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The industrial might and infrastructure of the SW-galaxy

Discussion in 'Literature' started by FTeik, Aug 12, 2004.

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  1. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    Watching the SW-films we, the audience, are awed by kilometer-high starscrapers, moon-sized battlestations, mile-long warships and swarms of fighters.

    But nothing of those things drops from the sky or grows on trees.

    A galaxy-spanning military, might it be in service to a republic or an empire, needs a sufficent industrial infrastructure to stay intact. Nevermind, that an old saying claims, that "battles are won by tactics, but wars are won by logistics".

    This thread is supposed to deal with the industrial might and infrastructure of Old Republic, GalacticEmpire and New Republic.

    What quotes are there and what do they imply?



    For example:

    According to Shatterpoint, the CIS was able to built large numbers of Geonosian Dreadnoughts in secret shipyards.Enough to endanger hundreds, if not thousands of worlds still loyal to the republic.

    This means, that

    a) the Geonosians must have a lot more assets, than their homeworld,
    b) they were able to establish an unknown, but certainly very large number of shipyards in secret, what means, that nobody on the republic-side ever noticed (imagine Cuba suddenly revealing, that it has shipbuilding-capabilities comparable to those of NNS and already completed a score of air-craft-carriers),
    c) all the factories, transport-ways and shipping and so on has been kept secret, too,
    d) we have to ask ourself, for how long the seperatists, or better, the geonisians were preparing for war. Ten years? Would be a little embarrassing, if the republic suddenly has an army, but no enemy to fight.



    Another example:

    We know from "Shadows of the Empire", that XixorTransportSystems was tasked to transport the rawmaterials for the second DeathStar to Endor.

    This means, that

    a) the construction of DSII started AFTER TESB,
    b) more than fifty percent of the battlestation were completed until ROTJ, what means a lot, since we are talking about an object with a diameter of 900 kilometers when finished,
    c) since XTS transported only rawmaterials, those materials must have been refined at the constructionsite at Endor,
    d) XTS is supposed to have "only" thousand ships. Considering b), this suggests VERY LARGE ships.



    While i don´t expect this thread to reach the size of the NR-CapitalShips-thread, it would be nice, if we get lots of quotes to discuss.

    Thanks in advance.
     
  2. AdmiralNick22

    AdmiralNick22 Retired Fleet Admiral star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 28, 2003
    Interesting thread, FTeik.

    The ability to a major galactic power to produce these massive forces of warships, starfighters, and stations is incredible.

    While I do not have a specific quote at the moment, I would point out that the galaxy, while being massive, seems to put a good portion of its industrial capacity (at least in terms of warship contruction) on a handful of worlds.

    Kuat, Corellia, Mon Calamari, Fondor, Sulis Van, Lianna, and Sullust account of a huge porportion of the galaxys warship production.

    Hence why areas of industrial power tend to be defended greatly. There are not too many to risk.

    --Adm. Nick
     
  3. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    Well, Sluis Van seems to be more of a repair-yard, not a constructionsite, according to the HttE-sourcebook, IIRC.

    RendiliStarDrive seems to have a large network of small and medium-sized shipyards in the rim-territories, according to AotC:ICS. Of course it doesn´t tell us, how large "medium" really is.
     
  4. MarcusP2

    MarcusP2 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 10, 2004
    At its peak (I would assume Endor) the Empire's Navy contained 25,000 Star Destroyers (from HoT). That means 1,000 a year are produced in the Empire years, or 3 a DAY. That is extreme industrial capacity, especially given the very limited number of known shipyards.
     
  5. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    It increases even more, if one considers, that the production of ISDs didn´t start until a few years after Palpatine became emperor.

    Aside from that i think, that there were a lot more ISDs, than 25,000.

    According to the ISB (pre- or short after Yavin) every single one of the empires thousand sectors (the ISB speaks of thousandS - plural) had AT LEAST 24 ISDs in its sector-group.

    According to the RASB the size of the empires military forces has doubled in the three years between ANH and ROTJ.

