The size of the Star Wars Galaxy

[Boeing 757]

Does it matter that Leland Chee confirmed that the stellar object shown at the end of TESB was indeed the Star Wars galaxy?

That is what the audio commentary of TESB hints as well.
Here is a planar view of the model used to shoot the scene in TESB if anyone is interested. It's a popular theory for a reason, the resemblance to a spiral galaxy is striking, but not wholly conclusive to end all controversy.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It appears this lengthy trainwreck of a thread is nearing it's end. I can feel pleased to be vindicated, and also I can be very proud of my self-control for not breaking my keyboard in frustration...

[Simon_Jester]

My own closing remarks are on the general subject of the Star Wars galaxy's size.

Watch-Man's recognizable arguments seem to have fit into the following categories:

---

1) Hyperspace navigation is hazardous, based on Han's remarks while fleeing Tatooine in the Falcon. Therefore, celestial bodies must be very dense... Since just pointing at an empty patch of sky and pressing the 'go' button apparently leads to a hazard of "flying right through a star" or some such.

I refuted this by reference to the 18th-19th century astronomical observation known as Olbers' Paradox. Olbers' Paradox essentially reduces to "if the universe is infinite, why is the sky dark?"

Because given 19th century knowledge of astronomy, if the universe were infinite, then if you draw a line from Earth in any direction it would eventually encounter a star, whose light would be at least faintly visible. Sure, the nearer stars would be (much) brighter. But while the apparent brightness of any one star would drop off with the square of the distance, the total number of stars would increase with the square of the distance because of how the mathematics of calculus works.

Recall that Olbers' Paradox depends on these assumptions:
-The observable universe is infinitely large
-We can see forever in all directions
-The universe is (more or less) uniformly full of stars

In reality, the night sky is dark because:
-Nebulas block out much of the light from distant stars in our own galaxy and scatter it away into intergalactic space, or shift it into the infrared where we cannot see it visually. Thus, we cannot see forever in all directions, refuting the second assumption.
-Beyond our own galaxy there is void for millions of light years in nearly all directions, with no or nearly no stars. This creates a buffer of 'dark' space, and is very different from the uniform-in-all-directions, full-of-stars cosmos that early 19th century astronomers thought they lived in. That refutes the third assumption.
-Even once you cross that void and reach other galaxies, the observable universe is finite in size, due to the finite age of the universe and the finite speed of light. Note that in the 1700s and 1800s, it was known that light had finite speed, but was not known whether the universe had finite age! This refutes the first assumption; it is entirely possible to draw a line from here to the edge of the observable universe and not hit any star (or even any galaxy, despite the fact that galaxies consist almost entirely of empty interstellar space).
-Moreover, very distant galaxies have their light red-shifted to such an extent that their light is not visible to the naked eye, which further undermines the second assumption in a way that 19th century physics astronomy could not predict... although even if we use infrared telescopes to cancel out this problem, we still run into the edge of the observable universe as discussed above.

Now, if we apply Olbers' Paradox to the Star Wars Galaxy, we observe that the night sky in Star Wars, even if stars are denser than in our own sky, are NOT so dense that the sky is a single ocean of pure, blinding, sun-bright light. Therefore, most lines drawn from a given planet (Tatooine) to the edge of the galaxy must contain no stars. The lines might pass close to a star, but not close enough to pose any undue hazard to navigation. We know Star Wars ships can safely pass through hyperspace within a few hundreds of millions of kilometers of a star, after all, or they wouldn't be able to jump to hyperspace near inhabited planets.

Therefore, Han's fear of making a hyperspace jump without calculations must NOT be caused by the fear of slamming directly into a star because of how densely packed the stars are. There must be some unknown hazard of hyperspace travel- either one that causes you to accidentally get sucked into stars (if Han is speaking literally to Luke in that scene), or something entirely unrelated (if Han is just trying to shut Luke up and still thinks of Luke as an ignorant rube, which to be fair is a response that fits the facts as Han sees them).

...

Watch-Man never responded to my refutation. Indeed, he chose not to acknowledge I had made it, instead using my statement that I hadn't had time to review the whole thread in detail at the time as a pretext to completely ignore all that I said.

(note to moderators: I'm still a bit miffed about this).

---

Watch-Man also asserted:

2) There is no evidence for the Star Wars galaxy being 'large' in the sense that the Milky Way is large.

