Applications of Federation tech in the Star Wras?

[Adam Reynolds]

I seriously doubt replicators would be a magic tech that would solve everything in Star Wars and turn it into a utopia. The problem is that the scarcity we see in Star Wars is clearly artificial to some extent. Given their technology level they easily could have a post scarcity economy but choose not to. The modern United States is a fairly good comparison. Instead of merely bringing everyone above the poverty level, they instead choose to horde ever greater wealth among a small minority who live in luxury.

What is also problematic is that there is also clearly scarcity in Star Trek as well, even if it is not obvious to the main characters. While the political problems seem to come first, in cases like Tasha Yar's homeworld, there is nothing but those in Star Wars. Given the nature of Star Wars politics, it is probable that the ones to own replicators would be groups like the Trade Federation and Techno Union, who would prevent the technology from proliferating and destroying their market domination.

Jakku seems to be a case of a company town gone bad, in which people get stranded there and forced to work for nothing. There are certainly the resources in the overall galaxy to help people like that, but they are happy diverting those resources so that core worlds can live ever more luxurious lifestyles. Star Wars is also a setting that seems to value hand crafting rather than production lines when it comes to luxury goods.

the Death Star was built with wookiee slaves for punishment for their action after the clone wars (in legendaries that is) though the novel "Death Star" implied that it wasn't built exclusively with slaves and droids and convicts were used as well and there wasn't really any logical reason beyond a brutal way of punishment implied.

Slight nitpick based on a different source, but Tarkin clearly wanted Wookie slaves for the Death Star, for their mixture of strength and technical ability, using the Wookie "resistance" to the new order as an excuse rather than a cause. The excuse used was that the Wookies were hiding Jedi fugitives, after a group of Jedi survivors were searching for Yoda on that world. The Jedi learned the hard way that sticking together under the Empire was a bad idea, especially in the face of Vader. It was also a question of making an example of someone while the Empire consolidated their power, so it is still the same in a different way. This was from the novel Dark Lord.

In any case, the underlying point is correct. It was not merely built with slaves.

[Q99]

I seriously doubt replicators would be a magic tech that would solve everything in Star Wars and turn it into a utopia. The problem is that the scarcity we see in Star Wars is clearly artificial to some extent. Given their technology level they easily could have a post scarcity economy but choose not to. The modern United States is a fairly good comparison. Instead of merely bringing everyone above the poverty level, they instead choose to horde ever greater wealth among a small minority who live in luxury.

I agree, it wouldn't save everything, but it would redefine the economy to a massive extent. With replicators, some stuff is still rare- personal replicators can't make a starship (save a small one, piece by piece) or big military gear. Industrial replicators can handle some of that, but still have power limits.

Trying to supply a population just on replicators is probably out on all but the most power-rich worlds, as even Voyager had to ration use.

What is also problematic is that there is also clearly scarcity in Star Trek as well, even if it is not obvious to the main characters. While the political problems seem to come first, in cases like Tasha Yar's homeworld, there is nothing but those in Star Wars. Given the nature of Star Wars politics, it is probable that the ones to own replicators would be groups like the Trade Federation and Techno Union, who would prevent the technology from proliferating and destroying their market domination.

That said, once the technology started spreading, it'd be pretty darn hard to stop. One rogue replicator manufacturer can sell Replicators to hundreds, thousands of worlds on the other side of the galaxy from those who'd try and control it. Hutts get it? They will sell it, because profit. Black Sun? Ditto. Rebels? Heck. Yes.

Controls aren't strict enough to cut them off.


Jakku seems to be a case of a company town gone bad, in which people get stranded there and forced to work for nothing. There are certainly the resources in the overall galaxy to help people like that, but they are happy diverting those resources so that core worlds can live ever more luxurious lifestyles. Star Wars is also a setting that seems to value hand crafting rather than production lines when it comes to luxury goods.

the Death Star was built with wookiee slaves for punishment for their action after the clone wars (in legendaries that is) though the novel "Death Star" implied that it wasn't built exclusively with slaves and droids and convicts were used as well and there wasn't really any logical reason beyond a brutal way of punishment implied.

