scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/2b0img.md

## Star Wars rational take

* Author: u/KOTORman  *Galactic Empire**
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2b0img/star_wars_rational_take/
* Score: 19

* Created: 2014-07-18T02:48:47

### Post:

So, I've put a serious amount of thought and planning into writing my own rationalist!munchkin!Star Wars fic, heavily steeped in EU lore mind you. It started as just me role-playing myself for an online RPG, but then evolved into a complex story of a rationalist from Earth finding himself in the Star Wars galaxy and it goes on from there.

There'd be a thorough exploration of the Force that shies away from mysticism and yes draws on the much-despised midichlorians, there'd be a whole lot of munchkinnery involving said character, who will not be, to begin with, Force-sensitive, gaining all the Force powers of pretty much every Sith that's ever existed, and starting a Sith War around 500 ABY because... well, partly because it's fun (said character is closer to the Quirrellmort mold than HJPEV), partly because he wants to become a transhuman Dark side god and turn the galaxy into a utopia populated by immortals.

Would there be any interest in such a fic? Or would the lack of movie-era characters and very heavy reliance on EU lore for purposes of munchkinning be off-putting? Basically, should I write this or not? :p

And if yes, any ideas I should incorporate into it? I've pretty much planned out the entire story, but there's plenty of flexibility in terms of integrating sufficiently awesome ideas.

### Comments:

> **u/buckykat** [+37]  (6 hours later)
> 
> i've been thinking that anakin is a potential choice to make a rational!character from. first, forget everything george lucas told you about him beyond the broad strokes of his introduction: born of the force to a slave woman on tatooine, and spends his time (before jedi show up) creating droids.
> 
> so he's got a first-hand understanding of slavery, both of humanoids and droids, as well as enough understanding of minds to build two of them from scrap.
> 
> then obi-wan and qui-gon show up and tell him he's a wizard, too. the jedi have a lot to say about mental discipline and the dark/light division. but that division maps uncomfortably onto right/wrong: lightning is Always Dark, but mind control is okay for nice, Light jedi.
> 
> slavery of humans is widespread, and slavery of droids is somewhere between universal and legally required. anakin's whole childhood is one long process of experiencing the injustice of slavery while learning applied cognitive science.

>> **u/Escapement** [+12]  *Ankh-Morpork City Watch* (13 hours later)
>> 
>> This sounds roughly ten thousand times more interesting to read than someone trying to work out what particles the Force's action-at-a-distance relies on, or trying to understand the mechanics of the propagation a great disturbance in the Force (as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced) has, and it's potential use for FTL signaling. Munchkinning a bunch of contradictory lore from the EU doesn't sound terribly interesting to read, especially as you've presented it here - with no compelling motivations or backstory or characters or plot elements many readers already care about in your fic, you'd have to establish everything from scratch, at which point one wonders why you aren't just writing original fiction instead that you could conceivably e.g. accept donations for or sell or whatever without Disney or Lucas or whoever destroying you. 
>> 
>> Stories are fundamentally more interesting when there's actual conflict with both sides, a chance of losing, and a protagonist motivated by their history rather than an author's 4th-wall-breaking-inserted-ideals. Also, stories where the protagonist struggle and have major conflicts that they *don't always win* are way better than when the protagonist succeeds at everything, especially including failures early on that later successes can contrast against (e.g. - consider why HPMoR and Luminosity are some of the best Rationalist fiction and neither has characters exactly running roughshod over their settings for the most part, and indeed both stories feature significant loses and failures of the main characters).

>>> **u/None** [+8]  (14 hours later)
>>> 
>>> > it's potential use for FTL signaling
>>> 
>>> They've got FTL ships to carry messages. Episode 1 features a real-time audio and holograph conversation between someone who's presumably stationed on Coruscant and a group in the palace of Naboo. Morse code over carefully timed genocide is not a technological improvement here.

>>>> **u/traverseda** [+9]  *With dread but cautious optimism* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> >Morse code over carefully timed genocide is not a technological improvement here
>>>> 
>>>> Is now your culture ship name. Use it wisely.
>>>> 
>>>> If you don't want it, let me know. I'm sure I can find it a good home.
>>>> 
>>>> Although I do have a soft-spot for your current name.

