Conquering the Core

[Nefar]

Of all the wonders of the Star Wars universe, the most impressive (to me) is that of Coruscant, an ecumenopolis that rivals Trantor. It is fairly likely that several hundred, perhaps thousands, of Core worlds are of similar or greater size (Washington D.C. is not America's biggest city), with many, many more world of a smaller, but still ecumenopolis size (no sizable open land area, in other words). For the purpose of the argument, I will assume, generously, that Coruscant's population is roughly 100 quadrillion. If you believe that only 1 trillion populate it, I laugh at you (respectfully, of course).

Naturally, such a heavily urbanised planet would be dependent on another world, orders of magnitude less populated, that is almost entirely devoted to agriculture, to sustain it. I think that we can say that advances in agricultural technology would make only one planet necessary.

So given the tremendous population of many of the Core Worlds, and given that they are bound to be the most heavily defended worlds in the galaxy, how would you go about conquering them? Also, let's say that you have conquered all of the galaxy (-unknown regions) except the Core, so you have the resources to slug it out with your enemy. Two scenarios:

1.) Without Interdictor technology.

2.) With Interdiction technology.

Also, please try to act civilized and realize that BDZ'ing a world with a population of this level will start civil unrest across your empire. You are the New Republic, so public opinion counts.

[Edward Yee]

I think that I'd advance only as fast as necessary to prevent "scorched earth." Since I'm the NR, I don't intend to seize the agri-world to hold the people of Coruscant hostage. But I do intend to see if I can't in the meantime deprive them of other resource worlds. I think I'll be concerned though with taking out as much as possible of any opposing fleets in the core though... think that regional space dominance before groundside ops is a viable expectation/goal?

[Kartr_Kana]

If you've conquered the entre galaxy then you just jump in to orbit and say "surrender, I've won". If you merely have a fleet/powerbase that allows you to move into Coruscanti orbit and stay there. You do what Thrawn did, only you dont cloak the asteroids, you hurl them at the Triple (maybe more) shields over the planet til they collapse, then you threaten do destroy major portions of the citys infrastructure, and you do it in the clear so that the populace can hear you. If they dont surrender start bombarding the distrubution nodes for power, water, etc. As surgically as possible since your going to have to rebuild them. Broadcast demands for surrender and promise as soon as you have control of the planet you will bring the power/water/food back. At the very least the population will demand surrender, and you dont even have to hurry in rebuilding. Just cite continued "resistance" and give the ppl the bare minium. that'll keep them under your thumb, until you can bring everything back to full in a single "miracules" event. Throw a huge "Freedom Day" celebration to mark the occasion. The People are happy, they love you for the party and return of operability.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Easy, lay siege. There's no way a planet like Coruscant can hold out for even a whole week without the beginnings of starvation and there's no way a political leadership will be able to maintain defiance. Shield generator technicians aren't showing up to work when their family is starting to go hungry.

[darthkommandant]

Lets examine the options critically . (disregarding option d and assuming that the core worlds have defensive fleets)


First Direct Attack: Not even an option. In the real world urban fighting is one of the most costly in men, equipment, and time. There is no reason that this would not be true in the GFFA as well. Any attack on an ecumenopolis is going to earned in rivers of blood and result in major damage to the city and its population. For example Battle of Munnilist as depected in the CW animated series left much of the Harnadian(sp) in ruins and significant casualties even thought the enemy leadership was catured early in the battle. So it is not an option to take just one all city world let alone multiple ones.



Optoion b Seige This is the best option by far. Just park your fleet in orbit, defeat the defending fleet, and starve them out while keepint the reinforcing fleets dont break the seige. By the end of the first week there would probably be satrvation starting to set in and either the politicians would surrender, or face riots that may be instigated by lack of food and possible epidemics due to a lack of bacta. A well run propoganda campaign could shorten the seige if you broadcast that you will let the food/products/bacta ect.. shipments resume immediatly if the planet surrenders peacefully. If your lucky you just might trigger the aformentioned riots by these broadcasts. But it wouldn't matter either way eventually the planet will have to surrender if a total blockade is set up and maintained. For the rest core worlds repeat as necessary until they all surrender one by one.

Option c Take the resource worlds. This is a pretty reasonable option at first glance. Usually resource world is sparsly defended and can be conqured easily due to a lack of major military instilations on the planet. However there are probably many insignificant farm/mining worlds in the GFFA. It is just unfeasable to try to conquer them all. It is aslo redundant in that it accomlishes the same thing as a the seige plan does except you are spreading out your forces more and it will take longer.

[PainRack]

Easy, lay siege. There's no way a planet like Coruscant can hold out for even a whole week without the beginnings of starvation and there's no way a political leadership will be able to maintain defiance. Shield generator technicians aren't showing up to work when their family is starting to go hungry.

