Hirib Bassot

"The claim of quadrillions, quintillions, and even septillions of Separatist battle droids is so ludicrous that we'd rush to debunk it if someone didn't have a vested interest in making us believe it. Nothing adds up--literally. Do you know how big a quadrillion is? Let's use the Galactic standard notation--a thousand million million. A quintillion? A million quadrillions. A septillion? A billion quadrillions. Any coalition capable of producing even quadrillions of any machine could roll over the Republic in a few days. And the amount of materials and energy needed to produce and move even a quadrillion droids is immense--it would drain star systems. Either our government is composed of innumerate idiots, or it's inflating the threat way beyond the average citizen's math skills so that it can justify the war and where it's heading."

- Hirib Bassot

Hirib Bassot was a media pundit working for the HoloNet.

Biography
Bassot went on a public show to argue that the threat of the Separatist armies was overinflated and hinted that it was part of a government propaganda effort to continue the Clone Wars beyond reasonable means to maintain a personal agenda. In his eagerness to use hyperbole, he misspoke, equating one quintillion to one million quadrillions.

He was later found dead in his apartment, with the death cause being said to be poison by contaminated glitterstim.

Behind the scenes
The character mixes two different number systems, the Short Scale and the Long Scale. In the short scale, which he starts with, a quadrillion is equal to one thousand million million. In the same scale, a quntillion is only one thouand quadrillion, not one million. Whether this is meant to cast doubt on the character's expertise, is unknown. He also argues that strip-mining entire star systems is unheard of, yet well-known corporations like the Mining Guild are responsible for just that, and on a galaxy-wide scale.

Appearances

 * Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel