Tattooine question

[wilsonstone]

Forgive me this question, I'm in no way an expert on Star Wars. There are many things about the franchise I don't know. But this is something I've wondered about...

 

Why does anyone live on Tattoine? It's hot and dry and has little water. There are hostile locals (sand people) and monsters....but I've never seen any indication of something that would draw people to colonize it. Is there a natural resource on the planet that makes it worthwhile?

[Dmaximanimo]

Forgive me this question, I'm in no way an expert on Star Wars. There are many things about the franchise I don't know. But this is something I've wondered about...

 

Why does anyone live on Tattoine? It's hot and dry and has little water. There are hostile locals (sand people) and monsters....but I've never seen any indication of something that would draw people to colonize it. Is there a natural resource on the planet that makes it worthwhile?

 

You can get a good tan?

[SteveTheCynic]

A couple of possibilities spring to mind:

* It *had* a specific resource that's mined out or whatever, and the people who are left are just stubborn hangers-on of the same sort who refuse to leave places like Centralia, Pennsylvania or a hut on the lower slopes of Mount St Helens (immediately prior to the 1981 eruption).

* It used to be less hot-and-deserty, but the climate shifted for whatever reason. One point that backs that up is that there is free oxygen in the atmosphere. That doesn't happen naturally (quite the opposite, oxygen being what it is), and desert sand is not likely to make it happen, so clearly there *used* to be an oxygen-generating mechanism somewhere.

[jedimasterjac]

So, there's a couple of factors that might lead someone to live on Tatooine. Before diving into that, I do want to note that Tatooine is not very inhabited. We're not talking billions of settlers; we might not even be talking about millions.

 

Anyway. Why might someone live on Tatooine?

 

1. It's outside of the jurisdiction of the Republic, the Empire (in this era) or the Galactic Empire (in the prequel era). If you're someone who doesn't want to be a part of 'civilized' society, you're looking for a palce like that.

 

2. It's connected to multiple important trade routes and hyperspace lanes, meaning that, while not a part of any major intergalactic faction, it's still connected to the Galaxy as a whole.

 

Tatooine also isn't always a major player. There are three or four times in Legends where the Republic "rediscovers" the planet (it might be more apt to say they decide to care about it for a short while), and between those stints there's a variety of goings-on, from the Hutt Cartel trying to establish a presence to a strange monastic empire.

 

Later settlers also didn't really choose. Bestine, the capitol, was settled by a group of folks who crash-landed on Tatooine.

 

You've also gotta keep in mind that the average person just might not be able to afford to leave. If you're a moisture farmer, you don't have many credits, and I certainly doubt easily-accessible interplanetary transport is all-too-easily available to you.

Edited February 6, 2021 by jedimasterjac

[Hadsil]

Had the Empire won and blew up the Moon of Yavin, I could imagine the Emperor rewarding Vader. Vader asks for the Death Star to blow up Tattooine. He hates sand.

 

He remembers too late that's where he buried his mother. His anger grows.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Hadsil

[MortenJessen]

Many many years ago, Tatooine was a lush world. That was until the Rakata turned its surface into glass by bombing it from orbit during an ancient war. During the years the glass turned to sand.

During the early days of the republic exploration era, a few settlers tried to make a living on the planet, but failed.

Many thousand years later Czerka Corporation arrived on the planet because of iron ore, and they starteted a mining operation. But they had to abandon it because the ore was of too low quality for the operation to become profitable.

When Czerka "left" the planet (they did not entirely give up everything on the planet for a few more decades), criminals and others, including ordinary settlers looking for a new start, took to the planet because it was so out of the way, and had no Republic authority (the criminals) , so they had a chance to make their own societies, building them in some cases around the abandoned Czerka facilities.