Quote from: KingCheops;1024185Which brings us back to the crazy religion of space wizards with laser swords suppressing potentially valuable resources.  Galen Erso actually discovered a better energy system by using the khyber crystals and Krennic just weaponized it.  How much would the galaxy have prospered if this power source had been available earlier instead of hoarded to make laser swords?

Seems kind of ridiculous that something can be considered rare at the level of making some swords, and yet there would be enough to make a significant power plant industry and/or planet-destroying weapons?

Sounds to me like yet another case of writers who dip their toes in an idea and refuse to invent a situation where it holds any more water than they want for one or two short-sighted assertions. Such as "this is a galactic-scale set of civilizations with massive numbers of worlds and quadrillions of people" and then also "oh noes, one star system is blown up, and the whole New Goodguy fleet is destroyed as well, because of course it was all parked in one place and only had a few dozen ships anyway, because that's totally what a fleet in a galaxy of massive number of systems would be like" and of course "hey it's Star Wars, laser swords, space wizards, what do you mean it doesn't make any sense!" and "go GM it! surely players won't actually think and exploit and torture you about all the nonsense BS paradoxes...".

If it works for some people, wow, ok, glad you're having fun, but the people I've played with are a lot more critical and clever about detecting and exploiting (and not particularly interested in playing with) settings that don't seem to make much sense.

Very strong copyright laws and enforcement.
At some point every basic idea is owned by someone.
If everything is already owned, experimenting with other peoples IP is dangerous and often a waste of effort.
If you do make an improvement, the original owner profits and not you.

Basically stops all progress.
=

Ya, patent laws and cartel/monopolies interested in power/wealth/control and not really in actually improving technology. (I'd say that's why my car has a malfunctioning $600 Light Control Unit computer that can only be fixed by replacing the whole thing with a replacement from the Original Equipment Manufacturer, instead of a switch and some wires that any mechanic could fix.)

Quote from: Skarg;1024193Seems kind of ridiculous that something can be considered rare at the level of making some swords, and yet there would be enough to make a significant power plant industry and/or planet-destroying weapons?

For "rare", read "found only on a handful of (Less than ten?) planets from the billions of planets in the galaxy". To get enough - and large enough - kyber crystals for the Death Star, they basically ripped these planets apart down to their cores. The Jedi would go to one of these planets and wander around in caves until they felt a crystal "call" to them - basically resonate with them. All mystic hippie stuff. Empire ripped the planets up and discarded anything they didn't want. All corporate greed stuff. I love Star Wars, but subtlety was not Lucas' strong suit...

Quote from: Skarg;1024193"hey it's Star Wars, laser swords, space wizards, what do you mean it doesn't make any sense!" and "go GM it! surely players won't actually think and exploit and torture you about all the nonsense BS paradoxes...".

If it works for some people, wow, ok, glad you're having fun, but the people I've played with are a lot more critical and clever about detecting and exploiting (and not particularly interested in playing with) settings that don't seem to make much sense.

Shrug.  If I want plausible science fiction I'll do something that isn't Star Wars.

Just like how I don't worry about why plate armor exists in a world with guys who throw 155mm howitzer shells from their fingertips and giant flying dinosaurs that breathe fire.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024222Shrug.  If I want plausible science fiction I'll do something that isn't Star Wars.

Just like how I don't worry about why plate armor exists in a world with guys who throw 155mm howitzer shells from their fingertips and giant flying dinosaurs that breathe fire.

Pretty much all of this.  Different things exist for different reasons.  Star Wars has always been described as Space Opera.  That's what I want from it -- not detailed descriptions of how everything works.  I've got The Expanse for that.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024222Shrug.  If I want plausible science fiction I'll do something that isn't Star Wars.

Just like how I don't worry about why plate armor exists in a world with guys who throw 155mm howitzer shells from their fingertips and giant flying dinosaurs that breathe fire.

This. Oh so much of this.

Star Wars is science fantasy.

Um right, and also why with my tastes, I don't RPG Star Wars, or D&D, and am mainly annoyed by everything Star Wars after about the point the Ewoks started taking out armored stormtroopers with rocks and zany antics.

Quote from: Skarg;1024249Um right, and also why with my tastes, I don't RPG Star Wars, or D&D, and am mainly annoyed by everything Star Wars after about the point the Ewoks started taking out armored stormtroopers with rocks and zany antics.

Ewoks are why I support the Endor Holocaust....

Quote from: Skarg;1024249Um right, and also why with my tastes, I don't RPG Star Wars, or D&D, and am mainly annoyed by everything Star Wars after about the point the Ewoks started taking out armored stormtroopers with rocks and zany antics.

8 year old me will never get over Yoda turning out to be a puppet with Grover's voice. Also, C-3PO is how I learned the word "gay". At one time, I had no idea what gay was, but I was sure it had something to do with robots.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1024115Yes, I guess there can be periods of technological stasis even in very advanced civilizations. There's probably points where the leap needed to get to another level of technological mastery requires enormous effort or very special breakthroughs.

Or the forces against change are sufficiently powerful to prevent that change until something else disrupts that society enough to weaken the opposition.

Quote from: Bren;1024308Or the forces against change are sufficiently powerful to prevent that change until something else disrupts that society enough to weaken the opposition.

Technological innovation meets with resistance routinely, but the more technological a society becomes the more difficult it is to actually stop further technological progress from being implemented.  Today, even, someone could invent a new Thingus and even if Big Non-Thingus was determined to stop it, said Thingus could be shared all over the internet.

Not very long from now, it will not only be the concepts or science behind it that could be shared with the entire world, but the Thingus itself could likely be made anywhere in the world by a next-gen 3d-printer.