What do you think scientists in the Star Wars galaxy are working on?

[Maximum77]

Just Kyber crystals?!
In Catalyst, we learned about how Galen Erso worked on weaponizing Kyber crystals. First off. Is their society so unadvanced that they are messing around with crystals? Okay they are supposed to fuel the Death Star and are part of the plot, I just find it so strange that FTL travel would be perfected centuries before figuring out the properties of kyber crystals. Anyway, my other complaint was that in the novel, Catalyst, we didn't catch glimpses of what the other scientists that are employed by the Empire are working on. I would love to have known what the Iktochi scientist who Galen got into a fist fight with was working on.


Anyway, my question is. What possible other things could the scientists of the Empire be researching and working on besides kyber crystals? I don't think teleportation or time travel because by the time of the novel Phasma and the Force Awakens novelization, these things are hinted to be impossible. I also don't think matter replication is a viable idea since it would create a post-scarcity society and the Empire would probably try to surpluses all research of that technology. A wormhole gate appeared in the Han Solo comic but nobody seems to be doing anything with it and it was said to be ancient technology too complicated to figure out


So what's left? What else could scientists be working to achieve during the time of the Empire? Any and all ideas besides the ones I mentioned are welcomed.

[Cikomyr]

- Breaching the Galactic Border
- Finding alternate ways to navigate the Galactic West since it's all unknown regions
- recreating the TIE Defender since nobody ever uses it

Thats a good start..

[Keltest]

Inventing the laser wheel probably. Star Wars has a sometimes remarkable capacity to overcomplicate their technology.

[Kitten Champion]

Obviously the next Death Star iteration, which will be a Dyson sphere.

[Peelee]

Unstealable data tapes.

[The Glyphstone]

Ship-to-ship weaponry that doesn't need to be aimed by the Mark One Eyeball.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qim...22bba17c75129c

[Mechalich]

The overwhelming majority of Star Wars scientists and engineers (most technology development in a universe like Star Wars is actually engineering, since there are few new major discoveries in physics or chemistry) are not working on anything transformative. They are working on incremental improvements in existing technologies.

For instance, the Death Star involved hundreds or even thousands of technological developments in things not related to the superlaser at all, with regard to building and staffing a space station that large: managing power requirements, getting something the size of a moon to function in hyperspace, transit management, and so forth. Likewise, there is development in starfighter technology from Episode I+II through the Clone Wars out through to the OT, and the same thing happened for capital ships.

The way the Star Wars expanded universes have always operated is that there's a set of Core Technologies that everyone has access to and improve only very slowly in way that you may not actually be able to see but you could feel (in the Legends EU all core technologies were inherited from the Rakata as a justification as prohibiting transformative breakthroughs). A single Imperial Star Destroyer could annihilate the entire Republic Fleet of KOTOR vintage and take no damage whatsoever even though it would do so using fundamentally the same technologies. Anything outside the core technology paths is unique and difficult to reproduce and usually falls under the category of 'superweapon.' There are all kinds of superweapons, ranging from battle stations (Death Star), to cyborg warriors (Dark Troopers), to missiles (Galaxy Gun), to propellants (Isotope V).

Obviously the next Death Star iteration, which will be a Dyson sphere.

The EU already has at least one dyson sphere.

[gomipile]

Ship-to-ship weaponry that doesn't need to be aimed by the Mark One Eyeball.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qim...22bba17c75129c

This puts me in mind of the gunnery chief lecture in Mass Effect 2.

[Future Sword]

Hopefully, they're working on better baby-delivering robots.

[Peelee]

Hopefully, they're working on better baby-delivering robots.

Look, the was no hope, she had Terminal Sad.

[DM_MCP]

Wireless technology. Seriously I think just about everything in the galaxy has to be plugged in to work.

[Anonymouswizard]

First off remember that Star Wars is not science fiction in any meaningful sense. It's an enjoyable universe, but it's fantasy with energy weapons and spaceships, which can be seen from a close look at the technology.

Now Star Wars Technology seems to have plateaued at a relatively weird point thousands of years ago. It's as if the got FTL spaceships, computers that could control the ship during FTL, laser guns, and healing goo and decided they didn't need anything new, just better versions of the old stuff. Sure they have very nice stuff, reactionless or near reactionless drives, FTL at the rate of at least several light years a day, and what look to be particle beams with lethality settings, even deflector shields. But they don't seem to have nanofabrication (can't generate matter? use the next best thing), widespread augmentation, rejuvenation or longevity treatments, nanoswarms, wireless technology, decent firewalls, and so on. Going entirely by the movies here, I don't care for the new EU (or the old one really).

So it's more likely 'we need a more efficient power plant' than 'we're the guys working on wormhole generation'.

