What if the Galactic Republic came across Earth?

[chornedsnorkack]

I suspect that when it comes to 'gross' @Jane Dough might have been more referring to the, "We can sell humans as sex slaves for the dosh" argument.

(Which is also stupid and wrong besides being gross.)

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Chattel slavery is attested at some places of Republic, notably Tatooine - but is not universal.
Does not mean sex will not be bought. From free agents.
Including both purchase by extraterrestrial visitors on Earth and purchase from free agent terrestrials who travel outside Earth (as passengers on extraterrestrial spaceships).
Remittances from emigrant (free agent) workers will be one source of credits.

 

[chornedsnorkack]

Are you a communist? Because you don't seem to know anything about economics. You don't need to go the twilik method if you have something valuable to trade. If chocolate is valuable, we could easily borrow money to start up, and easily pay it back after we've sold chocolate.

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Credit requires not only some expectation of ability to repay.
It also requires confidence in political and economic stability and institutional arrangements to enforce repayment.

Borrowing means - borrow money from a creditor who stays a creditor, and when the debt is paid off, stops being even that.

How about different modes of investment?
Like, a rich extraterrestrial with credits to spare buys a chunk of land in tropics, chops down rainforest and/or evicts the native peasants who´ve been "squatting" there since they were born, plants the land with cacao trees and some years later recoups the credits from cacao exports... and then stays on Earth as a rich landowner, is he still classified as extraterrestrial?

 

[lotho]

Chattel slavery is attested at some places of Republic, notably Tatooine - but is not universal.
Does not mean sex will not be bought. From free agents.
Including both purchase by extraterrestrial visitors on Earth and purchase from free agent terrestrials who travel outside Earth (as passengers on extraterrestrial spaceships).
Remittances from emigrant (free agent) workers will be one source of credits.

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Slavery is illegal in all parts of the Republic, according to phantom menace. Tatooine is under control of the Hutts not the Republic. Just because the Galactic Empire conqured it does not mean it belonged to the empire, after all the empire expanded much more than the Republic.

Credit requires not only some expectation of ability to repay.
It also requires confidence in political and economic stability and institutional arrangements to enforce repayment.

Borrowing means - borrow money from a creditor who stays a creditor, and when the debt is paid off, stops being even that.

How about different modes of investment?
Like, a rich extraterrestrial with credits to spare buys a chunk of land in tropics, chops down rainforest and/or evicts the native peasants who´ve been "squatting" there since they were born, plants the land with cacao trees and some years later recoups the credits from cacao exports... and then stays on Earth as a rich landowner, is he still classified as extraterrestrial?

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Depends if you believe in immigration. But depending on how retarded the nation is they will tax cacao production and while the farmers/plantation owners will become filthy rich, the government will ensure that the common people get a little something like how it is done in Qatar, or the UAE, something more than Alaska's thing. Because that will help prevent rebellions or coups. If people are richer they won't be as willing to cause trouble.

 

[The Laurent]

Slavery is illegal in all parts of the Republic, according to phantom menace. Tatooine is under control of the Hutts not the Republic. Just because the Galactic Empire conqured it does not mean it belonged to the empire, after all the empire expanded much more than the Republic.


Depends if you believe in immigration. But depending on how retarded the nation is they will tax cacao production and while the farmers/plantation owners will become filthy rich, the government will ensure that the common people get a little something like how it is done in Qatar, or the UAE, something more than Alaska's thing. Because that will help prevent rebellions or coups. If people are richer they won't be as willing to cause trouble.

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Actually, Tatooine was part of the Republic.

Technically. Sorta, but not really. The Hutts had both an area of hard-power where they explicitly controlled things, and areas of soft-power where whoever was in charge didn't actually matter because it was really the Hutts.

At the edges of the Republic, they'd been shedding strength for centuries, which is evident in how much Corporate Control was given up in the Outer Rim, and how, entirely to expectations, said corporations abused this control and eventually helped orchestrate the CIS.

