Lucky wrote:Praeothmin wrote:This thread answers your question well, methinks... :)
I've read that thread, and it is 7 pages long. Could you please be more specific?
Hhhmm, well, this is my take on the subject, including material and thoughts from many people here:
For example, the size of the SW galaxy.
The ANH novel specifically states (WILGA brought this up a few months back) that the SW galaxy is a modest-sized one.
Our very own Milky Way, at around 100 000 LY across, contains from 100 to 400 Billion stars, is not a modest-sized galaxy.
It is in fact a large galaxy.
Average-sized galaxies are around 15 to 30 thousands LY accross, not 100.
(see here):
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_a ... 1205a.html
A modest sized galaxy could easily contain the million star system described in ANH (both the novel and the movie).
Also, nothing indicates that each and every one of these systems contains intelligent life.
They could simply indicate territory size.
In fact, all the movies seem to indicate that the SW galaxy doesn't have that many different systems, if we judge by the senate chambers, and by the fact that in AotC, 10 000 systems going to the other side would mean a great deal in this conflict.
Even if we believed the 12 million inhabited star systems quote from Dark Empire number 3, the vast majority could be small colonies, which would actually make sense.
In an Empire spanning 1 to 12 million systems, people will need resources, so mining colonies, with only a few hundred to a few thousand people, will account for the vast majority of these systems.
And, as Warsies like to point out so much, the SW galaxy has great use for droids, so even a mining colony could be run by just a few people (the lead programmer, and the people in charge of droid and machinery maintenance).
Also, if their galaxy was the size of ours, having only 1 to 12 million systems would mean that for a galactic-spanning organization, they actually cover very little of their territory.
And, since the SW galaxy is a modest sized one (ANH novel), how much bigger from the Federation is it?
How can we explain the EU's claim of a vastly uncharted section of the galaxy, when AOTC alone, movie and novelization, run this concept into the dirt?
For example, "the great majority of the galaxy's inhabitable worlds" should become "the great majority of the galaxy's known inhabitable worlds"...
In conjunction with ANH, what we see from the higher canon sources, is:
- It's a modest sized galaxy, which regarding the samples we can study nowadays, means it's certainly not anywhere close to 100,000 LY (which is considered Large, but more likely close to 10,000 LY which is less then the Average Galaxy size of 15,000 to 30,000 LY).
- The Republic, just before the Clone Wars, held a few tens of thousands of systems (less then 100 thousands). To fit with the film, we would have to consider that half the Senate was empty, with around +- 10K systems affiliated to the Separatists (with the possibility of a few seceding to remain neutral and fully independent).
- The Republic's Senate represents most of the galaxy's inhabitable worlds (also note that the pods representing likely systems in the Senate, several thousands of them, remained empty after joining Dooku's Separatists). So most of these inhabitable worlds were spread throughout those 10K + systems. Thus also highlighting how most of the galaxy was charted and explored.
- Jocasta Nu considers that if a world is not listed in the Jedi archives, it does not exist.
-As of ANH, the Empire controls at least 1 million systems, which should include both the Old Republic systems, and the systems that sided with the Separatists, since the war was won by the Republic.
Conclusion:
The SW Galaxy is probably no more then 10000 LY across, and is almost completely mapped, as per AotC.
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