Into the Unknown

An analysis of the various factors, both natural and political, that may have contributed to the slow expansion of the Old Republic throughout the Star Wars Galaxy, specifically as regards the area of space called the Unknown Regions.

By Matthew Trias

I. The Halo Hypothesis

For at least fifteen years, Expanded Universe authors have titillated us with mentions of a region of space in the Galaxy Far, Far Away that is shrouded in Impenetrable veils of mystery. This place has alternately been presented to us as a source of great danger and a place in which deliverance may be found. This region of space is simply called the Unknown Regions. The first significant mention of the Unknown Regions was in Heir to the Empire (7; ch.1) by Timothy Zahn. In this novel, the Unknown Regions was a large swathe of space that the Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn was exiled to after apparently taking the wrong side in Imperial Court politics. It was presented as an as yet unexplored expanse of space, a virginal territory that had never been touched by the far-reaching authority of the Old Republic. The Unknown Regions had even escaped the iron grip of the Empire during its twenty-four year existence. As punishment for backing the wrong side, Thrawn had ostensibly been sent on a mapping expedition of the Unknown Regions, a less than prestigious assignment for one of his skills. It is later revealed that the real purpose behind his stint in the Unknown Regions was to extend the jurisdiction of the Empire to that far flung territory (“Vision of the Future” 415).

This unfortunately, is the sum of all that we know about the Unknown Regions. Later sources added a few additional morsels of information but nothing significant. A few races native to the territory were mentioned and it was implied that a few of them were powerful enough to threaten the entire civilized galaxy. Nothing else was revealed. We were told nothing about the politics of the Unknown Regions, such as the formational histories of the various governments and their relationships with one another. We are also not told how the Unknown Regions avoided contact with the Galactic Republic for twenty-five thousand years and later the Galactic Empire. It is the last question that this essay will attempt to find an adequate answer to. Just how did the Unknown Regions remain unexplored by the Galactic Republic for twenty-five thousand years? Before we can even attempt an answer, we must first examine the very facts that force us to ask the question. We must first examine the means by which denizens of the Galaxy Far, Far Away travel vast interstellar distances: hyperspace.

Let us consider what the six movies of the Star Wars epic have taught us about hyperspace travel. In the Star Wars movie A New Hope, ships are depicted traveling from Yavin, an Outer Rim world on the fringe of the galactic disk, to Alderaan, a Core World near the galactic bulge, in less than a day. In The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul appears to travel to Tatooine from Coruscant, the central world of the Republic deep in the Core, in what appears to be at the most, a day. Let us consider the facts in order to demonstrate how incredibly fast this is method of travel is. The Star Wars Galaxy is one hundred thousand light years in diameter according to the Essential Guide to Planets and Moons. This means that the Galaxy is roughly 600,000,000,000,000,000 miles in diameter. Traveling at the speed of light (about 186,322 m/s), it would take a ship a little less than 100,000 years to travel this distance, yet from the evidence we see in the films, the Millennium Falcon should be able to do it in a few days.

Let us place Tatooine and Yavin fifty thousand light years away from the bulge of the galaxy and Coruscant, approximately 300,000,000,000,000,000 miles (a reasonable presumption considering the placement of Tatooine and Yavin in illustrations depicting the relative positions of planets within the Galaxy Far, Far Away such as the one which was included with bagged editions of Star Wars Gamer #5). This puts the two planets in the Outer Rim of the Galaxy with Coruscant somewhere in the middle. This is not necessarily accurate but we shall use this model for the sake of simplicity. If the Falcon traveled this distance in one day, that means its speed would be around 3,472, 222,222,222m/s, well over the speed of light. In two days it could cross the entire diameter of the Galaxy.

Of course 50,000 light years may be too generous for the Falcon. Perhaps she crossed less than fifty thousand light years in a day. Perhaps it was twenty- five thousand light years, around 150,000,000,000,000,000 miles. This would mean that the Falcon traveled approximately 1,736,111,111,111 m/s, still well over the speed of light. In four days it could have crossed the entire diameter of the Galaxy. Darth Maul's Sith infiltrator would have traveled similar speeds in order to reach Tatooine as quickly as it did.