[Lord Joeltion]

Wireless technology. Seriously I think just about everything in the galaxy has to be plugged in to work.

IIRC, Bothans had their version of the Deepweb. Maybe that's Legends already, so.

But they don't seem to have nanofabrication (can't generate matter? use the next best thing), widespread augmentation, rejuvenation or longevity treatments, nanoswarms, wireless technology, decent firewalls, and so on.

I'm pretty sure a couple of those would mess up with the balance of the Force, somehow...

Anyway, the Kyber Crystals were researched because of their connection with the Force. In the old EU, all technology progressed towards Force-based technology (Rakkata) so technology naturally progressed towards Force. Which is only natural, since that's the greatest source of energy in the Galaxy.

The problem is that the Star Wars setting is a mix of cyberpunk and schizo-tech, because of the discrepancies in tech level between races/worlds. Most research should naturally be the refinement and combination of the quasi infinite varieties of technology; and when we add "lost ancient tech" like the lightsabers (or the secret Sith techno/wizardry); surely most "scientists" in Star Wars are more related to Indiana Jones than Tony Stark.

What they need to improve in Star Wars is the way politics are handled. Like, c'mon, try a new form of government that actually works on a galactic scale!

[Future Sword]

Look, there was no hope, she had Terminal Sad.

Or maybe that robot just forgot to give her some Prozac.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm pretty sure a couple of those would mess up with the balance of the Force, somehow...

Certainly, as I said, science fantasy setting.

Anyway, the Kyber Crystals were researched because of their connection with the Force. In the old EU, all technology progressed towards Force-based technology (Rakkata) so technology naturally progressed towards Force. Which is only natural, since that's the greatest source of energy in the Galaxy.

I've not seen any force technology, but then again I don't know much about the lore.

The problem is that the Star Wars setting is a mix of cyberpunk and schizo-tech, because of the discrepancies in tech level between races/worlds. Most research should naturally be the refinement and combination of the quasi infinite varieties of technology; and when we add "lost ancient tech" like the lightsabers (or the secret Sith techno/wizardry); surely most "scientists" in Star Wars are more related to Indiana Jones than Tony Stark.

Eh, I don't really like either model. I prefer the engineer who makes small improvements and advancements towards something new, and mainly influences the plot via their technical knowledge.

What they need to improve in Star Wars is the way politics are handled. Like, c'mon, try a new form of government that actually works on a galactic scale!

Totally agreeing here, even Asimov's Empire wasn't run as inefficientl.

[Traab]

At first I figured it was a scenario where the tech was good enough to handle their problems, so instead of finding something NEW, they just worked on marginal improvements. Take us and computers for example. There is very little work going into something new to replace them, but plenty of work going into figuring out ways to make them faster, stronger, more memory, etc. Because computers WORK for what we use them for, so its easier to try to improve the tech than to develop something new. But that theory crashes into hyperspace. Look, it works, but its not ideal. You can only use preestablished lanes, there are issues with plotting complicated courses, and while its fast, it could be faster. So why isnt anyone trying to develop something OTHER than hyperspace? Warp drives or fold space or any other ftl tech that doesnt have so many restrictions.

Even as someone said, wireless tech! Now maybe there is a reason, maybe its done that way specifically to make it harder to hack into networks and such. After all, if you need to physically interact with any system you want to get into, its a lot harder than going through cyberspace to do it without being caught. After all, they have wireless communication so its not a matter of it not occurring to them to make other tech wireless. And we generally see r2d2 hacking military installations and such, so keeping them closed systems is just smart thinking imo.

[Saph]

So why isnt anyone trying to develop something OTHER than hyperspace?

Presumably because there isn't one. Hyperspace is already really high up there in the power scale compared to FTL methods in other settings, given that privately owned commercial ships can cross the galaxy in a matter of days.

It's possible that tech in the Star Wars universe has just hit its natural end-point and there aren't any more big breakthroughs to make. So you can get incremental improvements and new engineering developments, but that's about it.

[Traab]

Presumably because there isn't one. Hyperspace is already really high up there in the power scale compared to FTL methods in other settings, given that privately owned commercial ships can cross the galaxy in a matter of days.

It's possible that tech in the Star Wars universe has just hit its natural end-point and there aren't any more big breakthroughs to make. So you can get incremental improvements and new engineering developments, but that's about it.

I dont buy it. They can send wireless holographic phone calls near instantly in real time across the freaking galaxy, yet need days or weeks to travel in person to do the same. No, there has to be a better way possible. People probably thought the same about the discovery of bronze. "Oh this is it, the greatest metal ever! Nothing shall surpass this!"

