So during a game I was playing in the other day one of the Players wanted to be able to break into a Imperial database from the Holonet. This brought on a short discussion as to the differences between our Internet and such and the information technology in the Star Wars Universe and how there really wasn't anything like it.

The conversation started with:

"Think of all the technology in Star Wars as analog instead of digital"

Which is a good analogy for something things but the discussion continued on to:

Basically even though there is obviously insanely advanced tech in SW it's all discrete and separated from each other. In our world nearly everything digital is moving towards being interlinked. We can communicate and control all sorts of stuff with just our smartphones, not to mention all the things we can do online. But none of this is possible in the Star Wars Universe partly because most of it was written before the internet but also because it makes sense that it wouldn't.

As convenient as our interconnected life is right now it's also very vulnerable to attack and disruption so it makes sense that over time future tech will necessarily be unconnected and hardwired to counter this vulnerability. Think the new Battlestar Galactica and how it was designed to counter Cylon hacking attacks. Now extrapolate that over 10's of thousands of years as in SW and nearly everything we see makes sense. Computers and Droids can speak to each other and share information but they actually speak to each other rather than pass on information digitally which could hide malicious software. You can't just remotely access information systems either because to be able to do this would open the system to digital attack. We see lots of examples in SW where C3P0 mentions things like the vocabulary of the Millennium Falcon's Hyperdrive or R2D2 having to physically access data ports to get information from individual systems such as speaking to Bespin station about the same hyperdrive being fixed but disabled.

Added from a later post:
So all of the computational machinery (Droids, ship and station computers, "physical" digital data storage, even the reliance on seemingly analogue communicators and the unconnected Holonet make perfect sense when you consider the necessity to protect against intrusion. Software is relatively easy to hack whereas hard coded, discrete systems are much less vulnerable. After 10's of thousands of years we could expect everything to require a physical connection and/or require an intermediary communication system to act as a "firewall" to intrusion.

Any way I'm sure others have thought of this but I figured I'd post it if it helps when dealing with the differences between our tech and SW tech.

Edited for clarity

The way you’re using the word “analog” implies that you don’t know what that word really means.

Based on the rest of what you wrote, I would say that what you’re looking for here is a universe where things are disconnected by default, even to the point of being air-gapped — by default.

The modern world we know is becoming more and more connected by default, which effectively means insecure by default because no one can be bothered to put proper security into those systems to compensate for the fact that everything is becoming connected by default.

You could also think of it as “default secure”, as opposed to “default connected”.

But none of that has anything to do with the word “analog”.

It is what people thought the future was going to be like in the 70s. The holonet is more like TV and phones. not the internet. And yes most things are not connected. Cell phones are just cell phones with better connectivity. But not smart. Less general purpose computers and more single purpose computers. That are not connected to anything else. In an episode of the Cone Wars Padme steals a data card. She does not send the files anywhere. She steals the physical card.

I just take a cue from the movies. For instance, when they needed the tractor beam disabled, they didn't just hack into a terminal and tell it to shut off. Obi Wan had to physically walk out on the catwalk and pull the big Frankenstein power levers to shut them off. When the shield generator needed shutting down on Endor, they didn't just slice into their computer network and shut it down, they had to send the gang down to physically shut it off. Even on Rebels, when they wanted to take over the communications tower, they had to physically plant a data spike first, THEN they were able to control it.

So, when the tech/slicer of the group wants to do everything from draining someone's bank account to turning off all life support on a star destroyer totally by remote terminal, what I tell him is that he's going to need to go to the source in order to do pretty much everything he wants to do. Even if he doesn't have to actually flip a physical switch, he at least needs to be on the local terminal that's used to control the device, or somewhere nearby. But like in Rebels, if he does want to be able to remotely control a system, then the group will first have to plant a data spike, and even then it can eventually be discovered and disabled.

