Place of the Week: Coruscant

[Monroe]

So I was going to do environment but I thought Coruscant would cover the problems of making a planet wide city anyway. And it'd cover the cool facts about Coruscant.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Coruscant

I really like the idea of a civilization expanding the galaxy having several of these massive cities with trillions of people living in it. Wookieepedia says there's only like 1 trillion people living there but i find that extremely low. perhaps one trillion tax payers. The amount of waste and imports a planet like Coruscant would have to do would be amazing. Especially when you think of the fact that there is like a dozen worlds just like it and Wars doesn't have replicators and has to move everything the good ole fashion way. Combined with the fact that 30% of the population are nonhumans with multiple sexes, different animal, plant, fungi kingoms, and different needs you have a massive infrastructure that I couldn't even begin to imagine how they would get it to work.

I also like Coruscant's history from the Zhell to the coming of the humans its a very detailed and imaginative history. Also its real life history is pretty cool as its the most important (imo) planet not made up specifically by George Lucas.

[Aaron]

SW has replicators, there called duplicators (mentioned in a few of the older EU books) as well as the World Devastators which use a moleculor furnace to do the same thing. They were mentioned as being mature tech applied to war.

[Monroe]

SW has replicators, there called duplicators (mentioned in a few of the older EU books) as well as the World Devastators which use a moleculor furnace to do the same thing. They were mentioned as being mature tech applied to war.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Duplicator

hmm doesn't seem like the same thing. World Devestators were more of an advanced mining system than a replicator. I don't see Coruscant churning its own rock into skyscrappers.

[Captain Seafort]

Also its real life history is pretty cool as its the most important (imo) planet not made up specifically by George Lucas.

Coruscant (or at least the idea that the Imperial capital world was a city-planet) was one of Lucas' ideas. It appeared in the early drafts of Star Wars (then named Alderaan) and RotJ (named Hab Abbandon), but Lucas decided in the first case that he didn't have the means or budget to do it justice, and in the latter that it wasn't realistic to have the Rebels attacking such a target. In both cases the scenes taking place on the planet were moved to the Death Star.

[Aaron]

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Duplicator

hmm doesn't seem like the same thing. World Devestators were more of an advanced mining system than a replicator. I don't see Coruscant churning its own rock into skyscrappers.

It sounds exactly like a replicator, at the least it uses different means to do the same thing. Coruscant wouldn't be turning it's own building base into buildings but it could use it's systems asteroids to do it. A World Devastator can turn planets in starfighters, there's no reason it couldn't turn a planet into buidling material for a skyscraper or a boat.

[Captain Seafort]

hmm doesn't seem like the same thing. World Devestators were more of an advanced mining system than a replicator. I don't see Coruscant churning its own rock into skyscrappers.

Construction droids were shown doing exactly that in Jedi Search, clearing up the mess left by the battles of Dark Empire. They gobbled up wreckage in front of them and spat out kilometre-tall skyscrapers behind them.

[Monroe]

hmm doesn't seem like the same thing. World Devestators were more of an advanced mining system than a replicator. I don't see Coruscant churning its own rock into skyscrappers.

Construction droids were shown doing exactly that in Jedi Search, clearing up the mess left by the battles of Dark Empire. They gobbled up wreckage in front of them and spat out kilometre-tall skyscrapers behind them.

Oh yeah. I always thought that was a cool scene. Those were some big droids.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I've never liked the concept of the city planet. I dunno... *Shrugs*

I bet there's more superstructure on it than actual crust.

[Teaos]

I could see the planet hold several trillion easily.

Some of the planet is only building a few stories high but lots of it is massive buildings.

[Monroe]

I could see the planet hold several trillion easily.

Some of the planet is only building a few stories high but lots of it is massive buildings.

I didn't know it had places only that high maybe near the poles? Granted most of the lower levels are abandoned or at least not paying taxes and added into that one trillion population but that would still be areas at least as Dense as New York over the whole planet. I wonder how much that would be if you just took New York's population density.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

I always thought the idea of a city-planet was a bit ridiculous. Having to build it the old fashioned way would be difficult to put it lightly

[Graham Kennedy]

I remember reading about the idea of a city planet when I was a kid - I first came across it in Orson Scott Card's Capitol stories, and of course in Asimov's Trantor later on. I kind of liked Asimov's version, where the buildings were all underground and nobody ever went outside. To live your whole life without ever seeing weather, the clouds, the sun... the idea of completely isolating the people from the natural environment, it seemed to be the ultimate idea of what a city was about.

I liked that Asimov made his Trantor vulnerable to the outside, too. Without anywhere to grow food they needed millions of ships to bring it in from the agricultural worlds that were in systems all around the capital - which made the planet highly vulnerable to siege tactics. In Asimov's collapsing empire, the Emperor was basically whoever could control the supply lines to Trantor.

In truth, though, there's something that doesn't sit quite right about the idea of "Planetary X" - be it a planetary city, swamp, forest, ocean, desert, or whatever. Planets should be diverse.

[Mikey]

Although it's a dismal depiction, I like the idea of the hive worlds in WH40k. The whole surface isn't given over to sprawl, but the major hives are much like Trantor or the lower levels of Coruscant.

[Aaron]

Although it's a dismal depiction, I like the idea of the hive worlds in WH40k. The whole surface isn't given over to sprawl, but the major hives are much like Trantor or the lower levels of Coruscant.

Except Holy Terra, there isn't even an ocean. They've been consumed and city built on them.

[Captain Seafort]

In truth, though, there's something that doesn't sit quite right about the idea of "Planetary X" - be it a planetary city, swamp, forest, ocean, desert, or whatever. Planets should be diverse.

I agree with most of those - it simply doesn't make sense that a single environment should come to dominate the whole planet and it remains inhabitable.

City-planets are a slightly different matter because they're artificial - while there's no reason why a single natural environment should come to dominate, a planetwide city is at least a vaguely plausible (if unlikely) outcome of urban sprawl.