How many planets are in the Old Republic/Empire?

It's either the Eppy 4 noevlization or radio drama that says the completeion of the Death Star will buind the million planets of the Empire together. That sets up a lower limit.
According to the Dark Empire comics there were 12 million planets at the height of the Empires power.
The Empire is basically the Old Republic, just ruled by one man.

My theory is that the Old Republic/Empire consisted of about one million core, heavily populated worlds, with another 11 or so million colony planets, with only a few thousand citizens per planet. This also doesn't count starports.

Compared with another science fiction superpower, the Federation of Star Trek that had 150 main habited worlds, the Empire is easily the largest superpower in Sci-fi history.

Spike Edit: Thats Strike 1 in accordance to this forums Three Strike Policy. For more information about this and other rules this forum visit the Forum Rules And Admin Announcements Thread. If you need further help, feel free to send me a PM.

 

Spike Edit: Lets not get dragged into a canon debate, shall we? Thanks!

 

Um, yes.

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Misc/Canon.html


""Part of the job of the director is to sort of keep everything in line, and I can do that in the movies - but I can't do it on the whole Star Wars universe."
There is also an interview with Mr. Lucas in Cinescape #62 pg49, where it is made clear that the movies override the other sources:

And while rumors persist that an outline for a third trilogy exists (a joke Lucas made in passing to Rolling Stone, which then printed it as fact), the director insists that the only continuation to the saga will be in the form of licensed properties.

"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There's my world, which is the movies, and there's this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe - the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don't intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don't get too involved in the parallel universe.""

Spike Edit: There will be no canon debate and NO Lucas bashing in this forum. You have been warned. For more information about the rules & purpose of this forum visit the Forum Rules And Admin Announcements Thread. If you need further info, feel free to send me a PM.

 

Lovely, and EU debate.

According to Dark Empire there are over twelve million inhabited systems. Most other references are less specific, including only vague notions of "a thousand thousand worlds." In agreement with Grand Moff Tarkin's statement about the Empire's membership [A New Hope, p.116], The STAR WARS Roleplaying Game Second Edition [p.126] indicates over a million "member worlds", supplemented by "colonies, protectorates and governorships" amounting to "nearly fifty million systems." The member worlds presumably are the only ones directly represented in galactic institutions. The book also states that the total sapient population is only about 100 quadrillion beings, meaning 10^17 or 10^26 depending on whether the colloquial or traditional interpretation is used. This seems remarkably low (and is perhaps unrealistic) considering the number of worlds, and the resources of barren systems that can feed them.

 

So here lies our dilema. You want to accept the works of multiple authors of great diversity as 'canon' Star Wars, while other people just accept the works of George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, as 'canon' while you think that he's a hack. I don't know, maybe we should just let EU people keep the word 'canon' and we invent a new word? OK, EU sources aren't 'pure' Star Wars. Ah ha!

Anyway... So do any of the movie novels say anything about whether or not every system gets represented in the Senate (assuming one system has approximately an average of 1 - 2 'planets')? Because there sure aren't a million Senate pod thingies. So maybe one pod can represent say 100 planets? But then why does an apparently small system like Naboo get a high profile vote in the Republic Senate? Just some food for thought...

 

Oh, I'm not debating that Lucas' works come first when it comes to "canon". By calling him a hack, I merely meant that I can think of about two dozen EU novels that are superior to the last two movies. In fact, if I had my way, Timothy Zahn would have written the prequels, not Lucas; who completely botched the last two, and is looking to botch episode 3. I don't care what's "pure" Star Wars, I want quality. And quality is definately, shall we say, lacking in the prequels. Very much so.

Anyway, back on topic. I read someplace that Naboo, for example, had one senatorial vote, but was responsible for several thousand star systems, some of which were completely uninhabited. I assume most senatorial votes go by this.

Ah, yes. Here it is:This

Note that the SW2ICS describes Naboo as the representative capital of "36 full-member worlds and more than 40,000 settled dependencies, and 300,000,000 barren stars." This is still much less than a thousandth of all the million member worlds, so its representation is still disproportionate, but it does mitigate the imbalance somewhat (and as previously noted, real democracies usually incorporate a certain inequity in representation anyway). In light of this fact, It is possible that Naboo is actually a "capital planet", just as modern nations have capital cities, and that its entire economy is based on taxes. This would help explain how it can sustain itself without any noticeable industries apart from tourism, and it might also explain the civil unrest (disgruntled miners on the moons of Naboo) mentioned by the Jedi.

 

The Empire probably had many more worlds than the Republic anyway.

 

I do not want this thread to become a Canon debate. I invite all of you to read the Forum Rules And Admin Announcements Thread to read our policy on canon debate. I also do not want the Lucas bashing to continue. This is a forum for intelligent discussion, not bashing. If you disagree with Lucas, argue on why you disagree with him, don't just insult him.

 

in AOTC, when 10,000 star systems leave the republic it is thought of as a pretty big chunk, so im guessing that the empire only controlled about 20-50,000 systems, with many other worlds like hoth, or kamino empty, or independant.

 

Here's something on that:

http://stardestroyer.net/AOTC/Revelations-1.html


The Separatists
The Separatists appear to be primarily composed of commercial entities (the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, the IG Banking Clan) and manufacturers (the Geonosians), who appear to control "thousands" of star systems between them, with at least another "ten thousand" ready to join, according to Dooku.

While this may not seem like a significant portion of a galactic civilization containing millions of star systems, simple numerical ratios can be misleading. In real life, a June 1998 workers' strike at a single metal-fabrication plant in Flint, Michigan idled no less than one hundred and twenty six different GM manufacturing and assembly plants across North America (figures taken from a Time Magazine article on the strike), in addition to "economic shockwave" effects through GM's vast satellite network of first-tier, second-tier, and third-tier suppliers. With that example in mind, it is not surprising that the loss of certain key systems could potentially have a devastating effect on the galactic economy of Star Wars.

If we use a 1:100 ratio and assume that the separatists had 5,000 systems under their control at the start of the film, it is quite reasonable to use real-life precedent to imagine that the impact of their secession could affect the economic activities of ½-million star systems. If they added another 10,000 systems throughout the course of the movie, a 1:100 ratio could lead to a staggering 1.5 million star systems whose economic activities are adversely impacted. This kind of widespread economic havoc is more than enough justification for the Republic to use military force to retain the would-be separatists, hence the Clone Wars.

Moreover, the sheer industrial output of the Separatists is made clear when Poggle the Lesser indicates that not only have they designed a Death Star, but they intend to build one. The Republic could obviously ill-afford to allow this group to secede; they are weighed toward manufacturing and commercial groups, and would therefore have a disproportionate impact on the Republic even without the amplification effects of a networked economy.

Basically, I agree with this. Those planets, by themselves, aren't that much; but when you have 10,000 highly industrialized planets along with several major galactic trading corporations, the threat is enormous, even to a multi-million planet spanning Republic.

 

Well, technically every single planet in the galaxy would have belonged to the Empire. But, the de facto scope of the galaxy couldn't have been much more than 1 million-2 million planets, because Administration has to have its limits.