Lit A "star forge" for peace and prosperity?

I've since I first heard of KOTOR and its "Star Forge," which used the energy and matter of a star to produce unlimited weapons of war for free... I've wondered, why has no one in the Star Wars galaxy ever tried to do something similar for non-military purposes? Create "star forges" near several stars across the galaxy (several so it's not just 1 star that is leeched and possibly drained), for peace and prosperity. They could mass-produce worker droids, so there's no longer a need for slavery or bad jobs. Unlimited energy and materials to make food, medicine, starships, housing units, etc. basically unlimited and free for all. It would end poverty, disease, famine, etc. Droids could also provide a quality education for everyone in the galaxy. People would only do work they truly wanted to do, and no longer need money. It would eliminate most of the reasons for war, and any darksiders would have a difficult time seducing people to despair and divisiveness if everyone were happy and content in life. Starkiller base shows their technological is probably there, if they can suck away an entire star at once to create a hyperspace cannon that can destroy several planets at once, then they could sap a little material and energy from several stars to enter the peaceful and prosperous post-scarcity society I described. Just from a common-sense perspective, shouldn't someone have at least tried this by now? We could still have "Star Wars" and villains who want war to simply dominate or destroy or avenge, but everyday life for sentients in the GFFA would become a lot more utopian.

 

The Star Forge was supposed to have required the power of the Force to operate—and I think KotOR implied specifically the dark side. Not exactly the kind of people you want running a utopia.

As for the canon timeline, who knows. Starkiller Base was presumably one-of-a-kind (and again, implied to be powered by a colossal amount of kyber crystals. Between that and the Death Star(s), I don't think there was very much viable fuel left as of the First Order era). With the Republic destroyed, it isn't likely there's a power left in the galaxy capable of creating a station of that magnitude. Plus, most star systems seem inhabited, and destroying stars in a matter of hours could have catastrophic effects on entire galactic sectors. The Starkiller weapon caused rips in hyperspace.

 

That star forge also built weapons of war... hence the dark side.

But it could probably run without the Force. In Legends, the Rakata hyperdrive originally needed the Force (specifically the dark side), until others worked out how to do it without the Force.

A "star forge" could leech off a star for millennia, provide a supply of goods that seems unlimited, and barely make a dent in the total mass of a star. If it were to be set-up over of a multitude of stars, then less would need to be extracted from each star. Stars are already shedding a lot of energy and matter each moment.

 

Well, the answer to that is the Rakata are far in excess of the standard Star Wars universe in terms of technology, even 20,000 years later.

 

Don't World Devastators and Imperial Leviathans function in a similar manner as the Star Forge, just even more efficient since any material works rather than just siphoning from a star? Of course, the production isn't as instantaneous as the Star Forge, but we have no idea how fast that production went anyway. There seemed to only be a tiny fleet under the Sith Triumvirate in comparison to Malak's Sith Empire so... there can't have been too much of them if they bled themselves dry so quickly.

 

I thought their civil war destroyed the fleet quickly, thus the small force

But I would say the Star Forge is very unique in how it works and is tied directly into the force. It could be used for good but it would bring whom ever tried into the Darkside (think the One Ring). Theoretically one should be able to be created tied to the light, don't know why no one tried (lack of imagination?)

 

I imagine why no one tried to replicate it period, as I believe someone can be 'neutral Force' (Charlemagne19 explained it good in the SWTOR thread) and attempt to make it, is because of corporate influence. Something like the Star Forge would bankrupt KDY, CEC, SFS and Incom within a day, they'd be left as design proposal firms as their shipyards would practically be useless. I sitll think World Devastators are probably the closest thing we got to a Neo-Star Forge, in the manner of way that they operate. The NR used captured World Devastators as recycling factories, after all.

 

World-Devastators and Imperial Leviathans actually work in the same way. The problem isn't technology, the problem is human dickishness. Can you imagine the majority of the GFFA's high and mighty being fine with the creation of a world, where they can no longer lord their wealth and power over the dirty plebs?

 

Manufacturing does not seem to be a problem in GFFA; fleets of massive ships, urban planets, etc. For $10,000 of our money you can get a decent used car with a range of 400 miles and a lifetime of 100,000 miles or so. For $10,000 of their money you can get a good used spacecraft capable of traveling faster than light millions of times over, could bust a city with sustained fire, and the weakest of which would need one of our Earthly nuclear weapons to bring their shields down.

It's how it's distributed that's the problem, hence the Empire is quite advanced but you have moisture farming on Tattooine. So the powers that be would probably rather keep fast, massive fabrication under control much like they have done with A.I. or else everyone gets a super weapon and the GFFA then becomes far more dangerous.

 

My memory is fuzzy, but I thought the Star Forge was like a giant replicator (from Star Trek) rather than "just" advanced factory, which wouldn't be surprising considering how far advanced Rakata tech is compared to every other known race. Drawing power from a star to create basically unlimited ships for Revan, as well as many copies of the Leviathan Interdictor cruiser. That along with the original third of the Republic fleet that defected to him was more than enough to overwhelm the Old Republic.

