Droid torture?

[Darth Yoshi]

In ROTJ, C-3PO and R2-D2 are given as a "gift" to Jabba the Hutt. They're taken to a room to be assigned tasks, and in that room, several droids are apparently being tortured.

A torture chamber? For droids? How do you torture a droid? Why would you torture a droid? It's not like they can feel pain.

[Vicious]

In ROTJ, C-3PO and R2-D2 are given as a "gift" to Jabba the Hutt. They're taken to a room to be assigned tasks, and in that room, several droids are apparently being tortured.

A torture chamber? For droids? How do you torture a droid? Why would you torture a droid? It's not like they can feel pain.

This scene has always bugged me. The way I read it is that droids have more personality and sentience than is often let on, thus making torture an effective method of punishment and warning to other droids. How you'd go about it is another matter. I could see massive sensory overload being one, maybe, but the main torture scene is of a droid's feet being burned, which makes no sense. The one being ripped apart I can understand, since it wouldn't kill the droid but would remove it's ability to fufill it's function, which might be construed as torture for a droid.

[applejack]

Droids feel pain. Remember when Chewbacca hits Threepio's head on the Millenium Falcon in TESB?

[Solauren]

or the torture was to slowly metal the droid down (you could take your time with a droid after all). If it had sentience, it would really think about 'oh shit, eventually....)

OR
it was programmed to simulate pain, and that was just a practice sessions to get things right before the torturer droid worked over a prisoner for Jabba

[Noble Ire]

In Tales of Jabba's Place, the story about the Torture Droid (EVE-9D9) describes how she fits each droid she assigned to torture with pain sensors of her own design.

[The Spartan]

I could see massive sensory overload being one, maybe, but the main torture scene is of a droid's feet being burned, which makes no sense. The one being ripped apart I can understand, since it wouldn't kill the droid but would remove it's ability to fufill it's function, which might be construed as torture for a droid.

IIRC, the steam coming off the feet is supposedly coolant. And a loss of coolant causes overheating throughout the droid, which "hurts" it.

I don't remember offhand where I read that and, frankly don't like the explanation but it's the only one I've found that makes any kind of sense.

[applejack]

IIRC, the steam coming off the feet is supposedly coolant. And a loss of coolant causes overheating throughout the droid, which "hurts" it.

I don't remember offhand where I read that and, frankly don't like the explanation but it's the only one I've found that makes any kind of sense.

I thought that was simply tiny bits of his feet being vaporized. The torture device looked red hot, IIRC.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

A torture chamber? For droids? How do you torture a droid? Why would you torture a droid? It's not like they can feel pain.

I've always wondered about this as well. I assume that some are programmed to respond to certain physical stimuli. Say if I were to smack C3PO's kneecap with a certain amount force (no pun intended), his programing would have him respond in a way that is proportional to the amount of force applied. When the certain stimulus becomes too much, for the circuits to handle, I guess that's when they crack.

This reminds me of a certain scene that was cut out of KOTOR2 where HK-47 was torturing an HK-50 droid. For those who haven't heard it click me