What could a scientist in my Star Wars fan fic be working on?

[Maximum77]

Im trying to write a story about a scientist who is working on something in the era of the New Republic. He does not believe in the Force. I just need something for him to be researching. It really isn’t that important to the story; it just has to sound cool and scientific. Also it can’t have already been done in Legends or Canon. I want a fresh idea.

It cannot be

A time machine
A teleporter
A matter replicator
A singularity Weapon
Any type of droid
Anything to do with holograms
A food synthesizer
Anything to do with the Force or Midi-chlorians
A shrink ray
A freeze ray
pico and femtotechnology
A Dyson sphere or any type of megastructure.
Liquid metal armor or a nano morph
Any improvements on the hyperdrive
Limb regeneration
Hyperspace nullifier
Holodeck
Knowledge Transfer (Instant learning like in the Matrix)
Philosophers Stone
Kinetic weapons
Solar sail
Anything to do with kyber crystals
Gene editing
Mech suit
Exosuit
Gender change
In canon, during the Empire, scientists were researching methods to control droids, lasers that can punch through deflector shields and ship scale disintigrators. These ideas are therefore taken.

Yes I know I create too many of these but I haven’t found the right idea yet.

[Excession]

Im trying to write a story about a scientist who is working on something in the era of the New Republic. He does not believe in the Force. I just need something for him to be researching. It really isn’t that important to the story; it just has to sound cool and scientific. Also it can’t have already been done in Legends or Canon. I want a fresh idea.

At least half of these strike me as engineering, or magic, not really pure science. Even in space opera, there is a lot of science beyond super-weapons, robots, and medicine. Is he working alone or with a group? Where is the funding coming from? All of these could be important to the story, and would affect the type of research he might be doing. Make it affect the story in some way, and it'll be more fun.

What area of science would you prefer: chemistry, physics, astronomy, cosmology, biology, medicine, computer science, sociology, archaeology, or something else?

For a bunch of random ideas:

• The mating habits of the lesser spotted womp rat.
• The affect of the collapse of the Galactic Empire on Wookie cultural practices.
• Pharmacological applications of sarlacc gut bacteria.
• Investigating the interaction of gravitational waves and hyperspace chirality.
• The collapse of the bronze-age Gungan empires.

This could be fun, but the space is almost too big. Can you narrow this down some?

[Peelee]

Im trying to write a story about a scientist who is working on something in the era of the New Republic. He does not believe in the Force. I just need something for him to be researching. It really isn’t that important to the story; it just has to sound cool and scientific. Also it can’t have already been done in Legends or Canon. I want a fresh idea.

It cannot be

Any type of droid
Anything to do with holograms
Any improvements on the hyperdrive

Why? All of those are pretty ubiquitous in the SW universe.

In any event, just try to think of something you'd like to make your life easier, and if it doesn't fall in any of those categories, have the dude work on that. Or hell, have him try to work on something we later know can be done (like a capacitor that can take actively massive amounts of energy from the sun) and just fail at it. Easy-peasy.

ETA:

Wookie

Wookiee. 2 E's.

[Maximum77]

At least half of these strike me as engineering, or magic, not really pure science. Even in space opera, there is a lot of science beyond super-weapons, robots, and medicine. Is he working alone or with a group? Where is the funding coming from? All of these could be important to the story, and would affect the type of research he might be doing. Make it affect the story in some way, and it'll be more fun.

What area of science would you prefer: chemistry, physics, astronomy, cosmology, biology, medicine, computer science, sociology, archaeology, or something else?

For a bunch of random ideas:

• The mating habits of the lesser spotted womp rat.
• The affect of the collapse of the Galactic Empire on Wookie cultural practices.
• Pharmacological applications of sarlacc gut bacteria.
• Investigating the interaction of gravitational waves and hyperspace chirality.
• The collapse of the bronze-age Gungan empires.

This could be fun, but the space is almost too big. Can you narrow this down some?

I’m looking for something in any field of science that can be just a novelty but still cool. I try to avoid anything groundbreaking.

[gomipile]

I imagine there's a lot of evolution research that can be done in the SW universe.

