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The star map that BB-8 carries shows the system where Luke is at. IIRC, C-3PO says the system is "not on any of our charts". But the map shows at least a couple of dozen systems, and later we see it plugged into the whole galaxy and it's something like 10% of the volume of the galaxy -- a galaxy that has been explored and colonized for thousands of years.

How is it plausible that astrocartographers could not have figured out where this system was using only the smaller map held by BB-8, using just the positions of the systems shown (as well as the planets)? Wouldn't this be like being unable to identify Greenland or something? Is this just sloppy pop space fantasy writing or is there some way to make sense of it? Maybe the map was intended to be obscure somehow (like a treasure map)?

The reason mystery maps make sense in fantasy and old naval stories is because the world is supposed to be relatively unexplored. In an ancient galactic civilization this doesn't work so well.

DVK-on-Ahch-To
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zipquincy
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    It is unfortunate that when hundreds of millions are spent on a science fiction movie, a scientist can't be hired for a relative pittance to fill in the scientific holes. $50,000 would have gone a long way into applying some common scientific knowledge. – Tony Ennis Dec 30 '15 at 20:15
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    They should have said that the map used an encryption that required multiple keys to decrypt and what BB8 carries is one if the required keys. There are algorithms already known to achieve this and would have made perfect sense. – Bakuriu Dec 31 '15 at 16:24
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    @Bakuriu, +1 for your idea. But... remember The Matrix: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/1263/is-the-basic-premise-of-humans-as-a-power-source-in-the-matrix-reasonable. – Martín-Blas Pérez Pinilla Dec 31 '15 at 17:35
  • @TonyEnnis I would argue that the Star Wars series is more of a science-fantasy than a science-fiction since it doesn't really drive on any scientific theories (like Interstellar or The Martian does). – But I'm Not A Wrapper Class Dec 31 '15 at 19:02
  • Remember the red line in the map... That red line (presumably path) was incomplete. – user931 Dec 31 '15 at 20:28
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    @SS-3 except that it showed the endpoint of the line which, if the surroundings could be identified, should be enough. (Except maybe hyper lanes changes that puzzle a bit) – zipquincy Dec 31 '15 at 21:08
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    @Martín-BlasPérezPinilla Remember that was a Warner Brother's foible - the original script had humans being used as a giant neural network-style computer, but they didn't think Average Joe would understand that. – Vogie Dec 31 '15 at 21:37
  • @Vogie - I think that's just a fan explanation, I've never seen anyone present a quote from any "original script" in which humans were being used for computing power. – Hypnosifl Dec 31 '15 at 22:40
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    @Vogie, my point is that even the most elementary (real) cryptography is worse for the Average Joe that the idea of a giant neural network. – Martín-Blas Pérez Pinilla Jan 01 '16 at 16:15
  • If you need to find a particular person who doesn't want to be found, it wouldn't be helpful to know that they are on the African continent, if that continent hasn't been mapped. Sure, you know generally where they are, but Africa is a big place... and nebulae are even bigger. Additionally, it's easy to believe that Luke deliberately chose a part of space that was unmapped, or poorly mapped. – Matt May 05 '16 at 20:23

9 Answers9

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In the book Star Wars: The Essential Atlas, the map of the galaxy showed that a large section of the galaxy was unmapped, labeled "Unknown Regions":

enter image description here

The Essential Atlas is now classified as "Legends" rather than the new Disney canon, but as you can see from the Unknown Regions article on wookieepedia, such a region has been established to exist in the new Disney canon too, at least in times prior to The Force Awakens. According to the 'Appearances' section of the article it was specifically named as the "Unknown Regions" in the novel Tarkin. The article quotes a character named Berch Teller in Tarkin as saying:

"These aren't civilian targets. They're Imperial installations staffed by people who have bought into the Emperor's sick vision of the future—for you, your queen, me, and everyone between here and the Unknown Regions."

Also, the planet Ilum was established to lie in the Unknown Regions by the book Ultimate Star Wars which is part of the Disney Canon, and this planet was shown in the Clone Wars episodes "The Gathering" and "Test of Strength". Incidentally, the fact that the Jedi knew how to get to Ilum shows that the Unknown Regions were not wholly unknown, consistent with the point in DVK's answer that Han recognized a particular nebula on the map fragment.

