Lit Alderaan vs. Naboo vs. Ithor vs. ? or how to live nature-friendly in a technological universe!

Many political and cultural trends influence Star Wars and inform its future, even if indirectly. Star Wars is ancient myth + modern social commentary both as per Lucas himself. So I wonder, lets take some hot topics of our current era and analyse their inclusion into the galaxy far far away.

Topics like climate change, pacifism, preservation of nature, reduction of harmful industry in favor of working with nature instead of against it are all trending in our world, but also in some gffa places...


Alderaan, with or without weapons before and after the Clone Wars, is proud of its pacifism and protection of nature. It understands itself as a rolemodel world and bastion of art, peace and harmonic coexistance with nature and all life. Though it has a deep undercurrent of ancient core world pride, it is often protrayed as THE penultimate Star Wars utopia with its benevolent monarchy assisted by a democratic government.


Naboo is neither a coreworld, nor aspiring to be the rolemodel Alderaan is. But it equally is a hub of art and beauty. Yet where Alderaan is inclusive to all species and settlers, the Naboo have a long feud and separation with their Gungan natives that only was ended and made better after Amidalas reign and treaty. Despite a lack of heavy weapons, the Naboo train to be able to defend themselves. They also have lots of well kept nature, but here art and beauty prevail before nature and its preservation. As cities grow, nature is tamed to make space for a Theed spaceport for example. Naboo is as idyllic as Alderaan, yet here an undercurrent of later Imperial traits can be felt.


Ithor is a world where its native species took to the skies and stars to let the world heal and florish without their harmful technological influence. This is the ideal example of nature preservation, yet extreme for it involves removing one species instead of integrating it and it living in a non-harming less technological way as Alderaan does try to balance.


Coruscant and many Agriworlds share a full planetary weather control system that has replaced any natural weather cycles with automated structured weather cycles to increase production. Total control, even over weather, may be useful, but the means of doing it (be it chemical or else?) is less than optimal.


From Duro to Eriadu, many polluted worlds suffer from their industry or are at the brink of extinction. Raxus Prime and other junkworlds like Ord Mantell, Ronyard and the one Spidermaul lived happily ever after for some time are dead heaps that surprisingly are still inhabited.


In the GFFA, Junk is shot into space, into the sun or delivered to junkworlds and space debris junkyards for derelict ships and compressed junk-pieces. while junkers look for valuable materials to recycle and sell, this is only a minor part of the galactic junk that gets reused. With the Legends World Devastators capability of turning anything, especially junk, into newly fabricated stuff, and similiar Abominor Droids like the Great Heap that can eat junk for breakfast, at least faster Junk reduction is thinkeable.


Even the Yuuzhan Vong and their biotechnology are in one way living closer to nature, yet in another parasitic and replacing native fauna with Vong fauna, thus harmful.

The Mon Calamari of Dac try to live harmonic with the oceans yet their coinhabiting Quarren species is less concerened about that with their refineries and factories littering the oceanground and poluting oceans.

Canto Bight is a city in the middle of a desert complete with artificial ocean. Half Las Vegas, half Dubai so to speak where the rich do not mind what happens to the rest of the galaxy so long they live in their social luxury bubble with slavery, childlabor and mistreatment and animal cruelty right under their noses ignored so long it is hidden from sight, heck even if it is in plain sight.

Kashyyyk and Endor have species living with nature, and in the Wookiees case despite a knack and use of technology they manage to not let it take over their lifes.




So after galactic refugee crisis and help movements, is it time to adress the next modern topics in the GFFA? Interesting stories could spring from that.

 

That actually brings to mind the Mass Effect codex entry about the Citadel Conventions and Weapons of Mass Destruction: https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Codex/Citadel_and_Galactic_Government#Citadel_Conventions

Presumably habitable planets just as rare and valuable in the Star Wars galaxy...so why would anyone allow one to become ecologically devastated like Duro, or waste it turning it into a junkworld?

 

Very good point indeed. I see it like this, with the improvement of terraforming technology, the value of habitable words lessened given one can make them habitable now although that costs a lot of effort and money. But in SW repeatedly big companies and conglomerates operate as main drive that funds scouting and exploration in order to discover valuable resources that can be stripmined and sold. It has been ages since the Republic or Jedi or others funded or undertook peaceful settlement missions, with Outbound Flight in Legends even being the exception and not the rule.