Not neccesary......
City states like Hong Kong and Singapore already have stored food for up to a week. For Coruscant which has experienced warfare before, and I believe RPG blurbs about mushroom farms and entire warehouses of supplies, this may be longer. Furthermore, SW recyclable technology may be advanced enough to sustain the population, especially since Coruscant does have a subsidiary supply of food.
Refugees on Coruscant after the Yuzhan Vong attack did manage to secure food after all, including supplies such as grayweave.


A more problematic scenario would be energy and environmental concerns. We don't know how raising planetary shields may interfere with the environmental technology that sustain a planetary city and the level of energies required to run Coruscant in peacetime must be staggeringly high. In war, with constant use of shields under bombardment and energy for weapons, not to mention the additional load on environmental systems so as to redirect waste heat from weapons bombardment, power supplies may be limited.

Naturally, such a heavily urbanised planet would be dependent on another world, orders of magnitude less populated, that is almost entirely devoted to agriculture, to sustain it. I think that we can say that advances in agricultural technology would make only one planet necessary.

Frankly, I doubt a planet is even neccesary or desirable. Space stations, with controlled climate is probably more efficient than planetary agriculture. At least you don't have to waste energy lifting off a gravity well.

1.) Without Interdictor technology.

The Core worlds probably retain significant industrial resources, and thus can field a fleet equivalent to my own. Perhaps a page out of Sun Tzu may be approiate.

Hit the orbital shipyards and other spaceborne industrial resources, such as space stations, powerplants, mining and agricultural projects. As we're fighting on exterior lines, the enemy can probably reinforce systems faster than we can so occupation will be difficult. However, we can also spread out their fleets in an attempt to defend valuable systems, thus, perhaps overwhelming a portion of their forces.

Since city planets are more vulnerable to logistic , the need to defend their logistic lines may prevent them from ever launching their own counter-raids against me. Especially since my planets are probably more self-sustaining than theirs.

Its going to be a major campaign though, no quick fixes.

2.) With Interdiction technology.

Assuming I'm desperate.............
Set up diversionary raids throughout the Core. Hit Coruscant with a minor force, and set up interdiction traps along routes accessing the system. Overwhelm and destroy enemy incoming fleet reinforcements.

Without an incoming fleet to rescue them, it should be possible to deploy the big guns and overwhelm Coruscant shields. Land and capture the spaceports. Any fixed defences in an urban city is probably based on guns and other turrets, with infantry providing close in security. Its unlikely that they will have a strong anti-vehicular defence, barring aerial support.

With control of the spaceports, and assuming I can run enough reinforcements down to them through the gauntlet of AA and enemy interceptors so as to hold them, I should be able to force a surrender on the planetary government and thus seize control of the Core............

A desperate gamble and throw of the dice........

[Solauren]

Readings of Thrawn would be fun to do but....

I'd lay Seige. Here's why -

Moral/PR; The fact you're managing to lay a prolonged seige on the planet is going to freak people out. They're cut off from the government, and probably know, or have some connection to the Capital.

Hell, the fact you're laying seige to one of the most heavily defended locations in the Galaxy, is going to freak people out.

Military; Whoever hold's Coruscant is going to eventually have to pull more forces in from somewhere to try to break the seige, even if Borsk Felya's qoute of 'we have supplies for many months' is true.
Pulling in more military will leave other positions weakened and perhaps defenseless. Once this happens, start interdicting the weakened agricultural and resource planets. Once they switch to lowering defenses on other positions, hit them instead.

You can spin this with Major PR - Coruscant abandoning others to protect itself, Coruscant reinforcing but at the cost of food production - famine feared in dozens of sectors.. Etc

[Darth Tanner]

Starvation may be far more difficult than most people expect, the Rogue Planet novel states that Coruscant has incredible recycling capacity and that the only true waste is usually radioactive materials which are shot into the sun, with the remainder being reprocessed for re-consumption.

Although Coruscant is certainly heavily reliant on thousands of agricultural worlds to provide the varied diets that thousands of different species would require I would argue that even with modern day technology sufficient raw organic material could be grown in hydroponic facilities or from reprocessed organic waste to at least keep the population alive. Well those species that can be sustained by a human orientated diet anyway. Similar to everyone growing their own potatoes in world war two for example.

The only real problem is as already stated fuel supply as the energy requirements for running a planet wide city combined with operation of a multi layered shield grid would be staggering, however as shown in the lack of large fuel tanks in both the Death Star and other ships it would be reasonable to assume that SW fuel is very compact in relation to the energy it can provide so it is at least possible that massive stores exist to keep the city running for an extended period of time.

Also as an aside I get a Coruscant population of 6 trillion by using the surface area of the Earth and double the population density of Hong Kong, Coruscant's buildings being a lot taller that ours, you could probably double that figure again though.

