Star Wars - Force-based technologies?

[Cikomyr2]

I am currently working on a character concept for a Star Wars RPG 5e, and the thread I am pulling on at the moment involved the interaction of the Force and Technology.

I wanted to do a quick mental check of the extent of technology that are expressedly based off Force powers of the user.

the Star Forge, and everything involving the Rakatas is pretty obvious. They were the true Force Techno creators.

Holochrons seem to be restricted to use by Force Users. Have we ever established if the contemporary Star Wars civilization can create more Holochrons? We know Jedi and Sith have been using them from The Old Republic up to the Galactic Empire.

I don't think it was established that lightsaber technology is inherently linked to the force power of its user. Its dangerous to use without training, but it's not actually powered by the Force.

Any other examples?

[pendell]

I am currently working on a character concept for a Star Wars RPG 5e, and the thread I am pulling on at the moment involved the interaction of the Force and Technology.

I wanted to do a quick mental check of the extent of technology that are expressedly based off Force powers of the user.

the Star Forge, and everything involving the Rakatas is pretty obvious. They were the true Force Techno creators.

Holochrons seem to be restricted to use by Force Users. Have we ever established if the contemporary Star Wars civilization can create more Holochrons? We know Jedi and Sith have been using them from The Old Republic up to the Galactic Empire.

I don't think it was established that lightsaber technology is inherently linked to the force power of its user. Its dangerous to use without training, but it's not actually powered by the Force.

Any other examples?

What about hyperspace navigation? The pilots who found the lane linking the Sith territories to the Old Republic and subsequently triggered the Great Hyperspace War were Force-sensitive. It's not a Jedi skill specifically, but I suspect among the explorers who chart out hyperspace travel lanes the really successful one are extremely strong in the Force, even if they are not trained Jedi or some other tradition.

Perhaps there are skills related to Hyperspace navigation which closely correlate to Force Use? I remember that Palpatine had all kinds of secret hyperspace routes into places like the Deep Core, and this also explains why Sith Infiltrators were able to travel the galaxy unimpeded by ordinary law enforcement. I don't know , again, if that actually requires Force Use but being strong in the Force definitely wouldn't hurt in that or any other high-risk profession.

In the Traviss books there is a Jedi Agricultural Corps, to which Padawans are sent when they fail the trials. They then spend the rest of their career helping crops grow and life to flourish. Possibly there are other jobs for former or failed Jedi, such as medical professionals or, heck, even card players. I have this imagination of a former failed Jedi sitting at a sabacc table and raking in the winnings, then leaving just before things get ugly because precognition tells him when the other players are about ready to pull blasters.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Hopeless]

The Darkstryder campaign dealt with that.
It dates back to when West End Games had the license but handled that concept to a degree.

[Velaryon]

Would you count Jedi Shadow Bombs? They're basically just proton torpedoes that have their propellent removed and replaced with more explosives, which Jedi pilots used when fighting the Yuuzhan Vong. The idea is they would basically just use the Force to fling them at enemy ships, so that there would be no visible propellant trail to allow visual tracking of the torpedoes.

[Mechalich]

The most prevalent Force-based 'technology' is the broad field of Sith Alchemy, which uses the Force to manipulate life forms. Done crudely this simply creates berserker mutants, but with greater refinement it can be used to do all sorts of things, including long range emotional manipulation, massive energy accumulation, terraforming, sleeper agents activated years later, and more. You can even create zombies.

The light side version of this process is using the Force in medicine, but it has not been officially developed very far beyond using a Jedi 'lay on hands' kind of ability. That said, there is a Jedi Medical Corps and it even exists in both versions of canon (though Rig Nema (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rig_Nema) is the only named character acknowledged as a member).

[hamishspence]

I don't think it was established that lightsaber technology is inherently linked to the force power of its user. Its dangerous to use without training, but it's not actually powered by the Force.


There may be an element of "any technology with "kyber" in it, is vastly more powerful than physics would suggest, because of the Force".

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kyber_crystal

[Mechalich]

There may be an element of "any technology with "kyber" in it, is vastly more powerful than physics would suggest, because of the Force".

