How does Dromund Kaas feed its people? There seems to be no farms on that planet. Does it import everything? Does it have resources that it trades with other planets, or is it just a blackhole for taxpayers?

It’s an empire. I assume that they coerce the resources.

How does Dromund Kaas feed its people? There seems to be no farms on that planet. Does it import everything? Does it have resources that it trades with other planets, or is it just a blackhole for taxpayers?

 

You're also not seeing the entire planet. Dromund Kaas is a LOT bigger than the areas we explore.

How does Dromund Kaas feed its people? There seems to be no farms on that planet. Does it import everything? Does it have resources that it trades with other planets, or is it just a blackhole for taxpayers?

Capital cities on Earth don't grow any crops, don't raise any livestock. They import everything from the surrounding areas and are subsidized by their nations as they provide essential civilizing services. This is true of all National Capital Regions (NCR) on Earth to varying degrees irrespective of how they're characterized politically in each country. I expect Coruscant and Dromund Kaas are no different. We just have to scale our imaginations from nations and NCRs to galactic empire/republic and capital planets.

Capital cities on Earth don't grow any crops, don't raise any livestock.

Yes, and just like how on earth you have a continuous stream of 18-wheelers bringing supplies into the cities, there would be a continuous stream of space freighters supplying Coruscant and D.K.

 

In reality, the idea of a full planet city, such as Coruscant, being supplied remotely would be impractical, for many reasons, but this isn't reality. 🙂

DK is a bit different in that it's not entirely covered by "city", and there may be farms in the areas we can't access.

Edited April 10, 2021 by JediQuaker

Capital cities on Earth don't grow any crops, don't raise any livestock. They import everything from the surrounding areas and are subsidized by their nations as they provide essential civilizing services. This is true of all National Capital Regions (NCR) on Earth to varying degrees irrespective of how they're characterized politically in each country. I expect Coruscant and Dromund Kaas are no different. We just have to scale our imaginations from nations and NCRs to galactic empire/republic and capital planets.

 

Cities are not subsidiized by surrounding areas. The opposite is true. The more rural the area the more subsidized they are. That is the only way they get support sevices (hospital, vet, etc), roads, power, and telephone. Further subsidies almost universally exist to limit what gets grown so there are not wild cycles where one year farmers boom and then next they starve. Raw materials (food) may come from rural areas, but processing is not exclusive to the outskirts. Rural communities sell their raw materials, but that is commerce not subsidizing.

 

Even in the Star Wars movie on Coruscant you see vast stretches of industry. Factories, and based on the smoke being emitted processing facilities. Cities use those to supply not only themselves, but goods to sell outside the city. Again commerce and not subsidy.

 

Perhaps you just used an unintended term in describing the arrangement between cities and non-cities.

Capital cities on Earth don't grow any crops, don't raise any livestock. They import everything from the surrounding areas and are subsidized by their nations as they provide essential civilizing services. This is true of all National Capital Regions (NCR) on Earth to varying degrees irrespective of how they're characterized politically in each country. I expect Coruscant and Dromund Kaas are no different. We just have to scale our imaginations from nations and NCRs to galactic empire/republic and capital planets.

 

Austin would like to have a word with you and just before you say: Austin is the Capital of Texas so that would make Austin a capital city so:

 

https://austin.agrilife.org/agriculture/#:~:text=Despite%20the%20proximity%20to%20the%20Houston%20metro%20area,growing%20a%20variety%20of%20crops%20and%20livestock%20species.

Cities are not subsidiized by surrounding areas. The opposite is true. .

 

Austin would like to have a word with you and just before you say: Austin is the Capital of Texas so that would make Austin a capital city so:

 

https://austin.agrilife.org/agriculture/#:~:text=Despite%20the%20proximity%20to%20the%20Houston%20metro%20area,growing%20a%20variety%20of%20crops%20and%20livestock%20species.

 

I was referring to national capitals, not all cities.