As a further aside can planetary based weapons fire through planetary shields to hit ships in orbit? On Hoth the shields were lowered for the transports when they fired and I'd imagine if they could have fired regardless of lowering the shields they would have disabled the orbiting Star Destroyers before sending off their transports.

[PainRack]

Also as an aside I get a Coruscant population of 6 trillion by using the surface area of the Earth and double the population density of Hong Kong, Coruscant's buildings being a lot taller that ours, you could probably double that figure again though.

Try ten times higher. Hong Kong and Singapore both have the same approximate population density, ranging out to 2 billion people using Saxton area estimates.

While Hong Kong do have higher buildings, she also has a substantial rural population, something that Singapore, another city state do not. And singapore has only 4 buildings taller than 210m. Coruscant has multi-km skyscrapers as the norm........

Assuming population is scalar with height, any conservative estimate of Coruscant population has 40 trillion as bare bone min, with estimates of 100+ trillion being a realistic example conforming to known features of Coruscant.

One should also note that Coruscant may very well have a higher population density than current city-states. As it is, enviromental and social engineers from NUS estimated it is possible to squeeze a 10k per sq km in, and the government is gearing up infrastructure to sustain a 7k per sq km.
The crowds certainly do argue for this.

As a further aside can planetary based weapons fire through planetary shields to hit ships in orbit? On Hoth the shields were lowered for the transports when they fired and I'd imagine if they could have fired regardless of lowering the shields they would have disabled the orbiting Star Destroyers before sending off their transports.

Including the EU, yes.

[Lex]

It is fairly likely that several hundred, perhaps thousands, of Core worlds are of similar or greater size (Washington D.C. is not America's biggest city),

unlikely; in the Star Wars universe, Coruscant is truly unique. I never heard of any planet with a higher population!

[Darth Tanner]

Coruscant is almost certainty the largest population center but there are many other city covered worlds of immense population.

link nudity

EDIT: Love the sig animation by the way Lex

[The Grim Squeaker]

It is fairly likely that several hundred, perhaps thousands, of Core worlds are of similar or greater size (Washington D.C. is not America's biggest city),

unlikely; in the Star Wars universe, Coruscant is truly unique. I never heard of any planet with a higher population!

Wrong, there are a number of "Hive" worlds (Mainly in the core) and while none have Coruscant's population they are planets with mile high super-scrapers lacking "Free space". (Fondor and other planets in the Inner Core, Saxtons site details a few).

For the purpose of the argument, I will assume, generously, that Coruscant's population is roughly 100 quadrillion. If you believe that only 1 trillion populate it, I laugh at you (respectfully, of course).

1 trillion is too low by far, but 100 Quadrillion is ludicrous since the Galaxies biological population as a whole is apparently in the Quadrillions (Extremely low but what can you do) while estimates have Coruscants "Realistic" population in the tens-low hundreds of trillions (As has been said). You're 2 orders of magnitude over the limit

[glass]

It is fairly likely that several hundred, perhaps thousands, of Core worlds are of similar or greater size (Washington D.C. is not America's biggest city),

unlikely; in the Star Wars universe, Coruscant is truly unique. I never heard of any planet with a higher population!

The are other fully urbanised worlds, aren't there?

Coruscant may be the most impressive and most populous, but I wouldn't really call it unique.

EDIT: Or, what DEATH & Darth Tanner said.


glass.

[FTeik]

Well, I've heard that it isn't the densest populated planet or most wealthy or culturally advanced that exists in the GFFA, but that it combines all three aspects like no other world. Humbarine was a city-world, Metellos is called Coruscants poor brother (IIRC), ect. .

[Isolder74]

Let's not forget nar shadda

[Lex]

It is fairly likely that several hundred, perhaps thousands, of Core worlds are of similar or greater size (Washington D.C. is not America's biggest city),

unlikely; in the Star Wars universe, Coruscant is truly unique. I never heard of any planet with a higher population!

Wrong, there are a number of "Hive" worlds (Mainly in the core) and while none have Coruscant's population they are planets with mile high super-scrapers lacking "Free space". (Fondor and other planets in the Inner Core, Saxtons site details a few).

Well by unique I more or less meant most populated, as he writes about "thousands of cities with the same or greater size"...

thanks btw tanner, I like it too

[CaptainChewbacca]

Does anyone remember how long Coruscant had its shield up during the 'Cloaked Asteroid' scare?

[Illuminatus Primus]

City states like Hong Kong and Singapore already have stored food for up to a week. For Coruscant which has experienced warfare before, and I believe RPG blurbs about mushroom farms and entire warehouses of supplies, this may be longer. Furthermore, SW recyclable technology may be advanced enough to sustain the population, especially since Coruscant does have a subsidiary supply of food.
Refugees on Coruscant after the Yuzhan Vong attack did manage to secure food after all, including supplies such as grayweave.

