New efforts!

[Kelltick]

Hey kids, when you ask Santa for a pulsed fiber laser array of optically pumped infrared Nd:YAG solid state cluster this year, make sure it's a Red Rider brand pulsed fiber laser array of optically pumped infrared Nd:YAG solid state cluster!

With a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time!

[slickriptide]

In fact, if I was presented with the problem of hypothesizing a technology that could imitate one, maybe I would consider a light saber handle that contained a retractable thin metal extension that itself was designed to emit a very strong magnetic field, and within that field would be contained a very high energy plasma.

Arcana - I don't believe that I'm stroking your ego by acknowledging that you're one of the smartest people I've had the chance to interact with online. Despite that, you're positing solutions to the "lightsaber problem" that are the same low-hanging fruit that I was arguing about with my fellow nerds forty-years ago, and that decades of SIGS, BBS's, Fidonets, Usenet groups, and countless web forums have continued to propose to solve the problem of a real-world "lightsaber".

There is only a handful of technologies that can be brought to bear on the problem and despite some truly revolutionary advances in tech and scientific endeavor over four decades, it's still basically true.

Lightsabers are magic. There's no more point in dissecting them than there is in dissecting Harry Potter's wand. If fact, if we leave the realm of the films and start taking the novels into account then we have to account for the actual magical ingredients: the "force crystal" that is unique to each Jedi and that is basically identical to the phoenix feather at the core of Harry's wand.

Star Wars is not a science fiction story. It's a fairy tale dressed up in the trappings of a science fiction story. It tells you that from the outset. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." If that wasn't already a big enough tip-off then the Republic serial opening sealed the deal for any adult who remembered watching them in the theaters and any kid who grew up with Commando Cody as part of his after-school kid's TV programming.

They exist because George Lucas thought a movie with "laser swords" would be cool and somebody suggested that "lightsaber" sounded cooler than "laser sword".

Likewise, arguing whether blaster bolts, i.e. "laser bullets", should have the kinetic energy to knock something down as opposed to simply vaporizing it. Laser bullets exist because they look cool. They knock people down because movie-goers relate to bullets that knock things down.

The real-world can't explain these things because they aren't real-world effects, at least not in the part of the universe that we live in.

Sure, it's fun to try and figure out how you could approximate the effects of Star Wars tech, but even someone as smart as you isn't coming up with anything really new and different to explain it. At some point, you have to say, "Eh, it's a movie. Let's just enjoy it for what it is."

Especially since blaster bolts are just lightsaber blades that aren't attached to a handle. There's no qualitative difference between a lightsaber and a blaster. The lightsaber is a Jedi weapon because only the Jedi have magic on their side to even out a battle where you bring a knife to a gunfight, not because there's something inherently "Jedi" about a laser sword (or whatever a lightsaber is). Finn is competent with a lightsaber, not because he's unknowingly Force-sensitive (though of course he might be) but because he's a trained soldier and a lightsaber is just another kind of energy weapon. Rey is masterful with it because she's the mundane kid who discovers that she's actually the magician's apprentice who was hidden from the evil Dark Lord that wants her power. She is magical, Finn is not, but you don't need magic to simply push a button and thrust and parry with a blade, regardless whether it's metal or some sort of contained energy field.

I'll tell you the truth about Republican and Empirical energy weapons - they're actually contained fields of quantum uncertainty; literal columns of quantum foam. The "light' is essentially Cherenkov radiation, where the surface of the tube of quantum particles interacts with the outside universe and some of the quantum potential escapes and becomes "real", releasing photons and assorted brands of high energy particles in the process.

A blaster bolt is an unstable field that collapses when it encounters an object, causing its payload of quantum flux to immediately assume form in the "real world", creating a mass of matter and anti-matter particles out of thin air, as it were, which instantly annihilate each other, producing the desired explosive effect that blows something up and sends it hurtling instead of just vaporizing it.