Also, this article mentions that this special issue of Empire magazine included a new Lucasfilm-created map of the galaxy that showed the Starkiller Base as originating in the Unknown Regions:

An exclusive Lucasfilm star map reveals the name and location of three new planets in the Star Wars universe. ... Also out there, lurking in the galaxy’s darker recesses, is the Starkiller Base, home of the First Order. The map pinpoints its origin point in the Unknown Regions. Expect it to move somewhere more happening.

A low-res version of this new map has been posted on this page, you can see it shows the "Starkiller Base Origin Point" in the Unknown Regions on the left:

enter image description here

According to this page the map was created for Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary, so assuming it was included in that book it should definitely be canon.

As for how it could be possible to have such a large region unmapped when the Republic existed for thousands of years and hyperspace travel seems to allow the galaxy to be traversed very quickly, I don't know--the "Legends" section of the article refers to possibilities like "gravitational anomalies" and "hyperspatial gravitic ripples", but it does note that there were instances of people traveling into this region in Legends canon, and from the main "canon" section of the article it doesn't sound like any explanation has been given so far in Disney canon (plus Rey was apparently able to make a reasonably fast trip in to find Luke). This might be a good subject for another question!

Hypnosifl
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    It seems especially silly for the unknown regions to be on the side of the galaxy that Coruscant is on! – curiousdannii Dec 30 '15 at 02:37
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    @curiousdannii - As long as the reason for it not being mapped isn't addressed in canon, my own headcanon idea would be that you need to know the exact location of the hyperlanes traversing a given region in order to travel it much faster than light, if you haven't already mapped the hyperlanes you might be limited to light speed, and the galaxy is said to have a radius of 50,000 light-years (in the movies going into hyperspace was referred to as a 'jump to lightspeed', which we could imagine as the initial speed until the ship reached a hyperlane) – Hypnosifl Dec 30 '15 at 20:55
  • @curiousdannii -- As DVK highlights in his answer (and in comments to his answer) -- Hyperspace ain't Normal Space and seeing a map of the Hyperspace Route laid out on a Normal Space holo isn't really open to the criticism so many think it is. -- There are plot points to criticize in this movie but the Hyperspace Holo Map is not one of them people. – user23715 Dec 31 '15 at 01:56
  • @curiousdannii : Being on the same side of the galaxy as Coruscant does not mean it's close to Coruscant. Assuming the galaxy to be roughly the size of ours, that half of the galaxy is 50,000 light years (or approximately 1280 Kessel runs) wide. Plenty of room for an unknown region or two, even if you don't bring hyperlanes into the equation. – Ray Jan 01 '16 at 01:03
  • @Ray - If you don't bring hyperlanes or some other limitation on hyperspace travel into it, then you'd expect mapping the Unknown Regions to be relatively fast since it seems that hyperspace travel must be much, much faster than light speed--for example, on the second map in my post, look at the distance between Hoth and Dagobah, and note that Luke made the trip in an X-Wing (with no comfortable place to sleep, not much room for food supplies, and no bathroom) so it's unlikely the trip took more than a day or so. And note the Naboo-to-Coruscant distance, traveled a few times in the prequels. – Hypnosifl Jan 01 '16 at 01:16
  • @Hypnosifl : The straight-line distance is only one issue. Certainly, once they know where something is, they can go there rapidly. But (again, using the Milky Way as a reference), that half galaxy takes up 25 trillion cubic light years, with something like 100-400 billion star systems to be explored individually. And that assumes they even know where all the stars are. The vast majority of those stars are red dwarfs, which are so dim that even Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth, is not visible via the naked eye. (continued...) – Ray Jan 01 '16 at 01:45
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    ... Good telescopes can spot a lot of them at a fair distance, but considering that the estimate for the number of stars in our galaxy comes from estimating the mass and working backwards, this isn't necessarily easy. Exploring a galaxy, even at hyperspeed, would likely require making multiple stops to set up observatories and search for stars that were previously unknown. And then sending out those billions of probes to actually map the planets. Even ignoring travel time, this is a significant undertaking. – Ray Jan 01 '16 at 01:46
  • @Ray - Spiral galaxies are generally pretty flat, and since the diameter of the Star Wars galaxy is about the same as ours, we can assume the volume containing the vast majority of stars is about the same--about 8 trillion light years, according to this. And this article talks about the discovery of a planet orbiting a star dimmer than our Sun about 1000 light-years away, so probably all such stars in a cube 1000 light-years on each side, – Hypnosifl Jan 01 '16 at 02:40
  • (cont) which would have a volume of 1 billion cubic light years, could be mapped by a single modern telescope located at the center (the more advanced technology of the Star Wars universe would probably allow for more than this, but let's use this as a conservative assumption). So if the volume of the galaxy is 8000 times 1 billion cubic light years, you'd only need to send out about 8000 probes to map all the stars of our type or brighter, assuming there were no limitations on hyperspace travel. – Hypnosifl Jan 01 '16 at 02:46
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Novelizaion addresses this, to an extent

