takes place 3000 years BEFORE Star Wars?

[panacebo]

Lack of technological advancement I get. I understand how FTL drives could be considered practically the pinnacle of technology in this universe.

 

What I DONT like is how the buildings (see senate, jedi temple on corsuscant), clothing (see imperial officers) and starhips ( see star destroyers) can look exactly the same between both time periods. I understand what they were trying to do but at the end of the day it really just seems likes lazy design when there were almost limitless creative possibilities. KOTOR did a much better job of creating its own look.

 

For IMO the best example of how this time period ought to look, check out tales of the jedi or google image search the great hyperspace war. There's some truly amazing art out there that really gives you a sense of a "medieval" version of the star wars universe.

 

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/e/e2/Battle_of_Coruscant_(Great_Hyperspace_War).jpg

[Jilla]

ITS CALLED A FRIGGIN TECHNOLOGICAL PLATEAU. I'm getting annoyed having to explain this to people. You can't advance any further when you're at the pinnacle of technology.

 

I get it. Well, I googled it and read about past plateaus in history. It's pretty interesting stuff and I can see how this could be the case. They also seemed to have reach a cultural plateau too.

 

 

 

My take on it is while it's fun to debate this stuff, in the end it's a story someone made up in the first place. So you just have to have a little "Suspension of disbelief" and enjoy the ride.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Jilla

[Revelationjp]

That actually doesn't make sense.

That's like saying "Instead of running the Boston Marathon in 26.2 miles, I did it in 10!"

The assumption is that the Kessle run is a specific route/distance. If you do it in a shorter distance you're not doing the same run, hence you can't measure the success of it in terms of length.

Sure it does. The kessel run was a smuggling run where one whould go to kessel, pick up a load of spice, then take it to the originating port (i forget where). So the theory goes that Han had found a unique route that gave him an edge over his competition, thus the "make the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" line. It's not cheating, it's being a better smuggler.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Revelationjp

[Dalenaria]

In the UK the Romans introduced underfloor heating, running water and some of the best roads possible, then the roman empire collapsed and we returned to what they call the Dark ages, where very little is documented and the country took a step backward. in 1066 ( 1 thousand years later ish ) some Nice french dudes invaded and the medieval period started ..

 

...and batteries, don't forget Roman's had also created batteries and steam powered engines before the collapse. Then everything was lost and it was another piece of time before we learned all this stuff over again. Meaning? Technological achievements go backwards, forwards, and stationary, there is just no accounting for what crazy people will do.

[ErikModi]

This debate has been brought up rather frequently on various Star Wars boards since the first Knights of the Old Republic game came out, and indeed this is the third time I've replied to it on these boards.

 

The fact is, sooner or later you will hit a point where technology simply can't improve. A poster on the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG boards described it thus:

 

Take a processor for a computer. The speed of the processor is dependent on how quickly it can move the data, transmitted as packets of electrons, through its conductors. With better materials and manufacturing, you can increase this speed and efficiency. However, you will eventually reach a point where you have the most efficient conductors and best manufacturing methods that the laws of physics will allow, and thus you simply cannot make a processor work any faster. Even if you could somehow still increase the speed at which the electrons travel through said processor, eventually you will hit another wall. . . the speed of the electrons themselves. Eventually, the fundamental laws by which the universe works will prevent you from making anything appreciably better. Even the Death Star wasn't any great technological leap, it was based on fundamentally the same technology that made Han's blaster work. The only difference was in scale.

[RoadtoArkham]

I can't imagine it's easy to progress when one half of a religious sect tends to appear out of the past and engage in great wars with the other, at regular intervals.

 

It could be that the constant conflict between the Jedi and Sith are stunting the cultural and technological advancement of the Star Wars Universe.

[Jaysun]

Actually, did you?

 

 

You're talking about a period where some of the biggest technological upgrades is going from bronze to iron and learning stone walls keeps the vikings out.

 

You're talking about a period that the greeks and roman discoveries were locked away in libraries that couldn't be a use to anybody.

 

You're talking about a period when algebra was the pinnacle of mathematics.