For one, lots of animal species have been spread to many planets by interstellar travelers. Investigating how some of those populations have adapted to their new homes over the last few thousand years would be interesting.

Also, there are probably planets that have isolated communities of species with common ancestors. Think about Darwin's observations in the Galapagos but more widespread and diverse, on planets with the right conditions.

Microbiologists would have plenty of disease causing microbes to study all over the galaxy, too.

[LibraryOgre]

Warp drive (a la Star Trek). An abandoned technology, but which the scientist thinks has some applications.

FTL communications, separate from subspace or the holonet.

A new foodstuff. Not food replicator or anything, but more akin to a concentrated, healthy, foodstuff... "It's like bacta for your nutritional needs!"

Mycology.

[Excession]

I’m looking for something in any field of science that can be just a novelty but still cool. I try to avoid anything groundbreaking.

Are there any esoteric skills the character he could have picked up during his studies? The extend on one of my previous examples, studying womp rats for example you'd just tend to pick up skills like desert survival, remote camera and drone operation, and possibly running really quickly from aggressively hormone filled 2m long predators. As a bonus, it's a nice callback to the original movie. For me, that is cooler than "oh yeah, I was studying <insert meaningless technobabble>."

Maybe leave the field of study undecided until the end, then find something that can explain any specific skills the character needed.

[Mutant Donkey]

Did you ever see or read Dune?
You remember the battle training simulation with this cylindrical robot that had all kinds of cool weapons?
Since he doesn't believe in the force then an advanced training simulation could fit.
With real consequences for the lazy recruit. No holograms.
Statistics for each soldier gets recorded in the mainframe and performance analysis can be streamlined.

[The Glyphstone]

The tastiest possible fruit smoothie. Culinary science is still a type of science. There are, canonically, at least 50 million inhabited systems. That's a lot of fruit combinations for him to experiment with.

[Blackhawk748]

He's researching the effects of cold rain on Silurian Grain. It's imported to the planet in question and their temperature is a few degrees colder.

[Eldan]

I think the thing you should take away from this thread is this: most scientists don't work on "inventing new technology". The overwhelming majority of scientists don't do that, or anything close to it. They work on understanding something, anything, that is known already slightly better. Perhaps making a mathematical model of it.

So, a scientist wouldn't work on a "shrink ray" anyway. They would work on measuring how matter interacts when hit with a certain wavelength of radiation. Then they'd see that it would sometimes look as if the matter is shrinking. They'd get very excited and publish then. Then the next ten scientists would come along and see if they can replicate that effect. Then, if more radiation changes the amount of shrinkage, and by how many percent. Someone would write their 3-year PhD on "The Effect of Johnson radiation at 300 nanometer wavelength on orthogonal crystal lattices of Yodanite". Eventually, they have a pretty good mathematical idea of how Johnson radiation affects matter, so they hand it over to an engineer. Who then tries to build a giant prototype of a repeatable Johnson ray. Five engineers later, someone has made a hand-held shrink ray.

"The mating habits of the womp rat" describes most science a lot better than "building a dyson sphere" or "discovering the philosopher's stone". And the big discovery in most scientist's life is not "I invented hyper drive" but "I looked at this type of rat that everyone knows, but I saw that 5% of their males stand on their hind legs to impress females and then wrote a mathematical model to try and explain why it is 5% and not 10%".

[Red Fel]

If I were a scientist in the Star Wars universe? I would be researching the ever-loving crap out of Mon Cala.

Hear me out. First off, it's cool from an environmental science perspective - it's an oceanic planet. As in, basically all underwater. There's a lot of scientific research you can do in an environment like that - uniquely in an environment like that - especially given the fact that the planet hosts not one, but two intelligent races, and their civilizations, so it's not like you're doing research on a barren rock without resources.

Which leads me to my second point - the Mon Calamari and the Quarren. What. The. Force.

The planet is Mon Cala. It is named for the Mon Calamari. (Or they're named for it. Whichever.) The planetary ruler is Mon Calamari. But it plays host to two distinct races... With no explanation given. Why are there two distinct intelligent races on this planet? Don't get me wrong, a lot of planets host multiple races, but these two are indigenous to Mon Cala. Yet throughout their history, they apparently never annihilated one another over resources.