>>>> **u/Escapement** [+2]  *Ankh-Morpork City Watch* (14 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I was being facetious.
>>>> 
>>>> That said, I find reading stories that focus on technical details at the expense of story/plot or characters tedious at best. Technical details can facilitate story quite often and easily, e.g. see [Sanderson's First Law](http://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/), but it often, often isn't. Hard science fiction has a distressing propensity to become [things like this](http://notes.greaterthanorequalto.net/post/3963193805/note-ive-been-wanting-to-link-to-this-for-a)

>>> **u/Kodix** [+1]  (13 hours later)
>>> 
>>> As a point of curiosity, is it ever actually clear that the force sense is faster than light? Like, 100% certain that the very *instant* the planet explodes, the feeling happens? 
>>> 
>>> I see no reason why it wouldn't just be cinematic artistic license, where it's just made to appear that way, but I don't know *that* much about Star Wars.

>>>> **u/trifith** [+6]  *Man plans, god laughs. Like the ant and the grasshopper.* (17 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Obi-wan et. al. were en-route, over intersteallar space when Alderaan was destroyed. Ben sensed the event. 
>>>> 
>>>> Alderaan was located near the galactic core, and Tatooine is an outer rim world. Even if the journey was 90% complete when Alderaan was destroyed, there would have been several light years of distance yet to travel.

>>>>> **u/Kodix** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ah, right. I didn't have a clear picture of how it happened at all. It's pretty obvious when actually analyzed. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks for that.

>> **u/Kodix** [+11]  (7 hours later)
>> 
>> That's actually a pretty cool idea for re-working that character. Especially the point about how mind control is all cool and good so long as it's jedi doing it, and the way that should clash with Anakin's values. 
>> 
>> Now I seriously want to read some of that, that's some very neat conflict there. Hell - you can even have Anakin go Dark without it seeming utterly dumb this way.

>> **u/omgimpwned** [+6]  *Sunshine Regiment* (12 hours later)
>> 
>> I would totally read this.
>> 
>> Honestly, while OP's idea sounds fine if he takes care with the Mary Sue potential (gotta have some very costly and painful failures, character flaws, meaningful conflict, etc), I'd rather see a reworking of familiar characters a la HPMoR than something in a completely different timeline where we have to relearn an entire new OC supporting cast. Of course, this may be subject to how well OP does it, but there you have it.

>> **u/KOTORman** [+6]  *Galactic Empire* (a day later)
>> 
>> This is a very good idea for a rational!Star Wars fic, indeed I think this concept blows my idea of a rational Star Wars geek being transported to the GFFA out of the water.
>> 
>> Given that I'll be too busy writing said crappier idea, however, maybe you should take a shot at it. ;) It sounds like it'd be received very well, even if it was just in the form of a series of vignettes.

>> **u/PeridexisErrant** [+3]  *put aside fear for courage, and death for life* (8 hours later)
>> 
>> I *like* this idea.

>> **u/Abpraestigio** [+3]  (10 hours later)
>> 
>> All of my YES

>> **u/AugSphere** [+2]  *Dark Lord of Corruption* (10 hours later)
>> 
>> I registered on reddit just to say how awesome of an idea that is! Back to lurking now.

>> **u/Topher876** [+1]  (a month later)
>> 
>> Star wars EU was actually the driving force in my new view of what the dark side of magic or the force is. The first dark Jedi were Jedi that pushed the limits of the force to higher complexity. So my idea is that dark means complex complex means something you use an access system rather than direct manipulation and thus you don't know it fully, and foremost dark is "magic" that has its own desires. This is off of my observations on the demonization of ambition as a villain's trait.