The amazing thing is that those speeds may yet be too slow. In A New Hope, Darth Vader says, "This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi; it will soon see the end of the Rebellion." This implies that his killing of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the attack on Yavin Four all occurred within the same day. The very same day that the Falcon escaped the Death Star in the Alderaan system which was in the core of the Galaxy, and went to Yavin Four in the Outer Rim. To put it succinctly, The Falcon possibly traveled from the Alderaan system in the Core near the bulge of the galaxy, to Yavin Four, a moon in the Yavin system in the Outer Rim of the Galaxy, in less than a day. Not only did the Falcon travel there in less than a day, but the Death Star did as well.

Finally, the Revenge of the Sith novelization appears to indicate that it takes a day or less to get to the Outer Rim planet of Mustafar from the Core World planet of Coruscant; as it depicts Padme' Amidala arriving on the planet mere hours after Anakin murders the members of the Confederacy Leadership Council (Stover 354, 387). Despite the fact that she departed Coruscant at least half a day after him, Anakin had only barely reported to his Sith Master Darth Sidious and had not yet left the planet when she arrived.

With the facts presented as they are above, it becomes increasingly clear why the idea of a significant portion of the Galaxy remaining unexplored and “unknown” can seem to most to be almost untenable. Yet, the Unknown Regions definitely exist as the numerous references throughout the Expanded Universe can attest to. Because the idea of the Unknown Regions seemingly contradicts what has been observed of hyperspace in the movies, fans of the Star Wars saga have created explanations in an attempt to reconcile the facts. One of the most popular explanations is that the halo of the Galaxy Far, Far Away constitutes the entirety of the Unknown Regions. According to cosmologists, the halo belonging to our own Milky Way Galaxy consists of globular clusters containing ancient low mass, metal poor¹ and thus resource poor, stars. (Comins and Kaufmann 316, 382) In this region, younger, high mass stars had long ago fused their supply of helium into heavier elements such as carbon and iron. Depending on the mass of the star, it would either shed its outer layers and create what is known as a planetary nebula, a region of gas and dust propelled by radiation pressure from the burnt out core of the star, or if it was large enough, its iron core would collapse and upon reaching nuclear density would rebound into the collapsing outer regions of the star, creating a tremendous explosion known as a supernova. Both planetary nebulae and supernova are responsible for the spread of the material that went into making the multitude of stars in the galactic disk, the region of the Milky Way Galaxy where most stars, especially young stars, are located today, including the star our planet orbits. In the halo, only ancient low-mass stars remain, still fusing their hydrogen and helium. Not only could this region of the galaxy be described as resource poor because of its lack of heavy elements, but it also has a low density; meaning its star population is quite small even though it covers a volume and diameter greater than that of the galactic disk. Proponents of the idea that the galactic halo is the entirety of the Unknown Regions (henceforth known as the Halo Hypothesis for ease of identification) will point out that if the Galaxy Far, Far, Away is anything like our Milky Way Galaxy, then its halo ought to also have a low population of stars and be resource poor. Thus, the conclusion of the Halo Hypothesis is that the Unknown Regions remained unexplored because, to put it simply, they were worthless. There was no reason for governments or corporations to expand civilization into such barren and worthless space.

It must first be asked of any hypothesis, if there is evidence enough to even warrant its existence. There are a few references in Star Wars canon that are probably responsible for spawning the Halo Hypothesis. First and foremost is the speed of hyperspace travel, which necessitated an explanation that made logical sense. Another bit of evidence that supporters of the Halo Hypothesis use is the line uttered by Jedi Master Jocasta Nu, head Jedi Library Keeper in Attack of the Clones. According to Jocasta Nu, the archives are so thorough, if something is not documented in them, it “doesn’t exist.” A cursory analysis of that line would suggest that everything in the Galaxy Far, Far Way is documented and so nothing remains “unknown,” including the Unknown Regions. Using this as support for the Halo Hypothesis is suspect, however. First, according to the Essential Guide to Planets and Moons, roughly 20 billion planets in the Galaxy Far, Far Away have native life of some sort. The idea that everything has been documented stretches the limits of credulity. Does that mean that even the rarest bacterial life form existing in a volcanic habitat deep underground on some obscure planet has been documented? It is possible, but still that would be quite an incredible feat even for a society that has access to technology that the societies in Star Wars do.

