00:00SPEAKER- Do you ever wonder what would happen
00:01SPEAKERif voice casting changed?
00:03SPEAKERFor example, James Earl Jones' voice
00:05SPEAKERin "Star Wars" is Darth Vader.
00:06SPEAKERIt's pretty iconic, right?
00:08SPEAKER- Sure.
00:08SPEAKER- At the same time, Frank Oz as Yoda,
00:11SPEAKERequally iconic, I think.
00:13SPEAKERIt's two characters defined by their voices.
00:15SPEAKER- Close, close, but okay, I'm not gonna sit here
00:18SPEAKERand do a ranking of Vader and Yoda, but come on.
00:21SPEAKER- So my question is, what do you think would have happened
00:23SPEAKERif they cast Frank Oz as Vader
00:25SPEAKERand James Earl Jones as Yoda?
00:26SPEAKER- You know, we might not be doing the podcast
00:28SPEAKERwe're about to do if that had been the case,
00:30SPEAKERto be perfectly frank.
00:31SPEAKER- I mean-
00:32SPEAKER- Oz?
00:33SPEAKER- Look, Vader gets on that spaceship
00:35SPEAKERat the beginning of the "Star Wars"
00:36SPEAKERand he chokes that guy out and he says, you know,
00:39SPEAKERthe plans, where are, I'm not doing a Yoda voice.
00:41SPEAKER- Are you sure?
00:42SPEAKER- But he says, the plans, where are they?
00:44SPEAKERIt works, it would be weird, it's an alien voice.
00:47SPEAKER- They might've been better off sticking
00:49SPEAKERwith David Prowse's acting if that were the case.
00:51SPEAKER- Look, one of my favorite "Star Wars" bonuses of all time
00:55SPEAKERis when, is it, it's the guy who played Chewbacca.
01:00SPEAKER- Peter Mayhew?
01:01SPEAKER- Peter Mayhew, he has a really thick
01:04SPEAKERkind of cockney English accent.
01:07SPEAKERAnd when he's on top of the money in "Falcon"
01:09SPEAKERand "Empire Strikes Back" fixing it,
01:12SPEAKERand he's yelling at Han Solo,
01:13SPEAKERlike Chewbacca's yelling at Han Solo,
01:14SPEAKERwaving his hands and they are, he's obviously very upset.
01:17SPEAKERAnd you, like, there's an outtake of Peter Mayhew yelling
01:23SPEAKERin English in his cockney accent at Harrison Ford.
01:28SPEAKERAnd it's fabulous.
01:29SPEAKER- I don't think I realized he acted verbally as well.
01:32SPEAKERLike Prowse, famously, David Prowse did the Vader lines
01:35SPEAKERand then was very upset when he found out
01:39SPEAKERthey were dubbing him with James Earl Jones.
01:40SPEAKERI didn't realize that Mayhew did
01:42SPEAKERthe Chewbacca lines in English, what?
01:44SPEAKER- I don't know if he did all the Chewbacca lines in English,
01:46SPEAKERbut this is definitely one that I've heard.
01:48SPEAKERAnd it, like, let me tell you, Peter Mayhew,
01:51SPEAKERwonderful, delightful human being, it seems like.
01:54SPEAKERBut if he had done the voice for Chewbacca,
01:56SPEAKERit would have been a completely different movie, too.
01:58SPEAKER- Where the hell have you been?
02:00SPEAKER- Where the hell have you been?
02:02SPEAKER- All right, don't lose your temper.
02:03SPEAKER- I'll come right back and give you a hand.
02:05SPEAKER- Where you going?
02:07SPEAKER- To make my report.
02:08SPEAKER- Tell him we're leaving him.
02:10SPEAKER- All right, I'll tell him.
02:13SPEAKER- All right.
02:14SPEAKER(upbeat music)
02:21SPEAKER(upbeat music)
02:41SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.
02:44SPEAKERI'm Will.
02:44SPEAKER- I'm Brad.
02:45SPEAKER- Brad, I'm really, really excited about our guest today
02:49SPEAKERand the show we're doing today.
02:50SPEAKERThis has been a long time coming, long in the works.
02:53SPEAKER- It's a little different.
02:55SPEAKERIt's a little different than what we usually do,
02:57SPEAKERbut folks may know our guest this week
02:59SPEAKERfrom his work on Waypoint Remap Radio or Shift F1.
03:02SPEAKERAnd we could have chosen to talk to him
03:04SPEAKERabout any number of fascinating topics,
03:05SPEAKERfrom race cars to home audio to coffee.
03:08SPEAKERBut today we're gonna dig deep into his work
03:10SPEAKERon a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast,
03:13SPEAKERto try and figure out exactly what, if any,
03:17SPEAKERrules technology follows in the ever-expanding world
03:20SPEAKERof Star Wars.
03:21SPEAKERWithout further ado, welcome to the show, Rob Zachney.
03:24SPEAKERWe're so glad to have you here.
03:25SPEAKER- Thanks for having me.
03:27SPEAKERI'm thrilled to have another place
03:28SPEAKERto talk about Star Wars.
03:30SPEAKERI don't have enough.
03:31SPEAKER- I was gonna say, when I asked you to do this,
03:34SPEAKERI was a little, I was a little chagrined
03:35SPEAKER'cause I was like, I don't,
03:37SPEAKERRob talks about Star Wars a lot and maybe he's good,
03:40SPEAKERbut no, AMC is one of my favorite podcasts
03:44SPEAKERand so it's fun to have you here.
03:47SPEAKER- This is also the fulfillment of a years-long dream, right?
03:51SPEAKERTo get Rob Zachney on the tech pod
03:52SPEAKERis like possibly the number one most requested guest,
03:55SPEAKERso I apologize that the excuse we came up with
03:58SPEAKERis the thing you do all the time anyway.
04:00SPEAKER- Yeah, next time we'll bring you on
04:01SPEAKERto talk about coffee or race cars or something else, but--
04:04SPEAKER- Yeah, something totally fresh.
04:06SPEAKER- Yeah, so the setup for this, I think,
04:08SPEAKERis that we wanna figure out the rules
04:11SPEAKERof tech in Star Wars, right?
04:13SPEAKER'Cause it's, there's definitely rules.
04:17SPEAKERSomewhere along the way,
04:19SPEAKERthe people who write Star Wars and Pablo Hidalgo
04:22SPEAKERand all the people that are responsible for the lore
04:24SPEAKERhave clearly thought about this, but I have questions.
04:29SPEAKERAnd I think, Rob, you're gonna be our expert today, so.
04:34SPEAKER- I have theories.
04:35SPEAKER- Okay, okay.
04:37SPEAKERAnd so there's two kind of ways to look at this, right?
04:39SPEAKERLike, is this like the writer's rules
04:41SPEAKERor is this the rules of how it actually works
04:43SPEAKERfor the characters in the world?
04:45SPEAKERAnd I think both are equally interesting,
04:46SPEAKERso we can do whatever we want, or both.
04:51SPEAKERWe have a big, long list of stuff that we wanna talk about,
04:54SPEAKERbut there's also some weird stuff
04:56SPEAKERthat we can just jump right into, like why?
04:58SPEAKERThere's no paper?
04:59SPEAKERThey don't have paper?
05:00SPEAKERHow do you get a space-faring civilization with no paper?
05:02SPEAKERThat seems pretty unlikely to me.
05:05SPEAKERThey have trees.
05:06SPEAKERWe've definitely seen trees.
05:09SPEAKERLike, do you literally never see paper?
05:13SPEAKER- I don't think I've ever seen paper in "Star Wars."
05:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, this is definitely like a long-running trope
05:17SPEAKERof the "Star Wars" fandom is like, there's no paper.
05:19SPEAKERLike, you never see anything get written down.
05:21SPEAKERLike, what's up with that?
05:23SPEAKER- 'Cause I know in some of the, like, you know,
05:26SPEAKERin the books, of course, people talk about like,
05:28SPEAKERoh, it's on "Piece of Flimsy" and such,
05:30SPEAKERbut I think that even those might be like older EU books,
05:34SPEAKERbut I'm trying to think,
05:35SPEAKERdo they really fully commit to the notion
05:37SPEAKERthat nobody puts anything on parchment?
05:41SPEAKER- Well, okay, so there's the books in "The Last Jedi"
05:44SPEAKERthat are the old Jedi books that Luke has saved
05:47SPEAKERand preserved. - Right.
05:49SPEAKER- And, but then like, when you go into the Jedi archives
05:52SPEAKERin the prequels in "Clone Wars" and all that stuff,
05:54SPEAKERit looks like it's all just like clear pieces of plexiglass
05:57SPEAKERwith stuff on them that look like Star Trek pads.
06:01SPEAKERSo I don't think they have paper,
06:03SPEAKERexcept for ancient history stuff.
06:04SPEAKER- Well, they were full, they digitized their records.
06:05SPEAKERLike the Jedi order absolutely would have been
06:07SPEAKERthe sort of people who are like,
06:09SPEAKERwe don't need to keep physical media anymore.
06:11SPEAKERWe have these, we have these data pads.
06:14SPEAKERWe can just digitize our archives.
06:17SPEAKER- We have holographic cubes now.
06:19SPEAKER- It's not like we'd lose a planet that way
06:20SPEAKERor something, right?
06:21SPEAKERIt's probably fine.
06:23SPEAKEROkay, so, but like, they don't have a way to pass a note.
06:26SPEAKERKids can't pass notes in class.
06:29SPEAKERLike there's no way for young people to,
06:32SPEAKERthere's no way for, how does a spy get the information?
06:35SPEAKERWell, we know how spies get information out.
06:37SPEAKERThey carry a giant USB thumb drive up a huge tower
06:40SPEAKERand then they have to beam it up to a spaceship,
06:42SPEAKERwhich is, you know, the plot demanded, I guess, right?
06:46SPEAKER- Yeah, that's pretty much it.
06:49SPEAKERI think if you look closely too,
06:51SPEAKERyou don't get a strong sense of the like ergonomics
06:53SPEAKERor design of the data pads people are using.
06:57SPEAKERLike there's very little convincing
06:59SPEAKERabout when you see people interacting
07:02SPEAKERwith something that they're supposedly reading
07:04SPEAKERor writing stuff down on.
07:07SPEAKERThe times you see people using these things,
07:11SPEAKERI think it's more difficult now
07:12SPEAKERbecause we've all internalized like the logic
07:14SPEAKERof like what a smartphone is going to do
07:16SPEAKERand how that's going to function.
07:17SPEAKERBut when you see people messing around with something
07:21SPEAKERas if it is some sort of writing implement
07:23SPEAKERor record keeping device, you don't get a strong sense.
07:27SPEAKERLike, you're not really doing anything.
07:29SPEAKERWe know that prop isn't going to get that.
07:32SPEAKER- Job done.
07:33SPEAKER- It's like the kid on Galaxy Quest
07:35SPEAKERwho played the helmsman who had a specific set of controls
07:38SPEAKERthat he did every time.
07:39SPEAKERLike, well, I mean, this is one of the things
07:42SPEAKERthat divides the prequels and the original movies, right?
07:44SPEAKER'Cause the original movies,
07:47SPEAKERlike they didn't have this kind of analog.
07:49SPEAKERThey didn't have a smartphone
07:50SPEAKERor tablet analog really, I don't think.
07:53SPEAKERBut in the prequels, they definitely picked up on,
07:56SPEAKERhey, computers, like computers existed more in the prequels
08:00SPEAKERthan they did in the original movies from the '70s.
08:04SPEAKER- A bit.
08:04SPEAKERI think so, like my main theory,
08:07SPEAKERlike one of my main theories about Star Wars
08:09SPEAKERis that when they started out,
08:12SPEAKERthey're kind of imagining it.
08:14SPEAKERWell, it's going to be sort of futuristic
08:15SPEAKERand it's going to feel very sci-fi.
08:17SPEAKERAnd then, but the thing is the movie is made at this moment
08:20SPEAKERwhere technology is also advancing really, really quickly.
08:23SPEAKERAnd in some ways you're already past the point
08:25SPEAKERwhere like the things that Star Wars is into
08:29SPEAKERare like the technological solutions
08:32SPEAKERthat existed in the world of like 1975, 1985.
08:36SPEAKERThose things were already past
08:37SPEAKERwhere we see them in Star Wars.
08:38SPEAKERI think computing itself is one of them.
08:42SPEAKERYou know, when we see,
08:46SPEAKERit seems like Star Wars really starts to pin down
08:48SPEAKERwhat's possible with computers.
08:50SPEAKERYou know, I think the moment where you see the ISB and Andor
08:57SPEAKERlike the ability to do an archive search,
09:00SPEAKERthe ability to go into like their surveillance state,
09:03SPEAKERLexisNexis, and enter a search term
09:07SPEAKERis like, it is like booking time on a Cray machine
09:11SPEAKERin like 1960.
09:14SPEAKERIt is an extremely finite resource
09:17SPEAKERand the ability to sift information, even that crudely,
09:21SPEAKERis really, really like closely guarded and kept
09:24SPEAKERin the empire, in the world of Andor,
09:27SPEAKERwhich means that droids don't function
09:31SPEAKERas like the analog to,
09:32SPEAKERthey're doing something else with droids.
09:34SPEAKERDroids are there increasingly as like computing technology
09:39SPEAKERcan't really do very much at all.
09:40SPEAKERComputing technology is like racking its brain
09:42SPEAKERto do like a term search through data.
09:46SPEAKERDroids can reason, can, you know,
09:50SPEAKERcan reason, can talk, can learn new skills,
09:53SPEAKERdo all sorts of stuff, and are advanced intelligences.
09:57SPEAKERAnd they, but they don't have them
09:59SPEAKERdoing just computer stuff.
10:01SPEAKERThey don't appear to be able to have them do computer stuff.
10:04SPEAKERA droid fulfills its task as a little guy who does a job.
10:09SPEAKER- Well, yeah, they're like mechanical experts, right?
10:11SPEAKERSo they're like, they either, like 3PO's a translator,
10:14SPEAKERR2D2 lets them, lets the X-wing go to hyperspace,
10:17SPEAKERthe little mouse droids on the Death Star go around
10:19SPEAKERand go woo, and then get stomped on or whatever.
10:22SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, they may not be walking computers,
10:24SPEAKERbut they do know how to talk to computers, at least.
10:26SPEAKER- Well, that's a whole other thing, yeah.
10:29SPEAKERI think the idea that, I think like,
10:34SPEAKERit's funny, you were talking about the mainframes
10:35SPEAKERin the old '60s computers, and I thought about,
10:38SPEAKERthere's an episode of Mad Men where they buy
10:41SPEAKERlike an IBM mainframe computer
10:44SPEAKERso that they can do computer stuff at the ad agency.
10:47SPEAKERAnd when they add, when they get down to it,
10:49SPEAKEReverybody's like, hey, what are we buying this computer?
10:51SPEAKERThey're like, well, we gotta have a computer.
10:52SPEAKERI don't know what we use the computer for.
10:53SPEAKERBut yeah, everybody else has a computer,
10:55SPEAKERso we gotta get a computer too.
10:57SPEAKERAnd it's definitely, like in Star Wars,
10:59SPEAKERit's definitely not that.
11:00SPEAKERThey know what the computer,
11:01SPEAKERlike they use computers for things.
11:06SPEAKERBut I mean, maybe this is why
11:07SPEAKERStar Wars isn't science fiction, right?
11:09SPEAKERStar Wars takes place in space and there's spaceships
11:11SPEAKERand you fly from place to place,
11:13SPEAKERbut it's not, at the end of the day, it's not,
11:14SPEAKERyou're not talking to the library computer
11:16SPEAKERon the Enterprise, you're having this,
11:19SPEAKERthe computer is always a thing that just moves
11:21SPEAKERthe plot along, I guess.
11:22SPEAKERI don't know.
11:23SPEAKERI haven't thought about this at all.
11:25SPEAKERThis is a part of this I haven't considered really.
11:27SPEAKER- Yeah, I think the thing that they,
11:30SPEAKERfor me, so much of Star Wars technology comes down to,
11:33SPEAKERfor me, just my point of entering into Star Wars
11:35SPEAKERwhere I'm most interested as a young fan certainly was,
11:41SPEAKERI like the star fighters.
11:43SPEAKERI logged so much stick time in X-Wing, TIE fighter,
11:48SPEAKERX-Wing versus TIE fighter.
11:51SPEAKERThat entire series, I knew way too much,
11:54SPEAKERway too much about star fighters in Star Wars.
11:57SPEAKERI had a technical manual, I was like,
11:59SPEAKERwell actually, this ship has a complement of 14,000 people.
12:02SPEAKERI knew absurd amounts about that shit.
12:05SPEAKER- Can I, I'm sorry, can I just jump in really quick
12:07SPEAKERand tell you that I once absolutely destroyed
12:09SPEAKERPatrick Klepek's mind at bar trivia
12:11SPEAKERby busting out the phrase T-16 Skyhopper?
12:15SPEAKER- Absolutely.
12:17SPEAKERLike almost threw his beer at me kind of situation anyway.
12:23SPEAKER- Yeah, no, I mean, and the thing is for you,
12:25SPEAKERthat's not even like a deep cut, right?
12:27SPEAKERIt's like, well, no, of course that's Lucas,
12:29SPEAKERthat's the large family aircraft.
12:32SPEAKER- It's their wagon.
12:33SPEAKER- Yeah. - Right.
12:34SPEAKER- But, so the thing is those games
12:37SPEAKERare all sort of following Lucas's lead
12:40SPEAKERin that we have to maintain the technology level
12:43SPEAKERroughly at the level of World War II dogfighting.
12:46SPEAKERAnd really in a lot of ways, more World War I.
12:49SPEAKERLike if you look at what was possible
12:52SPEAKERat the end of World War II with like air to air combat,
12:54SPEAKERStar Wars is pre-even that.
12:58SPEAKERThere's sort of this, during World War II,
13:01SPEAKERthey introduced radar directed fire control
13:03SPEAKERfor anti-aircraft guns.
13:05SPEAKERAnd there's this great book, oh gosh, James Hornfisher.
13:10SPEAKERIt's about the naval battles off Guadalcanal.
13:13SPEAKERThe name escapes me at the moment,
13:14SPEAKERbut there's this moment in the book
13:16SPEAKERwhere like a Japanese torpedo bomber squadron
13:21SPEAKERthat's like, you know, had had its way
13:23SPEAKERthrough the Pacific theater for years,
13:25SPEAKERencounters for the first time radar directed gunfire.
13:29SPEAKERAnd it's a massacre.
13:30SPEAKERThat there's a certain assumption about like, you know,
13:32SPEAKERincoming anti-aircraft fire.
13:34SPEAKERIt's gonna be inaccurate, that's a lot of guesswork,
13:35SPEAKERespecially during a night attack.
13:37SPEAKERThey hit this wall of flak and immediately,
13:39SPEAKERlike these guys who survived like years
13:41SPEAKERof intensive combat operations, like in eye blink, all dead.
13:46SPEAKERA couple of guys make it out,
13:47SPEAKERthey have no idea what they hit.
13:49SPEAKERThat technology is like, that shows up in like 1942
13:51SPEAKERin World War II.
13:54SPEAKERAnd from the moment it is introduced,
13:56SPEAKERyou no longer have people like physically sighting a gun
13:59SPEAKERon a target.
14:00SPEAKERYou start having the radar kicks over
14:03SPEAKERto the fire control computer
14:04SPEAKERand faster than we can process it, you know,
14:07SPEAKERthe correct fuses are set to the munitions and it's over.
14:13SPEAKERAnd things advance very, very quickly after that.
14:16SPEAKERAnd that stuff doesn't exist in Star Wars.
14:20SPEAKERWith, you know, Star Wars doesn't even want that much.
14:23SPEAKERIt implies things like the targeting computer,
14:26SPEAKERLuke's janky, you know, piece of crap that can't,
14:30SPEAKERthat never successfully puts a proton torpedo
14:34SPEAKERon a thermal exhaust port.
14:36SPEAKERBut in general, like Star Wars wants it to be like
14:39SPEAKERWorld War I, where you have to close within, you know,
14:42SPEAKERlike a hundred yards of another target
14:46SPEAKERand like physically sight the gun and shoot them.
