posted
I've read several reviews and interviews about this game. It takes place 4,000 years before the movies. While the game itself looks beautiful, it makes me wonder about the lack of technological evolution throughout Star Wars. I assume it's going to have roughly the same bunch of Force powers as everything else has. And, of course, the lightsabers, Sith and Jedi Knights. It also has plenty of advanced robots and androids. The thing is, it's 4,000 years before anything else and nothing's really different. I mean in the sense of the actual universe, not the technology of the game. I realize that not everything advances rapidly and that they may simply be going through a long period of slow advancement. But 4,000 years? Bah!
-------------------- Picard: Mr. Crusher, what's our maximum speed this week? Wesley: [checking manual] Uh, 9.4, sir. Picard: Very good. Take us to Warp 9.8 then. Wesley: Aye, sir. Warp 9.2 it is.
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
they have had hyperdrive units for 20,000 years in the star wars universe. they have been technologically advanced for tremendously long amounts of time. technology won't always advance as fast as it did in our 20th century. besides, technology moves when there is a need (or at least a percieved need). if you pretty much have everything you need or want (and you've had them for 10 thousand years), you don't shell out lots of money for companies to try to invent new things. however, when there has been a need, technological innovation has happened. the emperor needed a fairly compact, non force way of destroying a planet, and he got the death star.
when a people have had advanced tech for eons there are also fewer brand new products to invent since a larger percent of the possible inventions have already been made, and there is less in the way of apparent new innovation. that is even happening now. there was much more advancement of tech in the early to mid 20th century than there was from the mid to late 20th century. i don't know if you watch 60 minutes, but andy rooney addressed this very point on his segment last night. he complained that in the last 50 years or so there have been very few actually new products. most things are simply refinements of what came before. a car has had the basic components for over 100 years in our world, and a droid has had the same basic components for 10,000 years in the star wars world. cars are better now then they were in 1890, and droids are better in the new republic era than they were in the old republic, but cars are still cars and droids are still droids.
i think that when you take the time spans of the star wars universe into account this apparent stagnation makes perfect sense and it is the direction that our own society is headed into. keep in mind, however, that it's not really stagnation at all. as societies spend more time at a level of high technology, innovation is just less apparent and brand new products become less common, as most niches have already been accounted for.
posted
They should have a need to please my need for advancement.
-------------------- Picard: Mr. Crusher, what's our maximum speed this week? Wesley: [checking manual] Uh, 9.4, sir. Picard: Very good. Take us to Warp 9.8 then. Wesley: Aye, sir. Warp 9.2 it is.
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
hey, you want rapid advancement, make your own star wars game
posted
You should be glad this game has the apparent tech-base of pre-Palp Star Wars, everything after that is suddenly much uglier, squarer and bulkier. ;-)
If we're gonna go philosophical on eachother's asses, how come in 20000 years nobody has come up with a artificial brain that is so superior that it considers humans as we do bugs? As that doomsday-theory from the guy with the funny, pseudo-european name goes...
(Long sentence ahead) The real reason is of course that that sort of catastrophe hasn't been needed/used in the plotline of the movies (maybe in the books?), but to have been able to give independent thought and personality to droids for 20000 years without forgetting the recipe nor inventing a proverbial, self-procreating "borg", even after all the scourges and shit that happened during those years, that's kind of amazing.
Even that little blonde pipsqueek with the attitude built a golden superlibrarian. Well, assembled, anyway.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
The problem, EdipisReks, (and I've only just now figured your name out!) is that technological process doesn't work like that. Technology breeds more technology. It isn't a matter of "need." No one can know beforehand what they'll "need" in the future. Not to overuse the quote marks, but why would a person from 40,000 years ago need TCP/IP? And yet here I am, rather dependant on the thing.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I once read a good explanation for why that technology has not pregress then much in Star Wars in fact it was a ST vs. SW fan fic called Portal in www.ditl.org.
