Should it not be way bigger only Coruscant has trillions of sentient being and in time of war there should be conscription. I mean in the second Battle of Bothawui http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Bothawui_%28Second;_Great_Galactic_War%29 they had only a few thousand troops I mean the ancient people of China could support more troops then the Republic did.

A power as the Republic should have at least a few tens of billion troops and that meaning less then 10% of the total population of the republic. So why is it so small? And do not come with logistics they can travel the galaxy and bring food and weapons in matters of hours.

I guess the Sith army destroyed most of them in the war. Edited July 25, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

The easy explanation is that sci-fi writers have no sense of scale.

 

Thematically, the Old Republic is very pacifistic, and actual threats to the Republic are few and far between. (Remember that by the time of TOR, the Jedi Civil War was centuries ago) Maintaining a standing army is expensive. Very expensive. So since the Republic really only needs its army for internal defense and protection against the odd pirate fleet, they maintain minimal forces - just enough to handle day to day threats.

The easy explanation is that sci-fi writers have no sense of scale.

Ironically, most sci-fi writers have no sense of scale in the wrong direction. Many ships from Warhammer 40k and several anime series have ships that are dozens or even hundreds of kilometers long. The logistics of building anything that large would grind to a halt from getting stuck on itself. It would take decades to build a single ship.

 

Have a look at this: http://orig03.deviantart.net/494a/f/2014/171/0/1/size_comparison___science_fiction_spaceships_by_dirkloechel-d6lfgdf.jpg

 

There's a couple Star Wars ships which are noticeable on that in the top left - but they're all from the Mary-Sue era of New Republic novel oneupmanship. (The original length of the Super-class star Destroyer was 7km; I have the first edition of the Essential Guide to Vehicles and vessels and it says it right in there. And that 7km was supposed to be mind-shatteringly huge for a starship!) The most realistically porportioned ships (although I might be slightly biased) are the Star Trek ships: a few dozen to a few hundred meters long, and they're so little comparatively that they're barely identifiable.

 

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To answer the OP:

 

Because most aren't capable of mentally processing individual items once their numbers go beyond about a thousand.

 

They can understand conceptually that ten groups of one thousand is ten thousand, because they were taught that in math class, but they can't mentally visualize ten thousand of something. They can't square the concept of a number that high with its meaning. What's the difference between one hundred thousand people, and one hundred million people? Nothing, according to the human brain, because those numbers are just so far outside the realm of what evolution equipped our brains to process in regards to quantities of something. We don't look at a beach and understand its hundreds of trillions of tiny rocks, we see only the whole as a beach.

 

It's the same thing with Republic and Imperial military strength. Yea, there should be thousands of ships and billions of servicemen and women. That's realistic, and lorewise probably what's actually going on. Consider the first Death Star: at approximately 120km in diameter, its internal volume is

 

V=4/3πr^3

=(4/3)π(120/2)^3

=904,778.684 cubic kilometers.

 

Try to visualize that. almost a million cublic kilometers of gross internal volume. The information from Wookieepedia for crew complement of DS1 gives a rough estimate of crew, officers, troops, and assorted personnel at just under 2.4 million people. And I'd be willing to bet that half the Death Star was still mostly deserted at any given time.

 

(Incidentally, Luke Skywalker killed almost half as many people in literally seconds as the Third Reich did in more than a decade. Even the most evil Sith would cream their pants into a catatonic state at a kill count that high, the vast majority of those people being maintenance, support staff, and regular crew. Cooks, cleaners, electricians, mechanics... all serving on the Death Star just so the Empire will put meals on the table for their families back home. Still think the Rebellion are the good guys?)

 

But to use the battle of Bothawui as you did: most people can't visualize land armies composed of more soldiers than most cities have populations. So for storytelling purposes, they have to cut the numbers or people stop being able to process them. A "few thousand" Republic troops holding off ten times that many Imperials is a lot, more than most people can mentally process, but still within reason because it's not much more than they're used to processing.