14:49SPEAKERAnd all its technology, I think is kind of,
14:51SPEAKERis kind of sort of worked around the need
14:54SPEAKERto prevent anything in that world
14:56SPEAKERfrom enabling you to do anything beyond that.
15:00SPEAKERThat it is going to great pains to avoid
15:03SPEAKERwhat you see in a lot of hard sci-fi,
15:05SPEAKERwhich is sort of the recognition of,
15:07SPEAKERwell, military technologies here in 1950, 1960,
15:12SPEAKERit'd be pretty wild by, you know, the year 3000.
15:16SPEAKER- When we put Skynet on the murder robots,
15:20SPEAKERit turns out the murder robots are really efficient
15:22SPEAKERat killing people.
15:22SPEAKERLike you never heard that imbalance, either at all, right?
15:26SPEAKERLike even the Empire, which is this enormous juggernaut,
15:29SPEAKERdoesn't have, like even with, it's still a fair fight.
15:33SPEAKERIt's always a fair fight in Star Wars.
15:34SPEAKER- You talk about not landing a torpedo
15:37SPEAKERat the end of the first movie,
15:37SPEAKERbut like you see the exact same thing conversely
15:39SPEAKERfrom the Empire's end, right?
15:40SPEAKERBecause all the turrets on the Death Star are unable
15:42SPEAKERto pick off these like relatively out of date,
15:46SPEAKERscrappy fighters that they've had to scrounge
15:48SPEAKERfrom wherever they could get them, right?
15:49SPEAKERLike, Will, you said at the top of the episode,
15:52SPEAKERlike there are rules in this universe, but like to me,
15:54SPEAKERit really has always felt like there's actually one rule,
15:56SPEAKERwhich is just make everything as exciting
15:58SPEAKERas possible all the time.
16:00SPEAKERAnd like kind of Rob's point,
16:02SPEAKERis that anything that would make something less exciting,
16:04SPEAKERfor example, a dude sitting in a terminal,
16:06SPEAKERpressing some buttons and just picking things off invisibly
16:09SPEAKERwithout having to aim at them and miss them constantly,
16:11SPEAKERlike that's just not going to fly in the setting, right?
16:14SPEAKER- I don't know.
16:14SPEAKERI feel like the different eras handle this stuff
16:17SPEAKERreally differently too.
16:18SPEAKERLike I feel like the prequels are much more kind of grounded
16:21SPEAKERin reality, like in a shared reality.
16:24SPEAKER'Cause you have to remember by that point,
16:25SPEAKERthey'd been working in these multiple layers of canon
16:29SPEAKERfor years.
16:30SPEAKERAnd while I think George probably didn't have a whole,
16:33SPEAKERcare much about any of that stuff outside of
16:35SPEAKERthat his word was law.
16:37SPEAKERThe rest of it, I think it still seeped over enough
16:42SPEAKERso that he was more consistent with what he did
16:45SPEAKERin those early movies than other stuff.
16:48SPEAKERBut then there's like huge gaps,
16:49SPEAKERlike seemingly neonatal care,
16:52SPEAKERprenatal care is a real problem
16:54SPEAKERin the world of Star Wars, right?
16:56SPEAKERThey're bad at that, we guess.
16:58SPEAKER- Maybe if you're trying to hide your pregnancy
17:00SPEAKERfrom the world, maybe you don't go in
17:01SPEAKERfor all the routine checkups.
17:03SPEAKER- I think we get, I think it's a bad rap.
17:05SPEAKERI think there's two things.
17:06SPEAKERYes, I think there's a couple things.
17:08SPEAKERShe goes to, there are no,
17:10SPEAKERthere's no like routine OBGYN appointments
17:13SPEAKER'cause they're hiding everything from the genetic council.
17:15SPEAKERThey can't, so yes, there's no prenatal care.
17:19SPEAKERHe does strangle her.
17:22SPEAKER- Just a little, a little strangle.
17:24SPEAKER- It's not like they just fumbled it
17:26SPEAKERduring in the delivery room.
17:27SPEAKERShe came in with like pretty massive physical trauma.
17:32SPEAKER- Yeah, okay. - And then it didn't go well.
17:34SPEAKER- Fair, fair.
17:35SPEAKER- What was the Uba Buba Droid supposed to do with that?
17:37SPEAKER- I mean, look, if they can take 98% burns body,
17:43SPEAKERthey like do some bacta injections or something.
17:46SPEAKERI don't know what the fix is for that,
17:47SPEAKERbut it seems like sometimes the medicine's magic
17:50SPEAKERand sometimes you get a little bit of a force choke
17:53SPEAKERand you just go right down.
17:55SPEAKER- It is true, like, I wish they would,
17:58SPEAKERit would have been nice to see them at least try,
18:00SPEAKERlike with some bacta or something,
18:02SPEAKERjust like whip her into a vat of bacta and maybe it works.
18:07SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, it doesn't hurt by trying.
18:09SPEAKERYou don't get hurt by trying.
18:10SPEAKERIt's not gonna make it worse, right?
18:12SPEAKER- Waterbirds are a thing too, right?
18:14SPEAKERLike, I mean- - It's very popular.
18:15SPEAKER- It would just be like that.
18:17SPEAKER- I mean, well, if we're really gonna go down this road,
18:19SPEAKERthis is not really the technology of Star Wars,
18:21SPEAKERbut she didn't so much die medically
18:23SPEAKERas she died thematically, right?
18:25SPEAKERI mean, it's like the whole, it's the whole like,
18:27SPEAKERyou know, grand, grand mythology,
18:29SPEAKERdied of a broken heart type thing
18:31SPEAKERif we really wanna get into that angle, right?
18:33SPEAKER- I went back and watched it this morning just to,
18:37SPEAKER'cause I hadn't seen it in a long time and I'd forgotten,
18:38SPEAKERbut yeah, the robot says she's just lost the will to live.
18:42SPEAKERMan, there's nothing I can do with that.
18:44SPEAKERIt's all over.
18:44SPEAKERThere was no throat trauma there causing the problem.
18:46SPEAKERIt was just sad.
18:50SPEAKEROkay, so, okay, so medical technology,
18:54SPEAKERlike this is the Jim Cameron role
18:56SPEAKERwhere like she died because the plot demanded, right?
18:59SPEAKERThat's the, at the end of this day,
19:01SPEAKERshe had to die 'cause Luke and Leia didn't have a mom.
19:04SPEAKER- Or, you know, if you really wanna get into it,
19:06SPEAKERmaybe at least she died
19:07SPEAKERbecause freedom and democracy had also died.
19:09SPEAKER- I mean, look, she was a little soft on that stuff,
19:12SPEAKERbut I don't think you've watched "Clone Wars,"
19:13SPEAKERhave you, Brad?
19:14SPEAKER- I have not.
19:15SPEAKER- Okay, so-
19:17SPEAKER- I have not seen the final season of "Clone Wars."
19:19SPEAKER- The post season, the seven season,
19:21SPEAKERlike the one that they did after the Disney purchase?
19:23SPEAKEROkay, right.
19:24SPEAKER- Is she, you're right.
19:25SPEAKERShe is not, she has more in common
19:28SPEAKERwith like democratic leadership in today's world
19:30SPEAKERthan you might want to see from a hero.
19:35SPEAKER- Look, she's a firm, she believes in the Republic a lot,
19:37SPEAKERbut not so much that she's willing to go
19:40SPEAKERany way out of her way or up at any kind of status quo.
19:43SPEAKERThat's pretty well established, I think, in the canon.
19:47SPEAKEROkay, so, are people in "Star Wars" literate?
19:51SPEAKERJust generally speaking, does Han Solo know how to read?
19:54SPEAKER- So, there's Aurabesh written everywhere.
19:57SPEAKER- There, yeah, okay.
19:59SPEAKER- But for the most part, that's like signage,
20:03SPEAKERthings like that, not necessarily.
20:07SPEAKERI don't know that you ever see anyone like,
20:10SPEAKERI mean, obviously it's too cool
20:11SPEAKERto just sit down and read a book.
20:13SPEAKER- Well, they don't have books.
20:14SPEAKERWhat are you gonna make a book out, yeah?
20:16SPEAKER- They start with Kindle, you know,
20:18SPEAKERlike pulling up their little plexiglass data pad thing
20:21SPEAKERand like reading, you know, reading good yarn.
20:25SPEAKERThat's not him.
20:25SPEAKERBut the life of the mind is the Jark table
20:28SPEAKERin the common room of the Falcon.
20:33SPEAKER- He'd rather be playing Sabacc.
20:36SPEAKERBut I mean, I guess, does Luke know how to read?
20:41SPEAKERI assume that the poor people don't know how to read
20:44SPEAKER'cause there's no public schools on Tatooine, seems like.
20:48SPEAKER- Well, see, now I have to think here.
20:49SPEAKEROkay, so we definitely, so in "The Clone Wars,"
20:52SPEAKERwe see Mandalore has schools, kids are going to classrooms.
20:55SPEAKER- Well, they're enlightened.
20:57SPEAKERThis is why they're independent.
20:58SPEAKER- That is true.
20:59SPEAKERYeah, then they do poison those kids.
21:01SPEAKER- I mean, that was an accident, though.
21:03SPEAKERThey just, it was a light poisoning.
21:04SPEAKERYeah, their finger slipped.
21:06SPEAKER- That is a good question.
21:08SPEAKERLike, to what degree does literacy exist in this world?
21:12SPEAKERNow, if you go to the old EU,
21:14SPEAKERwe just read the Timothy Zahn books.
21:17SPEAKER- Classics?
21:18SPEAKER- That is an extensively literate world.
21:20SPEAKERPeople are constantly reading books
21:22SPEAKERon their personal data pads.
21:23SPEAKERBasically, their personal data pads are our tablets,
21:27SPEAKERour phones, that is, in the world of Zahn,
21:29SPEAKERthis was true of a lot of the old EU in the novels,
21:32SPEAKERpeople were reading stuff, and it makes sense
21:34SPEAKER'cause in a novel, it's really efficient.
21:36SPEAKERInstead of having an expository sequence,
21:40SPEAKERsomeone just pulls up a file and reads it in the book,
21:43SPEAKERand you see the sort of block quote of the file.
21:46SPEAKERThere's a moment where Luke is trying to learn
21:49SPEAKERabout Jedi Master Joris Sabaoth,
21:53SPEAKERand he starts searching the Coruscant archives,
21:57SPEAKERand you just get the search results he gets
22:00SPEAKERas he looks up this guy's life
22:01SPEAKERand is being kicked out by the computer.
22:04SPEAKERLeia's reading novels while she's sort of waiting
22:07SPEAKERto have her kids in that series.
22:10SPEAKERPeople are reading all the time,
22:12SPEAKERbut none of that is canon anymore,
22:15SPEAKERand I don't know currently what the overall state
22:20SPEAKERof literacy is, 'cause yeah, Luke does burn those books,
22:23SPEAKERbut maybe he burned them 'cause he resented them
22:25SPEAKER'cause as a poor, tattooing farm boy,
22:27SPEAKERthe knowledge that was locked away there-
22:29SPEAKER- Yeah, he was trapped.
22:30SPEAKER- He couldn't access it.
22:33SPEAKER- Well, okay, so yeah, at one point,
22:35SPEAKERone of the characters has a gun
22:37SPEAKERthat's stashed into a carved-out book,
22:39SPEAKERlike an Ian Fleming novel, basically, right?
22:42SPEAKER- Yeah. - Yeah, so the books are-
22:44SPEAKER- Interestingly enough, it's not a book,
22:46SPEAKERso this is Mara Jade finding a pistol hidden
22:50SPEAKERin a library in the guest quarters.
22:53SPEAKERWhere we have books,
22:54SPEAKERwhere we would have a hardcover edition,
22:57SPEAKERthey have little boxes that would be full
23:01SPEAKERof the data carts where the books reside,
23:05SPEAKERso it would be like you had your hardcover copy
23:09SPEAKERof Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy,
23:11SPEAKERyour omnibus edition, and you'd go
23:13SPEAKERand you'd pull that off the shelf,
23:15SPEAKERand you'd flip that open,
23:18SPEAKERand there'd be like a half dozen data carts
23:20SPEAKERwith a segment of the novels on it.
23:23SPEAKER- It's your Blu-ray steelbook, right?
23:26SPEAKER- What a nightmare world.
23:27SPEAKER- Good God, that sounds terrible.
23:28SPEAKERSounds like the worst.
23:29SPEAKER- But they can't transmit data.
23:31SPEAKERLike, again, they struggle mightily with data transmission.
23:36SPEAKER- Yeah, like all the way through.
23:37SPEAKERLike, all areas, it's the same,
23:39SPEAKER'cause getting the thing into R2D,
23:42SPEAKERlike Princess Leia has to jam a thing inside R2D2.
23:44SPEAKERIt's the first thing we see in the movie, pretty much.
23:47SPEAKERThe Rogue One upload to Princess Leia, I guess,
23:53SPEAKERis like, it's an enormous affair
23:56SPEAKERthat ends with people literally climbing a ladder
23:58SPEAKERand jamming a thing into a hole next to a satellite dish.
24:01SPEAKER- To get like a 14-4 modem fired up.
24:03SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, the world's worst Dropbox link.
24:07SPEAKER- What's weird is this is kind of weirdly consistent
24:10SPEAKERin Star Wars.
24:11SPEAKERDo you notice how in, I want to say this is a new hope,
24:16SPEAKERthe rebel radio chatter is compressed to shit.
24:21SPEAKERWhen you hear it on the base, it's buzzing, it's crackling.
24:24SPEAKERYou can barely recognize the human speech underneath it.
24:28SPEAKERAnd canonically, one of the things was
24:30SPEAKERthey have to compress their transmissions
24:33SPEAKERreally intensively to make their comms work.
24:37SPEAKER- This tension is something I have always
24:39SPEAKERjust gone out of my way not to interrogate in this universe
24:41SPEAKERbecause like, is there a name for like
24:43SPEAKERthe blue flickery hologram transmission thing
24:46SPEAKERthat is so iconic?
24:47SPEAKERYou know what I'm talking about, whatever it's called.
24:49SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like, yeah, just holocoms, but yeah.
24:51SPEAKER- Right, like by the same token with the voice comms,
24:53SPEAKERyou're talking about like, why does that look like shit?
24:56SPEAKERBecause it's cool, right?
24:57SPEAKERLike, you know, this is a civilization
25:00SPEAKERthat has sapient robotic life
25:02SPEAKERand has apparently completely defeated the force of gravity.
25:06SPEAKERBut like you said, they can't transmit like a trivial amount
25:09SPEAKERof 20th century data through the air, you know?
25:12SPEAKERLike, do you make anything of that tension
25:15SPEAKERor that conflict or that kind of nonsensical quality
25:18SPEAKERto the setting beyond George Lucas thought things looked cool
25:22SPEAKERand so he went with it?
25:24SPEAKER- Sort of, I think in a weird way,
25:27SPEAKERit makes a degree of sense if you think about
25:33SPEAKERwhere we invent the transistor
25:34SPEAKERand the semiconductor in our world.
25:38SPEAKERThey get a magical solution to a lot of that stuff
25:40SPEAKERthat that technology is going to be used for
25:42SPEAKERin the form of droids.
25:44SPEAKERAnd fundamentally, they don't, like, they don't have,
25:50SPEAKERat least for most technology,
25:53SPEAKERthose rather foundational building blocks of technology.
25:56SPEAKERNow, when we see like, you know, droids and such,
25:58SPEAKERit does appear, they have like circuit boards and all that,
26:01SPEAKERbut it does seem like whenever you're talking about
26:03SPEAKERlike a computer that is not a droid that people are using,
26:05SPEAKERit might as well be running on like vacuum tubes and such.
26:10SPEAKERIt might as well be, you know,
26:12SPEAKERoperating like highly mechanically.
26:15SPEAKERInterestingly enough, there's a thing where,
26:18SPEAKERagain, in the Zahn trilogy,
26:20SPEAKERthere's this point where they're trying to find
26:22SPEAKERlike a particular sort of scanner.
26:25SPEAKERWhat they need is a crystal grab field trap.
26:30SPEAKERAnd the implication is these things are huge and they're rare
26:33SPEAKERand what they need the crystal for
26:35SPEAKERis to produce a sort of search wave
26:37SPEAKERto find cloaked asteroids above Coruscant.
26:41SPEAKERMy interpretation has always been
26:42SPEAKERin the same way that like radio crystals
26:45SPEAKERwere like an important key piece of technology
26:49SPEAKERbefore the transistor.
26:51SPEAKERIn Zahn's world, I don't know if this is still the case,
26:53SPEAKERbut I think it's sort of implied,
26:55SPEAKER'cause I've always suspected Zahn
26:56SPEAKERis sort of thinking through the same stuff.
26:59SPEAKERThe transistor obviates the need
27:01SPEAKERto continue having like crystal radio sets.
27:05SPEAKERThat stuff is used through World War II.
27:08SPEAKERIt's sort of a late development that you get the transistor.
27:11SPEAKERWe did a lot without transistors.
27:14SPEAKERAnd I think a similar thing is happening in Star Wars
27:17SPEAKERwhere a lot of their communications technology,
27:19SPEAKERif you imagine like how it's working,
27:21SPEAKERit's not a little circuit board that is powering this.
27:26SPEAKERIn a lot of cases, it is like massive analog tuners
27:30SPEAKERand like natural resources.
27:34SPEAKER- I mean, it's interesting 'cause it seems like,
27:35SPEAKERthe way I always thought about it is
27:39SPEAKERit seems like the World of Star Wars
27:41SPEAKERcracked power generation in a way
27:43SPEAKERthat we've struggled with for the last 150 years.
27:47SPEAKERBut it seems like it's a world of infinite power,
27:50SPEAKERlike everything from the droids
27:52SPEAKERto the star destroyers hovering inside the atmosphere
27:57SPEAKERto going faster than the speed of light
28:00SPEAKERto travel between planets, solar systems.
28:03SPEAKERAll of those things require
28:04SPEAKERjust ridiculous amounts of power on different scales
28:08SPEAKERthat frankly we're not capable of.
28:09SPEAKERIf you look at like what a battery pack
28:11SPEAKERon a human scale robot looks like for us today,
28:15SPEAKERthey're good for like 45 minutes
28:16SPEAKERand they're a terrifying amount of chemical energy
28:19SPEAKERjammed in there that's just like a walking bomb
28:21SPEAKERwith a robot attached to it basically.
28:23SPEAKERSo maybe cracking that opened up the door
28:26SPEAKERfor things that would be wildly inefficient
28:29SPEAKERif you didn't have that power source,
28:31SPEAKERif you didn't have the high power source.
28:34SPEAKER- I'm trying to think what they imply
28:36SPEAKERas the fuel source for a lot of this.
28:38SPEAKER- So you don't ever see anybody recharge a lightsaber, right?
28:41SPEAKEROr a blaster even really.
28:43SPEAKER- Or a droid for them, like a--
28:44SPEAKER- No, no, no, no, blasters, they have power packs.
28:47SPEAKER- Yeah, but it's not like Han Solo
28:49SPEAKERgets onto the Millennium Falcon
28:50SPEAKERand drops his DL-44 into the charging pack
28:53SPEAKERor swaps out the pack ever.
28:54SPEAKERYou never see it, right?
28:55SPEAKER- No.
28:56SPEAKER- So it's not something you have to do that often.
28:58SPEAKER- For that matter, do you ever see a droid?
29:00SPEAKERI mean, I guess there's like the C-3PO,
29:02SPEAKERlike I'll power down for a while if you don't need me,
29:04SPEAKERbut beyond that, like you never see like a droid
29:06SPEAKERgo home to its docking station like a walking ruba.
29:10SPEAKER- So in the novelization of "Empire Strikes Back,"
29:13SPEAKERwhich is all I read, like I'm of the age
29:17SPEAKERthat "Empire Strikes Back" was unavailable to me
29:19SPEAKERbetween the time I saw "Star Wars" on TV
29:21SPEAKERand "Return of the Jedi" in theaters.
29:24SPEAKERSo I read the novelization.
29:26SPEAKERSo I was like, "Oh, I don't know what happens next."