A lightsaber is only a difference of kind, not quality. It is simply attached to a handle that holds the containment field stable despite outside stresses and thus creates a controlled release of energy when it comes into contact with solid matter. In reality, if you observed a lightsaber blade for an extended period of time, you'd see all kinds of small "explosions" happening along its length continuously, as it encountered and annihilated every air molecule that bounced its way.

Sadly, we're still a ways off from realizing that technology in the 21st century.

And whatever you think of energy weapons, in the end they're just props in a story and understanding the props doesn't actually bring you to a better understanding of the story.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Actually, it depends on what you mean by practical.  Energy weapons are currently not economically practical, but I don't see how that has any bearing on whether we can reasonably discuss what is technologically achievable.

I was referring specifically to lightsabers. I was just pointing out that we've only scratched the surface of doing Star Wars inspired weaponry, and for anyone to say that lightsabers are impossible would be like a caveman with a hatchet saying that guns are impossible.

I think you are assuming that because every military application you've heard of involves extremely large weapons with extremely large power sources, that represents the limits of technology. But that's not the limit of technology, that's actually a political limitation.  There's a treaty that bans the use of battlefield blinding weapons that cover laser small arms.

Oh wow... I'd never heard about that before. That's an interesting bit of information. Though I wonder why that isn't determined by "how" it's used rather than whether or not it's used. If people are firing guns at each others faces, chances are someone's going to lose an eye regardless of whether its a laser or a bullet.

But if you wanted to make a hand-held anti-personnel laser weapon, I believe that's just within the limits of current technology.  The knuckleheads on the internet have already figured out how to make diode pumped Nd:YAG laser weapons capable of delivering megawatt pulses of energy - the kind of thing that can burn holes in razor blades and write your name in blocks of wood.  These are hobbyist projects costing maybe hundreds of dollars.  If you were willing to spend Tony Stark levels of cash, I think you could make a laser weapon capable of seriously injuring or killing someone that was hand held and used nothing but state of the art lithium batteries to power it.

When I was in highschool I considered tinkering with the idea but it proved to be far more complicated than it should've been. Though I wasn't thinking of a pistol, but something ghostbusters-inspired, with the power source being in a backpack attached to a shotgun-sized laser housing so that size and weight issues wouldn't be so restrictive. The bigger problem than the power though was keeping the thing from melting itself. These high-powered lasers they use in labs can only be fired for a quick pulse before they start to destroy themselves, and that's while being super-cooled by liquid nitrogen (which is roughly 1.5x heavier than water). That's a lot of additional weight, not to mention that means wearing a cooling system containing one of the most dangerous chemicals in existence. A DIY flame thrower wouldn't even be that intimidating. If your fuel line decides to leak all over you, your pilot light immediately goes out so there's little risk of catching fire. With liquid nitrogen, you're pretty instantly screwed.

On Tony Stark, you'd think some really wealthy person with some technical background would've built a ray gun by now just for the fun of it. Like a concept car, or a jetpack flight demo at a carnival, it'd be a cool promotional oddity for a company, even if they never planned on actually doing anything with it.

[adarict]

There's a treaty that bans the use of battlefield blinding weapons that cover laser small arms.  Most militaries aren't looking at small scale laser weapons explicitly for this reason. 

Just curious about something.  Why would such a treaty have any impact on handheld laser weapons?  Lasers don't inherently blind.  Most of them are invisible to the naked eye, at least the ones currently designed as weapons.  The fact that they could blind you is a secondary effect, and largely irrelevant when it burns a hole through your head.

Not being a jerk, just honestly curious.  I wasn't actually aware of a treaty banning blinding weapons, but it would not surprise me.  We have treaties banning a variety of weapon classes.  I don't remember if white phosphorus rounds were officially banned, or just a gentleman's agreement not to use them.  I know we still use them for things like marking targets.  It is one of those weapons that still gets used, because you hear big arguments in political circles whenever some country or other uses them.

