Question about Star Wars Technology

[Master Nikolaos]

O.K, so Star Wars has had the capacity to travel through space, have lightsabers, etc for a very long time(4000 years). How, in that very large period, did technology not grow so exponetially as it should have with so many advances? We know that in the last 100 years on Earth, we've advanced more than in the 5,000 years prior. How can this not be the same in the Star Wars Universe?

[arkodeon]

It may be due to the fact that there may have not been anywhere to expand to.

 

What I mean is, they may have no where for the technology to grow, they may have reached their technological peak. For example, the Hyperdrive might have been optimized so much that only small tweaking and quickening of the drive may be accomplished, no great advancement in Hyperspace technology existed.

 

Or it could be the fact that there was no need for it; they had all the technology they ever needed, and then some. They had the ability to heal the most grave wounds, via Bacta, Kolto, etc. They had superior droids, and they had access to the Entire Galaxy's energy. There may have not been any thought of creating more advancements.

[MachineCult]

O.K, so Star Wars has had the capacity to travel through space, have lightsabers, etc for a very long time(4000 years). How, in that very large period, did technology not grow so exponetially as it should have with so many advances? We know that in the last 100 years on Earth, we've advanced more than in the 5,000 years prior. How can this not be the same in the Star Wars Universe?

Hyperspace travel has been around in the SW universe for 25,000 years as has the Galactic Republic.

The only reason technology has advanced in the last 100 years is because of the Industrial revolution, it sparked all the advances and in a few hundred years it will slow down.

Think of it this way, from 0 AD to 1000 AD or from 1000 to 1500, no remarkable changes, It's like arkodeon said, they have reached the technological peak of the era and until there is another huge revolutionary technological discovery then it will remain the same for years to come.

[Fealiks]

Yes but thats different, now there are much more scientists and technology, now we know how to advance. from 0AD to 1500 AD there were many remarkable changes. Of course there were. The metal age... MUCH more organization and polotics.

 

Nikolaos has a completely valid point. I was about to post a thred exactly the same ! take for instance in BBY 4000 or whatever in KOTOR there were astro droid chassis that looked exactly like R4 in epII &III. It greatly annoys me in KOTOR that everythings the same. You CANNOT argue with Nikolaos by saying "they cant advance anymore" that is absolute ludicracy. Of course they can. In the course of the movies they advanced loads; ship designs and all of that crap, and thats just in 36 years.

[arkodeon]

Yes but thats different, now there are much more scientists and technology, now we know how to advance. from 0AD to 1500 AD there were many remarkable changes. Of course there were. The metal age... MUCH more organization and polotics.

 

Nikolaos has a completely valid point. I was about to post a thred exactly the same ! take for instance in BBY 4000 or whatever in KOTOR there were astro droid chassis that looked exactly like R4 in epII &III. It greatly annoys me in KOTOR that everythings the same. You CANNOT argue with Nikolaos by saying "they cant advance anymore" that is absolute ludicracy. Of course they can. In the course of the movies they advanced loads; ship designs and all of that crap, and thats just in 36 years.

 

From 0 AD to at least 1200, no remarkable changes occured. Sorry, but the collapse of the Roman Empire, and the beginning of the Medieval ages sparked a halt in Scientific technology. It was only in 1200's that the basic scientific method was created.

 

Chassis and function are two different things. Although the droids look like R2 and R4, they both have different functions, and different parts. R2 can hold useful items, and can also store things inside of his body, while I did not witness the droid in the character's party do the same. The Astromech units also differ from these droids in the fact that they are integral parts of a fighter in the era closer to the rise of the Empire. (I am unaware of when the Astromechs were started to be placed into fighters and/or starships.)

 

Political and Organizational reforms are not amazing feats; they happen everyday. Take, for example, Iraq. Just a few years ago, they were dominated by a powerful empire, much like most of Europe in the time before the common era. After they fell, the people fell into a leaderless state, and a new government was installed. However, even after all this was completed, did they discover the secret to life? Did they discover new, exciting weapons?

 

I thought not.

 

And you must realize that the Republic is 25,000 years old, as MachineCult stated. This means they had 25,000 years to make, improve, and find new scientific discovers. That's a long time to find new things.

