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basically from the period of the clone wars to a new hope, how much did the Empire advance technology wise. Obviously the empire due to the nature of its government was able to build more impressive military equipment ie: death star, star destroyers, then the decentralized republic

However could the clone wars era republic build a deathstar or star destroyer ignoring difficulties such as logistics, man power resources?

Also knowing that Tie fighters are built to be cheap and massed produced, how would they fare against comparable size clone war era star fighters?

I really can't say they advanced that much. The CIS was building a prototype Death Star, the "Great Weapon", in the closing days of the Clone Wars. What was to stop the Republic from doing the same, barring possibly some political hurdles?

They also had massive ships around like the Mandator-II's, which were nearly as large as the Executor, and the first Imperators were being built at the end of the CW. The Republic could build a lot of the things the Empire could, the Empire just did it bigger. That's still an impressive feat, mind.

I'm sure someone more verbose and with more direct resources on hand can say this more eloquently than myself, but it is most likely that the Star Wars galaxy is technologically static and has been for some time (millenia). They have reached a point where they are not progressing technologically at a rate at all comparable to our own. Surely aesthetic styles change, and minor tweaks, improvements and adjustments may be had, but the days of galaxy changing advances are far in the past.

The Republic could surely have constructed the Death Stars on technological terms. The issue was politically the project was not feasible. The consolidation of power under the Empire and the ability of the government to appropriate the incredible funds needed for the project in secret was something the Republic could not accomplish. Technologically however, the capability was there.

spaceviking wrote:basically from the period of the clone wars to a new hope, how much did the Empire advance technology wise.

Somewhere between 'nothing much' and 'not at all'.

Obviously the empire due to the nature of its government was able to build more impressive military equipment ie: death star, star destroyers, then the decentralized republic

When ships LARGER than Imperial Star Destroyers where well withing the capabilities of the OR 3,000 years BEFORE the Clone Wars and the Death Star was originally a SEPARATIST project, and thus needed to be doable with far less resources than the OR had at its disposal.

However could the clone wars era republic build a deathstar or star destroyer ignoring difficulties such as logistics, man power resources?

Given that Wars technology has been essentially static for a couple thousand years, logistics (which, incidentally, would INCLUDE manpower resources) would actually be the only thing that might keep the OR from building those ships. If it weren't essentially identical to the Empire resource-wise. They've got the same tech base, they've got the same resources, they've got the same manpower (assuming that's relevant in an economy with heavy droid useage).

Also knowing that Tie fighters are built to be cheap and massed produced, how would they fare against comparable size clone war era star fighters?

Given that they stand up to Civil War era top-of-the-line starfighters quite well, I'd say they should be able to hold their own.

Why would anybody believe there was any significant technological advance between the Clone Wars era and the Empire/Civil War era AT ALL when barring those stupid EU superweapons the entirety of the material shows (and repeatedly explicitly SAYS) there WASN'T?

George Lucas apparently intended for the look of the Star Destroyers vs. the Republic's stuff to evoke the idea of the galaxy being plunged into technological Dark Ages under the Empire, so take that as you will.

How is one actually defining "advancement?" Are we talking "completely new technologies", then no. If we're talking "improving or re-applying existing technologies" then yes, some does.

Its also worth noting vessels like VSDs, Venators, and Dreadnaught cruisers, and even the Corporate sector vessels lik the "invincible-class" since they give an idea of how slowly technology changes. (EG, the Clone wars era stuff is decades old, in some clases possibly a century or more old, and the Invincible class was a millenia-old design.)

I seem to recall it being stated in Dark Empire that the Emperor was using new technology in his latest navy. Does anyone recall such a statement?

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:George Lucas apparently intended for the look of the Star Destroyers vs. the Republic's stuff to evoke the idea of the galaxy being plunged into technological Dark Ages under the Empire, so take that as you will.

Seriously? Do you have the quote?

I know the ICS tried to spin the look of the OT as being more "industrial" vs the PT's handcrafted ships, but I've never heard of a "dark age" before.

Technology can be newly applied or invented without the general engineering or pure science having actually advanced. The technology built could have been feasible in the past be undesired or even built thousands of years ago, but since fell into disuse.

Bounty wrote: Seriously? Do you have the quote?

I know the ICS tried to spin the look of the OT as being more "industrial" vs the PT's handcrafted ships, but I've never heard of a "dark age" before.

