Why is Star Wars technology so stagnant and repetitive?

The tech used in KOTOR I & II is pretty much the same as the movies, even though they take place 3950 yrs earlier. To put that in perspective, that's 2000 years before JESUS.

 

And to put it more in perspective.

Humans in GFFA could travel all the way across their galaxy 25,000 years ago.

25,000 years ago we were banging rocks for fun and profit.

Even prior to that, humans in GFFA had space travel and empires spanning more than one world.

Technology in the GFFA has likely reached the point where it covers all available needs as much as possible.

 

Ice as a weapon? Space is far colder than ice.

//Technicality - actually, false. Empty space has no temperature because it is empty, and as there is no matter to transfer the heat energy from a given object in space, an object in outer space would retain its temperature for quite a bit of time.

 

Or due to recurring post war devastation like what apparently happened after Ruusan, the GFFA has to continously reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

 

This argument is just like the one with expanded force powers with the jedi and sith. Star Wars does have a lot of different weapons if you know where to look, and to answer that guy who posted that star wars is not like star trek that introduces new weapons with every star trek story. Let me just say, that star wars has a lot of, if not, more weapons than star trek. We still have episode 3, clone war season 2, rumored live action tv series (which is really a go, though nothing really official)that haven't even come out yet. Heck, I haven't even gotten into the novels, comic books, video games, and role playing books. Star Wars is becoming a star trek and doctor who. It was inevitable that it was going to happen.

 

It's not a matter of whether the tech can go any further, as you're saying---it's a matter of showing more variety, rather than the same two lasers and two missiles.

 

As for more variety...

as of the NJO, the GFFA has been almost continously at war for 47 years. Clone War, the Galactic Civil war, and then finally the war against the Vong. Now, warfare tends to spruce weapons types down severely-new idea come up with regularity, but either stick or quickly dissapear.

Now, as for real-world tech...

We've had the same air-superiority fighter for 30 years.

We've had the same ground-attack plane for the same amount of time.

ditto for multirole fighters.

Our primary bomber (the B-52) has been around for forty years, with no sign of retirement anytime soon, despite the B-1 and B-2 coming along.

We've used the same pattern of rifle (M-16/M-4) for the same amount of time.

Now, has anything honestly better than the X-Wing, wedge-shaped capital ships, and so on come along during the last forty or so years of GFFA history? No. There's been different designs certainly, but I haven't seen any of those designs completely outmode what's come before. While *some* of those designs have been demonstratably better, (such as the TIE-D and it's other TIE cousins) most are too costly or limited in what they could do to honestly be counted as offering the same mix of cost-effectiveness and mission-effectiveness as a Star Destroyer or X-Wing.

 

To put that in perspective, that's 2000 years before JESUS.

...hunh?

 

I believe that Star Wars should be viewed 'in-universe' and logical to us readers, not as a Science Fiction / Fantasy epic. We should try and use some real world perspective. Excellence, with your point that starfighters still only use Proton Torpedos and Concussion Missiles, well, in real life, it is 2005, and we are still using bullets.

With your analogy of Sabacc and Dejarik, well, go into any casino in the world, and the most popular games will still be Poker and Blackjack, perhaps with only a couple of others.

 

<<How about do lung transplants 25,000 years after hyperspace? No go.>>

We see them do lung transplants during the Medstar duology.

 

And I think bacta has moved the GFFA beyond most organ transplant needs anyhow. Why replace it when you can heal it? Less chance of the body rejecting the organ, no worries as far as rehabilitation..

 

Like sabacc and dejarik, the only two games you ever really see

Yet with all the computer game advances, board games etc, chess and a deck of cards are still two of the most popular games in the world.

Also, LFL still has to cater to new fans. Imagine a reader new to the EU reading about "ice beams" or other new weapons, ships, etc. One read and they'll think "this ain't Star Wars" and never pick up another book.

Or the ultimate antistarfighter batteries of all: a battery whose barrels are splayed out, shooting a wide field of fire

Wasn't the recently invented (in EU terms) Lancer Frigate designed specifically for the anti-starfighter role?

And wasn't gravity field Interdiction technology relatively new just after ROTJ?

And what about the all the Vong technology?

 

Technically, interdiction field tech is 4000 years old dating back to the War of the Star Forge. So it isn't really new, it's practically ancient.

The Vong tech could be equalled by the GA if anyone put the effort to it.

Lancer Frigates are just frigates with advanced fire control systems tied to 40 quad batteries shooting in a 3D grid.

 

What about solar light as a weapon?

If a metre-square cone of light---coming out of special equipment---was focused on a ship hull, it'd burn through each bulkhead in its path. Could ray shields even stop it?

In fact, it just may very well be possible. In Wedge's Gamble that Golan did have operable shields, which didn't hold back the solar sat's light, didn't it?
Light obeys the inverse square law, which TLs apparently do not, and in your scenario would be both less powerful and less intense then TLs.

And in Wedge's Gamble, the thing had been getting pounded to death by rebel ships since the start of the battle.

 

With your analogy of Sabacc and Dejarik, well, go into any casino in the world, and the most popular games will still be Poker and Blackjack, perhaps with only a couple of others.

Sammler, but walking into the average casino and buying books with the same repetitve tech are two different expenses.

Also, LFL still has to cater to new fans. Imagine a reader new to the EU reading about "ice beams" or other new weapons, ships, etc. One read and they'll think "this ain't Star Wars" and never pick up another book.

Sloth, but that wouldn't happen if Star Wars had been more versatile years back. It has conditioned fans into thinking what's in the sacred movies are only wha can be presented. Surprisingly, my dicussions here support that point. Some people won't consider Kenobi can push a droideka because he didn't show it in TPM!

And I wasn't talking about the antifighter Lancer, I was suggesting a barrel that shoots a spray of bolts in an arc, not the atypical straight line. Imagine trying to evade that! You couldn't aim with it, and may hit your own ships, but no close-in starfing fighter could evade that.

The Vong tech could be equalled by the GA if anyone put the effort to it.

But they weren't allowed, Noldor, or the Vong would have been beaten back too soon. The Reps were only seen responding to Vong countermeasures, they were never actively devising actual attacks. How 'bout jamming voids?

No more voids, no more shielding and propulsion. They'd be sitting kath hounds.

Focusing enhanced solar light is still viable. Whether the target is fresh or preoccupied in battle, the solar light may or may not be softened by ray shielding---an author can decide that on the spot. But that spot of hull metal can only withstand its heat for so long.

 

My bad on the Interdictor.

Anyway, It's not been all bad on the fighter front.

On the Imperial side look at how many improved Tie fighter models have there been.

Y-wings are now extremely rare, as are Headhunters. But we've also had E-wings, K-wings etc