Hutts were beneficiaries of a less formal version of this same sort of 'relaxation of control' and the Empire, with a few noted (failed) exceptions left the Hutts alone, even as they retook control of other parts of the Outer Rim that had been softened up by their secret CIS allies through war and destruction.

E: But the scenario wasn't about being discovered by the Hutts or the Trade Federation, soo...

 

[chornedsnorkack]

Depends if you believe in immigration. But depending on how retarded the nation is they will tax cacao production and while the farmers/plantation owners will become filthy rich, the government will ensure that the common people get a little something like how it is done in Qatar, or the UAE, something more than Alaska's thing. Because that will help prevent rebellions or coups. If people are richer they won't be as willing to cause trouble.

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Ensure that the local citizens get a little something.
The richest country in Africa is Equatorial Guinea. 2018 GDP per capita 10 453 US$.
How much does an ordinary citizen of Equatorial Guinea benefit?
Same 2018 nominal GDP per capita:
Cacao exporters:
Ivory Coast - 1680
Ghana - 2206
Oil exporters:
Norway - 81 695 (but does have diversified domestic economy besides oil)
Qatar - 70 780
United Arab Emirates - 40 711
Brunei - 32 414
Kuwait - 30 839
Bahrain - 25 851
Saudi Arabia - 23 566
Oman - 19 302
Note that I said the cacao exports would benefit the citizens of cacao exporting countries.
For example, of the 9,2 million population of United Arab Emirates, just 1,4 millions are Emirati citizens. The remaining 7,8 millions are ex-patriots.
Between Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, around 25 million citizens of sundry democratic countries have voted with their feet for absolute monarchy.
Existence of oil in Arabia did not benefit all Arabs - just the specific countries in which oil was found. The Arabs of Yemen or Jordania benefit only indirectly, insofar as they get jobs as expatriates in Gulf states. The Arabs of Syria do not benefit at all because the borders of Gulf countries are slammed in face of refugees - they are not wanted even as cheap labour.
Republic market for cocoa would benefit Ivory Goast and Ghana. Their neighbours in Africa like Liberia, Burkina Faso and Togo are not major producers. So logically, if Ivory Coast and Ghana get rich then the people of neighbouring and still poor African countries would seek menial jobs in cacao plantations and elsewhere in economies of Ivory Coast and Ghana, instead of walking across Sahara to drown in Mediterranean. But I suspect Ivory Coast even if rich would not give the aliens the social benefits Europe does - any more than Saudi Arabia does.

How are remote planets usually tied into interstellar economy of the galaxy far, far away?
Tatooine is not rich. But Tatooine must be exporting something. Because starships come and go, and stuff not produced locally can be bought at markets. If nothing available at Tatooine was worth a visit, no ship would come and no imports either.
What are the exports of Tatooine?
In contrast, Naboo is rich. There are plasma mines.
But those plasma mines are not of galactic importance. They produce wealth, but when Trade Federation makes a grab at them by open conquest, the initial reaction of Senate is apathy and dismissing it just as a trade dispute. Amidala has to drum up sympathy for Republic to protect a member state. If these plasma mines were of all-galaxy importance, the Trade Federation would be pissing off everyone else as buyers of plasma.
So... if chocolate is valuable, this makes Earth like Naboo not Dune. There are the other 8 planets.
If chocolate is not particularly valuable then Earth is more like Tatooine.

 

[lotho]