> **u/EliezerYudkowsky** [+10]  *Godric Gryffindor* (17 hours later)
> 
> No no no.  Midichlorians were a huge mistake from a rationalist storytelling standpoint.  If you live in a universe with something like the Force, there are things going on that work as if there are basic mental entities that can directly influence reality without midichlorians as intermediaries.  If there's a simulation behind a magical universe, that simulation is pretending that mental entities are basic.  Midichlorians are a horrible hybrid concept tacked on afterward, an attempt to mix what Sounds Like Science into a universe that clearly wasn't generated by actual scientific thinking.  In universes that require midichlorians for magic, magic does not work like the Force does in Star Wars.  Let your magic be magic, and your science science.
> 
> The only possible way to come up with a reasonable explanation of magic is to start with an underlying reductionist scenario that would yield something like magic, then extrapolate magic which specifically and exactly fits that scenario, which does not look like standard magic and could be used by a sufficiently smart reader to figure out what underlying scenario generated it.  Then you can present a non-nitwit explanation and have readers not throw their tablet computers against the wall.  There is no non-nitwit pseudo-reductionist explanation for the Force because the Force, as described in the canon universe, was not generated by reductionist thinking to begin with.

>> **u/KOTORman** [+7]  *Galactic Empire* (a day later)
>> 
>> IDK Eliezer, midichlorians have been researched too thoroughly by the likes of Darth Plagueis to be thrown out here. While I'm planning on writing a rational Star Wars fic, it is also a fic for EU lovers, and one of the bases I'm working on here is that *everything* is canon.
>> 
>> But I can think of many reductionist explanations for the Force (although the non-nitwittiness is up for debate), particularly if one considers midichlorians to be a symptom of Force sensitivity and not a causal factor (as Force-sensitive symbionts, as suggested above), or perhaps as wet nanotech used for FTL signalling to a central "Force Source." Throw in the Celestials, which are clearly transsapient AI with dubious Friendliness, and who are often linked to the concept of the origin of the Force as an artificial construct in hints throughout certain EU work, and a picture begins to form... One that of course I wouldn't reveal here since after all explaining the Force is a thread that keeps the entire story together. ;)

>>> **u/EliezerYudkowsky** [+7]  *Godric Gryffindor* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> >particularly if one considers midichlorians to be a symptom of Force sensitivity and not a causal factor 
>>> 
>>> I AM NOW 100% IN FAVOR OF THIS FIC IS THIS IDEA ORIGINAL IT IS INSTANT HEADCANON

>>>> **u/KOTORman** [+2]  *Galactic Empire* (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Well, it is an original idea of mine, but clearly not all that special since DeliaEris came up with the same idea in the comments.
>>>> 
>>>> And given that a certain Sith Lord manipulated midichlorians to resurrect the dead and create life, midichlorians can't *just* be parasites with absolutely no effect on life or the Force. In my mind, they are symptomatic and not a cause of Force sensitivity, yes, but they still have an important and adverse role to play in this fic; I'm using them as the reason why the galaxy, despite its insane technology levels, still hasn't mastered biological immortality... and why cloning Force-sensitives doesn't work, why you can't induce Force sensitivity with a blood transfusion, etc. etc.

>>>>> **u/EliezerYudkowsky** [+1]  *Godric Gryffindor* (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> > And given that a certain Sith Lord manipulated midichlorians to resurrect the dead and create life
>>>>> 
>>>>> There has to be some level on which you're willing to reject sufficiently inconvenient canon facts.  Besides, do you trust that Sith Lord?  How does *he* even know he's manipulating midichlorians?
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.rogermwilcox.com/force_skeptics.html

>>>>>> **u/KOTORman** [+1]  *Galactic Empire* (2 days later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Interpret facts in a certain way, perhaps, but as one of those guys who's spent far too much of his time on certain forums making sense of every tidbit of inconvenient canon, it'd be a shame for all that effort to go to waste in outright rejection!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> And indeed my explanation of Darth Plagueis' midi-chlorian manipulation does fall somewhat along those lines (although the fact he is manipulating the midi-chlorians is cemented in Star Wars: Darth Plagueis and I'm not willing to treat the narrator as unreliable otherwise I might as well ignore canon entirely). Indeed, as there won't be any afterlife in this fic, it wouldn't be the first time in this fic's universe where Force users make errors in interpreting their powers, with Force ghosting from beyond the grave being perhaps the... gravest, no pun intended.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> As for the article, as amusing as it is, it's sadly incorrect in so many ways (such as lack of Force power manifesting until training, inability of technology to detect the Force... not to mention it doesn't cover the more esoteric applications of the Force in the EU like draining planets of life force). Although, one of the characters for the fic was going to be a sort of James Randi who demonstrated fraudulent Force mastery through an alter-ego that utilised electromagnets, power generators and hypnosis, so this'll come in useful!