Well, those elements of physics are an (incompletely) understood part of the Galaxy, Far, Far Away. The Force effects inanimate objects and even certain life forms (yes, most of which have 'crystal' in their name somewhere) in predictable ways, because the Force is part of the physics of Star Wars - it is in fact best conceptualized overall as a fifth fundamental force alongside gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. That's why it is possible for people who are not Force sensitive to manipulate kyber crystals to do things like build the death star and why certain Force powers can be impacted by other physical phenomena - such as the use of high voltage electrical discharges to override the Force Possession ability of Darth Vitiate.


One, a related note, one this you can do with the Force is manipulate matter on the nano or even atomic scale. This ability, known as Art of the Small (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Art_of_the_Small) takes advantage of 'size matters not' on the very low end. The full implications of this ability have not been explored as yet, but they are very powerful, even though existing examples suggest such manipulations are slow, time-consuming, and exhausting. Star Wars in general has a fairly limited grasp on nanotech (no one's fault, it really wasn't on the radar in the 1970s), but there are a few examples - such as the nano-droids (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/NM-K_reconstitutor) Bariss Offee used to bomb the Jedi Temple. So potentially a technologically inclined force user could create specialized gear through nanoscale manipulations.

[Cikomyr2]

Well, those elements of physics are an (incompletely) understood part of the Galaxy, Far, Far Away. The Force effects inanimate objects and even certain life forms (yes, most of which have 'crystal' in their name somewhere) in predictable ways, because the Force is part of the physics of Star Wars - it is in fact best conceptualized overall as a fifth fundamental force alongside gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. That's why it is possible for people who are not Force sensitive to manipulate kyber crystals to do things like build the death star and why certain Force powers can be impacted by other physical phenomena - such as the use of high voltage electrical discharges to override the Force Possession ability of Darth Vitiate.


One, a related note, one this you can do with the Force is manipulate matter on the nano or even atomic scale. This ability, known as Art of the Small (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Art_of_the_Small) takes advantage of 'size matters not' on the very low end. The full implications of this ability have not been explored as yet, but they are very powerful, even though existing examples suggest such manipulations are slow, time-consuming, and exhausting. Star Wars in general has a fairly limited grasp on nanotech (no one's fault, it really wasn't on the radar in the 1970s), but there are a few examples - such as the nano-droids (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/NM-K_reconstitutor) Bariss Offee used to bomb the Jedi Temple. So potentially a technologically inclined force user could create specialized gear through nanoscale manipulations.

I mean, the Star Wars universe has pretty powerful ion weaponry. So I think a "nanobot swarm" scenario to be less threatening in that verse than in most others where you don't have the supertech anti-tech weaponry.

[Mechalich]

I mean, the Star Wars universe has pretty powerful ion weaponry. So I think a "nanobot swarm" scenario to be less threatening in that verse than in most others where you don't have the supertech anti-tech weaponry.

A 'grey goo' scenario is less threatening in Star Wars than in some other space fantasy universes (though it's kind of overblown generally, since grey goo is actually vulnerable to a lot of things), but there's a lot of other stuff you can do with nanotech that just isn't in Star Wars in any sort of systemic fashion. Star Wars, as a franchise, has always been technologically focused on large-scale macro-engineering processes, most famously the Death Star itself - a moon-sized space station designed to blow up planets. This is very much in keeping with the time frame in which it was produced - the post-war culmination of the massive industrial developments unlocked by WWII itself - and Lucas' own background, as he was heavily into American automotive culture.

Star Wars long envisioned technology in large-scale fashion and has struggled to adapt to the miniaturization revolution of modern electronics. A good example is the character of C-3PO. He provides an essential function as a translator in a universe with millions of languages, but as a full-sized humanoid he's about the least convenient way to handle that particular problem available, but it wasn't until The Bad Batch showed up in Season 7 of TCW that an updated translation technology - the translation software embedded in Tech's visor - actually showed up onscreen (the EU threw out cumbersome workarounds for years, including just having Revan speak upwards of a dozen languages in KOTOR).

[Prime32]

I don't think it was established that lightsaber technology is inherently linked to the force power of its user. Its dangerous to use without training, but it's not actually powered by the Force.
IIRC there was an early draft where the colour of a lightsaber depended on who was wielding it at the time, including a scene where Vader turned Luke's lightsaber red.

[Mechalich]

IIRC there was an early draft where the colour of a lightsaber depended on who was wielding it at the time, including a scene where Vader turned Luke's lightsaber red.

This was (sortof) subsequently canonized in the Disney canon in that Ahsoka was able to take a pair of red lightsaber crystals and turn them white by 'purifying' them somehow, implying that the red lightsaber crystals used by the Sith and other dark siders are somehow corrupted from the original form.

[Peelee]

There may be an element of "any technology with "kyber" in it, is vastly more powerful than physics would suggest, because of the Force".

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kyber_crystal

Gotta love that shift. "Legends had like a ton of different crystals that could have different effects, and all interact with technology. Let's scrap that and just have one Magic Crystal and screw anything else."

Quality move there, Disney.

[J-H]

The Ssi-Ruuk (Truce at Bakura, immediately-post ROTJ) did some sort of thing where they used souls to power and run their technology. There was a force interaction involved in that.

[Lord Raziere]

This was (sortof) subsequently canonized in the Disney canon in that Ahsoka was able to take a pair of red lightsaber crystals and turn them white by 'purifying' them somehow, implying that the red lightsaber crystals used by the Sith and other dark siders are somehow corrupted from the original form.

Hm. I preferred it when they were just colors honestly. Now I'll never have my scene of a Jedi Master showing a padawan stored away red lightsabers and teaching them that they're nothing but tools and that color doesn't actually matter and to think beyond the material. Now its just another form of DnD divine magic. :smallconfused::smallyuk:

[Peelee]

Hm. I preferred it when they were just colors honestly. Now I'll never have my scene of a Jedi Master showing a padawan stored away red lightsabers and teaching them that they're nothing but tools and that color doesn't actually matter and to think beyond the material. Now its just another form of DnD divine magic. :smallconfused::smallyuk:

Seconded. Hell, in Legends Leia's first lightsaber was red.

[Rater202]

I was under theimpression that "Kyber" was a category. all of the previous kinds of Lightsaber crystals still exist but now they're grouped together as subcategories of force-sensitive living crystals, so if you get the pearl out of a krayt dragon you can still make a lightsaber out of it.

An accordig to a Disney Canon Darth Vader comic, the reason Sith Lightsabers ar read is becuase they've been "Bled." Essentially,a Sith hunts down and kills a Jedi, then harvests the crystal from the lightsaber and Basically uses the force to torture the crystal until it proverbially bleeds.

And last time I checked Synth crystals are still a thing and can be red without evil.

[Lord Raziere]

I was under theimpression that "Kyber" was a category. all of the previous kinds of Lightsaber crystals still exist but now they're grouped together as subcategories of force-sensitive living crystals, so if you get the pearl out of a krayt dragon you can still make a lightsaber out of it.

An accordig to a Disney Canon Darth Vader comic, the reason Sith Lightsabers ar read is becuase they've been "Bled." Essentially,a Sith hunts down and kills a Jedi, then harvests the crystal from the lightsaber and Basically uses the force to torture the crystal until it proverbially bleeds.

And last time I checked Synth crystals are still a thing and can be red without evil.

Yeah but.....thats not the point.

the point is to look beyond the material thing. The Jedi are ascetics. A color being evil is dumb to me, because its all about looking beyond to recognize that evil has no physical form. lightsabers are aren't symbols of good and evil, they're just tools that you kill people with like any other weapon its just that only Jedi can use them because of the Force. The Sith insisting one one color lightsaber to mark them is the exact kind of emotional fueled stupidity that leads to the Dark Side, they want to go "I hate being calm! I hate being controlled! I'm going to have a red lightsaber to show you all! look at how dark my clothes are and how RED my lightsaber is! are you not scared of how SITH and POWERFUL I am!? Pay attention to me!". By having the colors mean nothing, the red lightsabers only happen because the Sith insist on choosing red each time as a symbol- it only matters because a Sith wants it to matter, when it doesn't.

and sure you can argue that maybe an evil person doing all this still doesn't matter in that sense because an evil swordsman finding another swordsman, killing them so they can paint their blade red with their blood specifically only really matters to them and that washing it off has no symbolic meaning. But the intent clearly is moving towards "lightsabers are symbols of good and evil and can be corrupted and purified" when.....they aren't. not in universe at least. The Force corrupts people sure but that actually makes sense, because they're biological. The Force connects all LIFE. not MATTER.

