Fellow seekers of the Force,
That time of the year has rolled around again. By which I mean summer's end. It is unavoidable. But it is not all bad. It is sweet misery. With summer's demise, so we must move on. Plus, that's how much closer to the product boom of Christmas. But I am sidetracked.
This thought came to me in a vision, or maybe a dream, or maybe a really bad ice cream headache. The inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy take it for granted. I'm talking about space travel. They think nothing of travelling to distant planets lightyears away, while we have yet to put humans on any planetary body except the earth and its moon. For us, to go even the short distance from, say, Naboo to Tatooine or Hoth to Bespin, would take generations! Which got me thinking (here we go again). For us, going to the other side of a planet takes days, sometimes weeks! But for pilots, that would seem to be an extra two minutes; maybe less. Most planets portrayed in the movies have one, maybe two (here's lookin' at you, Gungans) central governments. Some are democracies, some are monarchies. Our earth is about the size of Naboo, and they have had one ruling government (the inhabitants of Otoh Gunga do not want to consider themselves "da Naboo", remember) for centuries. We've been around for millions of years, and we still have around 150 seperate countries. While we puny earthlings have wars between parts of a planet, Star Wars armies have wars spanning entire galaxies! They are sooo much more advanced than us, not only in technology but in diplomacy also! If we can't solve problems among ourselves here on earth, what would happen if we were thrown into a galaxy-wide war? I quote the early-to-bed-early-to-rise wise man Ben Franklin (Who by the way ,was never president) "United we stand, divide we fall" Or at least, I think it was Franklin. It might have been Lincoln. But my point (and the jist of this entry) is that the Star Wars pilots take for granted how truly large the galaxy, even a single solar system or even planet, truly is.
I leave you now to ponder this.

MTFBWY always,
j3d1mast3r