CPD Speculation

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2004-02-19 10:11pm

What can we speculate about the size of the Coruscant Police Department?

Note that I'm not interested in hearing any of this "Coruscant only has one trillion people" jazz. We'll go by Saxton's estimates, unless you've got a better plan.

The first thing I thought to do while thinking of this was note that New York City has about a 200 citizen to 1 cop ratio, with just over 8 million people in the five boroughs (US Census 2000) and around 40,000 cops (figure lifted from Sea Skimmer in the Mongol Horde vs. Times Square thread). Now, if you simply scale that up, you get around 5,000,000,000,000 (five trillion) Coruscant cops.
However, I'm pretty sure something like this doesn't scale 1:1 (if there's any real scaling formula at work at all). For example, if you use the New York figure and scale down, my cozy little hamlet of Santa Clara, with only 100,000 people, would have about 500 cops, which sounds a bit high to me (though neither the SCPD website nor the City of Santa Clara website has any figures on the size of our police force that I can find), even though our city is one of the safest and most well-policed in the area.

So, in your educated opinions, would Coruscant need drastically more or drastically fewer than 1 cop for every 200 citizens?

I'm thinking they'd probably be able to get by with fewer, because of a) automation and robocops, b) higher technology allowing single cops to do the work of multiple less-well-equipped cops, and c) lower depths which go relatively un-policed.

Regardless, we're looking at a massive amount of Coruscant's finest.

Any of y'all have any thoughts on the matter?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-02-19 10:23pm

I love Coruscant--and she has at least a dozen sisters out there.

A standing rebuttal to EU minimalism.

Kerneth · Post by **Kerneth** » 2004-02-20 12:18am

Coruscant under the New Republic or the Empire? I'm sure "Imperial City" Coruscant is going to have a FAR higher ratio of police to citizenry than the NR Coruscant.

Aside from that, I don't know enough to guess at the actual numbers.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-02-20 12:21am

Kerneth wrote:Coruscant under the New Republic or the Empire? I'm sure "Imperial City" Coruscant is going to have a FAR higher ratio of police to citizenry than the NR Coruscant.

Aside from that, I don't know enough to guess at the actual numbers.

Not necessarily; I'm willing to bet the contingents of Stormtroopers and Coruscant Guards (a special unit of Stormtroopers) were vastly more competent and effective on both an individual and unit basis.

Burak Gazan · Post by **Burak Gazan** » 2004-02-20 01:15am

CPD Blue; now there's a fanfilm or fic that'd be interesting

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2004-02-20 01:53am

I just asked my mom, who's a graduate of the Santa Clara Citizen's Police Academy, how many officers SCPD has, and she says there are 15 on duty at any given time, and a total of about 40 altogether, plus about ten detectives, who actually work together with the PDs of the surrounding county because there's not enough crime per city to justify a set number of detectives. Also, Santa Clara has a small SWAT team, made up of members of the regular force. This is, again, in a city of just over 100,000.

So the New York number certainly doesn't scale down very well.

Regardless, Coruscant is going to have a lot of cops, possibly (probably?) more than a trillion. One trillion would only be about a thousandth of the population.

Also, Coruscant's going to have a pretty good-sized Fire Department.
And a big Port Authority, too...AFAIK, all we officially know about Coruscant's port system is that the planet has two major spaceport hubs, Eastport, which primarily handles incoming traffic, and Westport, which primarily handles outgoing traffic (from HolonetNews).
A huge education system, postal system, etc., etc...

Somebody should write a book about all this mundane stuff; I think the implications of a Star Wars-scale civilization are truly fascinating.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2004-02-20 01:54am

Burak Gazan wrote:CPD Blue; now there's a fanfilm or fic that'd be interesting

Hell yeah. I'd love to write one, but I know jack shit about police procedure other than what I've seen in TV and movies.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-02-20 02:52am

Coruscant might need less than 1 cop for 200 people due to advanced technology and automation.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-20 02:54am

Rob already fucking said that...

SecondStorm · Post by **SecondStorm** » 2004-02-20 03:12pm

Robert Treder wrote:*snip*

Perhaps New York needs more cops because of the higher crime rate compared to Santa Clara(This is a big assumption as I dont know Santa Claras crime rate)?

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2004-02-20 05:51pm

Kerneth wrote:Coruscant under the New Republic or the Empire? I'm sure "Imperial City" Coruscant is going to have a FAR higher ratio of police to citizenry than the NR Coruscant.

Aside from that, I don't know enough to guess at the actual numbers.

i think you mean "Imperial Centre"

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-20 06:32pm

Coruscant the planet was officially renamed Imperial Centre.

Galactic City, the planet-wide tetrapolis* on Coruscant, was renamed Imperial City.

*Hey, I made up a new word!

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2004-02-23 09:12am

I would like to know how many traffic cops there are in CPD and whether or not Anakin Skywalker got a ticket.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-02-23 12:30pm

I realize that is a joke, but the Jedi are at least one law enforcement group in the OR, and they were actively in pursuit of a criminal. So no.

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2004-02-24 08:49am

Howedar wrote:I realize that is a joke, but the Jedi are at least one law enforcement group in the OR, and they were actively in pursuit of a criminal. So no.

Q: You got a license to kill bond, not a license to break traffic laws.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-02-24 06:12pm

Robert Treder wrote:
I'm thinking they'd probably be able to get by with fewer, because of a) automation and robocops, b) higher technology allowing single cops to do the work of multiple less-well-equipped cops, and c) lower depths which go relatively un-policed.

On the other hand almost anyone seems to be able to get a hold of weapons with nuclear levels of firepower like thermal detonators, proton torpedo and such, along with fighters and other armed ships, so they'd probably need SWAT units more comparable to a mechanized infantry brigades with an attached attack helicopter battalion, then modern SWAT teams.

Small foot and speeder patrols meanwhile, could be very easily wiped out, and it would seem that many people are very willing to do that sort of thing in the Star Wars universe, espically under the Empire.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-02-24 07:39pm

PainRack wrote:
Howedar wrote:I realize that is a joke, but the Jedi are at least one law enforcement group in the OR, and they were actively in pursuit of a criminal. So no.
Q: You got a license to kill bond, not a license to break traffic laws.

[Nitpick]Q: 007, may I remind you that you have a license to kill, not a license to break the traffic laws[/Nitpick]

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