29:28SPEAKERIn the novelization of "Empire Strikes Back,"
29:30SPEAKERthat little lantern thing that Luke is playing with
29:32SPEAKERwhen he sets down on Dagobah is also charging up R2-D2
29:37SPEAKERwhen he plugs it in, so if I remember right.
29:40SPEAKERYeah, look, that one stuck with me.
29:43SPEAKERThis is like knowledge from age seven, 40 years ago, so.
29:48SPEAKERBut yeah, like they don't,
29:49SPEAKERI feel like in some of the EU books, probably,
29:51SPEAKERthey talked about charging stuff,
29:53SPEAKERand like they talk about power cells and things like that
29:56SPEAKERfor Luke's robot hand and things like that.
30:00SPEAKERAnd then in "Solo," they talk about the fuel source
30:03SPEAKERfor the spaceships a lot, but then from then,
30:08SPEAKERwe kind of don't get anything until "The Last Jedi"
30:10SPEAKERwhen suddenly the resistance fleet is running out of gas
30:13SPEAKERand the Empire's gonna come,
30:15SPEAKERthe First Order's gonna come get 'em,
30:17SPEAKERand they have fuel management issues in there.
30:21SPEAKERLook, the Rebellion's never been great at logistics,
30:24SPEAKERso that is definitely a thing that we know.
30:26SPEAKERBut yeah, so I feel like there's magic power generation
30:32SPEAKERfor the whole thing, right up until the point
30:34SPEAKERthat J.J. Abrams comes along and Rian Johnson, I guess,
30:39SPEAKERthere's like this, we'll pin this one on Rian Johnson,
30:41SPEAKERbut yeah, and then it's a problem.
30:44SPEAKER- A bit, yeah, in "The Clone Wars," now I think of it,
30:47SPEAKERthere's a lot of like, we just finished a season
30:50SPEAKERof "The Clone Wars," might've happened more in season two,
30:52SPEAKERwe just finished season three, where there's a lot of stuff
30:55SPEAKERwhere they are going out and doing raids
30:58SPEAKERto acquire fuel sources.
31:00SPEAKERThey are like hoovering up like gases in deep space
31:06SPEAKERand then compressing those two power ships.
31:09SPEAKERThere's a moment where the ghost is sort of serving as a,
31:15SPEAKERor is intended to serve as a sort of fueling rendezvous ship
31:19SPEAKERfor Mon Mothma's ship as she escapes Coruscant,
31:22SPEAKERand it's got like huge external fuel tanks on it.
31:26SPEAKERYeah, when they imply what the Rebels are running on in that
31:31SPEAKERis extensively like refined gas.
31:36SPEAKERI don't know if that is true of everything the Empire runs.
31:39SPEAKERSomething that "Star Wars," the nature of like the lightsaber
31:45SPEAKERit's sort of running forever on power through these,
31:47SPEAKERagain, crystals.
31:49SPEAKERWe see that taken in row one as well,
31:51SPEAKERwhat could possibly power the Death Star?
31:54SPEAKERCrystals, we're gonna do that.
31:57SPEAKERAnd so there's kind of an implication again
32:00SPEAKERin throughout "Star Wars" that they are like,
32:05SPEAKERI don't think at any point they're really saying,
32:07SPEAKERah, activate the fusion drive.
32:11SPEAKERThey don't got the fusion drive,
32:13SPEAKERbut they do have various like natural resources
32:16SPEAKERthat are kind of, yes, like basically magic,
32:18SPEAKERbarely consequence-free, at least to use it,
32:22SPEAKERlike sources of power.
32:23SPEAKERSo if you just slap enough kyber crystals in a thing,
32:28SPEAKERyou've got either infinite energy
32:30SPEAKERor one good shot to destroy a planet.
32:36SPEAKERSimilar with how you just like, you know,
32:38SPEAKERshlorp up enough nebula gas and sort of compress it,
32:42SPEAKERyou can sort of run your ship off it,
32:45SPEAKERlike the CO2 sort of race car in shop class
32:48SPEAKERor something like that.
32:50SPEAKER- Nebulas are oddly explosive and it's rebels.
32:54SPEAKERI think you said Clone Wars,
32:54SPEAKERbut you all are on rebels now, right?
32:56SPEAKER- Yeah.
32:57SPEAKER- Yeah, nebulas are oddly explosive
32:59SPEAKERsometimes in the cartoons especially.
33:01SPEAKERI've noticed, I think that's really fun.
33:02SPEAKER- Yeah, we just had them, like they shot the nebula
33:06SPEAKERand it was like in "The Bourne Identity"
33:08SPEAKERwhere he just fills that apartment with gas
33:10SPEAKERand just like, you know, has a guy get killed
33:12SPEAKERwith the explosion.
33:15SPEAKERYeah, yeah, they imagine, they take some liberties
33:19SPEAKERwith just like a bunch of highly flammable gas
33:23SPEAKERthat's just hanging out in space
33:24SPEAKERand if anything touches it, it'll just go.
33:27SPEAKER- I mean, yeah, that's fun, #fun right there.
33:31SPEAKER- It's a hell of a shot, yeah.
33:32SPEAKER- Yeah.
33:34SPEAKER- You mentioned kyber crystals?
33:36SPEAKER- Yeah.
33:36SPEAKER- What is a lightsaber?
33:38SPEAKERWhat is coming out of there?
33:41SPEAKER- Well, this is a complicated one, right?
33:43SPEAKER'Cause it's changed over the years.
33:45SPEAKER- Has it?
33:46SPEAKERI don't know.
33:47SPEAKERI mean, has there ever actually been like,
33:47SPEAKERoh, first of all, I don't wanna say like,
33:49SPEAKERoh, there's a canonical answer for this
33:50SPEAKER'cause like who cares?
33:51SPEAKERI mean, I'm curious to hear like what the ideas are
33:55SPEAKERbehind it that have been floated over time, you know?
33:57SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm thinking back, I feel like early on,
34:01SPEAKERmaybe this goes back to the novelizations.
34:02SPEAKERWhat I remember was they are beams of pure energy
34:06SPEAKERthat do not emit waste heat.
34:08SPEAKERThat's one key thing, like it's a perfectly coherent
34:11SPEAKERbeam of energy that like doesn't heat what it's cutting.
34:18SPEAKERIt just like, again, slices through pretty cleanly.
34:23SPEAKERIt doesn't, except to the point of contact,
34:25SPEAKERthere's no waste energy.
34:26SPEAKERI mean, you'd almost think of it as like a single,
34:29SPEAKERlike, you know, the theoretical line of energy coming off.
34:32SPEAKERAnd everything we see is lightsabers,
34:34SPEAKERjust like emitted light.
34:35SPEAKER- Like a two-dimensional line, like it's only one,
34:38SPEAKERit's one, it's zero units thick and X units long.
34:42SPEAKER- Yes, but they also don't emit visible light
34:46SPEAKERuntil they do, right?
34:47SPEAKERLike until the onset technology,
34:51SPEAKERbut until the onset technology catches up
34:53SPEAKERand now they're able to actually embed a light
34:55SPEAKERin the prop, right?
34:57SPEAKERBecause they emitted no actual light.
34:59SPEAKER- They used reflective, I think the original,
35:02SPEAKERlike they used a mix of, it was obviously post,
35:05SPEAKERbut I think they use some reflective blades as well
35:09SPEAKERfor some of the shots.
35:11SPEAKER- Yeah, I think it's "Attack of the Clones"
35:13SPEAKERwas the first movie where suddenly
35:14SPEAKERthey had a lightsaber fight in the dark
35:16SPEAKERand now it's cool to make the lightsabers
35:19SPEAKERactually emit light on their surroundings
35:21SPEAKERfor the first time.
35:22SPEAKER- Then obviously it goes a little bit haywire with Obi-Wan
35:26SPEAKERand how they shoot that.
35:27SPEAKERBut there's always been weird things
35:30SPEAKERabout the lightsaber too,
35:31SPEAKERwhich is that if you think about it
35:33SPEAKER'cause it's a thing of pure energy but no mass,
35:37SPEAKERif you've ever done like any sort of,
35:41SPEAKERyou know, just imagine a tool that has no weight, right?
35:44SPEAKERLike I was a fencer, right?
35:46SPEAKERThe idea of using some sort of bladed weapon
35:49SPEAKERthat has no balance, that has no weight
35:52SPEAKERexcept at the hilt is bonkers.
35:55SPEAKERLike it would be so alien and unnatural
35:58SPEAKERas to verge on being unusable.
36:01SPEAKERAnd I think maybe that is where some of the Jedi-ness
36:05SPEAKERcomes in, this is why it's the weapon of the Jedi.
36:08SPEAKERThe reason, 'cause why can't anyone just grab a laser sword?
36:12SPEAKERAnyone can, you know, Han uses it
36:15SPEAKERto slice open the tauntaun.
36:17SPEAKERWhy wouldn't tons of people be out there being like,
36:21SPEAKERyou know, the equivalent of the Maul ninja
36:23SPEAKERwith the lightsaber?
36:25SPEAKERBut I think kind of the answer there is
36:29SPEAKERthe weirdness of the lightsaber itself means that
36:33SPEAKERmost people would not want to wield that in combat
36:35SPEAKERbecause it doesn't feel remotely like
36:38SPEAKERany of the things that make a tool or a weapon
36:41SPEAKERsomething that you can sort of sense and manipulate easily.
36:44SPEAKERBut the Jedi feels that coherent beam of energy perfectly
36:49SPEAKERand wields it as an extension of themself.
36:52SPEAKER- I mean, I think you could make an argument
36:53SPEAKERthat it'd be really good for like a self-searing tuna knife
36:57SPEAKERor something, like in the kitchen, it'd be really handy.
36:59SPEAKERYou know, you get out there and you can cook the fish
37:01SPEAKERas you're cutting, you can, you know, whatever,
37:03SPEAKERit makes the whole thing a lot easier.
37:05SPEAKERSo there's probably monetization opportunities
37:07SPEAKERin Star Wars universe for like lightsaber cutlery,
37:11SPEAKERlaser sword cutlery, sorry.
37:14SPEAKER- Like just the finest Ashimi you've ever encountered.
37:18SPEAKER- Yeah, but I mean, so I think, I mean, it feels like,
37:22SPEAKERI wonder, like it does feel like it has mass though.
37:25SPEAKER- I wonder if this is a practical consideration
37:27SPEAKERthat came in the later movies
37:29SPEAKERwhen they had a young person fighting with lightsabers
37:32SPEAKERinstead of Alec Guinness and, you know, David Prowse,
37:39SPEAKERwho neither were particularly spry in the first movie.
37:41SPEAKERAnd it was very much a, we were going to,
37:43SPEAKERit was like 30 style boxing of lightsaber fighting
37:46SPEAKERin the two old guys going at each other kind of way.
37:50SPEAKER- One idea that I've seen attached to this,
37:52SPEAKERwhich I think is pure like fan crafting.
37:54SPEAKERSo give it as much weight as you want is the idea
37:57SPEAKERthat there might be some like gyroscopic effects
37:59SPEAKERassociated with wielding one of these things,
38:02SPEAKERthat there would be some kind of an unpredictable quality
38:05SPEAKERto swinging it around,
38:06SPEAKERbecause it would have a bit of a mind of its own,
38:08SPEAKERbut I know to your point could really only be mastered
38:12SPEAKERby a Jedi or somebody who would kind of like integrate it
38:15SPEAKERinto their being and sort of sense what it's going to do
38:17SPEAKERbefore it does it.
38:19SPEAKER- That makes a degree of sense, especially again,
38:21SPEAKERbecause of just like the weapon sort of bizarre balance
38:25SPEAKERwould sort of consistently throw you off.
38:28SPEAKERAnd it would feel like there's kind of an odd
38:31SPEAKERcounterweighting effect there at the bottom.
38:34SPEAKERBut yeah, like there's moments,
38:37SPEAKERthe point about the weapon having mass,
38:39SPEAKERI think one of the shot that immediately comes to mind is
38:43SPEAKERwhen Luke goes berserk on Vader and he starts like,
38:46SPEAKERyou know, both hands over his head
38:48SPEAKERand just starts beating the shit out of him.
38:51SPEAKER- At that point, that lightsaber sure looks like it is,
38:53SPEAKERit has about the characteristics of like
38:56SPEAKERa Louisville slugger, right?
38:58SPEAKERIt begins to look like something that has weight
39:02SPEAKERthat he has to really sort of heft over his head,
39:05SPEAKERthat there's an object with a lot of mass
39:08SPEAKERand inertia that he is having to wield.
39:11SPEAKERAnd that is probably just, again,
39:16SPEAKERit's gonna look, for the filmmaking standpoint,
39:19SPEAKERthat's kind of what Luke, you want Luke to be communicating
39:22SPEAKERat that moment.
39:23SPEAKERYou can't have like Luke going, you know,
39:28SPEAKERgoing ham on Vader
39:30SPEAKERand it's like he's whacking him with a feather duster.
39:33SPEAKERYou know, that's not gonna work.
39:35SPEAKER- He's beating him with a crop, right?
39:38SPEAKERWell, and from a practical standpoint,
39:39SPEAKERthe things that they're waving around
39:41SPEAKERand whacking each other with have mass,
39:42SPEAKERlike they are weighty.
39:44SPEAKERThe reflective sticks that they used
39:46SPEAKERin the original trilogy, especially, were pretty sturdy
39:49SPEAKERby today's standard, but, you know,
39:51SPEAKERcompared to the fighting props that they use today.
39:55SPEAKERSo, do we talk about lightsabers more?
39:57SPEAKERAre we feeling good?
39:58SPEAKER- Feeling great about lightsabers.
39:59SPEAKERI think they're, yeah, I mean, they're goofy.
40:02SPEAKER- I, well, I was just saying, so Brad, apologies,
40:06SPEAKERwe're trying to avoid spoilers here,
40:07SPEAKERbut the Mandalorian,
40:08SPEAKERthere's a special lightsaber that comes up
40:11SPEAKERand it's a heavy, beefy lightsaber
40:16SPEAKERfor reasons that are unclear to me.
40:20SPEAKER- Very selectively.
40:21SPEAKER- Yeah, extremely, one guy, no problem at all.
40:25SPEAKEROne woman, no problem at all.
40:26SPEAKEROne guy, just not able to cope with it, it turns out.
40:31SPEAKERLike, I don't know that that matters.
40:36SPEAKERMaybe it's an old, busted lightsaber.
40:38SPEAKERIt is old, I guess, in the canon.
40:41SPEAKER- Is this the dark saber?
40:42SPEAKERI have not seen the Mandalorian,
40:43SPEAKERbut you can come out and say it.
40:45SPEAKER- Yeah, this is the dark saber.
40:47SPEAKERIt's a special lightsaber.
40:50SPEAKERThis thing makes me angry.
40:52SPEAKERLike, it makes me angry 'cause it's,
40:56SPEAKERokay, so somebody decided to put a katana in Star Wars.
41:00SPEAKER- Okay, that's-
41:00SPEAKER- Katanas already basically exist.
41:02SPEAKERThey're lightsabers themselves,
41:03SPEAKERbut let's, damn it, we need a katana.
41:07SPEAKERSo, the Mandalorians have,
41:08SPEAKERthey have their old beef with the Jedi,
41:10SPEAKERand then there's the special Mandalorian lightsaber,
41:12SPEAKERthe dark saber, and yeah, it's a katana with a blade of,
41:16SPEAKERlike, a black light blade.
41:19SPEAKER- It looks pretty cool, in fairness.
41:21SPEAKER- It's pretty cool, yeah.
41:23SPEAKER- I have to admit, the immediate vibe
41:25SPEAKERI got from the term dark saber was the old,
41:27SPEAKERlike, edgelord, gray Jedi thing of, like,
41:31SPEAKERwell, I'm a good guy who's a good Jedi,
41:32SPEAKERbut I also get to shoot lightning out of my fingers
41:34SPEAKERbecause I'm edgy at the same time.
41:36SPEAKER- Look, I assume that the Mandalorian Jedi
41:39SPEAKERskirted a little close to the scary parts of the Force.
41:42SPEAKERYou know, he was, he would choke somebody out occasionally
41:45SPEAKERif he needed to.
41:45SPEAKERIt's, you know, he put a couple of points
41:47SPEAKERdown in that negative, in the dark tree.
41:49SPEAKER- But anyway, like, so whoever wields the dark saber,
41:54SPEAKERit's like the faded blade, you are the rifle,
41:57SPEAKERthe rifle king of all, of all Mandalore,
42:00SPEAKERor queen as the case may be.
42:02SPEAKERAnd the way it, it has to be won through combat,
42:07SPEAKERand the way it lets you know if you're not the chosen,
42:11SPEAKERif you're not the rifle wielder,
42:13SPEAKERis that it gets heavier and heavier in the hand.
42:15SPEAKERSo it starts out, it's a good sturdy lightsaber blade,
42:18SPEAKERit's fine, but if you are not,
42:20SPEAKERif you are not entitled to wield it,
42:22SPEAKERit gets heavier and heavier and you get slower and slower
42:25SPEAKERuntil the blade becomes, like, like,
42:26SPEAKERmilnier, like, too heavy to move.
42:30SPEAKER- Wait, I missed this entirely.
42:32SPEAKER- So in Book of Boba Fett.
42:34SPEAKER- Oh, right.
42:36SPEAKER- Is this why you missed it?
42:37SPEAKER- Probably.
42:38SPEAKER- Did you eject?
42:39SPEAKER- I watched the two episodes that were Mandalorian episodes
42:42SPEAKERand kind of bypassed the rest.
42:44SPEAKER- So he goes and he brings the lightsaber to his buddies.
42:47SPEAKERAnd he's like, "Hey, I found the lightsaber."
42:50SPEAKERAnd then the big Kree's guy, the big dude.
42:55SPEAKER- Oh, Previsa.
42:57SPEAKER- Yeah, they fight.
42:59SPEAKERIt's sort of a, you know, they test each other,
43:02SPEAKERVizsla thinks he's still the rifle,
43:04SPEAKERor he should be the rifle wielder of this.
43:06SPEAKERAnd it just gets heavier and heavier for him as he fights.
43:09SPEAKERAnd that's where they explain, like,
43:11SPEAKERyeah, see, you're not the chosen,
43:12SPEAKERyou're not supposed to wield this.
43:14SPEAKERSo this is just gonna get heavier and heavier.
43:16SPEAKERAnd it's not gonna work for you
43:17SPEAKERif you're not the chosen one.
43:19SPEAKERMajor thing, this is, okay.
43:21SPEAKERAll right, that's the rule of how this thing works.
43:22SPEAKERCool, like, for metaphysical reasons,
43:26SPEAKERthis thing's going to become too heavy to wield
43:28SPEAKERif you are not entitled to wield it.
43:33SPEAKERBut this thing first comes up in Rebels.
43:37SPEAKERThis doesn't happen.
43:38SPEAKERLike, people are extensively using the dark saber.
43:39SPEAKER- They hand it around left and right in Rebels, right?
43:41SPEAKER- Yeah, no problems, none whatsoever.
43:43SPEAKERIt's still the Fade of Blade.
43:45SPEAKERIt's still, like, whoever wields this
43:46SPEAKERis like the rightful ruler of Mandalore.
43:49SPEAKERBut it's like, there is a symbol.
43:51SPEAKERNo point, if you get your hands on that,
43:54SPEAKERyou can just cut someone with it, no problem.
43:57SPEAKER- Look, it's been 10 years since Rebels.
43:58SPEAKERSomebody had a good idea somewhere in between the two
44:00SPEAKERand nobody watched the cartoons, really.
44:02SPEAKERIt's probably fine.
44:04SPEAKERNobody's gonna know.
44:05SPEAKER- So many people watch the cartoons.
44:07SPEAKER- I mean, the cartoons, like,
44:10SPEAKERlike, I've talked about this on the show before.
44:11SPEAKERThe cartoons are low key the best part of Star Wars
44:14SPEAKERthat's come out since the original trilogy.
44:15SPEAKERLike, the good episodes of the Clone Wars and Rebels
44:19SPEAKERare up there with everything with the best of the movies
44:21SPEAKERfrom the last 20 years, easily.