>>> **u/None** [+1]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> [deleted]

>>>> **u/traverseda** [+7]  *With dread but cautious optimism* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> Agreed. A simple
>>>> 
>>>> "Squee! Sempai noticed me" 
>>>> 
>>>> is so much more effective.

>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> [deleted]

>>>>> **u/Malician** [+2]  (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes and no.  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Being a celebrity of any kind quickly becomes exceptionally annoying to most people.  It might be exciting and ego-boosting at first, but over most people's reactions become more bothersome.  (This, of course, depends on the person, I'm just talking about the average.)  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Basically, your reputation usurps your status as a living breathing person.  
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would treat the dignitary with respect, maybe buy them a beer or such as a gesture of thanks, but for their sake I would try to restrain myself from actions designed to make me happy but which would just be aggravating to them.  
>>>>> 
>>>>> edit: of course, in the event that the person has expressed a desire for such,  I would happily do it.

> **u/Kodix** [+9]  (3 hours later)
> 
> Munchinkining and optimization are fine, but be careful with it. Nobody likes a mary sue, and the goals you mention may end up making your character one.
> 
> At any rate, it sounds interesting, and I'd definitely give it a try. The lack of movie characters wouldn't be particularly off-putting for me personally, even though I have very little knowledge of the EU.

>> **u/robobreasts** [+1]  (6 days later)
>> 
>> > Nobody likes a mary sue
>> 
>> I don't actually mind a protagonist who is insanely overpowered, sometimes.  Especially when in canon someone doesn't use their abilities to their real potential.  Seeing a deconstruction where they completely dominate can be very satisfying.  But it has to be written well.

