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Old 01-15-2019, 09:41 PM   #1
Maximum7
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Default What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

Maximum7
Im trying to write an RPG profile about a scientist who is working on something in the era of the New Republic. He does not believe in the Force. I just need something for him to be researching. It really isn’t that important to the story; it just has to sound cool and scientific. Also it can’t have already been done in Legends or Canon. I want a fresh idea.

It cannot be

- A time machine

-A teleporter

-A matter replicator

-A singularity Weapon

- Any type of droid

-Anything to do with holograms

-A food synthesizer

- Anything to do with the Force or Midi-chlorians

- A shrink ray

-A freeze ray

-pico and femtotechnology

-A Dyson sphere or any type of megastructure.

-Liquid metal armor or a nano morph

-Any improvements on the hyperdrive

-Limb regeneration

-Hyperspace nullifier

-Holodeck

- Knowledge Transfer (Instant learning like in the Matrix)

-Philosophers Stone

-Kinetic weapons

-Solar sail

-Anything to do with kyber crystals

-Gene editing

-Mech suit

-Exosuit

-Gender change



In canon, during the Empire, scientists were researching methods to control droids, lasers that can punch through deflector shields and ship scale disintigrators. These ideas are therefore taken.
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Old 01-15-2019, 10:21 PM   #2
malloyd
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximum7 View Post
Maximum7
Im trying to write an RPG profile about a scientist who is working on something in the era of the New Republic. He does not believe in the Force. I just need something for him to be researching. It really isn’t that important to the story; it just has to sound cool and scientific.
So why not flip open any science journal and use one of the paper titles? Change a few of the nouns and you're probably good. Real science is more likely to be "the biochemistry of cell entry of blue spotted wheat blight virus", "the effects of ultra-high pressures on the glass transition of ultrapure carbonite", or "an improved chronology of pre-historic transmission of pottery styles among the Zarov Islands on Gorblat IV" than any of the stuff you have listed not to do - it doesn't look to me like *any* of that is science at all, it's engineering if anything.
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Old 01-16-2019, 02:52 AM   #3
The Colonel
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

Remember, if he's a scientist his work doesn't need to be anything applicable - he could equally well be studying gross weather patterns in one or more gas giants, taxonomy amongst a group of organisms, crystal structures in developmental synthetic materials, a specific enzyme in some random microbe, local trends in air pollution in a built up area.
Your average PhD thesis is about the size of an urban telephone directory from the 1980s and roughly as interesting to the average reader.

Okay, re-reading I think I've just said what Malloyd did only with more and different words...
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Old 01-16-2019, 06:10 AM   #4
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

Are are the PCs, and in this case (more importantly) going to care what the scientist is researching? I can see why you're having trouble coming up with a topic if you've already ruled out everything cool-sounding, relatable from other SF background, or characteristic of Star Wars (like droids or the Force). Those EU authors were hard at work mining out the available territory.

Suppose the scientist is just measuring the effect of solar spectrum on algae growth rates from Core to Rim, or an archaeologist looking for details to solve the long-standing question of exactly which ruler it was sitting on the throne as the "Middle King" 2700 years ago on the backwater world Wherevera? The exact topic is either an important plot point or a background color detail for the NPC, and that choice tends to influence the choice of subject matter.

If the research is a plot point, then maybe considering your themes might help you choose something appropriate.
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Old 01-16-2019, 08:46 AM   #5
Irish Wolf
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

Evolutionary patterns of life forms on "desert" worlds like Tatooine and Jakku.
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Old 01-16-2019, 10:52 AM   #6
khorboth
 
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Location: Denver, CO
Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

We have a scientist in my current Star Wars game. She specializes in megafauna: Rancor, bantha, rathtar, etc.

Another possibility is that he's trying to figure out how to make a cloaking device which doesn't render the ship blind (these were in the old EU, but were mostly useless because of the blindness problem.)

Other less-developed possibilities: Droid AI, Hyperspace speed upgrades, energy source efficiency, Human/alien migration patterns, Economic patterns in relation to shipping lanes, Sensors, automated construction, pilot AI.
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Old 01-16-2019, 02:52 PM   #7
Gadget
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

hyperspace Migration routes of the Purrgil
HTML Code:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Purrgil?li_source=LI&li_medium=wikia-rail
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Old 01-16-2019, 02:59 PM   #8
Gadget
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

The effect of state sponsered propaganda on the general population during imperial era
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Old 01-16-2019, 03:05 PM   #9
Gadget
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

Ecology of the Akkadese Maelstrom
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http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Akkadese_Maelstrom
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Old 01-17-2019, 12:38 PM   #10
thastygliax
 
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Default Re: What could a scientist in my Star Wars RPG be researching?

How about something seemingly mundane but supremely math-intensive, like plotting asteroid fields? Give him an accurate enough model and sufficient computing power, and he could determine their origin (captured interstellar objects? debris from planets colliding? remains of a superweapon's target?), whether any rogue rocks are going to strike an inhabited planet, and which asteroids have secret bases (or colossal megafauna lairs) hollowed out inside them. All of which could provide plot germs for new adventures.

And when he finally publishes, title his treatise "The Dynamics of an Asteroid Field," and see how many players catch the reference to Moriarty's "On the Dynamics of an Asteroid."
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