44:24SPEAKERIt's a blow bar for the best of the movies
44:26SPEAKERfor the last 20 bars.
44:27SPEAKERThere's like maybe two, three, two and a half good ones.
44:29SPEAKERBut anyway, you want to talk about space travel?
44:33SPEAKERThis is a weird thing.
44:34SPEAKERI mean, this is just plot.
44:35SPEAKERThis is just, this is just,
44:38SPEAKERthis is just straight up, hey.
44:40SPEAKERIt takes, sometimes it takes one amount of time.
44:44SPEAKERDoes it take three days to get someplace?
44:45SPEAKERDoes it take a month?
44:46SPEAKERDo you have to travel in a spaceship for hundreds of years?
44:48SPEAKERIt's, who knows?
44:49SPEAKERWho could tell?
44:50SPEAKERWho could say how far things are apart?
44:52SPEAKER- Where does Luke go when he's in the X-wing?
44:55SPEAKERHow long is he crammed in the X-wing getting to Dagobah
44:57SPEAKERand what does he do en route?
44:59SPEAKER- So much.
45:00SPEAKER- Oh no, here we go.
45:02SPEAKER- It is such a testament to the greatness
45:05SPEAKERof "Empire Strikes Back" that I never noticed.
45:08SPEAKERI mean, that's why I love it so many times.
45:10SPEAKERIt never occurred to me that none of this made any sense.
45:13SPEAKERNone of it.
45:15SPEAKERLike, they're cross-cutting between Luke going to Dagobah
45:18SPEAKERand beginning his Jedi training and an asteroid chase.
45:24SPEAKERLike, it's completely different time scales.
45:27SPEAKER- But how long, the training's what?
45:29SPEAKERLike, is the training like six months?
45:31SPEAKERIs the training a year?
45:32SPEAKERAre they traveling at sub-light
45:34SPEAKERfrom the asteroid field to Bespin?
45:35SPEAKERAnd so they're just chilling in the Millennium Falcon
45:37SPEAKERfor like a literal year or?
45:41SPEAKER- I think it was implied.
45:41SPEAKERI think it is implied that like a day or two
45:45SPEAKERafter they escape from Hoth, they're at Bespin.
45:48SPEAKERThat they're just gonna fly in sub-light speeds.
45:51SPEAKERDon't worry.
45:52SPEAKERLook, relativity doesn't exist in "Star Wars."
45:54SPEAKERDon't worry about that at all.
45:57SPEAKER- It's a smaller galaxy.
45:59SPEAKER- Yeah, so literally smaller, there's a point where,
46:03SPEAKERagain, the Zahn trilogy, there's a great moment
46:04SPEAKERwhere Thrawn orders his ships
46:06SPEAKERto start maneuvering around the system.
46:08SPEAKERLike, use that planet as cover
46:10SPEAKERand begin bringing the Star Destroyer.
46:12SPEAKERAnd it's like imagining the people ducking behind a planet.
46:16SPEAKERWell, it's like you're fighting a big arary,
46:20SPEAKERI guess is the way I would put it.
46:21SPEAKERThat's kind of their vision of how space works.
46:24SPEAKERAnd even Zahn sort of imagines the combat this way
46:28SPEAKERwhere Star Destroyers are kind of like zipping out
46:31SPEAKERfrom behind planets, sort of like peeking,
46:33SPEAKERlike counter-strike shot.
46:35SPEAKERBut, so that means that like things are close together.
46:38SPEAKERRelativity does not exist.
46:40SPEAKERSub-light engines can get you to a different star system.
46:43SPEAKERNo problem.
46:43SPEAKERThere's gonna be no interstellar, like, you know,
46:46SPEAKERhundreds of years.
46:46SPEAKERNone of that shit's gonna happen.
46:48SPEAKERCan't have that.
46:49SPEAKERBut I think the implication is,
46:51SPEAKEReven with all those caveats,
46:54SPEAKERthey are not aboard the Millennium Falcon for that long
46:58SPEAKERbefore like they arrive at Bespin.
47:00SPEAKERTo me, it feels like a day or two later
47:02SPEAKERafter the harrowing escape to the asteroid field,
47:05SPEAKERthey show up on Lando's door.
47:06SPEAKERMeanwhile, through the magic of editing,
47:09SPEAKERLuke appears to have been like training
47:12SPEAKERunder the wizened master for like months.
47:15SPEAKERWell, I mean, maybe they do have relativity
47:17SPEAKER'cause if they were going close to the speed of light
47:18SPEAKERto Bespin, then the time's gonna move very slowly for them
47:21SPEAKERand it's gonna move fast for Luke will be out
47:23SPEAKERin the real world for a long time.
47:25SPEAKERSo maybe he was there for maybe,
47:28SPEAKERmaybe they just went dark for like two years,
47:30SPEAKERgetting to Bespin.
47:32SPEAKERAnd meanwhile, there had to be a clock wipe
47:34SPEAKERin there somewhere.
47:36SPEAKER- It all just happened to line up.
47:37SPEAKERBut I mean, I wanna get back to the question
47:38SPEAKERof him traveling to Dagobah and again,
47:41SPEAKERan X-wing that has less room to get up and move around
47:45SPEAKERthan your average station wagon.
47:46SPEAKERI mean, there's no standing up in that thing,
47:48SPEAKERlet alone going to a bathroom.
47:49SPEAKERSo are we talking a matter of hours
47:52SPEAKERthat took him to get there or what?
47:54SPEAKER- He has powers.
47:55SPEAKER- You know, he is a Jedi trances of a variety or two.
48:02SPEAKER- I mean, yeah, honestly, if Anakin could keep himself alive
48:05SPEAKERfor what, days after burning to death?
48:08SPEAKER- What was it, days?
48:09SPEAKER- I guess Luke could hold it for a little while.
48:11SPEAKER- You think he holds it?
48:12SPEAKER- I think the idea, what's that?
48:14SPEAKER- He ain't holding it.
48:15SPEAKER(laughing)
48:16SPEAKER- Maybe he just lets it go.
48:18SPEAKER- It's like he's got a space diaper.
48:19SPEAKERLike that's just, it's like,
48:22SPEAKERit's gotta be like still suits, right?
48:23SPEAKER- It's just gonna be like, nah, it's no.
48:26SPEAKER- Extreme circumstances, dignity.
48:27SPEAKER- The survival gear, yeah, no, I'm sure it's fine.
48:29SPEAKER- Not a concern.
48:32SPEAKER- They have toilets in Star Wars, right?
48:34SPEAKER- They have refreshers.
48:36SPEAKER- Yes.
48:37SPEAKER- Yeah, but the X-Wing's not.
48:39SPEAKER- I wish I didn't know that.
48:40SPEAKERYes, the X-Wing does not.
48:42SPEAKER- So space diapers is what we're thinking.
48:44SPEAKER- Yeah, no, I think he's just gotta either hold it
48:47SPEAKERor like in enough duress, like it's just, it's fine.
48:51SPEAKERWhatever.
48:51SPEAKER- Sure, sure.
48:52SPEAKER- I do think, you know, like, he's a combat pilot.
48:57SPEAKERLike, you know, there's some, like think about,
49:02SPEAKERit's kind of a bad example 'cause like
49:03SPEAKERStrategic Bomber Command, like the B-52s and the B-36,
49:06SPEAKERthose did have onboard like restroom facilities.
49:09SPEAKER- Yeah.
49:10SPEAKER- But how does the B-2 Spirit have a restroom?
49:13SPEAKER- Yeah, it does.
49:14SPEAKER- 'Cause like I know that those things like
49:15SPEAKERhave long missions, like those things like will launch
49:18SPEAKERand like will be in the air for 24 hours or so.
49:24SPEAKER- Yeah, it has a bed, toilet, and microwave oven
49:25SPEAKER'cause they do off crew on crew on B-2s.
49:29SPEAKER- Oh, sure.
49:31SPEAKER- So does the B-1 'cause they're designed,
49:32SPEAKERlike they can do 36, like multiple, like a full day
49:36SPEAKERin the air or something ridiculous.
49:37SPEAKER- They keep refueling them theoretically like much longer.
49:39SPEAKER- But yeah.
49:40SPEAKER- I mean, anyway, back to the larger point of just like
49:43SPEAKERhow long does hyperspace take to get you places?
49:45SPEAKERLike I can't even qualify this,
49:47SPEAKERbut I've gotten the sense over time that it's very,
49:49SPEAKERvery much on the shorter end of the spectrum
49:52SPEAKERthan the longer one.
49:53SPEAKERLike even a long journey is maybe a few hours,
49:56SPEAKERlike minutes to hours, not days to weeks.
49:59SPEAKER- Yeah, I think this is one that changed with the,
50:02SPEAKER'cause in the Zahn books, he likes timescales
50:07SPEAKERto unfold across weeks and months.
50:09SPEAKERAnd so you'll have people refer to,
50:11SPEAKERoh, this Imperial fleet will be in transit
50:13SPEAKERfor the next two weeks basically in hyperspace.
50:18SPEAKERBut it does not appear that has ever been a thing
50:20SPEAKERthat echoes what we see in the movies.
50:23SPEAKEROther weird thing, how's Death Star getting around?
50:28SPEAKERI've never liked this.
50:29SPEAKERI've never felt good about the answer to that either.
50:32SPEAKER- Giant hyperdrive.
50:33SPEAKER- Right, it shows up and like just sort of zips over
50:37SPEAKERto Yavin, but I don't know, it's kind of a goofy thing
50:42SPEAKER'cause we never see, we never get any sense
50:44SPEAKERof it having a propulsion system.
50:45SPEAKERIt just kind of like shows up in your system
50:48SPEAKERand then slowly like shambles over into firing position.
50:54SPEAKER- It does just kind of zip around without any,
50:56SPEAKERlike most of the ships we see have got
50:58SPEAKERsome very visible means of propulsion,
51:01SPEAKERmostly giant afterburners and stuff,
51:02SPEAKER'cause those look cool, but like, yeah,
51:04SPEAKERhow does the Death Star move?
51:05SPEAKERThere is no visible anything on there.
51:08SPEAKERIt just kind of zips around.
51:09SPEAKER- I mean, my question with the Death Star
51:11SPEAKERis always like where do you park that thing
51:14SPEAKERwhen you're not using it?
51:16SPEAKER'Cause like, if you're on a planet someplace
51:19SPEAKERand they're like, oh, hey, Death Star is,
51:20SPEAKERit's not like fleet week when the Death Star
51:22SPEAKERshows up above your planet.
51:24SPEAKERYou're not like going out and watching
51:25SPEAKERthe TIE fighter Blue Angels come by and do their thing
51:29SPEAKERand fly into the Golden Gate Bridge or whatever.
51:30SPEAKERYou're like, oh man, there's a giant planning,
51:32SPEAKERkilling death laser above me.
51:34SPEAKERI don't want that there.
51:35SPEAKER- I mean, it is a moon.
51:37SPEAKER- No.
51:38SPEAKER- You probably just put it in orbit around something, right?
51:40SPEAKER- I don't, I'm gonna nimby this one up.
51:43SPEAKERI don't want that in my backyard.
51:45SPEAKER- You think it would be like,
51:48SPEAKERit wouldn't be like fleet week,
51:49SPEAKERbut the problem is in the Imperial Corps, it would be.
51:52SPEAKERLike once the Death Star completed its mission,
51:54SPEAKERlike destroyed the Rebel Alliance,
51:56SPEAKERpeople would be like, oh wow, look,
51:59SPEAKERthe Death Star is here this week.
52:01SPEAKER- Look, you don't think, it's not like they're doing tours.
52:04SPEAKERIt's not like you hop on the Imperial shuttle
52:08SPEAKERand you get to, you and the kids go up
52:10SPEAKERand you get to see what, oh look, we're gonna check,
52:12SPEAKERlook at this cool Imperial base.
52:14SPEAKERThey don't let people out.
52:15SPEAKERThere's no outreach for the Imperial Navy.
52:17SPEAKERThey don't care.
52:19SPEAKERThey don't have to do that.
52:21SPEAKERIs there a young Stormtrooper League?
52:23SPEAKERNo.
52:25SPEAKERI mean, maybe there is actually.
52:26SPEAKER- Well, that's a, they imply in various places
52:30SPEAKERthat the Stormtroopers, that the Imperials do recruit
52:34SPEAKERfor the fleet.
52:37SPEAKERYeah, they're been like, they play around with ideas
52:40SPEAKERlike Star Wars propaganda posters
52:41SPEAKERand things like that.
52:43SPEAKERNotions that you can sort of bring people in.
52:45SPEAKERBut then you do have the sequel trilogy embracing the idea
52:48SPEAKERthat the First Order doesn't have access to that pipeline
52:50SPEAKERand just begins enslaving subject peoples
52:53SPEAKERand sort of kidnapping children,
52:55SPEAKERforcing them to serve in their Stormtrooper core.
52:58SPEAKERBut I do, I kind of think that the Empire would have been,
53:05SPEAKER'cause the Empire's lost, right?
53:06SPEAKERLike this is kind of like, Lucas does see it
53:10SPEAKERfrom the standpoint of the rebels of the Vietcong,
53:14SPEAKERthe NBA, and the Empire is America.
53:19SPEAKERAnd I think it is in totally in keeping
53:21SPEAKERwith sort of America's relationship with its own power.
53:24SPEAKERLike we line up on beaches.
53:26SPEAKERI went to the air show for years in Chicago.
53:28SPEAKERLook, it's a B-2, woo!
53:30SPEAKERWhat's that for?
53:31SPEAKEROh, bringing about nuclear Armageddon.
53:36SPEAKER- It's a policy instrument, Rob.
53:37SPEAKER- I do think once that thing had become a symbol of like,
53:40SPEAKERwe crushed the rebellion,
53:41SPEAKERpeace and order restored through the galaxy,
53:44SPEAKERpeople would be like, ooh, look at that.
53:47SPEAKERAnd look, you're telling me you wouldn't be kind of like,
53:52SPEAKERthat's really, look at that space station.
53:54SPEAKEREven by Star Wars standards, it's really, really big.
53:57SPEAKERIt's impressive.
53:58SPEAKER- I mean, the one difference between us and the Empire
54:00SPEAKERis that at least we don't have,
54:01SPEAKERwe have the good sense not to call our bombers
54:04SPEAKERthe Death Star, like.
54:06SPEAKER- Yeah.
54:07SPEAKER- Did you think it was the Death Star,
54:08SPEAKERlike a colloquial term in the Imperial Navy
54:11SPEAKERor is that what the public knows it as?
54:12SPEAKERBecause it's kind of difficult to sell yourselves
54:14SPEAKERas the good guys when you're rolling around
54:16SPEAKERwith something called the Death Star, right?
54:18SPEAKER- I don't know, man.
54:19SPEAKEROur bomber names are bad, right?
54:22SPEAKER- B-2 Spirit, B-1 Lancer.
54:24SPEAKER- Are those the names, the official names
54:26SPEAKERor those what we call them though?
54:28SPEAKER'Cause don't we call the B-2 Spirit something else?
54:30SPEAKER- No, I don't, I don't think so.
54:32SPEAKER- I can't remember.
54:33SPEAKEROkay, okay, Spirit is it.
54:35SPEAKERMy bad. - Yeah.
54:37SPEAKER- It's great, it's friendly.
54:39SPEAKER- I don't know, I feel like after you blow up,
54:41SPEAKERlike the potential for human failure
54:44SPEAKERwith any weapon system's pretty high.
54:46SPEAKERI feel like we have a pretty good record
54:47SPEAKERof not blowing people up during Fleet Week.
54:50SPEAKERBut like maybe the Death Star gunner guy's ex-girlfriend
54:55SPEAKERis on the planet down below and he's like,
54:56SPEAKER"You know what, fuck this.
54:58SPEAKER"I'm gonna blow this planet up.
54:59SPEAKER"I want rid of her once and for all."
55:02SPEAKERLike all it takes is one of those mistakes
55:04SPEAKERyou have a bad PR problem if you're the Empire.
55:06SPEAKERThat's all I'm saying.
55:07SPEAKER- So you do, but planets get got in Star Wars.
55:11SPEAKERThis is low key one of the things that drives me absolutely
55:14SPEAKERnuts about the EU is that they topple the Empire
55:18SPEAKERand the New Republic is just like losing plants
55:21SPEAKERand populations right and left.
55:22SPEAKERLike oh, a new novel just came out
55:24SPEAKERand two more systems were obliterated.
55:27SPEAKERBut I think you touched on something else,
55:30SPEAKERwhich is that most things in Star Wars
55:33SPEAKERare surprisingly crew intensive.
55:38SPEAKERAnd so you're saying they're like,
55:39SPEAKERall it takes is one depressed dude up there.
55:43SPEAKERLike those pilots that crashed their planes full of people.
55:47SPEAKERThat's the theory that the MH370 didn't disappear
55:50SPEAKERthat the pilot decided to kill everyone.
55:53SPEAKERWe know for a fact that happened with a small commuter plane
55:56SPEAKERin the Pyrenees a few years ago.
55:58SPEAKERBut when we see the super laser fire,
56:03SPEAKERthat's a huge crew.
56:05SPEAKERLot of people have to be like pulling levers
56:08SPEAKERand like fire, like it takes a lot of people
56:11SPEAKERto do this stuff.
56:12SPEAKERAnd you look at like terminals,
56:14SPEAKERlike crew stations in Star Wars,
56:16SPEAKERthey're like children's busy boxes.
56:19SPEAKERLike the buttons are the size of dinner plates.
56:21SPEAKERLike there's nothing, there's no,
56:22SPEAKERthere is no equivalent to like the WASD keyboard
56:26SPEAKERin Star Wars where like from this one command panel,
56:29SPEAKERyou can do all the stuff that a droid can do it,
56:31SPEAKERthe jacks in, but you cannot sit there at your terminal
56:35SPEAKERand like do all the shit, you can't do it.
56:37SPEAKERYour technology looks a lot more like the,
56:39SPEAKERlike a microfiche reader in an old library.
56:42SPEAKERFor some of our listeners, like they used to have,
56:45SPEAKERyou'd look, you'd pull up Reims-Wold newspaper info
56:48SPEAKERusing microfiche and like sliding through that.
56:51SPEAKERWhen an Andor, he has the guy running the footage
56:54SPEAKERto try to track like ship traffic following a murder.
56:58SPEAKERIt looks like the dude is like screwing around
57:00SPEAKERthe microfiche record of like ship plots.
57:04SPEAKERAnd so everything, like nothing is shrunken down
57:08SPEAKERwhere like one workstation can easily do multiple roles.
57:12SPEAKEREverything requires like literally somebody,
57:16SPEAKERthey got two big levers they're manipulating.
57:19SPEAKER- It's like every Imperial technician shall be responsible
57:22SPEAKERfor no more than one lever and one knob
57:24SPEAKERin the firing sequence.
57:27SPEAKER- So you're saying it's like the turn your keys
57:29SPEAKERare a situation except for you have to have 50 people
57:31SPEAKERdoing the turning the keys
57:32SPEAKERall in the very prescribed sequence.
57:35SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like Crimson Tide, like had a cast of hundreds.
57:39SPEAKER- Yeah, you said something that makes me think of the Memex,
57:44SPEAKERwhich is a old hypothetical electromechanical
57:48SPEAKERinformation retrieval device that's pre-computers.
57:51SPEAKERI don't think anybody actually ever built one,
57:54SPEAKERat least in the time that they would have been useful.
57:56SPEAKER- That was the one thought of by a Bush, right?
58:01SPEAKER- Yeah, by Vannevar Bush.
58:03SPEAKER- Vannevar Bush, I forget where he is in the Bush hierarchy.
58:07SPEAKER- Oh, is he one of those Bushes?
58:08SPEAKER- Yes, yes, he is one of those Bushes actually.
58:12SPEAKER- But yeah, it's an electromechanical
58:13SPEAKERlike information retrieval thing
58:16SPEAKERthat had like prototypical hypertext
58:17SPEAKERand a whole bunch of stuff.
58:18SPEAKERIt shows up a lot in spy fiction from the Cold War era.