A second point is, lawmakers live in the core and see the Outer Rim as their playground to stripmine and use for unpaid labor, which is why nobody takes up measures against slavery there even under the Republic. Same for unexplored Wild Space and Regions that are lawless and free game like open international waters are on Earth as last refuge.

In the distant past Czerka was one of the main companies like that and others have joined the trend in modern times.

So there seems to not be a sentiment of value towards habitable planets outside of their resources. With Alderaan, Ithor, etc. and few others being the exception that try to push the agenda towards planetary preservation. Rogue One's prequel novel had a great lot of intel on that with Lyra Erso's scientist background and Republic protected worlds (forgot the exact term) due to special environments/habitats or else. The list was shrunk and reduced to be sold off to the companies under the Empire for the Death Star Projects ressources allocation by Krennic.

If rich people can turn the Canto Bight desert into a paradise city they do not care how they trash the planets of the galaxy in the process of their business as long as they got their paradise retreats, be it Coruscans moon Hesperidium or other luxury resorts. The general populace work and living conditions are secondary to them.

The GFFA needs a movement to fight this. We need kids like Greta as GFFA version, the children's crusade.

In Legends, rather late although they did it, FOTJ managed to fight slavery and free slave species of the Hutts. The rebuilding after the Vong war too left many worlds with integrating nature they couldn't remove anymore, like Vongformed flora and fauna on Green Coruscant etc. New canon has some movement shaking up the Hutts post Jabbas death as Aftermath trilogy alluded to, but we have yet to see that era expanded and see what truly changed.




PS: Your username got me thinking about another component: Galactic spreading of diseases and plagues like the BlueShadowVirus etc. Who controls and supervises that? Travel seems despite BOSS regulations and tax or toll laws rather unrestricted and taking plants, animals, minterals, livestock or else anyplace is happening all the time spreading countless viruses and else.

We had few hints at species reacting to each other weird, or allergies. We had such alluded to in WEG rpg most of all, Legends sidelined it or used it only where needed for plot.

Is there a galactic center for disease control? GCDC?

Does it have an emergency fleet of medical staff and security forces to blockade planets or systems, even sectors to limit spreading dangerous diseases? Do they call upon judical forces for that? Something like Doctors without frontieres and similiar organisations in the GFFA?

It's not like in Trek where transportertech comes with viruscontrol and desinfection services.

In SW most atmospheres are only checked for breathability, not spores or other stuff by sensors before leaving a ship. Even scouts and their probe droids who survey such stuff seem to be the only ones who take care of that. Once a scout logged his report as "I survived" a world seems to be fair game and nobody is careful anymore. Animal stowaways spread to other worlds, as to plants, spores, viruses etc.

How much life must be lost to the ages and extinct in the GFFA already due to uncontroled spread and interactions? The very first centuries of expansion and exploration must have been the killer, literally.

Aside disease and pest control, oversight of food and beverage production must also go nuts to note which species can or can not eat and drink what from where when and how. People in cantinas are offered stuff and try it all the time not reading thousands of pages of instructions first. One species fine drink is anothers poison. Some species may be harmless until brought together and then they become toxic or explosive. Medicine, food and beverages on their own are already tough to control, add mixability and you go crazy. How do they test quadrillions of stuff how it interacts with the rest of the quadrillions of options before declaring it safe?

Maybe that is why the GFFA's technical evolution happens slow and seems to have hit a peak for thousands of years. New stuff is researched and invented all the time but it takes centuries at best before its tested and released to the masses!!!

 

How much do we know about Ithor in canon, really? The Wook is pretty vague on it (although I do did just stumble onto the surprising fact that Roron Corrob is back in canon thanks to Pablo's lightsaber book from last year).

Good topic and nice rundown of the Alderaan/Naboo dichotomy in particular. It's easy to think that those worlds could be interchangeable especially if you remember pretty much assuming that what turned out to be Naboo in TPM probably would be Alderaan and might have narratively made sense that way early on. I'm never quite sure to what extent Lucas intended the somewhat dark speciesist strain he introduced in the "hero" Naboo to prefigure Imperial tendencies, but that's certainly there to be inferred.

 

Thx. We do not know much about canon Ithor yet, aside that it probably did not change much yet. But Ithorians appear offworld here and there and those are shown to either be businessmen like Dok Ondar on Baatu or even some darker characters that do not adhere to the majority of Ithorian ideals we know. Then again, those are out far from their home, and maybe for a good reason.


