Colonisation outside the galaxy?

[Illuminatus Primus]

The typical movie-goer is most likely not very interested in the history of the galaxy at all; he is either a young fanboy who wants to see something look kewl or a more disinterested guy who sees it because everyone else has.

Right, but there is still a sort of reasonable expectations and premises set by a filmic medium; one can critique what a film intuitively presents. This is, however, a side issue and I'll concede it if you wish.

To a certain degree, we are in agreement; I hold that outright unworkable objects or events should be disregarded, if not those that are purely silly. However, to me an author's intentions off screen, as opposed to on-screen film evidence, does not constitute canon.

See above. However, the arguments I presented were in light of evidence taking the entire issue in hand, not just authorial intent or the reasonable face-value of the film.

I clipped the post apart in order to comment appropriately on each specific section when it brought up new aspects. I cannot see that I weakened your argument, since I kept your supporting examples and merely commented on them separately. The main issue in your post, in my humble opinion, was the fact that author intent would equal canon.

No, that is a strawman of my position. The central issue is that taking certain EU and canon facts and premises into account, ten or fifteen thousand years of back and forth extremes in growth and glacial exploration is totally counterintuitive and unreasonable knowing what we do of human industrial societies and astronomy.

Are we assuming that migration to America was a conscious process? In any case, were there unclaimed resources greater than those reasonably available at a nearer location to be found there?

Yes, but not justifying the expense, and not consciously accessed within one generation. Human progress occurred primitively, intuitively, and without informed or conscious intent and against strict economic incentives for generations to produce the migration.

This strengthens the view that exploration and colonization is inexorable and constant until complete in a relatively closed system.

The answer would likely be yes, but is this true for the galaxy as well, expanding outwards from the Core?

More so than in the American aboriginal migration case, certainly. Rather than an abrupt shift in resource availability and conditions to arctic tundra and taking place unconsciously over generations - the SW societies can and did observe resources and habitable locales elsewhere and had the will to travel there. Moreover, the resource concentration gradually decreases and the price difference ought to be negligible in most cases - since consumption is so low relative to the resource sinks holistically, the only restraint on production is will and infrastructure, not overall availability. There is no magic economic point-of-no-return which would justify your model between the Inner Rim and Expansion, for example. Nor have you explained how your proposed economic barrier to expansion for thousands and thousands of years were be later expelled.

As always, I am wary of large reinterpretations. Specific issues I can grant must be addressed if and when they appear, but large-scale historical happenings should not be disregarded if they can possibly be reconciled.

They can be reconciled by suggesting the nature and influence of the Core World cliques and the central government waxed and waned over the years, with the Sith wars causing a gradual expansion of direct sovereignty. The Galactic Republic in the early days may only have been a suzerain to much of the galaxy, and while its regulatory functions were tolerated to maintain societal equilibrium, it was necessarily a limited government. Later, it expanded in powers and direct influence, leading to overextension and successive collapse; followed by a warring states period we observe in the filmic era and its aftermath.

No, I am trying to point out a flaw in your argument. You argue that there must be great economic incentive to colonise in the galaxy. I posit that this is not necessarily so, bringing up arguments as to why such colonisation would not necessarily make economic sense. You then note my example that the classical imperialist powers colonised without economic incentive. While this is true, you should look at the circumstances. Imperialism of the mid to late 19th century was a result of Great Power competition; by acquiring colonies, the powers would gain prestige (and, in some cases, military advantages) ahead of their rivals. But by your position, the Republic would already be the major galactic government in control of the economy by the time that colonisation reached its largest extent, and we see no evidence of other aggressive imperialist factions spurring such competition (neither the Hutts, Tion Hegemony nor any other of the early Republic's competitors were aggressive colonial powers).

I am talking about the fact that pre-Republic, colonization was widespread and the galaxy was fully developed to the Unknown Regions, as evidenced by multiple examples of colonization such as Csilla, human colonies, Mandalore and the Taungs, Corellia, Alderaan, Coruscant, etc. Therefore, to claim that integration, communication, settlement would be even more poorly favored in an era of technological advancement, known political unification, and faster-than-light travel. That makes no sense. You argued that Csilla was supposedly a single case on economic grounds. Whatever theories you compose, the fact is that we know the will to do so existed and persisted for whatever incentive pre-hyperdrive, pre-Republic, and extended beyond the Outer Rim. Yet you would have me believe that the Republic would later spread even more glacially despite having the capabilities provided by interstellar economies and polities and hyperdrive.

If the incentive existed for human colonists in a relativistic era of island states located on individual, isolated star systems, they certainly would persist in an era of political unification, interstellar economies and states, and same-year faster-than-light available even before the Republic.

A gradual process, resulting in the slow stripping of the Core of natural resources?

Are you seriously arguing that the galactic civilization has strip mined the inner regions of the galactic disk of post-helium elements and available energy resources? I think your conception of galactic morphology and scale is incorrect.

Not to mention, the Core would over thousands of years, lost its status.

First point addressed above. I furthermore still fail to see how Csilla proves that such colonisation was common. I am not aware of how early humanity was present on Corellia. The Taung example does seem to support your view; do we know what specific circumstances prompted such radical emigration?

We do not need to know specific circumstances in each case; in order to send sleeper ships across the galaxy, you need to be able to observe distant habitable systems or the likelihood thereof, and you wouldn't go from Coruscant to Mandalore unless there was something wrong nearby (like already advanced colonization - established in the literature per the several examples I gave dealing with humans alone, not to mention Duros and Nemodians; this was commonplace). Again, we HAVE precedent for how human societies expand, colonize, explore. Your proposals and shots in the dark sound like Amerindians building a 747 just for the purpose of flying to Australia on a lark, doing that, and no one in their society or any others at similar levels of advancement doing it ever. Much less going to nearby destinations that make more sense on every level. Human societies do not act like that.

You stretch credibility beyond its breaking point.

You argue that there is some unknown reason that a people would support such obviously economically unhealthy programmes without visible gains whatsoever. The only explanation I could posit would be some form of religious commitment to such, and in order to be successful in the relatively short term (which is what most economies are the most concerned with) a society would not be able to indulge in such on a large scale or for long periods. A single planet's resources (or at best, a system's without hyperdrive) would not be able to sustain massive colonisation.

A relativistic-capable civilization has probably transcended just a single world. There are paper plans, detailed, by rocket scientists working out how we could send relativistic probes to nearby systems TODAY. The will to expand transcends individual's economic utility. The cost of burdening excess population, undesirables, or simple whimsy or aggrandizement by powerful economic or political agents can justify such expenditures.

The fact of the matter is in human and Duros specifically, massive colonization was undertaken; we know human colonization spread throughout the Core, to some locales throughout the Rim, and as far as the Unknown Regions. Face it; common sense dictates that colonization and exploration had fully engulfed the galaxy WITHOUT unification and faster-than-light travel. With it, it will proceed faster and without arbitrary limit just like Cro-Magnons, just like modern humans, and it will not take ten thousand, fifteen thousand years when before they start out they have couple-year max transit across the galaxy. The only credible concept is that unification occurred early, and that provided the halt on expected growth so the galaxy is still modestly developed by the filmic era.

Is it really more reasonable to suggest that interstellar travel has existed for millions of years?

Short-term speciation may occur more quickly. We know some species have industrial recorded history going back 500,000 years; likely human colonization began within some thousands of years after that. Long enough for superficial changes.

Furthermore, many of the near-human/humanoid "augmentations" do not make evolutionary sense. What would be the point for a Devaronian to grow horns, for example, or the Sith their chin-tusks? How does this increase survival value?

I wonder what a peacock's tail could be for? Or the stupid narwhal tusk. Or angler fish's spines. We don't know their original habitat and I haven't dissected them. Your appeal to ignorance do not dismiss the fact that Rakatans could not have altered all the species, yet we see they did change. This took time. We take the evidence and allow it to follow to reasonable scientific conclusions, and then look at the big picture. We do not just "oh, poof it happened".

I suppose that it could all be attributed to random mutation within an isolated population, but this would require prodigious amounts of time to produce the great variety of species we see in the galaxy today, especially since most such mutations would be distasteful to the general human populace when first they appeared.

Yeah, hairless apes are so disgusting. Make no sense. Why would a noble silverback like me want to lose my hair? Are these mutants ill with pestilence?

So far I see pointing out that widespread speciation and relativistic colonization occurred results in you pointing out, "well I don't like it," or "it doesn't seem sensible to me" - on arbitrary grounds or appeals to ignorance. It goes without saying that such alien species exist and did evolve; pointing out their adaption make no sense does not refute their existence.

I'd rather complain about some throwaway lines in the Essential Chronology and background books which do not have any real stories in them (maybe you can count Great Hyperspace War), than to complain about the alien character creations of George Lucas.

I shall confess that my model depends on extrapolation from the era of history that is recorded.

Right, and irreconcilable with common sense. The early Republic would not take 10-15 thousand years to expand. It defies economics, politics, history, anthropology, and the essential premises of the EU regarding the Republic.

I'd rather save stuff like "the Republic is 25 millennia old", "the Republic had hyperdrive," "the Republic was the Galactic Republic" than where and when the lines around it supposedly were and moved when they are drawn on a map which is 2-dimensionally representing a 3-D object, in a projection which is sloppy, and showing a morphology which is inconsistent with the AOTC galaxy and spiral galaxies in general, and with an Unknown Regions idiotically occupying 25% of the disk and irreconcilable with AOTC and other filmic canon.

A society in which the majority of the people, ill educated and poorly paid, is artificially kept down by some form of pseudo-feudal elite, clearly would inhibit economical development. We see evidence that this situation does indeed appear to persist on worlds such as Eiattu VI, and this in the era of the Galactic Civil War, when the Empire's unifying and progressive efforts have been affecting the galaxy for quite some time. On poorer worlds such as Tatooine, the economy appears likewise inhibited, and we know the "hive worlds" of the galaxy have large disprivileged underclasses. Reasonably, in a society with replicators, portable fusion generators and whatnots, such widespread poverty would not exist.

Pre-literate societies experienced exponential growth - especially when presented with impossibly large resource sinks and great room for expansion (which your model calls for throughout the early period) - compared to the longevity of the Galactic Republic. Your model only slows it down; even feudalism and barbarism grew too fast economically and population-wise (of course, in expansion of closed environment, even pre-agriculture Cro-Magnons beat the Galactic Republic which must be the most autistic sci-fi galactic civilization ever).

As I said before, did you read Saxton's essays? And research the economic growth rates of pre-industrial societies, extrapolating them for 25,000 years? Look up Von Nuemann probes, interstellar travel? Its not like the rationale is being made up by me whole cloth right now.

