New Years Resolution: Last tech thread

By Leia Hourglass, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

I’ve been obsessing over technology in Star Wars since 2011. 2020 is coming next week and I want to quit this obsession and stop pestering people on this forum and other forums for stimuli. My therapist is next to useless. I’m on the highest amount of meds for OCD but it is a very powerful disorder. I’ve never been this addicted to something. I just love speculative science and I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was 6. Literally 20 years. That’s fine but this 9 year old obsession needs to end. I’m not going to post on this forum anymore unless it’s something unrelated to tech. I just need to close the book. I need something in my head to hold onto when I think about the scientists in Star Wars and what they are working on. Here’s what I know.

-FTL Tech is extremely mature and almost equivalent to an internal combustion engine.

-Matter replicators, Time machines and Teleporters do NOT exist in canon and since those 3 things are wants that any sentient being would dream of since the beginning of time (free food, undoing past mistakes, saving energy traveling), the fact that they don’t exist leads me to believe they tried (many times possibly) and they just can’t achieve it with technology. Through the Force though; it is possible.

Star Wars has nanotech but never anything smaller. I don’t think that pico and femtotech is possible because of midichlorians. Things that go even smaller than nano are just not in the realm of science.

Anti-aging doesn’t really work either or Plaugeis wouldn’t have strived for it.

Simulated reality like the Matrix is possible but it’s very likely they achieved it, it was a fad for a couple of decades and then determined to be unhealthy and fell out of popularity.

Instant knowledge is available in flash training but it is likely expensive and school is viewed as a healthier way to learn.

Lastly dark energy and dark matter are well known and dark energy/quintessence is harvested for Starkiller Base’s solar system obliterater

With all that being said “ What do you think scientists are working on at the end of the Sequel Trilogy?”

Edited by Leia Hourglass
13 hours ago, Leia Hourglass said:

With all that being said “ What do you think scientists are working on at the end of the Sequel Trilogy?”

Probably a superlaser that can be mounted on a TIE fighter and be used to collapse a star. 🙄

In Star Wars, tech advancement generally means bigger ships+bigger guns (or bigger guns on smaller ships) and that's about it. Just one more reason why I don't like the Old Republic era. It sort of kills all tech advancement, and when you think about it, the galaxy backslides in many categories. The most blatant example is personal deflector shields, which were pretty much ubiquitous in the Old Republic era becoming super-rare tech in the contemporary eras of Star Wars.

As far as mass consumption tech, or actual innovation? We don't see much of that at all in Star Wars aside from military tech, and that only occasionally.

Its pretty obvious to me that short of old natural cures (Bacta and Kolto) and good prosthetics the medical field of Star Wars has always been lacking. Padme dies in childbirth for goodness sake, but we've been traveling faster than light for 4000 years.

Wifi isn't seen in any movie. I.E. the holonet never really appears on datapads, only intranet that could be Bluetooth.

Exploration of the unknown regions. As time has gone on, more of the galaxy has been explored, but far from all.

Mining and farming equipment can always be more efficient and less expensive.

Keep in mind that even though a tech exists it will always advance and become smaller, cheaper, lighter over time. Personal shields and cloaking devices come to mind.

Given that we have seen the destruction of planets (Death Star/Starkiller Base) I assume that most core world planets (the only ones who could reasonably afford it) are researching planet size shield arrays and defenses. The shield on Scarif could only stop ships.

Given the amount of war, destruction and resources lost/unusable, I expect recycling is a big business in Star Wars. Where business is money and innovation usually follow. See this Reddit post for a good summary. https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/4okn9g/star_wars_why_technology_never_seems_to_advance/

I know that a lot of this tech has been small-scale, so how about Moveable Planets? The Death Star gave rise to Starkiller Base. Now create a planet (probably corporation owned, hi Czerka) that has plants, animals, farms, towns, cities, that can be moved anywhere. I can see it as a mining operation that moves into a system, feeds and supports itself using everything and everyone on the Movable Planet, while the system is mined out completely over a series of years. Then the whole operation moves to a different system on board the planet. Completely vertically integrated so that people are born, work, live and die as part of the system. The mining equipment is manufactured using the mined materials, Farming feeds the workforce, smelting and refining and manufacturing any needs is done on planet. They could even manufacture their own equipment using mined materials so that they need to import only rare items that cannot be mined or grown. An entire mobile society that exists to turn a profit for the corporation with anything not consumed by maintaining the society.

And of course navigational chart prediction models. Don't have the latest start chart? Congrats, you just flew too close to a star and fried your ship. In a universe where everything is moving relative to everything else, those charts and astrogation data are worth their weight in kyber crystals.

Also worth reading: https://www.tor.com/2019/09/12/all-technology-in-the-star-wars-universe-is-designed-for-death/

2 minutes ago, GM_Needs_A_Xanex said:

Padme dies in childbirth for goodness sake, but we've been traveling faster than light for 4000 years.

She is reputed to have died of either a "broken heart" from Anakin turning to the Dark Side or from Palpatine draining her life force to keep Vader alive. (the latter is my preference)

31 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

In Star Wars, tech advancement generally means bigger ships+bigger guns (or bigger guns on smaller ships) and that's about it. Just one more reason why I don't like the Old Republic era. It sort of kills all tech advancement, and when you think about it, the galaxy backslides in many categories. The most blatant example is personal deflector shields, which were pretty much ubiquitous in the Old Republic era becoming super-rare tech in the contemporary eras of Star Wars.

This is answered pretty well by this post. https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/4okn9g/star_wars_why_technology_never_seems_to_advance/

Edited by GM_Needs_A_Xanex
1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Probably a superlaser that can be mounted on a TIE fighter and be used to collapse a star. 🙄

I was thinking a holdout blaster pistol that could do that would be cool. ;)

40 minutes ago, Vondy said:

I was thinking a holdout blaster pistol that could do that would be cool. ;)

At that point why not make it a gauntlet, Thanos.

2 hours ago, GM_Needs_A_Xanex said:

Given that we have seen the destruction of planets (Death Star/Starkiller Base) I assume that most core world planets (the only ones who could reasonably afford it) are researching planet size shield arrays and defenses. The shield on Scarif could only stop ships.

Lorewise pretty much all core worlds have planet enveloping shield arrays and defenses. The true terror of the Death Star wasn't just blowing up planets, it was blowing up planets regardless of defenses. Alderaan is supposed to have had their shield up and running, but it only halted the destruction by maybe half a second.

Just now, Darth Revenant said:

Lorewise pretty much all core worlds have planet enveloping shield arrays and defenses. The true terror of the Death Star wasn't just blowing up planets, it was blowing up planets regardless of defenses. Alderaan is supposed to have had their shield up and running, but it only halted the destruction by maybe half a second.

Good call on the lore. Exactly what I was trying to suggest with Scarif. If I was any planetary government I would try to be building a better shield that could block the superlasers. If such a shield is even possible because, well, who knows when it comes to something powerful enough to destroy a planet. (Classic arms race between weapons and defensive options)

On VR, I wouldn't remotely think it out of place for a Star Wars story to find a civilization of [url= https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lotus-Eater ]lotus-eaters[/url] hooked up to it on an undiscovered planet. Virtual reality existed in some form back in the real canon.