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State of the Galaxy 14:8 GrS [NON-SENSITIVE]
🕑 Added 2024-08-13 17:04:13 +0000 UTCThe Clone Wars. While the 'Clone Wars' remains the most well-known and widely used appellation for the series of conflicts that gripped the galaxy in the second decade post-Great ReSynchronization, the matter remains that it is still one of the most misleading and disingenuous names of the period yet conceived. In fact, the entirety of this galaxy-spanning conflict only became known as the Clone Wars because of the highly sensationalized opening battle of the war, the 1st Battle of Geonosis, where the eponymous Clone Army of the Republic made their thundering debut onto the galactic stage.
The Galactic Civil War. The Separatist Crisis, the Separatist Uprising. The Republic-Confederacy War, the Core-Rim War. The Great Patriotic War, the Confederate War of Independence. The Rimward War, the Liberation of the Rim. The War for the Outer Rim. If one looked into the archives of every planet and every system in the galaxy, one would realize that every participant and warring party had their own local names for the conflict. This was the true nature of the Clone Wars; the first galaxy-wide conflict in a thousand years, this tumultuous yet short era of history was as opaque as it was multifaceted. Every party, apparently, was fighting for their own reasons.
Shifting allegiances, ideologies, and the natural ebb and flow of conflict meant that the ideologies that set the galaxy ablaze also drifted with as well, as the needs of the warring parties adapted to the rapidly evolving galactic situation, thus, the names of the conflict evolved with them. The 'Clone Wars' may have been accurate as a label in the weeks following Geonosis, but soon the defining features of the conflict expanded far past that limiting moniker, burgeoning into the great host of titles we see today. Nations battled nations, systems against systems, planets against planets, cities against cities, brothers against brothers. Therefore, it is my belief that there has been no single name ever proposed that could fully encapsulate what the 'Clone Wars' were, much less the 'Clone Wars' itself.
And yet, if one made an attempt to pinpoint the exact moment of time where all of these names would have been accurate, from one perspective or another, I suggest it would be in the eighth month of the fourteenth year post-Great ReSynchonization. At that moment, following the great lull succeeding the GAR's Operation Trident, was what I believe to be the height of the conflict. It was during the CAF's Operation Storm-Door, in which both the Galactic Republic and Confederacy of Independent Systems invested the full military and economic might of their respective states in the conflict, both sides believing the end was drawing near and hoping for a decisive victory.
At that moment, there was not a single region of the galaxy not inflamed by the war. To the north, the New Territories are under siege by the GAR; in the east the CAF launches a brutal counterattack to recapture their lost territories; in the south Eriadu stands a tomb, the entire Rimma Trade Route engulfed in a bloody crusade against the Core Worlds. At this point, indiscriminate bombardment had become a legitimate and expected siege tactic for all sides, and entire worlds were unhesitatingly put to the torch as punishment for their continued stubbornness. After all, all sides wholeheartedly believed their final victory was only one last push away, so why suffer the grinding of planetary warfare when expediency was at a cannon-bore's reach?
There is no single name or title that could ever capture the sheer scale of the galaxy's first true war in a thousand years. But we could still try, using statistics. After all, it was believed the end was near, and both the Republic and Confederacy had thrown their full weight into the ring. A massive galaxy-wide mobilization had seen every available fighting man they could reasonably muster thrown onto the front lines; from planetary militias, to system defense forces, to whole national armies.
However, due to the opaque and multifaceted nature of the war, the accurate number of fighting men will likely never be found. A fitting example of this dilemma could be found in Atraken; entire planets warred against themselves and burnt out in the shadow of obscurity, billions of unrecorded lives snuffed out without anyone to remember their names. The true number of combatants would never be found, as would the true number of deaths.
But we can still put forward our best educated guess.
In 14:8 GrS, it is estimated that the Galactic Republic had mobilized a rounded figure of around five-point-eight quadrillion servicemen and women into the Grand Army of the Republic, supplemented by an additional one-hundred sixty trillion cloned soldiers from various contracted manufacturers such as Kamino, Arkania, Khomm, Lur, Columus, and more.