Edited April 10, 2021 by mike_carton

Consolidated into a previous response. Edited April 11, 2021 by mike_carton

Saying that we don't see all of Dromund Kaas is why we don't see farms is not the answer. I don't expect Bioware to include every activity contained on a habited planet such as Earth; I understand the gameplay necessity to keep planetary experiences limited, but on Earth one can see evidence of farms during casual flight or driving on roads. But throughout SWTOR there seems to be no evidence of how urban areas are sustained. Even Voss doesn't seem to worry about keeping its people fed or clothed, and a player can ride or fly in a taxi all over the planet and see no evidence of industry of any type. Dromund Kaas is a large bustling city but all around, everywhere that can be seen outside of the city is just wet forest and animals with big teeth. Furthermore, such an important capitol of the Empire, but no main road to the space port? Roads everywhere are all broken up and partially dirt and a small group of troopers guarding a barricade saying "Yeah we have to keep those animals out." "Dromund Kaas: The Glory of the Empire" Harrumph. If I were an Imperial, I'd be embarrassed.

They never mention farming and food supply in swtor until Onslaught. I think DK might be a bit special because the Sith keep the temples and ruins intact (well, they are haunted so it's not like they can simply tear them apart lol), I imagine DK was largely wilderness because of it.

 

Isn't Vitiate f-ed up the weather system of the DK planet so it's always thunderstorm? It won't be a good farming planet anyway. Too little sunlight.

They never mention farming and food supply in swtor until Onslaught.

The people of Uphrades would like a word with you. Well,

 

 

Saying that we don't see all of Dromund Kaas is why we don't see farms is not the answer. I don't expect Bioware to include every activity contained on a habited planet such as Earth; I understand the gameplay necessity to keep planetary experiences limited, but on Earth one can see evidence of farms during casual flight or driving on roads. But throughout SWTOR there seems to be no evidence of how urban areas are sustained. Even Voss doesn't seem to worry about keeping its people fed or clothed, and a player can ride or fly in a taxi all over the planet and see no evidence of industry of any type. Dromund Kaas is a large bustling city but all around, everywhere that can be seen outside of the city is just wet forest and animals with big teeth. Furthermore, such an important capitol of the Empire, but no main road to the space port? Roads everywhere are all broken up and partially dirt and a small group of troopers guarding a barricade saying "Yeah we have to keep those animals out." "Dromund Kaas: The Glory of the Empire" Harrumph. If I were an Imperial, I'd be embarrassed.

The point you missed there is that we see an area of each planet that's *at*most* a few tens of kilometres across, set against an Earth-sized planet(1), which would be tens of *thousands* of kilometres around.

 

That said, I've often wondered about all these highly developed planets which have dirt tracks linking their cities.

 

(1) There are astrophysical reasons that suggest that Eartth is, in fact, close to being as small as an inhabitable planet could possibly be.

Saying that we don't see all of Dromund Kaas is why we don't see farms is not the answer.

I disagree. I think it's the major answer. No "planet" in SWTOR comes anywhere close to being the size of an actual full planet.

The entire game area of Coruscant or DK could easily fit within the boundaries of any large terrestrial city, such as Toronto, Chicago, etc.

Even the larger "planets" are not all that big. Tattoine is smaller (in area) than the Sahara desert. Hoth could entirely fit into just part of Antarctica.

So, there could be many agricultural areas in the parts of these planets we don't get to see**.

 

** Except perhaps for Coruscant. Coruscant is said to be entirely covered by "city". I take that to mean there's no farms.

Edited April 11, 2021 by JediQuaker

I don't know the lore at all, but I just assumed that places like coruscant had indoor farms, green house type things, etc,

Good point. They may not have visible outdoor "farms" as such, but they may have greenhouses or indoor 'factory farms'.

There's a lot of tech in SW. Courasant could have some kind of indoor hydraponics type deal. Never know since not all details are always included. Theres certainly a lot of trade though but it would need some self sufficiency incase it's ever blockaded.

Perhaps how one answers depends on their own experience. I live in Sacramento, California and it doesn't take a long drive out of the city to see agriculture. Our farms are not on the other side of the planet. And about the roads; why are they all broken up? I understand why Corellia and Balmorra would have bombed roads, but I haven't yet come across a planet that had intact surface streets. I don't include Coruscant or Nar Shaddaa because their roads are skyways or within buildings. But broken up surface roads seem to be a galaxy-wide theme. Belsavis' roads should not be broken up because the battle going on there is with escaped convicts who do not (or do they?) have the military power to blow the roads to smithereens. I don't know the technological history of Voss as to determine why they allowed their roads to fall into disrepair. And the fact that Voss is so close to Dromund Kaas and yet was just recently discovered is a bit of a puzzler. Shouldn't Voss be a lonely outer-rim planet to make its late discovery plausible? The only excuse I can find for the galaxy-wide broken roads is that vehicles requiring contact with the surface had been technologically passé for a long long time.

The people of Uphrades would like a word with you. Well,

 

The handful of survivors would, anyway.

 

They never mentioned how the destruction of such a place would impact the Republic in terms of food supply. It's just used as a token to show how evil the Empire is. It's like the toilet on the Razor crest, I'm just happy to see those realistic but often being ignored stuffs to be mentioned. (when can we see how shower works in live action SW? lol)

They never mentioned how the destruction of such a place would impact the Republic in terms of food supply. It's just used as a token to show how evil the Empire is. It's like the toilet on the Razor crest, I'm just happy to see those realistic but often being ignored stuffs to be mentioned. (when can we see how shower works in live action SW? lol)

 

Well they do expressly state that half of Coruscant's food comes from Uphrades and mention that Coruscant is going to have to start food rationing immediately upon the discovery that Uphrades was destroyed. So they do mention it, they just don't linger on it for long.

The people of Uphrades would like a word with you. Well,

 

The handful of survivors would, anyway.

 

Balmorra too. The Imps get a quest to go poison the farms and the Reps get a quest to potentially try and "cure" them.

Perhaps how one answers depends on their own experience. I live in Sacramento, California and it doesn't take a long drive out of the city to see agriculture. Our farms are not on the other side of the planet. And about the roads; why are they all broken up? I understand why Corellia and Balmorra would have bombed roads, but I haven't yet come across a planet that had intact surface streets. I don't include Coruscant or Nar Shaddaa because their roads are skyways or within buildings. But broken up surface roads seem to be a galaxy-wide theme. Belsavis' roads should not be broken up because the battle going on there is with escaped convicts who do not (or do they?) have the military power to blow the roads to smithereens. I don't know the technological history of Voss as to determine why they allowed their roads to fall into disrepair. And the fact that Voss is so close to Dromund Kaas and yet was just recently discovered is a bit of a puzzler. Shouldn't Voss be a lonely outer-rim planet to make its late discovery plausible? The only excuse I can find for the galaxy-wide broken roads is that vehicles requiring contact with the surface had been technologically passé for a long long time.

 

They don't really need intact road surfaces in star wars because ground vehicles aren't really a thing. They are guides only, the incentive to keep them perfect doesn't really exist. Shuttles are used to transport goods or larger amounts of poeple and speeders do the rest, none of which have actual wheels that travel road surfaces.

From what I recall, DK was left wild to further the Sith “survival of the fittest” mindset. Whether the whole planet is supposed to be that way (effectively making it as impractical as Coruscant) or if there are “off screen” areas that are normal, I don’t know. But it seems like the Capitol is stuck in the middle of the jungle.

 

KOTET implies that the planet has extreme weather. That might make it unfeasible to farm.

Well they do expressly state that half of Coruscant's food comes from Uphrades and mention that Coruscant is going to have to start food rationing immediately upon the discovery that Uphrades was destroyed. So they do mention it, they just don't linger on it for long.

 

It totally flied over my head lol

 

But yeah, they never make it a real thing, and one planet responsible for half of the capital's food supply just sounds fake. No capital works like that. It's unwise in peacetime, it's more unwise in wartime. KOTxx at least made the recourse crisis more (superficially) realistic because they mentioned the heavy tribute many times and it's consistent throughout the expansions, I can imagine the lose of a single agriculture planet would make a huge impact during that time.