Another fact that is overlooked when performing an analysis of Madame Nu’s line, is that Obi-Wan, when discussing the lost planet of Kamino with her, specified a quadrant of known and explored space, specifically a point just “south of the Rishi maze.” How do we know this? Because Attack of the Clones and novels such as Labyrinth of Evil (Luceno 62, 136) have told us that Kamino did indeed have an entry within the Jedi archives until the Count Dooku of Serenno deleted it. Had it not been deleted, however, Madame Nu no doubt would have recognized the quadrant Obi-Wan was pointing to as being a part of space explored long ago and thus a part of the known galaxy. When taken in context of that knowledge, then her line can justifiably be translated to mean, “If it’s not documented as being a part of the known galaxy, then it doesn’t exist there.” There would be nothing she could do for Obi-Wan. She couldn’t very well go to some advanced telescope, pick out any solar system in the Unknown Regions, and dub that one as being Kamino. That would hardly help poor Obi-Wan.

    The aforementioned interpretation is further supported by the Jedi Temple Analysis Room cutscene included on the Attack of the Clones DVD. In the cutscene, Obi-Wan is told by a Temple analysis droid (which presumably had access to the entirety of the Jedi archives) that the Kaminoan sabre dart existed in no known culture, and was probably self made by a warrior not associated with any known society. The droid makes sure to specify that he is only ruling out an origin amongst known cultures and societies rather than saying that no society in the Galaxy could have created it. This implies that not everything in the Galaxy is documented in the archives of the Jedi Temple, only everything in the known galaxy. The novelization of Attack of the Clones provides further information on the subject. The Jedi Temple analysis droid tells Obi-Wan that the records available to the Analysis center cover “eighty percent of the galaxy”(Salvatore 130). These records presumably include even those accessible only by Jedi Masters in order to avoid having to send investigating Knights to the Jedi Masters in order to get a complete and thorough analysis; if the answer is in restricted archives, the droid would merely instruct an investigating Knight to get clearance for the information. The thoroughness of the analysis room records when it comes to the documentation of explored space is attested to by the fact that the droid tells Obi Wan, “If I can’t tell you where it came from, nobody can.” That puts to rest any idea that the archives contain information on everything in the galaxy, though to be fair, perhaps the twenty percent of the galaxy that is not documented in the archives is in the halo. That thought brings us to the third critique of using Madame Nu’s line as support for the Halo Hypothesis.

    When discussing the Halo Hypothesis, it is important to keep in mind that its supporters do not accept the idea that there is no Unknown Regions, rather they prefer to place the Unknown Regions in the sparse galactic halo. There are Unknown Regions, they are just in worthless space, which is why they have remained unexplored for so long—going against the traditional opinion that the Unknown Regions are in the highly populated galactic disk. It is then perplexing when a few of the Halo Hypothesis’ advocates point to Madame Nu’s dialogue as support for their hypothesis. After all, Madame Nu did not specifically state that, “If an item does not appear in our records on the galactic disk, it does not exist.” Instead she said, “ If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist,” which, if interpreted narrowly and out of context (see my commentary above), would mean that there are no Unknown Regions period, since even the galactic halo is considered a part of the Galaxy, and Nu’s words would indicate that the entire Galaxy is explored and thus “known.” Their interpretation of Madame Nu’s words would not be support for the Halo Hypothesis, but rather it would be support for the idea that there are no Unknown Regions at all. Since the Unknown Regions are unlikely to disappear from the Expanded Universe anytime soon, as evidenced by Timothy Zahn’s recent book Outbound Flight which depicts a Jedi-led expedition into the Unknown Regions, this is an unacceptable conclusion.