The exact ratio between frontline combatants and rear support personnel - or tooth-to-tail ratio - is difficult to estimate, by virtue of the mobilized war economy clouding the division between military and civilian services. As it goes, the chartered ship delivering luxury goods to Chandrila could also be a legitimate military contractor transporting heavy artillery to Mimban at the same time. Thanks to well-maintained service records, however, we can place the number of actual frontline combatants around one-point-two quadrillion soldiers, excluding clones.
On the other side, the Confederacy of Independent Systems is estimated to have mobilized around two-point-nine quadrillion servicemen and women into the Confederate Armed Forces by 14:8 GrS, following a spike in enlistments post-Militia Act. If the tooth-to-tail ratio of the GAR was clouded, then that of the CAF was outright impenetrable due in large part to the decentralized nature of the state, and grey-area operations of corporate interests. Our best guess puts the number of actual CAF frontline combatants at around nine-hundred trillion soldiers, excluding droids. The heavy automation of support duties, however, obscure the numbers even further.
This is, however, excluding the numbers fielded by the Separatist Droid Army, and for good reason. It is completely unknown how many battle droids were fielded in the Droid Army, whether in combatant or support roles, due to the sheer amount and variety of official and unofficial factories, many of which are still yet to be discovered. Propaganda sources outrageously claim numbers in the quintillions, but these values are considered groundless and exaggerated by virtually all respected military historians. The true number has been estimated to be around two to five quadrillion battle droids, with the highest estimates around ten quadrillion.
At this single snapshot in time, there were more men and women mobilized concurrently than any other in the history of the galaxy, even until the present day...
- Excerpt from Historia Galactica Vol.71 by Wottlet Scarsir
Footnotes:
1 Trillion: 1,000,000,000,000
1 Quadrillion: 1,000,000,000,000,000
![State of the Galaxy 14:8 GrS [NON-SENSITIVE]](https://img5.patrefans.com/storage/3/bf/fc/563145-019e8201-179f-7cce-9467-a173573c859a.png)
![State of the Galaxy 14:8 GrS [NON-SENSITIVE]](https://img5.patrefans.com/storage/1/gs/vr/563145-019e8201-18c1-7903-aa39-1af10e7423ea.png)
Comments
FuschiaKnight
Actually, with regards to Clone numbers, where does that relate with regards to Padme's previously quoted figure of only two million clone troopers active in the galaxy?
syu
I really like this update, we can see all the Separatist gains compared to the start of Storm Door, although many regions are still hotly contested. The blob of red south of Coruscant made me smile. On the numbers, I wouldn't fuss so much over it. I just note down the ratio between clones/frontline combatants/support personnel. Since a true galactic scale war is not conducive to story telling. Also i have a stupid question. A star wars year is 10 month long or 12 months long? I remember reading somewhere that it's 10 months.
Rasmus
wrt to the number of men serving on the ships, it seems clear that the construction of the actual ships, and stuff like fuel, is the limiting factor far more than manpower. Like the US Air Force has 10,000 pilots, but that's not a real indication of the size of the US military.
Rasmus
"Military membership in any population is usually 1%-ish max of the total population." No? If you look at WW2, the conscription in any of the countries seriously engaged in total war far exceeded that. The German army had a total of 13.6M servicemen out of a population of 80 million in 1939. The war lasted six years and they didn't all serve at the same time, but still, definitely exceeding 10%. For the Red Army it was 34M out of a total population of about 200M, again well above 10%. Japan had a total of about 8 million out of a population of 73M. For the US, 16M out of 130M. Italy, 4M out of 43M. That actually exceeds the 8.7% listed in this post, nevermind that the probably more serious conscription of women in the Star Wars universe and the existence of "martial" races where probably nearly everyone is serving-- I'm sure like 90% of the Gamorrean population is fighting at any given time, for example-- would allow for higher mobilization rates. On the flipside, there's still neutral systems that aren't involved in the war at all, so the denominator would be somewhat lower than 100 quadrillion too. The numbers definitely seem reasonable for a total civil war though. The movies and to a lesser extent even the EU never really got the scale of galactic warfare right, mostly because it'd be utterly incomprehensible on screen. Like it's absurd that 1.2M clone troopers from Kamino would serve as anything other than a drop in the bucket in a galactic war, or that an Imperial fleet for a decisive battle would consist of like a dozen star destroyers.