That doesn't mean that 90+% of the realistic population did not die. There must be hundreds of trillions of people at least on Coruscant, and even that is WAY underballing - though permissible because presumably in times of war esp. in the Core Worlds people may emigrate or flee to refugee zones.

Anyhow, 90+% of the realistic population getting killed in the battle or subsequent infrastructure collapse is acceptable to the Yuuzhan Vong conquerors, but not to domestic inhabitants and defenders - and that will force the surrender.

A more problematic scenario would be energy and environmental concerns. We don't know how raising planetary shields may interfere with the environmental technology that sustain a planetary city and the level of energies required to run Coruscant in peacetime must be staggeringly high. In war, with constant use of shields under bombardment and energy for weapons, not to mention the additional load on environmental systems so as to redirect waste heat from weapons bombardment, power supplies may be limited.

Coruscant is in the unfortunate position of having so many people and so much machinery it doubtlessly radiates more heat from its surface than it recieves from its sun. This means in order to maintain an adequate climate, heat must be actively pumped out of the atmosphere or stored in heat sinks.

Frankly, I doubt a planet is even neccesary or desirable. Space stations, with controlled climate is probably more efficient than planetary agriculture. At least you don't have to waste energy lifting off a gravity well.

I have my doubts. The marginal cost of lifting out of gravity wells is obviously trivial to SW technology. However, constructing a fabric for agricultural purposes that compares to the surface area of a terrestrial planet is not irrelevent. Traditional economics of space travel suggests the true pain in for shipping, not its just not the case in SW.

The best planets are probably Inner Rim worlds terrestrial worlds somewhat closer to their star than Earth and somewhat lower gravity, allowing for maximum crop yields. I agree there may be space station supplementing of these yields but there is no evidence this solution is used in SW and it is in fact contradictory to the economics of travel in SW and the official evidence (we know agriworlds exist by probably the millions and at least thousands, and have specific examples, such as Chandrilla). There is no evidence for agricultural space stations.

However, what people would like to eat is some of the least efficient stuff. Animal meats? Lush vegetation? The most efficient system would be microbially-synthesized protein, carbohydrate, and fat sources with synthetic fiber and mineral and vitamin supplements (think the Matrix's food slop). Synthesizing nutrient complexes using microbes is the most efficient process with the least net loss. This is the optimal solution for Coruscanti surface-based food supplementation. Perhaps each building on Coruscant is almost like a miniature city, containing entertainment, commercial, residential, and industrial sectors at various levels. The sealed off core levels may contain organic recyclers, heat sinks, etc. I imagine it'd be easier to process many of the functions of climate control and energy efficiency and recycling/waste processing on a skyscraper-by-skyscraper basis, with only the tough jobs being assigned to gigantic climate control machines, waste processing and recycling centers, and heat exchangers.

The Core worlds probably retain significant industrial resources, and thus can field a fleet equivalent to my own. Perhaps a page out of Sun Tzu may be approiate.

Hyperdrive trade is the fabric of galactic society. This is protected by naval forces. They must be destroyed in of themselves in order to dominate the enemy. SW strategy is necessarily Mahanian. Any concentrated assault on Core Worlds must be preceeded by attrition of the enemy's naval resources. In fact, its more Mahanian than the World War I terrestrial scenario since all naval resources can essentially be reallocated at will within days notice.

Hit the orbital shipyards and other spaceborne industrial resources, such as space stations, powerplants, mining and agricultural projects. As we're fighting on exterior lines, the enemy can probably reinforce systems faster than we can so occupation will be difficult. However, we can also spread out their fleets in an attempt to defend valuable systems, thus, perhaps overwhelming a portion of their forces.

Since city planets are more vulnerable to logistic , the need to defend their logistic lines may prevent them from ever launching their own counter-raids against me. Especially since my planets are probably more self-sustaining than theirs.

Its going to be a major campaign though, no quick fixes.

Mostly agreements. However, the Core Worlds are positioned to draw on the highest density and quantity of available energy, raw material, and habitation/agricultural resources. They will necessarily be able to field the largest navies and armies. They may intrinsically suffer disadvantages logistically in defense, but they must intrinisically dominate in offense.

If mixed-economy, self-sustaining worlds were more efficient, there wouldn't be a galactic community and not one centered on the Core Worlds.

[PainRack]

That doesn't mean that 90+% of the realistic population did not die. There must be hundreds of trillions of people at least on Coruscant, and even that is WAY underballing - though permissible because presumably in times of war esp. in the Core Worlds people may emigrate or flee to refugee zones.

However, above said population survived UNTIL the liberation of Coruscant. Not to mention fielding a guerilla army that bolstered by Republic commandoes and Shamed Ones could engage the Yuzhan ground troops.