> **u/omgimpwned** [+5]  *Sunshine Regiment* (13 hours later)
> 
> I've thought about a lot of things that don't make sense in the SW universe before - here's a list of the stuff I can recall off the top of my head. Maybe it'll help:
> 
> 1. Spaceships as relativistic kinetic weapons. It makes little sense that you don't see this being used. In the Battle of Endor, it's been calculated that the Rebel Fleet had to accelerate in excess of 30.000G to engage the Imperial Fleet in close range at the distances seen from Palpatine's throne room, in the time observed (I'm quoting from memory, can't for the life of me find the page where I saw it, but I recall that it was as solid as the Turbolaser numbers given below). Given that kind of acceleration capability for even the smallest of fighters, anything can be turned into a gigaton relativistic warhead if you've got cash enough to do the modern-day equivalent of buying a decent car. By most standards in any universe, anything that can go to space is practically a WMD.
> 
> 2. Power of the weapons. Let's do a bit of math: an Imperator-class Star Destroyer has the stated ability to reduce the surface of a planet to slag with its Turbolasers, something which is called a Base Delta Zero operation. Using the most conservative figures and estimates ([source](http://stardestroyer.net/tlc/Power/index.html)), this means that it needs to (at the **very least**) maintain a power output of around half a billion terawatts, or the equivalent of every single one of its Turbolaser turrets detonating hundreds of megaton-range warheads *every second*. Even if you don't accept anything but movies as canon (since BDZ is an EU thing), an ISD's ability to utterly vaporize medium-size asteroids during the asteroid scenes in Empire implies at least a power output of around 30 terawatts per Turbolaser bolt (half a Hiroshima bomb), which is again a ridiculously conservative estimate. Note that since ISDs regularly participate in prolonged fleet engagements, this also implies an ability to defend against strikes of this magnitude. Either lower these ridiculous energy levels to something manageable and rework the lore entirely to remove the idea of BDZs (and everything else requiring these energy levels) entirely, or figure out how a universe works where X-Wings fire off Hiroshima bomb lasers in the course of regular dogfights. Many of these changes could drastically change the feel of the universe, so there's a challenge here.
> 
> 3. Midi-chlorians. No. Just no. Figure something out: get rid of them, or simply make them work differently. You cannot do a blood transplant to gain force powers. You cannot artificially study them and recreate them with 'replicators' or nano-tech (which SW only has a rudimentary version of, anyway). You cannot do any of these things for strange and unknown reasons - I simply don't buy that a society of this tech level, having existed for tens of thousands of years, has not at some point tried every single possible variation of this. The easiest is to just remove midi-chlorians and do something else.
> 
> 4. The 'dogfight' style space warfare, when weapons have been demonstrated to work at distances of tens of thousands of kilometers at the very least (Death Star superlaser, again the visible fleet engagement from Palpatine's throne room). Either the dogfighting has to go, or some reasoning for this kind of warfare needs to be thought out. Otherwise it would happen in ways that are more akin to how it goes on in the Honor Harrington novels by David Weber, which are fairly hard as far as realistic depictions of space warfare go (see [this](http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/essay-on-realistic-space-combat-i-wrote.131056/)).
> 
> 5. The crappiness of droids. They run on *computers*. *They should be able to aim*. They should be able to aim from the hip and hit a fly at a distance of several miles, as long as their weapons are accurate enough. Even if you make the software stupid and "biological", IE simulating a brain or whatever they do, there's no reason this can't interface with a decent targeting computer.
> 
> - - -
> 
> There's definitely dozens of points that I've forgotten or glossed over here, but I think those are some of the more outstanding ones. In short, this universe is literally *riddled* with enormous, gaping holes of unrealistic WSOD ripe for exploitation (mostly unsatisfying, I'd say - it makes no sense that nobody's thought of relativistic weapons, for example). Almost any solution you think of for these problems has to be very clever, so it's not just made to be obviously exploitable by a smart person.
> 
> My honest advice? Try to ignore all of this and skim over it as much as possible, never going into the actual tech and numbers and force principles. No amount of force haxxorz can keep up with the tech anyway, if the tech is used by anyone but a bunch of inept baboons (kill a jedi? Hypersonic kinetic rounds in a spread pattern - try blocking *that* with your lightsaber in time, combat prescience or no).
> 
> Basically, you can have rational!SW on a moral, philosophical and political level. You can't have it on a power, munchkin or Force level. That's why I like the idea with rational!Anakin more - you can more easily shoehorn that into a solely moral/philosophical/political conflict.
> 
> For sources on SW, go with [Wookiepedia](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) for general lore stuff and [stardestroyer.net](http://stardestroyer.net/) for weapons numbers and calculations, along with a lot of other similar, really useful stuff. While they apply WSOD liberally, they've spent a *lot* of time thinking about SW over there.
> 
> I hope some of this will help. Cheers! :P

>> **u/DeliaEris** [+6]  *Fully General Idealist* (15 hours later)
>> 
>> I like to think of midichlorians as a Force-sensitive species that lives symbiotically/parasitically in highly Force-sensitive higher animals. So the midichlorian count can be used as an *indicator* of Force sensitivity, but blood transplants don't spread Force sensitivity.
>> 
>> What's WSOD? "White screen of death" doesn't make sense to me in this context.

>>> **u/omgimpwned** [+3]  *Sunshine Regiment* (15 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Sorry - Willing Suspension Of Disbelief. And that *is* a good way of doing it that doesn't get rid of them entirely.

>> **u/None** [+3]  (14 hours later)
>> 
>> > They run on computers. They should be able to aim.
>> 
>> For that matter, Imperial stormtroopers have been trained. They have single-fire carbines and should be able to aim at least as well as soldiers in, say, late World War II when recruitment and training were rather rushed. They should not have trouble shooting guards who have little to no cover in a narrow corridor from fifteen feet away. If they do perform so poorly, it may behoove the Empire to ensure their recruits are equipped with adequate vision correction and to research a cure for Parkinson's.

