ST v SW

[Connor MacLeod]

Endor might not be a valid example as that's more like mission accomplished, but that still leaves Bespin, Tatooine, Naboo, and Coruscant being shown to us.

Maybe the average joe wasn't willing to risk his life with anti-empire action, but if they didn't have anti-empire sentiment, how would you explain that ending?

All I can think of is some kind of bias on the part of the narrator, which might be valid - it did follow the rebellion, and the end showed places we knew from the rest of the journey. But still, I don't buy it; many of those locations were pretty coincidental; the heroes might have passed through them but not much more.

Coruscant, as per (IIRC) the Wraith Squadron novels, shows what is largely an anti-Emperor demostration (sort of like.. Occupy Coruscant) prior to being brutally oppressed (with gunfire) from the Imperial Authorities. The rest are all in the outer rim, (Including Naboo) so rampant celebrations there aren't really that surprising. And except possibly for Naboo, they're not really important locales, even for the Outer Rim.

I think this pretty much falls in line with what OKD was saying

[VF5SS]

Just one SoD pedantism on the whole 'flak explosions' thang...

It really was, quite obviously, meant to look like that. The effect was used a fair bit in ESB, and a whole shitload more in AOTC. Unlike the 'STL tracer with lightspeed' analysis (which is a result of imperfect special effects), the flak effect is obviously intentional, and should be analysed for what it is whether we use complete SoD or not- it was meant to look that way.

That's kind of weird. Does it actually make flak or does it make explosions that do nothing because space has to be filled with explosions? It's not like we have fragmentation lasers :3

Still, that's just a part of the storytelling. That's "hey this is like World War II with all the explosions over the skies of Europe" effect.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Yea, but don't we generally assume the narrator can be trusted in a story, unless it makes a point otherwise?

This is where you have to choose exactly how complete you want to make the SW universe. I totally understand the limitations of the film-making medium, especially when the OT came out. Say what you want about Lucas' storytelling abilities, it was a rather ambitious project that would be very difficult to believably pull off. The very first line in the opening crawl explicitly sets the story as, essentially, a galaxy-wide occurrence. As you've said yourself, many times, a galaxy is an effin' huge place.

Because of this, no matter how well you tell a story set in that galaxy, it's going to show only the most limited slice of what things are actually like there, and you're going to have to either sacrifice giving a full and accurate representation of the galaxy, or focusing on the stories of several specific characters in that galaxy and their own limited view of it. Lucas obviously erred on the side of the latter, though as time went on his EU whoring and sad attempts at fan-service seemed to start tilting more towards the former (in an horribly executed, mish-mash way, but that's another topic).

Take a look at the main characters followed in the OT:

Luke Skywalker: Idealistic farmboy turned Rebel after being on the receiving end of an Imperial Atrocity.
Han Solo: Smuggler who got tangled in criminal underworld turned Rebel leader after taking a moral stand.
Princess Leia: Activist daughter of a Senator and secret leader of the Rebels.
Darth Vader: Infamous dark lord in the Empire who's made a legend of himself for his fear-inspiring brutality.

Star Wars is a space-opera, it's the type of story that follows the most volatile and dramatic elements and characters contained within its setting, which in this case is explicitly stated to be an entire galaxy. It's no surprise that we see both the best of the protagonists and the worst of the antagonists: We're not dealing with joe-average in the OT, we're dealing with those who both cause and react to the most dramatic and emotionally-impacting events in the story's setting. It's not necessarily a bad thing to say such a story's biased, or given from a biased PoV. It never set out to give a fair and unbiased account of the state of the galaxy, all it did was tell the personal stories of several individuals within that galaxy, and how they saw things.

Also, keep in mind one of the main themes of the setting: The Rebel Alliance is consistently portrayed throughout the films as the plucky underdog, nipping away at the massive, overbearing might of the evil Empire. In order for this theme to work, the rest of the galaxy has to be at least largely apathetic to the atrocities of the Empire, cowed into subservience by propaganda, etc. It's hard to be the 'underdog' when you've got majority support, even if said support is barely hidden under a thin veneer of Imperial loyalty.