It deals that the culture even during peaceful time has a somewhat limited view on tehcnology. If you think about it, if Star Wars was so advanced that there was no more to advance uopn, then starships should be living, the whole galaxy should be explored, fatser hyper drives and ultimately better propulsion systems.
Registered: Jul 2000
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-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I think countermeasures are more starved for in Trek, chully, torpedoes have been very underrepresented in SW, except for in the "trench", and when the 'Falcon fired a double whammy from her chin launchers into the DS-generator.
[ April 30, 2002, 06:54: Message edited by: Nim Pim ]
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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[ April 30, 2002, 06:54: Message edited by: Nim Pim ]
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
quote: The problem, EdipisReks, (and I've only just now figured your name out!) is that technological process doesn't work like that. Technology breeds more technology. It isn't a matter of "need." No one can know beforehand what they'll "need" in the future. Not to overuse the quote marks, but why would a person from 40,000 years ago need TCP/IP? And yet here I am, rather dependant on the thing.
actually, technology DOES work that way, for the most part. people needed a way to drink the liquid of an icy and eat the solids, so those irritating spoon/straws were invented. some tech is made and then the inventor hopes to create a niche, but generally inventions have a specific purpose that they fulfill, or they don't get patents (a patent requires an explanation of purpose). i guess you haven't heard of the old expression dealing with the "mother of invention" and "necessity". i don't get your point about tcp/ip at all, so i will ignore it at the time being, as i don't want to talk about something that is a mystery to me.
yesterday in my history discussion class (which is a small class that is only for us history majors. it's kind of like this forum but moderated by a professor) i brought up the path of technological advancement. the concensus that was built is that technology does indeed build off of other tech (that is a pretty obvious thing), but major innovations only feed off of major innovations. warning, simplification ahead: goddard's rockets led to the moon landing and horseless carriages led to tanks, but turkey basters did not lead to cold fusion.
if the star wars universe had not had a MAJOR innovation in thousands of years (which is quite the possibility when you are dealing with a static civilization that has met the majority of it's need) there would be no jumping off point for a major change in their technology. Nim Pim, you ask why have they not invented a brain that is much better than a humans. well, maybe they have and we don't see it. or maybe they aren't stupid enough to do it because they are actively trying to avoid singularity. the star wars tech model was indeed invented for dramaturgical reasons, but it is quite plausible assuming that the star wars galaxy is a fairly closed system. look at most ancient civilizations. most of them entered a period of stasis once their needs were met, and they stayed that way until they encountered new situations that introduced new needs. the chinese had been in an epoch of relative technological stasis for hundreds of years when europeans dominated them in the 18th and 19th century. they had had a previous era of fast tech advancment , but after they addressed the needs that they considered important (such as inventing factories powered with water wheels for spinning fabric) the fast tech advancement ended and a period of stagnation was entered. star wars has many historical presedents, whether they were intended or not.
posted
Or maybe some droids got together and infected the galaxy with brain fever, to counteract the Chaos virus...
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
My point is that what we consider the major technologies were almost never used as their inventor(s) intended. Bell had no idea his invention would be used as we used it. He did not sit down and say "Now I must invent a device that will allow every house to contact every other one." And he certainly didn't say "Let's make sure our network is capable of transfering data from computer to computer, once they invent computers."
It's my contention that nobody can predict what uses a new technology will be put to, because many of those uses won't exist until the technology is there.
As to avoiding the Singularity, I find it hard to believe that an entire galaxy can be controlled in such a strict way as to make its crossing impossible. However, that's hardly a criticism unique to Star Wars.
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
i never said that technology is always used as the inventor intends, but you had better believe that tcp/ip (and the telephone itself) were invented with specific needs in mind.
yes, the lack of singularity (assuming that the singularity as described by vernor vinge and others is an actual probability or even a possibility) is kind of odd, but for all we know yoda's family has for thousands of years been killing anyone who would start the singularity .
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