>>> **u/trifith** [+4]  *Man plans, god laughs. Like the ant and the grasshopper.* (16 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Do remember, the first time we see Stormtrooper marksmanship, they were under orders to let the heroes escape, so Tarkin could use the tracking device planted on the Falcon.

>>>> **u/None** [+5]  (22 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> On the contrary. The first time we see stormtrooper marksmanship, they are securing a Corellian corvette containing Leia Organa, killing at least half a dozen faceless mooks in the process.

>>>>> **u/trifith** [+2]  *Man plans, god laughs. Like the ant and the grasshopper.* (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> True. Very quickly and efficiently. Only one escape pod got away. If not for the idiot in weapons control who failed to realize that droids don't need life-signs, the empire would have had total victory. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> The good news is I heard he choked to death not long after that battle, and his incompetence won't be causing the Empire any further trouble.

>> **u/KOTORman** [+2]  *Galactic Empire* (a day later)
>> 
>> If anything, what's taking so long for this story to come together isn't so much the plot but because I'm sticking to a very exacting "Everything is canon" rule and still trying to come up with a realistic reality underlying all these crazy phenomena you've listed. And of course, with each attempt to be reductionist, suddenly the plot must change because there's no way a rational OC would not notice some obvious exploit.
>> 
>> Fortunately, as a regular on the Jedi Council Forums and Wookieepedia, then yes I'd be one of those people whose spent a long time thinking about SW, so I'm mostly going to take a WSOD route although there will be a reductionist explanation that isn't as cheap as "godlike AI did it." So, as you say, it's mostly going to be rational on a moral, philosophical and political level, although there is going to be plenty of munchkinnery using the Force and technology alike. And while of course tech would beat the kind of "Force haxxorz" we see in the movies, the kind of Force powers we see in the EU would make hypersonic kinetic rounds in a spread pattern look positively cute.

>> **u/MugaSofer** [+1]  (3 days later)
>> 
>> As I understand it, stardestroyer.net is notorious for deliberately inflating figures and claims among people who like to discuss these figures and theories online.
>> 
>> They have some sort of political thesis caught up in this, along with a tiny but heated feud with some other fans from a long-dead mailing list.
>> 
>> I don't actually know much about the topic, but I would suggest doing your a Fermi estimate from scratch.

> **u/Geminii27** [+5]  (4 hours later)
> 
> Munchkinry is fun if it pokes fun at the universe and the fandom, but generally there needs to be at least some form of obstacle or antagonist more than capable of getting in the way and causing genuine problems for the protagonist. Otherwise it quickly devolves into "And then Bob did all the cool things, won everything, and fixed everything that was ever wrong ever."

>> **u/KOTORman** [+2]  *Galactic Empire* (a day later)
>> 
>> Well, said character will have to cope with his own rational foil, and in terms of obstacles: godlike AI.
>> 
>> And this isn't going to be a story of Bob fixing everything. In fact, it's going to be a dark tale of pretty much the opposite.

> **u/lfghikl** [+5]  (10 hours later)
> 
> This sounds great, but please don't turn it into a Mary Sue story. I've seen a disturbing trend on this subreddit to equate Mary Sue fanfics with "rational" fanfics, and your premise could easily turn into another one of those without a good enough antagonist or difficult enough challenges.

> **u/Abpraestigio** [+2]  (2 hours later)
> 
> I for one would definitely read this fic. I'm not really familiar with the EU, though, so I would appreciate either copious amounts of footnotes or a list of sources where I can read up on what you are talking about.
> 
> Hmm... I wonder how feasible it would be to harvest electricity by putting a bunch of children on a midichlorian drip and teaching them to hate (force-)lightning rods... 
> Eh, screw feasible, I'd do it for the amusement value alone.
> Come to the Stormfront Holiday resort! Powered 100% by carefully cultivated hordes of insane orphan Siths!

>> **u/omgimpwned** [+2]  *Sunshine Regiment* (12 hours later)
>> 
>> Maybe feasible, but hardly practical in the Star Wars universe, where large power generators literally run on direct matter-to-energy conversion of 'hypermatter', matter which somehow has a much higher energy content than regular matter. For example, when a regular-size 'Imperator' Imperial Star Destroyer makes a hyperspace jump, supposedly it uses more energy than most planetary civilizations (save the planet-wide cities, I hope) use in their entire lifetimes, several times over.