I'm not being an Imperial apologist here. The Empire was the general bad-guy of the films, and cheering for the Rebels would be a lot harder if it's ultimately revealed that they had a completely incorrect outlook on the actual situation in the galaxy. But it's hard to hold onto the theme of the Rebels being the plucky underdogs, and hard to get behind the events shown in the movies as being the pivotal, galaxy-altering setpieces that they are, unless the rest of the galaxy, at large, are at least apathetic to the atrocities of the Empire.

tl,dr: Yeah, I fully believe the narrator of the OT is biased. I also don't think it's a bad thing, it's an opera showing off the best and worst of that galaxy, so it's going to focus on the most pivotal characters and events there and ignore the rest. Which, again, is why I dislike the SE ending.

[Cesario]

You know your government has problems when being in the military makes you more likely to join an armed insurrection.

I think you mean being exposed to the outside world. Tatooine isn't exactly going to have top rate access to current galactic events. Hyperwave transponders aren't cheap and unlike in the core you're a long way from the nearest broadcast station.

Wow, it's worse than I expected. It's just learning anything at all that makes you join an armed insurrection against the state.

I'll obviously take your word for it, because only what I say requires evidence.

I'm pretty sure the fact that the rebels are under supplied isn't something that I need to cite. The fact that they were using outdated fighters like Y-Wings is one example of them being under equipped. I think them being low on munitions is from the novelization, I'll have to look that up later.

No, no. There's no need to bother. I'll obviously take your word for it, because only what I say requires evidence.

Them hiding in ruins on some uncivilized forest moon, and then fleeing to a shittastic ice planet should be proof that they weren't big enough to set up shop on even the worst of actually inhabited planets.

Yes, because putting your military installations in major population centers with an enemy who's been known to blow up inhabited planets is such a wise move.

The EU also makes it painfully obvious that the Empire was still a large scale threat even years after Endor.

I'll obviously take your word for it, because only what I say requires evidence.

Not like the existence of Luke Skywalker. No one knows about that shit, but solar reflectors of Coruscant everyone knows about.

Where did I ever say that Luke didn't exist? I said that it wasn't proof that everybody hates the Empire.

You demanded I provide evidence that there was a moisture farmer in the ass end of nowhere who was interested in taking up arms against the Empire before his parents were murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yep, that's evidence that a handful of artists successfully teraformed a world alright.

Where did I say that they terraformed anything?

Right here:
"and have terraformed barren worlds. Fuck a group of artists in Star Wars went on a trip and found a planet they liked and stayed using commonly available civilian technology."

I realize you can't be bothered to keep track of your own idiocy, so I'm glad to provide.

I said that you were free to go anywhere you want given the freedom of hyperdrive, given the level of technology setting up a habitat should be trivial. If you really want to be free you can always make your own space station in the middle of some godforsaken system as long as it has some asteroids you can stay there effectively forever.

Yep, all within a day's travel of the Imperial fleet. What a paradise.

Actually, it means the opposite. It means there's no fronteer for you to escape to that isn't a day's drive away from the bright center of the universe.

We can fly over any point on the planet in a day right now, yet you can still get to a place where people won't be able to find you with ease. It's the same thing here, you pick a place and go there. Sure somebody could find you, but what are the odds of somebody going back to a system that had a probe sent to it ages ago and was never colonized because it lacks anything of exceptional value.

Which is meaningfully different from your options in the Federation, how? Oh right, because you can actually get far enough away from any given power that they can't effectively pursue you in the Milky Way. In Wars, you just have to keep hiding under the bed until the Stormtroopers eventually decide it's worth their time to drag you out and put you against the wall.

You mean the stubs that don't prove what you claimed you were going to prove with them?

You've never defined Utopia so for all I know those could fit the bill perfectly.

Pity you claimed to know what that was when you made your bet that you could find more utopian worlds in the Empire than I could in the Federation.

You don't understand my reasoning at all. I don't think that the Empire is going to lack utopian planets because Palpetine is a dick. I think the Empire is going to lack utopian planets because Star Wars isn't trying to present a utopian setting.

So you think that because we see a civil war from the side of the rebels that there couldn't possibly be anything as nice as the UFP tucked away in there? Out of a million systems if even 0.1% are as nice as the UFP they have more people living in luxury than we see in Trek.

No, I think that because Wars wasn't trying to present a utopian vision, utopias are far less likely to be presented as possible in the setting.

