Pick a droid, any droid.

[Borgholio]

So let's say Santa gave you a droid from Star Wars. You can pick any droid seen on screen. It could be one of the classics such as 3PO or R2, or one of the newer ones like BB-8...or anything really. Which one would you choose and why? What would you use it for? How would you treat it and interact with it?

For the purposes of this question, assume that the droid also comes packaged with a combination fusion charging and repair station that can tend to all of your droid's maintenance needs.

[Thanas]

I would chose C-3PO because he would be of great help translating ancient languages.

[Terralthra]

Does this come with the ability to understand the droid?

[Elheru Aran]

Did you mean to put this in Star Wars?

Anyway. Artoo and Threepio really are probably the best choices. Likely I'd go with Artoo though, he seems the best multi-purpose worker. The downside is our technology may not be advanced enough for him to interface with... BB8 is useful if you need someone to nip into small spaces though.

Gonk droids, what the hell do they do anyway? In the Clone Wars cartoon they apparently use four-legged versions as some sort of general purpose droid. Mobile toolbox?

As for other droids... let's see:

--IG series and other assassin droids. Useful if you want to eliminate anybody. Of course if you're the only person around with an assassin droid...

--Probe droids. Not that we don't already have drones which do pretty much the same stuff, though.

--Battle droids. Only one isn't much use, unless it's an advanced unit like a super battle droid or a droideka. You could maybe try renting out droidekas to the military or something.

--Droid starfighters... now this is where it gets interesting. Depending on fuel range (a big if), they could be very useful for exploring the closer ranges of the solar system.

--There's a multitude of assorted droid types in the EU. See HK-47, for example (general purpose droid with assassin/battle droid software IIRC). Guri (human replica droid). War tank-droids. And so forth.

[Borgholio]

Does this come with the ability to understand the droid?

Yes. Either they speak your native language or they come with a translator box. They can also communicate via text and IMs to your computer / smartphone.

Did you mean to put this in Star Wars?

Could be there too...although this is a pretty random question. Either way. If a mod wants to move this to the Star Wars topic that's fine with me.

[Tribble]

Well no one's going to have the droid for very long, because once somebody realises that you have it they are bound to try and take it. Especially when a government becomes involved. Ditto for the fusion charging repair station. You would probably be captured and interrogated as well as the government would want to know where the droid came from. And if Santa is actually real- well I guess that means a mad dash to the north pole as everyone scrambles to try and locate and/or conquer him. Though if he's capable of building Star Wars droids as Christmas gifts, I'm pretty sure he could take care of himself.

I guess the best you could hope for is to keep your droid out of sight at all times and hope no one figures out where all your new ideas are coming from. Use C3PO to translate a language? Use R2D2 to reverse engineer some tech and build patents (R2D2 / BB8 might be able to figure out how to communicate via computer)? You could do these things I suppose, but you'd have to be very careful. Personally, I'd pick "return to sender" because I'm not that keen on putting my life in danger. Perhaps Guri might work since she's a human replica droid and all, and she could remain effectively hidden provided she doesn't go into an X-Ray scanner or something.

Or is this a scenario where droids are common place, and "Santa" is just your parents buying you a gift?

[Elheru Aran]

He says the droids can communicate to you via text or IMs, or a 'translator box'.

Really I think R2 or BB are the best options, as they have the most various uses and technical knowledge. Language is kinda cool, but I'm not necessarily sure how 9 million (or however many) forms of communication are going to actually work for deciphering an ancient language, especially a dead one...

[Purple]

Can we pick from the old EU? If so I would totally go for a Human replica droid. Preferably a female one. Why? Well because it can pass for a human. And that means I don't have to spend the rest of my life trying to hide her.

[Starglider]

In terms of useful technology we are likely to be able to reverse engineer, the power droid (from A New Hope) has to be near the top. A droid starfighter will be chock full of super-advanced technology that is probably hypermatter fueled and we don't have any hope of reproducing. The power droid on the other hand is a relatively cheap and simple but extremely durable minature fusion reactor (it could operate for hundreds of years with minimal maintenance according to the fluff). I think there would be a decent chance of learning enough from that to mass produce cheap safe fusion reactors (even if not quite so compact).

[Imperial528]

For the purposes if the RAR, is the world devastator a droid?

[Borgholio]

Well no one's going to have the droid for very long, because once somebody realises that you have it they are bound to try and take it. Especially when a government becomes involved. Ditto for the fusion charging repair station. You would probably be captured and interrogated as well as the government would want to know where the droid came from. And if Santa is actually real- well I guess that means a mad dash to the north pole as everyone scrambles to try and locate and/or conquer him. Though if he's capable of building Star Wars droids as Christmas gifts, I'm pretty sure he could take care of himself.

I guess the best you could hope for is to keep your droid out of sight at all times and hope no one figures out where all your new ideas are coming from. Use C3PO to translate a language? Use R2D2 to reverse engineer some tech and build patents (R2D2 / BB8 might be able to figure out how to communicate via computer)? You could do these things I suppose, but you'd have to be very careful. Personally, I'd pick "return to sender" because I'm not that keen on putting my life in danger. Perhaps Guri might work since she's a human replica droid and all, and she could remain effectively hidden provided she doesn't go into an X-Ray scanner or something.