Dutifully, the droid rolled into a suitable position. A lens brightened, and abruptly the lounge was all but filled with an enormously detailed and complex star map. Nebulae, solo stars, translucent splashes of concentrated dark matter, and entire solar systems were displayed before them. Even Chewbacca sat up to have a better look. Finn was impressed and Rey in awe — but Han found himself frowning.
Moving forward and into the three-dimensional representation, he tracked system positions and locator stars. One finger traced the outlines of a particularly bright and well-known nebular cluster. Like everything else in the map, it was brilliantly depicted.
It was also only half there.
He turned to the others. “This is accurate, but it’s not complete. It’s just a piece. I can tell from the location of the breaks and from what’s only partially shown.”

So... apparently, they can tell where in general this is (Han identifies a well known nebular cluster), but the specific pieces of the map are missing enough that it's impossible to get Luke's location (or the path to it) specifically, even knowing the neighbourhood.

DVK-on-Ahch-To
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    I think this particular part of the novelization directly contradicts the movie, as well as common sense. If Han can identify a nebular cluster, then ipso facto he knows what portion of the galaxy the map fragment depicts. The whole "it's only a piece" conceit works if and only if they can't place the piece in the whole - like getting a fragment of a street atlas labeled "Walnut Ave." and "Main St.", because there are streets by those names in every largish city, and they often even intersect. – Martha Dec 29 '15 at 17:10
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    @Martha space is BIG. Knowing GENERIC area bigger than many nebulae (far bigger, given the description) doesn't help you to find 1 planet. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 29 '15 at 17:16
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    @DVK The map fragments the Resistance and New Order had showed the start of the path, and the final destination -- they were just missing the middle part. If you know the destination, you can just go directly there. Of course, this would have ended the film in 30 minutes... Not to mention, the New Order claimed they got it from the Empire's Archives, even though Luke wasn't hiding until after the Empire was destroyed. When you examine the movie, little of it makes any logical sense. Similar to how nobody knew how to destroy Death Star 3.0 until someone said "there must be a way to blow it up". – SnakeDoc Dec 29 '15 at 17:19
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    @SnakeDoc - that's definitely NOT the case in EU, some places are only accessible through a single, very well defined path. Plus you have "Hyperlanes". I agree movie is full of holes :) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 29 '15 at 17:22
  • @DVK I don't know how EU addresses work, but I imagine the map's final destination was more-or-less in the form of coordinates (when the ships go into hyper-drive, they plug in coordinates for the destination). So, if Star Wars Universe coordinates are like real-life coordinates, there's only 1 possible unique destination for any given set of coordinates. ;-P – SnakeDoc Dec 29 '15 at 17:25
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    @SnakeDoc - look into "Maw" navigation, if you dare :) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 29 '15 at 17:30
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    @SnakeDoc - they said Luke went to the birthplace of the Jedi, so it's very likely that the map really isn't a "map to Luke", but rather a "map to the birthplace of the Jedi". Knowing the shared history between the Republic and the Jedi, it's very likely that the Empire inherited some data on it, like old incomplete maps. Also, star systems drift throughout the Galaxy over time, so it's not impossible that the coordinates are no longer accurate, unless you have all the data to extrapolate the new ones. – Dungarth Dec 29 '15 at 17:42
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    @Dungarth that explanation doesn't coincide with the movie, or the fact that they flew directly to Luke after revealing the last piece of the map (signaling the map was indeed a plot directly to Luke). As an aside - it's quite sad fans have had to literally resort to making things up in order to fill in numerous gaps in this movie... – SnakeDoc Dec 29 '15 at 17:46
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    @SnakeDoc - How do you know they flew directly to Luke and didn't follow the path on the map? – Dungarth Dec 29 '15 at 17:48
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    @Dungarth I'm basing that claim on how all previous inter-planetary/inter-system travel has occurred throughout the series. They plug in coordinates for the destination, then engage hyperdrive... coming out of hyperdrive a few minutes later at their destination planet/system. What more, if that's not the case here, it should have been addressed in the movie (it wasn't) instead of leaving fans to make things up in defense. It's very poor story telling, at the least... – SnakeDoc Dec 29 '15 at 17:51
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    @SnakeDoc Story-telling ain't like dusting crops. – Xantec Dec 29 '15 at 19:58
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    @SnakeDoc The most well-known line about Star Wars space travel was definitely not a straight line – Izkata Dec 29 '15 at 21:16
