Why the Rakatan INFINITE EMPIRE makes NO SENSE



Look, I love Rakatans but the Rakatan Infinite Empire makes no sense within the grander scheme of Star Wars and here’s why.

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44 thoughts on “Why the Rakatan INFINITE EMPIRE makes NO SENSE”

  1. I'm pretty sure the SWTOR writers just ignored the '500 planets' line. The person who wrote it clearly had no idea about how scale works, but then Star Wars has always had a massive problem with scale so it's not that surprising they used a number as small as 500.

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  2. I thought they had hyperdrive before the star forge. 500 planets makes sense, what with most of the planets being uninhabited at that point. By the time of the empire, well that’s at least 20,000 years later. Lots of time for planets to be developed. Hell, the Rakatans literally seeded planets, Kashykk wasn’t always forested like it is in the time of the Wookiees. Makes total sense that their empire was relatively small.

    Also, the star forge didn’t ex nihilo anything, it was feeding off of a star. Theirs a lot of energy in a star and matter in a star.

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  3. There’s a couple of historical points I’d like to share that would relate to this Imo. So I mean Julius Caesar, greatest general of history. When he died generals and politicians across Europe said “finally numbers mean something in a battle again” because no matter how outnumbered he always prevailed. I think this can show the quality of a troop and it’s leaders do have a major effect on the losses in battles. Meaning that the Rakata, given their superior troops and leaders, could overcome being outnumbered. Not to mention their technological advances that cause major differences. Also another thing about the rakata is they were slavers, not just conquerors. And also looking historically we can turn our eyes to ancient Sparta who were a slave based economy. I wanna say that 60% of the population were slaves? This meant that most every spartan owned slaves and were usually able to do things other than manual labor. I’d imagine this would apply to the rakata as well considering they were slavers and conquered 500 planets worth of slaves already. I’d imagine they run into the same problems of the Spartans, which was getting too outnumbered by the slave population and them revolting. Which we have evidence of slave revolts bringing down the rakata empire as well in kotor og. Why would they put themselves in a bad situation when they have a massive power right next to them? Or just I’m general?

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  4. I mean.. The longer i listen to this video, im just thinking. There are just a million ways they could have overcome these larger empires.
    Just look at the Roman Empire. How they just kicked out other, superior armies and empires. Look at how Greece held off the PERSIANS. The largest and most professional army of that era. Greeks easily stopped them from concquering their olives and gayness. The emergence of the greek leagues and "empire" is really imrpobable with such a large and honestly, more resourceful rival so close.

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  5. The rakatans were fucking aholes. Imagine being given the keys to limitless knowledge and technology, and trying to fuck up the people that gave it to you because your filthy race are snale looking aholes

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  6. Considering how many times we see the same planets and species, Sidious’ million and a half planets are probably not that impressive. Probably a couple of hundred major planets with thriving populations and a couple of desolate rocks that someone shoved a flag into.

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  7. Good video but there are explanations for a lot of these things.

    1st. The Rakata being incredibly powerful and conquering only 500 planets makes sense, the Infinite Empire occured during the early days of space faring, this means very few planets would be known of and space travel through still unkown hyperlane routes would be out of the question, not to mention the Rakata might not be a very adptive species so they might be very picky with planets they colonize, an IRL equivilent would be the Mesopotamian civilizations for example, to them the entire world was the Middle East and Egypt and truth be told, outside of Iran, China and the Indus Valley the rest of the world was just wasteland, very similiar to the situation the Rakatans probably found themselves in.
    2nd. Sola conquering 1000 planets as a warlord isn't unthinkable, Julius Caeser conquered Gaul, a region that increased Rome's size by 20% alone with no support from the main government and he still could have been defeated by Pompey.
    3rd. The infinite Empire wining the war against an even bigger empire isn't impossible, the Rakatans might only have 500 planets but they have the Star Forge, that means that no matter how many ships are destroyed they can allways build more, the same cannot be said for their enemies.

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  8. I like the video but do have some thoughts.
    some of what you've talked about can be compared to history, it does much what has happened.
    Great Britain for example.

    The other thoughts are… miscalculation, over exaggeration, and of course the all too familiar tale of how history is not often remembered correctly.

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  9. I think it's the Galactic Empire that doesn't make any sense. 1 500 000 worlds? Really? Why do we see the same 5 planets in Star Wars then? Over and over everything takes place on Tatooine. I think the number must be at least 100 000 times less.

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  10. I don't believe the Rakata only controlled, or conquered, 500 planets. I believe it was more than that. And gating, or transporting from one world to another? Planets move, and spin. The teleporters have to adjust for that. Stargate is an example of that. They use gate system to go from one planet to another, by wormholes. The computer has symbols for each possible planet, and can be dialed in. The gate provides the means to go from one planet to another. The DHD, or dial home device, uses the network to know where the planet is, etc., on an automatic locator.The Rakatans didn't, probably know about that stuff, so the trials may have had bad results off planet. On planet?.Worked great.

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  11. I mean if their empire really did have just 500 worlds it aint that infinite

    As an example in the 40k universe the Necrons Infinite Empire had 1 billion worlds
    My point is that if youre gonna name it the infinite empire make the planet number at least very big

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  12. Actually make sense, the problem whit hyperdrive is not about speed, is about mapping and know where to go, and that take immeasurable amount of time, so make sense that in the past they didnt have the universe maped.