Watch_Man argued that there was no evidence of the Star Wars galaxy being 'large,' with the implication that if it was only, oh, a thousand light years across, then it wouldn't be nearly so impressive for spaceships to be able to cross it in a matter of days.

Several posters refuted this claim. To summarize, they presented multiple images from three different movies depicting the Star Wars galaxy, all of which depict it as a spiral galaxy. Spiral galaxies that are less than, oh, 15-20 thousand light years in diameter are rare and unusually dim. Therefore, it is a priori unlikely that the Galaxy Far Far Away is one of those (rare) tiny spiral galaxies... and made outright impossible because the Galaxy Far Far Away is not dim, as such a tiny spiral would be.

Watch-Man responded to this refutation by refusing to understand Wikipedia articles written in the English language, to an extent that I can only call willful illiteracy.

---

Watch-Man also argued:

3) Many important stars in Star Wars are relatively close together, as demonstrated by the hoops Obi-Wan had to jump through in order to communicate messages during his investigations of Kamino and Geonosis in Attack of the Clones.

This argument is basically true... for certain values of 'close together.' The problem is that 'close together' may well be measured in thousands if not tens of thousands of light years when we talk about galactic distances.

The only problematic thing is the use of the word 'parsec' to describe the distance between Geonosis and Naboo. However, there is already precedent for the word 'parsec' being abused by Star Wars writers, and the person who used the term is not herself an astronomer or professional navigator.

Watch-Man didn't really respond to any of these things that undermine his argument, so far as I can recall.

---

Watch-Man also argued:

4) Star Wars stars must be close together because the Falcon traveled from Hoth to Bespin without a hyperdrive in no more than a few weeks or months.

The obvious problem with this is that for it to be true, stars in Star Wars have to be very close together, which runs us into problems.

One is that it's questionable whether that would actually work as an astrophysics thing. If the mean distance between stars were something like a light-month, then while two stars passing within a light-day or so of each other would be rare, it would be a fairly routine event on the scale of deep astronomical time. In that case, stars would routinely pass close enough that one star's gravity would perturb the orbits of another star's planets. Stable planetary systems as we know them could not realistically exist, certainly not for periods of billions of years, so the evolution of life as we know it would seem impossible..

Another issue is political and practical- the Rebels were desperate to hide from the Empire. It would be folly of them to construct a hidden base within a few light-weeks of a neutral trading station whose owner might discover them and sell them out to the Empire at any time. The only way that would be a sane thing to do is if Star Wars stars are so close together that even being a few light-weeks away means that Hoth is far from the closest star system to Bespin.

But if that were true, then the night sky in Star Wars would basically be a uniform sea of light even if the galaxy is 'only' a few dozen light years across, since literally every star in the galaxy would be very nearby and bright. Besides which, then the mean separation between stars is so close that stars would disrupt each others' planetary systems literally all the time; it is doubtful whether planets could even form. For that matter, it is doubtful whether stars as we know them in the Milky Way, as things with lifespans measured in billions of years could form.

As far as I can tell, if a galaxy were that dense all its matter would coalesce into a much smaller number of hypermassive blue giants, which would promptly collapse into black holes after a few million years at most. Either the galaxy would turn into a huge black hole, or the radiation pressure from all the ultra-bright stars would blast the remaining gas and dust out into space, scattering them widely and destroying the improbably dense 'galaxy.'

[Galvatron]

Does it matter that Leland Chee confirmed that the stellar object shown at the end of TESB was indeed the Star Wars galaxy?

That is what the audio commentary of TESB hints as well.
Here is a planar view of the model used to shoot the scene in TESB if anyone is interested. It's a popular theory for a reason, the resemblance to a spiral galaxy is striking, but not wholly conclusive to end all controversy.

Doesn't Chee's declaration end the controversy?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Hmm, a final thought that occurred to me. Is there anything in the film to say that Bespin isn't in the Anoat system? Because that would neatly solve the apparent closeness of Anoat and Bespin without having to invoke the backup/jerry-rigged hyperdrive theory.

[Batman]

There's Leia's assumption that 'Lando' is a system.

[Eternal_Freedom]

True. Pretty weak evidence though.

[Batman]

Besides, if we want to be pedantic, how did the Falcon 'get' to the Anoat system? Hoth is referred to as a system routinely and the Falcon's hyperdrive is a no-go until R2 fixes it after the Bespin escape, and Han's escape plan hinged on the ISDs dumping their garbage before going to hyperspace, so how did they get from Hoth to Anoat?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Good points. I really have no answer, except to say that there must be one.