    Then we have a reserve of ten percent, augmented sector-groups, the sector-groups assigned to Grand Moffs (3 at average), some in the deep core and some in the unknown regions.

    There are a lot of ISDs out there.
     
  6. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    There are also major shipbuilding facilities at Ord Trasi and Anaxes. The latter is said to be an industrial powerhouse that is an integral site for the military industrial complex of both the Old Republic and the Galactic Empire.
     
  7. President_Sharky

    President_Sharky Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 18, 2004
    Rothana, Yaga Minor, Gyndine, and Bilbringi were all subsidary shipyards of the Kuat Drive Yards, which proves that KDY was definitely not limited to Kuat, and had the capability to spread out its production of Imperial warships.

    Iron Fist says that the KDY yards encircle the entire Kuat solar system (in addition to the orbits of several planets), meaning that these Yards are absolutely enormous, thousands of times larger than Mon Calamari and Corellia's main yards. The industrial capacity to build a system-encircling shipyard is much greater than that needed to build a Death Star.
     
  8. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    To be honest, i have great difficulties with this quote from IronFist.

    IIRC, Kuat is a system with four planets. A sphere with a radius of probabely 15 lightminutes will have a surface of 9.16*10^17 square-kilometers. If each shipyard is one lightsecond away from the next we get almost 3 Million 250 Thousand space-stations serving as shipyards.

    A number, that will increase dramatically, if we put the yards closer together.

    To maintain security in such a system must be a nightmare.
     
  9. Tiedott

    Tiedott Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Jul 14, 2004
    oh btw... is it possible that the author of shatterpoint misunderstood the age of the old republic? the author is always talking about 1000 years, which is wrong... it was 1000 generations. but according to shatterpoint: when yoda tells stories from his childhood, he's telling stories from when the republic was young.
    strange nobody corrected that before releasing shatterpoint...
     
  10. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Nov 7, 2000
    In AotC Palpatine and Sio Bible also speak of a "thousand year" old republic.

    It probabely just means the current incarnation of the republic after the last war against the Sith.
     
  11. Tiedott

    Tiedott Jedi Youngling star 1

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    Jul 14, 2004
    yeah, might be... cuz the republic itself is muuuuch older
     
  12. jawajames

    jawajames Former RSA // stawars.com contributor star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA VIP

    Registered:
    Apr 26, 2002
    This means, that

    a) the construction of DSII started AFTER TESB,


    and yet the Hammertong Project for the DSII's superlaser was discovered around the time of the Battle of Yavin. It wouldn't make a lot of sense for the Empire to build the superlaser and then wait a few years to build the battle station that would house it.


     
  13. President_Sharky

    President_Sharky Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 18, 2004
    The Empire was known to have other superweapons in the works, it could have been originally planned for use on a Tarkin-like station. Main construction of the Death Star II only began after Vader contracted Xizor Transport Systems.
     
  14. JoruusCbaoth

    JoruusCbaoth Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Apr 14, 2003
    The raw materials could have been developed on some ore-rich world, but simply needing someone to haul it to a secure location for construction.
     
  15. Daniel-K

    Daniel-K Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 29, 2004
    and yet the Hammertong Project for the DSII's superlaser was discovered around the time of the Battle of Yavin. It wouldn't make a lot of sense for the Empire to build the superlaser and then wait a few years to build the battle station that would house it.
    Ignoring for a second the general iffyness of those KJA eedited stories (a large number of them contradict the films), there is nothing that says they couldn't have originally intended that to be a upgrade to the then existing DS.

    To me, the biggest indicator in the Geonosian Factories we saw in AOTC. We saw them cranking out on a single line 2 droids every 2 seconds (so 1 per second average). Allowing for 5% downtime for maintenance, that is 82,000 droids each day from a single line, from a single factory, in a single city, on a single continent, on a single planet. This in a society literally galactic in scale. Their potential production capacity is staggering. Then on top of that, consider the implications for making worker droids as pointed out by Dr. Saxton: Even if only 1% of the production is dedicated to making worker droids, and it takes 10,000 droids 30 days to build a factory, then this means the size of your droid force will double every 12 days as long as materials are provided. That's for the Seperatists, the Republic has to increase at an even faster rate just to keep even because they started at a disadvantage! And the Empire encompases both groups industrial capacities!

