Need Help with the nature of planets in Star Wars

[death_jester]

From what I've seen in the movies and other materials there seems to be quite a few planets that not only have a thriving biosphere but also indigenous intelligent life. I'm sure that anyone of us fans could name about three planets off the top of our heads without needing to go into the extended universe stuff to find one. However there is never any mention of terra-forming that I can recall being mentioned to explain the abundance of habitable planets. Keep in mind that I haven't read everything there is about the universe so there could be something that I've missed. I know there is a section of the universe call the Old colonies but the little that I've read said nothing about wither the worlds already had habitable biospheres or were not. So does the Republic only colonize worlds that are uninhabited that have the right kind of atmosphere or do they "make" new livable worlds?
What do you think?

If the republic doesn't of terra-form planets is it possible that someone else may have created these worlds long ago but didn't survive to exploit them?
_________________
Happiness is a warm blaster.

[ZzaphodD]

It could also be that of the thousands and thousands of systems and planets there is an unjust focus on the habitable and interesting ones.. I say, to be fair, more focus on the 99% barren rock planets out there!
_________________
My Biggest Beard Retard award goes to: The Admiral of course..

[Bulldogzeta]

Considering that a decent size galaxy has billions of stars, a few thousand systems with habitable planets is just a drop in the bucket.

I have seen a few planets mentioned where weather control exists. My assumption is that terraforming exists, but it is likely very expensive. There would need to be a very good reason to go through that kind of expense when there are likely millions if not billions of star systems still to be explored.

[Praxian]

Sure, it's technically possible. But just because we've never heard that they terraform doesn't mean that they don't. In Knights of the Old Republic 2, they briefly touched base with a "terraforming light" kinda deal, in that they were trying to piece back together and make a planet healthy again because of all the radioactive damage and you name it that had happened to the planet.

Does the Republic Terraform? Probably. But terraforming isn't really all that exciting - so why touch base on it in a space opera?

[Luwingo_Spince]

In regards to a race that might of created parts of the galaxy, they are the Celestials. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Celestials They are ancient race that built devices to move planets, i.e centerpoint station and created star clusters. Check them out.

[Barrataria]

Star Wars is not exactly a carefully-designed model of the known galaxy.

It's explained a bit in the planet generation system, namely that the whole thing is skewed to produce "cinematic" planets for gameplay.

You might take a look, if you never have, at materials for the Traveller game, as its universe is based on the idea that an ancient race populated the galaxy in various manners. Also, the Traveller world design system makes fewer "habitable" planets although it has its own difficulties. But maybe worth a look for you.
_________________
"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing"- George Lucas

[garhkal]

Looking at that Wiki.. seems to me someone was on one heck of a marvel hard on with the celestials...
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Tem_Starrunner]

Terraforming may have existed in the Star Wars galaxy. Oxygen generators were being used on Kessel. How effective such equipment was or what other technology actually existed who knows.

[death_jester]

Hello Everyone,

I want to say a big thank you to everyone that responded to this posting. I've been thinking about creating a setting for the Star Wars and I wanted to get some perspective from my fellow gamers about the nature of the galaxy before I got too far into the process. I need it to make sense and we all know that nothing kicks you out of the game experience quicker than to be in the middle of a game and then something that just doesn't make sense pop up. I know it kicks me out of the game and makes me start asking questions and I KNOW it does the same to other players. That is sort of the reason for me asking about the nature of Star Wars planets in the first place.

I want to set up a section of space that is part of the Star Wars galaxy but has a kind of "felt" reality to it. Not Lucas' Saturday morning Serial approach to the way the universe works but something more like a Traveller setting. And since I'm using the Traveller rules system to generate my maps it may go a long way to explaining the kind of "feel" I'm looking for. I need a good reason for lots of planets to be close to each other that are inhabitable. So I was thinking that terra-forming would be a good way of setting that up and as a matter of fact I still do. My main concern is that the players may start asking questions instead of playing. I know that nothing will be 100% but I'd like to maximize the suspension of disbelief for the players if you know what I mean.
Here is a tentative copy of the map I intend to use for the game.