 

And let's face it, science literally stops during times of extreme crisis, and the military begins to take over. They find improvements on their weapons, but not entirely new weapons to crush the enemy. The only significant change in technology between the discovery of the Star Forge and the Battle of Yavin would be the Death Star, and possibly Cloning the military units. New ship designs, new weapons upgrades...they are not the remarkable advancements we are looking for. They are building on existing technology, not creating new ones.

 

And I have to disagree. Please point out the huge advancements in ship design.

 

Between Episode One and Two, the only advancement was the implementation of the Acclamator into the Republic. The Republic Cruiser, that Tantive looking thing, is a precursor to the Tantive IV, and while the Tantive DOES have weapons, it shares the same principle design.

 

Between Episode Two and Three, the Venator and the Victory become implemented. The Venator and the Victory could be argued to come from designs of the Sith Leviathan from the KotOR era, thus, nothing new. The Venator also shares designs from the Acclamator: its Engines.

 

Between Episode Three and Four, almost nothing new becomes established. The Imperial Star Destroyers are an upgrade, if you will, of the Victory design, and the Venators are phased out completely. (One could argue that the Venator is a more effective design than the Imperial Star Destroyer: Big ship, small fighter compliment, while the Venator could hold its own, and have hundreds of fighters on the battlefield.) The only new improvement is the Death Star, which I had already mentioned.

 

Between Episode Four and Five, nothing is new except for the Super Star Destroyer, again, building on the might of the Imperial Star Destroyer, and borrowing technology and parts from the SD. The Super Star Destroyer isn't as effective as the Imperial Star Destroyer, but is more powerful.

 

Between Episode Five and Six, nothing is new. The Death Star 2 has already been done, nothing new there. It's a clash of existing units.

 

Beyond the movies, we can see drastic changes to the Republic because of outside intervention. The (OMGNO. I can't believe I even mention this. D:) Yuuzhong Vong made Coruscant into their own home, Yuuzhan'Tar, or whatever, and terraformed it. But, as this was an outside force, it cannot be counted against the development of the Republic.

 

I believe the Star Wars Galaxy stopped developing past the year 10,000 (the 10,000th year of the Republic) simply because they did not need to, they reached the barrier of technological development at the time, and they did not have the tools to transcend this barrier. According to a famous scale of Civilization Power, whose name escapes me, the only technological advancement that would be able to take place in the Star Wars Galaxy now would be total Transcendance, the act of the body becoming a higher evolved being.

 

And that's not coming any time soon. ;D

[Master Nikolaos]

Someone needs to write a stroy about how the Republic came to being and list some MAJOR events that would've slowed scientific research down. I mean, today on Earth we are only about 20 years away from the cure to aging, and I asure you that if man kind wanted to create the Death Star or something very similar within a 25,000 year period, they would certainly do it.

 

Perhaps the issue is not as technological; however, as it is political. Killing billions becomes alright after a couple thousand years just like pro choice or pro life abortion? Maybe, and that could explain some 3-4 thousand years. Give war a maximum 10,000 years(based on about how many major wars Earth has had in a 250 year time span which is about 2 per century). There are still 11,000 years left. Any thoughts?

[Darth_Terros]

I dont think anything has slowed them down its just they have nowhere to go now like its been said they are pretty much at the peak of how far they can go technology wise anything now is just slight modifications to already existing technology.

 

And there is no cure for aging.

[Master Nikolaos]

Are you sure there's no cure for aging? Maybe you should look up information on cell division and what makes them divide/ stop dividing/age. Also, if the technology had gone "as far as it could", then the weaponry improvements after the Clone Wars, etc must have come out of thin air.

[Kurgan]

The seeming stagnation is due mostly to authorial intent. Lucas's fantasy galaxy is like Tolkein's Middle Earth. It's a fun way to keep your universe basically unchanging. Sure the government changes hands, but everything pretty much stays the same. The technology changes only in matters of degree. Bigger fleets, bigger ships, more guns, bigger armies. The Death Star is like those little ball turrets on the LAAT, just scaled up by a huge margin, with the necessary power generation and defenses all there for you. A lightsaber is just a frozen blaster bolt or some such fantasy science.