Though as most Rakata tech is dark-side oriented, something that big would be hard to control for anyone. Not sure if it was just speculation or hints, but it might even have had something to do with the Rakata's downfall and their loss of Force sensitivity. And lightside is generally "going with the flow" which is why the Jedi usually live pretty simple lives. They use the Force to build their lightsabers, or to adjust something, but usually nothing too blatant. Using the Force to power a giant factory? Yeah, that's probably darkside behavior.

The "true" Sith Empire from TOR did make their own version of the Star Forge, called the Sun Razer (as shown in the Lost Suns comic series) which they used to build various superweapons, though it was mentioned it was also destroying the star, being an imperfect copy of the original Star Forge.

As for why a conventional version of that was never invented (like how the regular hyperdrive was reverse-engineered from the Rakata version), something like that is probably just too advanced for regular galactic civilization. Yeah, in theory any civilization that lasts that long should reach that level, but Star Wars tech has always been schizo like that (and it got worse after KotOR ripped off the prequel design aesthetic). World Devastators are probably some of the more advanced self-contained factories/recyclers but keeping them around after the war was bad PR. Too bad we didn't get to see their technology more in use, but it was probably deemed too dangerous.

 

There is one Revan related quest in SWTOR on Nar Shaddaa which revolves around this problem:

Also from Revan's journal:

 

The biggest issue of course is that they can't study the Star Forge since it was dropped into a Sun. I think we do probably have some truly spectacular manufacturing machines in Star Wars but the technology which requires them is probably very heavily dependent on other amounts of technology. After all, on Coruscant, they can recycle waste and air and heat to keep the planet going.

 

As as been previously mentioned the GFFA is a highly unequal society with vast discrepancies in wealth and power on worlds in between worlds, and quadrants and regions of space. A technology like replicators in Star Trek would undermine that set up. Star Wars in its economics combines powerful aristocracies, with giant megacorporations, and religious sects which also wield an incredible amount of power over galactic affairs heck if anyone wanted to deconstruct the GFFA from a Marxist or really any sort of democratic or "progressive" perspective they would say it would be a total dystopia for the vast majority of its 100 quadrillion plus population.

 

Star Wars actually does a decent enough view of also deconstructing Marxist interpretations as well given many of the colonies and worlds are created by the belief of the human beings simply not wanting to live like others. Plenty of people from great big core worlds and local farms all move to the latter as dissatisfaction with the status quo is a constant theme in the setting. You have your Lukes, Uncle Owens, Cereans, Jedi (who are unlike the vast majority of clergyman in Marx in foregoing wealth), and Separatist libertarian capitalists (which would have given Marx fits).

But yes, Star Wars doesn't represent "the future" so much as it does an eternal present. Star Wars has changed massively because of the holonet's prevalance in the New Canon because the internet is real in our lives.

I imagine in Legends, had it continued, it would have been available everywhere.

 

I never liked the holonet expanded into Internet sorta ruins the space opera feel, however the fact that giant corporations, religious sects with a connection to a power the rest of the Galaxy can't influence or control and aristocratic and decadent core worlders seems to run the show. Now that's an simplication as trying to analyze the socioeconomics of a galactic level space opera society always is. Its still true though in the essentials.

 

Oh yes, I love that Firefly-esque cyberpunk in space world. Sadly, I think they're moving away from it.

 

Are you talking about Legends and the holonet or Canon?

 

I think the megacorporations and religious sects equally don't want much advancement. Obviously Sith want to keep the superweapons to themselves and tend to blow their own ones up to prevent other Sith from using them while the Jedi are too scared to let anyone have them. The Core aristocrats and megacorporations, meanwhile, wouldn't want something like the Star Forge because it'd make all their shipyards, workers and droids worthless. And as Charlemagne19 said, the Star Forge kinda blew up so it makes a potential Tony Stark innovating the Star Forge back in unlikely. Closest thing we got was World Devastators, and I imagine it wasn't simply the bleeding hearts but KDY, SFS, CEC and Incom who would lose a lot of credits if the NR could produce all the ships for their new fleet themselves.

 

I don't think that's the case. Most starships are owned by royalty, the military, or smugglers and don't seem to be something that most people have. The Rebellion has a very limited fleet. Much of Coruscant and urban cities is grimy and decaying once you go down a few levels, with people in poverty, like a gold-polished turd. The Imperial fleet isn't limitless either, or there would be no need for the Death Stars or Starkiller Base.

You could have star forges for peace and prosperity, but still have a little regulation over them so they don't mass-produce weapons.

Evolve it, not undermine it. The new canon doesn't need to be stuck in stasis like the Legends EU. We see they're pretty close, with Starkiller Base. It just needs to be refined. Like how we went from nuclear bombs to nuclear power plants.

I can see the Sith wanting to hoard power, but they probably wouldn't even think of its more creative uses to begin with.

The Jedi shouldn't be blindly opposed to it, though, or at least not Luke's Jedi, probably as long as there's some regulation on weapons production.
===> And, to borrow from Legends, it's not that different from Kol's dream with the Ossus Project

The aristocrats and corporate executives would be able to live in even more wealth and prosperity if this came to pass, but with much less work.

The galaxy wouldn't need credits or any currency anymore, at least not for anything that can be mass-produced.

Storytelling potential is still there, with darksiders and the underworld probably trying to team together to take over one of these star forges to make weapons and fleets, to use it like the original Legends star forge.