[PainRack]

Its very clear that despite having the technology to do so, the Republic does not practise assembly line production..

Wait, what?

This is in fact true for certain worlds in the Republic, such as the backwater Naboo. However, inferring from such examples that this is the practice of the galaxy at large seems a bit unconsidered.

oops. Rereading the quotes, its with regards to ship design only....... Although one could extend it to other major industrial projects I guess.......

[Illuminatus Primus]

Those Hoersh-Kessel ships look real "hand-crafted" to me. It must be easy to widdle and sculpt neutronium hulls. Those droids too, I mean they look and are physically and operationally identical to the AOTC mass-produced ones, but they just came up with some machine-built knock-offs. The Trade Federation qualifies as part of the Republic - having a senator sort of implies it -, you know; in fact they had a trade monopoly, so I think they represent a good section of what's afloat.

[Havok]

Those Hoersh-Kessel ships look real "hand-crafted" to me. It must be easy to widdle and sculpt neutronium hulls. Those droids too, I mean they look and are physically and operationally identical to the AOTC mass-produced ones, but they just came up with some machine-built knock-offs. The Trade Federation qualifies as part of the Republic - having a senator sort of implies it -, you know; in fact they had a trade monopoly, so I think they represent a good section of what's afloat.

Yeah. I pointed that out, but apparently the TF only discovered assembly lines once they left the GR and started planning to be in the Empire.

[Darth Hoth]

No, that is a strawman of my position. The central issue is that taking certain EU and canon facts and premises into account, ten or fifteen thousand years of back and forth extremes in growth and glacial exploration is totally counterintuitive and unreasonable knowing what we do of human industrial societies and astronomy.

I see. Again, then, my apologies.

Yes, but not justifying the expense, and not consciously accessed within one generation. Human progress occurred primitively, intuitively, and without informed or conscious intent and against strict economic incentives for generations to produce the migration.

This strengthens the view that exploration and colonization is inexorable and constant until complete in a relatively closed system.

Of course, there is a difference between primitive tribes and the extremely complicated economic systems of a multi-planet-spanning civilisation. Modern exploration and exploitation is, to the best of my knowledge, generally not driven by curiosity, instinct, or wanderlust, but by economic incentives.

More so than in the American aboriginal migration case, certainly. Rather than an abrupt shift in resource availability and conditions to arctic tundra and taking place unconsciously over generations - the SW societies can and did observe resources and habitable locales elsewhere and had the will to travel there. Moreover, the resource concentration gradually decreases and the price difference ought to be negligible in most cases - since consumption is so low relative to the resource sinks holistically, the only restraint on production is will and infrastructure, not overall availability. There is no magic economic point-of-no-return which would justify your model between the Inner Rim and Expansion, for example. Nor have you explained how your proposed economic barrier to expansion for thousands and thousands of years were be later expelled.

In recent economic history, exploration and conflict has concerned markets more than actual natural resources. Since this drive for markets cannot explain vast-scale colonisation, however, we are forced to assume that it is indeed the raw resources themselves that are sought out. These would gradually be outmined and/or claimed in the rich Galactic Core; this, together with the development of improved faster than light travel methods, would in time make the colonisation of regions further outwards in the galactic arms economically sensible.

They can be reconciled by suggesting the nature and influence of the Core World cliques and the central government waxed and waned over the years, with the Sith wars causing a gradual expansion of direct sovereignty. The Galactic Republic in the early days may only have been a suzerain to much of the galaxy, and while its regulatory functions were tolerated to maintain societal equilibrium, it was necessarily a limited government. Later, it expanded in powers and direct influence, leading to overextension and successive collapse; followed by a warring states period we observe in the filmic era and its aftermath.

While this appears somewhat contrived, it is not irreconcilable with the canon as such. This is certainly an interesting model that you posit.

I am talking about the fact that pre-Republic, colonization was widespread and the galaxy was fully developed to the Unknown Regions, as evidenced by multiple examples of colonization such as Csilla, human colonies, Mandalore and the Taungs, Corellia, Alderaan, Coruscant, etc. Therefore, to claim that integration, communication, settlement would be even more poorly favored in an era of technological advancement, known political unification, and faster-than-light travel. That makes no sense. You argued that Csilla was supposedly a single case on economic grounds. Whatever theories you compose, the fact is that we know the will to do so existed and persisted for whatever incentive pre-hyperdrive, pre-Republic, and extended beyond the Outer Rim. Yet you would have me believe that the Republic would later spread even more glacially despite having the capabilities provided by interstellar economies and polities and hyperdrive.

I was not aware that such human worlds had been colonised prior to the rise of the Republic and the invention of hyperdrive. This shows the issue in a new light. Yet I fail to see how even the existence of a few scattered colonies means that the Core was soon densely settled. Remember, the Portuguese and others had colonial outposts in Africa already in the 16th and 17th centuries, yet it took hundreds of years more to fully map and control the continent.

If the incentive existed for human colonists in a relativistic era of island states located on individual, isolated star systems, they certainly would persist in an era of political unification, interstellar economies and states, and same-year faster-than-light available even before the Republic.

I think extrapolating from a single example may be precarious in this case. I shall agree that Core Worlds were colonised, but I fail to see the reason for such developments in the Outer Rim. Even if one fringe group or another recognised such incentive, does this necessarily mean that all others would follow? For all intents and purposes, the manpower and resources spent in such an expedition would be as good as dead to their homeworld.

Are you seriously arguing that the galactic civilization has strip mined the inner regions of the galactic disk of post-helium elements and available energy resources? I think your conception of galactic morphology and scale is incorrect.

Not strip-mined, merely mined and claimed enough of its resources to make colonisation further Rimwards profitable. There is also the possibility that certain rare materials may be used up, even if they make up only a small portion of any given planet.

Not to mention, the Core would over thousands of years, lost its status.

Not necessarily; if they alone possessed an established industrial complex, they could still economically dominate the galaxy by controlling its markets, even without plentiful natural resources in the territory that they control directly.

We do not need to know specific circumstances in each case; in order to send sleeper ships across the galaxy, you need to be able to observe distant habitable systems or the likelihood thereof, and you wouldn't go from Coruscant to Mandalore unless there was something wrong nearby (like already advanced colonization - established in the literature per the several examples I gave dealing with humans alone, not to mention Duros and Nemodians; this was commonplace). Again, we HAVE precedent for how human societies expand, colonize, explore. Your proposals and shots in the dark sound like Amerindians building a 747 just for the purpose of flying to Australia on a lark, doing that, and no one in their society or any others at similar levels of advancement doing it ever. Much less going to nearby destinations that make more sense on every level. Human societies do not act like that.

Again, since we know little of the true extent of colonisation, we cannot be certain as to whether it was commonplace or not.

A relativistic-capable civilization has probably transcended just a single world. There are paper plans, detailed, by rocket scientists working out how we could send relativistic probes to nearby systems TODAY. The will to expand transcends individual's economic utility. The cost of burdening excess population, undesirables, or simple whimsy or aggrandizement by powerful economic or political agents can justify such expenditures.

For a stable polity to exist, it would require relatively short times for transportation. Controlling several planets within a system may be possible even without faster than light technology, but interstellar communications would be impossible with such slow starships. Never mind that a world in the advanced industrial stage that you posit, with food replicators and whatnots, would most likely not have a population surplus that it was unable to feed. This of course assuming that we are still discussing a human society.

The fact of the matter is in human and Duros specifically, massive colonization was undertaken; we know human colonization spread throughout the Core, to some locales throughout the Rim, and as far as the Unknown Regions. Face it; common sense dictates that colonization and exploration had fully engulfed the galaxy WITHOUT unification and faster-than-light travel. With it, it will proceed faster and without arbitrary limit just like Cro-Magnons, just like modern humans, and it will not take ten thousand, fifteen thousand years when before they start out they have couple-year max transit across the galaxy. The only credible concept is that unification occurred early, and that provided the halt on expected growth so the galaxy is still modestly developed by the filmic era.

Even accepting, for the sake of discussion, the claim that the galaxy must soon have been automatically colonised following the discovery of hyperdrive, the supposition that it was so before faster than light communications became available stretches credibility. How would the population for such a vast Colonial Empire of Mankind grow to achieve such levels? How often could such expeditions be launched? How long would it take to form an industrial society on a newly colonised planet? The sheer scale of the galaxy makes such developments unlikely, unless this process has taken place over many thousands (millions?) of years.

Short-term speciation may occur more quickly. We know some species have industrial recorded history going back 500,000 years; likely human colonization began within some thousands of years after that. Long enough for superficial changes.

Are you then suggesting that all the various humanoid aliens we see have evolved such differing cosmetic traits over a relatively short period of time, and have done so from humans and so completely as to exterminate even the faintest memory of their human origins? In an industrial society, where all the records could never be purged?

I wonder what a peacock's tail could be for? Or the stupid narwhal tusk. Or angler fish's spines. We don't know their original habitat and I haven't dissected them. Your appeal to ignorance do not dismiss the fact that Rakatans could not have altered all the species, yet we see they did change. This took time. We take the evidence and allow it to follow to reasonable scientific conclusions, and then look at the big picture. We do not just "oh, poof it happened".

I may of course be mistaken, as I am not an evolutionary biologist, but to my knowledge evolution is in most cases dictated by survival value. Cosmetic mutations do exist and are carried on, certainly, but not to the extent we see in the galaxy, at least not on Earth. Suggesting that all the various horns, skin colours, eyes, feathers and whatnots have evolved naturally would perhaps be akin to supposing that all the varieties of dogs we see today could have evolved naturally without human interference.

Yeah, hairless apes are so disgusting. Make no sense. Why would a noble silverback like me want to lose my hair? Are these mutants ill with pestilence?

Conveniently ignoring the fact that humans are a sentient race, with societally determined norms for appearance. And that we have the luxury of discarding person mutated by non-improving mutations. In our past evolutions, neither of these have been true; the one phenotype surviving has been the one to pass on its genes. The process has also been slow, and records have not been kept, so primitive humans and other species have not been able to recognise a deviation as readily as we would; instead, they would adapt to it over time. We, I imagine, would not; freakish mutation (which is what it would be viewed as, at least in the first three or four generations) would to the contrary be very detrimental to one's ability to acquire a mate and pass one's genes on. Were you a monkey, would you prefer a strong, intelligent mate or one with thick fur? Were you a human, would you prefer a beautiful mate or one with throwback horns, scaly skin or other visual defects?

So far I see pointing out that widespread speciation and relativistic colonization occurred results in you pointing out, "well I don't like it," or "it doesn't seem sensible to me" - on arbitrary grounds or appeals to ignorance. It goes without saying that such alien species exist and did evolve; pointing out their adaption make no sense does not refute their existence.

