/cross-posted from A&A, Warfare threads

Hey folks, the paperwork's done so I can now announce that I'll be signing books at Star Wars Weekends May 24-26, including the new Clone Wars Episode Guide, which DK arranged to get ahead of its official street date.Details here on my Tumblr, which you of course want to follow, even though right now it's mostly Mets stuff. (Ahem.) Hope some of you can make it out -- would love to talk Star Wars, and SWW is really fun.

 

So, someone took videos of the Tokyo Star Tours ride and apparently they've recycled settings from the old Epcot ride Horizons on a video screen after the main ride is over.

Mesa Verde became the terraformed planet Bar-Neth, Sea Castle became the water world Praya and Brava Centauri Space Colony became The Edge of the Galaxy (complete with multiple space stations and a space shuttle ). Do I spy Atlas appendix additions?

 

Well, there's an odd reference in the old Rogue Squadron Handbook about a secret hyperspace route that spanned the galaxy, IIRC...

 

you mean the one Krayt used to get quickly to Dac to slaughter its inhabitants?

 

jasonfry I guess it's the best place to point this out: some people found a video of Star Tours's Japanese version, in which "new planet" were revealed: Bar-Neth, Praya and a space location known as The Edge of the Galaxy. Of course, there's also the semi-jocular Earth system.

 

This was well-timed, thank you -- I'd read that but then forgotten it and been left with the nagging feeling that something Atlas-y had happened and I was neglecting to address it. Appreciate it!

 

My pleasure! ;-) I wish I understood Japanese so I could expand the articles on those new locations. I understand that the footage for those planets was recycled from the defunct "Horizons" atrtaction at Epcot, but I can't seem to find high-quality version of those movies to illustrate the articles.

 

Added em to the spreadsheet for next Atlas appendix update. Though all subject to Leland's approval of course.

 

Indeed. I myself will be trying to have that part of the ride translated so we can gather more information on those Japan-only planets (perhaps there will be a hint as to where in the galaxy they're located.)

 

jasonfry Apparently, Bar-Neth has... five suns. With an average high temperature of 38° C...
Good Lord. Now that's silly. A quinary star system? I don't suppose suspension of disbelief can be taken that far...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_Orionis

Oh, and... http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Solay_system

 

Thanks my friend. ;-) My mistake then. Although I still don't think that a quinary star system would be stable enough to have a perfectly normal planet. And if it was so easy to terraform a planet with five suns, why didn't they just do the same thing with Tatooine? The Solay system is even more over the top, but then again, it's part of those good old Marvel weird stuff. ^^

 

Perhaps the fact that it's not supposed to be habitable is part of its tourist appeal.

This is Star Wars, half the fun is making stuff up so that it makes sense.

 

Well, maybe Bar-Neth's ambitious terraforming was only made possible because it was funded by private sponsors who wished to build their own Dubai. You know what I mean: immensely, ridiculously rich beings (Black Sun, Hutt cartels etc.) who can see no point in terraforming Tatooine for humanitarian reasons, but were willing to terraform another world so they could make more money with it. That would be as good an explanation as you'd get.

 

Exactly. It's like the difference between Dubai and any other patch of godforsaken desert that hasn't seen rain since the dinosaurs were a glint in their most recent common ancestor's eye: for various reasons, people throw money at some things and not at others.

 

Maybe the temperature average included all the empty space in between the stars? lol...

 

Tatooine has nothing there, which it is its main problem, its worthless for agricultural, any ore mined there is pretty much useless, no tourist appeal (outside of a few events thrown by the Hutts) and why bother with manufacturing if you can do that closer to the Core. Literally the only thing you can do there is use it to test dangerous technology because no one will miss the odd 200000 living there, 10% of which are local hostile tribes anyway. Hell the Hutts having set up space ports and using it as a trade depot is properly the only reason anyone is actually living there.

 

jasonfry While skimming through WEG's Galaxy Guide 9, I found reference to a "Five Veils' Tour trade route" that ran from Farstine to Skynara. In the Atlas (and Warfare), you make multiple references to the "Five Veils Route," which according to the Outer Rim map on page 32 runs down to Svivren. Are the two names meant to be alternate names for the same trade route despite the separate end points, or is the "Five Veils' Tour trade route" the name for the spur down to Skynara?

 

Indeed, really the technology is there but it goes down to whether the outcome justifies the expenditure. I would imagine the inhabitants of Tatooine would love their world to be terraformed but they wouldn't have the resources. And anyone else would see no point. Tatooine is a backwater at the other end of the galaxy, has no value and no resources. There is technically no gain for anyone to invest unless someone major came along and turned it into their homeworld. The Hutts as you said seem to be the only ones who invested but for their own set reasons.

 

Same route. Endpoints are a bit arbitrary in such things -- a tourist company might set them differently than, say, a shipping firm.

 

so where you a tourist or a shipper?

 

I can imagine some IU contention between Skynara and Svivren to be considered the "true" end point of the Five Veils Route while Farstine sits back an reaps the profits from what is essentially two trade routes ...

 

jasonfry New Atlas-y thing for your next spreadsheet; the planet of Umax, which was extracted from an obscure Spanish book by Abel Peña and Rich Handley. Not that there's a lot to say about that planet, but, well...