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star wars - How does Coruscant get clean air?


It's a straightforward question. The entire planet was covered by city. You don't see very many trees in the movies. This doesn't mean there aren't any of course, but certainly nothing on the scale of the Amazon rain forests on Earth. What does everyone breathe?


Wookieepedia just says



Citizens who lived in the upper levels were able to breathe air that was filtered and clean. Sunlight never reached the lower levels which had to be lit by artificial light and the inhabitants were forced to breathe the air of toxic fumes from factory and vehicular waste.



Does this mean there was a clean-air utility that piped clean air (or atmosphere appropriate to your biology) to homes and offices? And the planet's own atmosphere is irredeemably toxic to humans?



Answer




This is covered in the official novelisation for Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.



The impression was not misleading. The days in which Coruscant could be viewed in any sort of natural state were dead and gone. The capital city had expanded over the centuries, building by building, until it wrapped the entire planet. Forests, mountains, bodies of water, and natural formations had been covered over. The atmosphere was filtered through oxygen regulators and purified by scrubbers, and water was gathered and stored in massive artificial aquifers. Native animals, birds, plants, and fish could be found in the museums or the climate-controlled indoor preserves. As Anakin Skywalker could clearly see from the viewport of Queen Amidala’s slowly descending transport, Coruscant had become a planet of skyscrapers, their gleaming metal towers stretching skyward in a forest of spear points, an army of frozen giants blanketing the horizon in every direction.



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