Quote from: Skarg;974233Well, ya, ok. I think my original comment was that I had been avoiding mentioning Star Wars in this thread at all because it's so screwed up, then going down a spiral rabbit-hole about how that galaxy view makes no sense, because it's at least conceptually on-topic.

I think Star Wars steadily declined in sense-making from film-to-film, losing all hope of redemption in The Phantom Menace, but managing to define new levels of nonsense in The Force Awakens.

The rapid-spinning nebular thingy at the end of ETB doesn't bug me; they're clearly not 'outside the Galaxy' when there are still stars all around.

Really I thought the SW Original Trilogy did a very good job at being self-consistent within its space opera paradigm. The prequels much less so, but it's only The Force Awakens where they overwrite established reality (eg how Hyperdrive works, how FTL communication works or doesn't) in ways that contradict the OT and make the universe senseless. I think the director of Force Awakens took an "It's Star Wars, it doesn't matter" attitude, and didn't appreciate at all how Lucas had created a fairy-tale reality that did have a strong sense of place, of obeying its own internal rules.

There are plenty of fantasy worlds depicted on film that do have that strong sense of place - the Star Wars OT and Hyborea in Milius' Conan the Barbarian are two that come to mind for me. (I thought Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings was generally much weaker than its source material in that regard).

Quote from: Dumarest;974236I love this place.

Clearly - you joined in April 2017 and you have 1,080 posts already.

Quote from: Biscuitician;974262Why are there lines? If a jump drive can take you anywhere, why do you need lines?

The lines don't physically exist, they are tape measures for distance (in days of transit). If the drives can take you directly from Omega Consor to Toshe Station, then another line not shown does indeed exist, and it would be up to the GM if it was significantly shorter than 48 days.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;974294The lines don't physically exist, they are tape measures for distance (in days of transit). If the drives can take you directly from Omega Consor to Toshe Station, then another line not shown does indeed exist, and it would be up to the GM if it was significantly shorter than 48 days.

Yes - general assumption is that these are the shortest charted routes the players know about. So you could certainly go Omega Consor to Toshe Station without stopping in at Tellian in the Kelron Sector, but it would still take 48 days - or longer, if you skirted the Kelron Sector entirely, for some reason.

The map only shows places mentioned so far in play - there are a thousand inhabited worlds in the Galactic Consortium alone. If players were looking for nearby systems I'd generate some and place them on the map. I don't think there's much point generating a lot of stuff pre-play; IME that's actually likely to get in the way.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;974294The lines don't physically exist, they are tape measures for distance (in days of transit). If the drives can take you directly from Omega Consor to Toshe Station, then another line not shown does indeed exist, and it would be up to the GM if it was significantly shorter than 48 days.

ok thanks.

TANGENT: this came to me while cogitating on this topic. What systems could or should exist if you have a mechanism of space travel where fleets of ships can just turn up on your galactic doorstep. THis seems to be the case in Star Wars, for example, where huge fleets can lightspeed right next to a planet. Ok in Star Wars this is just a prelude to an exciting battle betwen empire and rebels, but realistically it would make all populated worlds massively insecure. Planetary defences would have to be onverwhelming

Quote from: Biscuitician;974303ok thanks.

TANGENT: this came to me while cogitating on this topic. What systems could or should exist if you have a mechanism of space travel where fleets of ships can just turn up on your galactic doorstep. THis seems to be the case in Star Wars, for example, where huge fleets can lightspeed right next to a planet. Ok in Star Wars this is just a prelude to an exciting battle betwen empire and rebels, but realistically it would make all populated worlds massively insecure. Planetary defences would have to be onverwhelming

Well, just look at Hoth.

An uninhabited iceball, and they have a shield so powerful Vader's fleet has to land troops outside it to take out the generators and an Ion Cannon that can take out an ISD.

You could argue he didn't nuke it from orbit because he wanted them alive, but the kind of defenses you'd have on a rich, industrialized world must be staggering.

Quote from: CRKrueger;974304Well, just look at Hoth.

An uninhabited iceball, and they have a shield so powerful Vader's fleet has to land troops outside it to take out the generators and an Ion Cannon that can take out an ISD.

You could argue he didn't nuke it from orbit because he wanted them alive, but the kind of defenses you'd have on a rich, industrialized world must be staggering.

