Thread by @JoinTheSchwarz

Hello, it's time for "more galaxy map nerdery."

Today I'm going to be talking about "how do you place worlds in the galaxy map?"

The first part of the mapbuilding process has been one of compilation. Taking all the tens of official maps around and carefully overlay them.

That's tedious but not particularly hard to do, except when contradictions arise (rarely, but they do)

The worst cases, of course, are three-quarters view maps, as it's not easy (or often possible) to get a perfect correspondence with a top-down map. Thankfully rare these days.

Then there's the FFG map, rotated 90º. Agh.

But still, mere overlaying and some common sense.

There are some maps that you learn to not trust, like this map from Dan's Smugglers' Guide. It's an in-universe artifact and tremendously inaccurate. It can still help us steer things around.

(Pic from Google, my own was even worse)

Then you have tens of thousands of worlds (literally) with just a grid placement, thanks to the Atlas Appendix, last updated in 2015.

There you either use some common sense or choose some place within the given square. You can always nudge it later.

I know Ardis is in G-3, but where?

Well, that will do for now. Maybe someday we'll get an official placement, but in the meantime, this works.

Other times I will just not place the world. It depends!

But the best ones, of course, are the ones where I decide to actually do some research to place them.

Let's look at one world that I just had to place: Crucival, birthplace of Namir from my adored Twilight Company.

Thankfully, we know some things about this world. Namely, that it's in the Tion Hegemony, from Brian Daley's books.

That's a lot of information! It places it here, in the (S,T)-(5,6) area.

But wait, we can infer even more from the text.

Because according to lore the Tion Hegemony is divided into two parts: a rich part and an extremely poor part. And Crucival is *definitely* in the poor part.

So we've reduced the possible placement to one-quarter of a grid square, so I'm more than comfortable dropping a pin.

And then there are cases like Salient, from Catalyst.

Why do I want to place this world despite the lack of information? Well, because it's a very important part of the new canon (first blow to the Empire ever) and it gets glossed over. So I want to give it some prominence!

Salient is described as "on the edge of the Corporate Sector." As it's the HQ of Zerpen Industries, I assume they mean inside the Corporate Sector itself, even if it's also described as an autonomous region. The book shows as a Corporate Sector getting formed, after all.

I've seen some fan maps that place Salient at the end of the Hydian but that, to me, makes little sense.

Tarkin wants Salient to be a staging ground for "incursions into an OR area that is close to becoming its own entity." I assume he means the Corporate Sector with that.

Also! Koboks and Trianii, members of entities around the Corporate Sector, come to support Salient against the Empire. Luceno knew his geographical shit, as he was part of the NJO mapmaking process, so I will assume intent.

So I'll place it on the Hydian Way.

With all that research, I feel confident enough to drop a pin.

Would I drop it if I wasn't as sure as I am with Crucival and Salient. No, probably no. I can be patient.

So that's it. Hopefully this rant didn't bore you much!