You've pulled a handful of stubs form Wookiepedia and called it a case for "nice places", when you were supposed to go find utopian planets. Meanwhile, you've been given three from Trek and whinged about not having every planet doccumented to distract from your failure.

You brought up the term Utopia, now define it.

When you already knew what it was when you claimed you could find more worlds in Wars that fit the definition? You're still trying to distract from your failure. Just own up to it. You'll feel better.

Good thing those planets weren't supposed to be utopias for humans, then wasn't it? Another big difference between the Federation and the Empire. Humans aren't the only people in the Federation that anyone gives a shit about.

So if I want a Utopia my options are Erath, Earth, or Earth... Wow, those are some great options.

And even if I dignified that stupidity with acceptance, that's still more planets than you've been able to come up with for Wars.

Name one person who wanted to leave earth that wasn't allowed to do so. One.

Show me a personal spacecraft, or any orbital traffic at all over Earth. In fact how many civilian ships of any sort do we see in UFP space? If you want to explore it seems to be star fleet or bust and given the few star ships we see there is no way they can be meeting demand.

So you can't name one person who wanted to leave earth who wsn't allowed to. Got it.

Demonstrably? Great. Demonstrate it.

Look at any shot of Earth, how much space or air traffic do we see around it? How many times is the Enterprise required to evacuate a colony, shouldn't they have their own ship if personal spaceships are common? I can't prove a negative though, so why don't you show me these ships.

You're the one who claimed it was demonstrably low. I'm not the one who claimed he could prove a negative, fuckwit. You made a claim that it was demonstrable, so demonstrate it.

But you know what a utopia is. That's why you claimed you could prove that there were more utopian worlds in the Empire than in the Federation. You remember doing that, right?

You introduced the term, so it's on you to define it. Given that everybody is going to have a different view on what a perfect society is a simple dictionary definition - which you have also failed to provide - won't do.

Pity you didn't demand this before accepting the term and making your own claims about how easy it is to find worlds that fit it in the Empire. Still trying to distract from your failure.

Still not doing so great on that whole "we're talking about domestic policy, not military" angle, I see.

I'm curious, what makes you think the Federation is unusually resource-rich?

I never said it was, I simply used that as an example of something that might seem like a Utopia but isn't.

So, you aren't claiming that their apparent status is the result of being resource-rich. Great. So we can put that distraction out of the way.

The fact that shit walks through the entire federation and arrives at Earth without them being ready shows that they aren't secure enough to meet my definition of a Utopia. A Utopia must be stable and you must not be at risk from monster of the week style attacks. How many times do we see bad shit happen to UFP colonies and space stations? Does entire starship crews going missing, and colonies failing meet your definition of a Utopia?

I think surviving as a society for a couple hundred years is plenty of proof that they're stable.

You were the one who made a claim that you could prove the Empire has more utopian planets than the Federation. I assumed that meant you knew what utopian meant. Guess you expect to be able to prove things you don't even understand yourself. And given your approach to providing evidence, that isn't at all a surprising assumption on your part.

Our personal definition of a Utopia obviously differs, so please define the term. Unless you do so this debate is impossible.

This debate became impossible when you entered it. It just took me a while to recognize you as the troll you are. Congradulations on avoiding detection for so long.

That isn't even related to your previous rantings, so I'm just going to assume you're still in the "throw out everything and hope no one notices I failed to prove my statement about utopian worlds in the Empire" mode.

I've argued that the society in a Brave New World is a Utopia, so I think I can find a place where the majority are happy and call it good enough.

Brave New World, huh? While I can see why you would think so, I tend to consider children to be people too. This makes it a much harder case to make.

Wow, the existence of even one person loyal to the Empire means a million loyalists for every disaffected individual who hasn't yet had his family murdered by the Empire. What stellar logic.

Look at the real world, does the majority of it hate the Evil Empire (US)? Do the majority of American citizens want to see the government fall? Heck, because it could be argued that the US isn't as bad as the Empire I'll set the bar at 20%. You need to find solid proof that 20% of all Americans are disaffected enough that they would either leave or take major steps to significantly alter the way the country is run at the first signs of a better alternative. I ask this because it is what you are claiming the UFP would do to the Empire.