If you examine my claims, you shall perhaps find that I have never claimed that they do not exist; rather, I have claimed that they cannot reasonably have evolved through the natural process that you posit, and in my humble opinion that point still stands. Therefore, I proposed the alternative explanation that they might be the result of genetic engineering, which we know from the evidence did occur and did cause species to change, even if we are unaware of the scale of its application.

I'd rather complain about some throwaway lines in the Essential Chronology and background books which do not have any real stories in them (maybe you can count Great Hyperspace War), than to complain about the alien character creations of George Lucas.

As long as it does not make sense, I feel free to complain about any canon, regardless of source. However, wherever it proves possible I attempt to reconcile the sources, both with each other and with common sense.

Right, and irreconcilable with common sense. The early Republic would not take 10-15 thousand years to expand. It defies economics, politics, history, anthropology, and the essential premises of the EU regarding the Republic.

I'd rather save stuff like "the Republic is 25 millennia old", "the Republic had hyperdrive," "the Republic was the Galactic Republic" than where and when the lines around it supposedly were and moved when they are drawn on a map which is 2-dimensionally representing a 3-D object, in a projection which is sloppy, and showing a morphology which is inconsistent with the AOTC galaxy and spiral galaxies in general, and with an Unknown Regions idiotically occupying 25% of the disk and irreconcilable with AOTC and other filmic canon.

Altogether the easiest explanation would of course be to assume that communications were much slower in those times than the hyperdrive we know today. But since the canon disagrees, regrettably we cannot do that.

Pre-literate societies experienced exponential growth - especially when presented with impossibly large resource sinks and great room for expansion (which your model calls for throughout the early period) - compared to the longevity of the Galactic Republic. Your model only slows it down; even feudalism and barbarism grew too fast economically and population-wise (of course, in expansion of closed environment, even pre-agriculture Cro-Magnons beat the Galactic Republic which must be the most autistic sci-fi galactic civilization ever).

In an industrial society in which advanced machinery, physical and mathematics theory, and information technology are presumably very important, illiteracy and low levels of education would be a very severe limitation on economic growth. I am not informed enough to determine the specifics, but it should be enough to limit exponential growth, especially when considering the fact that population growth slows down considerably in industrial/information technology societies.

As I said before, did you read Saxton's essays? And research the economic growth rates of pre-industrial societies, extrapolating them for 25,000 years? Look up Von Nuemann probes, interstellar travel? Its not like the rationale is being made up by me whole cloth right now.

Of course not. I am familiar with the general theory, if not the particular application, of von Neumann probes, and have attempted to researxch the subject, if I only have time to do so briefly. I shall again look over the Technical Commentaries.[/i]

[Illuminatus Primus]

Of course, there is a difference between primitive tribes and the extremely complicated economic systems of a multi-planet-spanning civilisation. Modern exploration and exploitation is, to the best of my knowledge, generally not driven by curiosity, instinct, or wanderlust, but by economic incentives.

We can argue the theoretical aspects, but I find it curious that while you wave off my pointing out the sillyness of a modern or post-modern society taking millennia to expand to the limits of its physical environment, you bring up theoretical reasons why I should doubt something we know occurred - frequent and conscious and intentful pre-hyperdrive colonization. We don't have a good historical outlook on the economics and tendencies of interstellar exploration and colonization for obvious reasons - but we do know in the SW canonical sense that the incentive existed and persisted across many worlds sharing only intelligent species and developed technology.

I am suggesting we reinterpret or reject - even radically - the throwaway background on the Republic and the galaxy and its astrography from 25,000 BBY to 5000 BBY or more. Why? Not only simply because taking the essential EU premises and retaining them and taking them seriously combined with common sense and what we know about history makes it ludicrous, but also because it is already radically flawed in its interpretation of hyperspace travel and exploration and the Unknown Regions. You wish to retain stories of Csilla's colonization, STL interstellar humans and Duros, relativistic exploration and colonization - but you wish to retain this canon information only superficially. You deny its obvious meaning and implication, and that's functionally rejecting it from the canon; just as serious as discounting a source entirely or radically reinterpreting it.

In recent economic history, exploration and conflict has concerned markets more than actual natural resources. Since this drive for markets cannot explain vast-scale colonisation, however, we are forced to assume that it is indeed the raw resources themselves that are sought out. These would gradually be outmined and/or claimed in the rich Galactic Core; this, together with the development of improved faster than light travel methods, would in time make the colonisation of regions further outwards in the galactic arms economically sensible.

Right, and this is a refutation how? Furthermore, there are many more ways to decrease cost and gain utility. If overpopulation strains per capita GDP and HDI, one can export a large section of population elsewhere. There is an associated cost dealing with already owned and claimed resources; the lands of the Western United States in many cases are inferior to those in the East, but no one owned them (except for Amerindians). Firms can claim and develop these virginal resources more cheaply than existing and owned ones. Furthermore there are also political concerns; if you are an exile group for political or social reasons, you can colonize next door and avoid answering to your opponents; however, a state cannot allow opposition movements to simply claim virtually unlimited resources next door and pose a threat.

While this appears somewhat contrived, it is not irreconcilable with the canon as such. This is certainly an interesting model that you posit.

Thank you. I've been at this a long time, I even came up with a fix for the silly deck guns in ROTS.

I was not aware that such human worlds had been colonised prior to the rise of the Republic and the invention of hyperdrive. This shows the issue in a new light. Yet I fail to see how even the existence of a few scattered colonies means that the Core was soon densely settled. Remember, the Portuguese and others had colonial outposts in Africa already in the 16th and 17th centuries, yet it took hundreds of years more to fully map and control the continent.

This is true, but we're talking about hundreds of thousands of years for primitive industrial/mundanely spacefaring civilization and well over twenty-five thousand for faster-than-light spacefaring civilization, and twenty-five thousand for the recognizably modern hyperdrive. I am willing to grant some things for a few centuries easily; for hundreds of centuries? - not so much.

I think extrapolating from a single example may be precarious in this case. I shall agree that Core Worlds were colonised, but I fail to see the reason for such developments in the Outer Rim. Even if one fringe group or another recognised such incentive, does this necessarily mean that all others would follow? For all intents and purposes, the manpower and resources spent in such an expedition would be as good as dead to their homeworld.

Perhaps its a calculated effort by a large segment of the population, significantly in advance of reaching the sustainable limit of their civilization to limit consumption and to expand to new areas before necessarily limited. We know it did happen, doesn't have to be universal. But I ask again, if you were a human civilization and wanted to STL colonize a habitable worlds, would you choose one near (the Core) or far away (the Rim in the case of the Taung; Csilla in the case of the proto-Chiss). There must be a reason why, and that colonization of barren worlds is not a secure bet in the inner regions seems likely. I do not mean to suggest the galaxy was fully developed and just as dense as it was in the Republic era - certainly the economics of same-day hyperdrive travel for goods, people, and services made a lot of places convenient as a stop-off which would never be considered before (the comet luxury resort of Darksaber, anyone?). However, if Csilla and Mandalore were considered desirable before anyone could go FTL, it strikes me as fantastic that general development and exploration would not go at least as extensive during a period exceeding twenty-five thousand years or two hundred and fifty centuries.

Not strip-mined, merely mined and claimed enough of its resources to make colonisation further Rimwards profitable. There is also the possibility that certain rare materials may be used up, even if they make up only a small portion of any given planet.

I sincerely doubt that the goods-in-circulation in the Core Worlds represent a major fraction of the entire galactic region's available titanium, for example. If that were so more extensive local recycling would be economically favorable compared to mundane system and star mining and we do not observe that.

Not necessarily; if they alone possessed an established industrial complex, they could still economically dominate the galaxy by controlling its markets, even without plentiful natural resources in the territory that they control directly.

Maybe for awhile; parasitic political and economic significance may persist in the short term, but you notice that Egypt and the Fertile Crescent are not exactly modern economic-political powerhouses. I may come off a tad Hegelian, but I find it fantastic that unbalances in economic and political systems would persist for tens of thousands of years without synthesis in a relatively otherwise static society. The scale of development you imply greatly exceeds that of the galaxy as we see it in canon. You may have a few systems with immense megastructures, but not many.

Again, since we know little of the true extent of colonisation, we cannot be certain as to whether it was commonplace or not.

Do you or do you not think it unreasonable to assume that a society had the will and desire to go across the galaxy and did so only once and did so in the most risk way possible? To assume that other societies in similar economic-political circumstances did not exist and face similar incentives or desires? That it is a one-off that would never occur again? As said before, I'm hardly the only person who noticed these things.

Settlement

Propagation

...

One of the most important facts about galactic history is that most of it elapsed before the widespread availability of hyperdrive technology. Recorded history extends back over half a million years [From the Files of Corellia Antilles]. The invention of hyperdrive was closely followed by the establishment of the unitary Galactic Republic, only approximately 25,000 years before Luke Skywalker's adventures. By that time humans were already established on worlds such as Corellia and Coruscant, and evidently many others as well. The infamous Xim the Despot, a human, reigned in part of the Outer Rim long before the Galactic Republic [Han Solo and the Lost Legacy].

Human populations isolated on countless worlds had evolved divergently into related anthropoid species, for instance the horned Zabrak and the blue-skinned Chiss. Other species with completely independent biological origins have apparently evolved faces and other features to mimic, attract and exploit humans. We may infer that human interstellar visitors were an important influence on the primitive homeworlds of the Twi'leks and Falleen, for example. The time required for the evolution of numerous divergent species of near-humans and convergent species of pseudo-humans implies that humans were widespread throughout the galaxy for at least several hundred thousand years.

Even before the attainment of faster-than-light propulsion, interstellar colonisation is an essentially non-linear, self-propagating process. Consolidated colonies master their local resources and are eventually able to deploy their own starfleets and interstellar probes. In any year, the rate of further colonisiation is proportional to the number of mature colonies. Even if a new colony takes centuries to develop enough wealth to spread its own colonists, the long-term growth of the civilisation is exponential. It is rather like the reproduction of bacteria: i.e. only limited by the available territory and (metaphorical) food. Mathematically, even if an average settled world produces only ten new colonies of its own in every thousand years, the civilisation will double in size roughly every 69 years. If there exist worlds that are even more effective at producing colonists then the doubling time will be much shorter.