58:23SPEAKERAnd it's like the idea is that you have this little screen
58:27SPEAKERthat when you key in the right kind of cords,
58:28SPEAKERyou get the information you're looking for.
58:31SPEAKERIt's a way of accessing a large data store very quickly,
58:35SPEAKERkind of like a computer,
58:36SPEAKERbut with knobs and projectors and stuff.
58:39SPEAKER- What is, sorry, so I want to revisit that in one second.
58:44SPEAKERI remember one of the things that like,
58:47SPEAKER'cause I hadn't fully realized how bonkers Star Wars was
58:51SPEAKERwith like how labor intensive some of its stuff was.
58:54SPEAKERI remember there's a ride at,
58:57SPEAKERthere's the Rise of the Resistance ride or something
58:59SPEAKERat Galaxy's Edge where you're loaded into your little cart
59:04SPEAKERand we're here to rescue,
59:06SPEAKERbut you've been caught as Imperial spies
59:08SPEAKERand you're rescued and you escape
59:11SPEAKERthrough the bowels of the Star Destroyer
59:13SPEAKERand you see Kylo Ren on the command pit above you
59:16SPEAKERand all space battles happening.
59:17SPEAKERBut there's one part where you sort of like
59:19SPEAKERare dropped down to the gun deck in the Star Destroyer.
59:23SPEAKERAnd what they basically depict
59:25SPEAKERis like a 19th or 18th century warship gun deck.
59:28SPEAKERLike every single gun is being sort of like laid by hand
59:32SPEAKERby like crew and they are feeding like huge artillery shells
59:36SPEAKERup through the hoist,
59:37SPEAKERbut it's like World War II ammunition feeding mechanism.
59:40SPEAKERBut in terms of like how they are siding the guns,
59:42SPEAKERit is again like massively labor intensive.
59:45SPEAKERThere is no central fire direction.
59:46SPEAKER- You see that in the opening battle of Revenge of the Sith
59:49SPEAKERas well, right?
59:50SPEAKERYou see like giant, like three man crews
59:52SPEAKERloading giant shells into these turbolasers
59:55SPEAKERthat are broadsiding each other.
59:56SPEAKER- Yeah, they're literally poking guns out of holes
59:59SPEAKERin the side of the spaceship to shoot at the other.
1:00:02SPEAKERI mean, there's force fields or whatever,
1:00:03SPEAKERbut yeah, that's absolutely true.
1:00:05SPEAKERIt's, I mean, it's all, it's weirdly anachronistic
1:00:08SPEAKERall the way through when you think about it a little bit.
1:00:12SPEAKER'Cause technology, like, especially with like battle stuff,
1:00:17SPEAKERtechnology has not been good for narrative tension, right?
1:00:20SPEAKERLike it's just not...
1:00:21SPEAKER- Yes, cell phones ruin stories.
1:00:23SPEAKER- Like the top glancy of it all.
1:00:23SPEAKER- Yeah, Vidi's got that rule on the watch cast.
1:00:26SPEAKERWe always have to evaluate,
1:00:27SPEAKERhey, with the presence of cell phones,
1:00:29SPEAKERcompletely negated this entire plot line.
1:00:32SPEAKER- Yeah, does the presence of like a long range salt,
1:00:36SPEAKERlike self guided radar directed missile
1:00:40SPEAKERmake a universe more or less interesting?
1:00:43SPEAKERMakes it a lot less interesting, right?
1:00:44SPEAKERIt's like, how valuable is it to be like the greatest,
1:00:48SPEAKERyou're the greatest star fighter pilot anyone's ever seen.
1:00:52SPEAKERAnd it's like, great.
1:00:53SPEAKERThis dude on the ground is gonna push a button
1:00:55SPEAKERand a missile's gonna come and get you
1:00:56SPEAKERfrom like 20 minutes away.
1:00:58SPEAKERSo you can't have that happening.
1:01:00SPEAKERIt's gotta be a place where like the star fighter
1:01:03SPEAKERis your steed and the battleship
1:01:06SPEAKERis not even like World War II battleship.
1:01:08SPEAKERIt is closer to like the old age of sail man o' war,
1:01:12SPEAKERwhich is also why you get these like ridiculous,
1:01:15SPEAKERis why you get such ridiculous size.
1:01:17SPEAKERThe empire increases firepower, but it can't,
1:01:21SPEAKERthe technology doesn't scale.
1:01:23SPEAKERLike the Death Star is kind of their breakthrough with that,
1:01:25SPEAKERbut like they just have to make ships bigger.
1:01:27SPEAKERSo like the Star Destroyer, you know,
1:01:28SPEAKERhas a massive amount of firepower
1:01:31SPEAKERjust by being a much bigger ship.
1:01:34SPEAKER- But also it has an enormous,
1:01:35SPEAKERlike what's the crew on a Star Destroyer?
1:01:37SPEAKERIt's like 20,000 people or something ridiculous.
1:01:39SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:01:41SPEAKERIt makes sense 'cause like nobody,
1:01:43SPEAKER'cause nothing is automated.
1:01:44SPEAKERAgain, everyone's got their own,
1:01:45SPEAKERlike you get the one knob you work for
1:01:47SPEAKERto fire one of those turbolasers.
1:01:49SPEAKERThe executor has like what?
1:01:50SPEAKER100 turbolasers, 100 ion cannons.
1:01:53SPEAKERYou figure a crew of like,
1:01:55SPEAKERyou're talking a lot of people there.
1:01:57SPEAKER- How do you manage food for a fleet of,
1:02:02SPEAKER'cause there's a lot of Star Destroyers too.
1:02:03SPEAKERThere's dozens, hundreds of Star Destroyers.
1:02:06SPEAKERA few of the big ones, like the executor.
1:02:10SPEAKER- Yeah, how they value the value of,
1:02:12SPEAKERthe relative value of a Star Destroyer changes a lot.
1:02:14SPEAKERThat is a thing they are very fast and loose with
1:02:17SPEAKERin Star Wars.
1:02:17SPEAKERI tend to like the notion that the Imperial
1:02:20SPEAKERtwo class Star Destroyer is like their,
1:02:23SPEAKERthere aren't that many of them.
1:02:24SPEAKERThey're super important when they show up.
1:02:26SPEAKERBut Star Wars, especially like Rebels,
1:02:28SPEAKERloves blowing them the fuck up.
1:02:31SPEAKERAnd so Star Wars ends up in place
1:02:33SPEAKERwhere they're a little bit disposable
1:02:34SPEAKERand that reaches its nadir with,
1:02:39SPEAKERRise of Skywalker, where like,
1:02:41SPEAKERhere's a million Star Destroyers.
1:02:42SPEAKER- Sorry, you're talking like the classic Imperial class?
1:02:45SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:02:46SPEAKER- Like the one, the wedge?
1:02:48SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:02:49SPEAKER- Okay.
1:02:50SPEAKER- Yeah, those to me, like when I was a kid,
1:02:52SPEAKERthose felt like the Nimitz, right?
1:02:54SPEAKERAnd those felt like an enterprise class,
1:02:56SPEAKERnuclear American aircraft carrier.
1:02:59SPEAKERAnd then they made the big one,
1:03:01SPEAKERwhich we don't have a parallel for really, I guess.
1:03:03SPEAKERI mean, maybe we do now.
1:03:04SPEAKERI don't pay attention to that stuff as much anymore.
1:03:05SPEAKER- Was that the only one?
1:03:06SPEAKERThe super, I always knew that as the Super Star Destroyer.
1:03:09SPEAKER- So the Executor is the only one
1:03:12SPEAKERthat we see in the movies.
1:03:14SPEAKERHowever, so in the expanding universe,
1:03:17SPEAKERI think they said there were like a number of them.
1:03:19SPEAKERThere's like Lusankya.
1:03:21SPEAKERThere was the one that Warlord Zinch had,
1:03:23SPEAKERI can't remember the name of that one.
1:03:25SPEAKERBut the idea was there were a bunch of these things,
1:03:27SPEAKERthat they're sort of the flagships
1:03:29SPEAKERof the Empire's various far flung fleets.
1:03:33SPEAKERYou also see one at the start of,
1:03:35SPEAKERkind of a goofy one at the start of
1:03:37SPEAKERDark Forces II Jedi Knight,
1:03:40SPEAKERwhere the sort of rogue Dark Jedi
1:03:42SPEAKERare rocking sort of their own special
1:03:46SPEAKERSuper Star Destroyer.
1:03:47SPEAKERBut that's all EU stuff.
1:03:50SPEAKERAs far as I can tell, the Super Star Destroyer is the,
1:03:54SPEAKERVader's Executor is the one and only.
1:03:58SPEAKER- There was one in X-Wing, one of the X-Wing games too,
1:04:00SPEAKERI think, if I remember right,
1:04:01SPEAKERthat you had to fight, and probably,
1:04:04SPEAKERand if there was one in an X-Wing game,
1:04:05SPEAKERthere was absolutely one in Rebel Assault
1:04:07SPEAKERor one of those CD-ROM games.
1:04:09SPEAKER- Yes, yeah, but was it just the one?
1:04:11SPEAKERMaybe it was just the Executor though.
1:04:13SPEAKER- I don't think so, 'cause I think eventually
1:04:14SPEAKERthey had you blow it up in that game.
1:04:15SPEAKER- Oh, you do blow it up?
1:04:16SPEAKER- Yeah, I think the whole point of having it there
1:04:17SPEAKERwas so you could blow it up, if I had to guess.
1:04:19SPEAKER- Although X-Wing Alliance ends at Endor,
1:04:21SPEAKERso maybe it was the Executor.
1:04:22SPEAKERBut that's the one that I never, I never finished.
1:04:25SPEAKERI was into first person shooters by then.
1:04:28SPEAKERThat game was really hard, yeah.
1:04:29SPEAKER- I can't remember if I finished Alliance either.
1:04:31SPEAKERNow you're taking me back to the '90s
1:04:32SPEAKERwhen I remember thinking like, man,
1:04:33SPEAKERcan you imagine 20 years from now,
1:04:35SPEAKERwhen we have the technology,
1:04:36SPEAKERwe'll be able to recreate the Battle of Endor
1:04:38SPEAKERwith perfect fidelity and the exact same number of ships
1:04:41SPEAKERand everything, right?
1:04:42SPEAKERAnd it'll be massively multiplayer
1:04:43SPEAKERand everybody will be in there,
1:04:44SPEAKERnot knowing that by the time we had that technology,
1:04:46SPEAKERwe would lack the will to build such a thing.
1:04:49SPEAKER- Well, look, there's a really good mod project
1:04:51SPEAKERfor X-Wing Alliance that up-reses everything
1:04:54SPEAKERand makes it all 3D and VR and the whole deal, so.
1:04:57SPEAKER- That's true.
1:04:58SPEAKER- But the problem is we don't even have
1:04:59SPEAKERthe beautiful pipeline or the ecosystem of joysticks.
1:05:03SPEAKERYou know, the glorious sculpted wingman joystick
1:05:08SPEAKERis sort of lost of time.
1:05:10SPEAKERIt's secrets are, it's secrets are lost with it.
1:05:15SPEAKERNow you have to buy some sort of sci-tech thing
1:05:18SPEAKERon the aftermarket and see what you can get.
1:05:21SPEAKERBut so everything in Star Wars, like crew power intensive,
1:05:28SPEAKERthis is, you know, droids take, droids save labor
1:05:32SPEAKERby basically being like, yes, magical assistants
1:05:35SPEAKERwho can do specific tasks and, you know,
1:05:38SPEAKERspare you the need of having compute power
1:05:40SPEAKERor tons of hands touching a thing.
1:05:44SPEAKERThere's one thing, so you mentioned the Memex
1:05:46SPEAKERand I wanted to ask you, in Rogue One,
1:05:51SPEAKERwhen they access the big archive with the secret plans,
1:05:56SPEAKERit's that whole like data retrieval,
1:05:58SPEAKERlike you're pulling cassettes, like a huge vault.
1:06:02SPEAKER- I looked at them as like old school hard drives.
1:06:04SPEAKERLike they looked like 70s era hard drives,
1:06:07SPEAKERlike the ones that held like four megabytes
1:06:09SPEAKERand were 30 pounds big squares, yeah.
1:06:12SPEAKER- Yeah, and they got a whole machine
1:06:13SPEAKERlike maneuvering these things around and that's how you,
1:06:16SPEAKERand I remember I'd seen that one other place.
1:06:19SPEAKERDo you, does any remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger
1:06:23SPEAKERclassic Eraser?
1:06:24SPEAKER- Oh yeah, it's a CIA data retrieval or something, right?
1:06:28SPEAKEROr some weapons lab he has to do.
1:06:31SPEAKER- They have to break into a CD,
1:06:32SPEAKERlike a facility that basically does the same thing
1:06:34SPEAKERwith like CD ROMs.
1:06:35SPEAKERAnd there's a whole like thing with its little like
1:06:39SPEAKERoctopus arms going and grabbing the little drives
1:06:44SPEAKERand they're all like little caddies and that's important.
1:06:48SPEAKERI'm curious, did anything like that exist?
1:06:52SPEAKERLike was that a data storage architecture
1:06:56SPEAKERand approach that was adopted?
1:06:58SPEAKER- Yeah, so in the 90s and honestly,
1:07:02SPEAKERlike there's a place for that with like big CD caddy,
1:07:06SPEAKERlike a big hundred disc Sony CD carousel player,
1:07:11SPEAKERbut the robot arm loading and unloading stuff
1:07:14SPEAKERabsolutely existed.
1:07:15SPEAKERMy first job out of college,
1:07:17SPEAKERI was in charge of maintaining a Colorado,
1:07:21SPEAKERI think 10, two gig or 10 gig tape backup system
1:07:25SPEAKERthat was able to back up our entire server infrastructure
1:07:30SPEAKERacross a 10 megabit network.
1:07:32SPEAKERAnd it had a stack of like 20, two stacks of 20 tapes
1:07:37SPEAKERand you'd load up the tapes in slots
1:07:38SPEAKERand there were two tape players
1:07:40SPEAKERat the bottom of each of those towers,
1:07:41SPEAKERtape recorders at the bottom of each of those towers.
1:07:43SPEAKERAnd the little robot arm would go up
1:07:45SPEAKERand grab the tape out of the slot
1:07:46SPEAKERand then lower it down and jam it into the receiver.
1:07:49SPEAKERAnd then when the tape, when the backup was finished running
1:07:51SPEAKERfor that night, it would pull the tape
1:07:52SPEAKERand go back up and put it back in its slot
1:07:54SPEAKERand do that same thing for every machine in the array.
1:07:58SPEAKERBut, so this was just like the big,
1:08:00SPEAKERthat thing was four feet tall,
1:08:02SPEAKERfive feet tall and weighed a hundred pounds.
1:08:04SPEAKERThis is the institutional infrastructure
1:08:06SPEAKERbuilding version of that.
1:08:08SPEAKER- Yeah, so I think you were,
1:08:10SPEAKERthat didn't have to store the Death Star plans.
1:08:12SPEAKER- We didn't have the Death Star plans, sadly.
1:08:14SPEAKERAt one point, maybe Shogo was on there
1:08:16SPEAKER'cause I brought in a copy
1:08:17SPEAKERand somebody, like, I don't wanna talk about Shogo today.
1:08:22SPEAKERIt's too, too, too real.
1:08:24SPEAKER- Also, I think it's one of their lesser games,
1:08:26SPEAKERbut I know some people really love it.
1:08:28SPEAKER- Look, it had a real moment.
1:08:29SPEAKERIt was a weird time.
1:08:30SPEAKERIt was early, first person shooter, scale changed.
1:08:35SPEAKERThey just made the levels big or small.
1:08:36SPEAKERThat was really cool.
1:08:37SPEAKERIt was no golf, right?
1:08:38SPEAKER- Oh, yeah.
1:08:39SPEAKERI think there's something ironic
1:08:41SPEAKERto an appreciation of Shogo, I find.
1:08:45SPEAKERBut I do love the notion that they have,
1:08:47SPEAKERthat Star Wars, again, implies
1:08:50SPEAKERwith the existence of those machines,
1:08:51SPEAKERsame way compute is really limited.
1:08:54SPEAKERData storage sucks, like the data cards.
1:08:59SPEAKERWe condensed this book from clumsy books
1:09:02SPEAKERdown to a half dozen data cards
1:09:06SPEAKERthat everything, the same way
1:09:09SPEAKERtransmitting audio-visual information across space,
1:09:12SPEAKERmassively intensive.
1:09:14SPEAKERBasic things like recording stuff
1:09:17SPEAKERon some sort of physical medium,
1:09:19SPEAKERthey can't do it very easily.
1:09:21SPEAKERIt requires massive facilities
1:09:22SPEAKERto have a significant amount of data stored in one location.
1:09:26SPEAKER- Maybe their literacy problems
1:09:27SPEAKERmean that they're bad at math.
1:09:29SPEAKERImagine how hard math would be if you didn't have paper.
1:09:33SPEAKERRight, you learn, so if they're bad at math,
1:09:35SPEAKERthey're probably bad at compression,
1:09:37SPEAKERthey're definitely bad at encryption.
1:09:42SPEAKERSo there's a follow-on.
1:09:43SPEAKERThis is all just a base level thing
1:09:47SPEAKERof them not figuring out how to make paper
1:09:49SPEAKERout of trees or papyrus,
1:09:51SPEAKERand not being able to,
1:09:53SPEAKERmaybe there's no slate or chalk in Star Wars.
1:09:57SPEAKER- Well, part of it also is,
1:09:59SPEAKERit's like if, around the time the abacus shows up,
1:10:03SPEAKERthe abacus can think and be your friend.
1:10:06SPEAKERThey're very fuzzy about one droid.
1:10:08SPEAKERDroids are not a technology that's developed.
1:10:10SPEAKERAs far as we can tell, there's no like,
1:10:12SPEAKERah, this is, droids started to exist,
1:10:14SPEAKERand this is how the universe has unfolded since then.
1:10:16SPEAKERDroids are just there in Star Wars.
1:10:19SPEAKERAnd they kind of exist apart from sentient,
1:10:21SPEAKERlike physical beings, from biological beings.
1:10:24SPEAKER- It's true.
1:10:25SPEAKER- But what's weird is they have like specific missions,
1:10:27SPEAKERand there are droid manufacturers out there.
1:10:29SPEAKERThere are like droid series
1:10:31SPEAKERthat are kind of known, they're marketed.
1:10:33SPEAKERBut in terms of like,
1:10:34SPEAKERthe thing I've kind of set for myself there
1:10:37SPEAKERis it's a bit, in BattleTech,
1:10:39SPEAKERthe universe that gave us MechWarrior.
1:10:42SPEAKERThere's this concept of like lost tech, right?
1:10:44SPEAKERThat there are automated factories
1:10:46SPEAKERthat can produce things that we no longer know how to make.
1:10:50SPEAKERWhich by the way, if a bunch of bad shit happened
1:10:51SPEAKERin our world, we would end up in a similar situation
1:10:54SPEAKERwhere it's like, here's a massive semiconductor foundry.
1:10:57SPEAKERHow does it work?
1:10:58SPEAKERNo fucking clue.
1:10:59SPEAKERHow can we rebuild it?
1:11:00SPEAKERCan't.
1:11:01SPEAKER- I started to ask at the top of this podcast
1:11:03SPEAKERwhen we were talking about reported information
1:11:04SPEAKERand literacy and stuff,
1:11:05SPEAKERif this is some kind of an HG Wells situation of society
1:11:09SPEAKERthat has forgotten how most of the stuff works.
1:11:11SPEAKER- Well, I mean, it's like Damascus steel.
1:11:13SPEAKERWe have that.
1:11:14SPEAKERWe have things that people don't know how to make anymore
1:11:15SPEAKERthat we used to know how to make, right?
1:11:18SPEAKERMaybe Damascus steel is a bad example.
1:11:20SPEAKER- It's a flawed example because all the special steel
1:11:23SPEAKERis just that there were special mineral deposits
1:11:26SPEAKERin that locality.
1:11:27SPEAKER- Oh, okay.
1:11:28SPEAKERI have heard that. - When you mixed it in,
1:11:29SPEAKERmade the blade stronger.