[Noyjitat]

Heck, SEGS got a Cease and Desist letter from them a few years back, and as far as I can tell Paragon Chat is more functional today than SEGS ever has been.

Segs or cohemu was being developed while coh was still active and that's the only reason why it ever got a cease and desist. Any emulator made today would not face this problem so long as it was developed by volunteers and maintained by donations.

[Arcana]

Just curious about something.  Why would such a treaty have any impact on handheld laser weapons?  Lasers don't inherently blind.  Most of them are invisible to the naked eye, at least the ones currently designed as weapons.  The fact that they could blind you is a secondary effect, and largely irrelevant when it burns a hole through your head.

A laser weapon that exploded people's heads would blind them, but that's exempted from the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons because war has its own rules.  But I think the problem is that to get from here to there the technological path is necessarily blurry.  Laser weapons have all sorts of problems associated with what might be in the air you have to shoot through, what sort of protection the enemy might be wearing, that are more complex than for conventional weapons.  There's a pretty big grey area between a weapon that has wide ranging lethality on a variety of battlefield conditions, and one that might kill in theory but is more likely to do weird things like burn the armhairs off the target or fuse the eyeballs of anyone looking in the wrong direction.  Laser weapons are surprisingly and perhaps counterintuitively unpredictable relative to conventional bullets. 

I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect that this is a reason among many reasons why research is focusing on larger scale weapons, and maybe not the most important one.

[Codewalker]

Segs or cohemu was being developed while coh was still active and that's the only reason why it ever got a cease and desist. Any emulator made today would not face this problem so long as it was developed by volunteers and maintained by donations.

Tell that to Infinite Rasa.

[Noyjitat]

Tell that to Infinite Rasa.

Thats a special case since they tried to sue richard garriot twice and ended up losing and being counter sued both times.

Btw theirs already atleast two new versions of infinite rasa that started up again as a result.

[Arcana]

Sure, it's fun to try and figure out how you could approximate the effects of Star Wars tech, but even someone as smart as you isn't coming up with anything really new and different to explain it. At some point, you have to say, "Eh, it's a movie. Let's just enjoy it for what it is."

I don't claim to have a particularly original idea among the millions of people who might have also thought up ideas, I was merely suggesting one that exists away from the most commonly presented strawmen for why the technology is "impossible."

On the subject of Star Wars being a "fantasy" story rather than science fiction.  Without getting too deep in that particular quagmire, I will say that there is a distinct difference between the center of mass of Star Trek fandom and the center of mass of Star Wars fandom when it comes to thinking about how things work.  And this encapsulates it completely:

If fact, if we leave the realm of the films and start taking the novels into account then we have to account for the actual magical ingredients: the "force crystal" that is unique to each Jedi and that is basically identical to the phoenix feather at the core of Harry's wand.

Star Wars fans tend to like weird mystical explanations for things.  That's why there is a prevalent belief (bolstered by the EU) that only Jedi can use light sabers, even though this idea is directly contradicted by the movies and requires incredible mental gymnastics to make remotely plausible.  And because the source material tends not to explain things (it explicitly doesn't want to) and the fandom tends to lean in the direction of liking fantastical ideas, the "technology" of Star Wars is in fact more "magical" than, say Star Trek.  That's why we have computers running software inspired by Star Trek, why the cell phone industry was inspired by Star Trek, why an amazing amount of actual real world stuff real people interact with has a connection to Star Trek, but very little of Star Wars has had the same effect.

I accept fully that there isn't a "real" explanation behind any of these things that I could "find" and anything I think up is in fact something I made up.  I also accept the fact that just being able to think about them doesn't mean I can just go in my garage and build one.  Real scientists debate the mechanics of Alcubierre warp fields but none of them have any capacity to design or build a warp drive or are deluded into thinking they could.

Having said all of that, I respect anyone who just wants to watch the movies.  There's no *need* to know how light sabers work or how hyperdrives function.  There's no reason to think the Kessel run is anything but pilot-speak that may have no connection to what we think the word "parsec" means.  But if you're an engineer, like I basically am, and you see a light saber on screen, and you *don't* ask yourself how that could work, you're probably not a very good one.  For me, that's an entirely different layer of appreciating a movie that does not in any way interfere with the cinematic narrative.  It isn't a problem that warp drives might be real but light sabers aren't.  And separate from that, when someone tells me light sabers are impossible so just shut up and chill (I'm not saying you're saying that) that's like someone who tells me 100,000 IOPS under NFS in my setup is impossible so stop trying.  I know I can't make a light saber but telling me there's no way I'm smart enough to even think about it is the surest way to compel me to prove you wrong, no different than challenging an engineering implementation of mine is the surest way of getting me to devote significant time to proving your pitiful storage skills are rubbish.  That's not just me, that's pretty much all engineers.

If someone thinks those discussions have no benefit to them, that's cool.  If someone thinks those discussion have no benefit at all, well I have to disagree.  At the very least, they benefit me.  They generally benefit like-minded people.  That's good enough for me.

[hurple]

Having said all of that, I respect anyone who just wants to watch the movies.  There's no *need* to know how light sabers work or how hyperdrives function.  There's no reason to think the Kessel run is anything but pilot-speak that may have no connection to what we think the word "parsec" means.  But if you're an engineer, like I basically am, and you see a light saber on screen, and you *don't* ask yourself how that could work, you're probably not a very good one.  For me, that's an entirely different layer of appreciating a movie that does not in any way interfere with the cinematic narrative.  It isn't a problem that warp drives might be real but light sabers aren't.  And separate from that, when someone tells me light sabers are impossible so just shut up and chill (I'm not saying you're saying that) that's like someone who tells me 100,000 IOPS under NFS in my setup is impossible so stop trying.  I know I can't make a light saber but telling me there's no way I'm smart enough to even think about it is the surest way to compel me to prove you wrong, no different than challenging an engineering implementation of mine is the surest way of getting me to devote significant time to proving your pitiful storage skills are rubbish.  That's not just me, that's pretty much all engineers.

I can absolutely guarantee you, from first-hand experience, that the single, solitary thought behind any weapon, ship, planetary eco-system or alien design in any sci-fi or fantasy film is "that would look so cool!"

The "science" or plausability behind any of it isn't even an afterthought.  That doesn't even register. 

[TimtheEnchanter]

I can absolutely guarantee you, from first-hand experience, that the single, solitary thought behind any weapon, ship, planetary eco-system or alien design in any sci-fi or fantasy film is "that would look so cool!"

The "science" or plausability behind any of it isn't even an afterthought.  That doesn't even register.

Sorry, no. It really all depends on who is working on the project. Different teams are more interested in 'evolving' an alien world than others. Some monster makers will try to apply some hard science to arrive at a design for an alien, using the primal state of its homeworld as a starting point and then "playing spore" with micro-organisms until they eventually arrive at an intelligent creature. You can get far more interesting things going that route, and the more science you apply, the better it gets. But it also takes a LOT more planning than to sit down with a drawing pad and say, "Alright, let's give it an extra eye, legs that bend backwards, a scorpion tail and claws made of metal, and... red lizard skin."

[Felderburg]

I can absolutely guarantee you, from first-hand experience, that the single, solitary thought behind any weapon, ship, planetary eco-system or alien design in any sci-fi or fantasy film is "that would look so cool!"

The "science" or plausability behind any of it isn't even an afterthought.  That doesn't even register.

I suspect a number of hard sci fi authors would disagree.

It doesn't bother me 'as much,' but also: I rolled my eyes when I saw that blaster bolts are now capable of launching people through the air.

I thought that was the explosive bowcaster rounds.

Well, allegedly the main reason lasers (though that's not really what they are either cuz the shots don't travel at the speed of light) are so popular in SW is because they're less likely to breach the hulls of ships than bullets. So, very little kinetic force. I think the only group that uses hard ammo in the films are the Tuskens, and they're quite obviously not a space-faring people.

Where is that info?

[TimtheEnchanter]

I thought that was the explosive bowcaster rounds.

Meh, I can't find the clip now either. No idea if it was in a trailer or if it was PR clip.

Where is that info?

It's mostly been inferred from the early notes and drawings. Lightsabers weren't originally an elite weapon. They were intended to be something that anyone fighting in space would carry because guns on a spaceship were too. Sabers eventually evolved into specifically a Jedi weapon, and troops got their ray guns. Energy-based weapons just make too much sense in a space-faring civilization because you can get away with issuing just one type of gun to everyone. Blasters can be used with maximum force where possible but in more sensitive situations, the power setting can be toned down to prevent disaster. Were they using conventional guns that use explosions to fire solid projectiles, you'd need to issue multiple kinds of ammo for different situations. You can see this happen a lot in the films. Normally a blaster shot will do little more than leave a nasty burn mark on the wall. But they can also be used to blow a console apart or punch a massive hole in a vent. The fact that Leia didn't end up with a massive hole in her shoulder suggests that blasters are preferred mainly for their stopping power, rather than their ability to tear through things.

[Arcana]

It's mostly been inferred from the early notes and drawings. Lightsabers weren't originally an elite weapon. They were intended to be something that anyone fighting in space would carry because guns on a spaceship were too. Sabers eventually evolved into specifically a Jedi weapon, and troops got their ray guns. Energy-based weapons just make too much sense in a space-faring civilization because you can get away with issuing just one type of gun to everyone. Blasters can be used with maximum force where possible but in more sensitive situations, the power setting can be toned down to prevent disaster. Were they using conventional guns that use explosions to fire solid projectiles, you'd need to issue multiple kinds of ammo for different situations. You can see this happen a lot in the films. Normally a blaster shot will do little more than leave a nasty burn mark on the wall. But they can also be used to blow a console apart or punch a massive hole in a vent. The fact that Leia didn't end up with a massive hole in her shoulder suggests that blasters are preferred mainly for their stopping power, rather than their ability to tear through things.

I saw an interview with Lucas a while back where he explained the reason why Jedi use light sabers is that he wanted them to wield a weapon that simultaneously evoked a sense of throwback and high technology: the dichotomy of being ultra advanced and yet something very old was what he was going after.

Another difference between Star Wars and Star Trek that is both obvious and not so obvious is that Star Trek takes place in the future while Star Wars takes place, as slickriptide mentions, a long time ago.  That isn't just to frame Star Wars as a fantasy, it is also to invoke the sense of a golden age in the past when things were better.  Star Wars invokes the trope that we are living in a time "after Eden" so to speak, and have in some sense "descended" to our current moment in time.  The Jedi aren't progressive warriors: they haven't evolved to the point they are now.  They are a remnant of an earlier time.  Star Trek is set in the future, and specifically our future.  Everything that happens in Star Trek evokes a sense that we could get there one day.  If there is a fundamental difference to the underlying narrative of Star Trek and Star Wars, I think it is that the message of Star Trek is that anything is possible and we can build the future.  The message of Star Wars is that we've lost a lot, but we can fight to regain it.

I think there is a sense in which no one talks about how technology works in Star Wars and we aren't encouraged as fans to think about how technology works because in Star Wars technology isn't aspirational.  Except for the occasional Death Star no one seems to be especially working to improve or evolve technology.  Technology is just there, and apparently has always been there for thousands of years.  Why bother messing with technology when the best that technology can offer seems, in many ways, to have existed for centuries.  The Star Wars universe is remarkably static when it comes to technology.  In Star Trek, technology is portrayed as aspirational in many ways.  The characters live at a time when the best that ever existed exists right now.  Star Trek characters live at a time when medical technology is the best, space travel is the best, weapons technology is the best, and it is continuing to get better.  We want to know how the technology works because the characters themselves, in many ways, also care.  Geordi LaForge is constantly rattling off parts of the Enterprise's engines because he cares how it works because he wants to be the guy that improves it.  An amazing amount of Star Trek primary and background characters want to change the world in technological ways.  They want to make the next generation computer, the next propulsion system, the next robotics advance.  Khan Noonian Singh saw himself as the next leap forward in genetics.