[Ronnoc]

The Force corrupts people sure but that actually makes sense, because they're biological. The Force connects all LIFE. not MATTER.

I would argue that the force is created by life but suffuses all matter.

[Cikomyr2]

I had this pet theory where the "Plague" that caused all Ratakas to lose their force power was actually the Midichlorians.

The Midichlorians spread to every living beings in the galaxy, and they basically spread the Rataka's natural force potentiel across the entire galaxy. Once in a while, a quirk of genetics or biology makes an individual have more so they delve deeper in the well of the Rataka's potential (some Rataka can also get that quirk). But this explains why the Force is related to life.


it's a pet theory though.

[Lord Raziere]

I would argue that the force is created by life but suffuses all matter.

Yeah but I don't want there to be evil lightsabers or evil colors though.

[Peelee]

Yeah but I don't want there to be evil lightsabers or evil colors though.

Seconded. That's more than a bit silly.

[Ronnoc]

Yeah but I don't want there to be evil lightsabers or evil colors though.

That's fair and I agree, especially regarding colors. Given holocrons being used as evil macguffins I suspect we're a bit past the point of precluding objects in general from being evil.

[Rater202]

Yeah but I don't want there to be evil lightsabers or evil colors though.

I mean, at least you have to deliberately make them evil.

[Lord Raziere]

I mean, at least you have to deliberately make them evil.

Look Rater.....I just really don't like Good Colors, Evil colors (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodColorsEvilColors) as a trope okay? I don't like binding morality to aesthetics, because I don't think cool aesthetics should limited by how good of a person you are. I get what your saying, I'm just not a fan of the practice as a narrative tool.

[Rater202]

Look Rater.....I just really don't like Good Colors, Evil colors (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodColorsEvilColors) as a trope okay? I don't like binding morality to aesthetics, because I don't think cool aesthetics should limited by how good of a person you are. I get what your saying, I'm just not a fan of the practice as a narrative tool.

And that's fine. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying there are mitigating factors.

Though from what I can tell, synth crystals are still red by default without evil, and there might still be some naturally occurring varieties that are naturally red, I haven't double-checked.

...Though if Ie ver do that "Darth Imperius in the time of the Prequels" thing I'm going to stress that Lord Kallig's lightsaber has a synth crystal. I'm not sure that works out timeline-wise, but it sidesteps any moral issue of a red lightsaber.

[pendell]

:Nods:, I can see why. Killing people because of the color of their lightsabers sounds suspiciously like killing dragons because they don't have shiny scales (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html). It makes me think of how people have been judged not on the content of their character but on the color of ... other things about them, and the history of that is not good at all.

Not to mention, there is such a thing as red-green colorblindedness. I wonder if there are any Jedi with that particular problem.

Anyways, I agree. I'm not fond of the trope either.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

I just really don't like Good Colors, Evil colors (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodColorsEvilColors) as a trope okay? I don't like binding morality to aesthetics, because I don't think cool aesthetics should limited by how good of a person you are. I get what your saying, I'm just not a fan of the practice as a narrative tool.

Have you seen Better Call Saul? They use color to hint at morality on a much more complex, subtle way. It's pretty well done, IMO.

Other that that, I largely agree with you.

[Cikomyr2]

Here's my 2 cents for the record:

- Holochron technology seems to be some AI repository of knowledge, with a basic Force-using interface. Sith Holochrons are evil not because of the "Dark Side", but just because the AI was modeled to recreate evil personalities.

- Holochron are one of the few Force-based technology, and we could hypothesize that, like the Hyperdrive, maybe it is a remnant of Rakata technology that survived across the Galaxy

- Lightsabers activation and use are not Force-dependant, but the nuCanon of the Kyber Crystal changing color with Force User does not necessarily contradict that. See it as "the Crystal just resonates a certain way with certain users", and this resonance is what makes the color.

Theoretically, you could make the argument that maybe you can still create lower-powered Lightsabers with stuff other than Kyber crystals, its just that Kyber Sabers are the strongest, most resilient and the power of the Eternal Battery.

Having Kyber Lightsaber being rarer than ye average lightsaber can also be an interesting concept to toy around with. Because it makes every Kyber Saber truly unique; the Jedi equivalent of a magic sword.

If you really, really want to make your **** up, you could then even argue that a Crystal that has served beside a Jedi Master until he becomes One with the Force (or was used/abused by a Sith Lord until his death) could be turned into a Holochron, with the Kyber Crystal being the storage medium of the personality the Holochron will recreate and access.

[hamishspence]

- Lightsabers activation and use are not Force-dependant, but the nuCanon of the Kyber Crystal changing color with Force User does not necessarily contradict that. See it as "the Crystal just resonates a certain way with certain users", and this resonance is what makes the color.


A non-Force User has no problem switching a captured lightsaber off and on (Grievous, Han) and normally they're the same colour as they were when they were created (hence Grievous having both blue and green lightsabers, instead of all the same colour).


Plus, even after Vader is declared a Sith Lord by Palpatine, his lightsaber blade is exactly the same colour (duel on Mustafar).


The newcanon's idea, is that a Sith has to put a crystal through a specific "bleeding" ritual, to change the colour of the blade. Vader didn't have time to do this - moments after he turned to the Dark Side, he was sent to the Temple, then to Mustafar. Then Obi-Wan took his lightsaber, so after he was cyborgised, he had to do the ritual with a captured lightsaber crystal, rather than his own personal one.

[Mechalich]

A non-Force User has no problem switching a captured lightsaber off and on (Grievous, Han)

Right, and this is explicitly different from the Rakatan Forcesaber (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Forcesaber), which required drawing on the Force - specifically the dark side - in order to activate and sustain. In Legends, the focusing crystal was not the power source of the lightsaber and it took tens of thousands of years for conventional power generation technology to advance far enough to successfully replicate the use of the Force in producing a lightsaber-style blade (conventional handheld lightsabers without an external power pack don't appear until around 4000 BBY in the Legends timeline).


- Holochron are one of the few Force-based technology, and we could hypothesize that, like the Hyperdrive, maybe it is a remnant of Rakata technology that survived across the Galaxy

Legends canon established that Holocrons were a modification of Rakatan 'datacron' technology, and that the Rakata gave the technology to make them to the Sith.

On a more general note the Rakata (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rakata) are now a part of the Disney canon as well thanks to an incredibly obscure reference buried in a series of articles about the Millennium Falcon. However it seems likely that much of what was attributed to them in Legends will eventually be reproduced in a new canon, as that's the existing pattern overall.

[hamishspence]

On a more general note the Rakata (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rakata) are now a part of the Disney canon as well thanks to an incredibly obscure reference buried in a series of articles about the Millennium Falcon.

And the planet Rakata Prime was one of the first things to make it into the newcanon - in the TFA Visual Dictionary, on the galaxy map.

[Rater202]

If we're talking about the Rakata, I would feel remiss in not mentioning The Mother Machine (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mother_Machine)

In Short, a piece of ancient Rakata technology that exists for the purpose of bioengineering on Bioengineering.

The machine holds a database of the complete biological traits of a large number of sapient force-sensitive species.

A nikto splicer by the name of Bolan speculates that the Rakata were trying to engineer a race with the best traits of all of those species... But the Mother Machine itself, which is run by a sapient AI, claims to have created most, if not all, sapient force-sensitive species. The Twi'leks, Zabrak, and Esh-Kha are mentioned by name.

I don't know if the Mother MAchine is a reliable narrator, but it feels motherly affection for all races and hates the Rakata for enslaving them. Regardless, it claims that the Rakata were trying to figure out how Force-sensitivity worked to figure out why they themselves lost their force sensitivity.

The Sith Inquisitor from The Old Republic ends up seeking out the Mother MAchine and using it to enhance themself to the point that they are at no risk of corruption or degeneration from channeling the Power of several powerful Darkside users at once.

Note: You have two ways to go about this. The Lightside option is to enslave the machine and force it to do what you want. The Darkside option is to set it free.

Considering that enslaving sapients is a dark side action and freeing slaves a light side action in every other circumstance, this raises some interesting questions.

(If you free it, it eventually contacts you and says that it's going to create a new race based on your biology.)

Does "creates and modifies force users" count as force-based technology?