Becuse the US is the Evil Galactic Empire? What are you even thinking here?

Yeah, it's not like Leia's world of Alderon's top of the line planetary shields indicate they were expecting trouble or anything. And that wasn't a major world or anything anyway.

I've never heard of Alderon... Do you perhaps mean Alderaan? Also a lot of major worlds have planetary shields, Coruscant has two or more systems each able to provide complete planetary coverage.

Yep, and we know that they weren't connected to the rebellion in any way.

You mean the "if it's not in our archive, it doesn't exist" folks?

No, I mean examples of corporations hiding the existence of resource rich worlds. I'll provide evidence, but I didn't bookmark every interesting tidbit I came across while I was scanning the info in those 130 planets.

So you'd provide evidence, but you can't remember where you found it. Sounds familiar. But then, I'll obviously take your word for it, because only what I say requires evidence.

Yeah, worked great for Lando, didn't it?

That was a major mining operation providing a not insignificant portion of the galaxy's tibanna gas output. You could do a little bit of fact checking before posting.

LANDO: So you see, since we're a small operation, we don't fall into the...uh...jurisdiction of the Empire.

LEIA: So you're part of the mining guild then?

LANDO: No, not actually. Our operation is small enough not to be noticed...which is advantageous for everybody since our customers are anxious to avoid attracting attention to themselves.

Yeah, that fits with what you just said. I'll surely believe you over the movie itself.

Which is kind of the problem if you're trying to get away from it all.

No, as I explained above all you have to do is head to a spot people aren't likely to go looking. Just because the government could fly a chopper out to some random spot in the Canadian wilderness doesn't mean that just because you set up a small house there the government will come and bother you.

I'm sure everyone at Waco will be happy to hear about that.

[S.L.Acker]

At least five, owned by Federation citizens... used for running their private businesses, too.

The thing is space ships are fairly expensive, kinda like airplanes today. Quark, a middle class guy, couldn't afford one himself.

Wong was a right-wing fanatic with a habit of.... creatively interpreting evidence when he wrote the thing you bought hook, line, and sinker.

Let's take a look.
http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/ ... rxism.html

State seizure of transportation (leading to reduction or elimination of freedom of movement): 100% implemented in the TNG era Federation. Vehicles in Star Trek are either government property, or they travel outside the Federation (eg. Ferengi vessels, ships from non-member systems, etc).

If they travel outside the Federation and also inside, that shows freedom of movement! You don't have to get past guards as you leave. So much for 100% implemented. But it gets better:

They're all company cars: What was the last time you saw a privately owned personal starship? Starships are either government warships, diplomatic vessels, or transports.

There's several privately owned personal starships in Star Trek. He mentions the Maquis later.... but ignores their starships, setting that up right here: he wants to say they are all government owned, well, except for those private ships we see... but they don't count because they're... ummm transports, yeah that's it.

Nobody's ever run expensive vehicles for passengers or cargo businesses in the real world private sector before, so obviously, that doesn't count.

Except that we never seen any star ships on hand that would be able to ease the evacuation of a planet in distress. We don't even, to my limited knowledge, get a throw away line about how most of the people evacuated but the ship couldn't fit everybody. Yet in Star Wars even decidedly bottom of the barrel smugglers have their own ships and we have instances of artists colonies settling on planets that are otherwise far off the beaten path.

Some might argue that starships must be very expensive or difficult to operate and therefore impractical for personal use, but Quark's ship disproved this idea.

In DS9 "Little Green Men", Rom said: "Gaila must've paid a fortune for it."

Wong, here, put forth two arguments, but only countered one of them, and simply ignored how his evidence supports the other one.

No, they aren't difficult to operate, but they are expensive to purchase. How many people today own private airplanes?

We're getting somewhere, however it still looks like it is easier for your average person to get into space. The rate to get smuggled halfway across the galaxy in Star Wars is only a little more than what you get for selling a well worn speeder (car) at rock bottom prices. Given that Luke had an older model that was out of demand - which he sold for 2,000 after buying it for 2,400 - we can see that he's not paying much more relatively than we would for a rush booked flight today. This doesn't show anything as far as what buying a personal spaceship, but if the numbers on wookiepedia are even reasonably accurate, then you can buy a used YT-1300 for about the same as a new luxury speeder.