What? The only ships that look "handcrafted" were those Naboo ships, and that seemed more like it was just their ship designs than the entire galaxy liking "smooth designs." Lots of stuff in the PT looked like the bulky ships and fighters we see in the OT, from the ARC-170s, the Trade Federation ships, droids, pod racers (thats on some backwater shit hole but still)

Or what, just because some of the ships in the PT were painted suddenly they are handcrafted?

Or what, just because some of the ships in the PT were painted suddenly they are handcrafted?

I'm not suggesting the PT ships (well, the ones up to Ep I) were actually built by hand. The ICS simply stated that up to a few years before the PT, most ship designs had aesthetics in mind; and that ship designs were done by artisans to be as high quality as possible, not efficient.

Then the troubles around Ep I started and everyone switched to more utilitarian, industrial-looking ships that sacrificed "pretty" for "cost-effective".

Not handcrafted per se, but possibly built in dedicated, low-capacity machine shops. As opposed to stamped out on an assembly line at the rate of absurd number per hour. Like how the Rebels built their starfighters during the earliest years of the GCW. Only while the Rebels did it for operational security, planetary defense squadrons of the Old Republic did it because they only needed very small numbers of fighter craft.

That said, while I can buy that line in the case of the Naboo and their flying muscle cars, for the galaxy at large? Uh uh. The most butt ugly ships are really old designs (YT-1300, Corellian corvette) while Imperial capships specifically sacrifice utility on the altar of aesthetics (Venator, Imperator, Executor). The TIEs are a different story, but that may be more endemic of the gulf between Kuat and Seinar than the gulf between Republic and Empire.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba wrote:George Lucas apparently intended for the look of the Star Destroyers vs. the Republic's stuff to evoke the idea of the galaxy being plunged into technological Dark Ages under the Empire, so take that as you will.

That was just SB mistaking (as usual) the quote and the difference between the PT and the OT as a technological decline rather than a cultural shift. Even a cursory comparison of technological feats easily destroys the idea.

Darth Raptor wrote:Not handcrafted per se, but possibly built in dedicated, low-capacity machine shops. As opposed to stamped out on an assembly line at the rate of absurd number per hour. Like how the Rebels built their starfighters during the earliest years of the GCW. Only while the Rebels did it for operational security, planetary defense squadrons of the Old Republic did it because they only needed very small numbers of fighter craft.

That said, while I can buy that line in the case of the Naboo and their flying muscle cars, for the galaxy at large? Uh uh. The most butt ugly ships are really old designs (YT-1300, Corellian corvette) while Imperial capships specifically sacrifice utility on the altar of aesthetics (Venator, Imperator, Executor). The TIEs are a different story, but that may be more endemic of the gulf between Kuat and Seinar than the gulf between Republic and Empire.

Its not even that you need higher outputs. If your equipment is very high quality, has a long service life, and you're in rough economic and technological stasis with slow cultural preference shifts why would you need a high production rate? In SW there's no reason even rough-and-tumble warships cannot last centuries or a few millennia. When not in a massive upheaval or wartime, the need to replace existing hardware is generally probably very low.

Alexian Cale wrote:I seem to recall it being stated in Dark Empire that the Emperor was using new technology in his latest navy. Does anyone recall such a statement?

yes, it was for the World Devastators and Galaxy Gun I believe

Warsie wrote:

Alexian Cale wrote:I seem to recall it being stated in Dark Empire that the Emperor was using new technology in his latest navy. Does anyone recall such a statement?

yes, it was for the World Devastators and Galaxy Gun I believe

The World Devastators were indeed weapons that went "beyond all previous conceptions", based on Maw research technology previously unavailable to the galaxy at large. The Galaxy Gun, however, is nothing new in and of itself; rather, it is the shields projecting the hyperspace missiles that are exceptional. Palpatine himself remarked that it was a wonder that the Empire had not thought of it years before.

I never understood if the Imperial Navy as of Dark Empire was equal to, lesser than, or greater than the Imperial Navy as of the OT.

New designs in warships must have some meaning (they should be better armed/armored, faster or cheaper to operate), otherwise why one would invest a large load of money to develop them... so there should be a modest advancement at least. AFAIK no Clone War era warship had anything better then a Class 2 Hyperdrive.

On a deeper level, it is always quoted that SW is a 'technologically static civilization', however the meaning of this is never clearly stated. It can be easily said that CPU had shown very little advancement from the 80s since they still use the same forth generation architecture and the same basic elements. So nothing remarkably new happened in the field except some minor miniaturization.