 

 

 

Before the ideas of free trade, physics and calculus technology was at basically a standstill with small discoveries and inventions here and there.

 

 

while I agree.. its not totally true.. 10-20,000 years ago 'man' had technology/math/weapons that rival ours now and were 'lost' .(there is an 'iron' mononith in India that is over 4000 years old and has never rusted nor corroded..ever we can'tt make this alloy now..

 

. then man went back to living in caves only to get where are now

 

but in regard to the SW universe.. its not just one planet but thousands of planets 'republic' I've made the same arguments as well..

 

our technology will be far superior to SW universe in a far shorter time..

 

look at what we've done in the past 100, 50, and even 25 years..

 

in 10,000 providing we don't destroy our species and/or meet a superior xenophobic alien species.. our technology will be far superior and humans will be living 200 years as a norm

[Pirate_Ron]

That actually doesn't make sense.

That's like saying "Instead of running the Boston Marathon in 26.2 miles, I did it in 10!"

The assumption is that the Kessle run is a specific route/distance. If you do it in a shorter distance you're not doing the same run, hence you can't measure the success of it in terms of length.

 

you're thinking about this wrong. A Marathon is 26.2 miles. If you don't run the entire length you didn't run a marathon. The Kessel Run is a route from Point A to Point D via points C and D that takes 18 parsecs of distance to travel. Han's navigation computer and engines allowed his ship to get from point A to point D and bypass points C and D because he could maneuver closer to dangerous black holes. Think more of it in terms of mpg. A normal person can do the kessel run in 1.8 gallons, and Han did it with 1.2.

[MCerberus]

I could have sworn it was a point that the SW universe had technology creeping backwards partially BECAUSE of all the stuff going on.

[JonnnyB]

In the UK the Romans introduced underfloor heating, running water and some of the best roads possible, then the roman empire collapsed and we returned to what they call the Dark ages, where very little is documented and the country took a step backward. in 1066 ( 1 thousand years later ish ) some Nice french dudes invaded and the medieval period started ..

 

Sure some technology was lost during the dark ages but it was not the total collapse that pop culture would have people believe. All the technology and knowledge of the Roman Empire lived on in the east until the last bits of the Roman Empire died in the 1400s. By that time their knowledge had been passed to and expanded upon by the Arab powers of the day (Turks et al.).

 

The only reason technology in TOR is so similar is for story telling reasons. We can all play in the Star Wars universe without having to bump into previously made stories. There is no logic to thousands of years of galaxy-wide stagnation. None.

[Omnitheo]

During the republic Dark Ages which take place 1000 years after this game, the republic declines so much, that it can't even maintain the holonet outside of the core worlds.

 

Either way, think of just about any fantasy out there, Even Lord of the Rings had ancient civilizations thousands of years in the past. Where is the advancement of technology over the centuries in that lore?

[Padawanlearning]

To those people claiming fashion and aesthethics can't stay the same for thousands of years, you only have to look at prehistoric art ( pictures on cavewalls, fertility statues of women with big hips, etc.) and whe're talking about tenthousands of years here or at ancient egyptian art ( because I can't honestly see the diffrence between the depictions of peasants at the very beggining of egyptian art and peasant depictions at the time of Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of egypt) and whe're talking about around 2500 years ( give or take a few centuries, can't remember the exact amount of time this empire existed) and in the case of Egypt it went through about 3 cultural blooms ( the old, the middle and the new kingdom ).

 

So we have real world evidence for the idea that fashion and aesthetics can remain largly the same, so I can certainly see it happening in Sat Wars.

[PicklesJohnson]

Well considering the length of time the Star Wars Galaxy has had FTL travel, the weapons, the medical sciences, and if one would look at the timeline in says Wookieepedia.com you could see a good breakdown of space travel. I mean much of the Galaxy has had Galactic Integration for many millenia, i.e., 200,000 BBY time line setting for Coruscant becoming Galactic City.

 

Three thousand years in that amount of time is really not much.

