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Old 08-11-2020, 01:55 PM   #101
pawsplay
 
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

Ewoks are a mature TL 3 society, but due to living on a moon and not a planet with a dense planetary core, have little access to bronze or iron, and never had a metallurgical revolution.
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Old 08-11-2020, 01:58 PM   #102
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

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Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! View Post
The stone age includes both the caves-and-throw-spears that everyone is familiar with, as well as primitive cities of a few thousand, agriculture, and organized warfare.

Winches and pulleys are not impossible at TL0; just somewhat impractical, given the difficulty in making sufficiently adequate *rope.

* Wait for someone to come in here with an post on stone-age rope...

Edit: Also, the Ewoks had catapults; those catapults had rope. Ergo, Ewoks could make good rope.
I'm not sure it would be feasible to make pulleys that turn at TL0 proper - you're really short of options for making axles let alone any sort of fancy bearings. You'd probably have to use hand-rounded wooden pegs in hand-drilled holes in carefully carved wooden pulleys, and that's all a grotesque amount of work for something that won't work great and may break easily under strain.

But the Ewoks are hardly playing out of a (pre)historical TL0 toolkit.
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Old 08-11-2020, 01:59 PM   #103
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I'm not sure it would be feasible to make pulleys that turn at TL0 proper - you're really short of options for making axles let alone any sort of fancy bearings. You'd probably have to use hand-rounded wooden pegs in hand-drilled holes in carefully carved wooden pulleys, and that's all a grotesque amount of work for something that won't work great and may break easily under strain.

But the Ewoks are hardly playing out of a (pre)historical TL0 toolkit.
True; I think the comment by "pawsplay" above sounds like a good summery.
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Old 08-11-2020, 02:04 PM   #104
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

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Originally Posted by pawsplay View Post
Ewoks are a mature TL 3 society, but due to living on a moon and not a planet with a dense planetary core, have little access to bronze or iron, and never had a metallurgical revolution.
They have also encountered high-tech civilizations, so probably cribbed a few ideas from what they observed.
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Old 08-11-2020, 02:13 PM   #105
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! View Post
The stone age includes both the caves-and-throw-spears that everyone is familiar with, as well as primitive cities of a few thousand, agriculture, and organized warfare.

Winches and pulleys are not impossible at TL0; just somewhat impractical, given the difficulty in making sufficiently adequate *rope.

* Wait for someone to come in here with an post on stone-age rope...

Edit: Also, the Ewoks had catapults; those catapults had rope. Ergo, Ewoks could make good rope.
not to mention rope walkways and ladders, rope nets, ...
And some of the cartoon have them using pretty good rope, enough to capture and haul 2 stormtrooper quite high.

But Low-tech p23 have pretty good ropes for TL0

They do have some rope based TL1 tech :
lariat
grapnels iirc
ladders and rope ladders
And the hang glider ... TL 4 or 5 ?

The ewoks we see are mostly tl0, I agree, but with some TL1-2 (3?) techs well established, and a few outliers.
Mostly, they lack metal.

Also, we saw one village, mostly made of refugee from a destroyed campement/village ... we don't have the full picture.

Last edited by Celjabba; 08-11-2020 at 02:25 PM.
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Old 08-11-2020, 03:10 PM   #106
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

The Ewoks appear to be TL(Tribal)^, in much the same way that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is pretty much TL(Olden Tymes)^.

If I were going to stick actual numbers to them, though, it would probably be something like 'TL(0+3)^, advanced in Flight,' or 'TL3^, primitive in Metallurgy, advanced in Flight.'
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Old 08-11-2020, 03:24 PM   #107
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

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Originally Posted by Prince Charon View Post
The Ewoks appear to be TL(Tribal)^, in much the same way that GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is pretty much TL(Olden Tymes)^.

If I were going to stick actual numbers to them, though, it would probably be something like 'TL(0+3)^, advanced in Flight,' or 'TL3^, primitive in Metallurgy, advanced in Flight.'
Going down the list:
Transportation: while we don't see a lot in RotJ, other sources show them with riding animals, cards, and gliders. TL 3 solidly, maybe 3+2 if you count gliders. However I don't know that gliders are more of an aberration in transportation that boomerangs are for weapons among Earth's Australians.
Weapons and Armor: We see mostly TL 0 equivalents, but traps and catapults with TL 3 features. So TL 0+3, due to lack of metallurgy.
Power: I don't see any major power production. Just going by the village we see in RotJ and the Ewok movies, definitely at least TL 2. I don't know if they have windmill technology or anything similar.
Biotech: Effective first aid and seemingly some herbal remedies, so easily TL 2. I have no idea what their anatomical knowledge is, but they can certainly do a number on stormtroopers so probably more than rudimentary. No canon evidence of prosthetics.

I feel pretty comfortable with overall TL 3, probably only TL 2 for Power and 0+3 for weapons due to metallurgy. And they have lots of genius inventing going on.

EDIT: At least in principle, it looks like TL 3 gliding is possible, but never took off on our Earth:
Eilmer of Malmesburty, 11th century monk and weird genius

Last edited by pawsplay; 08-11-2020 at 03:28 PM.
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Old 08-11-2020, 04:18 PM   #108
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Default Re: Star Wars Stormtroopers in Real Armor [Ultratech]

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"It was I who allowed the alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops await them."

I mean, Palpatine is a delusional evil wizard, but he's also in charge and sure didn't think Endor was being held by a force sub-par garrison scrapings.
I still want to know how reinforcing a damaged but functioning legion with two squads was supposed to help enough justify violating security regulations.

(The ruse to get the shield generator door open.)
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Old 08-11-2020, 04:21 PM   #109
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Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! View Post
That makes perfect sense. They weren't running from Han Solo; they were running from Darth Vader(s' wrath if the plan didn't go off).
Overacting. And of course, feigned retreat is a hard trick to make work.
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Old 08-11-2020, 05:09 PM   #110
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I still want to know how reinforcing a damaged but functioning legion with two squads was supposed to help enough justify violating security regulations.

(The ruse to get the shield generator door open.)
Because most of the legion was outside; the people in the generator room would know that the legion was having major difficulties outside; so, reinforcing the troops in the generator room in case "the worse" happens makes sense.
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