Clearly, the settlement of the entire galaxy must have been finished in a very short time compared to the age of the Galactic Republic, let alone the recorded span of pre-Republic history. The only regions that can remain unsettled are those that are physically unattractive for settlement. It is also clear that even the tiniest initial head-start in the race for galactic colonisation inevitably gives that species an advantage of overwhelming numerical superiority throughout the rest of galactic history. To undermine the dominance of the humans and near-humans in the affairs of millions of worlds would require an incredibly insidious plague (of a kind that lacks an evolutionary interest in the survival of its host), or some other comparably virulent self-propagating disaster.

...

Sublight Exploration

There is plenty of time for the mainstream, human-dominated civilisation to have propagated throughout the entire disk of the galaxy. Sublight travel is sufficient to explore all reaches of the galaxy. Manned scouts are not necessary; probes have the virtue of being cheaper and more expendable.

1. Coruscant has been urbanised, to the extent of blocking sunshine to the lowest levels, for over 90,000 years [The Courtship of Princess Leia p.43]. The radius of the galactic disk [Shield of Lies] is only 60,000 light years. Therefore the entire galaxy is easily within human reach even if travel was exclusively sublight.

2. The literature contains references to other starfaring human cultures that are on the order of hundreds of thousands of years old. SWAJ#8 says that the Gree recognised humans as an interstellar (but not necessarily hyperdrive-using) species, and their peak was several hundred thousand years ago. At least several hundred thousand years of isolation are necessary to produce offshoot human species such as the Chiss, Zabrak, Yoda's species etc.

For a stable polity to exist, it would require relatively short times for transportation. Controlling several planets within a system may be possible even without faster than light technology, but interstellar communications would be impossible with such slow starships. Never mind that a world in the advanced industrial stage that you posit, with food replicators and whatnots, would most likely not have a population surplus that it was unable to feed. This of course assuming that we are still discussing a human society.

Two points. Firstly, I was saying that simplifying the societies we discuss to simply one world (like ours) is an unfair constraint; relativistic-capable societies most certainly fully develop and exploit their solar system. Secondly, there are other forms of scarcity which are pressing other than merely food.

Even accepting, for the sake of discussion, the claim that the galaxy must soon have been automatically colonised following the discovery of hyperdrive, the supposition that it was so before faster than light communications became available stretches credibility. How would the population for such a vast Colonial Empire of Mankind grow to achieve such levels? How often could such expeditions be launched? How long would it take to form an industrial society on a newly colonised planet? The sheer scale of the galaxy makes such developments unlikely, unless this process has taken place over many thousands (millions?) of years.

Coruscant has been an ecuomenopolis for over 90,000 years. Recorded history exceeds five hundred thousand years. The Gree (a spacefaring species of hundreds of thousands of years duration) recognized humans as a spacefaring species in their early history. It is factually mandated that sophisticated human societies have existed for probably over a hundred thousand years (at least sixty-thousand plus, assuming a limit of c on propogation for the colonization expedition to Csilla, and assuming it lies exactly on the edge of the Rim - both certainly below the actual threshold; the expedition likely traveled much slower relative to c and given Csilla's isolation as the metropole of an interstellar empire in the Halo hidden until the Palpatinic Period, probably much deeper into the darkness of the halo). Xim the Despot was an Outer Rim pre-hyperdrive interstellar conqueror, and a human.

You are strawmanning me, exploration and propagation do not require cohesive civilization and political unity, anymore than the exploration of barbaric peoples does. Are you seriously claiming that no one will ever attempt to leave the Solar System to settle elsewhere should we become a system-spanning civilization? Ever? We're talking about hundred and hundreds of thousands of years and at least several species and maybe dozens of known colony worlds. And again, I find you relying on the lack of comprehensive evidence as evidence that this exploration or colonization must have been rare or unlikely; that is an appeal to ignorance: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Are you then suggesting that all the various humanoid aliens we see have evolved such differing cosmetic traits over a relatively short period of time, and have done so from humans and so completely as to exterminate even the faintest memory of their human origins? In an industrial society, where all the records could never be purged?

Why would they have exterminated the memory? If you genuinely speciated from and ancestor race, would you obsess about it? Do you obsess over your genetic relationship to the other Great Apes. No, you are a different species, and that's all that matters to you.

If they can breed with humans, they MUST be very close on the evolutionary tree. Period. And since there are countless examples of near-humans who can breed fertile offspring or offspring period with humans, and they did not got modified by the 500-world brief Rakatan hegemony, they must have speciated from humans. This is not a subject for debate, we know that there are aliens today which were humans and we know of many aliens which must be very close human evolutionary cousins. Its much much much more reasonable to assume even your strawman, that they must quickly evolved and forgot about it, then assume that pseudohumans would evolve so similarly without any contact.

Dr. Saxton discusses this aspect here.

You seem to be trying to insist that science and the evidence which is uniform throughout the saga, be ignored or taken not seriously because you would rather cling to the cartoon map. This strikes me as perverse in its hierarchy of priorities.

I may of course be mistaken, as I am not an evolutionary biologist, but to my knowledge evolution is in most cases dictated by survival value. Cosmetic mutations do exist and are carried on, certainly, but not to the extent we see in the galaxy, at least not on Earth. Suggesting that all the various horns, skin colours, eyes, feathers and whatnots have evolved naturally would perhaps be akin to supposing that all the varieties of dogs we see today could have evolved naturally without human interference.

You cannot evaluate the evolutionary merit of superficial traits this...superficially. We have no idea as to their original use (do you use your mouth to tear raw meat from a fresh kill?), no idea about their cultural modification, and no idea what they are like internally. The idea that we can come to definitive conclusions simply by looking at them externally is absurd. One way to explain close human resemblance and ancestry is speciation or evolutionarily mimicry. We could assume intentional alteration, but that adds unnecessary items and violates parsimony if we have no evidence requiring it in most cases. Especially when all the evidence points to significant and widespread human exploration long before faster-than-light travel. And STATED EXAMPLES proving this occurred, such as the Nemodians, Taungs, and Chiss.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that humans are a sentient race, with societally determined norms for appearance. And that we have the luxury of discarding person mutated by non-improving mutations.

Do all your acquaintances have 20/20 vision? IQ over 100? History of cancer/alcoholism/mental illness? Crohn's Disease? Or do some wear glasses, take medication for chronic inherited issues, etc.?

Do we discard these individuals, really?

In our past evolutions, neither of these have been true; the one phenotype surviving has been the one to pass on its genes. The process has also been slow, and records have not been kept, so primitive humans and other species have not been able to recognise a deviation as readily as we would; instead, they would adapt to it over time. We, I imagine, would not; freakish mutation (which is what it would be viewed as, at least in the first three or four generations) would to the contrary be very detrimental to one's ability to acquire a mate and pass one's genes on.

Modern mores in appearance and sexual attractiveness differ greatly from three hundred years ago and other unrelated cultures even today. This is merely due to cultural evolution. To say nothing of radical body-modification we see regularly and wave off. This would be quite a gradual process, and in many cases is no more radical than the different races' skin pigmentation.

And we do all kinds of freak things relative to our ancestors; within only the last several thousand years or so, we started suckling from cows, goats, etc.

Maybe you live in a homogenous eugenics-based society, but I assuredly do not, and incremental change over hundreds of thousands of years is plenty plausible.

Were you a monkey, would you prefer a strong, intelligent mate or one with thick fur? Were you a human, would you prefer a beautiful mate or one with throwback horns, scaly skin or other visual defects?

Are you a creationist? Because that is the most absurd caricature of real evolution I have seen in a long time. These things would not happen in one or even a thousand generations.

If you examine my claims, you shall perhaps find that I have never claimed that they do not exist; rather, I have claimed that they cannot reasonably have evolved through the natural process that you posit, and in my humble opinion that point still stands. Therefore, I proposed the alternative explanation that they might be the result of genetic engineering, which we know from the evidence did occur and did cause species to change, even if we are unaware of the scale of its application.

But they could have evolved because we know the Chiss and Taungs did. And we lack additional terms to explain it, so we go with the cited and available hypothesis under parsimony.

What about the Chiss? Are you arguing that the fact we know the Chiss evolved from human colonists did not in fact occur? If the reasons you posit from a superficial examination of the near-humans post-industrial appearance and habits and a caricature of evolution lead you to conclude evolution is impossible, how to you reconcile that with the Chiss? Where all your complaints apply, but citation is provided. If you are not arguing against the canon, then why is it so impossible to extend that reasoning to other examples?

As long as it does not make sense, I feel free to complain about any canon, regardless of source. However, wherever it proves possible I attempt to reconcile the sources, both with each other and with common sense.

Exactly. The EU's history and map make less sense than retaining all the above facts and common sense.

Altogether the easiest explanation would of course be to assume that communications were much slower in those times than the hyperdrive we know today. But since the canon disagrees, regrettably we cannot do that.

That's backwards. The canon exists, then the interpretation best fitting reason follows. You do not have canon that shapes an interpretation and then canon which follows after the interpretation to violate it unless you have an agenda. The canon political history is just as valid as the history of hyperdrive and communications.

In an industrial society in which advanced machinery, physical and mathematics theory, and information technology are presumably very important, illiteracy and low levels of education would be a very severe limitation on economic growth. I am not informed enough to determine the specifics, but it should be enough to limit exponential growth, especially when considering the fact that population growth slows down considerably in industrial/information technology societies.

Right, except if it was an endemic problem that was extremely limiting to the polity, I'm sure their education paradigm would eventually over thousands of years at least sort of catch up with that mathematics and physics. You'd have me believe their academics can think up hyperdrive and solve logistical issues of a galactic society, but cannot do a literacy campaign to solve the apparent fundamental limit on their advancement? This is beyond ridiculous. That's why I claimed you were saying that primitive China, Cuba, and the USSR are much more advanced than the Republic, since you were arguing essentially they are held back by literacy but they can think up a hyperdrive but not implement a literacy program over tens of thousands of years. These are mostly humans just like you and me, so Cuban education should work swimmingly.

OR the observed literacy is a negligible political-economic issue in the very long term, and therefore no one cares in the big picture.

Of course, I also like you simultaneously waving off evidence of speciation from humans with sophisticated genetic and biological engineering, which they could accomplish and develop the intellectual capital for apparently without knowing how to launch literacy programs. Or without being able to use that technology to improve intelligence and learning ability. Your proposals are not internally consistent.

[PainRack]

Yeah. I pointed that out, but apparently the TF only discovered assembly lines once they left the GR and started planning to be in the Empire.

Standardised moulds and parts .Assembly line production means breaking up any creation into discrete parts.
It does not mean unique designs.
Anyway, relooking over the quotes, its hard to reconcile droid production, since the Geonosis lines were old.

