From: wildcard@nevada.edu ( WildCard !!)
Subject: Re: Why Endor? OR The Econ (LONG)
Organization: ImpSecCom.InfoSecDiv
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:04:50 GMT

In article <BvEH0F.J9t@news.cso.uiuc.edu> sjs28257@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Stelter) writes:
>shoham@ll.mit.edu (Daniel Shoham) writes:
>
>>2. How many habitable systems?
    Its a galaxy for cryin' out loud. With [insert Carl Sagan here] biiillions,
and biiiillions of stars, there has to be a huge number of them. Not all of
them support human life, of course, but they are inhabited possibly by some
of the denizens of the galaxy.

>>I have not seen any good argument against my second supporting argument 

Wait no longer!  :)

>>(thousands of probe-droids). That figure is mentioned twice in TESB, in the
>>openning text, and in Admiral Weasel (sp?) rebuke: "We have THOUSAND of probe
>>droids searching the FAR reaches of the Galaxy. I want proofs, not lead" (the
>>emphasis is mine, I may be SLIGHTLY misquoting). The Empire is clearly
>>conducting an exhausive search! 

>Well, first of all, the term "thousands" could signify any number from 1,000
>to 999,999.  If the actual number of probes sent is on the higher end of the
>scale,we have to assume that the Empire had a *lot* of planets to choose from;
>especially if, as the Admiral said, these probes were only searching the far
>reaches of the Galaxy.Lord knows how many probes went to the interior regions.
>
>If you want to speculate even further, you could say that perhaps the Admiral
>was only referring to the probes sent by that particular Star Destroyer.  "We"
>might refer to "me, you, and the crew of this SD" and not "the Empire in
>general."  In which case the number of probes launched by the Imperial
>fleet as a whole may number in the hundreds of thousands.

I like these points and would like to add my own.
The Empire has an extensive spy network. Not organized but I dare say that
if it wanted to the Empire could buy/extort/force information out of anybody.
Why would they just send out probes to *all* the planets they know about? That
is an incredible waste of time and even the Empire isn't that stupid. IMO,
they would have narrowed the search down to a single sector of galactic space.
To those in the galactic-core community, *anywhere* that isn't the hub of
galactic culture, is the "far reaches" of the galaxy. Therefore, within this
sector, the Empire is searching likely planets that haven't been surveyed
already and logged as inhabited.

To illustrate with the Earth: I am a traitor and a "contra" to  my country.
They want me extremely dead. I hide on an uncharted island in the south Pacific
to try to lose my trail, I don't tell anyone. The CIA finds out that I bought
a plane ticket to Hawaii (dumb move on my part). They go to Hawaii and find
someone who saw me leave the dock in a small sailing ship. Based on currents/
wind/time of departure/type of craft/ect they determine between what longitudes
/latitudes I could be at and send helicopters/boats/what have you to find 
traces of me or my boat. Notice that they wouldn't search the entire Pacific
or every uninhabited region of the known world.

>To add fuel to the fire, let me also say that we see dozens of nonhuman
>alien races in the Star Wars films.  Each of them evolved on their own
>planet.  Now, given the human-to-alien ratio shown in the films, one might
>venture that the total human population of the Galaxy (and therefore the
>number of human-occupied planets) is perhaps 100 times that of the total
>alien population.  That in itself would imply several thousand inhabited
>planets in the galaxy, at least.

Lets not forget artificial worlds, "terra-formed" worlds, space arks,
asteroid belts, colonized planets, etc.

>>3. Are the planets we visit on the fringes of the Galactic economy?
>>There seems to be a consensus that they are.
>
>I think they're supposed to be.  There's no such evidence in the films, 
>though, but the various source materials imply that the Rebellion mostly
>takes place in the backwater regions of the Galaxy.

To draw another real world analogy: If you were going to overthrow a government
by nefarious means, would you base it in your nations capital (SP?).
I'd hide out somewhere far,far away from my opponent's base of command, make
them come to me on my turf if they want a confrontation.

Enough Musings...

                                - Wildcard !!

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