Lit The Essential Atlas and Galactic Cartography: Official Discussion

I remember this too, it certainly is a fact

However, let's keep in mind that (a) there are a number of grandfathered "single planet/system" seats and (b) that the Senate was expanded to allow "organizations" to hold seats as well - witness the Trade Federation and the Corporate Alliance.

appendix update is live at the official site now together with new map... I am drooling over it for hours already and no discussion here? shame on you all!

NEW MAP! YAY!

Edit: I love all the hints of stories there - the Cantons, the Grants, the Har Worlds...

Link?

EDIT: Here you go, Nick:
http://www.starwars.com/atlas/expansion-region/index.html

Every time I see that artificial border of nothingness, I curse the Expanding Universe and whoever came up with the idea of "hyperspace barriers". Other than that, lovely work as usual, Modi.

Welllll, go ahead and curse the EU for the artificial border of nothingness, but the hyperspace barriers were a subsequent and IMHO praiseworthy attempt to make the ABoN make slightly more sense.

First person to ask me when the Inner Rim gets sectorized gets yelled at.

True. I like how this also gets adressed with a retconned retcon in the Atlas itself, with transports from exotic Wild Space and Unknown Regions planets making it through to port-worlds like Terminus. Including a picture of said port. It's just the original principle I don't agree with, since pre-90s EU had a bit more leeway (or undefined canon) in their stories.

Deep Core is still on for 2016, though, right?

Alright.

When will the Core Worlds get sectorized?

Not like the places there are unreachable, as it also explained in the Atlas, just less easy and to get to and with far less stable hyper lanes.

There is so much worse stuff we should start chunking out if we start doing so.

Considering that travel and trade are heavily dependent on hyperspace routes - which aren't evenly distributed across the galaxy - I really don't see an issue with it. The Republic's expansion is just as much a historic result of the major hyperspace routes.

And it's good to see that the creation of "freestanding subsectors" made the problem of Candoras Sector no problem at all.

I will say this -- when the Core gets done, the Deep Core gets done too. I think there are only eight sectors in the Deep Core or somesuch.

The Inner Rim/Colonies/Core, though, man. Tons and tons of sectors, less space, and there's very little in terms of defined sector borders or even names.

Ah well. Just another challenge!

It sounds like the Core and Colonies would be so affluent and old, there'd be a huge amount of tiny sectors, each centering around a powerful capital world. The further from the Core you get, the bigger the sectors become and the more sparsely populated they are.

I just came across an extremely obscure planet that I don't believe is in the Atlas Appendix. "R2-D2's Tales from the Data Banks," in Marvel UK's Return of the Jedi #83, is an N-canon story, since it begins on Earth. Nevertheless, the main character, Boris Bronson, builds a spaceship capable of traveling to "other universes." He then travels to an unnamed planet with advanced alien life. Given the ship's capabilities, this planet could be somewhere in the GFFA. At the very least, the planet should get a name.

name it Bronsooine please!

Dan, Modi, Leland and I actually hashed out the number of sectors per region shortly after the publication of the print Atlas. Was kinda fun to do -- started with 1,024 and then added sectors for Imperial expansion/administration/etc. Tziz is right -- closer to the Core you get, smaller and more numerous the sectors are. Makes sense but a nightmare in terms of making maps and coming up with decent-sounding names.

Maybe a different scale for those maps, the sectors would be drawn the same size and with the same font for ease of reading.

Oooooh, what about a gazetteer for Sector Zero? Beautiful work as always, Jason and Modi and Dan.

The Core Worlds seem to name their sectors after their primary worlds fairly often, which I suppose works rather well with the idea that each is intentionally centered around a powerful Core planet.

They'd also have more time to colonize and divide into various political centers given the gradual growth of the Republic over many millennia. Even in "modern times" there's great swathes of uncharted/unpopulated galactic space in-between known and populated systems and the Core is the most heavily populated parts of galactic civilization.

The concentration of known worlds would probably look better on a 3D map of the galaxy, since the disk is thicker towards the core. We're looking at more systems above and below one another, in addition to side-by-side, than in the outer portions of the galaxy.

That's what I'm really waiting for - something like the room-sized Galaxy map from AotC! Pop-out planetary/system data optional!

What I'd like to see are more "local" sector maps - like Corellian Sector, or the Koornacht Cluster region - areas where stories have been set in a localized area, a la the Grumani Sector map tie-in for Knight Errant. I would love to see more Atlas - or even Warfare! - tie-ins to upcoming works.