    The second bit of information that is usually utilized to support the Halo Hypothesis is contained in this passage from the novel Force Heretic II: Refugee: “Hundreds of thousands of stars. It was easy to say the words, but much more difficult to comprehend what they actually meant. On a map, the Unknown Regions comprised only fifteen percent of the total volume of the galaxy, but when that fifteen percent became the search for something so small as a planet—which on a cosmic scale, was much, much smaller than a needle in a haystack—the true immensity of the task became all too apparent”(Dix and Williams 246). In particular, the line “hundreds of thousands of stars” is used to support the idea that the Unknown Regions are the halo. If they were in the disk for instance, the Unknown Regions would have many, many more stars than hundreds of thousands. They would have millions of stars. According to supporters of the Halo Hypothesis, the fact that the Unknown Regions have only hundreds of thousands of stars proves that they are in the sparsely populated galactic halo.

    There is little about this line of reasoning that can be criticized, but a certain presumption that is being made in order to reach that desired conclusion must be pointed out, namely that we are relying on the astronomical knowledge of an in-universe character who may or may not be proficient in the field of galactic topography. Considering the background of the character, it is probably safe to say that he would be reasonably well versed in galactic topography, however that does not preclude the human tendency to occasionally under exaggerate something so that it is more palatable to the human mind. After all, hundreds of thousands can eventually become millions, but hundreds of thousands certainly sounds easier to manage than millions. Even so, it must be stated that there is absolutely no proof that the character tried in any way to make his task of looking for a planet in the Unknown Regions easier by saying hundreds of thousands rather than millions.

    So far supporters of the Halo Hypothesis have one poor argument and one good argument in support of their idea, based on information pulled from two separate sources. However, if one peruses the majority of the material on the Unknown Regions, one would detect a very strong implication that the Unknown Regions lie not in the sparse halo, but are instead in the dense galactic disk.

    The first bit of evidence for this conclusion comes from the novels Heir to the Empire and Vision of the Future. In Heir to the Empire, the first of in the three book series the Thrawn Trilogy, the last genuine Imperial Grand Admiral, Thrawn, returns from a mapping mission in the Unknown Regions (7; Ch.1). Later, in Vision of the Future, it is revealed that the mapping mission was a farce, a lie used to cover up his true reason for being in the Unknown Regions: expanding the borders of the Empire by conquering and subjugating the territories in the Unknown Regions (415). This is fairly incredible, considering that Thrawn, who was one of the few non-pure-Humans to have the rank Grand Admiral conferred upon him by the Emperor Palpatine in a xenophobic, human-centric Empire, was arguably one of the best, if not the best, Naval commander in the Imperial Armed Forces. Though ostensibly exiled into the Unknown Regions after a political fallout with the Emperor’s servant Grand Admiral Tigellinus, Thrawn was secretly promoted to the rank of Grand Admiral by Emperor Palpatine sometime afterwards but before the Battle of Derra IV (Wallace 186), a fact known only by those that served under Thrawn’s command in the Unknown Regions.² Thrawn, was apparently highly thought of, and highly sought after by top officials of the Empire. The Inquisitor Jerec used Thrawn to plan military operations, and the Emperor trusted Thrawn enough to keep an eye on the ambitious Force user (Wallace 186). Ten months after the Battle of Yavin, Captain Thrawn was officially promoted to Vice Admiral (186), bypassing the rank of line captain (Gordon 103) and commodore. Some believe this was when he was unofficially promoted to the rank of Grand Admiral, making Thrawn Palpatine’s unofficial thirteenth Grand Admiral (Wallace 186). Soon afterwards, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, used Thrawn to take out the heavily defended Black Sun Vigo Zekka Thyne and also used Thrawn to plan an attack on a Rebel convoy passing through the Derra system near the planet of Derra IV (186). The infamous battle, which became known as the Battle of Derra IV, severely crippled the Rebel Alliance. Soon after the Battle of Hoth, “Vice Admiral” Thrawn was forced to leave his duties in the Unknown Regions in order to deal with the defector Admiral Harkov, and the traitor Grand Admiral Zaarin. Thrawn was specifically tasked with the elimination of Zaarin who threatened to splinter the Empire and plunge it into a disastrous civil war (186). During this campaign, Thrawn officially climbed the rungs of power very quickly, rapidly receiving his official promotions to Admiral and finally Grand Admiral, officially replacing Grand Admiral Zaarin in Palpatine’s circle of twelve Grand Admirals (186).

