Hello All,

According to "Star Wars," all of the events depicted in the movies occurred "A Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"--a galaxy whose name was apparently never mentioned (although according to *this* https://scifi.stackexchange.com/que...xy-far-far-away source, a race called the Nagai referred to it as "Skyriver"), and:

Be that as it may, a real galaxy has been found which might plausibly be construed to be that cinematic island universe. A "twin" of our own galaxy, which like the Milky Way is a giant barred spiral with two satellite galaxies (see: http://www.newscientist.com/article...ght-years-away/ ), has been found 180 million light-years away...

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NAR #54895 SR

What does "far, far away" really mean? On a galactic scale, 180 million light-years is just a bit outside of the Local Supercluster. Maybe a trip across town might be "far away," but "far, far away?" I'm a little dubious of this claim.

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-Wolfram v. Kiparski
NAR 28643 - TRA 15520
MTMA Section #606 President

You are kidding, right? Blackshire was just having fun introducing the article about Korean astronomers finding a near twin to our own galaxy.

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I love sanding.

Yep--that's all I was doing. To us (if not to galaxies, in comparison with their diameters), 180 light-years is indeed "far, far away." Ditto for "A long time ago"; if that was the galaxy, and we could "hear" radio evidence of that cinematic conflict today, that would mean that those events occurred 180 million years ago, about three times farther back in time than the demise of the dinosaurs here on Earth. Some quasars (what were, as we see them today as they were then, very bright, young galaxies) are *billions* ("sagans" :-) ) of light years away... Also:

Actually, George Lucas was wise to ^not^ be specific about *which* galaxy or era (as referenced to Earth) the events of the movies occurred in, just in case, say, that galaxy was later found to be hostile to life because of higher radiation there. The star orbited by Vulcan in the "Star Trek" series and movies was identified as 40 Eridani (it's actually a triple star system), but so far, no habitable exoplanets have been found there (see: http://www.space.com/33653-is-plane...-trek-real.html )--they should have maintained Gene Roddenberry's silence regarding which stars are the home suns of which races.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

I concede that "far, far away" could be 180 million light years away. I'll just have to be content with speculating that Lucas didn't exhaust just how much he wanted to emphasize just how far away that galaxy was. Lucas could have said, "...in a galaxy really, really, super-far away..." or something like that. No, merely "far, far away," sufficed, but apparently "Far away" wasn't quite far away enough. Note though, that Lucas did not say, "...in a galaxy far, far away that resembles the Milky Way..." There is no reason that the Star Wars galaxy would have to be anything like the Milky Way galaxy in form and size.

Then there is the "long ago" part.

__________________
-Wolfram v. Kiparski
NAR 28643 - TRA 15520
MTMA Section #606 President

I thank you, but there's nothing to concede here, because how such introductions sound--and the imagery they connote--are more important than hard factual accuracy, because those things make them memorable and heart-stirring, as in poetry. Also:

Robert Heinlein suggested the very thing that George Lucas did regarding the galaxy and the era--"In science fiction stories, don't give too many details." I can see how the practice of doing the opposite (giving too much detail) can--at least partly--"spoil" such stories. In one of the later "Star Wars" movies (Lucas might not have been involved with it, or at least not as closely as with his earliest films in the franchise), the Force was explained in scientific terms, which many film critics and fans weren't pleased with, because it took away some of the mystery, magic, and wonder of the Force. In addition:

You're quite right regarding the recently-discovered "twin" of the Milky Way, as there is no hint in the "Star Wars" films about what type of galaxy the stories occur (occurred, from our temporal vantage point) in. A large spiral galaxy--or a barred spiral galaxy, like ours (I had long wished that we lived in one, after seeing pictures of them; they look majestic to me, and sure enough, a few years ago it was discovered that our galaxy *does* have a central bar [see: http://www.google.com/search?source...1.0.uAlSfowJrkk ])--just "looks and feels right" as an appropriately grand setting for such an epic interstellar saga, and:

A small galaxy, like a dwarf elliptical or an irregular galaxy, just wouldn't do, and while the largest galaxies of all are giant ellipticals, they have little or no structure or internal variations (such as dust lanes), and they are extremely bright, which--aesthetically--doesn't seem quite right for stories that involve both moral darkness and light. Physically as well, the skies in elliptical galaxies (of all sizes) might look quite alien to human eyes, like how they would appear from a planet near the heart of a globular cluster in our own galaxy. With virtually no dust to absorb starlight, one could see clear across an elliptical galaxy, so that the skies of planets inside them would be crammed with stars and would likely be abnormally (to us) bright, perhaps even to the point that "night" would have little meaning.

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR