I would think that the Holonet could connect to other networks.. I mean it's like a phone.. You could call up a trader or a shopkeep.. As long as you know the address number. I would allow this kind of communication in my games.

I would think that the Holonet could connect to other networks.. I mean it's like a phone.. You could call up a trader or a shopkeep.. As long as you know the address number. I would allow this kind of communication in my games.

Except if it uses the pac bell model, you dont just call people. You call imperial center, who puts you through to the planet you want, and THEN you can interface with the local net. And Force help you if you or your recipiant is wanteed by the imperials, because you literally gave them your (routing) address.

If that were the case then how do the rebels communicate with each other using Holonets? If you had to connect thru an Imperial network then the Rebels would be caught a long time ago.

No space meetup.com???

If that were the case then how do the rebels communicate with each other using Holonets? If you had to connect thru an Imperial network then the Rebels would be caught a long time ago.

They usually didn't.

From Wookieepedia: "When Emperor Palpatine assumed power, large portions of the HoloNet were shut down to prevent news of the Empire's atrocities from spreading quickly. During the time of the Empire, the HoloNet was strictly controlled, used mostly for Imperial Military communications. This greatly inhibited the ability of groups like the Alliance to Restore the Republic to communicate, and arguably also had an isolating effect on the many planets over which the Empire held power."

But this wouldn't stop spies and slicers from clandestine communications through disguised and/or encrypted transmission routed through the HoloNet. But still, such methods of communication were fraught with great danger.

The only 'bot' in The Day The Earth Stood Still was Gort. Just saying.

Yeah and he turned into a billion of nano bots..

If that were the case then how do the rebels communicate with each other using Holonets? If you had to connect thru an Imperial network then the Rebels would be caught a long time ago.

They usually didn't.

From Wookieepedia: "When Emperor Palpatine assumed power, large portions of the HoloNet were shut down to prevent news of the Empire's atrocities from spreading quickly. During the time of the Empire, the HoloNet was strictly controlled, used mostly for Imperial Military communications. This greatly inhibited the ability of groups like the Alliance to Restore the Republic to communicate, and arguably also had an isolating effect on the many planets over which the Empire held power."

But this wouldn't stop spies and slicers from clandestine communications through disguised and/or encrypted transmission routed through the HoloNet. But still, such methods of communication were fraught with great danger.

SO you could still shop thru a Holonet but as long as it was legal? Or would that have been shut down?

If that were the case then how do the rebels communicate with each other using Holonets? If you had to connect thru an Imperial network then the Rebels would be caught a long time ago.

They usually didn't.

From Wookieepedia: "When Emperor Palpatine assumed power, large portions of the HoloNet were shut down to prevent news of the Empire's atrocities from spreading quickly. During the time of the Empire, the HoloNet was strictly controlled, used mostly for Imperial Military communications. This greatly inhibited the ability of groups like the Alliance to Restore the Republic to communicate, and arguably also had an isolating effect on the many planets over which the Empire held power."

But this wouldn't stop spies and slicers from clandestine communications through disguised and/or encrypted transmission routed through the HoloNet. But still, such methods of communication were fraught with great danger.

SO you could still shop thru a Holonet but as long as it was legal? Or would that have been shut down?

Not really. think of it more like CNN and the phone company combined. You can make holo calls and watch the news. But that is about it. The military has more access. But even they just make calls.

SO you could still shop thru a Holonet but as long as it was legal? Or would that have been shut down?

SO you could still shop thru a Holonet but as long as it was legal? Or would that have been shut down?

Yeah, no, I was joking with the whole "space Amazon" thing. The HoloNet has only ever been for communications, not for "web surfing" or "online shopping." Also, the HoloNet during the Galactic Civil War is basically military-only, so there is no legal civilian use.

except some news reports. but they are like cold war russian propaganda news.

They did a remake? PHOOEY! You kids and your remakes! I'm talking about the good one from the 50's:

I'm no kid and I liked both. If you haven't watched the newer one because "It just might be different!!!", then you are missing out on some new entertainment. It's meant to be a new, different, experience, not just an updated copy. That would be like someone missing out on the Dark Knight Batman series due to loving the old Batman TV show. Both can be enjoyable even if there are little similarities between them.

(next post back to nano)

I've always considered nanotechnology to be in my Star Wars universe, it's just not obvious. It can explain lots of the strange unbelievable technology we see.

Examples? Without being a fan of much EU or looking at Wookieepedia (and thus not using their own explanations):

• Bacta could be explained by nanotech. A nanite healing bath or a needle full of healing nanites can easily explain this rapid healing technology.
• How do the blades of those plasma/laser/whatever swords stop after only a few feet? Focused crystals? That never made any kind of realistic sense to me. It suddenly stops. Nanites to the rescue.
• Near invisible force fields that let physical matter through (a spaceship) while keeping air from flowing out. It's a wall of trillions of tiny nanites that knows to reform around the passing ships without letting any or little air to flow outward.
• Shields around your ship? Nanite.

Nanotechnology can be a magical goo that explains almost anything unexplainable in the Star Wars universe. Hell, perhaps even the "living force" is some ancient galaxy-wide nanotechnology experiment gone wrong (right?). Midichlorians are genetically programmed/produced nanites that allow you to manipulate the other "living" nanites spread throughout the Galaxy?

ETA: The last paragraph (the Force as nanites with a mind of its own) can also help alleviate the usual problem of nanotechnology in an RPG - Uber nanite death clouds. Why have a Star Destroyer when you could get a vial of self-replicating nanites that could quickly gobble up a ship or even world? Solution: the nanites of the Force quickly respond to and devour development of such nanites to bring balance to the universe. Perhaps that was the very first reason the nanite "Force" was spread throughout the Star Wars Galaxy. Technology of some lost civilization had been crushed by development of instant death nanite swarms developed during an interstellar war. Those wishing to save the Galaxy developed a self-replicating swarm of "good" nanites to spread throughout the Galaxy to combat the "bad" nanites that had been released thus bringing "balance" to the Galaxy-wide nanite "Force". Later scientists developed a "Way" through genetic manipulation for a living person to self-produce nanites (midichlorians) that allowed them through practice to be able to tap into and control the nanite Force already spread throughout the Galaxy. With the old EU tossed, should I sell my synopsis to an author?

They did a remake? PHOOEY! You kids and your remakes! I'm talking about the good one from the 50's:

I'm no kid and I liked both. If you haven't watched the newer one because "It just might be different!!!", then you are missing out on some new entertainment. It's meant to be a new, different, experience, not just an updated copy. That would be like someone missing out on the Dark Knight Batman series due to loving the old Batman TV show. Both can be enjoyable even if there are little similarities between them.

(next post back to nano)

I'm no kid either.. 41 year old. As said I also Liked both of them. The remake wasnt bad.. Different not bad.

I'm wondering if Star Wars has any kind of Nano technology?

Of course. It has to. Nano technology is just "more technology". Dealing with the "really really small" has its own set of challenges, but eventually we figure them out and it all merges into the broader pool of knowledge and we don't talk about it like it's separate anymore. We don't talk about the "atomic age" anymore for the same reason...it was new in the 50s, but now it's commonplace.

SW doesn't have to have "nanotech". And I don't just mean an arbitrary preference to ignore it. Nanotech as commonly envisaged in much sci-fi DOES NOT EXIST. We have created tiny nanomachines and we certainly do engineering on the nanoscale (CPUs are the obvious example) but there are a couple of major barriers between what we currently no to be possible and the popular Sci-Fi versions and those barriers are energy storage and heat. Just because SW universe has some technologies we don't know how to do / don't know to be possible, doesn't mean they've solved any technological problem you care to point at. Most sci-fi settings pick a number of things to handwave (the fewer they pick, the harder the Sci-Fi, the more they handwave, the softer the Sci-Fi), but they're not always the same things.

So The Day The Earth Stood Still (I have seen both and I like the new one) has swarms of tiny replicating nanomachines that break everything down into dust. It doesn't mean that a scientist in the SW universe wouldn't see that as just as much Sci-Fi as we do. If pressed, she might say: "look, you can't store sufficient energy that small to achieve that, let alone break down what you've attacked and convert it into machine components to make more of you. And the heat dissipation of trying to do that would destroy the components of the machine if it could".

It is very simplistic to think of Sci-Fi as some linear scale whereby FTL implies nanotech. Now if you want to say SW must have the ability to do nanoscale engineering such as computer chips and such - yes, SW certainly has nanoscale technology. If we want to say it has the ability to create the T-1000 or GORT, that's a very different matter.

I completely agree advanced nanotech doesn't HAVE to be included in the Star Wars universe. Technology such as radio waves would be a HAVE to since it is so simple and easy that I would say yes it probably MUST have been developed by a space age technology even if it has already been passed by for something better. But nanotechnology, if you don't want it it, can easily be discarded as pointed out above by Knass. It isn't a MUST be developed technology for other space age things to exist like the invention of the wheel or wing might be.

Reversing, I obviously think (see my post above) that it CAN be included, without mucking everything up, by putting limits on it.

For these sort of discussions, I recommend The Science of Star Wars by NASA astrophysicist Jeanne Cavelos. You don't need a science degree to understand it. It's quite fun reading how she has attempted to explain some of the technology we see in Star Wars.

I'm not sure if it was the source of the similiarly named series on the Discovery channel?