Thrawn was undoubtedly an exceptional Naval commander. He was responsible for delivering a near mortal blow to the Rebellion (as the New Republic) and delivering the death strokes to Grand Admiral Zaarin’s insurrection. One would have to wonder why the Emperor Palpatine would decide to have one of his most gifted Naval commanders squander his time and talents on a mission to conquer the Unknown Regions if the Regions are indeed a resource barren, strategically worthless, piece of territory as the Halo Hypothesis assumes. Not only would Thrawn have wasted his gifts, but he would of done so for the majority of the Galactic Civil War, coming out only twice from the Unknown Regions to provide any type of valuable service to his Emperor.

Could the Emperor have feared Thrawn? Highly unlikely. Grand Admiral Thrawn, as exceptional a Naval commander as he was, did not have the political clout to threaten the Emperor’s rule. Thrawn did not have the support to attempt the type of coup d'état that Grand Admiral Zaarin attempted. Thrawn was an obvious non-pure-Human in a pure-Human only world. He was also an outsider, the former citizen of a government not under the heel of the Empire. He could not hope to muster the support needed to challenge the Emperor. Also as mentioned before, Palpatine trusted Thrawn enough to watch Jerec and not worry that he would attempt to join Jerec and overthrow him.

Could Thrawn really have been sent away from the Empire because of a bad political decision that necessitated his exile in order to please Grand Admiral Tigellinus? Unlikely. Perhaps at first, but Palpatine made the exile pointless when he officially promoted Thrawn to Grand Admiral and basically made him savior of the Empire, something that probably did not escape the attention of Tigellinus for very long. Obviously at that time, Palpatine no longer cared what Tigellinus and his allies thought. Yet, after it was all said and done, Palpatine had Thrawn return to the Unknown Regions (186).³

Obviously, there is something of value within the Unknown Regions. Something that required one of Palpatine’s best Naval commanders to give his full attention to rather than participate in a war much closer to home. One could almost conclude that whatever was in the Unknown Regions was more important to the Emperor than a homegrown rebellion. Though we cannot be sure what was in the Unknown Regions that required the presence of Thrawn, the ideas presented in The Hand of Thrawn duology are a start. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Unknown Regions are in the galactic disk and just perhaps Thrawn was sent there to conquer vast new territories, expanding the Empire and giving it a multitude of new resources. It is even possible that the Empire would gain new technologies such as the Ssi-Ruuvi soul entechment technology. The Hand of Thrawn duology also suggests that Thrawn was conquering hostile civilizations or at least pacifying them. Thrawn would not be able to convince the Emperor of the urgency of this, unless the Unknown Regions really were vast and were capable of supporting civilizations that could threaten the Empire. This would certainly not be true if they were only just in the galactic halo.

Another bit of evidence for the Unknown Regions being in the galactic disk, rather than in the galactic halo, comes solely from The Hand of Thrawn duology. In the second book of the duology, Vision of the Future, Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade are concerned that Thrawn may have colonized a possible two hundred fifty sectors within the Unknown Regions (“Vision of the Future” 416) for the Empire since the resources these sectors contain could serve the Empire and cause them to renew hostilities with the New Republic. It has become increasingly clear that Thrawn did not conquer that much territory, but the fact that the mere possibility that he had frightened Jade and Skywalker is very telling in and of itself. It has been suggested that Skywalker and Jade panicked and were not thinking. It has also been suggested that they both lack sufficient knowledge of the Unknown Regions. Both ideas are at best unsatisfactory explanations. Mara and Luke have both occupied jobs that depended on maintaining a level head amidst stressful circumstances. The idea that years of training and experience suddenly evaporated at the moment they looked at the map of the Unknown Regions is somewhat hard to swallow. The idea that they had insufficient knowledge of the Unknown Regions is problematic for similar reasons. First, Mara Jade appears to be an intelligent woman and has at least a Star Wars equivalent of a high school diploma. Surely, through her multitude of experiences, she must have some familiarity with the topography of the Unknown Regions. As Emperor’s Hand, she appeared very knowledgeable about Grand Admiral Thrawn’s career, and it is unlikely she knew nothing about the Unknown Regions to which Thrawn was sent. Even if she did not, it is even more unlikely that her companion, former General, Luke Skywalker knew nothing of the Unknown Regions. Skywalker had been participating in military campaigns since he was nineteen. His successes in those campaigns were the reason the New Republic promoted him to General ( “The New Essential Chronology” 136). He even served a brief stint as Supreme Commander of the entire Imperial Armed Forces (Veitch 50). It is unlikely that in all his time in these positions, Skywalker never learned anything about the Unknown Regions. Part of being a successful military commander and orchestrating successful military campaigns is knowing the topography of the environment in which you fight. Though not expected to have in-depth knowledge of the Unknown Regions, one would expect General Skywalker to have some knowledge of it, and one would expect his knowledge to tell him whether or not the Unknown Regions are in the galactic disk or the galactic halo. One would at least expect him to brief himself on the Unknown Regions before going into them to get to the planet Niraruan. A more likely explanation is that both of them knew that the Unknown Regions cover fifteen percent of the galactic disk, and both knew that fifteen percent of the disk can contain much in the way of resources.