What's interesting is attitude towards technology doesn't correspond to technological feasibility.  Quick question: given all of the capabilities the technology has been portrayed as having in the movies exclusively, which technology is more fantastical: light sabers or Iron Man's armor?

Answer: Iron Man's armor.  The Marvel movies do a very good job of making Stark's technology feel intuitively grounded while Star Wars does an equally good job of making all of its technology seem opaque and magical, but no portrayed capability of light sabers violates the laws of physics.  It might be technology beyond our means to replicate or even currently conceive of, but they do things that physically can be done.  Iron Man's armor seems like it is more realistic, and much of it is more easily conceivable through the eyes of current technology.  But the one thing they do that is straight up impossible is they somehow protect Tony Stark from being killed when the armor sustains ultra-high g-loads, like say when the armor gets knocked off its feet or smashes into a wall or the ground.  Hypothetical technology could make the armor indestructible, but no current technology can suspend the law of conservation of momentum within the armor.  When Tony Stark falls from fifty feet and hits the ground in his armor, the injuries he sustains should be about the same as if he did the same thing in his underwear.  The laws of physics permit sufficient energy in the form of a hand-held weapon to cut through almost any material substance.  They don't permit Tony Stark to not become a puddle in the shoes of his armor.

How technology is portrayed and how it is perceived by the average person is more of a narrative thing than a real world physics thing.  Light sabers feel magical to most people not because we can't currently build them but because that's how they are portrayed.  Iron Man's armor feels realistic to most people even though we are no closer to making a fully functional Iron Man armor than we are light sabers, because that's how those suits are portrayed.

And that's another good reason to think about the technology with an engineering eye.  What "feels" magical and realistic isn't necessarily a good indicator of what actually is and is not possible.  Those intuitions are easy to manipulate by good story tellers.  Knowing how that happens is equally useful to someone thinking about it from an engineering perspective and someone thinking about it from a narrative perspective (i.e. how to tell a good story about technology based on what you are trying to achieve).

[Arcana]

I can absolutely guarantee you, from first-hand experience, that the single, solitary thought behind any weapon, ship, planetary eco-system or alien design in any sci-fi or fantasy film is "that would look so cool!"

The "science" or plausability behind any of it isn't even an afterthought.  That doesn't even register.

Perhaps your first hand experience is in the prop department of movies where the art design generally revolves around what would look good on camera.  That is their job.  But there's an enormous amount of contradictory evidence that shows many screenwriters, directors, and producers actually care about the internal logic of plausibility of what they put on film.  2001 A Space Odyssey famously has no sound in its space scenes specifically to be more realistic, and its ship design was intended to reflect realism.  Robert Zemeckis obviously cared a great deal about the scientific plausibility of the technology in the movie Contact, seeing as how he was adapting a book written by Carl Sagan.  And even when the science fiction is "soft" and not "hard" there is still strong evidence that plausibility and science are used to moderate the Rule of Cool.  You see that in Blade Runner, for example.  The pulse rifles in the movie Aliens were conceptualized by James Cameron and then implemented by designers who tried to model them after real world weapons.

Probably most famously in recent times was the science moderated by the Rule of Cool in the movie Interstellar.  Everything in there from the ship designs to the planetary environments to the black hole itself were designed with significant input from scientists, because Nolan wanted that input.  He still deviated from those recommendations where he felt it would help the narrative or visuals, but he did care a great deal.  You cannot possibly say that the one and only thought he or his production crew had was what would look cool.

And of course there's the previously mentioned Star Trek franchise which has had a long and well documented history of relationships with scientists and engineers, and a strong if not infallible desire to maintain technological continuity and plausibility, for weapons, ships, planetary eco-systems, and (in some cases) alien design.