>>> **u/Abpraestigio** [+1]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> You're right, of course. I had a brainfart and mixed up the words 'feasible' and 'practical'. Though I wasn't aware of just how ginourmous the energy production capabilities of the SWU are.

> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (a day later)
> 
> My problem with rationalist Star Wars (by which I mean only the minimal "noone in the story carries the idiot ball") is this:
> 
> Imperial gunner minion: The ambassador's ship just jettisoned an escape pod!
> 
> Imperial gunner boss: Hm. No life signs on board, but let's blow it to hell anyway, just to be sure. 
> 
> Big gun: Pzorch!
> 
> Life pod containing R2D2, C3PO, and the Death Star plans: Boom!
> 
> Rebels: [lose]

>> **u/qznc** [+1]  *Chaos Legion* (3 days later)
>> 
>> Why would they need the plans to win? Most efficient: Smash a few asteroids into it.

> **u/gabbalis** [+1]  (36 minutes later)
> 
> Hmm. It costs me far less to enjoy reading your fic than it costs you to make it. So, keeping my potential biases in mind...
> 
> You should definitely go for it. Pull a few all nighters. Heck work yourself to the bone. Just get that story out there! The world *needs* you. This... this is your destiny...
> 
> Just don't work so hard that you die. If that happened I would be very put out.
> 
> More seriously: Yeah I'd be interested in such a story. But the extent of EU munchkinry I know about would be the events of the novel Darksaber. Now there's an idea. Screw the moon-sized battle station. Just build the megalaser!

> **u/whywhisperwhy** [+1]  (11 hours later)
> 
> Just chiming in to say, yes, I would love to read anything like what you described (not the HJPEV transported into the KOTOR setting, the other one). 
> 
> Actually, now I'm super curious what part of the EU you want to re-work... hurry up and write it all ready!

>> **u/KOTORman** [+2]  *Galactic Empire* (a day later)
>> 
>> Okay, okay, getting to it! Haha.
>> 
>> And as this won't be an AU fic, then we'll really be starting the ball rolling in the Legacy era, although in terms of lore, Old Republic lore (KOTOR and TOTJ, primarily) will be the most significant.

> **u/EndlessStrategy** [+1]  (21 hours later)
> 
> Focusing on the EU severely limits your audience, unless you care to explain everything important. More than that, I don't see the point in basing a story purely around a handful of abuseable fictional constructs. Might as well right an essay about it. HPMOR does stuff like that, but it also has a very strong plot besides.
> 
> That aside, your character should totally steal from the Jedi's blood drive and use it to saturate themselves with Midichlorians.

>> **u/KOTORman** [+1]  *Galactic Empire* (a day later)
>> 
>> Of course, it limits my audience within r/rational but not to the hardcore EU-loving community I'm also focusing on. ;) Any munchkin shenanigans will be as much to do with the character knowing pretty much every detail of the EU, coming from Earth after all, than being rational.
>> 
>> And the story isn't quite about that. It's about wrapping up all the loose threads in the EU in a believable and complex way and addressing an awful lot of really cool plot ideas people have came up with over the years (why hasn't there been a galaxy-wide droid uprising yet?). As for the strength of the plot, that wouldn't be my role to talk about. :p
>> 
>> And while something *equivalent* to that will definitely go down, unfortunately artificially enriching one's blood with midichlorians in the EU merely resulted in an entire planet going insane and killing one another. I'm not going to portray the entire galaxy as stupid; if gaining Force powers was as simple as stealing from a Jedi blood drive, everybody would have done it already.