[Simon_Jester]

The sanest explanation is that the Falcon's hyperdrive was stuck in a barely-functional, hazardous, limping condition. For instance, maybe the problem was partly or entirely in the navigational systems, and they could in fact go to hyperdrive... but the course would have to be worked out with a hand calculator, making it inaccurate and extremely dangerous to try a long range jump or to move quickly, because "traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops."

The second-best explanation is some kind of backup or auxiliary drive system.

And way, WAAAAY down the list is the "they made the trip at sublight speeds" explanation.

[Boeing 757]

Does it matter that Leland Chee confirmed that the stellar object shown at the end of TESB was indeed the Star Wars galaxy?

That is what the audio commentary of TESB hints as well.
Here is a planar view of the model used to shoot the scene in TESB if anyone is interested. It's a popular theory for a reason, the resemblance to a spiral galaxy is striking, but not wholly conclusive to end all controversy.

Doesn't Chee's declaration end the controversy?

I'm not sure. Does Chee even have any pull any longer?

[Boeing 757]

The sanest explanation is that the Falcon's hyperdrive was stuck in a barely-functional, hazardous, limping condition. For instance, maybe the problem was partly or entirely in the navigational systems, and they could in fact go to hyperdrive... but the course would have to be worked out with a hand calculator, making it inaccurate and extremely dangerous to try a long range jump or to move quickly, because "traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops."

The second-best explanation is some kind of backup or auxiliary drive system.

And way, WAAAAY down the list is the "they made the trip at sublight speeds" explanation.

Perhaps there was a wormhole nearby.... A stretch, but a possibility if we can also evoke them to explain how the Ent-A traveled to the galactic core in ST:V.
I like the back-up hypothesis better though...that could be used in case of emergency, but is much slower than a fully functional hyperdrive. A longer journey to Bespin would also give Luke in universe more time to be trained by Yoda, as I don't subscribe to the idea that Luke was trained in a week....

[Lord Revan]

Well Han's line "Bespin is pretty far, but I think we can make it" so a hyperdrive equilevant of a spare tire would make sense seeing as spare tires aren't suppose to be used any futher then it takes it to get the actual tire repair/replaced and often are weaker then an actual tire.

[Lord Revan]

First I'll apologize for using the list format but I feel it's the best way to express my points here

Now what wanted to say as closing statement of sorts. when making a thread like this there are few things one should remember.

1. State your intent for the thread clearly and honestly, there's nothing more annoying then finding that goal of thread was something else the stated goal
2. When you treat something as fact others will treat it that way too and will ask for evidence for it be prepared to back your claims
3. Do not assume that your opinion is the victor by default, all options are considered equally and you need to back your claims
4. Do not lie (well this should be obvious but still) or try to mask your true intentions
5. Do not be overly pendantic when making an argument, while it's good to question the sources to see if they say what's implied there is a limit to it

to add to this, for me at least the problem I had with Watch-man's conduct on this thread was how dishonest he was about his intentions on this thread and when people pointed out that his stated goal doesn't match his actions he got upset showing clearly that this mismatch was intentional and not an accident.

I also find it highly insulting that he critiques us about logical deductions while at the same time wanting us to accept his idle speculations as irrefutable fact.

[Simon_Jester]

Perhaps there was a wormhole nearby.... A stretch, but a possibility if we can also evoke them to explain how the Ent-A traveled to the galactic core in ST:V.

A wormhole

I like the back-up hypothesis better though...that could be used in case of emergency, but is much slower than a fully functional hyperdrive. A longer journey to Bespin would also give Luke in universe more time to be trained by Yoda, as I don't subscribe to the idea that Luke was trained in a week....

Agreed- although given how Vader's plan worked, I wouldn't rule out the idea that Han, Chewie, and Leia spent weeks or months on Bespin unless that is definitely contradicted by the movie. Because Vader was explicitly trawling them out there expecting Luke to detect that they were in danger using the Force... and Luke was growing stronger in the Force thanks to his training. It's quite possible that at first he had no knowledge that they were in danger, and that Vader had to sit around tapping his foot for a month or so before Luke became sensitive enough to detect the bait.