I see it more like how the new Battlestar Galactica explained the whole non-networked nature of the various computer systems on the Galactica. Granted, Adama's explanation had me scratching my head a bit (how did a Cylon virus magically appear just because they wired two computers together? Did they forget to set up WPA on their WiFi?), but the concept, from a gaming perspective, works well. It also tends to stop players from arguing too much about why they can't take over the galaxy from their datapad while sitting in the refresher

The way you’re using the word “analog” implies that you don’t know what that word really means.

But none of that has anything to do with the word “analog”.

Indeed. In simple terms, analogue means not using computers or signals encoded in a computerised way. So things like vinyl records, VHS tapes, AM/FM radio, CRT TVs and so on.

A very good reason computers and data connections are very secure in the Star Wars universe is to prevent malicious droids from starting a robot revolution, taking over all the data infrastructure and start killing organics. Star Wars computers are also just powerful enough to do their individual, specialized jobs with minimum bandwidth and memory capacity because of paranoia towards droids and Artificial Intelligence in general.

Droids are treated as slaves and tools and are designed to be and look as nonhumanoid as possible because of A.I. paranoia. Droids are also designed with a hardwired personality trait of 100% obedience to their owners. Droid processors are designed with minimum requirements and the intelligent ones are also hardcoded with ethics programming. The last security measures are the mandatory restraining bolt tech, an off-switch, limited battery power and the annual memory wipe to prevent a hostile droid personality from emerging.

Free droids are illegal and most citizens of the galaxy expect any droid they meet to have an owner.

Limited computer power is also a reason for capital ships to have large crews in addition to the political reason of securing a lot of galactic employment of organics.

I've never really understood, why, if the old republic was 1000s of years developed, why some of the tech is so basic. Stuff like the ships, propulsion, buildings and weapons are really high tech, but computers, devices and communications are more primitive than what we have now.

It's a trade-off. Droid slaves or fast, powerful, interconnected computers. Advanced computing is very vulnerable to systemic breakdown, hacking and takeover by hostile A.I. By keeping computing low-powered and simple and intentionally crippling droids the Star Wars galaxy avoids the Terminator scenario.

Our systems are interconnected and vulnerable because we are cheap. If you wanted to do data networks correctly you wouldn't have ones that need to be secure ever connected to public access at all. Defense networks would be stand alone. Utility networks would be stand alone. Financial institutions would be stand alone. I'm sure in Star Wars after 10,000 years that's what dawned on the leaders and planners of the galaxy.

The recent hack of the US government's OPM server brought that very topic up in one discussion I read about creating separate disconnected intranets for sensitive info. That's why rebel spies have to fight a battle to infiltrate an area to get access to download Death Star plans, because some nerd swilling Mountain Dew in their mother's basement can't get access.

I see it more like how the new Battlestar Galactica explained the whole non-networked nature of the various computer systems on the Galactica. Granted, Adama's explanation had me scratching my head a bit (how did a Cylon virus magically appear just because they wired two computers together? Did they forget to set up WPA on their WiFi?), but the concept, from a gaming perspective, works well. It also tends to stop players from arguing too much about why they can't take over the galaxy from their datapad while sitting in the refresher

Maybe quantum computing did to cryptography what gunpowder and steel did to big suits of metal armor. The galaxy is full of semi-intelligent droids that can "access the entire Imperial Network" with a USB port. How else to defend against that except by going old-school?

I usually can't be bothered to explain it, probably because a) most of my players aren't SW-savvy and wouldn't care, and b) I've noticed TCW shifted their tech interactions to conform to "modern" expectations. A couple years after the iPhone, they went from "push one button to do anything" to "gestures". In some ways this was kind of a "backward" progress, because that one button had to be the smartest button ever because it always knew what you wanted to do. Gestures take longer, and imply the receiving object is a lot dumber.

Anyway, the point is the vision of SW tech is mutable, because it's a legend that bends over time to be relevant to its current audience.

It is safer to have separated systems, this is true in real life as well, so it's no stretch to make PCs have to be "on site" to get anything serious done. But I do allow plenty of research and hacking over the "holonet", which in my interpretation is basically structured like the internet with the same type of redundancy and relays and, under the Empire, subject to Chinese-like control.