You can also probably explain away not nuking from orbit, or not sending in overwhelming forces in every instance, through cost alone. Star Wars is pretty hand-wavy, so I doubt it factored into the filmmaker's concerns. But ending ships from one part of the galaxy to another is, I imagine, a pretty big expense. Plus in a world where people can hop around, you have to be very cautious about where you position your fleets at any given time.

Quote from: S'mon;974271Clearly - you joined in April 2017 and you have 1,080 posts already.

Good Lord. I should take a few more days off then.

Quote from: CRKrueger;974038Uh, that's not a galaxy.  In the other shots, you see stars all around the fleet and that spinning disk, they're still in their galaxy.  It's a star with rings, a nebula making a star or something meant to look spacey.  They're not hanging out in the Void so far from their own galaxy they can see the whole thing like the Tyranids or Reapers.

That my thinking too. Plenty of stars around them.

Quote from: Biscuitician;973821All these are great answers,but I just have trouble visualising this.

You have a scifi empire, with suitably advanced levels of tech (we don't need to imagine anything bizarre) but I still can't square how you can have frontier or outlaw regions - especially within that border. So if you have trade routes near the civilised/imperial worlds (like a network of jumpgates or something), how then are those wilderness regions accessed? How would communities therein flourish or endure?

Easy! People are greedy. The whole point of claiming a region is ostensibly to claim resources, expand control (usually to control those resources). Some things are of no interest to Empire but might be for smaller organizations or individuals. That's how it all starts.

Frontiers are the literal edges of the established controlled region. There is *always* a frontier. No organization outside of hive-mind civilizations, do not have frontiers where people are trying to take advantage of the lack of control within those spaces.


Trade Route Scenario - it's easy. This is the Star Wars situation. That means trade routes are just that - the assumed easiest way to get from point-A to point-B. That doesn't mean there aren't things off that beaten path. Tributary routes to systems not important to the "Empire". These could be commercial routes for independent settlers, businesses, etc. Where you have people making an honest living - you have people making a dishonest living predating upon them.

Jump Gate Scenario - slightly different. In this case Jump Gate network hubs would certainly be heavily secured (though not necessarily). The assumptions would be any organization powerful enough to create Jump Gates would *have* to have a lock on that technology and guard it. However - it would also mean that there may not be FTL (for various reasons FTL might be too dangerous) - but that would entail there would have to be near-FTL travel available because SOMEONE has to scout out new places in order to build those Jump Gates later. That interval is your frontier.

Consider it could take *years* or even *decades* before the necessary personnel and construction crews could arrive to build a new Jump Gate. Hell that could be the backdrop of an entire campaign. Meanwhile scouts would have to have found a reason for a location to be worthwhile to have a Jump Gate built there. That might necessitate sending colony ships to that location to "set up shop" for work-crews etc. The entirety of which is - as mentioned before, about logistics. This doesn't even assume things like warfare etc are in the mix. Even after a Jump Gate is created, all the corresponding locales of note around the Jump Gate aren't necessarily secure. Figure a Jump Gate might only service a localized region of no more than a system or two (depending on FTL is a thing). That's how you control it. The closer to the Jump Gate - the more secure it is. The further from it - the less. Let human nature take its natural course.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;974308Star Wars is pretty hand-wavy, so I doubt it factored into the filmmaker's concerns.

The Death Star trench existed so they could do Dam Busters, and the Battle of Hoth existed so they could do Stalingrad.  Full stop.

No screenwriting decision in any Star Wars movie had anything to do with internal setting consistency or sense of place.  It's ten-year-old George Lucas' favorite movies in a blender.

Quote from: daniel_ream;974376The Death Star trench existed so they could do Dam Busters, and the Battle of Hoth existed so they could do Stalingrad.  Full stop.

No screenwriting decision in any Star Wars movie had anything to do with internal setting consistency or sense of place.  It's ten-year-old George Lucas' favorite movies in a blender.

Well, 10-year old through Film School.  Doubt he's watching Kurosawa films as a 5th grader in Modesto.

Quote from: CRKrueger;974378Well, 10-year old through Film School.  Doubt he's watching Kurosawa films as a 5th grader in Modesto.

The funny thing is Lucas never denied this.  He stated explicitly that he did Star Wars but actually wanted to do Flash Gordon.  Once you comprehend this, all else follows naturally.

Star Wars was a $10M cheapie that the studio let him do as a reward for American Graffiti.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;974380Star Wars was a $10M cheapie that the studio let him do as a reward for American Graffiti.

Little did they know that a cultural phenomenon was in the making.

Nobody knew, least of all George Lucas.