Another point: Corellia

In Legends it was Earthlike with famous golden beaches, cities etc. but with plenty extensive oceans. In canon we have yet to hear from its landmasses, which do exist. Canon focussed more on the naval culture of Corellians that turned them from shipbuilders to spaceshipbuilders. Venice-like canals and cities built on/around water dominated in Solo A Star Wars Story. In a way it looked more like Japan's attempt to create artificial landmasses and expand its cities beyond limited space into the ocean. In the same vain, the focus on construction and factories which they are famous for galaxywide also reminded me in part of japanese workculture. Whereas Legends placed shipyards in space, canon seems to go for more planetbound facilities, although spacefacilities exist too. Aside Japan and Venice, Corellia also invokes in part US automobile culture and the US cities famous for its car production of old that currently are in a crisis with lots of abandoned factoris and buildings and slums rising in their midst due to folks loosing jobs and crime rate increasing (like with Solo and the gangs).

While we so far only saw Corellias darker side in canon, with few glimpses of high rise luxury life through Kiras eyes when on a mission for them worms, we learned that Corellias culture is not too different from Canto Bight Corporate Sector culture as well as Coruscans lofty high rise society throning above the lowlifes below in the shadows. Typical Core World pride vs. the worker castes below them.


To contrast this point: Chandrila

Mon Mothma's home is another individual approach. Not as pristine as Alderaan yet not as urbanized as other Core worlds, Chandrila tries to strike a balance between nature preservation and cityscape too but not at the level Alderaan is playing. Cities are far more average in design and function despite being cleaner than the average city elsewhere. Focus here lies more on democracy and participation than other aspects of life. While they learned to involve nature in their lifes, they know how to separate nature and industry. They may devote major landpatches to industrialized areas yet balance it with keeping others clear and for recreation instead of mixed growth of both kinds of areas.


In the GFFA it is time to introduce more parties and supporters of a wider range of interests than just: pro/contra war parties or centrist vs. populist factions or the like. All the smaller yet not longer that small parties that see ascend and increase in numbers in the real world might exist in the gffa too.

Give me...

... a minor party of former slaves that try to push Anti-Slavery Laws
... Droid Rights Activists
... a GFFA Green party with various topics like limiting the big conglomerates and companies from stripmining and polluting worlds, etc.
... Free the Holonet Movement against censorship and advocating free sharing of information and knowledge as well as technology, against patenting and licensing all to death
... Han Solo's brief stint into politics as figurehead of a Smuggler and Pirates founded party that advocates free trade and less restrictions, tolls, taxes etc. and an end to burocracy regarding all the worlds different regulations (at least until Leia frownds at Han and he is out in favor of new figurehead Hondo Ohnaka! oh my!)
... a party advocating rule of Forceusers by right of superiorty (darksider party so to speak run by nonforceusers who are manipulatd by darksider lobbyists)
... a party for longlived species advocating the rule of those around longer due to different insight and wanting longer ruling periods in office befitting their species perception of time and age
... a party of diminuitive species speaking up for their heigth and advantages and disadvantages
... Anti humanocentrism party (against imposure of human and humanoid standards on all species regarding size regulations, compabilities and preferences in love, education, travel, etc.)
... High Human Culture party (putting forther the question of difference between equality vs. fairness)
... Diversity Alliance (founded by several aliens)
... a Zeltron party that misunderstood the word party and has fun, lots of it despite it in politics
... a shapeshifter party against discrimination of shapeshifters due to their abilities and against generalisation or abuse of them as spies etc.
... religious based parties basing their governmental coda on either the Church of the Dark Side, the Church of the Force, Jediism, other Jedha cults and movements, Order of the Terrible Glare etc. even one advocating a return to worship of the Old Ones / Old Gods (warning for what will happen if one does not do this)
... a party of comedians and satire folks that started as fun but turned into an alternative to old school politics with growing support and a serious mindset when it comes to voting

... a clear distinction between political parties and lobby groups is needed for during the Prequels both seemed indistinguishable with the big companies owning territories and members votes legally!
...

 

You know, I'd kind of like to see those ages. After all the Evil Omnipresent Megacorporations we've seen strip-mining one place after another, I could really go for an age when "peaceful settlement missions" by the Jedi or Republic were the norm.

One of the cooler promises of the NJO that was never delivered was the idea that the existing galactic order had been completely upended by the time the Yuuzhan Vong War was over, and that a lot of the new big players were people who weren't necessarily the traditional Core-based ones. Sadly, I don't think that got much of a follow-up either.