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    @Izkata Never claimed it was a straight line. Even according to the two references you cited, space travel in Star Wars universe merely relies on knowing the destination (not necessary to have a "roadmap" of turns and what-not). So, back to this movie, if they had the destination, they could just go directly there and skip the entire plot. But that wouldn't be a very exciting movie, and therefore we have all this senselessness. It literally doesn't make sense, but many will accept it as so simply because the movie portrayed it that way. Like I said before, this movie is full of plot holes. – SnakeDoc Dec 29 '15 at 21:54
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    I don't understand how this answer addresses the question of why they couldn't just match the arrangement of stars in the map fragment to known stars (since neither the quote nor DVK's comment says anything about that region of the galaxy being unmapped, the solution I suggested in my answer). If we assume for the sake of argument that they already had a map with the positions of every star in the galaxy, what problem would they run into if they just ran a pattern matching program between the master map and the map fragment? – Hypnosifl Dec 29 '15 at 22:14
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    @Hypnosifl - my answer explicitly explains that they COULD match known stars. Han Solo did it with his eyes, no computer needed. The problem lied elsewhere, NOT with matching – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 29 '15 at 22:32
  • @DVK - Then what are you saying the problem was? If they could do such a matching, why wouldn't that include matching Luke's location on the map to a known star? Or are you saying they could even do that, but the problem was something else--say, not already having a full map of the "hyperlanes" you mentioned in a comment, so even if the fragment showed hyperlanes in the region they wouldn't know how these connected up to hyperlanes in their own region? – Hypnosifl Dec 29 '15 at 23:41
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    @Hypnosifl - I'm saying that the canon doesn't SAY explicitly what the problem was - we can guess but we don't know. BUT it says explicitly what it was NOT (and it was NOT what the OP asked about). – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 29 '15 at 23:43
  • @DVK - But are you saying that excerpt shows the problem was not that they had any difficulty deducing Luke's exact position in 3D space? Or is it somehow possible they could know the exact spatial position of some locations on the map but couldn't use these to deduce the positions of the others (through triangulation say)? – Hypnosifl Dec 29 '15 at 23:51
  • @Hypnosifl - they could dedice the general area in space, but that wasn't enough. It doesn't say if what was missing was a final position, or transit directions, or some other McGuffin. We can make guesses, but they are just guesses – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 29 '15 at 23:53
  • @DVK - Fair enough, it still seems a counter-intuitive that the problem could be with pinpointing the exact location in space if they knew the exact location of other landmarks on the map, but I suppose it's possible that map was distorted so you couldn't deduce the real distances and angles between points on the map...it could also be possible that nebula was the only landmark Han recognized, so and without multiple known points they couldn't triangulate. – Hypnosifl Dec 30 '15 at 00:09
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    @Hypnosifl - why are you arguing with ME? Argue with DIsney, I'm just the messenger! :) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 30 '15 at 00:27
  • @DVK - I wasn't so much arguing with you as trying to clarify what you took the quoted section as implying. Since you explained that you weren't really saying anything one way or another about whether the problem was with pinpointing the spatial location of the system Luke was in, I'm not disagreeing with anything you say, I think it's a good answer, though in terms of my own headcanon I think the scene with fitting the map fragment into R2-D2's map suggests the map fragment alone probably wasn't enough to locate Luke's system, even if Han recognized one nebula. – Hypnosifl Dec 30 '15 at 20:45
  • One last point I'd make is that novelizations are only canon to the extent they don't conflict with what's shown onscreen--looking at the transcript here it seems Han's line was actually a little different in the movie, where he said "This map is not complete. It's just a piece", with no line about anything being "only partially shown" (would be interesting to check if there was a cut between that line and the next line about Luke, and whether Han is shown tracing the map with his finger). – Hypnosifl Dec 30 '15 at 20:49
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As a software engineer, you get kind of used to seeing ridiculously simplistic graphical depictions of hacking on TV and movies. What I eventually had to start telling myself is that this is a fictionalized symbolic reference to what the character would have been doing, not a literal depiction of it.

I say this because I found myself having to do the exact same thing in that scene. What you are seeing on screen is a nice jumbo simplified version of a piece fitting in a puzzle, not a scale representation of the actual piece and the actual puzzle.