 

The thing I find that makes me sad, is how backwards and savage our own advancement is compared to that displayed if we even have issues with moon missions. But given us if we had a million years as a species to evolve things could interesting.

 

This also is not denoting science and the debates on FTL travel as well, with what we know, it doesn't seem possible. But because we can't do it, doesnt mean it doesnt exist and the term I am sure many have heard before, "We don't know what we don't know." All I can say is that one day I hope we do know and we can advance into that kind of Golden Age of Galactic travel.

[Cozur]

Yes. People will come out with excuses like TECHNOLOGICAL PINNACLES or what ever, but the main reason will be that Lucas will have told them to do it this way, and it doesnt make much sense, they just wanted people to be able to relate to the movies. i.e baddies shoot green and fly TIE fighters, goodies shoot red, star destroyers, gold droids, R2 units etc.

 

Edit : Beaten to it.

 

Things dont stay in fashion for 3000 years.

 

Also, there are plenty of reasons given in the EU. But I guess that making a Lucas rant is more fun.

[Rikalonius]

Yes. People will come out with excuses like TECHNOLOGICAL PINNACLES or what ever, but the main reason will be that Lucas will have told them to do it this way, and it doesnt make much sense, they just wanted people to be able to relate to the movies. i.e baddies shoot green and fly TIE fighters, goodies shoot red, star destroyers, gold droids, R2 units etc.

 

Edit : Beaten to it.

 

Things dont stay in fashion for 3000 years.

 

No, but they return to fashion in cycles. So, maybe it's a return t fashion.

 

Yes, we all know it a visual que to apeal to established lore. We also know it gets brough up about once a day and it gets really monotonus. Rule of thumb, if you've thought of it, probably a crapton of other people have too.

[ptoss]

The technology advanced.

 

You just don't see it because it's too expensive - search Death Star on google.

[Nizzemancer]

and you cannot hear sound in the vacuum of space so no pew pew

 

You can if your ship is producing the sound as a sensory output.

[DarkestDaemon]

Yes. People will come out with excuses like TECHNOLOGICAL PINNACLES or what ever, but the main reason will be that Lucas will have told them to do it this way, and it doesnt make much sense, they just wanted people to be able to relate to the movies. i.e baddies shoot green and fly TIE fighters, goodies shoot red, star destroyers, gold droids, R2 units etc.

 

Edit : Beaten to it.

 

Things dont stay in fashion for 3000 years.

 

Swords, clubs, axes, bows and arrows and crossbows would all like a word with you.

[Sai-to]

The logical explanation would be Technology plateau. Theoretically, once you get to a certain point, technology really can't go anywhere except to refine what you have.

 

The actual explanation is that it's Star Wars... things are supposed to be similar to have the same feeling. Would you really feel "star wars like" if you were shooting a Slugthrower, rather than a blaster?

 

The lore of Star Wars is that hyperdrive technology became widely used 25,000 years ago. Crude blaster and lightsaber technology developed around that time as well. Then they hit a plateau where you can't really make new and better things... but they could just make improvements upon existing tech.

[Golar]

Everyone is rushing to defend Star Wars' technology from the angle of a plateau or pinnacle, but the truth is, Star Wars is an intellectual property, and many of the similarities between this universe's and the movie universes are going to be down to stylistic decisions made in production. Take away everything that is Star Wars in order to accurately depict a vastly different past, and you no longer have Star Wars.

 

Also, consider that technologies are forgotten, destroyed, stolen etc. This is Star Wars for a reason, and that's what war does. It destroys and rebuilds and destroys and rebuilds.

 

Part of the philosophy of the Force is the idea of the cycle of life, so it would make sense for there to be visual similarities between a Republic of the past and that of the present.

 

Since a staggering majority of the Western world still believes in a 2000 year old religion, bringing with it all the symbolism that entails, crosses etc. it stands up to scrutiny that certain design principles might become engraved into a culture. Like for example, the triangular design of the Imperial starships, or the grey Imperial uniforms, or Jedi robes. It's only like someone designing a piece of technology and fashioning it to look like something ancient Egyptian or Greek. There are plenty of things we have whose visual design we owe to our ancient ancestors.