[Anonymouswizard]

At first I figured it was a scenario where the tech was good enough to handle their problems, so instead of finding something NEW, they just worked on marginal improvements. Take us and computers for example. There is very little work going into something new to replace them, but plenty of work going into figuring out ways to make them faster, stronger, more memory, etc. Because computers WORK for what we use them for, so its easier to try to improve the tech than to develop something new. But that theory crashes into hyperspace. Look, it works, but its not ideal. You can only use preestablished lanes, there are issues with plotting complicated courses, and while its fast, it could be faster. So why isnt anyone trying to develop something OTHER than hyperspace? Warp drives or fold space or any other ftl tech that doesnt have so many restrictions.

A multitude of reasons, but your post specifically reminds me of the Commonwealth Universe by Peter F. Hamilton, where humanity comes up with four different varieties of FTL technology by the time of the Void Trilogy, several times in response to a limitation.

Spoiler

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Humanity begins with wormholes, generally located on planets. It's fast, trains can in theory cross from one side of the Commonwealth to the other in hours, but power intensive and wormholes without a fixed end point are too expensive for anybody to buy. But it works, well enough with few enough problems that humanity has no need to invest in spaceships for anything beyond 'I'm not letting you open a wormhole near me', let alone starships.

But wormholes have a maximum range without bankrupting the Commonwealth. When they decide they want to get somewhere that'll take five wormholes at full economic range to get there they remember how bad that was when they had to do that with two wormholes, and dig out plans to turn wormhole generators into FTL engines, referred to originally as hyperdrives and later as progressive wormhole generators. They are much, much slower than using a wormhole, but significantly cheaper for the same range and are eventually adopted by those people who refuse wormholes on their worlds to avoid the richer core worlds controlling their economy. Even with later developments the fact that PWGs are the cheapest option by a good margin and can be scaled up theoretically indefinitely keeps them around.

Then a character is asked to make an FTL drive at least an order of magnitude faster than his PWGs. He develops an honest to god shift into another dimension where c is faster hyperdrive, along with a reactionless drive as a side effect, that can hit up to 15ly/hour. The downside is that ships can't be larger than about thirty meters in their longest dimension, which is tiny compared to the pre-hyperdrive warships.

Then finally there is Ultradrive, invented last and one I know nothing about except '55ly/hour top speed, but looks like a hyperdrive if travelling at 15l/hour'.

Each method the Commonwealth has is at least in theory superior to SW hyperdrives in some respect, and yet they still develop more of the things.

Presumably because there isn't one. Hyperspace is already really high up there in the power scale compared to FTL methods in other settings, given that privately owned commercial ships can cross the galaxy in a matter of days.

Not really, as I remember it compares rather poorly to ZTT jumps from Night's Dawn (which also have problems with gravity fields, but jump instantly up to about 15ly and if the captain is willing to spare the reaction mass can in theory do so several times an hour), is hilariously low tier compared to any Culture ship (but who isn't), has most of the problems of static wormhole systems without the instant travel time, can't hold a torch to Schlock Mercenary's FTL even before the terraport, and several other examples. SW hyperspace is very fast when it's on an optimal lane, but it utterly fails when it has to go to a place harder to get to. Schlock Mercenary's Terraport is so good that it generates an arms race in terraport denial systems and terraport denial system denial systems.

[Mechalich]

I dont buy it. They can send wireless holographic phone calls near instantly in real time across the freaking galaxy, yet need days or weeks to travel in person to do the same. No, there has to be a better way possible. People probably thought the same about the discovery of bronze. "Oh this is it, the greatest metal ever! Nothing shall surpass this!"

The Star Wars holonet works using hyperspace. The holonet transceivers are objects left in hyperspace that produce a network and can accelerate massless transmission into effectively infinite speed there.

And again, as Anonymous Wizard noted Star Wars is a space fantasy and it has technological stasis in the same way most space fantasy settings do (not complete technological stasis, there were huge differences between 20000 BBY, 12000 BBY, 6000 BBY and 0 BBY, it's just that the 5000-0 BBY period was particularly stable). In the Legends EU all the major technological achievements were reverse-engineered jury-rigged methods of duplicating Force-based Rakata technology. It was impossible to make fundamental changes because no one understood the principles behind them.

Also, as regards to computer technology, Star Wars is particularly limited by the Skynet problem - it's AIs are already almost too smart and if they network them together they periodically attempt to take over the galaxy and kill all humans. Bizarre though it may be, this imposes a Dune-like limit on computation which impacts all other forms of technological development. This is somewhat inherent to space fantasy generally, since in order to have flesh and blood people having adventures in future space you have to prevent the Culture from happening.