Slight nitpick based on a different source, but Tarkin clearly wanted Wookie slaves for the Death Star, for their mixture of strength and technical ability, using the Wookie "resistance" to the new order as an excuse rather than a cause. The excuse used was that the Wookies were hiding Jedi fugitives, after a group of Jedi survivors were searching for Yoda on that world. The Jedi learned the hard way that sticking together under the Empire was a bad idea, especially in the face of Vader. It was also a question of making an example of someone while the Empire consolidated their power, so it is still the same in a different way. This was from the novel Dark Lord.

In any case, the underlying point is correct. It was not merely built with slaves.[/quote]

[HortonX25]

What about the tech base in itself?

The Federation seem to advance very very quickly, which is why you get future Feds with time travel. With an entire Galaxies worth of research behind it? You could probbaly turn the Empire into a time travelling one, very fast.

[Elheru Aran]

What about the tech base in itself?

The Federation seem to advance very very quickly, which is why you get future Feds with time travel. With an entire Galaxies worth of research behind it? You could probbaly turn the Empire into a time travelling one, very fast.

The problem here is that while the Galaxy class, Enterprise specifically, seems to have a lot of R&D going on... we only see what happens with the really wacky stuff, and hardly any of it is actually adopted as standard equipment. Voyager had more reason than any to do so, yet it never really picked up anything new until the very end.

Plus, one starship does not an entire tech base make, especially when the technology appears to operate on completely different principles!

[Eternal_Freedom]

I always disliked the "the Federation advance really fast" argument, especially since we have Geordi's line in "Relics" about how a lot of technology hasn't really changed in 75-100 years (transporters and impulse engines were the two mentioned). Combine that with the "if it hadn't crashed this ship would still be in service today" line shortly after and the idea of rapid Federation advancement looks kinda silly.

About the only really new technologies introduced in the TNG era are IIRC quantum torps, pulse phasers and holodecks, and the first two are mainly due to the "oh shit we need to work on new guns to fight the Borg" mindset. Everything else seems to be incremental advances on existing stuff.

[HortonX25]

I always disliked the "the Federation advance really fast" argument, especially since we have Geordi's line in "Relics" about how a lot of technology hasn't really changed in 75-100 years (transporters and impulse engines were the two mentioned). Combine that with the "if it hadn't crashed this ship would still be in service today" line shortly after and the idea of rapid Federation advancement looks kinda silly.

Possibly, we do know that 31st Feds had some pretty fancy technology however and that is canon, last time I checked.

Mind you, we don't know how they got there or to what extent their time hax really was. Could've easily pinched what they had from other other races that joined the Federation. We don't really know.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I always disliked the "the Federation advance really fast" argument, especially since we have Geordi's line in "Relics" about how a lot of technology hasn't really changed in 75-100 years (transporters and impulse engines were the two mentioned). Combine that with the "if it hadn't crashed this ship would still be in service today" line shortly after and the idea of rapid Federation advancement looks kinda silly.

Possibly, we do know that 31st Feds had some pretty fancy technology however and that is canon, last time I checked.

Mind you, we don't know how they got there or to what extent their time hax really was. Could've easily pinched what they had from other other races that joined the Federation. We don't really know.

The 31st century Feds, and to a lesser extent the 29th century Timefleet, do have impressive capabilities yes, but it's also necessary to remember that time travel is not a new idea to the Federation, they've known it was possible since the mid 2260's. It would not surprise me to find out that a whole bunch of Federation scientists have been working on it for a long time (indeed we know thsi to be true, since the Temporal Prime Directive exists and mention is made of Cadets learning about "elementary temporal mechanics" at the Academy in the DS9 era) so it still doesn't really fit the "Federation develops tech really fast" idea, since it took them (as a high end figure) 500 years to make time travel a practical tool (24th-29th century).

Plus, talking about what the 31st century people can do is kinda irrelevant when talking about applications of 24th century stuff in SW.

[Lord Revan]

Depending how much captain Jonathan Archer said in his reports UFP could have known that time travel is at least theoretically possible for its entire existance (since UESPA would have known about it in the 2150s and the Federation was founded in the 2160s).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Depending how much captain Jonathan Archer said in his reports UFP could have known that time travel is at least theoretically possible for its entire existance (since UESPA would have known about it in the 2150s and the Federation was founded in the 2160s).