It just poses another quandary. There is no explaination for how the GR could retain stability and other societal features without it being feudal and non industrial in some forms.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Sure there is, its called Limits to Growth. Since there is an entire movement of engineers, scientists, and economists supporting an industrialized but steady-state society, I think how it would work is approachable.

[Darth Hoth]

I am sorry for not responding for a few days, but now I am back.

We can argue the theoretical aspects, but I find it curious that while you wave off my pointing out the sillyness of a modern or post-modern society taking millennia to expand to the limits of its physical environment, you bring up theoretical reasons why I should doubt something we know occurred - frequent and conscious and intentful pre-hyperdrive colonization. We don't have a good historical outlook on the economics and tendencies of interstellar exploration and colonization for obvious reasons - but we do know in the SW canonical sense that the incentive existed and persisted across many worlds sharing only intelligent species and developed technology.

I am suggesting we reinterpret or reject - even radically - the throwaway background on the Republic and the galaxy and its astrography from 25,000 BBY to 5000 BBY or more. Why? Not only simply because taking the essential EU premises and retaining them and taking them seriously combined with common sense and what we know about history makes it ludicrous, but also because it is already radically flawed in its interpretation of hyperspace travel and exploration and the Unknown Regions. You wish to retain stories of Csilla's colonization, STL interstellar humans and Duros, relativistic exploration and colonization - but you wish to retain this canon information only superficially. You deny its obvious meaning and implication, and that's functionally rejecting it from the canon; just as serious as discounting a source entirely or radically reinterpreting it.

I suppose this would bear taking under consideration.

Right, and this is a refutation how? Furthermore, there are many more ways to decrease cost and gain utility. If overpopulation strains per capita GDP and HDI, one can export a large section of population elsewhere. There is an associated cost dealing with already owned and claimed resources; the lands of the Western United States in many cases are inferior to those in the East, but no one owned them (except for Amerindians). Firms can claim and develop these virginal resources more cheaply than existing and owned ones. Furthermore there are also political concerns; if you are an exile group for political or social reasons, you can colonize next door and avoid answering to your opponents; however, a state cannot allow opposition movements to simply claim virtually unlimited resources next door and pose a threat.

Political or religious exiles could explain colonisation projects such as Csilla, which obviously made no economic sense. I shall grant that point. My economics argument supposed that governments could claim resource-rich areas in the Core without immediately utilising them, keeping reserves for future development. Such might not necessarily stem colonisation completely, but would at least slow it down considerably.

Thank you. I've been at this a long time, I even came up with a fix for the silly deck guns in ROTS.

Is that so? I shall have to read the appropriate thread; I was wondering about those myself.

This is true, but we're talking about hundreds of thousands of years for primitive industrial/mundanely spacefaring civilization and well over twenty-five thousand for faster-than-light spacefaring civilization, and twenty-five thousand for the recognizably modern hyperdrive. I am willing to grant some things for a few centuries easily; for hundreds of centuries? - not so much.

I suppose given the timescale, and assuming that spacefaring has actually been around for hundreds of thousands of years, et cetera, you are right.

Perhaps its a calculated effort by a large segment of the population, significantly in advance of reaching the sustainable limit of their civilization to limit consumption and to expand to new areas before necessarily limited. We know it did happen, doesn't have to be universal. But I ask again, if you were a human civilization and wanted to STL colonize a habitable worlds, would you choose one near (the Core) or far away (the Rim in the case of the Taung; Csilla in the case of the proto-Chiss). There must be a reason why, and that colonization of barren worlds is not a secure bet in the inner regions seems likely. I do not mean to suggest the galaxy was fully developed and just as dense as it was in the Republic era - certainly the economics of same-day hyperdrive travel for goods, people, and services made a lot of places convenient as a stop-off which would never be considered before (the comet luxury resort of Darksaber, anyone?). However, if Csilla and Mandalore were considered desirable before anyone could go FTL, it strikes me as fantastic that general development and exploration would not go at least as extensive during a period exceeding twenty-five thousand years or two hundred and fifty centuries.

I see. I am prepared to acknowledge colonisation on a limited scale, in a loose network of fairly small and independent settlements, primarily in or around the Core, but that does not seem to be what you have been suggesting. Of Csilla and Mandalore, at least one was settled by a refugee group that had good reasons not to remain close to general civilisation, and we can probably assume, or at least theorise, that the same would be true for the other.

I sincerely doubt that the goods-in-circulation in the Core Worlds represent a major fraction of the entire galactic region's available titanium, for example. If that were so more extensive local recycling would be economically favorable compared to mundane system and star mining and we do not observe that.

I shall concede that you do seem to have a point here. Still, that would suggest that most of the Core is as yet unexploited, which in turn would make Outer Rim mining operations dificult to explain.

Maybe for awhile; parasitic political and economic significance may persist in the short term, but you notice that Egypt and the Fertile Crescent are not exactly modern economic-political powerhouses. I may come off a tad Hegelian, but I find it fantastic that unbalances in economic and political systems would persist for tens of thousands of years without synthesis in a relatively otherwise static society. The scale of development you imply greatly exceeds that of the galaxy as we see it in canon. You may have a few systems with immense megastructures, but not many.

I suppose this explanation would require artificial mechanisms. Over the timeframe posited, it does become difficult.

Do you or do you not think it unreasonable to assume that a society had the will and desire to go across the galaxy and did so only once and did so in the most risk way possible? To assume that other societies in similar economic-political circumstances did not exist and face similar incentives or desires? That it is a one-off that would never occur again? As said before, I'm hardly the only person who noticed these things.

As mentioned, I think that as long as we know of the Csilla expedition alone, it can be explained away as the actions of a fringe political or religious group. It would depend on whether the other examples cited took place in the pre-FTL era, I suppose. However, since the canon apparently does have space travel available for hundreds of thousands of years, I assume that colonisation would be more commonplace.

Two points. Firstly, I was saying that simplifying the societies we discuss to simply one world (like ours) is an unfair constraint; relativistic-capable societies most certainly fully develop and exploit their solar system. Secondly, there are other forms of scarcity which are pressing other than merely food.

Fair enough, I misunderstood. Even so, the resources for interstellar travel would be quite staggering to such a single-system economy. I do not know enough to be certain whether supporting this population surplus or preparing such an expedition would be cheaper.

Coruscant has been an ecuomenopolis for over 90,000 years. Recorded history exceeds five hundred thousand years. The Gree (a spacefaring species of hundreds of thousands of years duration) recognized humans as a spacefaring species in their early history. It is factually mandated that sophisticated human societies have existed for probably over a hundred thousand years (at least sixty-thousand plus, assuming a limit of c on propogation for the colonization expedition to Csilla, and assuming it lies exactly on the edge of the Rim - both certainly below the actual threshold; the expedition likely traveled much slower relative to c and given Csilla's isolation as the metropole of an interstellar empire in the Halo hidden until the Palpatinic Period, probably much deeper into the darkness of the halo). Xim the Despot was an Outer Rim pre-hyperdrive interstellar conqueror, and a human.

Given such timeframes, I shall concede the point.

Why would they have exterminated the memory? If you genuinely speciated from and ancestor race, would you obsess about it? Do you obsess over your genetic relationship to the other Great Apes. No, you are a different species, and that's all that matters to you.

I thought more about the fact that it is not ever mentioned in-universe that these species would be descended from humans. (Or at least, I am not aware of any such mention.) I should imagine that this could be an argument for both factions in the pro-/anti-speciesism debate, were it common knowledge, for example.

If they can breed with humans, they MUST be very close on the evolutionary tree. Period. And since there are countless examples of near-humans who can breed fertile offspring or offspring period with humans, and they did not got modified by the 500-world brief Rakatan hegemony, they must have speciated from humans. This is not a subject for debate, we know that there are aliens today which were humans and we know of many aliens which must be very close human evolutionary cousins. Its much much much more reasonable to assume even your strawman, that they must quickly evolved and forgot about it, then assume that pseudohumans would evolve so similarly without any contact.

Again, given a timeframe of hundreds of thousands of years, this does not sound as unreasonable. I would argue that completely non-related creatures such as the Falleen Saxton mentions would rather be the result of conscious manipulation than evolutionary adaptation - for such changes the posited period still appears somewhat short to me - but in the case of near-humans, I suppose you would be right.

You seem to be trying to insist that science and the evidence which is uniform throughout the saga, be ignored or taken not seriously because you would rather cling to the cartoon map. This strikes me as perverse in its hierarchy of priorities.

I do not think that I have ever mentioned the cartoon map. I was simply talking about recorded Republic history.

You cannot evaluate the evolutionary merit of superficial traits this...superficially. We have no idea as to their original use (do you use your mouth to tear raw meat from a fresh kill?), no idea about their cultural modification, and no idea what they are like internally. The idea that we can come to definitive conclusions simply by looking at them externally is absurd.

Not so much considering that most appear to live in human-derived civilisations, or at least ones very similar to those raised by Mankind. If their lifestyle is largely human, albeit with some differences, it should not prompt radically divergent evolution from the baseline human strain.

Especially when all the evidence points to significant and widespread human exploration long before faster-than-light travel. And STATED EXAMPLES proving this occurred, such as the Nemodians, Taungs, and Chiss.

Point conceded as per above.

Do all your acquaintances have 20/20 vision? IQ over 100? History of cancer/alcoholism/mental illness? Crohn's Disease? Or do some wear glasses, take medication for chronic inherited issues, etc.?

Do we discard these individuals, really?

When looking for a mate, I assume the typical human does not seek out individuals with such mutations as I have mentioned, or who are else suffering from very noticeable diseases or defects. At the risk of sounding callous, I would not myself seek to form a family with a woman who suffered from typical mental illnesses or the like, for example. Other traits, if they are recessive or can be modified/cured, such as imperfect sight, would of course a much lesser issue in our posited colonial population.

Modern mores in appearance and sexual attractiveness differ greatly from three hundred years ago and other unrelated cultures even today. This is merely due to cultural evolution. To say nothing of radical body-modification we see regularly and wave off. This would be quite a gradual process, and in many cases is no more radical than the different races' skin pigmentation.

And we do all kinds of freak things relative to our ancestors; within only the last several thousand years or so, we started suckling from cows, goats, etc.

Maybe you live in a homogenous eugenics-based society, but I assuredly do not, and incremental change over hundreds of thousands of years is plenty plausible.

Were you a monkey, would you prefer a strong, intelligent mate or one with thick fur? Were you a human, would you prefer a beautiful mate or one with throwback horns, scaly skin or other visual defects?

Are you a creationist? Because that is the most absurd caricature of real evolution I have seen in a long time. These things would not happen in one or even a thousand generations.