 

A lot the NJO did got ignored later. Passing the torch, changing status quo etc. they even went as far as outright destroying the capital of Coruscant and renaming the government to signal it's time for something new, and named a new capital. But later on it is all ignored and back. They skipped the interesting rebuilding phase, Jacen's sojourn and turned any new Force philosophy on its head making the Jedi childish with the Jedi High Council infighting like kids to the point of killing each other. As much as I love moments from the post NJO, it was not a good continuation. Fate of the Jedi picked up some of NJOs leads but too late too few.


Age of Exploration would make a nice setup, especiall given all the different means of travel and settling. Generational ships, hyperspace cannons, Gree or Kwa hypergates, Forceuser based Astrogation help as Hyperspace Navigators Guild, etc. finding and having to deal with indigenious life (and their rights) mirroring American conquests and settlement, or finding long lost colonies of generational ships or hyperspace mishaps turned unplanned colony. Dawn of the Jedi showed regionalized conflicts serve SW as well and wars do not have to be galactic! Personal character conflicts work much better even.


Hypothetical post Legacy era theme in Legends if I were to choose: Mon Calamari reverting cruisers to exploration vessels and taking to the satellite galaxies and beyond. Unknown Regions get a new name, due to becoming known with the first establishment of 2 new major routes in that area rivaling the hydian way and perlemian opening up a new Slive to the east of the galaxy which progresses fast with the rediscovery of long lost colonies there, Zakuul, Odessen, Ach-To, etc. effectively splitting the former Unknown Regions into galactic Regions like "The New Colonies", "The Ssi Ruuvi Outback", "Chiss Dependencies", "The Old Reach", etc.
One of the first successful extragalactic missions to reach another galaxy then might be the Brodo Asogians (callback to E.T.!) many thousand years later.

 

can you expand on what you mean with the bold parts?

 

Essentially I meant that Ithor and Alderaan both share ideals of preserving nature instead of harming it. Yet where Ithorians left their surface behind to florish free of their influence, living and working in herdships in the skies and orbit, Alderaanians still live and work on the surface but build their cities nature friendly and integrate them into nature seemless. Alderaan builds cities with nature in mind and leaving a minimal impact on it only, whereas Ithorians want NO impact at all on nature.

Alderaan accepted itself as part of nature and tries to live with it instead of against it. Ithor saw how species harm their planets and thus Ithorians left their planet kinda to stay in orbit so nature is undisturbed.

Two opposing, yet both nature preserving, methods. One built on the removal of harmfulf factors, another focusing on not removal but integration of everyone and everything. In that regard, Alderaanians live a balance with nature in their daily lives, whereas Ithorians failed to live said balance, removed themselves from the surface and kept living their technological life in their herdships and elsewhere offplanet. You can see that as a critique on Ithorian ideals whereas they failed to integrate themselves into nature, fled it and despite trying to be the ideal of nature lovers, are rather hypocrites that do not understand that they too are an essential part of their planets ecosystem and created for a reason by mother nature.

In a way this also can be a metaphor for the Force (as a source of all life and created by life), which can be used to integrate all parts of life, including the shadow (dark side), as opposed to trying to remove the shadow failing to understand it is a natural part of life (as TLJ Luke taught Rey).

 

Doesn't Coruscant factor into this as an example of the endpoint in the other direction? In which case it is probably talked of as an example not to follow on other worlds.

 

exactly, Coruscant is dead, deforrested, oceans drained and reduced to work as planetwide subterran sewer. With 5000+ levels and each level being as thick as a skyscraper as per TCW I wonder how thick the cityscape is compared to the planetary crust. Don't do the math, it's kind of impossible with taking the planets canon diameter and approximate calculations to make sense of it.


Other planetary examples are f.e. worlds that keep their nature relatively untouched by centering all industry and citycscape one one or two continents only. The rest of the planet is untouched mostly. Forgot the example name I had earlier for that. Wasn't it what Kuat does on the ground?

Other worlds found other solutions by banning industry planetside and moving it to the industrialized moon only. Or the other way around, turn the moon into a paradise retreat of nature and let the planet devolve into cityscape and industry.


Given you brought up Coruscant, lets discuss Green Coruscant as seen in the Visionaries comic which I surmise is the look of post-NJO Vong War Coruscant:

With moons destroyed and thus new mineral rich rings as well as a shifted orbit around its sun, Coruscant's most profound changes have never been seen followed up on in the EU proper. The Vong's destruction of the moons did alter its orbit due to gravitational changes, but they also moved the planet entire closer to the sun I read, a bit at least leading to a climate change that no longer required orbital mirrors heating it up.