Certainly, food supplies certainly existed for a much longer period than you claim, making claims by Felya and other RPG blurbs about a year of supplies believable.

As an aside, I disagree on the quadrillion estimate. They are based entirely off urban density and ignore the need for environmental and other industrial assets.

Anyhow, 90+% of the realistic population getting killed in the battle or subsequent infrastructure collapse is acceptable to the Yuuzhan Vong conquerors, but not to domestic inhabitants and defenders - and that will force the surrender.

You're introducing a red herring. The contention is that Coruscant has food supplies and won't go into starvation in just a week. That claim is idiotic because even now, city states like Hong Kong and Singapore have food supplies that will last for a week. There is no reason why Coruscant, a city planet that is facing a war won't have larger supplies and the various blurbs in the EU are believable.

I have my doubts. The marginal cost of lifting out of gravity wells is obviously trivial to SW technology. However, constructing a fabric for agricultural purposes that compares to the surface area of a terrestrial planet is not irrelevent. Traditional economics of space travel suggests the true pain in for shipping, not its just not the case in SW.

However, space stations offer complete, utter climate control. While SW has weather control, such facilities should be more complex and expensive than any spaceborne equivalent.

The ease in controlling climate, soil, pests and disease, not to mention just simple hydroponics would make space farms a much more attractive proposition. Especially since such stations could be easily set up in the consumer system.

The best planets are probably Inner Rim worlds terrestrial worlds somewhat closer to their star than Earth and somewhat lower gravity, allowing for maximum crop yields. I agree there may be space station supplementing of these yields but there is no evidence this solution is used in SW and it is in fact contradictory to the economics of travel in SW and the official evidence (we know agriworlds exist by probably the millions and at least thousands, and have specific examples, such as Chandrilla). There is no evidence for agricultural space stations.

Conceded. The bulk of SW agriculture is still based on agriworlds like Saliche.

Perhaps each building on Coruscant is almost like a miniature city, containing entertainment, commercial, residential, and industrial sectors at various levels. The sealed off core levels may contain organic recyclers, heat sinks, etc. I imagine it'd be easier to process many of the functions of climate control and energy efficiency and recycling/waste processing on a skyscraper-by-skyscraper basis, with only the tough jobs being assigned to gigantic climate control machines, waste processing and recycling centers, and heat exchangers.

It would be interesting to explore this further.

I'm not an environmental engineer, but from the articles I read, centralised sewage and treatment systems are more efficient. However, there is nothing to prevent each building to have its own water recyclers, air purification and heat sinks.

However, it would be interesting to know how much of the surface area is dedicated to such systems. Heat sinks must have areas to radiate, and we know that there are centralised sewage pits that eject garbage into space from Rogue Planet. Similarly, there must be receiving stations to receive solar energy from the stations seen in Wedge Gamble. Such solar energy is probably meant for climate control, replacing non existent air and ocean currents.
Similarly, areas for air ventilation should also exist........... Could transport systems also be intergrated with such systems? Subway tunnels similarly acting to conduct air and heat from one area to another?

[Battlehymn Republic]

The last option intrigues me- seriously, how could covert operations, psychological warfare, and stirring up the populace go when you're dealing with Coruscant?

[FTeik]

We see those contained worlds of an entire city in a single building in Darth Maul: ShadowHunter and about the synthetic food, IIRC, DarkJourney has Jaina wondering about the natural meat/foodstoof of the Hapan Court in contrast to the synth-food she is used too from Coruscant.

[Illuminatus Primus]

However, above said population survived UNTIL the liberation of Coruscant. Not to mention fielding a guerilla army that bolstered by Republic commandoes and Shamed Ones could engage the Yuzhan ground troops.

There is some organic matter on Coruscant, and certainly enough to subsist on after the Vong begin aggressively terraforming the place. That requires, parsimonically, a few million max in the sector where Imperial City used to be. It certainly does not require billions or trillions. So that does not in any way support your assertion somehow because survivors in the gutters can scrape together some plants that the equilibrium population of Coruscant could survive more than maybe a week or so (to say nothing of a month, which I consider the upper limit).

Certainly, food supplies certainly existed for a much longer period than you claim, making claims by Felya and other RPG blurbs about a year of supplies believable.

The novels and RPG refuse to awknowledge the canonically logical population figures, and are in self-denial about the basic physics of such a world. Since their population figures are off by at least a factor of several hundred, it follows their infrastructural support claims may be off by at least as much, since they're working with incorrect data.

As an aside, I disagree on the quadrillion estimate. They are based entirely off urban density and ignore the need for environmental and other industrial assets.