 

Besides, the Star Wars stories only take place over a period of 35 years, tops. Where you get into problems is the Tales of the Jedi series which takes place some 4,000+ years before the movies. They decided to make everything the same as it was in the movies, only dressing people more like New Gods (DC comics series) and giving their tech the decorations of ancient Rome or Egypt (like Stargate). They have all the same stuff.. hyperdrive, lightsabers, blasters, etc. I can't really recall any technology in the movies that they didn't have in TOTJ (and KOTOR). They have planet destroying super weapons too. I don't care if they want to call it some "sith artifact" or what, the point is, it does the same thing. Either they lacked imagination, or they worried that people would not recognize it as Star Wars unless they put in all the same conventions, but they wanted to set it far enough in the past so that they wouldn't have to worry about stomping on the continuity of any of the established characters (of course you get some bungling with the history of the Sith and Republic, but oh well, retcon cannons at the ready, firing with both barrels!).

[arkodeon]

The seeming stagnation is due mostly to authorial intent. Lucas's fantasy galaxy is like Tolkein's Middle Earth. It's a fun way to keep your universe basically unchanging. Sure the government changes hands, but everything pretty much stays the same. The technology changes only in matters of degree. Bigger fleets, bigger ships, more guns, bigger armies. The Death Star is like those little ball turrets on the LAAT, just scaled up by a huge margin, with the necessary power generation and defenses all there for you. A lightsaber is just a frozen blaster bolt or some such fantasy science.

 

Besides, the Star Wars stories only take place over a period of 35 years, tops. Where you get into problems is the Tales of the Jedi series which takes place some 4,000+ years before the movies. They decided to make everything the same as it was in the movies, only dressing people more like New Gods (DC comics series) and giving their tech the decorations of ancient Rome or Egypt (like Stargate). They have all the same stuff.. hyperdrive, lightsabers, blasters, etc. I can't really recall any technology in the movies that they didn't have in TOTJ (and KOTOR). They have planet destroying super weapons too. I don't care if they want to call it some "sith artifact" or what, the point is, it does the same thing. Either they lacked imagination, or they worried that people would not recognize it as Star Wars unless they put in all the same conventions, but they wanted to set it far enough in the past so that they wouldn't have to worry about stomping on the continuity of any of the established characters (of course you get some bungling with the history of the Sith and Republic, but oh well, retcon cannons at the ready, firing with both barrels!).

 

Perhaps you did not read much into the previous posts? Not that that's a bad thing, they ARE pretty long, I apologize for the length. D:

 

Now.

 

We're talking...4,000 Before the Battle of Yavin, right?

 

What happened to the other 21,000 years of the Republic? Did they just...not build anything in that timeframe, or everything was built for them?

 

No.

 

21,000 years is a VERY long time for technology to change, be discovered, and evolve. The reason why the clothing from the year 4,000 BBY is almost the same as the clothing in 1 BBY is because of that timeframe, 25,000 BBY - 4,000 BBY, hypothetically. We virtually know very little about the culture of the Republic before the Knights of the Old Republic, and it seems very liberal to discuss these matters. However, one can argue that the 21,000 years before the events of KotOR culminated into the complete technological society of the Galactic Republic.

 

That said, it seems natural that the same clothing/weapons/technology exists in both eras because they reached the point of stagnation/technological limit. Why mess with a good thing? Why try and discover new weapons, because they basically had EVERYTHING they needed: Droids that did their work, bacta that would heal most wounds (or Kolto, if we refer to KotOR,) and an effective Police Force (READ: Jedi) that solved most, if not all, of the Old Republic's worries, especially during the events before the Battle of Naboo (READ: Stark Hyperspace War.)

 

It seems very illogical for the Old Republic to focus on developing new weapons. Besides the fact that the only new weapon that could be developed would be a System-spanning, even Sector-spanning, destructive weapon, capable of destroying many planets at once, or even a viral/bacterial weapon that would completely destroy a single ship's entire crew, leaving the opposing force to take the wreckage and implement it into their own.

 

But that's besides the point. There would be no need for the Republic to find a way to create such weapons, as they were indeed a completely pacifist government until the time of Chancellor Palpatine. Seeing as they had literally all technology possible, save for the cure for aging (Which may be unable to acquire in any society,) where would the Republic go from there?

