Treasure Hunters and archaeological knowledge

[FaxModem1]

One thing that both the Milky Way galaxy in Trek and the Star Wars galaxy both have an abundance of is ancient archaeological civilizations, hidden treasures, ancient weapons, lost cultures, etc.

So, what would happen with cross-cultural meetings? How would this affect the cultures and knowledge of both civilizations?

As an example, assuming there were good relations between the Republic and the Federation, would there be a Federation archaeological expeditions to Korriban? How would the Jedi react to it? What if a Federation team found holocrons, what would happen then?

Inversely, how would the Federation respond to interest in the Stone of Gol, katra arks, and its potential for use by force users? Would the Jedi want to claim them? If so, what would happen?

Discuss

[Lord Revan]

I'd suspect that Jedi Order would want to have repensentive on any archeological expeditions to places like Korriban, Dormund Kass, Malachor, Rusaan or Yavin IV for that matter, both to provide expert advice and to make certain that ignorant UFP teams don't end up triggering any ancient Sith superweapon accidently. As for Holocrons IIRC only someone who is Force Aware to a signifigant amount can actually open one and to most people they're just a artistically made paper weight. That said I dout the Jedi Order or either of the Republics would object sending archeological expeditions to those places on princible just that certain safety rules were observe to avoid unneeded deaths or injuries.

Also I suspect UFP wouldn't have any issues on scientific study of the items mentioned though preproducing them might raise protests. As for Jedi wanting to claim things like the stone of gol, I dout it as they didn't seem to want to horde sith superweapons after the sith wars either.

[Elheru Aran]

The Federation and the Republic, on the surface, probably share similar cultural values, and as such I don't see much reason for them to conflict. The main problem would be indigenous societies not appreciating the outsiders poking around their stuff.

As for ancient Sith or Jedi locations and such... well they tend to be kind of out of the way to start with, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're quietly restricted from travel along the lines of a space Area 51 by the Jedi. Nothing too conspiratorial, just a default in all Republic-made navicomputers that says "don't go here by order of the Republic Senate so-and-so". and obviously, information about those locations would be restricted as well, so nobody would much know anything about them. Doesn't mean that nobody *entirely* knows-- in the Legends there seems to have been a bit of a small black market for Sith artifacts, see Talon Karrde trying to unload a left-handed Sith lanvarok-- but it's not a matter of general knowledge.

The whole thing with all the Jedi/Sith drama happening millennia ago helps, too.

[Lord Revan]

The Federation and the Republic, on the surface, probably share similar cultural values, and as such I don't see much reason for them to conflict. The main problem would be indigenous societies not appreciating the outsiders poking around their stuff.

As for ancient Sith or Jedi locations and such... well they tend to be kind of out of the way to start with, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're quietly restricted from travel along the lines of a space Area 51 by the Jedi. Nothing too conspiratorial, just a default in all Republic-made navicomputers that says "don't go here by order of the Republic Senate so-and-so". and obviously, information about those locations would be restricted as well, so nobody would much know anything about them. Doesn't mean that nobody *entirely* knows-- in the Legends there seems to have been a bit of a small black market for Sith artifacts, see Talon Karrde trying to unload a left-handed Sith lanvarok-- but it's not a matter of general knowledge.

The whole thing with all the Jedi/Sith drama happening millennia ago helps, too.

Tbh most if not all Major sith systems were in the ass end of nowhere from the point of view of the Galactic Republic Population, IIRC all the systems I mentioned were Outerrim or unknown region(s) systems not sure of Malachor and I'm not sure in Dormund Kass exists in canon anymore (though it was an unknown region system in legendaries). So that might limit the willingness to go there even if the exact location was known.

Come to think of it think it was said in Dark Forces II that the location of Dromund Kass was lost.

[Joun_Lord]

I'd assume it would be like real world archeological expeditions. Plenty of people from other countries go to places like Egypt, South America, and Europe to dig up shit. They do so with permission of the local government and as far as I know generally when done that way nowadays the artifacts remain the property of the host country unless the country gives them permission to take the artifacts. I'm sure if the Federation is digging around with phaser trowels of Yavin 4 anything they dig up they will hand to the Jedi/Republic and any Republic archeologists digging up fossilized Twinkies on Earth would hand them over to the Federation. Either side might loan out junk or even give shit away but it would be with permission, the Feds or Reps wouldn't just tossing the crap they dug up into the space minivan and taking off with it unless they wanted to create some international incident.

I'm sure both sides would take the theft of cultural artifacts very seriously and would do so even more then the real world considering some of those artifacts can be pretty much ancient nukes or extremely advanced tech.

But as long as everything above board and both sides checks their space p's and space q's everything should be fine.

[Zwinmar]

The big one, and maybe this is just a brain bug, but the SW population will have a legitimate provable homeworld for humans.

[Elheru Aran]

The big one, and maybe this is just a brain bug, but the SW population will have a legitimate provable homeworld for humans.

Do they? Pretty sure that's been lost to antiquity and there are a few different candidates in the Core. Coruscant is the main one IIRC, with Corellia (maybe?) being another.

[Lord Revan]

The big one, and maybe this is just a brain bug, but the SW population will have a legitimate provable homeworld for humans.

Do they? Pretty sure that's been lost to antiquity and there are a few different candidates in the Core. Coruscant is the main one IIRC, with Corellia (maybe?) being another.