>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> The problem with midicholorians is that they are a horrible retcon bullsh[erase, revise]
>>> 
>>> The trouble that midicholoians pause to any Star Wars story is that they anchor the Force in the physical.  If the Force is some sort of intangible magical thing then fine, sure, only certain people can feel it or manipulate it, whatever.
>>> 
>>> But!  The minute you say that the Force is somehow anchored in physics, chemistry, and biology to the extent that there is **something living in your cells** that makes you a Jedi...suddenly, the whole thing is just stupid.  The SW universe has enormously advanced medical technology(*) as compared to real world earth.  I simply refuse to believe that "learning how to disobey physics at will and, simultaneously, protect yourself from mind-manipulating Jedi" is not a major research item on every planet in the galaxy.  When you throw literally trillions of intelligent researchers and unlimited funds at a problem, it's not going to be THAT long before everyone in the galaxy can become a Jedi on an outpatient basis.
>>> 
>>> Doctor:  Have you got your forms signed?...yep, looks good.  What package did you want?
>>> 
>>> Patient:  Oh, the 'Master Yoda' please.
>>> 
>>> Doctor:  That's expensive, you know.  You sure you can afford it?
>>> 
>>> Patient:  Sure, no problem.  [drops the equivalent of $200 in the cash register]
>>> 
>>> Doctor:  Ok, here you go.  [shoots Force-enabling goop into the patient's arm]  Now remember, you have to wait fifteen minutes for full potency.  And don't go swimming or Force-jumping for at least an hour.
>>> 
>>> ----
>>> (*) The SW medical industry is remarkably primitive compared to the rest of their tech.  They can travel FTL, but they can't regenerate a hand?  There are no neural-interface devices?  No uploading? (at least, not as far as I'm aware) And so on.

>>>> **u/MugaSofer** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> > There are no neural-interface devices?
>>>> 
>>>> There are totally neural-interface devices.
>>>> 
>>>> C3PO introduces himself as "human-cyborg relations". Later, in Cloud City, there is a character (I think his name is Lobot) with implants in his head to better interface with the computers. Also, robot hands.
>>>> 
>>>> (However, in general, it's pretty clear that the SW universe got stuck in a local maximum - probably due to some new, magical physics opening new avenues that terminated in dead-ends.)

>>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Good point, I forgot about Lobot. Still, DNI is clearly vanishingly rare.  And cyborg hands don't count: DNI typically refers to the ability to communicate mentally with a computer -- ie to jack in to the Matrix.

>>>> **u/KOTORman** [+0]  *Galactic Empire* (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Agreed. Which is why I'll be turning midi-chlorians into Force-dependent, Force-sensitive parasites that have a pretty adverse effect, and are closely linked to Force sensitivity to the degree that they are technically interlopers, at a stretch, between biological life and the Force, but are certainly not the cause of Force sensitivity. But ultimately, yes, everything will be rooted in the physical; this fic's universe won't be *fundamentally complex* where interactions between complex minds and physics itself is somehow hardwired into reality. But I hope the explanation I have will be more palatable than the distinctly non-reductionist, vaguely science-y explanation Lucas gave us.
>>>> 
>>>> And as for aforementioned adverse effect of the midi-chlorians... Well, let's just say it has much to do with why medical technology is so remarkably primitive.
>>>> 
>>>> And neural-interface devices do exist (even in the movies, with Lobot), as does uploading (Ssi-ruuk entechment), but they certainly aren't mainstream to the degree you'd expect them to be. In general, Star Wars technological development is very... uneven... and stagnant. That's going to be attributed to the fact that pretty much all SW tech are just toys more ancient races let the younger races play with. A Star Wars scientist who designs a new hyperdrive doesn't possess some revolutionary understanding of physics, he's just barely clever enough to tweak some ancient races' Clarketech without blowing up the entire star system in the process. Science as we know it, as in HPMOR's wizarding world, is really quite primitive in this fic's GFFA.

> **u/colourlessgreen** [+0]  (11 hours later)
> 
> Self insert fic is the worst.

>> **u/KOTORman** [+2]  *Galactic Empire* (a day later)
>> 
>> Apologies if I didn't make it clear. This isn't a self-insert fic. A self-insert in an online RPG is what led me to try and deconstruct the Star Wars galaxy and provided many of the ideas I'll be using here, but no amount of plot or even characterisation (beyond the fact I'd like to think of myself as a rationalist) is being carried over.

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