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Okay, I'm confused about the status of Tatooine. Every so often there's a reference to it being an obscure backwater, ass-end of space planet. Yet everyone knows about it and everything important happens there (let's not get into Naboo's status right now).

It is a rather backwater world, but more people began to know about it during the later days of the Empire and into the New Republic because of Luke.

while tatooine may have been a backwater planet on the edge of the Empire and Republic, it was also at a junction of several Hyperspace corridors.

According to Journel of Anakin skywater, due to it location at this intersection Tatooine had visitors from all over the Galaxy and from other Galaxies ( Hey the kid may have been wrong, it the only mention I seen in any EU Novel mentioning Vistors from other Galaxies).

I just read this little thread and decided I'd look in the maps that come with the NJO books. There is no Tatooine in The Final Prophecy or Destiny's Way (only ones that are close to hand)...WTF?!
(This could just be because of the books, because I know some maps leave some planets out and others don't)

Ignore the maps in the NJO. They're complete garbage.

The two in the Inside the Worlds books are far better, in that they aren't some artsy "there be dragons here" subjective drawings.

omegaLancer wrote:According to Journel of Anakin skywater, due to it location at this intersection Tatooine had visitors from all over the Galaxy and from other Galaxies ( Hey the kid may have been wrong, it the only mention I seen in any EU Novel mentioning Vistors from other Galaxies).

According to AOTC, the SW galaxy apparently has a pair of tail galaxies:

They're called satellite galaxies, actually (like the Milky Way's own Sagittarius Dwarf). One of them is probably the Rishe maze.

Personally, I suspect that those dwarf galaxies and the halo compromise the unknown regions. Only way I see to explain how all these groups un the UR have the resources to be a bigger threat then the Yevetha were considered (and the Yevetha had a lot of powerful ships)

Trytostaydead wrote:Okay, I'm confused about the status of Tatooine. Every so often there's a reference to it being an obscure backwater, ass-end of space planet. Yet everyone knows about it and everything important happens there (let's not get into Naboo's status right now).

It can be both really. Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker were both from Tatooine so propoganda probably made a lot of their orgins. No doubt people are familiar with it from that and if it's the junction of several hyperspace routes through out the Outer Rim they might well know it as a stop over point.

But it's still a back water because it's on the very edge of habitable. Water, one of the basic necessities, is rare enough that people can make a living off dew collecting and there's no incentive at all to settle there. It is an ass-end of the universe sort of planet so it's not unreasonable that despite being well know it remains a rough, nasty sort of place.

Well Ender we also have the (Intergalactic Bank?) that joined the CIS. As well as extra-galactic aliens from the Marvel comic SW run.

Now, I'm not for one moment claiming that the Chiss have thousands of ships. But I don't see where the problem with them having the resources to field say a few hundred if they wanted too.

Yes, the galactic halo is sparse in star and by extention planets. But their are ways around that that dont refute real world science.

1. First stars planets are ejected from the galactic disc on a regular basis by close encounters with more massive bodies. In SW thier are gravity sensor (ie they can avoid mass shadows), detecting a massive rouge planet given thoughs sensors and suffiecent need a race in the halo could locate and mine rouge planetoids.

2. Second galaxies sometimes merge. The SW galaxies has to gravitationally bound satelites, that it will eventually merge with. Something similar could have happened in the past. Even our own Milky Way is now speculated to have undergone at least one merger. That could explain not only the planetary systems in the halo, but a number of other oddities as well.

3. Finally, in the planetary systems that the Chiss are known to possess. If they are typical must contain thousands of asteroids, minor satelites, and uninhabited planets. Even a smallish asteroid should yeild BILLIONS of ton of useful metals and other elements. Simulations of planet formation have shown that any star with sufficent metalicty to form terrestrial planets in it circumstellar disk should have between 2-10 earth masses of heavy elements, in close orbit. It doesn't really matter how large the Chiss economy is because; like the rest of the galaxy they possess self replicating machines (ie droids), to due all the work for them.

The bottom line is that if the chiss had just one star system, they have far more material and technology avalible, than necessary to construct thousands of capital ships. Remember that even the Death Star is nothing in terms of materials compared to say the Moon. The DS was built in the Endor system, and despite the fact that some of it was shipped there by Black Sun; i would speculate that the vast majority came from the local system. Material resources in a planetary system, should never be a problem.

The problem would be wether the rare material that are part of SW ship construction are readily avalible: neutronium, subnuclear knots of spacetime, hypermatter, etc. Now although there are definitly neutron stars and black holes out in the halo, they probaly don't have the technology to mine them. So, in all likely hood that is why we don't see these ships.