So how are there non-believers in STAR WARS?

[Longes]

If you like their take on the SW universe, then more power to your elbow.

Look, whether I like it or not is irrelevant to you misrepresenting information. The closest Sith species ever got to building a large empire was the first Sith empire, which happened when exiled human jedi conquered the Sith, mutated them with alchemy, and began expanding through the (then unknown) regions of space.

And I still don't understand your dislike of the sith academies. If you accept that Jedi and Sith are at war, and that Jedi train at the academies, then Sith either get an academy, or they lose, because 1-1 apprenticeship is a terrible system for the mass production of specialists.

[Hadanelith]

Disclaimer: My knowledge of Star Wars begins and ends with knowing to walk away from someone attempting to discuss it in public.

How ubiquitous is space travel for the average schmuck? Is a common laborer on an outer rim world unlikely to ever escape the gravity well of their birth? How much more likely is it for a entry-level technician on a core world?

It is more or less impossible to know. Depending on the author, chartering passage to another world is like buying a train ticket, or like buying a country. There's no standard there. Travel inside the Core Worlds appears to be at least a little easier than in the Outer Rim, but then we see our heroes charter the Falcon for the price of a landspeeder way out on Tattooine, so who the fuck knows?

[Chamomile]

The Sith don't need to be anything more than they were; the anthithesis of the Jedi.

You understand that Jedi also have academies, right? Your objections are incoherent.

Coherence doesn't bother me

Clearly that relationship goes both ways.

[Pixels]

My impressions - which are very much uninformed as far as EU content goes - is that mass transit between systems is non-existent. Starships are expensive, and you only own one if you have money to throw around (the equivalent of a yacht) or you use it to conduct business (ambassadors, traders, smugglers, mercenaries, etc). You cannot buy passage on a starship like you would buy passage on an airplane. You have to buy a spot with whoever happens to be traveling the direction you want. How much that costs depends on the ship and the pilot, as does the chance of being robbed and tossed out the airlock (or shanghaied) after you're in space.

[Lago PARANOIA]

And I still don't understand your dislike of the sith academies. If you accept that Jedi and Sith are at war, and that Jedi train at the academies, then Sith either get an academy, or they lose, because 1-1 apprenticeship is a terrible system for the mass production of specialists.

Because Harry Potter is currently the pop cultural touchstone for secretive academies that produce magically-empowered elites and Harry Potter is so laaaame and stuuuuupid.

If they called the Sith Academies something else and threw in a touch more grimdark then I'd bet that it'd get a lot more acceptance. How about calling them the Dark Side Pits and for the first year students are brutally broken by a regime of torture, Hot Topic, and a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails and Papa Roach before being reforged into Sith warriors?

[TheFlatline]

Disclaimer: My knowledge of Star Wars begins and ends with knowing to walk away from someone attempting to discuss it in public.

How ubiquitous is space travel for the average schmuck? Is a common laborer on an outer rim world unlikely to ever escape the gravity well of their birth? How much more likely is it for a entry-level technician on a core world?

It is more or less impossible to know. Depending on the author, chartering passage to another world is like buying a train ticket, or like buying a country. There's no standard there. Travel inside the Core Worlds appears to be at least a little easier than in the Outer Rim, but then we see our heroes charter the Falcon for the price of a landspeeder way out on Tattooine, so who the fuck knows?

Then again Luke and Han were both aware that Obi Wan was *grossly* overpaying for a fast, private trip to Alderaan.

Han demands 10k all in advance.
Luke whines you could almost buy a starship for that.
Commence "haggling"
Obi-wan offers 2k now and 15 on Alderaan. Han agrees.

Now I assume that Luke's speeder was a beater but probably made the majority/all of the 2000 credits that he got for it. So in-canon you could guesstimate that a beater transport to get to Alderaan might cost 15-20k unless Luke was severely exaggerating. So the analogy of a beater speeder that wasn't selling well to a space ship might be the equivalent of going from a used car to a boat. So maybe in real world dollars a used, beater transport would cost 100-200k? Expensive, but hardly impossible to manage.

We have no official metrics on cost of maintenance though.

Edit: Nevermind Luke sells his speeder after the negotiations. Well, all that went out the window.

[Kaelik]

It's weird that you think "evil space cult" and "has academy" are somehow incompatible. Have you seriously never heard of Catholic School? It's not a euphemism or anything. It is an actual alternative to public education run by Catholics.