    It boggles the mind.
     
  16. Knight1192

    Knight1192 Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2000
    So let me see if I'm reading you right. You're looking to document the industry and infastructure used for war efforts and maintaining a standing military.
     
  17. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2000
    Not only the military.

    Comments and quotes about Industry and infrastructure in the civil sector are also welcomed.

    For example:

    How many freighters did the TradeFederation have?

    How many tons of goods are imported or exported to or from Coruscant on a daily basis?

    What is the stock-value of KDY?

    Such things.
     
  18. Pelranius

    Pelranius Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2003
    It might also be a good idea to ask how many mega liters of bacta does Thyferra produce, how much Tibannia Gas Bespin coughs up anually (granted, not very much) and how much food comes from Ukio that could feed how many people (humanoids) for a year?

    We've only just begun. :cool:
     
  19. Knight1192

    Knight1192 Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2000
    I see. I think most of the Essential Guides could help us to gain some insight into this subject. But we have to oay attention to the entires to see if they give us any insight into things such as production or places where industry may be heavily located.
     
  20. Pelranius

    Pelranius Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2003
    There are factory worlds like Balmorra and Telti which are absolutely covered in manufacturing facilities. And the Kuat system is literally one giant shipyard.
     
  21. Knight1192

    Knight1192 Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 5, 2000
    Eriadu also appears to be a factory planet. Though what it's factories produce is hard to say as the EGtPaM only gives one paragraph on the planet, the rest of the article concerns Grand Moff Tarkin. The only thing mentioned as coming from there is delicate shellwork jewlery, which is mentioned as being in addition to the industrial goods. Might want to check the last part of CoD for any mention as to what some of the factories were producing during the Old Republic. And I believe it appeared in Rebirth as well so there might be some mention about what is produced during the NJO.

    Bakura is of note as it is one of the places which produces repulsorlift technology. Both the EGtPaM and TaB make mention of this, and I believe it's mentioned again in the second book of the Force Heritic trilogy. And as we all know, repulsorlift technology is used in a wide array of items including airspeeders, landspeeders, and starships.

    Bespin is perhaps one of the most important planets in the galaxy due to the fact that it is, according to the EGtPaM, a prime source of Tibanna gas. Tibanna gas is used in a wide variety of energy weapons from blasters (which according to Galaxy Guide 2 are likely to explode if Tibanna gas is used unless a fourth of the gas the weapon requires is used due to the power Tibanna gas offers) to starship lasers. Of even greater intrest is that Bespin appears to be the only planet where Tibanna gas is naturally spin sealed, makeing the planet a Tibanna gas factory and places like Cloud City just harvest the Tibanna gas for transport off world without having to spin seal it before they prepare it for shipment. The EGtVaV also mentions it is used as hyperdrive coolant in the Cloud City entry, but the mention of gas refineries spurred me to look further. According to Galaxy Guide 2, Tibanna gas is not the only gas harvested and the refineries must seperate it from the other gases. Also according to Galaxy Guide 2, a six month supply costs 2,000 credits.
     
  22. QuentinGeorge

    QuentinGeorge Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Dec 12, 2003
    Eriadu has a write-up in the Geonosis and the Outer Rim worlds sourcebook.
     
  23. Pelranius

    Pelranius Jedi Master star 5

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    Apr 25, 2003
    Well, Bakura produced repulsor drives, but they were mostly of the novelty type.

    Tynna was a very mineral rich world, sorta like Gulf State that had metal ores instead of petroleum.
     
  24. FTeik

    FTeik Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Nov 7, 2000
    What always annoys me is, that Bespin is said to be such an important source for Tibanna-gas, while Lando clearly says in TESB, that they "are just a small outpost" and "don´t fall under the jurisdiction of the empire".
     
  25. Jort

    Jort Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 2, 2004
    They couldn't fall under the jurisdiction cuz they used illegal equipment to get more tibanna gas.
     
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