Lit A Bright Center: The Official Core Worlds Discussion Thread (Aftermath & Shattered Empire Spoilers)

I think that would be equally true for the democractic Core Worlds as well. In those early days of the Republic, I imagine that the Core's most powerful worlds feared givign too much power to Coruscant, preferring to maintain more localized control. I can see an artistocrat on Alsakan, a democrat from Chandrila, and a monarch from Corellia all agreeing on this point. Of course, this barrier broke down over time (mainly thanks to war, which forced the Republic to form a closer military, economic, and political union).

It would be fun to make one. It is something that this thread should "pool resources" on over the next few weeks. We could start with their governments in the "modern" era and them make notes to worlds that had various governments over their history, like Corellia.

Like I said to darthscott3457 above, I think that any powerful Core World, be they democractic, monarchical, aristocractic, or authoritarian, would like the idea of a republican form of government for the galaxy. As you both both point out, in the early days of the Republic most Core Worlds were still much more focused on their own needs/wants/desires. In some ways, I liken the evolution of the Republic to the evolution of the United States. We went from a loose collection of states under a Continental Congress to a loose union under the Confederation Congress before ultimately deciding on a federal republican system during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Events in the galaxy, just like events in the real world of 1775-1789, ended up pushing the Republic from a loose body of worlds into a much more united and federalized structure. As the EGTW and Atlas point out, the Tionese War was the tipping point.

--Adm. Nick

 

Sounds good, but only if loyal monarchists like myself, who support a loose alliance Republic, and democratic federalists can equally contribute

On a side note, and I don't think this was known at least, but the latest Clone Wars episode guide said Coruscant has 5,127 levels. Maybe the population of a trillion only applies to level 5,127

 

Question for you guys. I read Wedge's Gamble, and the big sticking point in their plan to bring down Coruscant's shields was to create a concentrated lightning discharge using the atmospheric controls to overload an area of the defense screen. My question is: if there are atmospheric controls for a city planet like Coruscant, would that also account for the acid rain that would almost certainly be formed from such a pollution choked sky?

 

Now that is actually an amazingly complex question. Though since the main source of naturally occurring acidic rain is nitrogen reactions caused by lightening, which is not a bad thing per se as it allows the nitrogen in the air to be used by plants as fertilizer, and is usually so deluded by water that it really causes no harm to anyone. Of course since it is not actually needed for breathing (and can cause Nitrogen narcosis if atmosphere pressure changes) the people of Coruscant might actually have filtered just about all of it out of the atmosphere, along with any other sources of potential acidic rain (sulfur oxides, high concentrations of carbon oxides etc.). So potentially no acid rain at all on Coruscant.

 

IIRC, one of the NJO books made it clear that Coruscant required a number of atmospheric scrubbers that would've caused the populace to die if they all failed - and that Palpatine had rigged them to be under his control as a final measure in case of desperate times.

 

Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand.

Well, it's not totalitarian in the sense that it has a fascist dictator or something (it just produces fascist dictators for export to the galaxy at large), but there's a very disturbing vibe to government control of family size, political indoctrination in schools, and the overall impression of Stepfordian conformity. The form of the government may be direct democracy, but the society has a creepy, Orwellian feel.

 

Hey, what happens to skyhooks and space elevators when Couriscant's planetary shields go up?

 

Skyhooks, I presume, would fly low enough to not run into any trouble. Perhaps any elevators would have a smaller network of satellites around them, that keep a hole open in the shield just large enough for them to run through?

 

Skyhooks tethers are apparently part of the shield system and the Skyhooks should be bellow the planet shields highest extend, as they are located in low orbit/ the upper atmosphere. At least that’s how I understood the description in Starships of the Galaxy and the Shadows of the Empire SB.

Isard was properly just paranoid.

 

Perhaps always 'active' can be interpretted as 'always on standby.' I seem to recall that Corucant's planetary shield could be lowered and then raised again rapidly enough to open a 'five second gap' - as that was what Karrde tried to negotiate to get during the whole cloaked asteroid blockade. If it is indeed possible to raise the shield in the space of five seconds that's probably rapid enough, given human reaction times, to qualify as 'always' active.

In that sense, it simply means that the fully necessary power alotment for full-strength shield coverage is always running to the relevant power generators, whereas other less advanced (or simply poorer) systems may have to undertake some rather extensive rerouting of power to bring their shields online.

 

Hey they had 8+ warlords just waiting to take shoots at them.

 

The Imps in Dark Empire apparently blew up the original shield system and the Republic seems to have just rebuilt it differently.

Wouldn't they also do that simply to avoid sensors? As afaik they don't mention a shield in SotE but just tons of ships and sensor stations that would be the problem.

 

This would fit wit the crippling economic problems the New Republic was reported to have for the X-Wing books/Thrawn Trilogy timeframe. Also, with Mon Mothma being a defense-cutting loony.

 

Somehow I read that as Tyrant's Test though yes in that case it looks like they had trouble running the orginal double shield or someone did sabotage it in between.

 

Well, I can explain that one easily. The Thrawn Trilogy was written first and when Mike Stackpole wrote XW he didn't do his homework well.

Also, authors rarely understand planetary shields, IMO.

--Adm. Nick

 

Zahn mentioned "thirty overlapping shield generators" in his description of Ukio though- I'm guessing Stackpole assumed Coruscant was similar.

 

I gave my best try at putting together a list for the Core Worlds in excel. I also tried to use only sources that I had on hand, and not use wookieepedia as much, so that I could get some context and make some judgement calls. To save me a little time in dealing with dates, the modern era pretty much means clone wars and on, and then I used the founding date of the Republic as the limit going back in time.

 

darthscott3457

Fantastic list! You did a great job, plus I love how you showed the various switches over the millenia (Corellia wins the pot for having the most variety). For Rhinnal, my gut tells me that it eventually took on some sort of representative government, as per CATCW "the fall of nearby Brentaal to the New Republic rattled the citizens of Rhinnal. An organized resistance movement overthrew Governor Kole two and a half years later." Eventually the world joins the New Republic. As for Corulag, per TUF they have a provisional governor appointed by the resistance movements. I imagine that the House of Citizens might appoint a governor. Corulag has always fascinated me, as it could potentiall be a representative democracy with strong support for the Empire.

--Adm. Nick

 

I agree, an empire can be anything. Going for more that the implication of it being a non-democratic government, though I know that may even not even be true. I tried to read over everything to get context, like for example it says Nubia is a democracy, but in the article it says it is corrupt and dominated by a corporation.

Thanks all, I will work on it some more if other come to mind. Maybe make a wookieepedia page on it if I can. If anyone wants the excel or has additions I can send it their way.