Many writers, directors, and production crews probably care little about these things, and maybe there are some that literally care not at all.  But to assert that everyone doesn't care at all is actually rather incredible.

[ivanhedgehog]

I suspect a number of hard sci fi authors would disagree.

I thought that was the explosive bowcaster rounds.

Where is that info?

look at david drakes "hammers slammers" books. he has a well thought out system for weapons, with their own limitations and strengths. Also, david Webers "honor Harrington" series. Very well developed technology systems.

[Twisted Toon]

Perhaps your first hand experience is in the prop department of movies where the art design generally revolves around what would look good on camera.  That is their job.  But there's an enormous amount of contradictory evidence that shows many screenwriters, directors, and producers actually care about the internal logic of plausibility of what they put on film.  2001 A Space Odyssey famously has no sound in its space scenes specifically to be more realistic, and its ship design was intended to reflect realism.  Robert Zemeckis obviously cared a great deal about the scientific plausibility of the technology in the movie Contact, seeing as how he was adapting a book written by Carl Sagan.  And even when the science fiction is "soft" and not "hard" there is still strong evidence that plausibility and science are used to moderate the Rule of Cool.  You see that in Blade Runner, for example.  The pulse rifles in the movie Aliens were conceptualized by James Cameron and then implemented by designers who tried to model them after real world weapons.

Probably most famously in recent times was the science moderated by the Rule of Cool in the movie Interstellar.  Everything in there from the ship designs to the planetary environments to the black hole itself were designed with significant input from scientists, because Nolan wanted that input.  He still deviated from those recommendations where he felt it would help the narrative or visuals, but he did care a great deal.  You cannot possibly say that the one and only thought he or his production crew had was what would look cool.

And of course there's the previously mentioned Star Trek franchise which has had a long and well documented history of relationships with scientists and engineers, and a strong if not infallible desire to maintain technological continuity and plausibility, for weapons, ships, planetary eco-systems, and (in some cases) alien design.

Many writers, directors, and production crews probably care little about these things, and maybe there are some that literally care not at all.  But to assert that everyone doesn't care at all is actually rather incredible.

I woudl say that Babylon 5 put some science thought into the Starfury fighters. And the space combats in general.

[Sinistar]

I woudl say that Babylon 5 put some science thought into the Starfury fighters. And the space combats in general.

Yes the Starfury's had 4 engines all that could rotate as needed to fly the fighter in any direction.

Unlike xwings and tirefighters that seem to bank and turn like airplanes without any sign of other thrusters.

Also the Galactica reboot series had such thrusters on the vipers, unlike original Galactica.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I saw an interview with Lucas a while back where he explained the reason why Jedi use light sabers is that he wanted them to wield a weapon that simultaneously evoked a sense of throwback and high technology: the dichotomy of being ultra advanced and yet something very old was what he was going after.

I seem to recall that hyperdrive is also insanely old. So old that nobody even knows who invented it. Hyperdrive in a sense seems to be the Prometheus event of that galaxy. Trying to trace back its lineage would be like us trying to figure out which of our ancestors first learned how to rub sticks together to make fire.

That isn't just to frame Star Wars as a fantasy, it is also to invoke the sense of a golden age in the past when things were better.  Star Wars invokes the trope that we are living in a time "after Eden" so to speak, and have in some sense "descended" to our current moment in time.  The Jedi aren't progressive warriors: they haven't evolved to the point they are now.  They are a remnant of an earlier time.