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  13. I was of the opinion that they are stealing the history and achievements of another species like the genetic Sith

    They were probably a scavenger species who integrated history of other races into their own

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  14. So coming from warhammer, I detest Roboute and his 500 world empire that is nestled in the eastern fringes of our galaxy. To me the 500 world conquest notion, is more of a deliberate choice. The empire is infinite, because it is sustainable due to its size. Just some perspective I suppose.

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  15. I personally think that in the future their empire will be fleshed out more and it will be explained that since they were so technologically advanced, that the stories, myths, and legends about them all mixed together into a bunch of truths, half truths, and downright lies. Even the Star forge might be fleshed out with an explanation. Especially if they really do reboot kotor.

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  16. If memory serves me right, it is stated that the empire "linked 500 force rich worlds", not that it only controlled 500. Also, the fact that they had servitudial races, or slave races, whose planets we visit, should already tell you, that whilest this was not a world inhabited and controlled solely by rakatans, it was one controlled by them.
    There is also mention of the Rakatan Empire controlling some worlds of what would later be known as Core Worlds. So they did spread through their half of the galaxy, considering their point of origin, before finding and fighting the esk-ka.

    I always saw it as them linking 500 force rich worlds, but each of those worlds was like the capital city of a country, governing over all the slave worlds within the corresponding slave race system.

    For the teleportation devises on belsavis: It is literally stated that the databases found during its discovery, state it as "experimental" technology for short range transport, within a node hub.
    Also, it does say it is a dangerous version, because it picks you apart to the smallest construction brick, and puts you back together at the destination.
    So while they reached "some form" of teleportation, it might not have been as powerful, or universally usable, as the gates the kwa used.

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  17. I agree the infinite empire doesn't make sense, but I can find it pretty easy to believe they were pretty useless scientifically. Considering the empire as a parallel as another dark side society, the Empire only really made progress in oppressive technologies. So the idea that the Rakatan's could make super prisons, star system busting weapons and an infinity gate* tracks – they all assist in making their power more effective, but not their society stable.
    Meanwhile the republic has cool hospitals but stagnates in making war technology.

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  18. You forgot to consider discovery. The empire is only able to conquer so many places because they have galaxy maps that have been updated more and more since the creation of the hyperdrive. You need to consider how insanely massive space is there are likely 1000s of planets with unknown alliens and races all over in all eras of sw just based on math.

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  19. just because a civilizations lays claims to way more territory, doesn't mean they inhabit all of it, make use of it, and isn't a clear indication of its power. the Esh-ka may have had more planets, but the Rakata probably had more people to fight and their fewer planets were more developed and better equipped and defended. Just look at real-world russia. its big. one of the biggest countries on earth. but its major cities are spread out and it as a country has the economy the size of california. the Esh-ka were probably similar. their territory enveloped a lot, but they had developed and inhabited very little of it overall. the rakata took the quality over quantity approach and they won out.

    also, teleporting across a planet is different that teleporting across the galaxy.

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  20. Maybe the Rakatans just built really tall, with high population densities on most planets.
    A high population world in SW only has billions of people, with Corruscant, the second most populated world, being at just over a trillion people.
    If the Rakatans concentrated their power on a few worlds/systems, they could have the industrial might of the Empire with only 500 worlds.

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  21. The issue with their lore is video games. The old lore in "Legenads" was made so it didn't contradict itself. But the deals with the video game studios didn't have the same oversight from Lucas arts.

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  22. My understanding is due to the lack of records the Imps, Pubs, and so on had on the Rakatans, they believed the Rakatans were limited in hyperdrive technology, believed they didn't have teleportation machines, etc. What my understanding was for all this time was that the Rakatans chose not to invade most planets as they saw these planets as no yielding anything of real value to them. Only what they considered important planets, amounting to around 500, were worth conquering for their recourses or strategic placement in the galaxy.

    And it's possible that, kind of like how feudalism worked in IRL history, the Rakatan that "conquered a thousand planets of his own" probably directly controlled these planets like a lord or duke, while still being part of the Infinite Empire, which itself only controlled like 500. Look at ancient Chinese empires or the HRE; yeah technically they owned everything in their realm but only directly controlled so much as the rest was controlled by a duke or noble house or vassal state within the empire. You get what I'm saying?

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  23. my head canon is that the Rakata colonized 500 planets and had actually conquered many more. Not true i know but no one can change my head canon but me.

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  24. The writers should have used words like "thousands", "innumerable", or "countless" instead of 500 to describe the scope of the Infinite Empire. In my opinion, dark side-powered hyperdrive isn't a bad idea for them, just make it way over the top and give every Rakatan vessel a 0.1 class hyperdrive to explain the incredible scope. Then turn off their connection to the Force and their entire logistics department dissolves overnight. It works, they just gave a few too many details and accidentally wrote themselves into a pickle by picking hard numbers.

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  25. The Rakatan’s Star Forge will always be an all time favorite of mine. Imagine having a space factory capable of creating infinite resources. I’m sure something like this would break economies even if you don’t build droid armies and battleships.

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  26. Honestly, I think all of this can be fixed by simply add two or three 0's to the number of planets they had conquered. Could even say that at one point they have controlled nearly the whole galaxy. The reason for the collapse could still easily apply if that was the case. I think I'm gonna make that my head canon.

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  27. From Wookiepedia:
    Due to the limitations of the Rakatan hyperdrive technology, the Infinite Empire consisted of over 500 worlds, despite its name. However, they were scattered far and wide over the entire length of the Known Galaxy. All the below-mentioned planets have either a large and lush ecosystem (such as Kashyyyk or Honoghr) or a connection to the Force (like Korriban, Dantooine, or Dathomir), since the Rakatan hyperdrive was only able to home in on planets with these features.

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