A Proclamation Concerning Sand, Suns, and Pre-Imperial Physics
My subjects,
It has come to my attention that the scientists of the so-called “real world” have published a most distressing finding. Of the six thousand exoplanets they have confirmed, only fourteen orbit two stars — what they affectionately call “Tatooine planets.” They expected hundreds. They got fourteen.
The culprit? Albert Einstein.
That’s right. General relativity — a theory invented in 1915 by a man with hair like a startled tauntaun — is, according to peer-reviewed research from UC Berkeley, eating Tatooines.
I have foreseen many things. I did not foresee this.
The Findings, Briefly
When two stars orbit each other tightly — within seven of their puny “days” — gravitational resonance gradually elongates any orbiting planet’s path until that planet is either ejected into the void (a fate I have personally arranged for several governors) or devoured by one of its own suns (a fate I have, regrettably, only arranged metaphorically).
The lead author, one Mohammad Farhat, described the region around tight binaries as “an absolute desert.” No Tatooines. None. The math forbids it.
This raises certain… questions about my own galaxy.
Inconvenient Implications for Imperial Lore
Let us review the facts:
- Tatooine has two suns.
- Tatooine is the birthplace of Anakin Skywalker.
- Tatooine is where Obi-Wan Kenobi delivered an infant Luke Skywalker for “safekeeping.”
- Tatooine is, allegedly, a planet that should not exist.
Obi-Wan. Across the cosmic void: the hiding place was a statistical impossibility. A circumbinary world of the exact type Einstein’s equations specifically destroy. You hid the last hope of the Jedi Order on a planet that, by all rights, should have been ejected into the interstellar dark roughly four billion years before any Skywalker set foot on it.
This was not a clever hiding spot. This was gambling. And it worked. Which is, frankly, the most infuriating part.
Imperial Decrees Regarding This Matter
1. Einstein’s general theory of relativity is hereby classified as “broadly correct, but personally offensive to the Throne.”
2. Any officer caught using the phrase “absolute desert” in reference to anything other than Jakku, Geonosis, or Vader’s sense of humor will be reassigned to the Imperial Cosmology Division. (The previous head is currently in the Cosmology Division’s filing cabinet.)
3. The Royal Cartography Bureau shall update all star charts to indicate that Tatooine is now classified as a “miracle planet.” This is intended to improve tourism. It will also, regrettably, increase the number of Force-sensitive children born there. We will deal with that later.
4. The Death Star’s superlaser shall be tested on a tight binary system at the earliest convenience, in the interest of “scientific verification.” If the planets disappear, we have confirmed Einstein. If they don’t, we have an exciting new vacation property.
There is something almost poetic about the discovery that Tatooine — a desert wasteland I personally consider the armpit of the galaxy — should turn out to be one of the rarest, most physics-defying planets in the cosmos. A miracle, hiding in plain sight. A world that shouldn’t be there, quietly producing the only two people who ever ruined my day.
If I had known any of this in advance, I would have invaded Tatooine first. And last. And several times in between.
Good. Good.
— The Emperor
Source: research from UC Berkeley and the American University of Beirut, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Lead author Mohammad Farhat.