Icehawk:
Some more quotes that might help:
ROTS novel wrote:
"But what then?" Bail Organa leaned forward, elbows to knees, fingers laced together. "How to we make Palpatine withdraw his governors? How do we stop him from garrisoning troops in all our systems?"
"We don't have to make him do anything," Padme said reasonably. "The Senate granted him executive powers only for the duration of the emergency—"
ROTS novel wrote:
"Your reservations are noted, Senator Amidala. I assure you that the Republic governors are intended only to make your systems safer—by coordinating planetary defense forces, and ensuring that neighboring systems mesh into cooperative units, and bringing production facilities up to speed in service to the war effort. That's all. They will in no way compete with the duties and prerogatives—with the power—of the Senate."
ROTS novel wrote:
"Which is the purpose of this petition," Mon Mothma said, laving her soft hand over Padme's. "We're hoping that a show of solidarity within the Senate might stop Palpatine from further subverting the Constitution, that's all. With the signatures of a full two thousand Senators—"
"—we still have less than we need to stop his supermajority from amending the Constitution any way he happens to want," Padme finished for her. She weighed the reader in her hand. "I am willing to present this to Palpatine, but I am losing faith in the Senate's readiness, or even ability, to rein him in. I think we should consult the Jedi."
ROTS novel wrote:
"We are not attempting to delegitimize your government," she was saying. "That's why we're here. If we were trying to organize an opposition—if we sought to impose our requests as demands—we would hardly bring them before you in this fashion. This petition has been signed by two thousand Senators, Chancellor. We ask only that you instruct your governors not to interfere with the legitimate business of the Senate, and that you open peace talks with the Separatists. We seek only to end the war, and bring peace and stability back to our homeworlds. Surely you can understand this."
ROTS novel wrote:
Fang Zar unknotted his fingers from his raggedly bushy beard and shrugged. "Yes, we cannot block the Chancellor's supermajority—but we can show him that opposition to his methods is growing. Perhaps that alone might persuade him to moderate his tactics."
Bana Breemu went back to examining her fingertips. "When you present the Petition of the Two Thousand, many things may change."
ROTS novel wrote:
But it will not be enough for the Republic," Ki-Adi-Mundi countered sadly. "Palpatine's dictatorship has been legitimized— and can be legalized, even enshrined in a revised Constitution—by the supermajority he controls in the Senate."
Basically they confirm the idea of "system" level Governors, each with regiments. furthermore, we know that 2,000 Senators opposed Palpatine initially. Palpy holds a "super-majority" meaning he should have more than 2,000 senators on his side (probably at least 3,000-4,000 if not more) Which means that the Republic at a minimum held 4,000-6,000 sectors.
An added quote from the EP1 visual dictionary:
The vast rotunda is lined with 1,024 platforms. The majority are used by sectorial senators, who represent their own planet and hundreds of others in a galactic sector.
that comes out to many hundreds or thousands of worlds. (average: we know there are at least 1.2 million as per the novel Shatterpoint, IIRC, possibly more.)
Moreover, the ITW:AOTC book makes mention of the number of troopers in a regiment: 2,304. Which should be interesting (and useful as a tidbit.)
Either way, its as you say, far more than the 3 million troopers Traviss claims, and these are simply assigned as "security forces" - even if somehow it was assumed they didn't assign "regiments" to every governer, or decided to fiddle around with the number of systems (either by referirng to the EP1 novel or AOTC novel about the "hundred thousand" or "tens of thousands" of systems) you're still looking at many millions more than the 3 million figure. In fact, you have to quite literally bend over backwards and over-complicate the issue to make the 3 million figure work.