There are so many fascinating areas of study there. From a genetic and evolutionary perspective, do they arise from a common ancestor, or were they distinct races even before developing intelligence? Do they occupy separate evolutionary niches? From a social science and anthropological perspective, why did the two races never destroy each other? Is the planet so big or so abundant that conflict over resources was never an issue? The Quarren are traditionally depicted as aggressive, and the Mon Calamari as peaceful - why aren't the Quarren a dominant race with the Mon Calamari held in oppression? Are these tendencies biological or social? Why do the Mon Calamari rule (and name) everything? How did Quarren achieve representation? Did they even? For a planet with two distinct peoples on it, it's pretty one-sided in favor of the Mon Calamari - how does that even work?

Just saying. Lot of stuff to study there. Even if it's just something bland like "oceanic botany in planetary deep-sea gardening."

[LibraryOgre]

I believe the line is "Most mad scientists are really just mad engineers."

[Cicciograna]

He's studying the psychological implications of a role play game set in a fictional universe of your choice. I suggest the universe of a Space Opera named Stellar Struggles in which, in a galaxy dominated by a cruel Monarchy, a cosmic essence named "the Power" can be manipulated by a cadre of strange priests-sorcerers dubbed "Deji".

[Mith]

He's studying the psychological implications of a role play game set in a fictional universe of your choice. I suggest the universe of a Space Opera named Stellar Struggles in which, in a galaxy dominated by a cruel Monarchy, a cosmic essence named "the Power" can be manipulated by a cadre of strange priests-sorcerers dubbed "Deji".

Stealing "Deji" as an in world name for Psionicists. Or at least the largest faction of it's practitioners.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Attempting to replicate the Mitchelson-Morsey experiment. No I don't know what that is, every time I try to listen to the explanation I enter a laymen's trance and wake up in dazed condition.

[Mith]

Attempting to replicate the Mitchelson-Morsey experiment. No I don't know what that is, every time I try to listen to the explanation I enter a laymen's trance and wake up in dazed condition.

It would be amazing if it proves the existence of the Force using it. Maybe using high energy UV waves over a long distance.

[NichG]

He's studying rare, naturally occurring obstacles in hyperspace. Specifically, when two neutron stars occur in the same system, the place where their axes of rotation intersect forms a natural hyperdrive for charged particles ejected along the axis. These particles form a sort of bell-shaped navigational hazard that jumps around, which can damage engines or even destroy smaller craft. The character wanted to develop a model predicting the dynamics of such fluctuations (specifically, explaining a detail of the pattern called 'warp scatter' where a dynamical instability can cause secondary echoes after the initial bell to jump around chaotically). The model would have particular implications for pirate groups that hide their bases in regions where they have mapped the historical pulse patterns, and so the scientist is a bit nervous after having received threats to discontinue their research.

Eventually, his results would play a minor role in the development of artificial mass shadows and hyperspace interdiction - not fully enabling the technology, but in establishing stability bounds for the maximum directional specificity that an interdiction field can have before dynamical instability sets in (the so-called "No corridors" theorem)

[razorback]

How to turn Bantha milk into a solid, easily transportable and tasty foodstuff. blue Bantha cheese

[LordEntrails]

- Higgs-Boson Particle interactions with light?
- Graviton waves as interstitial strings?
- Near light speed time dilation?
- Low-energy electron behavior?
- Neutron particle vibration at absolute zero?

[iTreeby]

Attempting to replicate the Mitchelson-Morsey experiment. No I don't know what that is, every time I try to listen to the explanation I enter a laymen's trance and wake up in dazed condition.

It's like playing with some polarized lenses. You get crazy results for wierd reasons.

[Bavarian itP]

How to turn Bantha milk into a solid, easily transportable and tasty foodstuff. blue Bantha cheese

And how to turn it white.

[Maximum77]

At least half of these strike me as engineering, or magic, not really pure science. Even in space opera, there is a lot of science beyond super-weapons, robots, and medicine. Is he working alone or with a group? Where is the funding coming from? All of these could be important to the story, and would affect the type of research he might be doing. Make it affect the story in some way, and it'll be more fun.

