Destructionator XIII wrote:Yeah, but you can't apply that everywhere. Was the snow on Hoth wanktastic armor? Were the trees on Endor made of wanktastic armor? Is the flesh of humans made of wanktastic armor? Is the ground on Naboo made of wanktastic armor? Is the air on Geonosis made of wanktastic armor?
All the ground events contradict high power. It directly shows that ground equipment isn't very spectacular, and indirectly shows that space tech isn't up to snuff either, since there's no consideration of orbital bombardment in the last two examples. (Hoth escapes this due to the rebel shield, and Endor due to its own shield. But, Naboo and Geonosis didn't have those shields - if they did, why didn't they raise them to keep the bad guys out? It doesn't make sense for troop transports to make it through, but starfighters can't.)
Naboo arguably gets away because the TradeFed wanted a limited war to avoid bad publicity. Kind of why people accept, say, the moronic tactics and equipment the RDA used in
Avatar. (Although I revile them, but that is a question for another thread.) Geonosis, of course, has no such excuse.
And yes, I know that the result appears stupid and inconsistent. But then, weapons and technology are rather inconsistent in the series itself. Say, if one compares Han's handgun in the original film and the damage it does to the concrete walls in the docking pit with blaster damage to people elsewhere, particularly in RotJ. For just one thing. But in the end, we have both high and low ends, both in the films and the EU. And the best we can do is assume they switched power settings, or whatever. Even if in some instances, that looks retarded.
I really hate wanktastic armor stylistically too. If you are going to have super weapons, but then add super armor so it never has any effect beyond mundane weapons, why bother with the super weapons in the first place? What purpose does it serve to your story?
At least some stories do actually make the power of the tech a plot point. In the "Golden Age" there was a lot of "Uber Civilisation X discovers Primitive [Earth-like] Planet Y and impress everyone there because they are so
awesome! Their ships put out trillions of teratons, and they have psychic powers/ubertech that can turn people's minds inside out!"*
Although I generally find those irritating, but they are there.
Otherwise, you can have more innocuous "flavour" reasons for it. Say, you want to have Age of Sail in Space and need technobabble to justify it.
The EU can't be contradicted by the movies. If you accept the fancy numbers, you still have to make up a reason why all the movie scenes mimic WW2. Either everybody is stupid (so they stupidly won't use it in the OP either), or the tech isn't available in those circumstances for whatever reason, which should also apply in the OP scenario.
The movie sample size is small enough that I feel I can get away with those forces being more retarded than usual fare.
Also, there are still mitigating factors in many cases: The TradeFed are not military professionals, there are theater shields, jamming (Yeah, this is no panacea, but it does help some), the Rebels/TradeFed are running their battles on a shoestring, Vader/Tarkin/The Emperor are running political meddling or idiosyncratic tactics, whatever.
However, the point still remains that ultimately the aim should always be reconciliation of the sources, not exclusion. And nearly always, it is much easier to explain away a low end than a high one, if one is to accept both as part of the continuity.
(*In modern versions, they usually also have AI that is vastly superior to human intelligence, post-scarcity societies, and whatever.)