I see; I presumed that such mutations that would produce, for example, a Zabrak's horns would have to occur in a relatively short timespan, with an initial mutation being reinforced over time. The process that you assume, with very tiny incremental changes over time, then appears much more believable. But is this how evolution generally occurs; I remember reading that mutations can be fairly drastic. Even using your model, people in the first generation in which a horn-trait or similar phenotype became noticeable would most likely be suspicious of it.

What about the Chiss? Are you arguing that the fact we know the Chiss evolved from human colonists did not in fact occur? If the reasons you posit from a superficial examination of the near-humans post-industrial appearance and habits and a caricature of evolution lead you to conclude evolution is impossible, how to you reconcile that with the Chiss? Where all your complaints apply, but citation is provided. If you are not arguing against the canon, then why is it so impossible to extend that reasoning to other examples?

There might in this case be a difference between incremental changes in skin or eye pigmentation over time and the development of horns, feathers or similar strange physiologies that would have to show a noticeable starting point. In any case, I do not dispute Chiss evolution or the species' origins.

Exactly. The EU's history and map make less sense than retaining all the above facts and common sense.

Given the posited timeframe, I find myself increasingly compelled to agree.

That's backwards. The canon exists, then the interpretation best fitting reason follows. You do not have canon that shapes an interpretation and then canon which follows after the interpretation to violate it unless you have an agenda. The canon political history is just as valid as the history of hyperdrive and communications.

I suppose that could be argued; still, it is difficult to reconcile all the facts of the various sources.

Right, except if it was an endemic problem that was extremely limiting to the polity, I'm sure their education paradigm would eventually over thousands of years at least sort of catch up with that mathematics and physics. You'd have me believe their academics can think up hyperdrive and solve logistical issues of a galactic society, but cannot do a literacy campaign to solve the apparent fundamental limit on their advancement? This is beyond ridiculous. That's why I claimed you were saying that primitive China, Cuba, and the USSR are much more advanced than the Republic, since you were arguing essentially they are held back by literacy but they can think up a hyperdrive but not implement a literacy program over tens of thousands of years. These are mostly humans just like you and me, so Cuban education should work swimmingly.

OR the observed literacy is a negligible political-economic issue in the very long term, and therefore no one cares in the big picture.

If there is an elite that somehow benefits from keeping the populace down, even at long-term economical loss, it might make sense. But your points are all vaild.

Of course, I also like you simultaneously waving off evidence of speciation from humans with sophisticated genetic and biological engineering, which they could accomplish and develop the intellectual capital for apparently without knowing how to launch literacy programs. Or without being able to use that technology to improve intelligence and learning ability. Your proposals are not internally consistent.

Did I ever say that it would have to be human civilisation that performed genetic modifications? These might be due to other, more advanced, species.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Political or religious exiles could explain colonisation projects such as Csilla, which obviously made no economic sense. I shall grant that point. My economics argument supposed that governments could claim resource-rich areas in the Core without immediately utilising them, keeping reserves for future development. Such might not necessarily stem colonisation completely, but would at least slow it down considerably.

I strongly resist the (to me) dogmatic assertion that because orthodox economics dissuades interstellar exploration or colonization, it will never occur. I strongly doubt that were we loosed on the Solar System that we'd never expand. Economics is not deterministic; it attempts to show where utility will be maximized, but it does not exclude potential actions.

I see. I am prepared to acknowledge colonisation on a limited scale, in a loose network of fairly small and independent settlements, primarily in or around the Core, but that does not seem to be what you have been suggesting. Of Csilla and Mandalore, at least one was settled by a refugee group that had good reasons not to remain close to general civilisation, and we can probably assume, or at least theorise, that the same would be true for the other.

Whatever incentives existed for the Core colonies and even according to your model - one-in-a-million -

I shall concede that you do seem to have a point here. Still, that would suggest that most of the Core is as yet unexploited, which in turn would make Outer Rim mining operations difficult to explain.

You keep resorting to deterministic economic arguments, which are unrealistic. There may be a relative lower price to mining in the Core, but that doesn't mean its the only desirable place for every desirable party. The profit per barrel of oil is much shittier in the U.S. from deep sea wells than the Middle East's best fields. That doesn't mean we do not access the former. You are not simply arguing that there will be predominant mining and development in the Core - you're arguing that the incentives are so much in favor, so stark - that no one will ever even bother visiting or keeping an embassy just a day's flight over there for ten thousand, fifteen thousand years. Apples and oranges. Furthermore, as multiple cases of political expansion and exploration have shown, it can occur counter to general economic incentives. There are always some who have a unique bundle combination to choose amongst; and for whom utility maximization will be different. Furthermore, I am granting you the assumption that the Core will have much lower mining costs; it could have no advantage whatsoever.

Your argument is a stack of unjustified assumptions and extreme cases. It lacks credibility.

Fair enough, I misunderstood. Even so, the resources for interstellar travel would be quite staggering to such a single-system economy. I do not know enough to be certain whether supporting this population surplus or preparing such an expedition would be cheaper.

False dilemma; a system-spanning society may have what we consider extreme per-person expected luxury/resource costs. Poverty in the U.S. does not mean poverty in the Third World; we're talking merely about relative lack of advantages compared to elites, not just objective nutritional requirements, etc. Presumably, if relativistic craft can be built, some people out of many trillions would rather jump over a couple systems than sit around with their current cut. The cost per person of what may pass at that point to be median income may be enormous.

But, as said, it doesn't have to make strict economic sense. Economics does not dictate what we do, it simply suggests what people do what given different utility-yielding bundles to choose from. But its not always right. Most of advanced economics is dedicated to cases where classical assumptions breakdown.

I thought more about the fact that it is not ever mentioned in-universe that these species would be descended from humans. (Or at least, I am not aware of any such mention.) I should imagine that this could be an argument for both factions in the pro-/anti-speciesism debate, were it common knowledge, for example.

And we can't talk about race either; a common reaction to an atmosphere of racism as you can see in the U.S. is to simply declare public discussion of the issue taboo and never to deal with it. Mentioning humanoids' descent from baseline humans may be impolitic to the extreme. To say nothing of the typical hordes of left-wing sensitivity brigades in anthro and socio who rightly-or-wrongly may say that it is unfair or imperialistic or speciest/racist to discriminate between "derivative" and "alien" species relative to humans. If they are another species, they are another species. And for the radical anti-aliens, the ones who'll actually broach the subject overtly, like Hitler they'll deny relationship genetically or otherwise (Hitler believed Jews and other untermenschen descended from apes where Aryans were descended from Adam and Eve). Similarly, species/race partisans will not want to portray their people are somehow derivative.

All of this is besides the point, because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I do not think that I have ever mentioned the cartoon map. I was simply talking about recorded Republic history.

The recorded expansion of the Republic is made in reference to the cartoon map and its derivatives.

Not so much considering that most appear to live in human-derived civilisations, or at least ones very similar to those raised by Mankind. If their lifestyle is largely human, albeit with some differences, it should not prompt radically divergent evolution from the baseline human strain.

Humans with horns and flesh tufts don't qualify as radically divergent.

When looking for a mate, I assume the typical human does not seek out individuals with such mutations as I have mentioned, or who are else suffering from very noticeable diseases or defects. At the risk of sounding callous, I would not myself seek to form a family with a woman who suffered from typical mental illnesses or the like, for example. Other traits, if they are recessive or can be modified/cured, such as imperfect sight, would of course a much lesser issue in our posited colonial population.

The observed traits, while strange, certainly do not qualify for this extreme strawman of likening to mental illness or congenital disease.

I see; I presumed that such mutations that would produce, for example, a Zabrak's horns would have to occur in a relatively short timespan, with an initial mutation being reinforced over time. The process that you assume, with very tiny incremental changes over time, then appears much more believable. But is this how evolution generally occurs; I remember reading that mutations can be fairly drastic. Even using your model, people in the first generation in which a horn-trait or similar phenotype became noticeable would most likely be suspicious of it.

We also have a lot of cases where the environment they colonized was different; perhaps some of it is mimicry on human derivatives' part, to get along with local races? The Hapans have weird eyes simply because their night skies are bright. Furthermore, galaxies are big places, aside from bizarre local biochemistry altering phenotypic ratios, political upheaval leading to terrible plagues leaving only a small percentage of the original population as survivors, and the like - you can have interstellar events like supernova which thin out populations.

There might in this case be a difference between incremental changes in skin or eye pigmentation over time and the development of horns, feathers or similar strange physiologies that would have to show a noticeable starting point. In any case, I do not dispute Chiss evolution or the species' origins.

I think blue people with red eyes is pretty radical.

If there is an elite that somehow benefits from keeping the populace down, even at long-term economical loss, it might make sense. But your points are all vaild.

They won't stand to benefit using the economic model you have this entire time; people need markets and employees to have successful firms.

Did I ever say that it would have to be human civilisation that performed genetic modifications? These might be due to other, more advanced, species.

That's just more parsimony violations; sticking with humans actually reduces the unnecessary items, though it doesn't eliminate the problem.

[Darth Hoth]

I strongly resist the (to me) dogmatic assertion that because orthodox economics dissuades interstellar exploration or colonization, it will never occur. I strongly doubt that were we loosed on the Solar System that we'd never expand. Economics is not deterministic; it attempts to show where utility will be maximized, but it does not exclude potential actions.

Whatever incentives existed for the Core colonies and even according to your model - one-in-a-million -

Fair enough. I am not arguing against limited colonisation, which may be undertaken for various reasons specific to certain polities or locales, but for it to assume a larger scale, there would reasonably have to be some form of broader economic incentive.

You keep resorting to deterministic economic arguments, which are unrealistic. There may be a relative lower price to mining in the Core, but that doesn't mean its the only desirable place for every desirable party. The profit per barrel of oil is much shittier in the U.S. from deep sea wells than the Middle East's best fields. That doesn't mean we do not access the former. You are not simply arguing that there will be predominant mining and development in the Core - you're arguing that the incentives are so much in favor, so stark - that no one will ever even bother visiting or keeping an embassy just a day's flight over there for ten thousand, fifteen thousand years. Apples and oranges. Furthermore, as multiple cases of political expansion and exploration have shown, it can occur counter to general economic incentives. There are always some who have a unique bundle combination to choose amongst; and for whom utility maximization will be different. Furthermore, I am granting you the assumption that the Core will have much lower mining costs; it could have no advantage whatsoever.

I am prepared to grant that a model of limited expansion, modified from your theory, would be reasonable. Thus we might see smaller colonisation initiatives developed by local authorities or economic interests.