Or is this a scenario where droids are common place, and "Santa" is just your parents buying you a gift?

That's one thing I love about RARs...someone goes on a tangent and rides it until it finds a unicorn taking a dump into a pot of gold.

Well from a purely abstract standpoint, which droid would be most useful to you in your daily life? You can safely ignore issues of theft or government intervention for that question.

If you wish to consider the larger issues, would having a world full of droids (all varieties, not just Star Wars) impact which model you chose? If droids were still fantasy and you had one of your own right now which magically did not attract unreasonable attention from anyone (Hey look, it's Tribble's droid fixing his car again. *waves* So what's for dinner?), would you pick a different model?

For the purposes if the RAR, is the world devastator a droid?

They should be the human-ish sized models we see from the series. So while a world devastator may technically be a droid...it's not something that can walk (or roll) through your front door.

[Captain Seafort]

For the purposes if the RAR, is the world devastator a droid?

For that matter, does IG-88's final housing count?

[Borgholio]

For the purposes if the RAR, is the world devastator a droid?

For that matter, does IG-88's final housing count?

What was that again?

[Captain Seafort]

The second Death Star.

[Lord Revan]

For the purposes if the RAR, is the world devastator a droid?

For that matter, does IG-88's final housing count?

What was that again?

The Death Star (more specific the unfinished one from ROTJ)

[Borgholio]

Most certainly no.

[biostem]

Can we pick something from the EU? There were some human replica droids that were both very powerful and capable of passing for a person...

[Borgholio]

Can we pick something from the EU? There were some human replica droids that were both very powerful and capable of passing for a person...

Sure, so long as it's not something ridiculous like the IG-88 brain in a death star.

[biostem]

Can we pick something from the EU? There were some human replica droids that were both very powerful and capable of passing for a person...

Sure, so long as it's not something ridiculous like the IG-88 brain in a death star.

I'll take a Guri then, tyvm

[Thanas]

Well that's creepy.

[Tribble]

Can we pick something from the EU? There were some human replica droids that were both very powerful and capable of passing for a person...

Sure, so long as it's not something ridiculous like the IG-88 brain in a death star.

Ahh, another thing to love abouts RARs... there will always be people who will take the "other" option and lawyer it up to absurd heights.
"C3PO, R2D2, BB8... hmm, I think I'll pick the World Devastator! Or how about an IG-88 brain in the Death Star 2! They're technically the same thing!" To be honest, I'm usually one of those people as well... I'm kinda disappointed I didn't think of those

That's one thing I love about RARs...someone goes on a tangent and rides it until it finds a unicorn taking a dump into a pot of gold.

What, am I the only person who thinks the idea of Russia, US and China going to war with Santa Claus's army over Star Wars droids to be pretty awesome?

But yes, I am the type of person to think of the implications of suddenly having to take care of a sentient droid that's far beyond our present tech. The poor thing wouldn't be protected by any laws or conventions that I am aware of, and even if it were they'd probably be ignored in the haste to study/ dissect it. I'd feel obligated to protect it as best as I could, which may make it more of a burden then help. It's not so much riding a tangent until I find a unicorn taking a dump in a pot of gold as it is recognizing a potential minefield and refusing to walk on it

Well from a purely abstract standpoint, which droid would be most useful to you in your daily life? You can safely ignore issues of theft or government intervention for that question.

If you wish to consider the larger issues, would having a world full of droids (all varieties, not just Star Wars) impact which model you chose? If droids were still fantasy and you had one of your own right now which magically did not attract unreasonable attention from anyone (Hey look, it's Tribble's droid fixing his car again. *waves* So what's for dinner?), would you pick a different model?

Yes, whether or not theft or government intervention would occur would impact my choice. If I don't have to worry about it, I'd probably pick something more utilitarian like R2D2 because it would likely be easier to maintain, it may have more tools/abilties than other models, and it would probably have more technological knowledge. If theft/government intervention is an issue, I'd probably pick a human-replica droid like Guri, since it would be able to do a lot more things without drawing attention to itself. And if all else fails I could always send it to Japan, since they're already surrounded by droids and mecha

[aerius]

Get me the most capable medical droid, whichever one that is. I have a bunch of chronic injuries that modern real life medicine either can't fix or would be very high risk to fix. With Star Wars medical technology the surgery & treatment should be trivial. And with all the knowledge & data in the droid, it should be possible to come up with workable cures for pretty much every disease we have.

[biostem]

Get me the most capable medical droid, whichever one that is. I have a bunch of chronic injuries that modern real life medicine either can't fix or would be very high risk to fix. With Star Wars medical technology the surgery & treatment should be trivial. And with all the knowledge & data in the droid, it should be possible to come up with workable cures for pretty much every disease we have.

While the medical knowledge would be great, a lot of Star Wars medical treatments seem to rely on bacta, which AFAIK is something that has to be harvested, and can't merely be cobbled together with regularly occurring ingredients...

[Lonestar]

HK47, meatsacks.

[Gandalf]

Threepio. He'd be a great asset for translation work, and a generally friendly guy to know.