Empty skies: Where are all of the ships in the skies over Earth?

They don't need to use dangerous sky speeders like Star Wars. They have better options, including the transporter.

This is like walking outside today, not seeing any airplanes in the sky, and assuming we must be under an oppressive government. There's other options.

Except that you can't stay in even a moderately sized city without hearing or seeing a plane flying over head. Even if we make them more akin to a working boat we should see at least one or two in the sky, but instead we see not a single one.

Big Brother is watching you: All movements are tracked in the Federation. Since no one has personal starships, everyone must book passage on state-owned transports in order to get where they want to go. You've heard it countless times: "I've booked passage to Mars," or "I'm going to try to book passage to the frontier".

You've heard it countless times: "I just bought a ticket to New York," or "I'm going to try to buy a ticket to San Diego". You never hear "I just bought a jet and I'm going to head off to California", or "I'm renting a jet next month so I can go airport hopping."

Comparing Trek to real life to show that it has a ton of starships doesn't work the way you think it does. In fact it makes things look worse for you when Luke had not only his owner speeder (car) but his own T-16 skyhoper (small plane). If impoverished farmers on what is regarded as the ass end of nowhere can get these things then I would expect that we might see somebody flying for pleasure in Star Trek. Hell when do we see transports for things gathered from outside of transporter range or that simply can't be transported?

[Darth Tedious]

Comparing Trek to real life to show that it has a ton of starships doesn't work the way you think it does. In fact it makes things look worse for you when Luke had not only his owner speeder (car) but his own T-16 skyhoper (small plane). If impoverished farmers on what is regarded as the ass end of nowhere can get these things then I would expect that we might see somebody flying for pleasure in Star Trek. Hell when do we see transports for things gathered from outside of transporter range or that simply can't be transported?

I think you've missed the point of the comparison there.
A speeder and a T-16 might be the respective equivalents of a car and plane, but the ownership is not equivalent. Owning a plane IRL is not exactly common. Owning an airspeeder in SW is likely quite common. Hell, every other teenage kid on Tatooine might have a T-16- that would make it about equivalent to owning a bike IRL.
Actual spaceship ownership in the GFFA is generally considered analogous to owning a truck IRL, if I recall the last time this thing got analysed...

I don't see why we'd see people joyriding T-16 equivalents about in ST- they have holodecks.

[Batman]

For the same reason people still bother with all the effort a real aquarium or squirrel cage are as opposed to just getting the screensaver? Because they want the real thing? Holodecks have their limits (see Minuet pre-Binar upgrade for starters) and we have yet to see them simulate anything other than a roughly terrestrial surface environment so no being all over the skies with the g forces mounting up.
(This is so going to backfire on me if we actually did. I really need to get around to getting DS9).

[Cesario]

Then there's the simulation that makes up the first scene in Threshold, though I'll understand why you've blocked out that memory.

[Scottish Ninja]

For that matter, wasn't one of O'Brien's favorite pastimes a Battle of Britain sim as well? I don't know if we ever see that directly, but it's something he does.

[Darth Tedious]

WRT joyriding on a T-16, the one reason you'd do it in the holodeck and not real life is TRAFFIC LAWS.

[Batman]

WRT joyriding on a T-16, the one reason you'd do it in the holodeck and not real life is TRAFFIC LAWS.

Since there seems to be little in the way of private transportation in TNG another reason might be this being the easiest if not only way to do it

[the atom]

Didn't Riker talk about taking a shuttle on joyride through the Moons of jupiter at one point?

[Batman]

Didn't Riker talk about taking a shuttle on joyride through the Moons of jupiter at one point?

This has what exactly got to do with private transportation? Riker's the second in command of the E-D. If he wants a shuttle, he gets it. That doesn't mean John Q. Public has that option available. Whereas in Wars, it is apparently common enough that nobody bats an eye at a moisture farmer's son at the ass end of nowhere having a T-16 at his disposal (though in all fairness it should be mentioned that the T-16 is essentially suborbital while Trek shuttles can actually be Warp capable so that's not really a fair comparison).

[Darth Tedious]

I don't think that all the boxes Han was carrying were full of currency, It's far more likely that he swapped some of the cash reward for supplies (food, parts, whatever).