False dilemma; a system-spanning society may have what we consider extreme per-person expected luxury/resource costs. Poverty in the U.S. does not mean poverty in the Third World; we're talking merely about relative lack of advantages compared to elites, not just objective nutritional requirements, etc. Presumably, if relativistic craft can be built, some people out of many trillions would rather jump over a couple systems than sit around with their current cut. The cost per person of what may pass at that point to be median income may be enormous.

I had not looked at it from that angle. While this certainly appears reasonable, on must also ask what living standards a colonist might expect; even if the planet the posited sleeper ship is destined to is Earth-like, the absence of all infrastructure and production capacity, barring such as the expedition brings there, would very likely mean a substantial drop in those standards for the newly arrived population, since much if not most of the colony's production would presumably be needed for basic survival or the formation of such structures as are absent. Even centuries later, still given a high level of technological development, the planet might well remain substantially "untamed".

And we can't talk about race either; a common reaction to an atmosphere of racism as you can see in the U.S. is to simply declare public discussion of the issue taboo and never to deal with it. Mentioning humanoids' descent from baseline humans may be impolitic to the extreme. To say nothing of the typical hordes of left-wing sensitivity brigades in anthro and socio who rightly-or-wrongly may say that it is unfair or imperialistic or speciest/racist to discriminate between "derivative" and "alien" species relative to humans. If they are another species, they are another species.

This makes sense.

And for the radical anti-aliens, the ones who'll actually broach the subject overtly, like Hitler they'll deny relationship genetically or otherwise (Hitler believed Jews and other untermenschen descended from apes where Aryans were descended from Adam and Eve). Similarly, species/race partisans will not want to portray their people are somehow derivative.

Hitler, if we continue to use the analogue to real-world racists, also said fairly much about how supposedly "Aryan" blood had degenerated over time from decadence and miscegenation with "inferior" races. A radical human speciesist would more likely point to the aliens/near-humans and warn that "This is what we might become!" or "Do you know what your children are?" or some similar line. He might also view alien-ness as some divine punishment against sinful human colonies in the past or something to that effect, et cetera. On this front, there are plenty of arguments that I would expect to see, was it commonly known that many humanoid aliens were in fact human-derived. Alien-supremacists, on the other hand, might point out how they have "evolved beyond humanity" or whatnots. But instead, aliens are treated as though they are something completely different and external than humans.

All of this is besides the point, because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

True, I suppose, although I would argue that the absence of such arguments as those mentioned above would at least imply something.

The recorded expansion of the Republic is made in reference to the cartoon map and its derivatives.

So that was how you meant it. All right.

Humans with horns and flesh tufts don't qualify as radically divergent.

In any case, is there any evolutionary logic to as to why such phenotypes would develop and eventually subsume the original species in cultures with lifestyles that are approximately human?

The observed traits, while strange, certainly do not qualify for this extreme strawman of likening to mental illness or congenital disease.

The comparison was yours originally, not mine:

Conveniently ignoring the fact that humans are a sentient race, with societally determined norms for appearance. And that we have the luxury of discarding person mutated by non-improving mutations.

Do all your acquaintances have 20/20 vision? IQ over 100? History of cancer/alcoholism/mental illness? Crohn's Disease? Or do some wear glasses, take medication for chronic inherited issues, etc.?

Do we discard these individuals, really?

I merely continued to use it.

We also have a lot of cases where the environment they colonized was different; perhaps some of it is mimicry on human derivatives' part, to get along with local races? The Hapans have weird eyes simply because their night skies are bright. Furthermore, galaxies are big places, aside from bizarre local biochemistry altering phenotypic ratios, political upheaval leading to terrible plagues leaving only a small percentage of the original population as survivors, and the like - you can have interstellar events like supernova which thin out populations.

So you are suggesting that, for example, the Zabraks might originally have developed as the rough equivalent of a leper colony, to which shunned individuals would be exiled, that then developed and expanded when the original colony might have been destroyed by outside factors? Hm, that sounds reasonable.

I think blue people with red eyes is pretty radical.

Yes, but less so than something like a Zabrak. Furthermore, it would be easier for such a race or species-derivative to develop incrementally, as it would not require the sudden appearance of gross physical alterations.

They won't stand to benefit using the economic model you have this entire time; people need markets and employees to have successful firms.

A conflict between enterprise and the holders of political power? In South Africa, Apartheid hurt business quite severely, yet government and (White) popular opinion continued to support it. But I am prepared to grant the point.

That's just more parsimony violations; sticking with humans actually reduces the unnecessary items, though it doesn't eliminate the problem.

I was only pointing out the Rakata example, and for all we know there might be others (Killiks? Probably not, but there were ancient species around.)

[Illuminatus Primus]

Fair enough. I am not arguing against limited colonisation, which may be undertaken for various reasons specific to certain polities or locales, but for it to assume a larger scale, there would reasonably have to be some form of broader economic incentive.

I am prepared to grant that a model of limited expansion, modified from your theory, would be reasonable. Thus we might see smaller colonisation initiatives developed by local authorities or economic interests.

Over hundreds of thousands of years and maybe thousands of developed worlds and colonies (a pittance compared to the overall size of the galaxy), one-in-a-million would add up to a pretty well-spread of colonies or at least probes and extensive telescope mapping, etc. So that once FTL was available and available for tens of thousands of years, it stands to reason that unification and full integration (galactization?) would occur within a minority of that timeframe.

I had not looked at it from that angle. While this certainly appears reasonable, on must also ask what living standards a colonist might expect; even if the planet the posited sleeper ship is destined to is Earth-like, the absence of all infrastructure and production capacity, barring such as the expedition brings there, would very likely mean a substantial drop in those standards for the newly arrived population, since much if not most of the colony's production would presumably be needed for basic survival or the formation of such structures as are absent. Even centuries later, still given a high level of technological development, the planet might well remain substantially "untamed".

If its a large craft, they may bring all the essential fabrication infrastructure to begin a technological and sophisticated civilization from scratch. Still, the opportunity to get your own planetoid will appeal to some people over some stipend.

Hitler, if we continue to use the analogue to real-world racists, also said fairly much about how supposedly "Aryan" blood had degenerated over time from decadence and miscegenation with "inferior" races. A radical human speciesist would more likely point to the aliens/near-humans and warn that "This is what we might become!" or "Do you know what your children are?" or some similar line. He might also view alien-ness as some divine punishment against sinful human colonies in the past or something to that effect, et cetera. On this front, there are plenty of arguments that I would expect to see, was it commonly known that many humanoid aliens were in fact human-derived. Alien-supremacists, on the other hand, might point out how they have "evolved beyond humanity" or whatnots. But instead, aliens are treated as though they are something completely different and external than humans.

I'm pretty sure there are cases of discrimination against hybrids and there are alien supremacist or separatist movements (the Diversity Alliance and Fey'lya's NR Senatorial faction). Cases of hybridization prove they must be human-derived beyond any doubt, certainly.

True, I suppose, although I would argue that the absence of such arguments as those mentioned above would at least imply something.

If you think it makes MORE sense for their to magic human lookalikes than simple descent through known biological pathways (evolution), that meets standard of logical rigor, I'm listening. But I'm not going to sit here and bat down every shot in the dark you toss at me and justify why your "feelings" ought to be wrong. Its your burden of proof under parsimony, cited examples, and biological facts.

In any case, is there any evolutionary logic to as to why such phenotypes would develop and eventually subsume the original species in cultures with lifestyles that are approximately human?

We know nothing about their lifestyles, and I do not need to detail how they would evolve to show that the most likely and rational explanation from the available evidence is that they did. Any weaknesses in my theory because of irrational GL alien design do not automatically lead us to default upon your model. I don't see how else you get such human-like species without evolution in the absence of evidence of direct manipulation, etc.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that humans are a sentient race, with societally determined norms for appearance. And that we have the luxury of discarding person mutated by non-improving mutations.

Do all your acquaintances have 20/20 vision? IQ over 100? History of cancer/alcoholism/mental illness? Crohn's Disease? Or do some wear glasses, take medication for chronic inherited issues, etc.?

Do we discard these individuals, really?

I merely continued to use it.

That refutation was used because you claim, quote "We have the luxury of discarding person [sic] mutated by non-improving mutations" endquote. I find this claim fantastic. If anything, the few objectively less fit phenotypes we can recognize easily and discard we protect and manage, such as eyesight. That refutation does not provide support for either your initial or continued claim that horns or skin pigmentation, while odd and apparent, is automatically, objectively less fit in the same way congenital disease or dysfunction is.

Yes, but less so than something like a Zabrak. Furthermore, it would be easier for such a race or species-derivative to develop incrementally, as it would not require the sudden appearance of gross physical alterations.

Neither do Zabraks; maybe the appearance of slightly horny bumps on the head got treated as fashionable racial differences and developed into a subculture that bred exclusively until it became horns. I don't know.

A conflict between enterprise and the holders of political power? In South Africa, Apartheid hurt business quite severely, yet government and (White) popular opinion continued to support it. But I am prepared to grant the point.

Yeah, and that conflict within a polity could only be sustained for what, 90 years? These are not the time frames we are dealing with.

I was only pointing out the Rakata example, and for all we know there might be others (Killiks? Probably not, but there were ancient species around.)

Supposition is not evidence, and in the absence of evidence, parsimony holds.

[Darth Hoth]

Over hundreds of thousands of years and maybe thousands of developed worlds and colonies (a pittance compared to the overall size of the galaxy), one-in-a-million would add up to a pretty well-spread of colonies or at least probes and extensive telescope mapping, etc. So that once FTL was available and available for tens of thousands of years, it stands to reason that unification and full integration (galactization?) would occur within a minority of that timeframe.

With slower than light travel, probe mapping will perhaps not be very useful, as it will take years or decades (centuries?) for any communications to reach the homeworld. Would humans remain dedicated to a single project for that long, especially when it was of no immediate utility to them? Telescope mapping sounds much more reasonable. And once again, massive colonisation following immediately upon the invention of the hyperdrive assumes that there is incentive for large-scale state-directed (or Big Business-funded) exploitation of faraway systems.

If its a large craft, they may bring all the essential fabrication infrastructure to begin a technological and sophisticated civilization from scratch. Still, the opportunity to get your own planetoid will appeal to some people over some stipend.

There will still be work to be done, such as mining, possibly terraforming et cetera. If the ship is small enough to land, that places limits on what it can bring; if it is not, dwellings will have to be constructed planetside. Resource extraction and food cultivation would have to begin immediately, positing a growing population. Even with robotic servants doing the manual labour, the human colonists would be busy planning/supervising them. And as stated, it is doubtful if they can bring with them all the comforts they know from home.

The second argument sounds plausible, however, given human nature.