1:11:31SPEAKERSo they would just stunt,
1:11:32SPEAKERlike not knowing why or how they made better alloys.
1:11:36SPEAKERAnd that was why, so Damascus was one location.
1:11:38SPEAKERThere's one region in Germany that had like a reputation
1:11:41SPEAKERfor like extremely high quality blades.
1:11:44SPEAKEROnce those deposits ran out,
1:11:46SPEAKERturns out there already is in the world better.
1:11:49SPEAKER- Good to know.
1:11:50SPEAKERBut yeah, I mean, the idea is solid.
1:11:52SPEAKERLike what if the guy who was, I mean,
1:11:55SPEAKERwhat if one guy was, one started a droid foundry,
1:11:58SPEAKERhe's really good at that.
1:11:59SPEAKERAnd then his kid didn't want to do that
1:12:00SPEAKERand wanted to go have a space ice cream stand
1:12:02SPEAKERand the droid foundry shut down
1:12:04SPEAKERand those droids are the good,
1:12:06SPEAKERlike there's no sense of upgrades in the droid world.
1:12:09SPEAKER- What if all the droid foundries are run by droids?
1:12:11SPEAKERMaybe droids are the only ones
1:12:12SPEAKERwho know how to make droids at this point.
1:12:15SPEAKER- Wow. - This is the, okay.
1:12:16SPEAKERSo Star Wars is super hand-wavy about this stuff,
1:12:20SPEAKERbecause if you think about the droid thing too far,
1:12:22SPEAKERyou end up down some, like for one, there's the whole like,
1:12:25SPEAKERso they basically had slaves, right?
1:12:27SPEAKERYeah, but they're like cute little droid robots.
1:12:28SPEAKERSo it's like, fine, they like it.
1:12:30SPEAKERLike there's the whole, the droids place in the society
1:12:34SPEAKERis kind of like can be bleak if you think about it.
1:12:39SPEAKERAnd so we just kind of choose not to
1:12:40SPEAKERexcept some Star Wars authors do.
1:12:43SPEAKERSo we get a glorious, many glorious things happen
1:12:47SPEAKERin the novel by Dave Wolverton,
1:12:49SPEAKERthe courtship of Princess Leia.
1:12:52SPEAKERBut there is a point where Han,
1:12:55SPEAKERbasically the rich kid shows up
1:12:57SPEAKERand he's like gonna steal Han's girl being Princess Leia.
1:13:01SPEAKERAnd Han is like, I gotta show something.
1:13:04SPEAKERI gotta show that I really care, I really get it.
1:13:06SPEAKERI really understand her.
1:13:07SPEAKERI gotta make a big grand gesture.
1:13:10SPEAKERAnd so he has 3PO compose a theme song for Han Solo
1:13:14SPEAKERcalled What a Man Han Solo.
1:13:16SPEAKER- Wait, what? - And in the sequence
1:13:18SPEAKERwhere his whole plan is like basically a press conference,
1:13:21SPEAKERa diplomatic like press conference,
1:13:23SPEAKERhe's like hit it 3PO and 3PO having sort of ability
1:13:28SPEAKERto produce lots of different sounds.
1:13:29SPEAKERWe hear him do like a radio drama for the Ewoks.
1:13:30SPEAKERWe can do all, he can do stuff like this.
1:13:33SPEAKERHe just plays this big like show tune,
1:13:35SPEAKERWhat a Man Han Solo.
1:13:38SPEAKERAnd in this sequence, what is described
1:13:40SPEAKERis everyone's like what the fuck just happened?
1:13:43SPEAKERWhat is happening here?
1:13:45SPEAKERThere's a lot of moments like that
1:13:46SPEAKERin the courtship of Princess Leia,
1:13:47SPEAKERbut he also is at pains to describe
1:13:50SPEAKERthe droids working for the broadcast crews nearby
1:13:55SPEAKERlose their shit, they love it.
1:13:57SPEAKERBecause like it's a huge moment in droids rights.
1:14:01SPEAKERThere's droids rights advocates
1:14:02SPEAKERin the courtship of Princess Leia
1:14:05SPEAKERthat they refer to that like, yeah,
1:14:06SPEAKERwhy shouldn't a droid be allowed to interrupt this proceeding
1:14:10SPEAKERand like sing a little ditty for his body?
1:14:14SPEAKERAnd so like immediately you have like broadcast droids
1:14:17SPEAKERbeing like 3PO your hero, you're here to all of us.
1:14:20SPEAKERAnd everyone's like, get that droid out of here.
1:14:22SPEAKERBut you have implied in this universe,
1:14:25SPEAKERpeople are like, well, droids are people.
1:14:27SPEAKERSo we should like give them that legal status.
1:14:31SPEAKERAnd Andor sort of closes in on that too, right?
1:14:34SPEAKERIt's, you know, you have Andor telling his droid
1:14:38SPEAKERor sorry, Andor's like adoptive mother tells their droid,
1:14:43SPEAKERhey, you don't know, the cops can't mess with you that way.
1:14:45SPEAKERThe cops can't just like turn you off.
1:14:47SPEAKERThat's not allowed, they're not authorized to do that.
1:14:52SPEAKERAnd so like droids do have like some limited legal status
1:14:56SPEAKERin Star Wars and are not merely like machines.
1:15:00SPEAKER- But do they have status as other people's property
1:15:03SPEAKERor do they have status like the cop can't reach into my car
1:15:05SPEAKERand turn the car off if I don't allow that, right?
1:15:08SPEAKERIs it the same situation or is this like
1:15:10SPEAKERthe droid has the right or do I have the right
1:15:12SPEAKERbecause I own the droid?
1:15:14SPEAKER- You could be right.
1:15:15SPEAKERBut it certainly feels like in that scene in Andor.
1:15:18SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:15:19SPEAKER- What she is reassuring the droid is that,
1:15:21SPEAKERhey, man, you got rights.
1:15:23SPEAKER- Yeah, that's when they come to her house
1:15:27SPEAKERto beat the door down to find him, right?
1:15:29SPEAKER- Yeah. - Yeah.
1:15:30SPEAKERI feel like, I mean, I feel like the droid,
1:15:33SPEAKERlike there's, well, I mean, okay,
1:15:35SPEAKERsome of the droids definitely have plot,
1:15:36SPEAKERrights in the form of plot armor, right?
1:15:38SPEAKERSo like your C-3POs and R2D2s and B2EMOs and all those.
1:15:43SPEAKERBut then are there self-owned droids?
1:15:46SPEAKERAre there droids that don't have an owner?
1:15:48SPEAKER'Cause ostensibly Princess Leia and C-3PO
1:15:50SPEAKERand Luke or Anakin own R2D2.
1:15:53SPEAKERAhsoka never gets a droid in the Clone Wars.
1:15:59SPEAKER- So the assassin droids are portrayed as,
1:16:05SPEAKERsorry, not all of them, there's the ones,
1:16:07SPEAKERbut like you see IG-88 as one of the bounty hunters.
1:16:10SPEAKER- Of course. - Oh, right, yeah, yeah.
1:16:12SPEAKERAnd Forlum.
1:16:14SPEAKER- Yeah, they aren't working for them.
1:16:15SPEAKERThey aren't working for other people.
1:16:16SPEAKERIt's not like IG-88 is leased to go do bounty hunter shit.
1:16:20SPEAKERLike IG-88 is in it for the love of the game.
1:16:23SPEAKER- He just likes murdering humans or organics, I think,
1:16:26SPEAKER'cause he's an aficionado.
1:16:27SPEAKER- Yeah, and when you see the other IG series
1:16:29SPEAKERin "The Mandalorian," he follows robot logic.
1:16:33SPEAKERHe's like, I gotta, it's the Taika Waititi droid.
1:16:36SPEAKERLike, sorry, man, like this is my target.
1:16:38SPEAKERI'm here to kill this thing.
1:16:39SPEAKERBut he isn't doing it, I don't think it's implied
1:16:42SPEAKERthat he's doing it for someone else.
1:16:43SPEAKERLike he's just, this is how he makes his money.
1:16:47SPEAKER- Well, he's not, he's taking the bounty for someone else,
1:16:51SPEAKERbut he's not doing the bounty hunting
1:16:52SPEAKERin the first place for someone else.
1:16:54SPEAKERIt's not like he's a proxy for some organic somewhere,
1:16:57SPEAKERbiological.
1:16:59SPEAKERYeah, I mean, look, arguably you'd say
1:17:01SPEAKERthe entire "Star Wars" trilogy should have been
1:17:03SPEAKERthe R2-D2 saga and not the Skywalker saga,
1:17:06SPEAKERbecause he's really the hero of the whole,
1:17:08SPEAKERand until J.J. Abrams got ahold of it,
1:17:10SPEAKERhe was the hero of the whole thing.
1:17:11SPEAKER- Yeah, but also a chaotic element.
1:17:14SPEAKERLike there's, he's our hero, yes, but there is a little bit
1:17:17SPEAKERof like a, almost like a Yago from Othello quality to this.
1:17:23SPEAKERLike, why aren't you just telling people this shit?
1:17:26SPEAKERBoo, boo, boo, boo, boo!
1:17:28SPEAKERLike, just nothing, just giving people zilch.
1:17:32SPEAKERJust quietly, and "Clone Wars" leans all the way into it.
1:17:35SPEAKERLike, R2 is just like, merking droids right and left.
1:17:40SPEAKER- Oh. - And humans, really.
1:17:43SPEAKER- He has a huge kill count.
1:17:44SPEAKERLike, R2-D2's killed a lot of people.
1:17:46SPEAKER- Massive, they're like venting people into space.
1:17:49SPEAKERSo like, the droids, yeah, so there's no first law
1:17:53SPEAKERof robotics type stuff, none of this crap
1:17:56SPEAKERto put guard rails on them.
1:17:57SPEAKERLike, there are droids that like, are sort of,
1:18:01SPEAKERit's in their nature to kill, and then there's droids
1:18:04SPEAKERto sort of change their nature, like R2, to be like, eh.
1:18:08SPEAKEREasiest solution here would just be to get these guys,
1:18:10SPEAKERand he'll do it.
1:18:11SPEAKERBut the thing that is missing in all this is,
1:18:14SPEAKERthere's like no, no one's like, I've made a new droid,
1:18:19SPEAKERhere's a new droid line.
1:18:20SPEAKERThere are places you buy new droids,
1:18:22SPEAKERnew droid models come out, they have reputations,
1:18:25SPEAKERthere are brands, but there is no implication that like,
1:18:29SPEAKERthere is a capitalistic society in "Star Wars"
1:18:32SPEAKERthat is creating droids, and there's like,
1:18:34SPEAKERdroid designers, and they're building, like,
1:18:36SPEAKERthese things do feel like there is an infrastructure
1:18:39SPEAKERthat creates droids that do these jobs in "Star Wars"
1:18:43SPEAKERthat runs independently and without input
1:18:46SPEAKERfrom the biologicals in that universe.
1:18:48SPEAKER- And you hit on it something else too,
1:18:49SPEAKERwhich there doesn't seem to be a lot of consumerism
1:18:52SPEAKERin "Star Wars".
1:18:53SPEAKERLike, everything gets reused, when something gets broken,
1:18:56SPEAKERyou fix it, you don't chuck it and get the new one,
1:18:59SPEAKERall the way down to like, what's her name's character
1:19:02SPEAKERon "The Mandalorian", who lives in one of those tattoo,
1:19:07SPEAKERTatooine docking bays. - Oh, the Sideris character?
1:19:10SPEAKER- Yeah, Sideris's character. - The mechanic, yeah.
1:19:12SPEAKER- Yeah, and she's just basically buying garbage from people
1:19:15SPEAKERand then turning it into stuff that she can sell
1:19:17SPEAKERto people who come through.
1:19:19SPEAKER- Yeah, prior to "Attack of the Clones",
1:19:22SPEAKERwhen you see like, a sports bar
1:19:23SPEAKERand a kind of red light districts, like, I had an,
1:19:25SPEAKERI, it was impossible for me to imagine even any form
1:19:28SPEAKERof like, mass popular media in this universe,
1:19:31SPEAKERlet alone like, an advertising consumer-driven economy,
1:19:35SPEAKERyou know, like, it just, like, those concepts,
1:19:37SPEAKERand I can't even qualify that,
1:19:38SPEAKERI can't give like, a rational reason for that,
1:19:40SPEAKERI just could not see those things even existing
1:19:43SPEAKERin this universe, even when we see signs of them,
1:19:46SPEAKERI'm like, no, that doesn't belong here.
1:19:48SPEAKER- Well, I think a lot of that is on the, in the movies,
1:19:54SPEAKERmost of the movies take place in weird outskirts,
1:19:56SPEAKER'cause that's where the, at least the first movies,
1:19:58SPEAKER'cause that's where the rebels are hiding.
1:20:00SPEAKERIn the cartoons, you see a lot more of like, the real,
1:20:04SPEAKERyou know, the main part of the civilization
1:20:06SPEAKERto the point that like, there's screens every, you know,
1:20:09SPEAKERit's full-on cyber dystopia in Khorasan,
1:20:12SPEAKERand you see like, screens pop up with like,
1:20:16SPEAKERwanted posters and current events and, you know,
1:20:20SPEAKERall the happenings of the day, kind of.
1:20:23SPEAKER- There's a lot there, this is, God, I love this stuff,
1:20:27SPEAKERlike, literally, this is why I'm, this is why I'm a menace
1:20:30SPEAKERas the host of AMCA, 'cause I will,
1:20:31SPEAKERI will talk about this stuff all night.
1:20:34SPEAKERSo, there's a couple things.
1:20:37SPEAKEROne is that, to the point of consumerism in Star Wars,
1:20:40SPEAKERone, I think there's a lot of implications that,
1:20:43SPEAKERby and large, Star Wars operates almost
1:20:45SPEAKERas like, feudal economies.
1:20:47SPEAKERThat like, resources are stripped from planets
1:20:49SPEAKERand sent to like, a few cosmopolitan, like, metropoles
1:20:54SPEAKERthat exist in the galaxy, but by and largely,
1:20:57SPEAKERif you're not in, if you're not in that territory,
1:21:01SPEAKERthen it is subsistence, you know, agriculture,
1:21:05SPEAKERyou know, strip mining, that's what's out there for you.
1:21:10SPEAKERI think related to that is, are you familiar
1:21:13SPEAKERwith this argument that like, the modern cargo container
1:21:17SPEAKERis basically like, the key to modern commerce?
1:21:21SPEAKER- Yeah, the, Alexis Madrigal did a podcast series
1:21:24SPEAKERabout this like, 10 years ago now that's fabulous if people,
1:21:27SPEAKERif people wanna listen to it.
1:21:29SPEAKERAnd there's something to that, like, if you look at,
1:21:33SPEAKERif you think about like, what Tramp Freighter
1:21:35SPEAKERlooks like in the 1920s or something, you know,
1:21:37SPEAKERyou've seen these things, right?
1:21:39SPEAKEROld Bogart movies and such, the hold has a hatch
1:21:42SPEAKERin the deck of the ship and people are lowering
1:21:45SPEAKERwhatever random shit, you know, as the cargo that week
1:21:48SPEAKERis being lowered into the hull and you have stevedores
1:21:52SPEAKERsort of sorting it and like, securing it,
1:21:53SPEAKERbut it's all, it's all very grab bags,
1:21:55SPEAKERnot standardized at all.
1:21:57SPEAKERStar Wars clearly operates that way.
1:21:59SPEAKERBut the only thing we see close to a cargo container ship
1:22:01SPEAKERis in the clone, in Rebels, there is a massive
1:22:06SPEAKERImperial container ship that is like,
1:22:08SPEAKERthis is where they meet AP-5, he's a big like,
1:22:10SPEAKERlogistics droid, but they fly big cargo container haulers
1:22:14SPEAKERaround and this is sort of innovation that the Empire
1:22:17SPEAKERis bringing to the galaxy, which dovetails what we see
1:22:21SPEAKERin Andor, which is when, you know, what are they doing
1:22:23SPEAKERon Aldani, they're building a military fulfillment center.
1:22:27SPEAKERIt's sort of Amazon militant is what they're doing
1:22:31SPEAKERin Aldani.
1:22:32SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:22:33SPEAKER- So, they don't have the capacity, like,
1:22:37SPEAKERto move goods from one place to another,
1:22:39SPEAKERyou're kind of hiring random freighters and merchants
1:22:44SPEAKERto sort of bring good, it's very like, age of sale,
1:22:48SPEAKERage of discovery type stuff of like, there aren't,
1:22:51SPEAKERthere's barely big shipping firms.
1:22:53SPEAKERThere's just a lot of like, independent operators,
1:22:56SPEAKERthere's a lot of different like, ship types
1:22:57SPEAKERand maybe goods are brought to your planet,
1:22:59SPEAKERmaybe they're not, but there is no like,
1:23:01SPEAKERnetworked global trade infrastructure, which, you know,
1:23:05SPEAKERobviously would also be harder because again,
1:23:07SPEAKERinformation doesn't travel well, which is also why,
1:23:12SPEAKERyou know, it both works for and against the Empire
1:23:15SPEAKERin that their ability to propagandize is fairly limited.
1:23:19SPEAKERThat the Jedi sort of stick their head in the lion's mouth
1:23:22SPEAKERin Clone Wars because Palpatine has what the only media
1:23:28SPEAKERlike, center there is in the galaxy is on Coruscant
1:23:31SPEAKERand you can sort of broadcast to those people,
1:23:33SPEAKERbut you know, you get outside Coruscant,
1:23:36SPEAKERpeople have a really murky idea
1:23:38SPEAKERof what's happening in the galaxy.
1:23:39SPEAKER- Well, I mean, it works like the age of sale
1:23:41SPEAKERwhere you drop missives in the hold of a ship
1:23:45SPEAKERgoing the direction you want to send them
1:23:47SPEAKERand then the news gets there when the ship gets there,
1:23:48SPEAKERright, theoretically.
1:23:51SPEAKERAnd I think it's what makes, like in skeleton crew,
1:23:53SPEAKERwe just saw what's kind of weird about that planet
1:23:55SPEAKERis that it does have a sort of 20th century consumer culture.
1:24:00SPEAKERIt has something akin to a local mass media
1:24:04SPEAKERthat sort of everyone is plugged into.
1:24:07SPEAKER- Well, and they have fungible currency
1:24:09SPEAKERthat's easily transmissible and a lot of it, it seems.
1:24:13SPEAKER- Right, and it's one of the things that's unsettling
1:24:14SPEAKER'cause if you know Star Wars, it's like,
1:24:18SPEAKERthese things don't exist.
1:24:20SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, it's the Star Wars suburbs,
1:24:22SPEAKERwhich we've never seen before.
1:24:24SPEAKERLook, I have other questions about skeleton crew.
1:24:26SPEAKERI think we're getting close to time,
1:24:28SPEAKERbut the money situation between the stuff
1:24:33SPEAKERthat you see in Clone Wars with the moons, which is wild,
1:24:38SPEAKERlike the fact that they made a children's cartoon
1:24:40SPEAKERabout interest rates and war bond profiteering
1:24:43SPEAKERis incredible to me.
1:24:45SPEAKERAnd it's not just one episode,
1:24:46SPEAKERit's like three or four, I think, too.
1:24:48SPEAKERThen the fact that the Empire's payroll operates in cash,
1:24:54SPEAKERwhich was what we learned in Andor in the Aldani arc,
1:24:57SPEAKERfollowed by the thing that just happened in skeleton crew,
1:25:01SPEAKERwhich is that, I guess, spoiler alert,
1:25:04SPEAKER'cause this is relatively new,
1:25:06SPEAKERthey find an incredible amount of money
1:25:08SPEAKERby Star Wars standards in this planet
1:25:11SPEAKERat the end of skeleton crew that if it gets out,
1:25:14SPEAKERwill literally destabilize the entire galactic economy,
1:25:17SPEAKERit seems like.
1:25:19SPEAKER- I don't know.
1:25:19SPEAKER- Certainly nobody in Star Wars is bright enough
1:25:21SPEAKERto know that that's what's gonna happen.
1:25:24SPEAKER- Like, you mean nobody in the,
1:25:25SPEAKERno characters in Star Wars or no people
1:25:28SPEAKERworking on Star Wars currently?