[McNum]

As for why no one, other than Jedi and Sith, have messed much with Kyber crystals until the Death Star, it's actually pretty straightforward. When you go above lightsaber crystal size, Kyber becomes... mean. It's great at absorbing energy. Even ambient energy around them get absorbed. Unfortunately, they're even better at unleashing that energy as a catastrophic explosion. As seen in Rebels, if you shoot a moderately sized Kyber crystal, like one that would fit on a decent sized dining table, you had better have something the size of a Star Destroyer between you and it. Because when it goes, it goes a lot.

They're basically well known as "Do not mess with unless you're a Jedi." because they are not worth the risk unless you're building something that actually does need to do a catastrophic level of energy release in a single moment. Then Kyber could work if you can find a way to handle them. And that's what Galen Erso figured out.

Which, I suppose is what scientists and engineers in Star Wars do. Even though most technology is known, it could be that some fringe science actually could be tamed enough to work. Like how Kyber did have a proof of concept with the lightsabers. But it just scaled really poorly until that whole "explodes violently if you look at it wrong" issue was dealt with.

[137beth]

What they need to improve in Star Wars is the way politics are handled. Like, c'mon, try a new form of government that actually works on a galactic scale!

So, what do they need? How about a super-secret Ruler of the Universe who doesn't know he's the ruler of the universe, along with a figurehead President whose job is to attract attention away from the real power?

Otherwise, antidepressants seem like they would solve a lot of problems in the Star Wars universe.

[Kid Jake]

All of their top guys are still working on a cure for baldness.

[Anonymouswizard]

All of their top guys are still working on a cure for baldness.

Ah, of course, they aren't as accepting as Star Trek people are, it all makes sense now.

[Vinyadan]

Or a cure for blunt sticks. A stormtrooper's greatest enemy!

[Peelee]

Or a cure for blunt sticks. A stormtrooper's greatest enemy!

The armor is designed for blaster bolts. Nobody thought to adapt it for blunt sticks. This has haunted them on both Jedha and the forest moon of Endor.

[Kid Jake]

The armor is designed for blaster bolts. Nobody thought to adapt it for blunt sticks. This has haunted them on both Jedha and the forest moon of Endor.

I'm pretty sure that their armor's sole purpose is to make post-mortem cleanup easier.

[Mechalich]

The armor is designed for blaster bolts. Nobody thought to adapt it for blunt sticks. This has haunted them on both Jedha and the forest moon of Endor.

This is actually true and not at all a joke when you consider how real ballistic protection works. Modern body armor is designed to protect against gunfire - and generally only gunfire up to a certain level of penetrative power - it doesn't do jack against behind stabbed with a knife and in some sense actually makes you more vulnerable because it impedes mobility. Stormtrooper armor is designed to protect against blasters first and projectiles (mostly those from explosives, but yes they absolutely do have guns that fire bullets in the Star wars universe) second. It is not designed for melee defense.

The tactical absurdity of the ground battle on the Forest Moon of Endor is that the Ewoks were able to get into melee combat at all not that they were effective once they got there. A chimpanzee with a blunt stick is fully capable of bashing a Navy Seal to a pulp if they actually get a chance to swing.

[Peelee]

I'm pretty sure that their armor's sole purpose is to make post-mortem cleanup easier.

Eh, blaster bolts don't tend to be terribly messy, from what we've seen.

This is actually true and not at all a joke when you consider how real ballistic protection works. Modern body armor is designed to protect against gunfire - and generally only gunfire up to a certain level of penetrative power - it doesn't do jack against behind stabbed with a knife and in some sense actually makes you more vulnerable because it impedes mobility. Stormtrooper armor is designed to protect against blasters first and projectiles (mostly those from explosives, but yes they absolutely do have guns that fire bullets in the Star wars universe) second. It is not designed for melee defense.

The tactical absurdity of the ground battle on the Forest Moon of Endor is that the Ewoks were able to get into melee combat at all not that they were effective once they got there. A chimpanzee with a blunt stick is fully capable of bashing a Navy Seal to a pulp if they actually get a chance to swing.

To be fair, the Ewoks didn't get in much melee with the Empire; they mostly used projectiles (thrown rocks, rocks dropped from gliders, catapulted rocks, slingshot rocks, giant honkin' logs on ropes, and arrows. Which are basically a fusion of log and rock). I think you only see them whack some troopers once, in fact.

Also, yep, traditional guns are called "slugthrowers" in the SWUniverse, for anyone else wondering.

[Anonymouswizard]

I remember Stormtrooper armour actually being useful in the opening of A New Hope, where the rebels died when blaster bolts hit the nearby walls but the STs only went down when they took a direct hit. Obviously SW doesn't have armour that can stand up to a direct hit from any weapon, which is why spaceships explode immediately after their shields go down, they can't stop micrometeorites from penetrating their hulls.