A real galaxy has 100's of billions of stars in it. Even if we assume most of those aren't what they call "systems", that's still way more systems than were physically represented in that scene, and any representation of a single "system" would take up next to no space at all in a scale model of its galaxy.

T.E.D.
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  • It's possible the size was accurate, but the visual display only showed a select number of "important" systems (say, ones with planets that had life)--there may have been more in the computer file than what was shown on the display, as is often the case with representing data graphically. – Hypnosifl Dec 30 '15 at 20:07
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    @Hypnosifl - I suppose a lot depends on how you interpret C3PO's statement implying the map is only of a single system. But either way, its clear a lot of information is being left out in that holographic visual representation the droids throw up, which is essentially my point. The holograms aren't the entire maps, just an immensely dumbed-down symbolic representation of them. – T.E.D. Dec 30 '15 at 20:12
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    According to the transcript here, C3PO says "I regret to inform you that the map recovered from BB-8 is only partially complete. And even worse, it matches no charted system on record. We simply do not have enough information to locate Master Luke." I'd interpret "it matches no charted system" to be specifically referring to the system identified on the map as the one where Luke is located, not suggesting the map as a whole was only a map of one system, since it showed lots of other dots. – Hypnosifl Dec 30 '15 at 20:39
  • @Hypnosifl - That is essentially what I remember it saying, yes. – T.E.D. Dec 30 '15 at 21:07
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There is no answer about this in the film (dunno about the novel), but there is a possibility that the even the joined map wasn't a standard map.

When you think about it, there are probably a lot more stars in a galaxy other than those depicted on the map, but the map only specified some relevant ones in that context, so comparing it with a map that has all the stars in the galaxy would be very difficult, especially if you didn't know beforehand what size the small map was.

They didn't know that it was of the 10% of the galaxy showing only some stars. For all they knew, it could have been the map of a small system of stars in a small part of the galaxy.

I guess one could brute-force search for that specific pattern, but it'd probably take a lot of time.

Steve Melnikoff
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Rick Sanchez
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    And even the complete map would not necessarily have been of the entire galaxy. Yeah, I know, it was round... – Mr Lister Dec 29 '15 at 16:29
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Here is a slightly different suggestion; it was a problem of travel times. As has been established in many other answers, the location is within the Unknown Regions. There is no reason to suppose that we cannot pinpoint exactly where in said Unknown Regions, using the identifiable clusters, however, we do not have enough information of this region to chart a hyperspace route there.

Say we wanted to get there sans hyper-drive, how long would it take? The entire Galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter, and just going by eye we might guess that the Unknown Regions are about a third of this. Let's assume that we only have to travel half way into them, we need to cover approximately 17,000 light years. So even if we travel very close the the speed of light for the entire journey, it will take a long time. Although the traveller may experience time dilation (no idea if this happens in SW) Luke would not and so would be dead before anyone arrived to fetch them.

So we really need a hyper-drive for this. Here is an extract about said hyper-drive from the (now non-cannon, but still roughly accurate) west end games RPG rule-book;

To get technical, hyperspace is coterminous to normal space. That is each point in real space is associated with a point in hyperspace, and adjacent points in real space are adjacent in hyperspace. If you head north in hyperspace you travel north in real space. Real object have a "hyperspace shadow". That is there is a star or star-like object in hyperspace at the "same" location as it occupies in real space. This is a danger.

Collision with a hyperspace shadow can "instantly vaporise" an object in hyperspace. So that's why we need nav computers;

All but the smallest hyperdrive-capable starships are equipped with nav computers. Nav computers hold a wealth of statistical and map data charting the positions of stars, rouge planets, known asteroid fields and other dangers.

Only well charted regions are available on nav computers;

Going to a star system that has never been visited before is very dangerous. None of the obstacles along the route have been charted. Only the crazy (or desperate) would attempt to travel straight to an unexplored star system; usually, explorers travel a short distance through hyperspace, drop into real space to take readings, travel a short distance again, and so on. This is time consuming, but reasonably safe.

While the map may have given enough detail to physically identify the region, and it even looked like it had a partial hyperspace route (that red line thing), a whole hyperspace route would be require to get to Luke. Only when paired with the rest of the map was a whole hyperspace route, or enough information to plot one, available.

