lPeregrine wrote:But this falls short when you remember that you have scavengers and scrap dealers selling droids, and they don't seem consider C-3PO (clearly sentient/creative/etc) to be anything more than just another generic piece of farm machinery.
Half-jokingly, I've sometimes wondered if C-3PO
is sentient: he seems very much like an idiot savant, with immense knowledge in one area, but absolutely no common sense, ability to take care of himself, or ability to think outside the box.
I don't advance this argument seriously, but it does bear thinking on- just because something is talking doesn't mean it's intelligent.
Also, don't forget that a human soldier requires training, food, shelter, etc, and those things are not cheap. A droid might cost more up front than conscripting a human soldier, but they are significantly cheaper to maintain.
Is it? I'm not entirely sure; do we have evidence of that in Star Wars?
In real life, maintaining a car which sees regular use is roughly an order of magnitude less expensive than maintaining a human being. Maintaining a personal computer is about two orders of magnitude cheaper. Clearly, the cost of maintaining a droid must be at least broadly competitive with that of a human, because we see droids used for roles that it would not be that hard to hire a human to do. But it doesn't have to be all that much less.
biostem wrote:Still, lesser computers abound - like the targeting computer in the X-Wing or even the practice drone Luke used to train. Maybe there is more computer involvement than we directly see - like something to prevent a pilot from oversteering a craft that can do 100's of G's in a turn if things weren't kept in check...
Very possible. We already have those in real life- modern fighter jets would not be flyable without the computer, because they're
inherently unstable in flight. This makes them more agile, but also means you need an automatic system monitoring the plane millisecond by millisecond to keep it from plunging into the ground.