True, though by that logic they've known of it since 2063 when Cochrane encountered the E-E crew. IIRC Archer even mentions that Cochrane spoke about "what really happened" at First Contact (in a speech at Princeton) to T'Pol in the ENT Borg episode I think.

Then again, we know now that in certain cases time-travel is mathematically possible in some solutions of general relativity.

[Elheru Aran]

I can buy that given all the time-travel shenanigans that go on in the Trek shows, certain elements of Starfleet and the Federation are quite aware from the beginning that in some way they-- or at least the characters of Enterprise, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY etc-- have accessed time travel in a number of ways. Therefore they make studying how to do it a priority from the very beginning, but for obvious reasons it takes a damn long time. Then Kirk does stuff in TOS (I don't think there was actual time-travel by the Enterprise crew apart from Archer), they find out it's possible... a little more occurs in TNG, giving them further data... DS9, VOY etc... until they have a breakthrough and come up with a workable way to do it by Berlinghoff Rasmussen's time or the 31st century.

Sort of like working towards a preordained conclusion.

[Lord Revan]

Depending how much captain Jonathan Archer said in his reports UFP could have known that time travel is at least theoretically possible for its entire existance (since UESPA would have known about it in the 2150s and the Federation was founded in the 2160s).

True, though by that logic they've known of it since 2063 when Cochrane encountered the E-E crew. IIRC Archer even mentions that Cochrane spoke about "what really happened" at First Contact (in a speech at Princeton) to T'Pol in the ENT Borg episode I think.

Then again, we know now that in certain cases time-travel is mathematically possible in some solutions of general relativity.

From what I gathered from the episodes of ENT I watched was that Cochrane wasn't really taken seriously when talked about the crew of E-E since he was essentially the only one who knew about the crew, but with NX-01 there was enough people (including T'Pol who as a vulcan would trusted more then "emotional" humans) that had been present when timetravel happened that the claims were taken more seriously. Granted the crew of the NX-01 was often a "victim" of timetravel more then the person doing it.

Regardless was it 2060s, 2160s or 2260s that UPF first discovered timer travel it was still centuries before we saw any timeships.

[Solauren]

One has to wonder how alot of Fed tech would react/operate backed by Imperial power sources.

I mean, Phasers and Disruptors are chain-reaction weapons. 8472 appears to use high power versions of those.
And we saw what a few bioshops did all linked together to planets...

You also have to wonder about stuff like Metaphasic shields and Transporters with Imperial Power supplies....

[Captain Seafort]

From what I gathered from the episodes of ENT I watched was that Cochrane wasn't really taken seriously when talked about the crew of E-E since he was essentially the only one who knew about the crew

That, and he was plastered at the time he was telling the story.

[Batman]

Hell he was plastered most of the time the story happened.

[Q99]

I always disliked the "the Federation advance really fast" argument, especially since we have Geordi's line in "Relics" about how a lot of technology hasn't really changed in 75-100 years (transporters and impulse engines were the two mentioned). Combine that with the "if it hadn't crashed this ship would still be in service today" line shortly after and the idea of rapid Federation advancement looks kinda silly.

About the only really new technologies introduced in the TNG era are IIRC quantum torps, pulse phasers and holodecks, and the first two are mainly due to the "oh shit we need to work on new guns to fight the Borg" mindset. Everything else seems to be incremental advances on existing stuff.

Lesse, there's also Voyager's bioneutral circuitry, the ablative armor on the Defiant, regenerative shields on the Prometheus and I think Sovereign classes. Tachyon detection grids as a superior means to detect cloaked ships was a new thing in TNG, first deployed a few seasons in.

Oh yes, and the Emergency Medical Hologram program, as seen most obviously with the EMH. DS9 showed they were researching ones designed for long-term use (with Bashir as a possible template). A major advance in AI tech from the start of TNG.

Not counting new advances picked up thanks to 7 of 9 adding Borg tech to Voyager's arsenal, or others Voyager picked up in it's travels (the Delta Flyer being a testbed for Fed versions of many of them).