 

And you forget, the Death Star is not a rehash of the LAAT, as they use completely different energy sources; the Death Star's being the most rare, and could only be found on Mygeeto, and the beams, while potentially the same, require different workings of technology. The LAAT came out of a single shoot/barrel-like expeller, while the Death Star's laser came out of a dish, and was composed of smaller laser beams.

 

In closing, the Republic simply reached the pinnacle of their society LONG before even the events of KotOR. We cannot attribute the stagnation of the Republic to 'Authorial' devices simply because it is not logical.

[Astrotoy7]

Perhaps you did not read much into the previous posts? Not that that's a bad thing, they ARE pretty long, I apologize for the length. D:

 

lolz....arkodeon, Kurgz was force long posting when you were still a twinkle in your dad's eye

 

as for this debate...

 

Im definitely with Kurgan as far as the comparison with Tolkiens Middle Earth.

 

I'm sure on a LOTR forum somewhere, theres some jacka$$ saying(in elvish of course) "zOMG, Y do3znt teh 3rd ag3 h4v3 1337 c0mPut4z and laz3rZ"

 

the answer is the same for both fictional universes. The spirit of the type of stories being told do not require that type of evolution as far as their creators are concerned.

 

Seriously, if you want to see "older era are accurately dumber" in sci fi : Star Trek(TOS and Enterprise vs TNG/DS9/Voyager)

 

also, dont forget that older/ancient eras arent necessarily less advanced in all things... archeologists still havent figured out how the pyramids were built, for example

 

mtfbwya

[Kurgan]

The problem is, we're meant to assume (via the EU chronology), that the Republic is over 25,000 years old. Even with retcons in place, some kind of GALACTIC Republic has existed all this time. That means at the bare minimum they had to have FTL technology. Otherwise you can't colonize, much less keep any semblance of order or government in a galactic society. A galaxy is a big place after all! So their tech level has to be at least a certain height all this time. Arguably they need other dependant technologies in order to make the FTL stuff work (assuming it's Hyperspace and not some other form long since abandoned), like hypermatter and all that stuff. Likewise the Order of Jedi Knights is supposedly 25,000+ years old. However in the ROTS novel it's made clear that the Jedi Order existed BEFORE the Republic was created (unless that has been retconned to mean just the Republic of the last 1,000 years). Of course that doesnt mean necessarily that they had lightsabers back then, but still.

 

Oh, and we have a fairly good idea how the pyramids were built. We could actually make much better pyramids today. The only thing stopping it from happening is that we have far superier building methods today (the Egyptians could not have hoped to build a skyscraper, since they didn't know how to build with steel and also lacked elevator technology). Sure, stone lasts, but let's face it, we could build one in a shorter time and with more "perfect" stones, the thing is, it would cost so much. Who would want to live in a big pile of rock in the desert that isn't very comfortable (these were tombs after all, not luxury homes), when you could build tons of apartments or houses for the same price?

 

It's actually a common sci fi cliche that all old technology is "built to last." In Star Trek (and Star Wars EU) they are constantly digging up some piece of tech from a bygone era that still runs or suddenly springs to life and threatens everyone. Stuff that looks super primitive in reality is super advanced. Like Flintstones era computers made of rock or something.

[Kurgan]

arkodeon, no offense (and you're entitled to your opinion of course), but as to this:

 

And you forget, the Death Star is not a rehash of the LAAT, as they use completely different energy sources; the Death Star's being the most rare, and could only be found on Mygeeto, and the beams, while potentially the same, require different workings of technology. The LAAT came out of a single shoot/barrel-like expeller, while the Death Star's laser came out of a dish, and was composed of smaller laser beams.

 

I don't know what EU retcons you're reading or where you're getting that, but I'm talking about a direct comparison from the movies. Blaster shots for the most part are red "bolts" (though green is more common for starship level weaponry, used by the Empire). The Death Star has a bunch of smaller green BEAMS that form into one larger green beam that fires in and causes massive destruction. It looks more like a Star Trek phaser than the typical "energy bullets" of Star Wars. Look at the LAAT ball turrets. They fire a series of smaller green beams that form into a larger green beam that sweeps in the destruction. Hmm... looks familiar! A similar technology is used on the Republic thanks (the ones with lots of tiny legs on the bottom). The guns fire a few smaller beams that form into a large blue beam. And even without an exact comparison of the pics, you can see the older weapons also employ a "dish" of sorts on the gun end.