Well if you're just going by the OT timeline, then yeah I could see that. But the Republic era wasn't that long ago, and any war-torn location will agree that things were better before then. But looking at the OR era also implies a kind of renaissance era, probably brought about by all of the technological marvels. Everything from that era is remarkably artistic and shiny, most likely because labor as we know it in our world is long gone thanks to droids. People still work, but the lines between work and leisure are much more blurry. What all of this means is that the Jedi aren't obsolete and our current understanding of the word is probably... well.... obsolete.  The galaxy is secure in its identity and 'open' enough to embrace ancient cultural practices instead of forcing them to assimilate into whatever their definition of normal is. In a way this could make the Republic every bit as liberal as the UFP. Wookiees have a culture likely inspired by Native Americans, and despite their preference for natural living, many have embraced technology and they are represented in the Senate. On one hand they can be viewed as very primitive and primal, but Chewy is an expert mechanic and pilot. On the Star Trek end of things, in spite of being a heavily-decorated Starfleet officer, Worf still practices ancient Klingon warrior traditions, as do most other members of his race. Even though objectively, one would expect his heritage to be a hindrance and perhaps even a conflict of interest (and yeah, it has let to a bloody mess at times), he integrates it into his duties as an officer in such a way that he becomes an even greater asset. The Klingons (and the Vulcans for that matter) have adopted a poetic fusion of ancient and modern that is very similar to the Jedi.

I think there is a sense in which no one talks about how technology works in Star Wars and we aren't encouraged as fans to think about how technology works because in Star Wars technology isn't aspirational.  Except for the occasional Death Star no one seems to be especially working to improve or evolve technology.  Technology is just there, and apparently has always been there for thousands of years.  Why bother messing with technology when the best that technology can offer seems, in many ways, to have existed for centuries.  The Star Wars universe is remarkably static when it comes to technology.

This may be further evidence of the renaissance way of thinking that I mentioned. Perhaps technology isn't developing simply because it doesn't need to. Though we also are judging it from an unusual temporal perspective. Technology has never developed at such a blistering pace as it has for us in the past few decades. We have been in the middle of a quantum jump ever since the industrial revolution, which relatively-speaking, only began yesterday. And it stands to reason that sooner or later, development will begin to slow down. Not because of laziness or apathy, but because eventually, discovery will become scarce just like any natural resource that has been over-mined. We have barely left our planet so we're not even close. But the Star Wars galaxy could have easily have reached that point.

But the one thing they do that is straight up impossible is they somehow protect Tony Stark from being killed when the armor sustains ultra-high g-loads, like say when the armor gets knocked off its feet or smashes into a wall or the ground.  Hypothetical technology could make the armor indestructible, but no current technology can suspend the law of conservation of momentum within the armor.

That thought has crossed my mind on a number of occasions, but that's an issue that any space story involving FTL travel also needs to contend with. I asked that question once and I was told that the Iron Man suit does employ some kind of intertial dampening, but if it does, it was only ever discussed in the comics. That's probably too much introspection for a high-budget blockbuster. Everyone would rather just watch him experience slap-sticky engineering mishaps.

Anyway, the main reason I ended up giving lightsaber tech a lot of thought is I was very close to making my own SW fanfilm at one point. We tried to learn as much as we could about sabers by analyzing the films and reading EU info from theForce.net. I don't like using something in a story without understanding exactly what it is and isn't capable of doing. We took note of how the blades reacted when contacting different alloys of differing thickness. We came up with an explanation for why the blades sometimes appear to fuse together, which also led to the conclusion that cross-guards were completely unnecessary because the blades NEVER slide against one another (and now you know which side of the Kylo saber debate I stand on). I like everything to have rules so there are no potential plot issues, and to prevent any kind of uncanny valley incidents, so we tried our darnedest to reverse-engineer all of it. It seems like most people just base their understanding of saber combat on personal experiences with the plastic toys.

[slickriptide]

Well, today I went searching for some scientific input on the nature of lightsabers and I now have it on excellent authority that they are, in fact, plasma weapons:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/umsrnb/the-colbert-report-lightsaber-controversy

((For the click-wary - it's a Colbert Report clip from last Thanksgiving about the "lightsaber controversy" from the then-new trailer for Force Awakens.  Today was the first time I'd seen it and if I could actually laugh my ass off, I'd be assless now. ))