Ensure that the local citizens get a little something.
The richest country in Africa is Equatorial Guinea. 2018 GDP per capita 10 453 US$.
How much does an ordinary citizen of Equatorial Guinea benefit?
Same 2018 nominal GDP per capita:
Cacao exporters:
Ivory Coast - 1680
Ghana - 2206
Oil exporters:
Norway - 81 695 (but does have diversified domestic economy besides oil)
Qatar - 70 780
United Arab Emirates - 40 711
Brunei - 32 414
Kuwait - 30 839
Bahrain - 25 851
Saudi Arabia - 23 566
Oman - 19 302
Note that I said the cacao exports would benefit the citizens of cacao exporting countries.
For example, of the 9,2 million population of United Arab Emirates, just 1,4 millions are Emirati citizens. The remaining 7,8 millions are ex-patriots.
Between Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, around 25 million citizens of sundry democratic countries have voted with their feet for absolute monarchy.
Existence of oil in Arabia did not benefit all Arabs - just the specific countries in which oil was found. The Arabs of Yemen or Jordania benefit only indirectly, insofar as they get jobs as expatriates in Gulf states. The Arabs of Syria do not benefit at all because the borders of Gulf countries are slammed in face of refugees - they are not wanted even as cheap labour.
Republic market for cocoa would benefit Ivory Goast and Ghana. Their neighbours in Africa like Liberia, Burkina Faso and Togo are not major producers. So logically, if Ivory Coast and Ghana get rich then the people of neighbouring and still poor African countries would seek menial jobs in cacao plantations and elsewhere in economies of Ivory Coast and Ghana, instead of walking across Sahara to drown in Mediterranean. But I suspect Ivory Coast even if rich would not give the aliens the social benefits Europe does - any more than Saudi Arabia does.

How are remote planets usually tied into interstellar economy of the galaxy far, far away?
Tatooine is not rich. But Tatooine must be exporting something. Because starships come and go, and stuff not produced locally can be bought at markets. If nothing available at Tatooine was worth a visit, no ship would come and no imports either.
What are the exports of Tatooine?
In contrast, Naboo is rich. There are plasma mines.
But those plasma mines are not of galactic importance. They produce wealth, but when Trade Federation makes a grab at them by open conquest, the initial reaction of Senate is apathy and dismissing it just as a trade dispute. Amidala has to drum up sympathy for Republic to protect a member state. If these plasma mines were of all-galaxy importance, the Trade Federation would be pissing off everyone else as buyers of plasma.
So... if chocolate is valuable, this makes Earth like Naboo not Dune. There are the other 8 planets.
If chocolate is not particularly valuable then Earth is more like Tatooine.

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But here is the thing those other African nations that are not the Ivory coast or Ghana still have the ability to make and plant cacao they have similar environment. They just don't now because it's not worth it. However once they see that it is the most sought after product on earth and more valuable than anything else we have. They will change their economy to follow the market. Only an idiot would not alter their economy to sell chocolate after this event. And yes we would be more like Naboo than Dune because there is only one Dune and it doesen't produce extreme luxory goods but rather something that is neccesary for the empire.

 

[The Laurent]

You still haven't actually provided any goddamn evidence that it's an "extreme luxury good."

It sorta-kinda is after 7 of the 8 planets go kaput after the Vong, but there's no evidence that anyone views it as particularly special before then. Again, it's a big galaxy and for all we know chocolate tastes like literal feces for most species.

Certainly, despite everything, chocolate is actually an acquired taste (as are many tastes, to be fair) even among humans. It's just that circumstances make it widely acquired.

 

[chornedsnorkack]

So, what are the exports of Tatooine or another random poor planet in the galaxy far, far away? What motivates starships to go there and bring even a little goodies not produced there, such as androids or their parts to a planet that does not have the population to support factories?

 

[The Laurent]

So, what are the exports of Tatooine or another random poor planet in the galaxy far, far away? What motivates starships to go there and bring even a little goodies not produced there, such as androids or their parts to a planet that does not have the population to support factories?

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They apparently do have mineral resources, since they've been taken over by the Hutts there's probably industry to support that (IE, drugs, slavery, etc, etc), they used to export Death Sticks, apparently. They also only have a population of 200k (well, one source said only 80k, but two said 200k), and most of that is apparently incredibly marginal, so it doesn't actually take much of an economy to service them.

Tatooine is just so fucking marginal.

 

[lotho]

You still haven't actually provided any goddamn evidence that it's an "extreme luxury good."

It sorta-kinda is after 7 of the 8 planets go kaput after the Vong, but there's no evidence that anyone views it as particularly special before then. Again, it's a big galaxy and for all we know chocolate tastes like literal feces for most species.