Who said a quadrillion? The realistic urban density figures put it in the several quadrillion realistically. I granted the hundred trillion lower limit, which would make it no less than 90% uninhabited compared to urban density. Are you claiming that an artificial world sustained by external power resources, external food resources, external raw material resources, and massive weather control machines requires more than 90% inert building per 10% urban density dwelling? The sustainability requirements of canonical, filmic Coruscant are much less staggering than the shipping and transport requirements of the secret DS2 project and the heat dissipation requirements of the noticable factional-second longevity of the Alderaanian shield.

Much of your claims is based on maybes and whats-its and conforming to the EU. The filmic canon is that it is one big city covering the entire planet. I will subordinate other data to that interpretation and its consequences. That's the film. The rest is fleshing out or exceptions, but we don't bend that canonical word to EU BS.

Even though I am granting 100 trillion, there's little doubt SW could sustain several quadrillion. You may have a problem with urban density requirements, but urban density is the best way to describe a fabric of a city-wide city.

You're introducing a red herring. The contention is that Coruscant has food supplies and won't go into starvation in just a week. That claim is idiotic because even now, city states like Hong Kong and Singapore have food supplies that will last for a week. There is no reason why Coruscant, a city planet that is facing a war won't have larger supplies and the various blurbs in the EU are believable.

Nothing about the sustainability concerns of Hong Kong and Singapore resemble in the slightest Coruscant other than the fact they are both called cities on highly different technological planes.

Humans in a week consume a lot of food, and produce a lot of waste. Especially for a planet which saw no war for thousands upon thousands of years, all this paranoid, Cold War-esque civil defense preparation is uncalled for. Perhaps a war-torn Coruscant, mostly depopulated from recent warfare has plenty of room for extra foodstuffs, enviromental sustainment machines, recyclers, and food synthesizers. But the OP suggests the "typical" or equilibrium Coruscant, which is the Coruscant of the Republic of legend, of thousands and thousands of years, which probably sustained total or near total population capacity during the Clone Wars (remember it was tagged as overcrowded with seperatism's refugees in AOTC and Holonet News). Sure we could revise the OP into the war-torn, plague-infested Coruscant supported by a depressed, disrupted, and war-ravaged galactic economy of the Thrawn Trilogy, or the post-DE Coruscant that had to be largely rebuilt, etc. But that would defeat the point, wouldn't it?

Coruscant for most of its history, including much of the Clone War, necessarily was below your sustainability figures. That's what I'm basing my estimates on.

However, space stations offer complete, utter climate control. While SW has weather control, such facilities should be more complex and expensive than any spaceborne equivalent.

So you're dropping grav-well stuff, hm? Well there's not a shred of evidence that marginal cost of weather/climate control exceeds the marginal cost of artificially assembling an agricultural fabric that compares to the land mass of a terrestrial planet.

We have agriworlds - we have them by the thousands minimum, and have famous canonical examples. If its cheaper to assemble space stations in the system with the food markets, there would be almost no agriworlds. We see plenty of agriworlds, and few or none of the space stations you suggest - only speculation and maybes and what-its on your part. Therefore, that agriworlds must not be cheaper, and thus most prevelent and preferred is the parsimonious and logical explanation.

I've shown you mine, you show me yours. Or concede. Speculation and supposition has no place against or substituting actual evidence.

The ease in controlling climate, soil, pests and disease, not to mention just simple hydroponics would make space farms a much more attractive proposition. Especially since such stations could be easily set up in the consumer system.

But you still have to move planetary-relevant quantities of water. You have to move enough raw material and organic substrate to equal the land mass area of a terrestrial planet. Somehow I doubt these resources are just floating around in every system with easy access.

Somehow hyper-shipping all that shit is easier than just hyper-shipping the crop products, instead? Their global climate/weather control is doubtlessly fine enough to extract maximum possible yields from existing terrestrial planets.

Conceded. The bulk of SW agriculture is still based on agriworlds like Saliche.

Then what the fuck were you just wasting my time for? We know they have an economically or culturally preferred system thanks to the low marginal cost of hyperdrive trade. I granted there may possibly be supplementary space farms - but we have no evidence of them whatsoever and certainly no evidence that they could not only subsist the economic equilibrium population of Coruscant for significant duration and be physically capable being enclosed beneath the deflector shield. No evidence whatsoever. Just your supposition and speculation.

I'm not an environmental engineer, but from the articles I read, centralised sewage and treatment systems are more efficient. However, there is nothing to prevent each building to have its own water recyclers, air purification and heat sinks.

Perhaps. I think you may simply run into problems of scale when you have Star Destroyer-sized raw sewage pipes. See in suburban Earth, we don't mind centrally processing waste with the very infrequent mishap of backed-up sewage or sewage flooding or pipe breaks, etc., etc. However, a proportionally scaled up mishap on Coruscant could put millions into a biohazard situation immediately. Building by building, or sector-within-a-building failures keep mistakes and problems localized and small and manageable. And of course, it makes terrorism/crime/sabotage/etc. more difficult.