1:25:29SPEAKER- I don't think economically we exist in Star Wars.
1:25:31SPEAKER- Oh yeah, yeah, there's no central economy for, well-
1:25:33SPEAKER- It's gonna be a bit hot being like, "Ho, ho, ho, ho."
1:25:36SPEAKERJust like getting pissed off 'cause you're just dumping
1:25:40SPEAKERpiles of ducats on someone's desk.
1:25:43SPEAKERLike, sorry, man, that's just not enough.
1:25:46SPEAKER- When does that show take place?
1:25:48SPEAKERLike just in the larger timeline?
1:25:49SPEAKER- Sometime post-Endor.
1:25:51SPEAKER- Yeah, it's just post-Endor.
1:25:52SPEAKERI think it's pre-Mandalorian post-Endor
1:25:55SPEAKERor early Mandalorian post-Endor.
1:25:57SPEAKERThat show's worth watching.
1:25:58SPEAKERI enjoyed, the show's great, highly recommend it.
1:26:00SPEAKER- I dig it.
1:26:01SPEAKERSo there's a few things that are interesting
1:26:03SPEAKERwith the currency.
1:26:04SPEAKERSo in the Clone Wars,
1:26:07SPEAKERthis kind of blew our minds when we encountered it.
1:26:09SPEAKERThey eventually go to the banking clans
1:26:11SPEAKERlike space Switzerland planet, right?
1:26:14SPEAKERAnd the whole, all their vaults and shit have massive,
1:26:17SPEAKERlike they are built like huge circuits.
1:26:20SPEAKERIt's like reboot where you're inside the computer.
1:26:24SPEAKERAnd the implication that we started to pick up from that
1:26:26SPEAKERwas the banking clan is operating effectively at crypto.
1:26:32SPEAKERLike their operations are effectively functioning
1:26:36SPEAKERas sort of a crypto enterprise.
1:26:39SPEAKERThat they have massive ledgers
1:26:43SPEAKERthat they are keeping track of on this planet,
1:26:45SPEAKERbut it's Star Wars so you basically need a planet's
1:26:47SPEAKERworth of computing to maintain these ledgers
1:26:50SPEAKERand like conduct these transactions.
1:26:55SPEAKERBut crucially, if this is the sort of currency
1:27:01SPEAKERthat backs the Republic,
1:27:03SPEAKERthis is where they're, this is sort of the,
1:27:05SPEAKERthey go to the banking clan when they need to raise funds.
1:27:08SPEAKERThis cryptocurrency that they appear to be running
1:27:13SPEAKERis something that like when we meet Watto, he refuses it.
1:27:17SPEAKERHe doesn't want Republic credits.
1:27:19SPEAKERLike outside of the Republic, that shit has no value.
1:27:23SPEAKERHe's not gonna take a sort of a marker from Qui-Gon.
1:27:28SPEAKERHe needs something more real than what the Republic uses.
1:27:33SPEAKERThe Empire uses a hard currency,
1:27:37SPEAKERbut what we kind of get in Skeleton Crew
1:27:39SPEAKERis by the time Endor rolls around,
1:27:42SPEAKERthat currency is so debased that everyone's like,
1:27:44SPEAKERremember the good old days when we had like real money
1:27:46SPEAKERfrom the Republic and the leftover Republic specie
1:27:50SPEAKERis now like the highest value currency in the galaxy,
1:27:53SPEAKERmuch more so than the Imperial credits
1:27:57SPEAKERand whatever the hell the new Republic is issuing.
1:28:00SPEAKERAnd then you get to the Planet and Skeleton Crew.
1:28:03SPEAKERAnd once again, there's some evidence
1:28:04SPEAKERthat they're basically doing something that amounts to crypto
1:28:08SPEAKERthat they're plating, that they're creating these chits,
1:28:12SPEAKERbut the chits have some sort of like electronic
1:28:15SPEAKERdata component on them.
1:28:17SPEAKERAnd then they're plating it to look like a metal currency.
1:28:21SPEAKER- Okay, there's a lot here.
1:28:23SPEAKERFor the record, the Clone Wars episodes
1:28:27SPEAKERall predate crypto being a normal thing,
1:28:30SPEAKERthe thing that normal people know about, right?
1:28:32SPEAKER- Yes, they do.
1:28:33SPEAKER- By a pretty substantial margin.
1:28:34SPEAKER'Cause like the earliest I heard about crypto
1:28:36SPEAKERwas like 2010, I think.
1:28:38SPEAKERAnd like normal people didn't hear about for five years.
1:28:40SPEAKER- But when does the paper come out
1:28:42SPEAKERthat posits that it could be a currency?
1:28:44SPEAKER- Oh, that was early late 2009, I think.
1:28:47SPEAKERThe original Bitcoin paper.
1:28:51SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:28:52SPEAKER- I'm gonna go fact check here.
1:28:54SPEAKEROf course the US doesn't have it listed.
1:28:57SPEAKER- I'm trying to find the...
1:28:59SPEAKEROkay, 2008.
1:29:00SPEAKER- So this was post Clone Wars then.
1:29:02SPEAKER- Yeah, you're right.
1:29:03SPEAKER- 'Cause that was like season four.
1:29:05SPEAKER- I thought it was late, late in the original run.
1:29:07SPEAKER- No, wait, hang on.
1:29:09SPEAKERThe Clone Wars starts airing in 2008.
1:29:12SPEAKER- Yeah, but like literally the first time somebody said
1:29:15SPEAKERthat I was covering technology at the time.
1:29:18SPEAKER- Except the show is made out of Silicon Valley.
1:29:20SPEAKER- Well, it's made out of Marin.
1:29:21SPEAKER- And also like George, there's people on the team like,
1:29:25SPEAKERthey're clever people.
1:29:27SPEAKER- Wow, so okay.
1:29:27SPEAKERSo the cycle is Watto doesn't like
1:29:31SPEAKERthe crypto backed Republic currency.
1:29:33SPEAKERSo he's on the gold standard with the huts.
1:29:37SPEAKERAnd then the Republic collapses,
1:29:39SPEAKERthe Empire makes their own fake funny money,
1:29:40SPEAKERwhich is good for like 20 years,
1:29:42SPEAKERbut is probably massively inflationary by the end
1:29:45SPEAKERbecause they have to print a shitload of money to buy food
1:29:49SPEAKERor at least to pay the people that they're stealing food from
1:29:52SPEAKERto feed their enormous army for the spaceships
1:29:55SPEAKERthat have 20,000 people pop on them.
1:29:57SPEAKERAnd then the Empire collapses
1:30:00SPEAKERand that money becomes even more valueless somehow.
1:30:02SPEAKERLike we're talking Nigeria printing more new money
1:30:05SPEAKERevery day kind of money is a situation.
1:30:07SPEAKERSo then the old currency is good.
1:30:10SPEAKERAnd then it seems like the new Republic currency
1:30:12SPEAKERis maybe garbage in the skeleton crew timeline.
1:30:15SPEAKER- Yup.
1:30:16SPEAKER- So now looking back at the Republic currency
1:30:21SPEAKERthat was being issued and like, man,
1:30:23SPEAKERif only we get our hands on that.
1:30:25SPEAKER- So Star Wars is all about the importance
1:30:27SPEAKERof managing a centralized economy.
1:30:29SPEAKERBut that would be consistent with Lucas's politics.
1:30:32SPEAKER(laughing)
1:30:34SPEAKER- He did kind of look at like,
1:30:36SPEAKERhow are we gonna tell the origin story of the Empire?
1:30:37SPEAKERWell, let me tell you.
1:30:41SPEAKER- Can I bring up one more topic very quickly before we go?
1:30:44SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:30:45SPEAKER- So this is one of the things I, in my older age,
1:30:49SPEAKERI find the most fascinating in Star Wars.
1:30:51SPEAKERWe touched on this a little bit earlier
1:30:53SPEAKERand we just talk about Anakin and his whole deal.
1:30:55SPEAKER- Well, that kind of narrows it down.
1:30:57SPEAKER- Well, okay, his physical existence,
1:31:00SPEAKERlet's say, post-Burning to a Crisp.
1:31:01SPEAKER- Oh, sorry, I thought you meant Anakin like,
1:31:05SPEAKERyou mean Vader.
1:31:06SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, sure.
1:31:07SPEAKER- Oh, I thought you meant the spontaneous generation
1:31:11SPEAKERof Anakin Skywalker.
1:31:12SPEAKER- No, no, no.
1:31:12SPEAKER- I thought you were talking about
1:31:13SPEAKERwhy is he so good at fixing droids?
1:31:15SPEAKER- Say whatever else you will about the prequels,
1:31:17SPEAKERbut those are the things that gave me
1:31:19SPEAKERthe continuity of narrative
1:31:20SPEAKERto think of Vader as Anakin, right?
1:31:22SPEAKERI never really thought about what was Anakin Skywalker
1:31:25SPEAKERother than a name you hear once or twice
1:31:28SPEAKERin the entire trilogy until the prequels came along.
1:31:30SPEAKERBut like, I mean, I'm fascinated by his deal thematically
1:31:34SPEAKERbecause like to fall from such a height, you know,
1:31:36SPEAKERto have literally the best space wizard powers in history
1:31:40SPEAKERand to end up like that is, you know,
1:31:42SPEAKERlike certainly very tragic from a thematic standpoint,
1:31:45SPEAKERbut also just like the mechanics of taking
1:31:47SPEAKERwhat is left of him and cramming him in that suit
1:31:49SPEAKERand making him continue to live.
1:31:52SPEAKERLike, this is just kind of a conversation starter.
1:31:54SPEAKERI'm not sure I have a question here.
1:31:56SPEAKER- So I think there's a couple of things.
1:31:57SPEAKERFirst is, is he being kept alive by technology, purely?
1:32:01SPEAKEROr is there a Sith thing happening
1:32:03SPEAKERthat's inherent to him being like kept alive?
1:32:06SPEAKER- I don't want to dip too much into EU
1:32:07SPEAKERor like fan theories or whatever.
1:32:09SPEAKERAlthough this is a good chance to rep
1:32:12SPEAKERthe Matthew Stover novelization of "Revenge of the Sith."
1:32:15SPEAKERRob, I assume you've read that.
1:32:17SPEAKER- I have not, actually. - You have not?
1:32:19SPEAKER- No. - You should really read that.
1:32:20SPEAKERYou guys, you should do that for a podcast.
1:32:23SPEAKERYou guys should read that book at some point
1:32:24SPEAKERand do a podcast on it. - Well, let's not burn
1:32:25SPEAKERthrough all the content we want to cover.
1:32:27SPEAKERWe'll be dipping into the novelizations for sure.
1:32:29SPEAKERBut yeah, I've heard there's some things
1:32:31SPEAKERthat are in there that are like,
1:32:32SPEAKERwell, like for instance, we are aware
1:32:34SPEAKERthat in the novelization of "Attack of the Clones,"
1:32:37SPEAKERDooku basically gives sort of like
1:32:40SPEAKERa Bernie Sanders speech almost, right?
1:32:42SPEAKERWhere he's like, the Republic serves the oligarchs
1:32:46SPEAKERwho are in charge of it.
1:32:47SPEAKERAnd I'm telling you right now,
1:32:48SPEAKERa Sith is running the entire thing.
1:32:50SPEAKERAnd so it's like, whoa, whoa, Dooku's cooking.
1:32:52SPEAKERHold on, Obi-Wan, hear him out.
1:32:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, yeah, the Stover book
1:32:55SPEAKERexpands massively on Anakin's turn
1:32:58SPEAKERand why he was so strung out and mistrustful by the end
1:33:02SPEAKERthat he would actually take the actions he did.
1:33:04SPEAKERBut it also, it gets into, we touched on this earlier,
1:33:07SPEAKERhow long was he lying there on the table
1:33:09SPEAKERas they bolted things onto him to make him continue to live?
1:33:12SPEAKERI want to say the book implies it's like a matter of days,
1:33:15SPEAKERthat that surgical process is days long,
1:33:17SPEAKERbut I can't quite remember.
1:33:18SPEAKER- Well, so I watched, this is one of the other things
1:33:21SPEAKERI watched, 'cause I wanted to remember it,
1:33:24SPEAKER'cause I knew we were gonna talk about it.
1:33:26SPEAKERWhen Palpatine gets to Anakin on Mustafar
1:33:30SPEAKERand he's laying there and he's like,
1:33:32SPEAKERhe's pulled himself up way far enough from the lava
1:33:34SPEAKERthat he's no longer like getting singed further,
1:33:37SPEAKERbut it's bad.
1:33:39SPEAKERThe first thing Palpatine does is kneels down next to him
1:33:41SPEAKERand does like some hand wavy stuff over his head
1:33:45SPEAKERthat I assumed, I read in this viewing as,
1:33:49SPEAKERthat's some weird Sith shit right there.
1:33:51SPEAKERLike he's doing some dark magic,
1:33:53SPEAKERbut also he's pretty full of rage, right?
1:33:55SPEAKERHe's an angry guy and we all know anger,
1:33:59SPEAKERyou know, it's gonna keep him going.
1:34:01SPEAKER- Like there's so much, I kind of love,
1:34:05SPEAKERlike I'll need to read more stories,
1:34:09SPEAKERlike I love the notion, I often think about like
1:34:13SPEAKERthe parts of the facade of the lies that Anakin's told,
1:34:16SPEAKERlike as they begin to crack, right?
1:34:18SPEAKERLike when you realize your son is alive and out there.
1:34:21SPEAKERAnd so the whole like, oh, sorry Padme died
1:34:24SPEAKERand we lost the kids.
1:34:27SPEAKERThe realization that like that sort of cornerstone
1:34:29SPEAKERof him becoming Darth Vader, that was bullshit.
1:34:32SPEAKERAnd sort of the slow, like, well, wait,
1:34:34SPEAKERwhat else has been bullshit?
1:34:35SPEAKERThe same way like, you know, there's,
1:34:40SPEAKERthe suit keeps him alive, but does it also,
1:34:44SPEAKERPalpatine builds the suit.
1:34:47SPEAKERAnd nothing Palpatine gives anyone
1:34:52SPEAKERis sort of untainted, right?
1:34:54SPEAKEREverything is double edged, so the suit is at once
1:34:58SPEAKERhis life support system, but is it a good one?
1:35:01SPEAKERDoes it keep him, like, does he have to live
1:35:05SPEAKERin extreme pain or is it just like,
1:35:06SPEAKERis that a feature and not a bug?
1:35:08SPEAKERBecause the other thing that, the reason Palpatine
1:35:11SPEAKERneeded Anakin in the first place was like,
1:35:13SPEAKERAnakin has greater potential as a Jedi,
1:35:17SPEAKERhas greater force potential than Palpatine.
1:35:20SPEAKERPalpatine recognizes earlier that this guy is a threat,
1:35:23SPEAKERmaybe the only threat he has to worry about.
1:35:25SPEAKERAnd so, you know, one, it's a great coup
1:35:28SPEAKERto sort of make him your henchman,
1:35:29SPEAKERbut also there is that underlying like fear
1:35:32SPEAKERof what this guy could do.
1:35:34SPEAKERAnd so it works out quite nicely for Palpatine
1:35:37SPEAKERthat Obi-Wan, you know, largely mutilates this guy
1:35:41SPEAKERand leaves him badly wounded.
1:35:43SPEAKERBut you wonder how much of that could be recovered from,
1:35:47SPEAKERbut does Palpatine even want that?
1:35:48SPEAKERDoes Palpatine want that suit to basically be
1:35:50SPEAKERlike an iron lung that like caps what he is capable
1:35:55SPEAKERof doing that, you know, the extent of his force power
1:35:57SPEAKERis kind of gonna be as like sort of a lurching,
1:36:00SPEAKERyou know, golem out there in the universe.
1:36:05SPEAKERAnd not like a Jedi, not really even like a Seth.
1:36:08SPEAKER- There's some really great metaphorical language
1:36:10SPEAKERin that novelization.
1:36:11SPEAKERLike there's an amazing line at the end of the book
1:36:14SPEAKERwhen he emerges in the suit that describes the suit as,
1:36:16SPEAKERif I remember, it describes it as a magnificent jewel box
1:36:20SPEAKERto display the greatest treasure of the Sith.
1:36:23SPEAKERSo like- - That's a great line.
1:36:24SPEAKER- Yeah, it is. - Wow.
1:36:25SPEAKER- And it's like, and it is, you know,
1:36:26SPEAKERit's like as much as it is life support system,
1:36:28SPEAKERit's also a cage and a display case, you know,
1:36:30SPEAKERand it's a limiting factor as much as a-
1:36:33SPEAKER- Yeah, Rob, I think you hit on the thing
1:36:34SPEAKERthat I always wondered is that whether Palpatine was upset
1:36:37SPEAKERthat his best weapon got limited by this outing to Mustafar,
1:36:44SPEAKERor if he's relieved that he doesn't have to do,
1:36:47SPEAKERlike that he's diminished as a result of his injuries
1:36:51SPEAKERand thus isn't a real threat anymore.
1:36:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I think he's, I think certainly by the last scene,
1:36:57SPEAKERhe seems kind of pleased, right?
1:36:58SPEAKERHe's in that Palpatine, like sort of pervy vibe
1:37:02SPEAKERof like, hee hee hee hee.
1:37:03SPEAKER- Full fraud, yeah.
1:37:04SPEAKER- Yeah, and so I do think he has some warmth
1:37:08SPEAKERand like, you know, weird, like fucked up way,
1:37:10SPEAKERlike some tenderness toward Anakin,
1:37:12SPEAKERbut also he loves seeing him like fall and get twisted
1:37:15SPEAKERand also become, you know, the problem the Sith have
1:37:19SPEAKERis sort of the rule of two means eventually
1:37:20SPEAKERyou're gonna have to wash your back.
1:37:22SPEAKERAnd I think with Anakin, he's got the closest thing
1:37:24SPEAKERhe's ever gonna have to like,
1:37:25SPEAKERwell, I actually don't have to wash my back.
1:37:27SPEAKERLike this guy is completely dependent
1:37:29SPEAKERand not just like physically,
1:37:31SPEAKERbut also just like psychologically,
1:37:33SPEAKERthat he doesn't have it in him to imagine rebellion.
1:37:35SPEAKER- Like the book touches on that too,
1:37:37SPEAKERthat like Anakin at once despises Palpatine,
1:37:40SPEAKERbut also realizes he's the only thing that he has left.
1:37:43SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:37:44SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a real abusive relationship situation there.
1:37:46SPEAKERBut bundle up with a real nice chunk of,
1:37:48SPEAKERhey, weirdness about disability and prosthetics,
1:37:54SPEAKERall in one delightful little Darth Vader shaped bundle.
1:37:59SPEAKERI think that's as good a place as any to wrap it up, Rob.
1:38:03SPEAKERThis has been a blast.
1:38:04SPEAKERThank you so much for coming by.
1:38:05SPEAKER- Oh, no problem.
1:38:06SPEAKERActually, there's one last thought I did have.
1:38:07SPEAKER- Oh, yeah, yeah.
1:38:08SPEAKER- I think it's worth noting,
1:38:10SPEAKERthe empire's continually obsessed
1:38:12SPEAKERwith reproducing Sith force powers through technology,
1:38:16SPEAKERwhich is another kind of interesting-
1:38:20SPEAKER- How so?
1:38:21SPEAKER- So to a degree, like the Death Star itself
1:38:24SPEAKERis sort of a provision of the lightsaber.
1:38:27SPEAKERAnd we sort of, again, in Rebels,
1:38:29SPEAKERwe see them activating the Sith built,
1:38:32SPEAKERsomething similar, Darth Maul almost activates it
1:38:34SPEAKERat the end of season two,
1:38:36SPEAKERwhere he turns on this big Sith machine
1:38:38SPEAKERthat looks like it's about to zap distant planets.
1:38:43SPEAKERAnd then Vader shows up and Ezra Bridger,
1:38:45SPEAKERthey stop the whole thing.
1:38:46SPEAKERBut the Sith build stuff like this.
1:38:49SPEAKERAlso in Rebels, there's a thing you sort of see where,
1:38:54SPEAKERGod, we just got to this.