 

For another example: That scene at the beginning of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, where the Last Alliance of Elves and Men is taking the fight to Mordor's doorstep. You've all seen it. How many troops do you think there are there? Ten thousand? Fifty? Try over a million Elves and men, and several times that in Orcs. And these are societies whose technology and agriculture is approximately equal to the Roman Empire. So you're very much not wrong, Adormitul, in that army sizes in TOR seem to be very small. Darth Marr and Satele Shan's fleets over Rishi during the flashpoint should have been dozens of ships each under their respective commanders - not four or five.

 

But for storytelling purposes? Bioware would lose the attention of their audience if they used realistic numbers for the militaries of Class III civilizations, because people would gloss over it and get lost.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Diviciacus

Should it not be way bigger only Coruscant has trillions of sentient being and in time of war there should be conscription. I mean in the second Battle of Bothawui http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Bothawui_%28Second;_Great_Galactic_War%29 they had only a few thousand troops I mean the ancient people of China could support more troops then the Republic did.

A power as the Republic should have at least a few tens of billion troops and that meaning less then 10% of the total population of the republic. So why is it so small? And do not come with logistics they can travel the galaxy and bring food and weapons in matters of hours.

As mentioned, the Republic normally doesn't need a standing military, because large-scale wars are rather rare for the Republic, typically being hundreds, if not thousands, of years apart. That, and military service in the Sith Empire is compulsory for all full citizens, so their entire adult population contributes to the Imperial war machine to some extent.

 

Ironically, most sci-fi writers have no sense of scale in the wrong direction. Many ships from Warhammer 40k and several anime series have ships that are dozens or even hundreds of kilometers long. The logistics of building anything that large would grind to a halt from getting stuck on itself. It would take decades to build a single ship.

I wouldn't cite Warhammer 40k for something like that, though. The whole point of the setting is that it's comically over-the-top.

As mentioned, the Republic normally doesn't need a standing military, because large-scale wars are rather rare for the Republic, typically being hundreds, if not thousands, of years apart. That, and military service in the Sith Empire is compulsory for all full citizens, so their entire adult population contributes to the Imperial war machine to some extent.

 

 

I wouldn't cite Warhammer 40k for something like that, though. The whole point of the setting is that it's comically over-the-top.

I can not deny this it was 300 since the last great conflict that is true is not a very huge time but still. But now when you are attacked you probably should increase it. And only by conscripting in Coruscant you can get those billions and give no change to the sith empire.

We can not process I agree but since we will imagine 100 million fighting like how 100k fight why do you write so small numbers for the army is it not more believable that the army had a bigger number?

When Master Gnost-Dural said that the Republic's only hope in the face of the Sith onslaught was survival, not victory I always said that is because you idiots have way to few troops for the resources you have.

Edited July 25, 2015 by adormitul

Ironically, most sci-fi writers have no sense of scale in the wrong direction. Many ships from Warhammer 40k and several anime series have ships that are dozens or even hundreds of kilometers long. The logistics of building anything that large would grind to a halt from getting stuck on itself. It would take decades to build a single ship.

 

Have a look at this: http://orig03.deviantart.net/494a/f/2014/171/0/1/size_comparison___science_fiction_spaceships_by_dirkloechel-d6lfgdf.jpg

 

There's a couple Star Wars ships which are noticeable on that in the top left - but they're all from the Mary-Sue era of New Republic novel oneupmanship. (The original length of the Super-class star Destroyer was 7km; I have the first edition of the Essential Guide to Vehicles and vessels and it says it right in there. And that 7km was supposed to be mind-shatteringly huge for a starship!) The most realistically porportioned ships (although I might be slightly biased) are the Star Trek ships: a few dozen to a few hundred meters long, and they're so little comparatively that they're barely identifiable.

 

* * *

 

To an extent this really depends on what you plan on doing with a starship.

 

If it's going to make planetary landings, or being built dirtside and then lifted to orbit then size and mass are both real problems. The same if you want to go places in a hurry on short notice.

 

If you're building out of asteroids, getting atmosphere and water from slowish comets or very small low gravity moons, and don't plan on ever being in a real hurry to get from point A to point B, then even the second death star at about 160 km isn't necessarily overly ambitious. With a real giant of a ship though, construction could take a very long time even with automation, and navigation might be more a matter of, "where should we go this century," than of, "where should we go this afternoon." That scale is probably more a matter of having 200,000 years to evacuate your planet before the star that's going red giant fries your homeworld than of going out and having space opera dashing adventure time.