Now to answer some question that people have brought up after I posted my request.

When I'm talking about the Star Wars Galaxy I'm talking not only about the movies but also about the Expanded universe as well. So while George Lucas may have played fast and loose with the physics and science of the setting there have been others that have tried to correct that. I appreciate people pointing out that the universe doesn't have that much depth any thoughts for correcting this would be helpful.

The Star Wars Universe is very old and has been inhabited by races capable of hyperspace travel for millennia before the rise of the republic. Hyperspace travel has been part of the Republic since its founding over 25 thousand years ago. The Infinite Empire (the precursors of the republic) had it about 25 thousand years before the Republic. Of course there are other even older races, that are no longer active, that had space travel millennia before either. So in short hyperspace travel has been around for a very long time.

My thought about the terra-forming is the most likely scenario for a localized area to have been terra-formed is around locations that discovered that technology before they had hyperspace travel. Because, as has been pointed out, once hyperspace travel becomes common place distance means that planetary proximity is not much of a consideration for expansion and colonization. The other likely consideration for terra-forming would be that some advanced race sought to expand life throughout the area for their own reasons. So wide spread terra-forming seems unlikely, on a large scale, once the major trade routes were established. On the small scale it would work however.

I've never heard of colonies of any other race other than humans in the Star Wars universe. Is it the case? No other race has moved beyond the confines of their homeworld and settled on a new planet or is there a Rodian or Jawa colony out there someplace? Let me know what you think.

Lastly as I said before I'm trying to build a setting/map by using the Traveller system and incorporating some of the rules for jump routes into Star Wars but the density of inhabitable planets from the Traveller system is sort of odd in the Star Wars setting. I'm going to stick with the Traveller map for the time being. I love the way that the maps look in Traveller anyway. There is an "easy to understand logistics to them". So I guess I'm going to have to shoehorn one system's subsystem into the other.

Not to mention that I don't like Star Wars' hyper-drive that can jump a ship from one side of the Galaxy to another, in effect taking the players out of the setting and allowing them to circumnavigate out of the setting and go anywhere. I like making sand box games but an entire galaxy is a bit much to pre-plan for. I'm proposing a system where a freighter ship (like the Millenium Falcon) will have 50 power of jump fuel and each hex of map will cost points modified by the type of route it is. Primary routes will be one point per hex, secondary and tertiary routes will cost 2 or 3 points etc. The players will need to update their navi-computers every so often and each 8x10 section of map will also need to be purchased separately. This make the navigation and bureau of ships and services important to in the setting. Also criminals will have certain back paths and routes that can be purchased separately or given as rewards for completing or taking missions. One day I will get around to writing up all the rules I've thought up but you see where I'm going with this. It keeps the players sort of within a certain area of space so I don't have to flesh out the entire galaxy.

Well that is my second post about these ideas. I hope to hear from everyone soon and I'll post when I can.

Peace all
Jester
_________________
Happiness is a warm blaster.

[Bulldogzeta]

[death_jester]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think I have enough to start a second pass of this data. I should be posting somethig new in the near future.
_________________
Happiness is a warm blaster.

[Barrataria]

I think the Hutts and the Gran moved around too; I'm sure there are others. No disrespect to the concept, I love the Traveller universe too.

I'm not clear on what you're doing with hyperspace though. In Traveller there are fairly severe limitations on the distance of jumps, but virtually no channeling of them at all. Unlike the old Wing Commander game and countless others, where there are systems with "jump points" that branch off to several nearby systems, akin to a train system with express and local stops. In SW it's a question of time and calculations, but hyperspace is designed to let you zoom anywhere. Alderaan to Yavin: 5 minutes

Also, I have thought that the reason that there were no hyperspace maps or comprehensive charts in the old WEG books was not just because of the difficulty of calculating and expressing them, but that they did not want GMs limited by the maps. It's very much a jump-in-the-ship-and-zoom-off-to-adventure game, and I think that's part of the vagueness in the old campaign materials.
_________________
"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing"- George Lucas

[Hellcat]

[Praxian]

The Miraluka also moved to another planet. it was because of the new planet that all of them are force sensitive actually.