What area of science would you prefer: chemistry, physics, astronomy, cosmology, biology, medicine, computer science, sociology, archaeology, or something else?

For a bunch of random ideas:

• The mating habits of the lesser spotted womp rat.
• The affect of the collapse of the Galactic Empire on Wookie cultural practices.
• Pharmacological applications of sarlacc gut bacteria.
• Investigating the interaction of gravitational waves and hyperspace chirality.
• The collapse of the bronze-age Gungan empires.

This could be fun, but the space is almost too big. Can you narrow this down some?

To be honest, I love chemistry. I’d like something in chemistry.

[LibraryOgre]

To be honest, I love chemistry. I’d like something in chemistry.

Spectral properties of crystals grown in various natural and lab environments. He took over the project from his mentor; it was actually commissioned by the Jedi in 300 YBY, and has never QUIIIIITE run out of funding.

[Peelee]

Spectral properties of crystals grown in various natural and lab environments. He took over the project from his mentor; it was actually commissioned by the Jedi in 300 YBY, and has never QUIIIIITE run out of funding.

Years Before Yavin? I'm familiar with BBY, but not YBY.

Anyway. Scientist could be attempting to synthesize spice, maybe for one of the Hutt Cartels?

[LibraryOgre]

Years Before Yavin? I'm familiar with BBY, but not YBY.

Anyway. Scientist could be attempting to synthesize spice, maybe for one of the Hutt Cartels?

Yeah, BBY is what I shoulda written. Forgot the nomenclature.

Trying to synthesize spice would be a good one.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Honestly, from a story perspective, I think this whole tread is the wrong aproach. You want a main character to be an absolute expert in some field of study, but you don't care which field? Then don't fill it in yet. Write the story until you do know what this character would study. This is a character defining trait, it should absolutely come up further on in your story. Otherwise, why is this character even a scientist at all?

That may be harsh, but I think this is a great opportunity to work on your storytelling, and stories generally benefit a lot from synergizing with their characters.

[Aeson]

I'm mostly in agreement with Lvl 2 Expert - outlining the story you want to tell, figuring out where this scientist fits into it, and then choosing a suitable field is probably better than choosing a field for the character and then trying to work him, her, or it into the story. Especially if the scientist is not a main character - and I presume that he, she, or it is not, since you've indicated that the guy's field of study is not particularly relevant to the story - the character will probably fit into the story much more naturally if you create him, her, or it to fit the story you want to tell rather than creating the character and then figuring out how to fit the story around the character. If you want your characters to meet the guy while exploring Mandalorian Wars/Jedi Civil War-era (~4000 BBY) ruins on Dantooine or Telos, for example, you might be able to get away with an archaeological chemist looking for traces of chemical markers of orbital bombardment to show something about the kind of weaponry used to bombard the planet or to prove/disprove the "myth" that the place was subjected to an orbital bombardment by a rebellious Old Republic fleet or something like that - maybe Mandalorian turbolasers and Republic turbolasers of the period would cause different reactions in a certain kind of stone or something like that. It'd be harder to make an astrochemist specializing in the study of exotic materials from the new!canon Maw cloud seen in Solo fit under the same circumstances - why is he, she, or it visiting ancient ruins rather than working in a lab at the Maw Institute or a research university somewhere?

[Peelee]

Honestly, from a story perspective, I think this whole tread is the wrong aproach. You want a main character to be an absolute expert in some field of study, but you don't care which field? Then don't fill it in yet. Write the story until you do know what this character would study. This is a character defining trait, it should absolutely come up further on in your story. Otherwise, why is this character even a scientist at all?

That may be harsh, but I think this is a great opportunity to work on your storytelling, and stories generally benefit a lot from synergizing with their characters.

I apparently discarded a lot of the context from OP, because I thought this was for a side character. I completely agree with you.

[wumpus]

I believe the line is "Most mad scientists are really just mad engineers."

Not grumpy engineers? How about deranged engineers? Once I pondered forming a company (just myself) to release software under the name "Mad Science and Engineering" with my job title as "Chief [insane] Engineer" (gotta have three letters for those C-level jobs).