So it is more than possible that an Imperial era battlegroup would beat the shit out from a late-Republic era battlegroup of the same tonnage.

Darth Hoth wrote:

Warsie wrote:

Alexian Cale wrote:I seem to recall it being stated in Dark Empire that the Emperor was using new technology in his latest navy. Does anyone recall such a statement?

yes, it was for the World Devastators and Galaxy Gun I believe

The World Devastators were indeed weapons that went "beyond all previous conceptions", based on Maw research technology previously unavailable to the galaxy at large. The Galaxy Gun, however, is nothing new in and of itself; rather, it is the shields projecting the hyperspace missiles that are exceptional. Palpatine himself remarked that it was a wonder that the Empire had not thought of it years before.

Molecular construction was centuries old before it was used in the WDs. The only truly new thing about it was the manner in which they were used. Hyperspace cannons is so ancient that they were probably forgotten before the GG. The GG projectiles were curious however, since they had exceptional point defences, very strong shields, and possibly some form of shield penetration technology (none of which are new. The Dark Empire designs in general appear more effective than older ones however).

bz249 wrote:New designs in warships must have some meaning (they should be better armed/armored, faster or cheaper to operate), otherwise why one would invest a large load of money to develop them... so there should be a modest advancement at least. AFAIK no Clone War era warship had anything better then a Class 2 Hyperdrive.

On a deeper level, it is always quoted that SW is a 'technologically static civilization', however the meaning of this is never clearly stated. It can be easily said that CPU had shown very little advancement from the 80s since they still use the same forth generation architecture and the same basic elements. So nothing remarkably new happened in the field except some minor miniaturization.

So it is more than possible that an Imperial era battlegroup would beat the shit out from a late-Republic era battlegroup of the same tonnage.

IIRC the Acclamators had a Class 0.75 Hyperdrive. Furthermore, they create new classes to fulfill different roles in the fleet. Imperials were not designed to replace Venators so much as be designed to have different abilities to do a different task.

The biggest Galaxy Gun innovations were the exceptionally high-performance shield-penetration-aids and the "nucleonic chain-reaction"-principle warhead, allowing (apparently) arbitrary, self-sustained mass-to-energy conversion on a large scale.

Alexian Cale wrote:I never understood if the Imperial Navy as of Dark Empire was equal to, lesser than, or greater than the Imperial Navy as of the OT.

lesser in numbers (a little at least), but same quality and the like. The Imperial Navy in the OT was the backwater rim patrols; most of the fleets were in the core worlds and the like

EDIT: and k, Darth Hoth

bz249 wrote:New designs in warships must have some meaning (they should be better armed/armored, faster or cheaper to operate), otherwise why one would invest a large load of money to develop them... so there should be a modest advancement at least. AFAIK no Clone War era warship had anything better then a Class 2 Hyperdrive.

There wasn't really a need for large, long-range warships before the outbreak of the Clone War. That alone would've spurred on new ships being designed and constructed.

On a deeper level, it is always quoted that SW is a 'technologically static civilization', however the meaning of this is never clearly stated. It can be easily said that CPU had shown very little advancement from the 80s since they still use the same forth generation architecture and the same basic elements. So nothing remarkably new happened in the field except some minor miniaturization.

Scale and size are also major advancements in and of themselves.

SW technology is as a whole "static" in some ways, but not all. By and large all the common technologies you see have been in use for countless millenia (hyperdrive, blasters, etc.) in one form or another, so you'll never see a "new" kind of eenergy weapon develop (A variation on a blaster/turbolaser/whatever, perhaps, but all the possible beam weapons have been developed. including the forcefield ones.) Likewise, its unlikely you'd see new kinds of FTL technology develop. In that way, ,technology is pretty much at the limits of what it is.

On the other hand, it does seem that technology can be "improved" or "refined" to some degree still. The Death Star is one example of this (or the Eclipse or) the AOTC ICS made the statement that technologly largely changes in terms of scale (ie making it bigger or or more compact) or application (best example are gravity well projectors.) Even then though, progress is incremental at best, since the ISB (And other WEG sources) make it clear that ships can be decades or centuries old and still have capability against so called "modern" vessels. Its only when you hit the "thousands" of year old mark (IE Invincible class Heavy cruisers) that significant differences in capability arise. This probably suggests that improvements only come about with significant investments of time and resources, and most people (especially corporations) probably can't be bothered by it. (which may be why most of them seem to come about as a result of wartime.)