 

The only difference I see here is one of scale. The Death Star does not represent a breakthrough in new weapons technology. It's merely a HUGE version of these early energy beam weapons. Sort of like how a cannon is based on the technology of a pistol, only much larger and much more powerful as a result. Sure, it is a new application of existing technology. They had energy beams mounted on Capital Ships as seen in ROTS during the battle over coruscant (powerful enough to shear another starship in half). They had large vessels, but the Death Stars are truly huge. So they had to keep the structural integrity even during FTL travel. Planetary shields they already had as well (at least contemporary with the first Death Star, if not before, per movie evidence), which is just a larger application of theater shield technology (which even the Gungans, a supposedly "primitive" culture had access to).

 

Also, remember that according to AOTC, the Geonosians planned to build the Death Star, so it wasn't something the Empire came up with through some amazing new discovery.

 

The sun crusher is supposedly a bunch of new tech, but it was created in the EU and suggested to have been built during the time of the Empire and was just never used and forgotten about. The World Devestaters use technology similar to construction droids just on a much larger scale (both EU inventions of course, but you see the pattern developing?).

 

Other than the Sun Crusher, really all this stuff is old stuff used in new ways, it's not a radical breakthrough.

 

Also, one last nitpick, there is no actual "year zero" in the BC/AD dating system. The years decrease until you get to AD 1 (the traditional date of Christ's birth) and then after that it increases. That is why the centuries before Christ are labelled with the number, while the ones after are one off (so we're in the 21st century AD now, when the year is in the 2000's, but the 21st century BC would have been 2100's).

[Astrotoy7]

OMG. Double FLP. C'mon Kurgz, you'll tear VB3 to shreds if you keep that up

 

with regards to the Death Star and the Geonosians... that's a real "chicken and egg" scenario !

 

*The Geonosians helped design the DS1 for the Separatist Movement, to further their aims in freeing themselves from the constraints of the Republic.

*The Separatist movement was of course controlled by the sith, who used it as a springbaord to create a clone army and implement the jedi purge. So basically, the sith have been behind the idea of a weapon like the DS, and have used their agents to propagate the idea into a reality.

 

There is an upcoming book on the DS....it will hopefully tie together the different loose ends about its creation and construction...

 

BC abd AD are outdated Kurgz. Use them in a History term paper and you'll get fried !! its BCE and CE. Expl. Although they are chronologically equivalent

 

I've never liked the notion of a 25,000 year old Republic. This figure was basically first introduced in Shatterpoint Before this, there was the assumption based on the original KOTOR era comics that it was moreso 5000 BBY, which describes the Great Hyperspace War

 

The 25,000 BBY figure has been attributed to the introduction of hyperspace travel - not necessarily the formation of a huge centrally organsied galactic government. Those details simply do not exist.

 

Since hyperspace lanes hadnt been fully mapped out... the "Galactic" Republic would hardly have been that... but its Legit

also, CUSWE Entry for further background.

 

mtfbwya

[MachineCult]

We're talking...4,000 Before the Battle of Yavin, right?

 

What happened to the other 21,000 years of the Republic? Did they just...not build anything in that timeframe, or everything was built for them?

I don't think anything happened in the first 20,000 years, just peace until the Sith rose and tried to destroy the Jedi.

 

And you forget, the Death Star is not a rehash of the LAAT, as they use completely different energy sources; the Death Star's being the most rare, and could only be found on Mygeeto, and the beams, while potentially the same, require different workings of technology. The LAAT came out of a single shoot/barrel-like expeller, while the Death Star's laser came out of a dish, and was composed of smaller laser beams.

You are wrong. Look closer and you will see that the LAAT beam weapons are just like the Death Stars superlaser, and don't come out of a barrel.

The only reason they needed a rare energy source is because of the immense power required.

 

The 25,000 BBY figure has been attributed to the introduction of hyperspace travel - not necessarily the formation of a huge centrally organsied galactic government. Those details simply do not exist.