 

A bigger issue than size with a lot of those ships is shape. Unless planning to involve atmospheric flight or maximize sunlight gain for growing crops or solar power generation, surface area isn't that desirable in a space ship.

Heat loss, heat gain, surface area to maintain from micrometeorite erosion (or energy spent deflecting them), useable volume enclosed per unit mass of hull, all of these argue for making your ship as close to a sphere as possible if given the choice. The problem is that making the small portable planet substitute actually look like a small portable planet is considered insufficiently cool from an art standpoint.

 

If you're getting really practical, you don't even generally have the 2-3 drive systems per ship that's standard fare in sci-fi. You have shuttle ships with one kind of engine that go from planetary surface to orbit. You have in-system tugs with a different engine that move things around on the interplanetary scale. Then you have interstellar (or intergalactic if you like) ships that have some kind of FTL drive. Sure the occasional exploration, colonization, or military ship will have multiple drives (or carry smaller ships with an alternate drive system) because the intended use includes travel in areas where there's not yet a civilized space transport infrastructure built out yet, but that's something you'd generally try to avoid as much as possible. Packing different drives, and possibly different fuel types, on a single ship just takes up too much space and payload mass if you're serious about optimization.

Actualy, the republic force are so small because the rest of the army returned to the front line

Actualy, the republic force are so small because the rest of the army returned to the front line

You don't really need a huge military when most member worlds have their own standing forces for internal security and defense against pirates etc. And having huge numbers of men also means you have to outfit and transport those men. Blasters are common and cheap, body armor not so much and vehicles will really start building up the bill. The Republic chooses to have smaller numbers of well-equipped forces instead, capable of bringing specialist support to planetary militias.

You don't really need a huge military when most member worlds have their own standing forces for internal security and defense against pirates etc. And having huge numbers of men also means you have to outfit and transport those men. Blasters are common and cheap, body armor not so much and vehicles will really start building up the bill. The Republic chooses to have smaller numbers of well-equipped forces instead, capable of bringing specialist support to planetary militias.

That works only when you fight against a weaker enemy technologically speaking. For example do you think that if USA attacked Russia they can defeat her with 400k like they had in Iraq? Hell no they will need all their forces and more. You increase the army during a conflict you do not let a opposing faction that at best can get a few tens of million soldiers kill billions upon billions because you do not have enough troops.

Should it not be way bigger only Coruscant has trillions of sentient being and in time of war there should be conscription. I mean in the second Battle of Bothawui http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Bothawui_%28Second;_Great_Galactic_War%29 they had only a few thousand troops I mean the ancient people of China could support more troops then the Republic did.

A power as the Republic should have at least a few tens of billion troops and that meaning less then 10% of the total population of the republic. So why is it so small? And do not come with logistics they can travel the galaxy and bring food and weapons in matters of hours.

 

If you actually read the article, you would see that the vast majority of the Republic forces departed the planet after the first battle was concluded, leaving a small contingent of forces to defend a newly emplaced planetary shield generator.

Your looking for logic in a Star Wars story. Just stop thinking and accept it for what it is. Although they should totally finish that video series.

Funny thing is that I've been watching a lot of Star Trek: TNG lately and have been coming across the opposite failure of scale. Every planet the Enterprise comes across seems to have a One World Government with only a couple people in charge. Apparently bureaucracy is an exclusively human concept.

You technically answered your own question.

The republic is huge its thousands of star systems and even if they were at peace before the war they have dozens of worlds and systems to defend.

With that in mind the Republic probably have fleets broken down into sector and system defense, an entire sector for example may have 200 ships but those are broken up to smaller fleets to defend systems, if a system is attacked other system fleets may leave to engage.

Something to keep in mind, we're only seeing certain places in game. Corellia, for example, we're only taking part in the fight on Coronet City. Granted, it's the key to the whole planet, but that doesn't mean there aren't troops across the entire planet fighting. Same thing for Balmorra, Taris, etc., we're not seeing on a planetary scale. As for fleets, it takes time to replace capital-scale ships, and we see a lot of them destroyed during our time leveling, but there are probably other battles going on outside our view. The Consular story, alludes to the Rift Alliance having a fleet of ships and a large army to bring to Corellia, but we don't see any of them.