Depending on where you look (or just how much of a "canon purist" you are) there are quite a few examples of technologies that haven't been properly exploited or
"mainstream" - alot of Gree technology for example (IE the "Sails" for Dooku's craft.) as well as various organiwank stuff and those super-huge spacefaring robots who built Vuffi Raa, or the Oswaft or Ang-Tii (who had better/more precise FTL capability than is generally available.) - there probably just isn't much inclination to bother with it. Like with the improvement of existing technologies, its bound to be costly and time consuming to implement. (although in some cases, like Vuffi Raa's creators, its probably as much a case of getting examples of it to use.)

Another thing to keep in mind is that alot of the apparent "Tech advancement" in Star wars has less to do with innovation as it does with making trade offs in an overall design. For example, heavy blasters and disruptors combine grreater firepower and a compact design at the expense of ammo capacity and range (and in the case of disruptors, rate of fire.) The so called "New Class" program is also a prime example of tradeoffs. In theory the New Class ships were vastly smaller than ISDs, yet possessed nearly the same firepower and (in some cases at least) durability. What isn't apparent is all the trade-offs made to accomplish this: they lost alot more of their operational range and endurance (eg: smaller crews plus less supplies carried, for example), they were HIGHLY specialized craft devoted to particular purposes (as opposed to the multipurpose roles of ISDs), and they were (as a rule) more disposable - the ships weren't intended to be easily repaired or salvagable (at least according to Cracken's Threat Dossier). And even accounting for all that, they only managed to pack in something like 80% of the firepower of an ISD (The Defenders and Nebulas were the ones who did that, actually, and that was largely at the expense of increased costs. The Republic class was less powerful, but probably cheaper, ,and somewhat larger.) so they got around that by optimizing them for having longer ranges and better accuracy than their ISD counterparts (basically they could get more hits at longer ranges despite having fewer guns.)

Generally, for the vast majority of ships, you'll expect ot see tradeoffs in one area or others (eg performance, cost, size.) to achieve better results. A bigge ship has more volume to devote to performance, but it also requires more resources. A more expensive design can afford to be compact but also capable, but also can put limits on numbers (EG the Defender Star Destroyers). Moreover, even when factoring in some improvement, an advancement in one area doesn't neccearily mean it will translate into something better. Improving weapons output doesn't mean anything without an improvement in powerplants, and vice versa. A regular blaster with an improved output will basically just be either a heavy blaster (IE fewer shots to compensate for the greater output) or a bigger blaster (to accomodate a better powerpack) without some sort of corroborating advance.

As for Maw Instlalation.. well.. of the "known" advanceements, the World Devastators were new applications of existing technologies for the most parrt (their furances and fabrication tech has long existed, eg Coruscatn Construction droids). The Death Star, of course, was just a really big blaster platform (application of existing technologies plus increase in scale.). The Sun Crusher may be an exception in some ways, but even there aspects of it are based on existing technologies (the QC armor was just basically making a more dense armor than existed before, its still the same armour, for exmaple.) and the rest of it wasn't neccesarily revolutionary save the torpedoes (and really, we dont know how those worked. They, as well as other spinoff technologies Maw may have dabbled in, could also fall into the "scale and application" criteria.)

Anyhow, overall, its probably more accurate to say SW is for the most part near the upper limits of developing/improving existing technologies (or at least far enough along that its not cost effective save in extreme situations), has developed mostly all of the possible (or useful) technologies save for certain exceptions or alternatives, and is incremental at best even when advancements do occur (and more often than not involve some sort of tradeoff)

Also, the AOTC:ICS made an interesting comment. apparently, for a "static" civilization and one with the speed of hyperdrive, technological "fashions" spread incredibly slowly through the galaxy for some reason - the actual example was Owen's airspeeder from AOTC (Which was supposed to be "popular" in the core worlds among the rich and the like) - I find it hard to bleieve that if technology neever improves, and if Hyperdrive is fast, "fashions" would spread so apaprently "slwoly" (the Rim being decades behind the Core, apparently.)

Edit: I suppose on reflection a great many external factors can influence it. Like, for example, the Trade Fedration and other corporate interests. I doubt the wanted unrestricted free trade between Core and Rim (unless they were doing it, or someone went through them.) so they would deliberately suppress such progress. It would suggest, however, that the SW galaxy is probably fucked up by enough external factors that they tend not to always follow the most logical route (IE the one we expect. Such as why they still supposedly live on planets despite being able to build artificial planetoids.)