Certainly, despite everything, chocolate is actually an acquired taste (as are many tastes, to be fair) even among humans. It's just that circumstances make it widely acquired.

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There are like a quadrillion beings in the star wars galaxy. There are probably a million known worlds, I don't know how many are in the Republic. But if only 8 or so are able to produce chocolate it's not that much different from only one. After all it's not like 8 or even 20 would be able to supply enough to make the chocolate and coffee common. Also humans are one of the most common species, and many alien species are humanoid and are close to humans, and they seem to be able to eat together and all that, so I don't know where you are getting your ideas from.

 

[The Laurent]

There are like a quadrillion beings in the star wars galaxy. There are probably a million known worlds, I don't know how many are in the Republic. But if only 8 or so are able to produce chocolate it's not that much different from only one. After all it's not like 8 or even 20 would be able to supply enough to make the chocolate and coffee common. Also humans are one of the most common species, and many alien species are humanoid and are close to humans, and they seem to be able to eat together and all that, so I don't know where you are getting your ideas from.

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I'm getting my ideas based on the fact that most humans, for most of human history, didn't have chocolate and didn't particularly feel a lack?

I mean, if you're talking about economics, it's about supply and demand. Why exactly do you think the demand is super-high? Chocolate isn't magic.

Edit: Also, your Coffee thing is, again, based on no data. You present no evidence that it's rare at all, unlike with chocolate, where there's at least evidence that I bothered to find for you.

 

[veteranMortal]

Okay so I have a theory about chocolate, since we're on this.

I'll preface this by saying that I've not read the Vong books, but Wookieepedia says "The Vong had reshaped 7 of the 8 planets that were home to the plant."

See, Cacao Plants are not super finicky. They grow relatively easily, in the right climate.

So my assumption is you have 8 planets with vast jungles, exclusively growing Cacao Plants. Nurseries of the plant. They produce an overwhelming majority of the chocolate in the galaxy.

But Cacao plants are not terribly difficult to grow, and the galaxy is large. I would contest that there are potentially hundreds of planets that grow amounts of chocolate similar to the amount produced by Earth - it beggars belief that no one would ever have tried to establish chocolate on other planets than the 8 that it began on. Even shitty crops, if there is a market for them, get spread around to an extent. Cumulatively, all of these planets probably make up a percentage or two of the total amount made; not enough to prevent it from being scarce when 7/8 of the large producers suddenly went gone.

So Earth would be one amongst hundreds, and probably not do terribly well out of it.

There would likely be a spaceport of some description established, and that would almost certainly lead to widespread emigration; there are millions of people sitting on degrees that are suddenly useless - what use is someone trained in engineering that is millennia out of date? - and with debt in the thousands. And there are millions, perhaps billions, more who just have little to keep them on Earth.

I expect it would look something like middle america, or some rural parts of England; there is a little work still going on, but largely it is a dying locale, with an ageing population, and the youth fleeing to more exciting places, or even just places with more to offer.

 

[DestinyPlayer]

Okay so I have a theory about chocolate, since we're on this.

I'll preface this by saying that I've not read the Vong books, but Wookieepedia says "The Vong had reshaped 7 of the 8 planets that were home to the plant."

See, Cacao Plants are not super finicky. They grow relatively easily, in the right climate.

So my assumption is you have 8 planets with vast jungles, exclusively growing Cacao Plants. Nurseries of the plant. They produce an overwhelming majority of the chocolate in the galaxy.

But Cacao plants are not terribly difficult to grow, and the galaxy is large. I would contest that there are potentially hundreds of planets that grow amounts of chocolate similar to the amount produced by Earth - it beggars belief that no one would ever have tried to establish chocolate on other planets than the 8 that it began on. Even shitty crops, if there is a market for them, get spread around to an extent. Cumulatively, all of these planets probably make up a percentage or two of the total amount made; not enough to prevent it from being scarce when 7/8 of the large producers suddenly went gone.

So Earth would be one amongst hundreds, and probably not do terribly well out of it.