However, it would be interesting to know how much of the surface area is dedicated to such systems. Heat sinks must have areas to radiate, and we know that there are centralised sewage pits that eject garbage into space from Rogue Planet. Similarly, there must be receiving stations to receive solar energy from the stations seen in Wedge Gamble. Such solar energy is probably meant for climate control, replacing non existent air and ocean currents.
Similarly, areas for air ventilation should also exist........... Could transport systems also be intergrated with such systems? Subway tunnels similarly acting to conduct air and heat from one area to another?

Probably. I imagine they waste more heat energy pumping the heat out faster than it would escape by equilbrium. Skyhooks may play a role, linked to heat exchangers and pumping atmospheric heat out above the atmosphere. We also know that the climate system can have other "settings". The Wedge's Gamble Coruscant boasted an almost Venus-like cloud envelope, and was quite stormy and unpleasant. Much more difficulty must be inherent in stabilizing the water cycle on such a world, as well as evacuating heat efficiently.

[General Brock]

So given the tremendous population of many of the Core Worlds, and given that they are bound to be the most heavily defended worlds in the galaxy, how would you go about conquering them? Also, let's say that you have conquered all of the galaxy (-unknown regions) except the Core, so you have the resources to slug it out with your enemy. Two scenarios:

1.) Without Interdictor technology.

2.) With Interdiction technology.

Also, please try to act civilized and realize that BDZ'ing a world with a population of this level will start civil unrest across your empire. You are the New Republic, so public opinion counts.

I voted to blockade Coruscant and starve it out.

Do I even need Coruscant? I have the rest of the galaxy, including its productive powers, an embryonic ruling clique, and core worlds jealous of Coruscant and who might desire to be my galactic capital. Either with or without interdictor technology, Coruscant will be cut off from the rest of the galaxy with layers of warships and comm jamming arrays.

The world can be taken without having to damage the infrastructures already in place for pan-galactic rule. If it can't, the entire planet becomes a prison for the criminal regime harboured therein.

Even if they can sustain themselves for years, and scavenge the materials to build their own spacecraft, they can't do so indefinitely and defeat the marshaled resources of the rest of the galaxy blockading it. All I have to do is cut off communications and threaten them with a real loss of political and economic significance. A coup would almost be certain if a surrender was not forthcoming. If they still will not yield... Coruscant gets the Dathomir treatment and the galaxy goes on without them.

[PainRack]

There is some organic matter on Coruscant, and certainly enough to subsist on after the Vong begin aggressively terraforming the place. That requires, parsimonically, a few million max in the sector where Imperial City used to be. It certainly does not require billions or trillions. So that does not in any way support your assertion somehow because survivors in the gutters can scrape together some plants that the equilibrium population of Coruscant could survive more than maybe a week or so (to say nothing of a month, which I consider the upper limit).

Except that there are blurbs about vast warehouses with supplies, as well as Borsk comments about Coruscant surviving for months. In fact, we know they did exactly this during the Thrawn crisis, surviving for weeks without imports.

The novels and RPG refuse to awknowledge the canonically logical population figures, and are in self-denial about the basic physics of such a world. Since their population figures are off by at least a factor of several hundred, it follows their infrastructural support claims may be off by at least as much, since they're working with incorrect data.

Except that even modern day city states retain a week of supplies. Hong Kong even has agriculture, which will serve to extend this further.

Who said a quadrillion? The realistic urban density figures put it in the several quadrillion realistically.

No, it doesn't. We been through this before. Saxton figures are based entirely on urban density, ignoring the needs for environmental and other facillities.

Are you claiming that an artificial world sustained by external power resources, external food resources, external raw material resources, and massive weather control machines requires more than 90% inert building per 10% urban density dwelling?

No. I'm saying that Saxton figures are based ENTIRELY off residential zones figures. A more accurate base for extrapolation should be using entire city states, because Coruscant is such an equivalent. Taking the density of downtown Perth or New York is not equivalent.

Much of your claims is based on maybes and whats-its and conforming to the EU. The filmic canon is that it is one big city covering the entire planet. I will subordinate other data to that interpretation and its consequences. That's the film. The rest is fleshing out or exceptions, but we don't bend that canonical word to EU BS.

And so do mine, infused with real world extrapolation. Again, modern day city states have a week of supplies already. Including agriculture and supplies from ships left blockaded, this realistically extends further. Unless Coruscant is a modern day Vatican City, which is unsupported by the EU, then my estimates based off modern day extrapolation is certainly more realistic than just blind assumption.

Even though I am granting 100 trillion, there's little doubt SW could sustain several quadrillion. You may have a problem with urban density requirements, but urban density is the best way to describe a fabric of a city-wide city.