 

I wouldn't base the reality of the war on what we as players see during the game.

That works only when you fight against a weaker enemy technologically speaking. For example do you think that if USA attacked Russia they can defeat her with 400k like they had in Iraq? Hell no they will need all their forces and more. You increase the army during a conflict you do not let a opposing faction that at best can get a few tens of million soldiers kill billions upon billions because you do not have enough troops.

 

Russia's a poor example. Most of their equipment is in such poor repair, and their forces so poorly trained, that we would roll them up like a cheap rug. Holding Russia... That's entirely a different issue. The Russian people would not stand for it. We'd have Stalingrad on a country wide scale. Not pretty, at all.

 

China, now. They're poorly trained, and their equipment is second tier, but I would not want to fight that war. Sheer numbers would be an issue, and what their training lacks in sound military doctrine, it more than makes up for in shear dedication. They wouldn't fight well, but by god, they would fight hard.

China, now. Sheer numbers would be an issue,.

 

That's how they'd tackle Russia or some fool that tries an invasion. Send a million men a day over to the enemy and surrender until the opposition collapses trying to handle all the POWs.

People still talk as if Russia and China are still using Cold War era weapons. They're pretty advanced now, even their aircraft is starting to match our own.

 

Sure they aren't on par with our military, but we wouldn't be able to steamroll either of them in a conventional war. Just my two cents.

 

Now back on topic. I like to think of the Republic military as a sort of Quality over Quantity sort of force. What they lack in numbers, they make up for in technology, skill, and dedication.

snip

 

Straw man.

 

One cannot suggest that the empire is good simply because what the rebellion did was unconscionable. The scale of collateral damage on the DS is incalculable in much the same way as the destruction of Alderaan was--and about that...destroying a planet to compel cooperation? There isn't a word to describe the depths of evil in a man to issue that order, or in his soldiers to carry it out. The DS, on the other hand, was a weapon of war and everyone on board was certainly aware of that.

 

There was no good choice there. It was either destroy all of the people on the DS, or let the moon (was it?) base be destroyed. (It has been years since I have seen any of the films.)

I was looking at the picture of all those ships. The amount of raw material and manufacturing and time and effort and industry to support building those ships is ludicrous ( ludicrous speed, get it)

You would have to literally strip mine several entire worlds and you would still struggle to find enough usable matter to come close to building project. There is not enough matter in our solar system excluding the sun to even come close. It really is an insane amount of materials .

I was looking at the picture of all those ships. The amount of raw material and manufacturing and time and effort and industry to support building those ships is ludicrous ( ludicrous speed, get it)

You would have to literally strip mine several entire worlds and you would still struggle to find enough usable matter to come close to building project. There is not enough matter in our solar system excluding the sun to even come close. It really is an insane amount of materials .

 

Some people from I think it was MIT calculated the raw materials for the first Death Star. It's a staggering amount, but it's several orders of magnitude less than a typical rocky planet holds. You could build a dozen such Death Stars before a planet like Earth was a wasted husk.

The easy explanation is that sci-fi writers have no sense of scale.

 

They do actually, or at least the classic Science Fiction writers did.

 

Star Wars is more akin to fantasy then science fiction, even when set against a sci-fi background, it's stories rarely, if ever, reflect the scale of the Galactic Republic. They are always in very small, confined area's, like the city-sized worlds in the Superman/Batman/Spiderman stories, governments are typically feudal, monarchies or aristocracies, be they benevolent (Republic) or tyrannical (Empire).

 

Against trillions, or even quadrillions of people and their high-tech armies (with billions of soldiers) the hundreds, or even hundreds of thousands Jedi or Sith would be rather powerless, and meaningless. Not scaling it properly makes more interesting stories.

Straw man.

 

You completely missed the point of his post, which was about size, scale and numbers.

You completely missed the point of his post, which was about size, scale and numbers.

 

Yea, I was making an irreverent and facetious comment with the whole "Rebellion is evil because they murdered everyone on the Death Star." I"m really sad that person completely ignored the actual content in my post... I think I spent more than an hour writing it. >.>