It is said in KotOR that 25,000 BBY there was the discovery of hyperspace and consequently the formation of the republic.

[arkodeon]

 

You are wrong. Look closer and you will see that the LAAT beam weapons are just like the Death Stars superlaser, and don't come out of a barrel.

The only reason they needed a rare energy source is because of the immense power required.

 

Mhmm, I did, and I did in fact see a Death Star mini-laser. With Battlefront 2, I guess I just assumed it was that way. Sorry about that.

[Kurgan]

OMG. Double FLP. C'mon Kurgz, you'll tear VB3 to shreds if you keep that up

 

Double FLP? That's a new one. Kids these days with their ghetto-jive-slang-lingo and hoola hoops!

 

with regards to the Death Star and the Geonosians... that's a real "chicken and egg" scenario !

 

*The Geonosians helped design the DS1 for the Separatist Movement, to further their aims in freeing themselves from the constraints of the Republic.

*The Separatist movement was of course controlled by the sith, who used it as a springbaord to create a clone army and implement the jedi purge. So basically, the sith have been behind the idea of a weapon like the DS, and have used their agents to propagate the idea into a reality.

 

There is an upcoming book on the DS....it will hopefully tie together the different loose ends about its creation and construction...

 

I suppose, but can every action of anyone in the CIS be attributed to the actions of the Sith? My point was that the "common knowledge" that the Empire invented the Death Star has been (necessarily) retconned, and I'd heard about that upcoming source. Makes sense they'd need to release that to explain it.

 

BC abd AD are outdated Kurgz. Use them in a History term paper and you'll get fried !! its BCE and CE. Expl. Although they are chronologically equivalent

 

As I stated already, we use 'em too, that doesn't mean I can't make a correction on the equally useful terms. Everybody knows what you're talking about in the end. BCE/CE has no "year zero" either, and still has the same number of years off as the other system, since (as you say) it's equivalent, just an attempt at political correctness.

 

I've never liked the notion of a 25,000 year old Republic. This figure was basically first introduced in Shatterpoint Before this, there was the assumption based on the original KOTOR era comics that it was moreso 5000 BBY, which describes the Great Hyperspace War

 

It's always been an assumption based on an interpretation of Ben Kenobi's "for over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic..." from Star Wars (1977). They interpreted a "generation" as 25 years, and multiplied it times 1,000, hence the number.

 

The 25,000 BBY figure has been attributed to the introduction of hyperspace travel - not necessarily the formation of a huge centrally organsied galactic government. Those details simply do not exist.

 

I'm just saying you can't have a galactic civilization without some kind of FTL travel. It just wouldn't be possible. Even the literalist interpretation of Ben's line wouldn't necessitate that the Jedi and the Republic both came into existence at the same time of course (and even the ROTS retcons assume the Jedi Order predated the Republic).

 

Since hyperspace lanes hadnt been fully mapped out... the "Galactic" Republic would hardly have been that... but its Legit

also, CUSWE Entry for further background.

 

mtfbwya

 

But Hyperspace lanes don't prevent hyperspace travel (otherwise where would you ever start?) they just make it safer. If there's nothing in your way, you can go faster without worries, and such. It's not like your hyperdrive stops working without a "lane" (which is an EU invention anyway). You just have a navicomputer to calculate the jump. Or you could use a force sensitive to use precog to plot a safe path (a la Dune). Without FTL, having your "galactic republic" is the equivalent of saying "I claim the planet Mars for Spain!" before the invention of rocketry. It's a meaningless statement.

[MachineCult]

Double FLP? That's a new one. Kids these days with their ghetto-jive-slang-lingo and hoola hoops!

I'm gonna take a guess an say F***ing Long Post...

[Jan Gaarni]

Actually, I think it's Force Long Posts.

 

That does ring a bell inside my head more than F***ing Long Post.

[Kurgan]

Maybe BFP (Big Fluffy Posts) should be the New Thing ?

 

Nah, just say Force Long Post and I'm happy.

[arkodeon]

 

It's always been an assumption based on an interpretation of Ben Kenobi's "for over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic..." from Star Wars (1977). They interpreted a "generation" as 25 years, and multiplied it times 1,000, hence the number.