Singapore is 94% urbanised. Saxton extrapolates a 98% urbanisation of Coruscant for his figures.
Using Singapore population density and scaling up for increases in urban space, it gives us hundred trillions.

Nothing about the sustainability concerns of Hong Kong and Singapore resemble in the slightest Coruscant other than the fact they are both called cities on highly different technological planes.

If we factor in technology, then we can realistically argue that Coruscant will last even longer. We don't have food recyclers and pills. They do.

Humans in a week consume a lot of food, and produce a lot of waste. Especially for a planet which saw no war for thousands upon thousands of years, all this paranoid, Cold War-esque civil defense preparation is uncalled for.

Only a thousand years.

Perhaps a war-torn Coruscant, mostly depopulated from recent warfare has plenty of room for extra foodstuffs, enviromental sustainment machines, recyclers, and food synthesizers. But the OP suggests the "typical" or equilibrium Coruscant, which is the Coruscant of the Republic of legend, of thousands and thousands of years, which probably sustained total or near total population capacity during the Clone Wars (remember it was tagged as overcrowded with seperatism's refugees in AOTC and Holonet News). Sure we could revise the OP into the war-torn, plague-infested Coruscant supported by a depressed, disrupted, and war-ravaged galactic economy of the Thrawn Trilogy, or the post-DE Coruscant that had to be largely rebuilt, etc. But that would defeat the point, wouldn't it?

And why should your blind assumption trump over modern day city planning, which has a week of supplies without imports?

So you're dropping grav-well stuff, hm? Well there's not a shred of evidence that marginal cost of weather/climate control exceeds the marginal cost of artificially assembling an agricultural fabric that compares to the land mass of a terrestrial planet.

Actually, no, I'm no. Not lifting out of a gravity well represent energy savings, no matter how minute it is. For corporations which have to look at the bottom line, this do represent a saving. However, the key factor will be utter weather/climate control.

As for agricultural fabric, let me throw back SW industrial resources at you. You're looking at a civilisation that mines suns..........

Furthermore, intensive agriculture and improved techniques will probably reduce the need for arable land. Hydroponics and the like are just some of the newer technologies available.

If its cheaper to assemble space stations in the system with the food markets, there would be almost no agriworlds. We see plenty of agriworlds, and few or none of the space stations you suggest - only speculation and maybes and what-its on your part. Therefore, that agriworlds must not be cheaper, and thus most prevelent and preferred is the parsimonious and logical explanation.

You're assuming that the market is perfect and elastic. In the modern day, we still retain inefficient farming practices.

But you still have to move planetary-relevant quantities of water.You have to move enough raw material and organic substrate to equal the land mass area of a terrestrial planet. Somehow I doubt these resources are just floating around in every system with easy access.

Lol. These things also have to be done for agriculture on land. They use weather control and droid labour for fertilisation and tilling. Its still the same.

As for easy access, even moon soil can be fertile. There are countless dead planetoids in the SWU.

Then what the fuck were you just wasting my time for? We know they have an economically or culturally preferred system thanks to the low marginal cost of hyperdrive trade. I granted there may possibly be supplementary space farms - but we have no evidence of them whatsoever and certainly no evidence that they could not only subsist the economic equilibrium population of Coruscant for significant duration and be physically capable being enclosed beneath the deflector shield. No evidence whatsoever. Just your supposition and speculation.

The point was to explore the possibilities. There is no evidence for black hole power generators in the SWU either, but both of us assume that they exist, don't we?

Perhaps. I think you may simply run into problems of scale when you have Star Destroyer-sized raw sewage pipes. See in suburban Earth, we don't mind centrally processing waste with the very infrequent mishap of backed-up sewage or sewage flooding or pipe breaks, etc., etc. However, a proportionally scaled up mishap on Coruscant could put millions into a biohazard situation immediately. Building by building, or sector-within-a-building failures keep mistakes and problems localized and small and manageable. And of course, it makes terrorism/crime/sabotage/etc. more difficult.

Perhaps there are primary and secondary facillities. Sewage is initially treated in the residential zones, before it is sent to a centralised plant.

[PainRack]

Just to show how Saxton figures are off....

The typical population density for suburban areas of modern cities on Earth are of an order of magnitude about 10,000 or 20,000 persons per square kilometre (taking the comfortable Australian city of Perth* as an example). (Readers who would prefer a USA example could consider New York county, with a 1999 population of 1,551,844 persons, an area of 28 square miles = 72.5km², and a population density of 21,107 persons/km² after metric conversion. Reputedly the densest urban population centre on Earth, Hong Kong, had 98,000 persons/km² in 1999 and remains less built-up than Coruscant by some orders of magnitude

Sources from answers.com and wikipedia give New York as 10 thousand people/km^2.

Both Hong Kong and Singapore have a population density of 6k/km^2.

Obviously, Saxton figures must had ignored something.