[Metahive]

If they made it to Bespin in a short amount of time, it means however that Luke trained very shortly with Yoda and that he had learned everything Yoda had to teach im in just a few days. You'd think Jedi training wouldn't have to start at such a young age if the amount of transfered skills and knowledge was so low.

[Joun_Lord]

so how did they get from Hoth to Anoat?

Maybe sublight? I remember Han bragging that the Falcon could do .5 past lightspeed. What if he was referring to her sublight engines, they are so fast they can do FTL travel? The problem is that even though it can go faster then light that still pretty slow. It takes years for sunlight to travel to Alpha Centauri less then 5 lightyears away. Maybe Anoat and Hoth are closet together then Earth and AC but unless they are close enough to start merging the trip would still take months or maybe longer. Gives Luke plenty of time to train.

I just wonder if the Falcon would have the provisions to make such a long trip.

[Galvatron]

Doesn't Chee's declaration end the controversy?

I'm not sure. Does Chee even have any pull any longer?

Apparently he has even more now than ever.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucasfilm_Story_Group

[Lord Revan]

Well "keeper of the Holocron" is rather vague as to what his actual duties and authority are.

[Lord Revan]

Btw am I the only who finds it ironic that now that Watch-man has seemingly fled (his last post being from 6 am yesterday (my local time)), we have been more free to discuss in the way he stated this thread was suppose to be.

[Galvatron]

Well "keeper of the Holocron" is rather vague as to what his actual duties and authority are.

Granted, but silly titles aside, he obviously has more official "pull" than even George Lucas now. I suppose Kathleen Kennedy could override him, but why would she ever do that?

I mean, you guys can argue it all you like, but (like the Endor Holocaust), it's pretty obvious what LFL's stance on the matter is.

[Queue]

Btw am I the only who finds it ironic that now that Watch-man has seemingly fled (his last post being from 6 am yesterday (my local time)), we have been more free to discuss in the way he stated this thread was suppose to be.

I'm glad you're enjoying the sense of community and camaraderie, but being wrong shouldn't immediately entitle someone to exclusion. Why be seen as fostering an echo chamber that only fanatics and fools on 'the other team' are daring enough to speak out in?

That's not a dismissal, btw, just my personal opinion.

[Lord Revan]

Btw am I the only who finds it ironic that now that Watch-man has seemingly fled (his last post being from 6 am yesterday (my local time)), we have been more free to discuss in the way he stated this thread was suppose to be.

I'm glad you're enjoying the sense of community and camaraderie, but being wrong shouldn't immediately entitle someone to exclusion. Why be seen as fostering an echo chamber that only fanatics and fools on 'the other team' are daring enough to speak out in?

That's not a dismissal, btw, just my personal opinion.

I didn't dislike Watch-man for "being wrong", we need people to voice the alternative viewpoint if we want to have healthy discussion rather then a mere echo chamber.

However the the way Watch-man went about voicing that alternative viewpoint however was poison to any healthy and meaningful discussion, by refusing to even consider our viewpoint he made any meaningful discussion pointless. I'm willing to consider alternative viewpoints as long they're willing to consider mine and I'm sure it applies to most people here.

What I meant by that line is that "isn't it ironic that we can now more freely discuss all possible viewpoints on this matter, without getting bogged down in pointless semantics, even though the stated goal of this thread was 'free discussion'"

[Typhonis 1]

I think the Falcon could have had a spare. In fact most starships would have a spare engine given how dangerous space is. I think the engineering quote is "a pair and a spare". That way if something does go pear shaped or Charlie dances the Foxtrot you have a way out.

Also Vader may have let them go. Han has shown, repeatedly, that he is hard to catch. So odds Vader allowed Han to leave with Fett on his tail to aleert him where the pirate was going?

[Simon_Jester]

If they made it to Bespin in a short amount of time, it means however that Luke trained very shortly with Yoda and that he had learned everything Yoda had to teach im in just a few days. You'd think Jedi training wouldn't have to start at such a young age if the amount of transfered skills and knowledge was so low.

Alternatively, it means that Han, Leia, and Chewie lingered on Bespin for a long period of time. I see no reason to assume Vader lacks the patience to hold them present as bait for weeks while Luke's Force abilities improve to the point where he can perceive that they are in danger.

And we have considerable other reasons for doubting that the Falcon was out of action between Hoth and Bespin for more than, oh, weeks of time. If they'd been out of contact with the Rebellion for a period of months, it is unlikely that they'd even have been able to find the rebel fleet in order to rendezvous with it.