 light years large galaxy, it is only reasonable to assume accordingly many inhabitable planets. But that is nothing more than a subsequent error. If a 12.000 light years large galaxy had been assumed, consequently less inhabitable planets would have been assumed too.

Insofar it is not the wisest thing to do to continue to use the Essential Atlas as a source to prove that it is correct.

That does not mean that it is not canon any more. It means only that it is wrong because it is overruled by higher canon.

[Mr. Oragahn]

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.