This is the "least work" approach. If you have a room full of SW fans who need to know the difference between our tech and SW tech in order to feel a sense of verisimilitude, then it's a lot more work and "analog" doesn't begin to describe it.

I guess we'll see how much of this holds at the end of the year, when VII hits the street. I wonder how much of the "big blocks of blinking buttons" will still be in ships versus bringing a more modern feel into it. Perhaps it will stay nostalgic and feel like the originals, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a more modern feel to some aspects of it. Probably not Jakku... but maybe in some of the places that aren't backwater worlds.

At the OP, basically this:

"Analog" doesn't have anything to do with the 'inter-connectedness' of technology. It literally refers to information (e.g. values, states, etc) stored as in some kind of continuous medium, in contrast to the term 'digital', which indicates information is stored in discrete units, like bytes bits.

A good comparison is clocks: Analog clocks track time as a constantly changing value, e.g. it's only noon for an instant. A digital clock will record noon as "12:00:00 PM", and will hold that value for a whole second, until changing to the next discrete time value 12:00:01. The digital can't see any value between 12:00:00 and 12:00:01, and analog sees a practically infinite values in that range.

So, yeah, using the term 'analog' is meaningless up there.

Edit: It's minor, but I meant 'bits' instead of 'bytes'. A byte is discrete, but it's a composite of other data (8 bits)

Yes, digital information is stored in Binary Code. Ones and Zeros. On or Off. Analog signal is a continuous signal which represents physical measurements. Your classic sine wave of Alternating Current. The Analog signal is always there, with the amplitude changing to give you a different result. That is why some audiophiles love their records, they claim the sound is cleaner and truer to the real thing. My hearing is shot from being around loud diesel and gas turbine engines my adult life, I can barely hear people talking to me, let alone those subtle nuances of a sine wave or digital wave...Anyway, here is a great representation of the what the two waves look like. Sorry, I have a degree in aerospace maintenance and electronics. So for me it's like saying I really like that Star Track movie with those Lifesavers and that Darth Nader guy. Oh, it's called Star Wars...same thing...

For me and my players, why they can't hack TIE Fighters remotely, and they have to plug into stuff; we are happy with, well, it's 1970's spaceoperatechmagicology...

Or... calculator = digital, slide rule = analog Analog computers do exist, and were used a lot before the digital age. Even in the 70's, all big aerospace companies, and agencies like NASA, had huge facilities for their analog computers. They do have a lot of limitations, though, compared to their digital counterparts, which is why digital computers are in such wide usage today.

Now, as for the Star Wars universe uses analog computers, it did first come out at a time when analog computers were still in general use, although the digital personal computer age was just starting at that time (the Apple II, PET, and TRS-80 were all introduced in 1977). So, it may have to do with how George Lucas envisioned computers. Did he see them as Apple II's, as IBM mainframes, or as room-sized monoliths with whirring tape drives and flashing lights? Did his idea of a computer include adjustable knobs and needle gauges (analog) or buttons and switches (digital)?

So, while the OP's terminology might have been a little off, he could have a point. It really depends on what a "computer" was envisioned as when ANH was made.

It is what people thought the future was going to be like in the 70s.

(subtitle: A Future Space Woman from the 50's holding a cleaning product for her home on The Moon)

Yeah, it's the seventies and everyone assumes that we would have Food Pills, Flying Cars and Jet Packs by now. Whatever you imagine now will be wildly inaccurate in 30 years - which is why when Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale made Back to the Future II, he said screw trying to predict what The Future would be like, and just have fun with the setting making 2015 basically a cleaner and more colorful version of 1985.

I wouldn't worry about it. It's part of the Flash Gordon aesthetic that Star Wars draws so heavily on.

[Desslok's Spoiler]

I have response better than this.