 

I could be wrong, but I think the more literal reference would be to the Ruusan Reformation, 1,000 years before the events of the Death Star and Yavin, where the Jedi and Sith duked it out, and the Sith 'lost,' and the Republic dropped all of their armies and allowed the Jedi to protect the Republic.

 

Which makes sense, if you look at Kenobi's comment. He says the whole Thousand Years, Jedi Protectors thing, and it coincides with the Ruusan Reformation, which could be a Retcon. The Republic disbanded armies, Jedi became the protectors, that sort of thing.

[Kurgan]

I could be wrong, but I think the more literal reference would be to the Ruusan Reformation, 1,000 years before the events of the Death Star and Yavin, where the Jedi and Sith duked it out, and the Sith 'lost,' and the Republic dropped all of their armies and allowed the Jedi to protect the Republic.

 

Which makes sense, if you look at Kenobi's comment. He says the whole Thousand Years, Jedi Protectors thing, and it coincides with the Ruusan Reformation, which could be a Retcon. The Republic disbanded armies, Jedi became the protectors, that sort of thing.

 

That's not a "literal" reference. That is backstory that's been created to retcon the contradiction introduced in AOTC, wherein Palpatine says "I will not let this Republic, which has stood for a thousand years be split in two."

And just in case people chalk that up as a slip of the tongue by Palpatine or some kind of subtle Sith propaganda, the ROTS novel repeats on several occasions that the Old Republic is 1,000 years old, by members of the Loyalist committee and members of the Jedi Council.

 

I don't have a problem with the fact that the EU literally says the Reformation happened, but let's admit the fact that it's a retcon. None of these events were ever mentioned in the films or even implied. It was never assumed there was more than one Republic until AOTC came out. The Sith being a breakaway Jedi sect 1,000 years before TPM was also introduced in the TPM novel. Before that the EU had an entire backstory for the Sith that had to be retconned (Tales of the Jedi comics). All we know from TPM (that we didn't know before) is that they Sith were thought extinct for a millennium.

 

Anyway, not to criticize you for pointing out the Rusaan Reformation, just to define what I meant by "literal" and why people assumed a 25,000+ year old Republic. The early written materials only implied that the Republic was big and really old before they started throwing dates at us. Kenobi's comment implies that "for over a thousand generations" the old Republic and the Jedi existed together. The "literal" interpretation was why the comics gave us stories taking place 4 or 5 thousand years before the movies with the Jedi as defenders of the Old Republic. If the Old Republic didn't exist back then, the stories would be de-canonized. They wanted to keep the stories in continuity, so the retcons began.

 

Even the TPM stuff had to be retconned, so that it was just a resurrgence of the Sith or something, since the novel basically spells out that the first Sith emerged 1,000 years ago, which again poses a problem for the stories depicting Sith and Jedi fighting 3 or 4 thousand years too early.

 

Sorry to get off topic... but yes, if the comics didn't exist, most of the problem could much more easily be ignored. Or they could have said the TOTJ and KOTOR stories were just legends, like the tales of Robin Hood, or King Arthur and his Knights.

[Kensai]

Isn't another reason for the continuity in technology perhaps because of a downgrading or degradation throughout both the movies and previous story arcs...

 

I thought the technology went downhill from the beginning of the trilogy to the end, ep 1-6, where things such as droids were replaced by human clones, R2's round head was replaced with that square R4 thing among other things.

 

I think this is apparent in the whole scope of known EU stories also, for instance KOTOR's technology looks on par if not superior to the one seen in the movies.

[Astrotoy7]

damn, I forgot the thousand generations biz Blast The Great Hyperspace war for putting that 5000 year imprint into my brain

 

"Force Long Post" it is indeed. And thus, I have another ooportunity to use this w00t !

 

[align=center][/align]

 

mtfbwya

[arkodeon]

I've just been reading up on the 'One thousand Generations' thing.

 

It seems that you were right about the Generations being translated into 25 years, which makes sense, because a generation does not come into existence every year. So at the time of Episode IV, the Republic was meant to be 25,000 years, but the contradiction only came in Episode II.

 

http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Galactic_Republic#Behind_the_scenes