There would likely be a spaceport of some description established, and that would almost certainly lead to widespread emigration; there are millions of people sitting on degrees that are suddenly useless - what use is someone trained in engineering that is millennia out of date? - and with debt in the thousands. And there are millions, perhaps billions, more who just have little to keep them on Earth.

I expect it would look something like middle america, or some rural parts of England; there is a little work still going on, but largely it is a dying locale, with an ageing population, and the youth fleeing to more exciting places, or even just places with more to offer.

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Oh no! Earth becomes the Old Folks Planet! The High Lord were right all along!

 

[chornedsnorkack]

There would likely be a spaceport of some description established, and that would almost certainly lead to widespread emigration; there are millions of people sitting on degrees that are suddenly useless - what use is someone trained in engineering that is millennia out of date? - and with debt in the thousands. And there are millions, perhaps billions, more who just have little to keep them on Earth.

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Except, you know, needing to earn the money - Republic credits - to buy the ticket out of Earth.

When rich and poor are spatially segregated, like, rich on Naboo and poor on Earth, there would be natural tendency to mix.

Poor workers from Earth moving to rich planets like Naboo where unskilled labour earns better wages - permanently or temporarily.

And rich people from Naboo and elsewhere moving to Earth where a given amount of hard currency buys more human services, again permanently or temporarily.

 

[Wolf359]

I wonder how difficult it would be to get credits. How would someone from earth go about securing work off world?

And what kind of work would someone from a world as primitive as earth do?

 

[Mortis Nuntius]

Step One: Take out loans to turn us to cash crop production for profit.
Step Two: Get sabotaged or simply fail to make enough profit to pay off the debt.
Step Three: The Banking Clan has foreclosed on our planet.


SW is not a galaxy for the little people. Outside the Core its pretty explict that the Corporations and the Hutts and random despots basically walk all over small worlds with no interference beyond the occasional Jedi. And by occasional I mean odds are we will go centuries without seeing one.

Maybe we just end up kind of muddling along a low tech backwater slowly assimilating and maybe finding a niche.

But I don't think this thread really works, we'll be fairly small and unimportant, most of the actors will either ignore us, exploit us, or note us briefly as they pass by. Decades or centuries down the line we'll just be another world. There isn't really a game plan here, we're starting from nothing will probably end up with nothing.

 

[chornedsnorkack]

Step One: Take out loans to turn us to cash crop production for profit.
Step Two: Get sabotaged or simply fail to make enough profit to pay off the debt.
Step Three: The Banking Clan has foreclosed on our planet.

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At least "our planet" does not have budget and does not borrow.
But chances are banking clans can and will foreclose on countries. So what happens if parts of Earth are ruled by people of Earth, but parts of Earth are governed by colonial governors appointed by banking clans who foreclosed on debtor countries - not temporarily until debt gets paid, not temporarily for "benefit and development" of the people of the country as "mandate" or "trusteeship", but forever for the benefit of creditors?

 

[Mortis Nuntius]

At least "our planet" does not have budget and does not borrow.
But chances are banking clans can and will foreclose on countries. So what happens if parts of Earth are ruled by people of Earth, but parts of Earth are governed by colonial governors appointed by banking clans who foreclosed on debtor countries - not temporarily until debt gets paid, not temporarily for "benefit and development" of the people of the country as "mandate" or "trusteeship", but forever for the benefit of creditors?

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SW doesn't really like multi national entities. The Empire flat out wouldn't bother conducting diplomacy with still divided planets and the TF and BC being dicks would just say they reasonably assumed that the government they were dealing with spoke for everyone, cue battle droids.

 

[Fission Battery]

We might garner some academic interest since we are the home world of humanity. We have the fossil record to prove it. That's assuming we could get the attention of any major university or educated aristocrat. That bit of information might be reveal at first contact though, since we'd be very surprised if a ship full of humans from a civilization thousands of years old showed up in orbit. If some Republican anthropologists or archaeologists show up they might patron local universities by hiring guides and consulting our own assembled records. That's being optimistic. I doubt that'd make us a big player but we might get a patron protecting us.

