#profic analysis

[magnetarbeam]

I think a lot about Star Wars technology as it relates to the stylistic schemes of the story, and what they can do with the technology compared to what it would be thematically fitting for us to see them do.

This isn't exactly something I've gone out of my way to research, but the impression I generally have is that in the time that the OT was coming out, the visuals were meant to be believable to the viewers at that time, with the technological frame of reference of the 1970s and 1980s, when people couldn't even fathom that we might one day have real-world datapads.

More recently, as technological accelerationism has increasingly taken hold in our society, I think the idea has become more "Star Wars is an interstellar society, so it doesn't make sense for them not to always use all the devices we invent to make our lives easier, and more."

And I don't think that's exactly right. As far as I can figure it, that civilization's frame of reference for these things is probably very different from ours. The Galactic Republic was founded 25053 years before the Battle of Yavin. They've had this same technological base far longer than even their longest-lived member species can remember. The galaxy has had far more than enough time to collectively realize what Earth hasn't, which is that a more complex system has more points of failure, and this shit is such old news to them that they're not excited by the idea of using it to make their lives easier, like we are.

Like, digital graphics displays for us get higher-resolution all the time just because we can. Those same displays in Star Wars look like garbage to us because they don't need that level of detail to serve their purpose.

I have absolutely no doubt that the people in that galaxy could make an Alexa or what have you. But if those people were presented with the idea, I think instead of "Ooo, it makes things easier because I can talk to it from anywhere," their first thought, as a collective cultural outlook, would be "I can do those same things perfectly fine by walking over to a computer and doing it myself."

[magnetarbeam]

FotJ thing that clicked for me today:

At the end of Conviction, when Vestara kills an innocent tsil to create the psychic blast that saves their lives from the Sith, and she justifies it by saying that Luke's the only person who might be powerful enough to beat Abeloth, so his survival is the most important thing.

Later, Jaina tells Luke that the Force told the Jedi pilots to draw the Golan's fire away from Luke's crippled StealthX instead of potentially chasing down Abeloth and Ship or the rest of Gavar's fleet before their escape. (Judging by how much damage Ship took in his previous fight with Jaina, a concerted attack by multiple squadrons of StealthXs would almost certainly have finished him off, too.)

The implication I'm picking up is that even though Vestara doesn't recognize it, her motivations in saving Luke were similarly informed by the guidance of the Force.

I don't want to think the Force told her how to do so, but for all we know of it...

[magnetarbeam]

I desperately want to see more of Tenel Ka as the Queen Mother, and how she, like, manages to be a good ruler and carry within her everything that a Jedi Knight is, in spite of the political system she's in charge of being epitomized by enough murderous treachery to make Sith feel at home.

[magnetarbeam]

I've just finished Chapter 1 of Starfighters of Adumar and this is already giving so much more context to Wedge's character in NJO and LotF. Just how important it is to him to find something of himself other than his career, and how royally pissed he is when Cracken comes to him with exactly the right thing to make him cancel the leave he's so eager for.

This absolutely progresses into how he acts after knowing he has to come out of retirement to fight the Vong, and then being dragged out of retirement again in LotF, this time not even for a reason.

Just. Wedge's slow build to the point where he refuses to make any more sacrifices for the concept of "making the galaxy better," as the consensuses and politicians and bureaucrats define "better."

[magnetarbeam]

There's a scene in Abyss where Ben has to make himself small in the Force and it says he draws his signature in so tight he can't even sense it.

And that makes me realize that that was probably how Vergere took away Jacen's ability to feel the Force when she was torturing him, and how Caedus later did the same to Ben. Just make the victims small enough in the Force. It probably wouldn't work as an attack in actual combat, but when someone is basically incapable of resistance, sure.

In hindsight, this seems insultingly obvious.

[magnetarbeam]

Stuff missing from Dark Tide II

1: Us getting to know Anni at all.

2: Corran burying the hatchet with Kyp after Ithor, since from Corran's perspective he no longer has the moral high ground to hold a grudge about Carida.

[magnetarbeam]

Every single time Troy Denning uses the word "baradium" in a Star Wars book, I want to dissolve into a pile of spare molecules on the floor.

The first time, to my memory, is in Star by Star, when the Myrkr strike team packs along a baradium missile in the box with the YVH droids and stuff. In this scene, we're told that baradium is the same stuff that makes thermal detonators particularly powerful, and the single baradium missile, even though it went off on a proximity fuse to preempt a dovin basal void swallowing it, instantly destroys a Yuuzhan Vong matalok, a warship class that a few books later takes three direct proton torpedo hits from X-Wings to destroy. Later in Star by Star, when we're introduced to shadow bombs, it seems like part of what makes them so special is that they have a baradium payload. Problem is, regular thermal detonators aren't superweapons.

It gets worse later on, when it basically turns into Star Wars word substitution for a nuke. At the end of Fate of the Jedi: Vortex, there's a scene where the Council wonders in horror about whether Daala would use a baradium explosive on Coruscant. In Abyss, when Luke and Ben find Sinkhole Station, Ben's first reaction is "we should hit it with the baradium missile we don't have" like this is Halo or something where nukes can magically break stuff made by civilizations millions of years more advanced than our heroes.

Just, if the idea here is that baradium explosives are some special thing that is essentially a Star Wars coded nuke, the only reason there would be something else less potent that normal torpedoes use is if baradium is much rarer or more expensive. But it's not like regular detonators are particularly hard for major militaries to get in large numbers.

Legacy of the Force: Tempest indicates at one point that baradium is what's in standard torpedoes, making that subtext even weirder.

Now I'm running out of time to talk about this, so the Saxtonian perspectives about how this doesn't make sense in the context of the universe's power levels are being saved for later.

[magnetarbeam]

I was told on Discord a few days ago that apparently there's a six-month timeskip between Ascension and Apocalypse, which kind of blows my mind because I'd been under the impression that Abeloth spent, like, a week in charge of the GA, but this recontextualizes my entire understanding.

For one thing, it makes it a lot easier to accept the idea that supposedly the series took a year, which it really doesn't feel like from the other books. But also, like. Abeloth and the Sith could have done a lot of damage to political shit in that time. She might have been in charge longer than Caedus was, and I think the policy changes she could have had with the entire senate under her influence is a subject deserving of some closer thought.

Also, in AUs where Vestara didn't get her character assassinated, you could have so many good Jedi lessons and stuff for her in that time.