How Would You Have Written Enterprise's Final Episode

[Aaron]

While they have greater speed, there's one difference:
The Federation goes looking for these anomalies. The Empire doesn't give a damn about them.
If the Empire knew in advance about the wormhole and set out to find it, then they'd certianly get there first. But in a situation where neither side knows about it, I'd give it to the Feds.

It really depends on where the wormhole is. Remember that the Bajoran hole was discovered by accident and the Barzan one was apparently discovered by the Barzans. If it popped up in a heavily travelled part of Federation space than they may discover it but their limited by the (relatively) short range of their sensors and generally poor fleet coverage.

The Empire has large portions of it's space patrolled or monitored and provided it popped up in the Core or Colonies region than they would likely know shortly, especially if it was close to a hyperspace lane. Out in the Rim or Unknown Regions than it may go unoticed for years.

Of course if the Feds find it, it may take months to get an expediation together to go through. Once again limited by their slow speed and comms.

[Aaron]

I'm not talking about speed, but the fact that the Empire spans a galaxy, while the Federation only spans a fraction of one quadrant - if a wormhole is equally likely to appear anywhere in the galaxy, the Feds would only have a small chance of it appearing in their territory, while for the Empire it would be almost certain.

And if it shows up in Chiss, CSA, or Hapan space than it's the same deal. Their all technological equals to the Empire.

[Sionnach Glic]

Good points.

[stitch626]

It also depends on the size of the galaxy. For all we know the Star Wars galaxy could be 1/4 the size of ours or 4 times the size of ours.

[Sionnach Glic]

IIRC, it's twice the size of ours and has two satalite galaxies.

[stitch626]

Oh. Wow, it has way too few planets.

[Sionnach Glic]

Why too few? I don't think there was any real statement as to how many planets there were.

[Teaos]

No but it implied by the number of species and by the fact that when someone mentions a planet most people know where and what it is. Hard to do that with lots of planets.

[Sionnach Glic]

Where'd you get that from?

[Aaron]

Oh. Wow, it has way too few planets.

Umm, no. The Empire controlled a million worlds and 50 million colonies. The PT/OT however only concerned itself with a few of them, it would be incredibly difficult and expensive to portray more than what we got. The Clone Wars cartoon shows quite a bit more and the live action next year should show us a fair bit as well.

[stitch626]

Its estimated that our galaxy has a billion stars (rough estimate) and a few billion planets. So one million planets is not that impressive, especially for such a power hungry... um, empire as the Empire.
And don't bother mentioning planet habitality, Scifi stomps over that all the time.

[Mikey]

Its estimated that our galaxy has a billion stars (rough estimate) and a few billion planets. So one million planets is not that impressive, especially for such a power hungry... um, empire as the Empire.
And don't bother mentioning planet habitality, Scifi stomps over that all the time.

Without getting on the topic of how many systems have habitable planets, there is the idea that out of those "few billion planets" usually only will be habitable in each system - which much of sci-fi does posit. So, out of that few billion, how many true, population-containing worlds would there be? One out of ten on average?

[Tsukiyumi]

Its estimated that our galaxy has a billion stars (rough estimate) and a few billion planets. So one million planets is not that impressive, especially for such a power hungry... um, empire as the Empire.
And don't bother mentioning planet habitality, Scifi stomps over that all the time.

Without getting on the topic of how many systems have habitable planets, there is the idea that out of those "few billion planets" usually only will be habitable in each system - which much of sci-fi does posit. So, out of that few billion, how many true, population-containing worlds would there be? One out of ten on average?

With a few billion planets, one out of ten would mean several hundred million population-containing worlds. Not counting the ones you could use terraforming or just plain old-fashioned harsh-environment colonization on (domed habitats, underground tunnels/mines, etc).

[Teaos]

I have been reading lattly that people are questioning the Drake equation. They think he greatly over estimates the amount of M class planets they hold intelligent life. They think intelligence is not nearly as common as he proposed.

[stitch626]

Well, considering that there isn't intellegent life on this planet...
Anyway, I would argue with his theories. Because I feel like it. And I disagree with him. And I don't like his name. Wow, I can't believe I just typed that, I'm tired.