Emerging technologies in an RPG; Star Wars world

[Maximum7]

I’m very fascinated by emerging technologies like brain computer interfaces and holograms and gene therapy. I’m also very much a Star Wars fan and I often wonder what are the emerging technologies of a civilization like the one in Star Wars. Does that society even have emerging technologies. Have they petered out? In a world where anti-gravity, FTL travel and sentient robots exist- what’s next. You would assume stuff we don’t see in Star Wars like teleportation, matter replication and time travel would be the obvious ones, but those are easy to think of concepts and the civilization would have tried to do that stuff a long time ago. The Galactic Republic had the hyperdrive for 10,000 years so I assume those 3 things among many are impossible to do. What then would the emerging technologies of Star Wars be?

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Maximum7

You would assume stuff we don’t see in Star Wars like teleportation, matter replication and time travel would be the obvious ones, but those are easy to think of concepts and the civilization would have tried to do that stuff a long time ago.

If any technology that a starfaring culture would have thought of in 10,000 years is off limits, how many good answers do you expect to get on an internet forum?

[ravenfish]

Ideas for useful inventions that have not yet been thought of in a Star Wars setting:

Guard Rails.

Body armor that protects against low-tech weapons.

Astromech droids with speech synthesizers built in.

Making copies of electronically stored battlestation plans, and sending them through whatever communications system people use to make video-calls with the other end of the Galaxy.

Come to think of it, the ability to project images without visible scan lines.

[Anaraxes]

I'm not very knowledgeable about the SW EU, but the Rakata had teleportation technology (remaining bits of which are depicted in SW:TOR on the planet Belsavis). It's not impossible in that universe, just not known or not widely used for some reason, perhaps as simply as having been forgotten and not yet rediscovered.

You might want to adopt some of the justifications for various safetech civilizations, rather than trying to define some rigorous and consistent laws of physics that permit FTL and the Force yet forbid teleportation.

[Irish Wolf]

SW in general is pretty well-known for leaving large sections of the sciences untouched. I'm guessing it's a side-effect of having had large groups of essentially space wizards - when something strange or unfortunate happened, it could be blamed on the Force instead of being properly investigated. (I mean, Padme Amidala died "of a broken heart"?? Really, doctor? Where'd you get your medical degree - win it in a sabacc game? Even 20th-century Earth wasn't willing to accept "died for emotional reasons" as an autopsy result. One can only conclude that SW medical science went all-in for prosthetics, but really didn't develop the rest of the medical sciences very well. If it can't be cured with a bacta bath, well, sucks to be you, I guess.)

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Guard Rails.

We know the Force wants two things: people to fall to their death, and one handed Jedi.

[Black Leviathan]

Their medicine is only a little more advanced than ours,other than cloning. Bioware development could certainly be an emerging technology.

Less an emerging technology than an application, their communications technology legitimately looks like 1970's scifi with big boom microphones and ridiculously poor quality video screens and fuzzy holograms. an LCD display would be an impressive improvement.

The cannon has a few examples of emerging tech that was upsetting the balance of things. The Imperial hyperspace interdiction technology was a big game changer from what I remember.

[doctorevilbrain]

I couldn't find out anything about bioware except the game company.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

I couldn't find out anything about bioware except the game company.

Also known as biotechnology: the technology of making things with biology rather than physics. GURPS Bio-Tech describes the ideas pretty well.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Also known as biotechnology: the technology of making things with biology rather than physics. GURPS Bio-Tech describes the ideas pretty well.

The Yuuzan Vong (spelling?) used bioengineered technology extensively.

That does highlight one problem with the question: Star Wars has never treated technology and science as a consistent body. Instead, it's usually just an ad hoc background to justify what props the characters get to use or what hat a particular planet wears.