9.9 KiB
Looking for rationalist Star Wars
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Author: u/joeeeeeeees *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2obv6q/looking_for_rationalist_star_wars/
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Score: 8
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Created: 2014-12-05T03:27:23
Post:
Anything rational and star wars would be sweet.
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow (17 minutes later)
Nope, doesn't exist (so far as I know). See threads here or here for more discussion, but unless someone has written one in the meantime it just doesn't exist.
u/joeeeeeeees [+2] (4 hours later)
Nice, the first discussion you linked was fantastic, shame it doesn't seem like anybody's used any of the ideas in that thread for a actual star wars story. Thanks for the links!
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+5] Godric Gryffindor (3 hours later)
u/joeeeeeeees [+1] (4 hours later)
Not necessarily what I was looking for but regardless it was a great read, cool perspective people definitely overlook.
u/royishere [+5] (4 hours later)
I always recommend the Sun of Sons trilogy by blank101 whenever I see a thread like this on r/hpmor. While not explicitly rationalist, it is quite intelligent, and all characters make full use of the resources they have available to them.
u/iwakun [+1] (12 hours later)
Link so that you don't have to do the search that I did. blank101 FanFiction
u/BekenBoundaryDispute [+2] (10 hours later)
I'm working on an idea in this area, but I need to work out the (crunchy, mathy) details of how hyperspace works first. I hope to make the Death Star actually make sense (though not for the reason you'd expect).
u/brmj [+1] (a day later)
I don't have quite what you are looking for, but here is a piece arguing that most residents of Star Wars are illiterate. You might find it thought-provoking.
I also recall seeing a fan-theory that the details of AI in Star Wars is lost technology, and that all the droids basically function by taking the same initial (perhaps a bit less than human equivalent?) mind, hooking its limited inputs and outputs up to the various motors and sensors and such, and raising and training it for the desired skills and mindset, basically save-scumming if it doesn't turn out how they'd like, then copying the resulting mind state to others of the model. This would probably go a long way to explain why the droids aren't drastically more effective. I can't seem to find this, though.
u/Drazelic [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (2 days later)
Slightly tangential thought, but: let's talk about the lightsaber metagame.
There's no reason why a Jedi should ever get into close personal range with an opponent. With the ability to telekinetically control light objects faraway from his body just by using the Force, a Jedi could just as easily throw his lightsaber at the enemy and then telekinetically manipulate it without the risk of getting near an opponent's lightsaber. For personal safety, they could carry a parrying dagger or shield gauntlets or something, to catch the ones that get through.
Of course, every Jedi will realize this as soon as they put a bit of actual thought into combat. The result is a first-level metagame where the Jedi are merely throwing lightsabers at each other, like telekinetically controlled javelins.
At this point, we realize some things. Firstly, that every lightsaber has a weak-point; the hilt. One strike to the hilt will completely disable a lightsaber, and once your opponent's lightsabers are all disabled, they're comparatively helpless. This leads the throwing-lightsaber metagame into more of a controlled-drones metagame, almost like what you'd see in Gundam; lots of drones flying around, being controlled by a central unit, trying to shoot down (or cut down, in this case) the opponent's controlled drones before they destroy yours.
At this point, the metagame will have been developed such that two primary factors determine victory. First, the Jedi with the longest range of effective control has a distinct strategic advantage, being able to force battles while the shorter-ranged Jedi is forced to constantly press the attack or be utterly annihilated at the far ends of his enemy's lightsaber swarm. Secondly, a Jedi that can effectively multitask has a massive tactical advantage; in a full-on lightsaber dogfight, the guy who can control ten lightsabers is probably going to mince the guy whose mind is only expansive enough to control four.
Another interesting development is the fact that there's no good reason to keep a lightsaber on, unless you're confident you'll hit something or you desperately need to block. This is because in all other cases you're basically just holding out a big stick that the opponent can knock around, and thus control your movements. Thus, the vast majority of the time, the lightsabers of the Jedi will be deactivated, only being turned on from a distance when the Jedi is going for a kill. Just as one fires a gun in controlled, targeted bursts instead of just holding down the trigger and hoping that the bullet stream hits something as you wave it around, so too will lightsabers be used in controlled, targeted strikes instead of just always being on and presenting a large profile for your opponent to knock around.
At this point, one begins to question the utility of the universal 'long rod' shape of the lightsaber's plasma emission. While the sword-like shape is undoubtedly optimized for cutting at a range, one can't help but imagine developments of the lightsaber metagame where novel shapes get involved. How about shield-shaped lightsaber emissions, designed not to cut an enemy sword but rather to block their incoming targeted strikes? What about khopesh-shaped lightsabers, shaped like crescent scythes, which arc around shields to destroy their projectors? What about mixing in blasters with lightsabers, controlling a mix of them to cover all ranges?
Thus concludes my analysis of rational lightsaber combat. One can hardly call it lightsaber combat anymore; the metagame is starting to behave more like a real-life RTS than anything else. After all, you've got different units which are strong or weak against one another based on design and the long-range control by an overseer responsible for micromanaging every single unit at once. Centralized control units, directing lots of expendable weapons platforms against each other in long-ranged dogfights, trying to gain a material advantage so they can take out the opposing control unit.
(I've been informed by friends that it'd probably be impractical to try and maintain control of multiple weapons through pure Force telekinesis like that, but I'll admit that I'm partial to the mental image of a Jedi surrounded by a swarm of lightsabers orbiting the man in a defensive cloud. Other than that, I think most of these ideas still apply.)
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (2 days later)
Another interesting development is the fact that there's no good reason to keep a lightsaber on, unless you're confident you'll hit something or you desperately need to block. [...]
This is actually canon - or EU canon, at any rate, which is no long actually canon. There's a lightsaber form called Tràkata which does exactly what you say. It's understandably difficult though.
Controlling dozens of objects with telekinesis isn't feasible with Force powers, and it's implied that even with a single lightsaber you're giving up a lot of control for the distance and sweeping motions. That's why that move is almost always used against non-Jedi. That's about what you'd expect, too. I mean, if you imagine two Jedi with lightsabers, with one using his through telekinesis a few feet in front of him, and the other with a lightsaber in his hands, you wouldn't expect the one with a lightsaber in his hands to lose, would you? Also, Sith (and Dark Jedi) have force lightning, which makes drones (probably lightsabers that aren't held) seem like a bad idea. It's cool, in the sense that I would like to see it, but it's not really feasible from a reading Star Wars canon.
u/Drazelic [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (2 days later)
Yeah, I figured as much. I'll probably save it for if I ever decide to make a setting where laser swords and telekinesis can be combined more feasibly, then. That Trakata thing is super cool and I hope we actually get to see some of it in action in the new movies.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
Have fun trying to telekinetically levitate fourty lightsabers and control them all individually. I'll telekinetically give your brain a quarter rotation inside your skull.
u/Drazelic [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (2 days later)
I suppose I'd have to posit a Manton effect here, as well., because not even I can believe that the Jedi of the movies would be so stupid as to not realize how easy a brain-snapping force push would be. It'd probably be more humane, too, compared to actually cutting somebody into pieces with a laser sword.
u/fortycakes [+1] (6 days later)
I think we can be certain that killing directly with the Force is one of the things that causes massive unavoidable Dark Side corruption - all of the Force powers that can do so are Dark Side ones (Force Choke, Force Lightning, etc)
u/boomfarmer [+1] Trying to be helpful (15 days later)
Sure, the powers that directly kill. But what about slamming someone headfirst into a pillar and stoving in their skull? Or just pushing them off a cloud city wall? The non-Dark Force powers are just as deadly.