1:38:56SPEAKERThis is a spoiler for people at this point.
1:38:58SPEAKERBut we are current with this episode.
1:39:01SPEAKEROne of the characters on Rebels builds this device
1:39:05SPEAKERthat's like sort of an anti-Mandalorian super weapon.
1:39:09SPEAKERAnd it functions kind of like a neutron bomb,
1:39:11SPEAKERbut in its appearance, it's like Sith lightning.
1:39:14SPEAKERIt zaps people and just renders them to dust.
1:39:19SPEAKERAnd it 100%, in terms of vibe,
1:39:22SPEAKERthe way it functions, completely like a Sith technology.
1:39:27SPEAKERAnd so I think there's a thing you see
1:39:30SPEAKERrunning through a lot of this,
1:39:31SPEAKERwhere a lot of the inspiration
1:39:32SPEAKERfor the Empire's technical development
1:39:36SPEAKERis often how do you create some sort of technical solution
1:39:40SPEAKERto things that a Sith like Palpatine
1:39:45SPEAKERwould just know how to do?
1:39:46SPEAKERBecause his big problem is he can't be everywhere.
1:39:49SPEAKERHow do you rule the galaxy
1:39:52SPEAKERwithout sharing or dividing your power?
1:39:54SPEAKERWell, if you can't be everywhere,
1:39:56SPEAKERyou try to give some semblance of your special abilities.
1:40:01SPEAKERTo your armed forces.
1:40:02SPEAKERAnd so the Empire's technological direction
1:40:05SPEAKERis in some ways informed by like force myth, force powers.
1:40:09SPEAKER- That makes a ton of sense.
1:40:10SPEAKERI never thought about it that way.
1:40:10SPEAKERThat's fascinating.
1:40:13SPEAKERRob, where can people find you
1:40:14SPEAKERif they want to get more Zakhni in their life?
1:40:17SPEAKER- Oh gosh.
1:40:18SPEAKERSo yeah, I'm on Blue Sky,
1:40:20SPEAKERbut I'm not on social media as much.
1:40:24SPEAKERProbably the place I'm hanging out most is Remap Radio,
1:40:27SPEAKERremapradio.com.
1:40:29SPEAKERYou can also listen to me talk about Formula One
1:40:31SPEAKERat Shift F1 and then yeah, I'm on a more civilized age.
1:40:37SPEAKERDo too many things.
1:40:38SPEAKERI have the problem of people in our demographic
1:40:42SPEAKERwhere you get an interest and it's like,
1:40:44SPEAKERhey, this could be a podcast.
1:40:47SPEAKERAnd that's the only way you maintain adult friendships.
1:40:49SPEAKER- It turns out if you want to talk to other adults
1:40:51SPEAKERthat have the same interests as you,
1:40:52SPEAKERthe best way to do it is to start a podcast.
1:40:54SPEAKERWho knew?
1:40:55SPEAKER- Yeah, Rob, you'll appreciate this.
1:40:57SPEAKERI heard on a different podcast, a definition
1:40:59SPEAKERof techno feudalism yesterday,
1:41:01SPEAKERthat I don't know that I could get this entirely right.
1:41:03SPEAKERThat people like us, people that make content
1:41:05SPEAKERare effectively the farmers in the techno feudal system.
1:41:08SPEAKERAnd the landowners are the people
1:41:10SPEAKERthat own the digital cloud platforms.
1:41:12SPEAKERThey seek rents from the farmers who are farming,
1:41:15SPEAKERtilling the digital fields and dispersing their content
1:41:19SPEAKERto the masses who are consuming it.
1:41:21SPEAKER- And then the kings are the venture capitalists
1:41:23SPEAKERthat funded the platforms in the first place?
1:41:25SPEAKER- Basically, yes.
1:41:26SPEAKER- That's great.
1:41:27SPEAKER- There's a lot to that.
1:41:28SPEAKERThey haven't fully enclosed podcasts, fortunately.
1:41:30SPEAKERBut if you look at, you know,
1:41:32SPEAKERif somebody wanted to put the screws to you on Patreon,
1:41:34SPEAKERwe've seen, we've gotten tastes of that.
1:41:36SPEAKERBut like, it could be done, right?
1:41:38SPEAKERYou know, you make things as bad as possible
1:41:40SPEAKERbefore you would risk the platform supremacy.
1:41:43SPEAKERSo there's, you know, there's always,
1:41:47SPEAKERthere's always money in the banana stand, I think,
1:41:49SPEAKERwhen it comes to, once you have that sort of market power,
1:41:52SPEAKERyou can just sort of adjust prices as you sort of,
1:41:55SPEAKERI'm sure we all get those emails, like start every year,
1:41:57SPEAKERprice adjustment from the service
1:41:59SPEAKERyou have almost no choice but to use.
1:42:01SPEAKER- Well, I've been thinking about this a lot lately
1:42:03SPEAKERfor the, because of the newsletter I started.
1:42:05SPEAKERAnd there's always, there's always the tipping point.
1:42:09SPEAKERThe question is, how far do the platforms go?
1:42:13SPEAKERLike, how much annoyance am I willing to put up with
1:42:16SPEAKERto avoid having to set up a ghost
1:42:18SPEAKERand connect it to a Stripe account
1:42:20SPEAKERand do all the pain in the ass that that involves,
1:42:23SPEAKERand then figure out how to reconnect it into the Discord,
1:42:26SPEAKERyou know, all the different things.
1:42:27SPEAKER- I'll tell you this, that is not the pain in the ass.
1:42:29SPEAKER- Okay.
1:42:30SPEAKER- Straight up.
1:42:31SPEAKERSo Stripe is, Stripe concerns me
1:42:33SPEAKERbecause when I was looking into this,
1:42:34SPEAKERlike Stripe is kind of a monopoly.
1:42:37SPEAKERThe people behind Stripe are not like always,
1:42:38SPEAKERlike not the best people.
1:42:41SPEAKERBut in terms of being able to set that stuff up,
1:42:46SPEAKERStripe is pretty straightforward.
1:42:47SPEAKERIt's pretty functional.
1:42:50SPEAKERSo one of the things I learned when Waypoint went down,
1:42:55SPEAKERit was time to sort of start a business,
1:42:56SPEAKERwas a lot of this is shockingly easy to stand up.
1:42:59SPEAKERAnd like, if you really look at what Patreon does,
1:43:03SPEAKERthe reason like a lot of my other businesses
1:43:05SPEAKERran on Patreon is that, well, that's where your audience is.
1:43:08SPEAKERAnd you're gonna, like, how do you move them over
1:43:10SPEAKERoff Patreon, that's good.
1:43:11SPEAKERHow do you have new audiences discover you?
1:43:13SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:43:14SPEAKER- How do you solve that problem?
1:43:15SPEAKERSo a lot of us are kind of wedded to the platform
1:43:17SPEAKERin that way.
1:43:18SPEAKERBut from the standpoint of like, what makes it all go,
1:43:21SPEAKERsomeone doing like transaction, like security,
1:43:24SPEAKERand handling, that is not the hard part.
1:43:27SPEAKERAnd to an extent, like what Patreon does is like,
1:43:31SPEAKERthey are a Stripe account that distributes funds
1:43:33SPEAKERto various creators.
1:43:34SPEAKERBut getting that Stripe account is shockingly easy.
1:43:37SPEAKERIt's all the other stuff that's kind of hard to recreate.
1:43:41SPEAKER- Okay, good to know, good to know.
1:43:42SPEAKERWell, thanks for coming by.
1:43:43SPEAKERWe will hopefully have you back sometime soon
1:43:46SPEAKERto talk about other stuff too, Rom.
1:43:47SPEAKERIt's been blessed.
1:43:49SPEAKER- Absolutely.
1:43:49SPEAKERI'm sure at some point I will have some sort of mishap
1:43:52SPEAKERwith various attempts to make my home smarter
1:43:55SPEAKERor like finally solve my various media library conundrums
1:44:01SPEAKERwith some sort of like master solution,
1:44:03SPEAKERone server to bind them, and then it'll go bad.
1:44:09SPEAKERAnd then I'll be like, can we do an episode
1:44:11SPEAKERwhere basically you guys, how's this for an episode?
1:44:14SPEAKERI get on a conference call with you
1:44:16SPEAKERand tell you what I'm seeing on this log.
1:44:20SPEAKERYou can tell me what to do next.
1:44:22SPEAKER- Absolutely, live troubleshooting Rob's server logs,
1:44:25SPEAKER100% I'm in.
1:44:29SPEAKERWell, that was fun.
1:44:30SPEAKER- Yeah, not at all.
1:44:32SPEAKERYou know, Star Wars, huh?
1:44:34SPEAKER- Yeah.
1:44:35SPEAKER- When I was a kid watching Star Wars on CBS,
1:44:37SPEAKERI don't think I imagined that I would be talking
1:44:39SPEAKERabout Star Wars as an adult 40 years later, but here we are.
1:44:41SPEAKERAnd I'm happy to do that.
1:44:44SPEAKER- I don't think many people predicted many things
1:44:46SPEAKERabout the way pop culture has gone
1:44:47SPEAKERin the intervening decades, but.
1:44:48SPEAKER- You're not wrong, you're not wrong.
1:44:51SPEAKERBut thanks again to Rob for coming by and this is fun.
1:44:55SPEAKERIf you like this, please let us know.
1:44:56SPEAKERWe'll do something, we'll do more like it.
1:44:58SPEAKERThere is other stuff in the realm, but if you don't like it,
1:45:00SPEAKERdon't worry, we're not gonna do this very often.
1:45:01SPEAKERThis was, we wanted to get Rob on the podcast
1:45:03SPEAKERfor a long time.
1:45:04SPEAKER- Actually, let me ask you as a listener of their podcast.
1:45:07SPEAKER- Yes.
1:45:08SPEAKER- Okay, no offense to them.
1:45:10SPEAKERThis is more about the length of the Clone Wars,
1:45:12SPEAKERbut I have no intention of watching the Clone Wars.
1:45:14SPEAKERI know people love it.
1:45:16SPEAKERI just don't have the time.
1:45:17SPEAKER- Oh, okay, so there's two things.
1:45:19SPEAKERIf you wanna try out their podcast.
1:45:21SPEAKER- Yes.
1:45:22SPEAKER- They did a really, they did an arc on Andor
1:45:25SPEAKERwhen the first episodes dropped in 2022.
1:45:28SPEAKER- That's why I asked him about maybe doing
1:45:30SPEAKERthe Stover novelization, but also I wanted to ask you
1:45:32SPEAKERlike something, 'cause I knew they did some like
1:45:34SPEAKERshorter interludes about things that are not the Clone Wars.
1:45:36SPEAKER- Yeah, so they do a lot of that actually.
1:45:38SPEAKERThey just did a patron episode about skeleton crew.
1:45:43SPEAKERLike they did, I think, patron episodes about Obi-Wan.
1:45:46SPEAKERThey've done some other episodes in the main line
1:45:48SPEAKERhere and there.
1:45:50SPEAKERThey did a Thrawn episode arc, the three Thrawn novels
1:45:54SPEAKERover a couple months, a few weeks ago,
1:45:55SPEAKERjust a bit ago actually.
1:45:58SPEAKERThey also did at the end of, so they watched,
1:46:01SPEAKERthey're watching stuff in the release order
1:46:03SPEAKERfor the podcast, I think.
1:46:04SPEAKERSo they started with like the Clone Wars movie
1:46:06SPEAKERand then they watch Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones
1:46:09SPEAKERand watched the first five or six seasons.
1:46:13SPEAKERI think it's six seasons of Clone Wars.
1:46:15SPEAKERAnd then the Lucasfilm animation people went off
1:46:19SPEAKERand made Rebels and a bunch of other stuff.
1:46:22SPEAKERAnd then when Disney bought them,
1:46:23SPEAKERthey came back and did a seventh season of the Clone Wars.
1:46:25SPEAKERSo they haven't watched that last season of the Clone Wars.
1:46:28SPEAKERAt the end of their Clone Wars run,
1:46:30SPEAKERthey made a cut list of here are like the important episodes
1:46:35SPEAKERof Clone Wars to watch to get the vibe of the whole thing.
1:46:38SPEAKER'Cause just to be clear, there's a lot of Clone Wars
1:46:42SPEAKERand the quality is all over the place.
1:46:44SPEAKERSome of the episodes are really like among the best things
1:46:46SPEAKERthat have been done in Star Wars.
1:46:48SPEAKERAnd there's a lot of real garbage tier episodes.
1:46:52SPEAKERThere's an arc in season five that I think like
1:46:55SPEAKERthey lost 70% of the audience on or something that it's so,
1:46:59SPEAKERit's an R2-G2 arc sadly, it bums me out.
1:47:01SPEAKERAnyway, the point is, start with Andor.
1:47:05SPEAKERIf you enjoy what they're talking about,
1:47:06SPEAKERif you enjoy their approach, 'cause you know,
1:47:10SPEAKERit's Austin Walker of Waypoint and Giant Bomb
1:47:13SPEAKERand a bunch of other stuff, friends at the table,
1:47:17SPEAKERNatalie Watson, who you know from Waypoint as well,
1:47:21SPEAKERand Ali Alkhumporim.
1:47:25SPEAKERAnd they have deep commentary about the social kind
1:47:30SPEAKERof aspects of Star Wars that's really fascinating.
1:47:35SPEAKERBut the Andor stuff is, I think, is where I started.
1:47:38SPEAKERThat's where I jumped in.
1:47:39SPEAKER- I am gonna rewatch season one in prep for season two.
1:47:42SPEAKERSo that sounds like a good time to listen
1:47:43SPEAKERto that podcast as well.
1:47:44SPEAKERBut to clarify what you just said,
1:47:46SPEAKERthey have done episodes on the prequels?
1:47:48SPEAKER- They've done episodes on each of the prequels.
1:47:50SPEAKER- Okay, I have to listen to those.
1:47:53SPEAKER- It's interesting 'cause I kind of want them to,
1:47:56SPEAKERthe one thing for me having jumped in with Andor
1:47:59SPEAKERand then gone back and watched all the prequel,
1:48:01SPEAKERall the Clone Wars cartoons after that,
1:48:05SPEAKERI think the movies really benefit
1:48:07SPEAKERfrom the character development that you get
1:48:10SPEAKERover a 200 episode TV show.
1:48:14SPEAKER- That's always been the consensus, for sure.
1:48:16SPEAKER- Yeah, you definitely,
1:48:18SPEAKERI like those movies more now than I did before.
1:48:22SPEAKERAnd that's not to excuse their failures
1:48:23SPEAKER'cause they're bad movies.
1:48:24SPEAKERBut they went back in and retconned a bunch
1:48:28SPEAKERof character motivations that are not there
1:48:31SPEAKERin George Lucas's original vision.
1:48:33SPEAKERAnd it makes it a much more interesting endeavor.
1:48:37SPEAKERAnyway, thanks everybody for coming along with us on this.
1:48:41SPEAKERAnd please let us know what you think about the show.
1:48:43SPEAKERAs always, Brad and Will made a tech pod.
1:48:46SPEAKERHis listener is supported.
1:48:47SPEAKER- It's true, it is.
1:48:48SPEAKER- You can find us on Patreon at patreon.com/techpod.
1:48:51SPEAKERMy understanding is that they're the feudal lords
1:48:54SPEAKERin the metaphor.
1:48:55SPEAKER- Yes, the rent seekers, the landowners.
1:48:58SPEAKER- Yeah, I think our percentage is better
1:49:00SPEAKERthan it was for the feudal farmers, but--
1:49:05SPEAKER- Probably.
1:49:05SPEAKER- But anyway, yeah, please go to patreon.com/techpod
1:49:08SPEAKERand sign up if you'd like to help support the show.
1:49:11SPEAKERYou also get access to the fabulous tech pod discord,
1:49:15SPEAKERwhich is full of nerds just like you
1:49:16SPEAKERwho are into all sorts of topics,
1:49:18SPEAKERincluding we have a really long Star Wars thread,
1:49:22SPEAKERamong other things.
1:49:24SPEAKERWe also talk about, if you want help setting up servers,
1:49:27SPEAKERlike the questions Rob has about servers,
1:49:29SPEAKERprobably answered in our server forums.
1:49:32SPEAKER- Oh yeah.
1:49:33SPEAKER- So please check that out and yeah.
1:49:37SPEAKER- I'm sorry, can I interrupt real quick?
1:49:38SPEAKER- Yes.
1:49:39SPEAKER- Thanks to Martin on the discord.
1:49:41SPEAKER- Shout outs to Martin.
1:49:42SPEAKER- For tipping me off to the new thing that,
1:49:44SPEAKERI mean, this is just a little thing.
1:49:46SPEAKERI'm probably not gonna go out and get one tomorrow,
1:49:47SPEAKERbut maybe someday he tipped me off to a little UP,
1:49:51SPEAKERsorry, a little USB GPS receiver.
1:49:54SPEAKER- Oh wow.
1:49:55SPEAKER- That you can hook up and turn into a little NTP server
1:49:58SPEAKERthat runs in your house and NTP network time protocol.
1:50:02SPEAKER- Oh, that's cool.
1:50:03SPEAKER- So this thing keeps perfect accurate time
1:50:05SPEAKERwith GPS satellites by pinging the satellites.
1:50:08SPEAKERSo even without an internet connection,
1:50:10SPEAKEReven if the internet goes down,
1:50:11SPEAKEReven if you move out into the woods
1:50:13SPEAKERand free yourself and get off the grid,
1:50:15SPEAKERyou can keep perfect time with this little USB dongle.
1:50:18SPEAKER- That reminds me that we should A, do a GPS episode.
1:50:21SPEAKER- Sure.
1:50:22SPEAKER- Because it works because there's a bunch of atomic clocks
1:50:24SPEAKERin orbit around the earth.
1:50:26SPEAKER- And B, that is extraordinarily cool.
1:50:30SPEAKERSo now as long as you have electricity,
1:50:31SPEAKERyou know what time it is
1:50:32SPEAKERassuming the satellites haven't fallen.
1:50:33SPEAKER- Of course, the person he linked to
1:50:35SPEAKERor the person I think that made this project
1:50:37SPEAKERkeeps theirs in a little like Mason jar.
1:50:40SPEAKER- That's perfect.
1:50:41SPEAKER- Outside their windowsill
1:50:42SPEAKERbecause it gets better GPS signal outside.
1:50:44SPEAKERSo they bought a USB ribbon cable,
1:50:46SPEAKERwhich I didn't know existed and ran it through the window.
1:50:49SPEAKERAnd anyway.
1:50:50SPEAKER- Wow.
1:50:51SPEAKERSo stuff like that and more on the Discord.
1:50:53SPEAKERYou also get access to our Patreon exclusive episode
1:50:55SPEAKERwhere we talk about projects
1:50:56SPEAKERand other things that are going on.
1:50:58SPEAKERSometimes it's stuff that's too small
1:50:59SPEAKERfor the regular episode.
1:51:00SPEAKERAgain, it's patreon.com/techpod.
1:51:03SPEAKERAnd we appreciate everybody who supports the show,
1:51:05SPEAKERbut especially our executive producer tier patrons,
1:51:08SPEAKERincluding Jason Lee, Andrew Slosky, Jordan Lippett.
1:51:12SPEAKERBunny Crimes enthusiastically recommends next.content.town.
1:51:16SPEAKERThanks, Bunny Crimes.
1:51:17SPEAKERTwinkle Twiki, David Allen, James Kamik,
1:51:19SPEAKERand Pantheon, makers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.
1:51:22SPEAKERThank you all so, so much.
1:51:24SPEAKER- Yeah, thank you.
1:51:25SPEAKER- And I guess that'll do it for us this week.
1:51:27SPEAKER- It will.
1:51:28SPEAKER- We will be back next week
1:51:29SPEAKERwith another episode of the TechPod.
1:51:30SPEAKERIf you were in Star Wars,
1:51:32SPEAKERyou couldn't even print out this podcast.
1:51:34SPEAKER- Think about it.
1:51:35SPEAKER- If you cared about the environment.
1:51:37SPEAKERThink about it, man.
1:51:38SPEAKER(upbeat music)