Duke of Coffee
Palatine underestimate his plan when Mr. Rain threw the entire toolbox knowingly at it. π€£
milky
There was a golden age of peace and prosperity. It ended in fire and blood. It was caused by corruption, exploitation and apathy.
FuschiaKnight
Youβve mentioned before that a lot of the militaries involved are essentially local forces; it could be that, diagetically, the figures listed in the passage include best guess numbers of various militias as well as the forces of the countless sectors present within both the Confederacy and the Republic that *havenβt* been federalized by any of the laws subordinating sector forces to federal forces.
elsicava
Unfortunately, everything about Star Wars sorts of fall apart once you start picking at the numbers. The base number for total galactic population was taken from one of the Essential guides, either Chronology or Atlas, but iirc it said the galaxy had over 100 quadrillion inhabitants. There's also the well-known claim that the Droid Army numbers in the quadrillion to quintillions... Using the 100 quadrillion figure, that would make my calcs here be around 8-9% of the total galactic population, but that includes all the support and auxiliary roles from medics to cooks to merchant marine and contracted companies etc. The actual fighting population is only around 2%. In any case, I'll lower the starting number down to a single quadrillion and see whether the numbers make more sense there.
Jacob
Excellent addition to the series, I think you did a good job with the numbers (legends was less then clear and disney is, well, disney, so I appreciate the difficulties involved). My guess for a galactic end state would be a 3 way balancing act between the jedi/new republic, empire, and CIS; with other, lesser polities (Hutts, Hapan, Chiss) spicing things up. Either way there is a ton of potential fodder for future conflicts and storytelling.
Bishop7053
Damn didn't realize just how close empress teta is to corusant. Shit is right next door
Notcreepycreeper
While I like the huge numbers, and the feeling of titanic scale they add to a galaxy wide conflict, the numbers feel a bit too big both based on the movies, and based on what your story so far indicates. The number of ships in the major conflicts of this story is tiny if compared to the military described here. A 1000 foot aircraft carrier has a crew of about 4000 ppl. So bad math would estimate a mile large ship to have a crew of like 16000 ppl, call it 20k to account for more complex needs. So the battle about to set up at 500 vs 600 ships, likely the most massive space battle so far, would be 2 million vs 2.4 million ppl. Even if we multiply those #s by 10, itβs 20 vs 24 million ppl - not even a rounding error compared to the numbers you just listed. Military membership in any population is usually 1%-ish max of the total population. Maybe up to like 5% during large scale war. If the thousands of settled worlds all had large populations, still might not make sense. At 10,000 worlds with 10 billion ppl per world, total galactic population would be 1 quadrillion. Maybe if the majority of worlds had a population like corescant, these numbers could be buffed to what you suggest. But what we know about the outer rim, and indeed most worlds other than corescant, places their population close to Earths or significantly less.
Jon.
They already exist iirc, mentioned last chapter
Eric
Honestly, I would imagine this would be a very different view of the war if this was a 3D representation instead of 2D
Armo
Hm. At 2.9 quadrillion servicemen, Iβd expect there to be more than 30,000 warships or whatever it was in the whole CAF navy. Thanks for the overview!
Sean McClain
The confederacy goal is the break up the republic into separate and distinct polities, basically end the control of the galactic senate and it's administration government. (They will also probably accept just a peace deal and new cold war between the two rival superpowers) Likely the republic may survive but reduced to a far more dimished number of systems or split into a few successor republics and rest beign either independent worlds or smaller allied systems and micro empires. In this possible future I expect the confederacy to break apart without a common enemy to join them. The lack of cohesion of the confederacy beyind winning the war, makes me think they would rather breaking up the republic then a ceasefire/peace deal between two rival perpetually. And only accept that if they get too warry of war. I fully expect the Hutts to go from neutral to supporting the confederacy when they feel they can crack the republic and be one of the larger polities in the aftermath. Will be interesting if the jedi order also splinters with the republic or survives more or less intact much like the church survived the fall of the western roman empire.
Trailblazer
This feels like a swan song on a galactic scale, one final moment in history before everything violently implodes.
SkyGold
Utterly mind-boggling number of lives to contemplate - especially when they're all in the hands of such a small number of powerful people
Cesar gonzalez
I believe the council of neutral systems should be forming soon. I wonder how you gonna handle it.