There is one more piece of information that Halo Hypothesis supportes use as evidence to support their ideas. The map from Star Wars: The Magic of Myth informational CD apparently shows the Unknown Regions as being above the galactic disk. However, most maps and resources as we have seen imply that the Unknown Regions are in the galactic disk. This is further evidenced by the comments Star Wars author Daniel Wallace made to me in a conversation I had with him: it was his writings that were consulted when making the map used so often in the New Jedi Order series of books. According to Wallace:

[T]he ‘galactic halo’ argument always surprises me with its tenacity. But no, the Unknown Regions are not the galactic halo. The Unknown Regions are within the disc itself, as outlined on the map, and the map was not drawn so that an "Unknown Regions Halo" is actually up on a 3D axis and is obscuring a portion of the "real" disc. I should know.

Knowing this, we must contend with the fact that the map contained within the Magic of Myth CD is an oddity and an erroneous one at that. As we have seen, most maps and resources imply, or flat out state that the Unknown Regions are in the galactic disk. The question then becomes, “How do we reconcile this fact with the fact of hyperspace, which is that you can cross galactic distances within days if not hours?” The beginning of the answer to that question lies in the very definition of hyperspace itself.

Next … Into the Unknown: II. The Hyperspace Dilemma

Bibliography

Comins, Neil F. and Kaufmann William J. Discovering the Universe, 6^th Edition. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 2003.

Dix, Shane and Williams, Sean. Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Force Heretic II: Refugee. New York: Ballantine, 2003.

Luceno, James. Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil, 1^st Edition. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2005.

Salvatore, RA. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (Paperback Edition). New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 2003.

Stover, Matthew. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2005.

Wallace, Daniel. Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Characters. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 2002.

Wallace, Daniel and Kevin Anderson. Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology. New York: Del Rey Books, 2005.

Zahn, Timothy. Heir to the Empire (Paperback Edition). New York: Bantam Books, 1992.

Zahn, Timothy. Star Wars:Vision of the Future (Softcover Edition). New York: Bantam Books, 1999.

¹ Metal poor is a term that indicates a star is not rich in heavy elements. It has nothing to do with the amount of metals in a star.
² This was the in the short story “Side Trip” parts I, II, III, and IV, by Michael A. Stackpole and Timothy Zahn. The story was originally published in the old Star Wars Adventure Journal series published by West End Games and was reprinted by Bantam Spectra publishing in an anthology of short stories called Tales of the Empire. In it, Thrawn is called Grand Admiral by his crew and wears the Grand Admiral uniform. This story however, takes place before his official promotion to Grand Admiral as seen in the computer game TIE Fighter. This necessitated the suggestion that he was unofficially given the rank years before. This fix was presented in the New Essential Guide to Characters. It appears this was the only way the author of that guide could make sense of the discrepancy. Tales of the Empire is not listed in the bibliography because this author did not immediately have its publishing information close at hand.
³ It is worth noting that another person who is aware that Thrawn still had favor with the Emperor despite his apparent political fallout, was Admiral Krennel, self proclaimed warlord of the Ciutric Hegemony in Isard’s Revenge. If a lowly Admiral like Krennel knew, there is no doubt that Tigellinus would eventually get wind of it. Just further proof that Palpatine really did not give a damn what the Imperial Court thought.

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