[Darksider]

Given info from the Clone Wars cartoon, Spice seems to be a somewhat popular method of converting cash to untraceable assets. Maybe he was going to give Jabba back the spice he lost plus extra for "interest."

[Darth Tedious]

I don't know if it's still canonical, but I recall my WEG Sourcebook having a big list of Han's debts to Jabba. I'll pull it out tomorrow and see what's there.

[The Romulan Republic]

Given info from the Clone Wars cartoon, Spice seems to be a somewhat popular method of converting cash to untraceable assets. Maybe he was going to give Jabba back the spice he lost plus extra for "interest."

That raises the question of what the Rebels were doing with that much Spice sitting around in their base.

[Darth Tedious]

Okay, here it is:

Captain Solo's debts to Jabba the Hutt

• Jettisoned spice cargo: 12,400 credits
• Dead employee (Greedo): 4,100 credits
• Loss of services (Millenium Falcon): 125,640 credits to date
  (based on last cycle's performance)
• Bounty hunter notices: 320 credits
• Boba Fett's expenses: 5,000 credits to date
  (based on a rate of 500 credits per day)
• Additional bounty hunter fees: 2,000 credits to date
  (based on a rate of 50 credits per day per hunter)
• 50% interest: 74,730 credits to date

  ---

  Total:224,190 credits to date[/hr]

Interesting that he considers the loss of the Falcon's services to be part of the debt.

[Srelex]

That raises the question of what the Rebels were doing with that much Spice sitting around in their base.

They were originally saving it for curry night.

[FaxModem1]

I thought we might like to note some of the planets in the UFP.

Following the UFP Colonies page on Memory Alpha:

Ajilon Prime: Along the Klingon border, two settlements, looks rather desert like from what we see.
Aldebaron Colony: Nice enough to have a Medical college.
Archanis IV: Planet ceded to the UFP in the 23rd century, conquered again by the Klingons in the 24th
Archer IV: Has pollen that makes you crazy. Rather Earth like, home to seven million people by 2268.
Arvada III: Some disaster hit, and Beverly Crusher and her grandmother started using herbs when medical supplies ran low.
Benecia Colony: Primitive medical facilities
Berengaria VII: Here there be dragons, according to T'pol and Spock. Literally. Was important enough in the lead up to the Dominion War for Kai Winn to ask if it would be sacrificed for Bajor. Note: She said this along with Earth and Andoria.
Bersallis III: 643 colonists. Major firestorms every seven years.
Boradis III: First Federation Colony.
Caldos Colony: Weather control technology(at least 23rd century). Deliberately designed to be like Scotland, in dress and archictexture. One of the first Federation terraforming projects.
Campnor Colony: Was in the midst of being established in 2371.Needed Julian Bashir to set up three field hospitals.
Cestus III: Frontier colony that was wiped out in the 23rd century by the Gorn, re-established in the 24th to the point that it has it's own baseball league.
Coltar IV: Farming Colony


And that's where I'm stopping. If someone else wants to pick it up, go ahead and do so. It seems that the UFP has an ever expanding frontier. A colony that is established in the 22nd century by Earth, Vulcan or somewhere else does so, it gets stronger(unless an alien or something destroys it), or bigger until it is a major world, such as Berengia VII. But it seems the majority of colonies we see are planets being settled by the rugged frontiersmen of the Federation, settling in a rather nasty place and making it nicer over the course of decades or centuries. And these are just colony worlds, not Federation member worlds.

For those, we have places like Bajor and Betazed. Bajor was ready to sign onto the Federation, but backed off because of Sisko's insistence. Betazed is a rather nice planet to live on, from what we see when Troi, Riker and her mom go on a picnic.

So aside from the first member worlds, Earth, Andoria, Tellar, and Vulcan, the member worlds seem rather nice and/or have to be in order to join the Federation.

Of course, there's Turkana IV, which according to Memory Alpha, was a colony world. This seems the one case where it wasn't exterior factors that caused it to fail. Unless someone else can show me otherwise.

[Connor MacLeod]

I suspect they have a shit ton of colony worlds.. like.. thousands of them, simply because given the population figures they must have, they have to. Even allowing for more than 90% of the federation population (assuming 1-2 trillion) is concentrated on those 150 or so member worlds (call it 200) you'd have to have many (tens or hundreds of) thosuands of worlds with populations in the millions (more like tens or hundreds of millions to stay in the thousands.) depending on how you figure the population working out.