 

[chornedsnorkack]

We might garner some academic interest since we are the home world of humanity. We have the fossil record to prove it. That's assuming we could get the attention of any major university or educated aristocrat.

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We know the attitude of Galactic Empire, though.
From "Pebble in the Sky".
What home world? Humanity has no home world. Humanity evolved independently on many planets, independently discovered space travel and was inevitable fit to interbreed.
Sounds absurd, but that was the scientific consensus as of Pebble in the Sky.

 

[The Laurent]

We know the attitude of Galactic Empire, though.
From "Pebble in the Sky".
What home world? Humanity has no home world. Humanity evolved independently on many planets, independently discovered space travel and was inevitable fit to interbreed.
Sounds absurd, but that was the scientific consensus as of Pebble in the Sky.

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...it doesn't really sound that absurd? Or rather, in a universe where Star Wars exists, explanations for how somehow Earth, whose human history stretches back a fraction of the time that the Star Wars galaxy's human history does, is the origin of humanity... are about twenty times more absurd.

Let me clarify something: there were technologically advanced humans in the Star Wars galaxy 30k years ago. (And canonically everything is set a long, long time ago, too, though we're discarding that bit for the purpose of the exercise.)

 

[chornedsnorkack]

Let me clarify something: there were technologically advanced humans in the Star Wars galaxy 30k years ago. (And canonically everything is set a long, long time ago, too, though we're discarding that bit for the purpose of the exercise.)

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Is that the underlying truth?

We just learned that US army manned the air and took over the airports... 128 years before Wilbur Brethren.

 

[The Laurent]

Is that the underlying truth?

We just learned that US army manned the air and took over the airports... 128 years before Wilbur Brethren.

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...what are you even fucking jabbering about? KOTOR, for instance, was set 4000 years before A New Hope.

They (and there were humans everywhere and had been for thousands of years) had technology more advanced than where we are now back before we had philosophy, if they were real.

Now, the history of Star Wars is a bit nonsensical in that the authors don't understand how long a thousand years is, but since we're talking about Star Wars and not some hypothetical Space Wars...

******

So actually if I was making stuff up it'd either be a coincidence that we're both human or some sort of cosmic bullshit. But the idea that we're the origin of humanity doesn't actually fit the Star Wars universe in any way, shape, or form.

 

[chornedsnorkack]

...what are you even fucking jabbering about? KOTOR, for instance, was set 4000 years before A New Hope.

They (and there were humans everywhere and had been for thousands of years) had technology more advanced than where we are now back before we had philosophy, if they were real.

Now, the history of Star Wars is a bit nonsensical in that the authors don't understand how long a thousand years is, but since we're talking about Star Wars and not some hypothetical Space Wars...

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Is it the authors who don´t understand how long a thousand years is or is it the characters and their society consensus who does not understand it?

Trump believes airplanes and airports existed in 18th century. The Flintstones believe that dinosauruses, stone age tools and TV sets existed simultaneously.

If technologically advanced humans did exist a long time before Star Wars, is it narrator truth that it was 30 000 years before present, or is it the character belief that it was 30 000 years ago, where the events actually were mere 3000 years ago, or are completely legendary, or are conflation of some stuff that happened 10 000 years ago, and some that happened just 1000 years ago?

 

[The Laurent]

Is it the authors who don´t understand how long a thousand years is or is it the characters and their society consensus who does not understand it?

Trump believes airplanes and airports existed in 18th century. The Flintstones believe that dinosauruses, stone age tools and TV sets existed simultaneously.

If technologically advanced humans did exist a long time before Star Wars, is it narrator truth that it was 30 000 years before present, or is it the character belief that it was 30 000 years ago, where the events actually were mere 3000 years ago, or are completely legendary, or are conflation of some stuff that happened 10 000 years ago, and some that happened just 1000 years ago?

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No, it's definitely the authors? Like, this is really clear.

There's recording technology, and literally nothing in the series makes sense if you make up a conspiracy theory like that.

By literally nothing, I mean it'd ruin the entire setting worse than just having to deal with bad historiography.