IIRC in legendaries there were theories but officially the human homeworld on an unknown planet that could or could not be one of planets you mentioned, as for the current EU I dunno.

[Generalissimo]

The big one, and maybe this is just a brain bug, but the SW population will have a legitimate provable homeworld for humans.

That's of incredible archaeological interest of SW's galaxy.
Once's that knowledge is available what kinds of homeworld archaeology with be most interesting to SW's academic community?

[Ralin]

The big one, and maybe this is just a brain bug, but the SW population will have a legitimate provable homeworld for humans.

Do they? Pretty sure that's been lost to antiquity and there are a few different candidates in the Core. Coruscant is the main one IIRC, with Corellia (maybe?) being another.

IIRC in legendaries there were theories but officially the human homeworld on an unknown planet that could or could not be one of planets you mentioned, as for the current EU I dunno.

How would discovering the Federation provide a provable home world for Star Wars humans? All that stuff happened ages ago, and the Republic alone existed for a thousand generations before it collapsed. Certainly they weren't from Earth.

[FedRebel]

As an example, assuming there were good relations between the Republic and the Federation, would there be a Federation archaeological expeditions to Korriban?

No sale, Korriban is off limits to all. The Jedi and the Republic wouldn't want to risk Sith knowledge from being rediscovered and corrupting more to the Dark Side

How would the Jedi react to it? What if a Federation team found holocrons, what would happen then?

Sith Holocrons are never to be opened and solely to be destroyed, they have the ability to corrupt.

Inversely, how would the Federation respond to interest in the Stone of Gol, katra arks, and its potential for use by force users? Would the Jedi want to claim them? If so, what would happen?

I think those artifacts are more akin to Sith works, the Jedi would likely lobby for their destruction (assuming that Vulcans are latent force weilders, these devices enhance that potential.)

[Lord Revan]

I don't recall there being any explicit ban on travelling or researching Korriban, also I can't remember any case of Jedi Order intentionally destroying a Sith Holocron, locking one for safe keeping sure but actually destroying one is no. Also at least in legendaries not all holocrons were equal and some would contain anything up Sith spirits bound to the holocron while others contained things like lessons on swordplay or lightsaber forms. Also seeing as what's corrupting the user is what's in the holocron the fact in Rebels Kanan though not opening the sith holocron would be enough to keep Ezra safe from it seems to indicate that there's no corruption field that emenates from the holocron and only someone who can use the Force can open a holocron I dout a federation archeological team finding a sith holocron would send the Jedi Order into a blind panic to destroy the artifact.

[Elheru Aran]

Korriban is more simply a LONG way out of civilized space, but... there's simply not much mention of it after the TOR era. It's possible there *is* a ban, it's just such a long-standing part of history nobody even thinks about it.

The Jedi are pretty big on knowledge in general. I don't really see them destroying holocrons unless it's demonstrably unsafe. Ditto destroying artifacts in general. If a Federation team turned up a Sith holocron or some kind of Force device, it's more likely the Jedi would show up as soon as they heard and be all 'that's cool, mad props for turning this up, but this is Jedi business actually, we'll just take this home for study and you keep on keepin' on here...'

[Lord Revan]

To be honest I'd suspect that the Jedi Order would demand that the federation expedition would have Jedi advisors to make sure that the Fedration/Starfleet team would not accidently release a dormant ancient sith doomsday weapon or something similar. We know for a fact the location of at least some prominent Sith Empire worlds was lost from the galactic Records, Dromund Kass was the Sith capital wold in SWTOR but ruined and forgotten to the point of even it's location being essentially unknown in "Mysteries of the Sith" (the expansion pack for Dark Forces II).

It could simply be that few in the republic outside of the Jedi Order even know where Korriban and other prominent Sith Empire world are, I mean we the audience know they're pretty much all outerrim worlds and seeing as prominent Jedi worlds like Tython (from legendaries) or the world Luke was on in TFA were lost to time so to speak suggests that it wasn't so much an intentional ban/purge of Sith from the records as it was simply records getting misplaced or destroyed during times of major unrest in the republic.

[Elheru Aran]

The Jedi librarian dame does make a bit of a fuss about the missing planet Kamino, though. But yeah, it's pretty plausible that in the ~3 thousand years after the end of the Sith Empire and the prequel era, those records would get lost/destroyed... especially if the Sith decided it was in their best interest for the Jedi to not have those in their archives.

[Lord Revan]

The Jedi librarian dame does make a bit of a fuss about the missing planet Kamino, though. But yeah, it's pretty plausible that in the ~3 thousand years after the end of the Sith Empire and the prequel era, those records would get lost/destroyed... especially if the Sith decided it was in their best interest for the Jedi to not have those in their archives.

I did say "outside of the Jedi Order" I suspect that Jedi Archives have much more extensive records then the republic archives open to the general public. For all we know there's an entry for "Moriban system" in the republic archives but only says it's an outerrim planet of little intrest while only the Jedi Archives have information that is the same system as "Korriban system" mentioned in the surviving Sith Records as having been a major system in the Sith Empire. After all having info on a system isn't the same as having all the info on the system including possible historical names that aren't anymore in general use or if the system has sites of historical importance even if there's no longer permanent settlements on the system.