Catholics aren't a race of people. They aren't an occluded part of the society they inhabit. They are also not an empire.

Sith are a race of people who want to rule the universe and people queued up to learn at their special Sith schools. Compared to what the Sith were 'meant' to be it just seems monumentally lame. I've no idea why those writers felt the need to reinvent it that way. The Sith don't need to be anything more than they were; the anthithesis of the Jedi.

Now we have the likes of the Clone Wars stomping all over that by designing their own Sith 'homeworld' (MOraband), and everyone else having to pretend that what they created (Korriban) was another name for it. Though I think the wrtiers of the CW did that deliberately

Sith aren't a race of people either. Let me show you a timeline:

27,000 years before Yavin to 6,900 years before Yavin: The Sith are a race of people who have extremely primitive hyberdrive and control an absolutely tiny area of space. I have no idea why this makes you mad, at all.

6,900 years before Yavin to 5000 years before, Some asshole dark sider humans conquer all the sith people and convert them into beasts, there are no more sith people, really, there are only humans who call themselves sith. I have no idea why you have a problem with this. The idea of some invaders coming in and conquereing people and taking their names is something that happen on this planet.

5000 years before yavin to bane: the sith empire is a cult, with academies. I have no idea why you get upset about this, of course they have academies. Any non idiot would think that is the obvious events.

[Morat]

Edit: Nevermind Luke sells his speeder after the negotiations. Well, all that went out the window.

I think it makes more sense that Han and Obi-Wan had merely arranged a deal, and the money would only be handed over when they boarded. Obi-Wan tells Luke after they talk to Han that he'll have to sell the speeder. The implication is that they need the money, and what else are they buying? They certainly won't need cash on Alderaan as the honored guests of royalty.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The implication is that they need the money, and what else are they buying? They certainly won't need cash on Alderaan as the honored guests of royalty.

You know, I always wondered how the movies (or novels, or whatever) would've gone if ol' GMT decided that Alderaan was too valuable to blow up and instead blew up some other military target just to show the Rebel Alliance what's what.

Does Star Wars then turn to a political thriller where Han, Obi, and Luke navigate the royal bureaucracy to convince people that things Must Be Done, with various hidden quislings trying to thwart the Big Senate Speech? Hell, does the Empire send down a detachment to raze the capital to get said droids?

[Chamomile]

Luke and Obi-Wan learn from Bail Organa that Leia is captured, stage daring rescue, then blow up the Death Star. The Death Star assault wasn't something the Rebels did because Alderaan got blown up, it was their plan since the opening scrawl informs us that securing the plans is their first real victory. The Senate just got dissolved, the time for political solutions is well and truly over with.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The Senate just got dissolved, the time for political solutions is well and truly over with.

If Hollywood has taught me anything, it's that no matter how justified and noble a course of action is -- from blowing up an asteroid with oil workers to stopping Persians with oiled-up Greeks -- there will always be a well-heeled opposition or outright quisling faction that will seek to derail the Good Guys. I'm sure that pre-explosion Alderaan could cough up a few antagonists to try to derail Luke and Obi's delivery plans and the subsequent assault on the Death Star.

[ghost whistler]

The destruction of Alderaan is completely incidental to the plot of the film.

Even though it's where Leia grew up her response to the genocide of her entire world and family is somewhat muted and she gets over it far quicker than Luke does the death of a creepy old man his uncle had long warned him away from.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Even though it's where Leia grew up her response to the genocide of her entire world and family is somewhat muted and she gets over it far quicker than Luke does the death of a creepy old man his uncle had long warned him away from.

That's because Leia is a hardened badass with political experience and Luke is a sheltered farmboy.

[ghost whistler]

Even though it's where Leia grew up her response to the genocide of her entire world and family is somewhat muted and she gets over it far quicker than Luke does the death of a creepy old man his uncle had long warned him away from.

That's because Leia is a hardened badass with political experience and Luke is a sheltered farmboy.

A hardened badass? She grew up a princess in a space castle on a fairytale planet! Luke had to work in what would surely be impossible heat in fear of a paedo wizard!

[TheFlatline]

The implication is that they need the money, and what else are they buying? They certainly won't need cash on Alderaan as the honored guests of royalty.

You know, I always wondered how the movies (or novels, or whatever) would've gone if ol' GMT decided that Alderaan was too valuable to blow up and instead blew up some other military target just to show the Rebel Alliance what's what.