!! This changes Coruscants calendar and dating system, day, night cycles, everything and nobody cares to follow up on that? !!

But back to mother nature. Vongformed Coruscant also changed in other aspects. Icecaps melted due to the climate change and move flooding the lower levels. Fungi and Vong plants grew in many places eroding and feeding on the derelict buildings. Elsewhere cityscape had been erased entirely, either removing several levels down or where the level city crust was not as thick, hitting the surface maybe around Coruscants former mountainscapes like Monument Plaza etc.? Coruscant now has free polar continents with florishing flora and fauna as well as a Venicelike canal system in lower city.

Even if post Vong the Galactic Alliance removed many Vong lifeforms and tried to rebuild, Coruscant will never be the same. Mining may remove the rings from orbit, but they can't move it back to restore the calendar and dating system working properly like before.


Another example of living with nature is the Vong: They abandoned tech when Silentium and Abominor wrecked their home. But turning to biotech they made the same errors techusers made. They imposed their will on nature, shaped it and did not respect it. They perverted nature into whatever they desired to create. This could be taken as a third example to the above two. Neither living with nature, nor removing oneself to let nature be, but to abuse nature. Nor removing nature to live technological only as Coruscant did and cyborgs etc. do.

 

Oh, dear. Have you told all the people, animals and plants living there that? I don't think they know.

Or it could just be a photo from another part of Coruscant then the Senate area, where the architectural fashion is hanging gardens. Coruscant is after all a planet and just because it's established that it's covered in buildings all over don't mean that all the building follow a similar design idea. Probably the part of town where nature liking species have their main areas.

I think you are using "less technological way" wrong in the original post since the Ithorians are living a high-tech lifestyle with lots of gardens and plants in their heardships.

 

Within herdships Ithorians try to maintain gardens through technology usage, whereas they also try to regulate any herdship influences on the Mother jungle below when in orbit or airspace of their homeworld. So yes they live a hightech lifestyle, using hightech to maintain nature where needed while at the same time removing tech and themselves from their homeworld below.

The sentence where I used "less technological way" i was comparing Ithor and Alderaan and it referred to Alderaan, not Ithor. Alderaan also uses high tech but where Ithorians try to save the Mother Jungle and in return have to use hightech to survive themselves in space as well as to keep gardening in space, Alderaanians do need less technology than Ithorians do because they integrate themselves into nature.

Think of it as a scale: Ithorians are idealists that separate themselves from nature to preserve it. On the other end are those that abuse nature for their sake. In the middle is Alderaan that lives in harmony with nature.
Both extremes are unnatural and at the expense of either oneself or nature.

 

Minor thought I just had befitting this topic, with most heroes stemming from desert worlds, Anakin, Luke, Rey etc. I find it especially interesting to get something different for a change. A hero not stemming from poverty or desolate places but rather a green and florishing world with healthy nature. Be it like Padmé Amidala from Naboo who despite her beautiful world only knew it from the artsy side of gardening, vs. the natural wild untamed world of the Gungsans, or be it like Leia whose Alderaan was a happy contrast to Coruscant and the galaxys nature-destroying economy. With Alderaan a prime example on how to integrate nature into life and work.

At least some technology driven worlds like Kuat and Eriadu keep parts of nature alive but that borders on New York Central Park styled preserves more than actual taking care for nature.

 

One aspect that is important to remember is that in the GFFA there is more advanced waste disposal technology, as well as clean sources of power and the like. Not to mention a galactic economy, with regards to raw materials and food. Which in some ways makes managing planetary environments easier as resources can be gained from elsewhere.

This isn't to say every world is respectful towards the environment, effort and a conscious mode of being still has to be put into it, but its a lot easier.

 

I would think a spacefaring civilization would be acutely aware that habitable planets are a limited resource. There's just a huge amount of space out there, and not that much planet. If you ruin your world, there's nowhere to go. Yeah, you could have sentients living on space stations or ships, but those are poor substitutes. Even the Death Stars and Yuuzhan Vong worldships are tiny compared to the smallest of planets.

 

Well you can have better space habitats-ringworlds and the like. Which is something you see in other sci fi works. But in SW planets remain the dominant form of habitation.

I would agree though-habitable planets are limited even at a galactic level. And thus the aim would be to preserve their ecologies as much as is possible. Not that is always the case, the Corporate Sector being an example in point.

 

You seems to believe that high technology somehow stops people from being greedy or cutting corners.

But for most species so is it so much natural and nice to live on planets.