Funny enough that also lends credence to the idea of Starfleet encompassing tens of thousands of vessels - with the corollary that much of those ships will be devoted to more than just security (exploration, trade, transporting supplies, etc.) which is pretty much in keeping with Federation design philosohpy (a more generalist rather than specialist - specialized ships except for perhaps dedicated freighters are acutally pretty rare it would seem.)

It also suggests there is a strong, multi-level 'tier' system at work in the Federation government.. you have the Member worlds (who seem to comprise the bulk of the political, economic, and naval forces) alongside a larger but less populous/represented number of worlds who provide support in various forms in return for assistance and protection (the colonies, which thesmelves may break down into different 'tiers' as well.) We would probably throw space stations, sealed research stations or other outposts, and the like into this category.

Considering there's a fair number of relatively small colonies the numbers could be even higher. This is actually a bad thing, since that's alot of territory to cover and protect even if you have tens of thousands of ships (especially if your ships serve both military and transport purposes.)

[FaxModem1]

So, the Federation has the core worlds. The original signers, which planets are supposed to be paradise in one form or another. Moving outward, you have their original colonies, from back when Earth, Vulcan, and Andoria were their own nations. These colonies have bloomed since then and gotten to be their own respective worlds. Then you have the Member worlds, nations that joined the Federation and brought their worlds with them if they advanced that far in colonizing. Then the Federation started expanding, planting more colonies everywhere, while also having members join up if they meet their standards. This might explain why all the only ship in the area plots. The Federation is very big, and getting bigger, and Starfleet might not be able to keep up.

Course, this is only supposition. So, it seems, for the most part, that while the Federation has problems patrolling their own space, it certainly seems like a nice place to live, whether you prefer a nice completely settled world like Earth or some other member world, or want to help build up a planet into becoming a member world. That way, the complacent people stay in the core worlds, and the adventourous people move out to tame the land.

[Shroom Man 777]

People should factor other factors when factoring the presence or lack of thereof of public or private transportations in ST and SW.

In a Federation place, you've got replicators at home, there's a holodeck available for personal use, and there's all sorts of other fancy shmancy shits available to the average Federation citizen from phaser-proof packing crates to Earl Grey teas and whatnot. And they've also got a lot of transporters for nigh instantaneous travel and also the government has shuttles and shits.

So, with them being able to fabricate foods at home, and them being able to have cave adventures and dinosaur hunts via their holodecks, why would they need to ride a private vehicle to go outside the house and buy groceries or smoke deathsticks at the cantina? They can spend all their time holodecking in their basement, away from sunlight, while subsisting on tubs replicator-fabricated cheetos. I'm sure the people in this thread - more than anyone - could appreciate the virtue of that.

BTW, re: holodecks, what if it's possible to network holodecks on Earth with, say, holodecks on Jupiter. So guys in a Earth holodeck can actually virtually holographically interact with guys in a Jupiter holodeck? Think of interplanetary holographic MMO rave parties.

As for the lack of private transportation, with the prevalence of transporters and perhaps government-operated shuttles and other vehicles, so what? They have a public transportation system that meets all their needs. It's like how in Hong Kong, and other places, they've got lots of busses and trains (yes, they still have private cars, but they also don't have magic teleporters), and I'm sure that degree of public transportation might seem alien to people accustomed to having SUVs for every family or whatever, but hey. It works for them.

Now, Tattooine and Bluke Blywalker and their private transportations. Consider, if the Trekkie might not need a private car because he can get food and entertainment and shits at home while relying on public transpo to go outside, why a Bluke Blywalker would need a private vehicle on Tattooine. What does he do at home? There's nothing at home. He has to travel to Mos Eisley if he wants to smoke deathsticks at the Cantina. He has to travel to the vaporizer fields to harvest water. He has to travel to the bantha poodooery if he wants to buy bantha poodoos. He has to travel to the Jawa areas if he wants to buy second hand stolen chop shopped robots. He also has to travel to Wattos if he wants to buy an enslaved Shmee Skywalker.

