Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 November 4

= November 4 =

Humans in star wars universe
Hi everyone! If in the universe of star wars the earth does not exist, from which planet do human beings originate? Thanks!!79.148.166.24 (talk) 20:43, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone actually knows, but Wookieepedia says that the planet of Coruscant was thought to be the original homeworld. This bothers me because it is generally assumed that the Star Wars galactic empire is based on and draws from Asmimov's own idea, with Coruscant being loosely based on the planet of Trantor.  In Asimov's Foundation universe, humanity originally traveled to Trantor from Earth after colonizing the galaxy over thousands of years.  So given all the indirect references, it would make sense for humans to have traveled to Coruscant from an ancient Earth as well. Viriditas (talk) 21:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)


 * What makes you think the entities in the Star Wars universe are humans? It might just be a coincidental resemblance - including having developed the English language independently. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * What makes you think they are speaking English? Do you have the same impression when watching Ben-Hur?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:54, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe not. Maybe the soundtrack contains the work of Babel fish. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:06, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * AFAIK the language that is rendered as English in the Star Wars films is actually a language called "Galactic Basic". It is just rendered as English for the benefit of the audience. I don't know if actual Galactic Basic has ever been defined, but if it has, it's quite probably very different from English. J I P  &#124; Talk 21:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Wait. I thought it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:16, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Literally, sure. But I always thought that phrase meant something else entirely.  To me, it was a deliberate reference to "Once upon a time", telling us that what we are about to see was a "modern fairy tale" (Lucas). Viriditas (talk) 00:53, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That was the idea, yes. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:34, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It also is a safeguard against lawsuits; if the descendants of a Galactic Senator on Trantor claim their forebear was falsely represented in the narrative, Lucasfilm can defend itself by pointing out this is a different galaxy and so any resemblance is purely coincidental. --Lambiam 08:03, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * For example, to dissuade Abe Vigoda from suing over the fish-faced "It's a trap!" guy. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Technically, he's a squid-faced guy. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:47, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Many aspects of the Star Wars universe were created "as needed" when each movie/book/TV show, etc. was created. There was always some effort to maintain a cohesive canon, pre-Disney-takeover, this was the Holocron canon, now called Star Wars Legends, as Disney broke this canon and established their own canon, but there was not a well-developed "back story" or "legendarium" or "hidden canon" upon which the story was built.  Lucas himself made things up as he was making the original trilogy; the famous "Vader" reveal, and the Luke-Leia sibling relationship, for example, were not a thing until the scripts for ESB and ROTJ were written, respectively.  This is very different from how, for example, the Tolkien legendarium was established.  Tolkien had a backstory and world already created, and then wrote a story to exist in that world.  There's volumes and volumes of notes, letters, and other works that Tolkien had no intention of publishing as stories, but which establish the world in which the characters of LotR inhabit.  Nearly all of this was later published after his death, but the thing is, the world is so vast, that many of the questions you might have about the background of LotR and The Hobbit is probably in his notes somewhere.  The deal is, that kind of detail doesn't usually exist for most series.  The Star Wars canon only exists in the official works.  So unless it is in one of the recognized works published in the universe, it's an unknown detail.  Much of the mythic cosmology and deep history of the Star Wars universe is basically unexplained.  -- Jayron 32 16:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * And the most important question of all (which I am surprised that no one, even myself, has asked before now): what makes you think that the Earth does not exist in the Star Wars universe? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If Earth does not exist, what is the Star Wars galaxy "far, far away" from? I suppose this means, "far away from you, Earth-bound spectator". It is meaningless to assert that some galaxy is "far away" from something non-existent. --Lambiam 16:44, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Exactly. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:58, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * But, per "Long, long ago . . ." the Earth may not yet exist in the era of Star Wars. "A galaxy far away" implies a distance of at least several million light years (since Local Group galaxies are comparatively nearby as these things go), and since there is never (to my knowledge) any suggestion of extra-galactic travel in the milieu, a date of at least several million years ago is also implied (or we could not know about them). This also precludes the human-like characters actually being human.
 * Since the Solar system is less than 5 billion years old, but the Universe is more than 13 byo, the events could have occurred in a span of perhaps 7 billion years before the Earth's formation (allowing a billion or so for the accumulation of necessary elements via Stellar Nucleosynthesis). On the other hand, if one considers that everything exists in 'Spacetime', one could view Alderaan (say) and Earth co-existing within it.
 * On the gripping hand, perhaps this is all a variety of overthink. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 5.64.163.219 (talk) 10:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It definitely is. Star Wars can't even get basic physics right.  They're not really concerned with being consistent with the world outside of it's own writing.  -- Jayron 32 11:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Anakin says "I'm the only human who can do it" about podracing so humans exist in Star Wars canon. I assume it's meant to be his species and include all characters who look human to us. Less known Disney canon also has a planet called Earth but it's in the Star Wars Galaxy and not indicated to be the origin of humans. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Using the argument above that they don't speak English, so the English we hear is a translation of their language, the word "human" is most likely the chosen translation of "a rather weak, bipedal creature with little body hair that has an odd tendency to lie, cheat, and steal as much as possible." 12.116.29.106 (talk) 12:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's pretty spot on about the meaning of "human" in SW. See https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Human . --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:50, 8 November 2022 (UTC)