I'm pretty sure there are cases of discrimination against hybrids and there are alien supremacist or separatist movements (the Diversity Alliance and Fey'lya's NR Senatorial faction). Cases of hybridization prove they must be human-derived beyond any doubt, certainly.

Yes, I know there are alien supremacists. I do not remember denying that, and furthermore how is it relevant to the point in this case?

Yes, certain species are known to be human-derived, hence they are called near-human. Examples would include the Zeltrons, or the Etti, or, bizarrely enough, the extragalactic Nagai. In these cases this is known to the public (not surprising, perhaps, given that the only alteration in most cases is skin colour). This I do not dispute. But I was under the impression that we were talking about most humanoid aliens generally.

If you think it makes MORE sense for their to magic human lookalikes than simple descent through known biological pathways (evolution), that meets standard of logical rigor, I'm listening. But I'm not going to sit here and bat down every shot in the dark you toss at me and justify why your "feelings" ought to be wrong. Its your burden of proof under parsimony, cited examples, and biological facts.

Whatever their origin, they are obviously humanoid. This particular argument does not really concern whether they were altered genetically, evolved naturally or whatever, merely whether they know or think themselves to be human-derived or not. I was pointing out instances where it would have been logical for certain parties to note this, had this been the case; as it is, they did not. I will readily grant that the absence of evidence is not evidence, but the absence of the evidence from a context in which it would have made sense for it to be present, had it existed, at least implies that there is a reason for it being missing.

We know nothing about their lifestyles, and I do not need to detail how they would evolve to show that the most likely and rational explanation from the available evidence is that they did. Any weaknesses in my theory because of irrational GL alien design do not automatically lead us to default upon your model. I don't see how else you get such human-like species without evolution in the absence of evidence of direct manipulation, etc.

Which is why I am arguing that at least some modifications are fairly likely to have been intentional; perhaps they were only cosmetic, but evolution would seem unlikely to provide mutant traits for the simple reason of looking different. A different skin colour might make sense as a new pigment developed in response to a certain sun and atmosphere, for all that I know; horns or feathers can claim no such utilitarian purpose.

As to their lifestyles: we know most humanoid societies to live under conditions relatively similar to those of mankind. Even if we examine a reclusive community such as the Sand People of Tatooine, we know that they hold human-approximate gender roles, tend to domesticated animals, live in semi-nomadic settlements as a hunter-gatherer society, and use human tools when available. Their own equipment is also similar enough to the human physiology that a human can use it. We also know that humans can be adopted into their clans and survive under their normal living conditions. Yet they are genetically removed from humanity to such a degree that they can no longer interbreed. Would such a culture produce such a divergent strain? (I suppose in this particular example one could argue that the difference could stem from inbreeding, but there are others...)

That refutation was used because you claim, quote "We have the luxury of discarding person [sic] mutated by non-improving mutations" endquote. I find this claim fantastic. If anything, the few objectively less fit phenotypes we can recognize easily and discard we protect and manage, such as eyesight. That refutation does not provide support for either your initial or continued claim that horns or skin pigmentation, while odd and apparent, is automatically, objectively less fit in the same way congenital disease or dysfunction is.

Given that humanity tend to fear the strange and the unknown, especially among ourselves (witness xenophobia), traits such as horns would arguably be less attractive, if not outright repulsive, than the baseline human to the baseline human, lessening the likelihood of the phenotype's continuation. It might actually be more of a handicap than, say, a recessive genetic disease, since it cannot be easily concealed.

Neither do Zabraks; maybe the appearance of slightly horny bumps on the head got treated as fashionable racial differences and developed into a subculture that bred exclusively until it became horns. I don't know.

That does not sound like the humanity I know. Yet, since we cannot be certain of shifting beauty ideals, radical counter-cultures and whatnots, I shall grant that it is a possibility.

Yeah, and that conflict within a polity could only be sustained for what, 90 years? These are not the time frames we are dealing with.

Political/economic conflicts in Star Wars generally appear to last longer than in our history, for whatever reason. Still, I will not argue the point.

Supposition is not evidence, and in the absence of evidence, parsimony holds.

We know at least one alien species performed such modifications. Another built a giant space station thing that mankind still does not understand and moved planets across relativistic distances and kept them inhabitable while doing so; would genetic manipulation very likely be beyond them?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I almost forgot about this.

Over hundreds of thousands of years and maybe thousands of developed worlds and colonies (a pittance compared to the overall size of the galaxy), one-in-a-million would add up to a pretty well-spread of colonies or at least probes and extensive telescope mapping, etc. So that once FTL was available and available for tens of thousands of years, it stands to reason that unification and full integration (galactization?) would occur within a minority of that timeframe.

With slower than light travel, probe mapping will perhaps not be very useful, as it will take years or decades (centuries?) for any communications to reach the homeworld. Would humans remain dedicated to a single project for that long, especially when it was of no immediate utility to them? Telescope mapping sounds much more reasonable. And once again, massive colonisation following immediately upon the invention of the hyperdrive assumes that there is incentive for large-scale state-directed (or Big Business-funded) exploitation of faraway systems.

I don't have to understand the first principles if I can demonstrate something physically occurred. We know that exploration and colonization and unification followed the introduction of faster-than-light travel in general and modern hyperdrive in particular. Period. Who cares why? Once we know that process is occurring, we can compare it to periods of expansion and development in history. The comparison to other eras where technology suddenly became available for expansion is simple.

Yes, certain species are known to be human-derived, hence they are called near-human. Examples would include the Zeltrons, or the Etti, or, bizarrely enough, the extragalactic Nagai. In these cases this is known to the public (not surprising, perhaps, given that the only alteration in most cases is skin colour). This I do not dispute. But I was under the impression that we were talking about most humanoid aliens generally.

Do you have a better explanation for humanoid aliens than they derived from humans that meets the standards for evidence and does not violate parsimony? Because I'm tired of this idiotic "I don't really like your claim" crap. Either show something better, or shut up.

Whatever their origin, they are obviously humanoid. This particular argument does not really concern whether they were altered genetically, evolved naturally or whatever, merely whether they know or think themselves to be human-derived or not. I was pointing out instances where it would have been logical for certain parties to note this, had this been the case; as it is, they did not. I will readily grant that the absence of evidence is not evidence, but the absence of the evidence from a context in which it would have made sense for it to be present, had it existed, at least implies that there is a reason for it being missing.

I am tired of kowtowing to your endless nitpicks. Obvious cases of humanoidism can be explained only by derivation from human stock or extreme mimicry. This will take place on evolutionary timescales unless specified (in accordance with parsimony) as being artificially driven.

Whether they forgot or not is certainly less stretching of credulity than magic aliens which by chance resemble humans, inventing mechanisms where they have not been attributed from whole cloth (phantom alien genetic engineering), and your general maintanence up to this point that FTL societies would take longer than 20,000 years to integrate their galaxy. In short, its an irrelevent nitpick. Provide a better explanation or withdraw.

Which is why I am arguing that at least some modifications are fairly likely to have been intentional; perhaps they were only cosmetic, but evolution would seem unlikely to provide mutant traits for the simple reason of looking different. A different skin colour might make sense as a new pigment developed in response to a certain sun and atmosphere, for all that I know; horns or feathers can claim no such utilitarian purpose.

Supposition is not evidence. My explanation takes into account existing components, the fact we know species we see had somesort of antecedents (given), the fact we know that a lot of time has past (given), we know Darwinian evolution functions to speciate from common ancestors (given). The fact you don't like the null hypothesis is not evidence for adding additional mechanism (phantom alien intervention). THAT MECHANISM DOES NOT EXIST. YOU MADE IT UP. You're in no position to argue that the biologically it is mandated that these traits be artificially impanted. Find a biologist to shore up your opinion or withdraw it. It is not my job to sit here and account for any possible fantasy you draw up, especially those far outside your expertise. Your argument may sound really sophisticated to you, but let me some it up: "I don't like that. I think something else should have happened. Therefore, it did."

Your complaints are not biological mandates that the observed phenotypes are IMPOSSIBLE by natural evolution, and therefore, not evidence for your unnecessary, unattributed mechanism.

As to their lifestyles: we know most humanoid societies to live under conditions relatively similar to those of mankind. Even if we examine a reclusive community such as the Sand People of Tatooine, we know that they hold human-approximate gender roles, tend to domesticated animals, live in semi-nomadic settlements as a hunter-gatherer society, and use human tools when available. Their own equipment is also similar enough to the human physiology that a human can use it. We also know that humans can be adopted into their clans and survive under their normal living conditions. Yet they are genetically removed from humanity to such a degree that they can no longer interbreed. Would such a culture produce such a divergent strain? (I suppose in this particular example one could argue that the difference could stem from inbreeding, but there are others...)

No evidence for a better explanation; the null hypothesis obviously stands.

Given that humanity tend to fear the strange and the unknown, especially among ourselves (witness xenophobia), traits such as horns would arguably be less attractive, if not outright repulsive, than the baseline human to the baseline human, lessening the likelihood of the phenotype's continuation. It might actually be more of a handicap than, say, a recessive genetic disease, since it cannot be easily concealed.

That does not sound like the humanity I know. Yet, since we cannot be certain of shifting beauty ideals, radical counter-cultures and whatnots, I shall grant that it is a possibility.

More long-winded question begging. Provide the evidence for your extra unnecessary mechanism besides the fact you just don't like the null hypothesis, or I'm going to ask a mod to take the garbage.

Political/economic conflicts in Star Wars generally appear to last longer than in our history, for whatever reason. Still, I will not argue the point.

More mealy-mouthed concessions.

We know at least one alien species performed such modifications. Another built a giant space station thing that mankind still does not understand and moved planets across relativistic distances and kept them inhabitable while doing so; would genetic manipulation very likely be beyond them?

Do I really need to list the logical fallacies that exist when saying their was a species that was around, therefore they must've been responsible for the hundreds of pan-galactic examples of humanoidism. Really, must I?

[Darth Hoth]

I had completely forgotten.

<Snip>

All right, you win; I concede all points. While I would remain doubtful on a few minor issues, you have successfully showed that I cannot argue a better model. In absence of a viable alternative, I shall accept your interpretation as the superior one.

[Cykeisme]

I've noticed there aliens with apparently irreconcillable combinations of biological similarities to humans, coupled with complete taximonial disparities. They have very human bodies and faces, but with certain traits that make it unlikely they're even mammals, even if we were told that they evolved on the same planet as humans.

In cases like this, I like to hand it off to the will of the Force. The Force likes everything to look like humans (including humans).

Narf.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Saxton has come up with an explanation: pseudohumans. Extremely advanced mimicry or modification. Check out his miscellaneous page.