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Jekowl
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    That is correct - they're also giant files. Massive. So large, in fact, that the astromech droids that can hold and chart other routes can only store a set amount (The R2 series can only hold 10, the R7s can hold 15) in memory at a time. – Vogie Dec 31 '15 at 21:49
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Following the rise and fall of the Empire, the New Republic does not have access to the same archives as the Old Republic. The starcharts they have on hand are not as complete as they once were when the Jedi Temple Archives were still around. As the Empire was the Old Republic, they still held this information, and R2-D2 downloaded this information at some point when it was interfaced with an Empire vessel.

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and later we see it plugged into the whole galaxy and it's something like 10% of the volume of the galaxy

Maybe that's the false assumption? I don't recall enough detail to know whether the large map was "the galaxy". Maybe there are tens of thousands of holes in maps, but BB-8 communicated with R2D2 about which map to show, therefore indicating which hole matched BB-8's map? "the galaxy" is very specific, but if there were numerous such maps with uncharted areas, then BB-8's map might be less useful until more details are provided.

Keep in mind just how much access the Resistance had to R2D2's maps for most of the movie.

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I love that people are trying to defend this whole premise. It was bad writing. Period. They could have gone with the option that Luke went into an unknown region of the galaxy where star chart data as sketchy, but they didn't. They went with the notion that they had the exact stars locations of where he was but that they couldn't figure that out based on even limited star data the New Republic (or even nav computers on Tatooine) would have had. They wanted the scene where R2-D2 has the whole map and they can plug in the missing piece like a jigsaw puzzle. Very 10 year old friendly yeah but not very smart.

What I think is even more crazy is that we are meant to believe that Starkiller base can suck down an entire sun but then that it has to belch out the stellar matter to destroy a planet. Why not just hyperspeed travel (as it would need to be able to do to be used more than once) and then kill the star of the target star system? Job done. Oh right but that wouldn't have looked so cool. The problem with SW-TFA is the same problem as Star Trek 2 by JJ Abrams. Rushed scripts = crappy scripts. The sooner we realize that and make the studio stop feeds us crappy scripts that look all cool and we all fan-boy/girl over, the better.

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    Does this really answer the question? – Adamant May 05 '16 at 20:05
  • Besides, the question of why Starkiller Base does not travel to the Hosnian system is easily answered. It’s the same reason countries developed ICBMs, instead of sticking with dropping nuclear weapons from planes. Would you rather fly into the New Republic’s home space, sit there for a while, and give them time to evacuate or blow you up while you gather energy? Or would you prefer to hit them from halfway across the galaxy, where there is little risk of retaliation? – Adamant Oct 10 '16 at 22:28
  • Yes except that without the "Hyperspace window" that the beam was firing through (which was in the original script btw) it would have taken that beam like thousands of years or even millions maybe for that stellar matter beam to reach them. So your premise is slightly flawed. Like the movie. – Jim Starkweather Jan 25 '18 at 22:30
  • I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. The hyperspace windows was there, so what's the issue? Starkiller base could fire without exposing itself (more or less). – Adamant Jan 25 '18 at 22:34
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The question is inaccurate since the map from BB8 was of a single system. The Larger map you refer to is shown by R2D2.

BB8 had a map of a single system but was only "partially complete" (not showing the full route of luke skywalker - althought now i think it did, because Rey found Luke in the same episode) and was not matching any of the resistance's chartered systems on record.

R2D2 having been in low power mode woke up and revealed the other part of the map, including the whole galaxy, leaving only one system missing. Now you could argue that R2D2 had knowledge beyond the resistance and withheld it before going into low power mode because he knew that without exact information of lukes route it would take huge resources to find him. Also it is likely that a part of the puzzle was removed by luke skywalker into a memory device from R2D2 so nobody knew where luke was, and somehow the man in the beginning of the movie had that memory piece which was then given to Po and then BB8 and then...

The resistance may have not seen any map for luke skywalker since C3PO said "it is very doubtful that R2 would have the rest of the map in his back-up data". (after seeing BB8's map)

If they hadn't seen the map from R2D2 (before BB8's map) they wouldn't have any movie shown clue of luke skywalker up until BB8.

So basically disney hadn't shown, in the movie, the reaction of "R2D2's hiding of the map" in any of the characters to make the movie clearer for those who didnt realise earlier that R2D2 hadn't participated in finding luke.

Like C3PO could have said "why didnt you show us this earlier, you stupid piece of junk."

But by the looks of it R2D2 had some bad feelings about the whole experience of losing his master and so went into low power mode up until the other part of the map was found. (he justified waking up having the knowledge he could potentially aid the where abouts of luke's location accurately alongside BB8's map)

Benjamen
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