[Krusedullfaen]

Cars may have changed a lot since they were first introduced, but they still have four wheels and the same basic shape for the most part.

[Darth_Romana]

................what then? For 3000 years nobody could come up with better/different technology? I'm to expect the ships basically all look the same 3000 years before star wars? C2N2 is C3PO's great great great great great great great great uncle? Looks like they could be brothers.

 

Just sayin'

 

When the first ancient era Star Wars was seen, in series such as 'Tales of the Jedi' there design style attempted a more renaissance era Star Wars look, as you can see in this image for example, but fans generally wanted the traditional star wars feel. So when it came to KotOR they went for a far more traditional star wars feel.

 

But then these droids clearly aren't as advanced, since HK-47 prodical droid functions only allowed him to speak around 50,000 languages, where as C-3p0 could speak like 6 million.

 

They dont seem not to have discoved anyway to improve holo-communication by A New Hope, they're signal appears no better.

 

 

Swords, clubs, axes, bows and arrows and crossbows would all like a word with you.

 

Perhaps; but they've more or less gone out of fashion now. Guns don't look like they're going to get the 3500 years innings that the sword got. I wonder what will come after nuclear weapons....

 

Cars may have changed a lot since they were first introduced, but they still have four wheels and the same basic shape for the most part.

 

Oh yes, they're very similar- the first ford car, a current ford car.

 

Yet star destoryers changed far far more in those 3000 years, just look! A Cold War era Star Destroyer, a Clone Wars era Star Destroyer. In 3000 years, they managed to develop a way to fill in that gap at the ships bow.

 

But your right, cars still have almost exactly the same shapell! I joke...

Edited January 16, 2012 by Darth_Romana

[DarkestDaemon]

Perhaps; but they've more or less gone out of fashion now. Guns don't look like they're going to get the 3500 years innings that the sword got. I wonder what will come after nuclear weapons....

 

While true, the weapons did last a long time, I believe crossbows were still being employed as home defense even during the time of the firearm. But we also keep finding new and better ways to kill ourselves... while in Star Wars, I can't really think of ways they could advance their tech.

[Esauru]

To be entirely honest it is HARD for either side to have any breakthrough for the

3000 years.

 

In 3000 years, what has happened? Throughout this time, The Sith are still killing one

another, still screwing the empire over with their internal squabbles. They do screw

themselves to some pretty severe extent. Then the Republic has a bunch of people

working for the Empire in secret, there is the Senate who ALSO has their own destructive

political games. Put this in circles, it's a vicious cycle of screwing themselves WHILE trying

to screw one another. So really all the spare time they have is to make WORLD DESTROYERS as the only plausible solution to "wipe" out enemies, so it just comes down to

who has the better world destroyer. Note though one of the posters mention how

EP 4, 5, 6 had only single saber users while EP 1, 2 ,3 had dual wield and twin sabers.

 

There are scarier sabers out there, Maris Brood had her "Nightstick" Dual sabers.

Then there's the "Light"whip which is basically a lightsaber WITH WHIPs..

And really I see the only technological improvement that brought forth enough

significance is from using swords to real Lightsabers. O.o

[-sasori]

I personally don't think it's the "Technology plateau" issue in SW. It's more or less an issue about passing and maintaining "knowledge".

 

And most used main technologies are just "used" but not developed or constructed.

One side story arc on Coruscant pretty much showed it.

 

No one really understands those machines anymore, but they know hot to keep them running.

Everyone knows hot to fuel his car, but almost no one could create one from scratch, now add the size and complexity that it may would require more than one mans lifetime just to "spreadsheet" it, and you are basically asking for the knowledge to be lost unless you maintain a whole division dedicated to that knowledge alone.

 

 

And having millenia old alien technology in a lost language and culture does not make things any easier.

 

(Having huge Monsters who devour whole planets isn't helpfull either)

 

Since there is so much technology which is rediscovered all the time, i doubt there is much time left to really advance. Since by that time they already forgot something else which they need to rediscover.

Edited January 16, 2012 by -sasori