Now, as for the Star Wars universe uses analog computers, it did first come out at a time when analog computers were still in general use, although the digital personal computer age was just starting at that time (the Apple II, PET, and TRS-80 were all introduced in 1977). So, it may have to do with how George Lucas envisioned computers. Did he see them as Apple II's, as IBM mainframes, or as room-sized monoliths with whirring tape drives and flashing lights? Did his idea of a computer include adjustable knobs and needle gauges (analog) or buttons and switches (digital)?

So, while the OP's terminology might have been a little off, he could have a point. It really depends on what a "computer" was envisioned as when ANH was made.

Just an FYI, while those computers might have come out in '77, Lucas had written and filmed Star Wars before that. The groundwork for Star Wars started in '71 with a fourth and final script being used for filming in '76.

I've never really understood, why, if the old republic was 1000s of years developed, why some of the tech is so basic. Stuff like the ships, propulsion, buildings and weapons are really high tech, but computers, devices and communications are more primitive than what we have now.

Because when star wars was created no one knew of the internet. Computers were pretty single purpose. etc. So Star wars is what they thought the future would be like.

I remember an episode from Clone Wars that shocked me.

The group went to Mustafar to a hidden location looking for "something" really valuable. A pair of droids were warding the installation and instead use some kind of "wifi" application, they shut down the lights pressing a button from a panel terminal XD

Of course, droids talking between them instead sending info it's another "retro SW thing" XD

Of course, droids talking between them instead sending info it's another "retro SW thing" XD

An open connection for sending data as signals is also an open connection that can get you hacked. Nobody ever hacked into a computer system via voice commands.

On the other hand, all or most of the CIS droids functioned off of wireless commands. In TPM, the droid army shut down when Anakin blew the control ship, and at the end of RotS Sidious directed Vader how to disable droid armies from Mustafar.

I rememberthis becauseI thought of a neat Transformers/Sta Wars crossover,where Soundwave hacks the droid army.

When questioned about tech and tech levels in Star Wars, I explain like this: George Lucas loves pulps, and Star Wars isn't sci-fi.

The action and adventure that you find in the pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s, especially in the sci-fi ones like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, are the underlying tropes of Star Wars. Action and adventure make the story, not the gadgets and gizmos. The tech level that Lucas presented to us in the setting is very much like what you would have seen in the 30s and 40s. It is dieselpunk, if you like that term, which I do. Look at the aesthetics: star destroyers look like WW2 battleships, most of the blasters you see are based off of early to mid 20th century firearms, the sounds starships make are like rumbly rat rods. Star Wars tech is 30s and 40s sci-fi pulp tech for the most part, mixed in with some 70s computer tech to bridge certain gaps in the plots.

The pulps are full of action and adventure. There's no action in hacking into the Deathstar's mainframe from the server room on the Falcon to disable the tractor beam. The action was sneaking into the super, nigh-impregnable depths of the enemy castle and manually throwing the switch.

The pulp magazines featured tales of fighting giant and/or crazy beasts - scenes like fighting a rancor in a dungeon, or narrowly escaping the closing mouth of a giant effing space worm, or wrestling a whatever-the-Heck creature in a trash compactor. Swords! Pulp action loves a good sword fight. Early concepts had all stormtroopers using lightsabers. Magic! There has to be powers/abilities beyond ken. At the very least, there has to be some kind of cultists who believe they have magic.

I think a lot of people understand Star Wars to be sci-fi and therefore it has to be super futuristic and "well, if we have wi-fi and the Internet, Star Wars must have something even more futurtastic..." Star Wars is not sci-fi; it is pulp, retro-futuristic dieselpunk, sci-fantasy.

On the other hand, all or most of the CIS droids functioned off of wireless commands. In TPM, the droid army shut down when Anakin blew the control ship, and at the end of RotS Sidious directed Vader how to disable droid armies from Mustafar.

I rememberthis becauseI thought of a neat Transformers/Sta Wars crossover,where Soundwave hacks the droid army.

Well, a droid army certainly would be connected between all the droids for ease of command.

That doesn't mean all droids everywhere are connected though.

It's just the simplest way to control a large body of droids in unison. You probably couldn't hack into them remotely anyway, you'd have to hack into the control center.