Does Star Wars then turn to a political thriller where Han, Obi, and Luke navigate the royal bureaucracy to convince people that things Must Be Done, with various hidden quislings trying to thwart the Big Senate Speech? Hell, does the Empire send down a detachment to raze the capital to get said droids?

Isn't that what Episode 1 is? Then everyone loses their patience and starts shooting each other.

In the hands of a more capable director/writer it'd be an interesting twist but in Lucas' hands it would be The Phantom Menace.

[TheFlatline]

Even though it's where Leia grew up her response to the genocide of her entire world and family is somewhat muted and she gets over it far quicker than Luke does the death of a creepy old man his uncle had long warned him away from.

That's because Leia is a hardened badass with political experience and Luke is a sheltered farmboy.

A hardened badass? She grew up a princess in a space castle on a fairytale planet! Luke had to work in what would surely be impossible heat in fear of a paedo wizard!

Apparently marksmanship and CQB is what they do for fun in Alderaan considering Leia pretty much *never* misses.

[Stinktopus]

That's because Leia is a hardened badass with political experience and Luke is a sheltered farmboy.

A hardened badass? She grew up a princess in a space castle on a fairytale planet! Luke had to work in what would surely be impossible heat in fear of a paedo wizard!

Apparently marksmanship and CQB is what they do for fun in Alderaan considering Leia pretty much *never* misses.

If you look at the expanded universe content and cut-scenes from the Vader's apprentice vidja games, Leia has been a political agitator/guerilla in training since she was a fetus.

[Occluded Sun]

To return to the original topic for a moment:

The vast majority of everyday people have never seen a Force user. There are stories that go around about them, but they're not fundamentally different than other kinds of rumors and legends people tell.

Then they all died, or went away at least. So as far as most people know, all those tales about making the Statue of Liberty disappear were just nonsense.

[Kaelik]

To return to the original topic for a moment:

The vast majority of everyday people have never seen a Force user. There are stories that go around about them, but they're not fundamentally different than other kinds of rumors and legends people tell.

Then they all died, or went away at least. So as far as most people know, all those tales about making the Statue of Liberty disappear were just nonsense.

Pretty sure that whole "They were a branch of government" thing makes a bit of a difference. I mean, most people have never seen a supreme court justice, but they still don't doubt their existence.

[Previn]

To return to the original topic for a moment:

The vast majority of everyday people have never seen a Force user. There are stories that go around about them, but they're not fundamentally different than other kinds of rumors and legends people tell.

Then they all died, or went away at least. So as far as most people know, all those tales about making the Statue of Liberty disappear were just nonsense.

I am reminder of the Technomancers in Babylon 5. How much of the force stuff is beyond the tech in Star Wars? I mean if I hear that some Jedi can shoot lighting from his fingers and I can pull out some device and do the same thing, the force seems a lot less meaningful.

[Occluded Sun]

Pretty sure that whole "They were a branch of government" thing makes a bit of a difference. I mean, most people have never seen a supreme court justice, but they still don't doubt their existence.

But lots of people doubt that the Supremes know what they're doing.

The issue isn't whether there was once a group known as the Jedi, the issue is whether they possessed spiritual enlightenment and nifty powers. By the time of the original movies, most people have concluded that their powers were legendary and their insights a bogus religion.

[Ghremdal]

While I don't like the SW universe the way they present it, I find that an interesting take on it is that the Jedi order are actually the bad guys (the Sith are also the bad guys, just of a different kind).

Take these things into account:
The galaxy is essentially in a unchanged state since the Sith war. This is especially true of any technological progress.
The corrupt, inefficient government helps keep things this way.
Jedi are known to be able to use the force to influence the minds of others. Groups of Jedi working in concert can break down even strong/resistant minds.
There is screening for potential Jedi candidates but the number of actual Jedi is very small.
Jedi do not recognize any other galactic laws other then the Jedi council.

[OgreBattle]

While I don't like the SW universe the way they present it, I find that an interesting take on it is that the Jedi order are actually the bad guys

Many villainous organizations in kungfu movies operate as the jedi council do, especially in how they monopolize kungfu power for themselves and seek out talented kids to raise under their command.

[MisterDee]

Besides, the Jedi installed Jar Jar as a major political figure.

Doesn't get much worse than this.

[Occluded Sun]

While I don't like the SW universe the way they present it, I find that an interesting take on it is that the Jedi order are actually the bad guys (the Sith are also the bad guys, just of a different kind).

The Jedi are the Vorlons to the Sith's Shadows.