Also, Luke's family isn't really representative of the average Tattooweenie. They had their own property, and they were able to buy salves. Whereas, in other places on Tattooweenie, you had Shmees being slaves. I think Watto-owned slaves like Shmee would be more common than Blukes. Maybe the question shouldn't be "how many guys in Tattooweenie own private cars and are thus better than shmuck Trekkies", but more like "how many guys in Tattooweenie are Watto-owned slaves like Shmee"

Tattooine is a shit-world so the comparison isn't apt. It's run by grotesque gangsters, morbidly obese slugmen, Wattos, tap-dancing high school musicaling Gleedos, and all other kinds of shitpieces. It's also apparently the center of the Star Wars galaxy, and apparently everyone relevant in the SW universe makes a piligrimage space-hajj to Tattooine every few years. Maybe they go there to visit the preserved remains of Gleedo, because in his EU Interesting Backstory, he was a canonized saint of the Bendu brain-jar monks. Maybe he got canonized by a heavy turboblaster cannon manned by Yetis. Connor MacLeod, where are you?

Anyway. I think being a basement-dwelling shmuck jerking off to holodeck simulations while eating tubs of replicator cheetos while using a comm-badge to argue with other basement-dwelling shmucks via the Federation Net or whatever, would be a preferable life to being a Shmee-like shmuck on Tattooine owned by some kind of Watto. That just sucks. And eating replicator cheetos is also not quite as morally bankrupt as participating in chattel slavery and buying indentured Shmee-slaves from Wattos, even if you can buy a private car with your monies.

But again, Tattooine is a shit world. I am sure there are plenty of other better worlds in SW. Star Wars is a very interesting universe with wildly contrasting and different and unique places. There's Kuat, which is a system apparently owned and run by a mega corporation in keeping with Ayn Randian Nya Andrian (Star Warsy names!) principles of the indivisible hand of the Force market complete with their own privatized for-profit militaries armed with Mangdator and Procurator and Chiropractor super star battlesheeps. There's Alderaan, which got exploderized regulated by Big Government Socialism (and a fuckoff battle station). There's Kashykk, where small business enterprises in keeping with the aforementioned Nya Andrian principles enslaved gave meaningful employment to the native Wookies to help construct the also-aforementioned Big Government Socialist Space Station. There's Coruscant, which has its disbanded Senate and is the seat of power to a cackling mercury fume-inhaling concubine-raping shrivelled pruneman space wizard Emperor and his cadre of the most awesome-named government officials ever - Moffs! MOFFS! Wouldn't you want to be reigned by guys with the title of "Moff"? It's time to get Moffed! It's Moff Ghouliani Time!

Thinking about it. Yeah, I think the Empire strikes a harmonious balance between the Nya Andrian principles of the indivisible hand of the Force market, and big government socialism and planetary regulation ala Alderaan. This is a way more fair and balanced system of enlightened social democracy with regulated capitalism than the Federation's Space Stalinism. I cannot wait to purchase my first private land or space vehicle in the Empire!


EDIT:

You know, in the last scenes of ROTJ, where there were crowds cheering in Coruscant? I bet an awesome Moff landed his Lambadoid shuttle right on top of these Occupy Coruscant protesters and crushed their remains under the neutronium coated megajoule-withstanding trigger guarded landing gear of his Lambadoid shuttle. They got Moffed, girl! Moff off, asshole! You mothermoffers!

[Connor MacLeod]

Naw. The protestors on Coruscant at the end of ROTJ were simply gunned down and otherwise brutalized by Imperial troops at the order of Ysanne Isard, as I recall things from Allston's Wraith squadron novels (one of the protestors went on to fly x-wings and hack computers - for freedom!)

Tarkin did the whole 'drop a ship on protestors' thing before the Death Star was ever built, more in the height of the Empire. I think that may even have been how he was appointed moff or grand moff (I'm too lazy to check or use proper capitalization). Palpatine likes initiative like that.

[Shroom Man 777]

I bet the private vehicles of these deceased protesters got auctioned off so guys who want to buy more affordable second-hand private vehicles could buy them. Sure, there might be some bloodstains or blaster marks, but your indentured slave Shmees can clean it up. You'd never have that kind of freedom and democracy and capitalism in the socialist Federation!