Note: The linked Wookkieepedia article assumes that the Sith Inquisitor was conically a Darksider, as is the case with most articles involving the Inquisitor. However, a DLC for the Old Republic heavily implies that they are canonically a Lightsider and the articles were never altered to match the later implications.

[Glorthindel]

Note: You have two ways to go about this. The Lightside option is to enslave the machine and force it to do what you want. The Darkside option is to set it free.

Considering that enslaving sapients is a dark side action and freeing slaves a light side action in every other circumstance, this raises some interesting questions.

As much as I love Knights of the Old Republic, there were quite a few times where its Lightside/Darkside options were a bit dodgy. In this case, I think the implication was that the Mother Machine was going to go all mass genocide on both forces on Belsavis, so slamming the cell shut on her was going to save more lives. Probably their mistake was tying it into fixing the Inquisitor, as it makes more sense if you divorce the free/not decision from forcing her to fix the Inquisitor.

[Cikomyr2]

A non-Force User has no problem switching a captured lightsaber off and on (Grievous, Han) and normally they're the same colour as they were when they were created (hence Grievous having both blue and green lightsabers, instead of all the same colour).


Plus, even after Vader is declared a Sith Lord by Palpatine, his lightsaber blade is exactly the same colour (duel on Mustafar).


The newcanon's idea, is that a Sith has to put a crystal through a specific "bleeding" ritual, to change the colour of the blade. Vader didn't have time to do this - moments after he turned to the Dark Side, he was sent to the Temple, then to Mustafar. Then Obi-Wan took his lightsaber, so after he was cyborgised, he had to do the ritual with a captured lightsaber crystal, rather than his own personal one.

if you subscribe to the idea that a lightsaber crystal has some level of sentience or agency, then "bleeding" it is the equivalent of a complete mental rape

[LibraryOgre]

Not quite a technology, but the Heir to the Empire trilogy by Zahn included the yslamari... sessile lizards who could restrict the abilities of force users within a radius, that multiple yslamari in a space reinforced and expanded. Thrawn and a few other players used yslamari for defense against Force users.

[pendell]

Not quite a technology, but the Heir to the Empire trilogy by Zahn included the yslamari... sessile lizards who could restrict the abilities of force users within a radius, that multiple yslamari in a space reinforced and expanded. Thrawn and a few other players used yslamari for defense against Force users.

Yet, oddly, after the Thrawn trilogy concluded they are never heard of again. Even in the later Duology no one uses Ysalamiri. You would expect there to be a criminal market for Ysalamiri as every two-bit smuggler, spice lord or warlord scrambles to adopt a Jedi-B-gone pet, but they just ... vanish. Why? Did the Sith exterminate the species?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mechalich]

Yet, oddly, after the Thrawn trilogy concluded they are never heard of again. Even in the later Duology no one uses Ysalamiri. You would expect there to be a criminal market for Ysalamiri as every two-bit smuggler, spice lord or warlord scrambles to adopt a Jedi-B-gone pet, but they just ... vanish. Why? Did the Sith exterminate the species?


Thrawn's Empire of the Hand forces use the Ysalamiri on Niruan in the duology against Luke and Mara, so they don't completely disappear. In Legends their homeworld of Myrkr was later conquered by the Yuuzhan Vong and they may have exterminated all or most of the ysalamiri since they were known to have meddled with the ecology of the planet, which would explain why none of them show up post-NJO.

[Peelee]

sessile
Learned a new word today.

Yet, oddly, after the Thrawn trilogy concluded they are never heard of again. Even in the later Duology no one uses Ysalamiri. You would expect there to be a criminal market for Ysalamiri as every two-bit smuggler, spice lord or warlord scrambles to adopt a Jedi-B-gone pet, but they just ... vanish. Why? Did the Sith exterminate the species?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Because every two-bit smuggler doesn't really deal with the Jedi, even at the absolute height of their influence. And after the Empire? They're on the critically endangered species list, in a galaxy with billions of inhabited planets, not counting asteroid bases, space stations, etc. etc.

Would you like to buy this magic talisman that keeps the US Marshals away? Keeping in mind, of course, that there's only one Marshall in the country, your only crimes are robbing the local gas stations for petty cash, and the only evidence you have that it works are a reports of dead general of a foreign military who never actually publicized it. Also, the talisman is made out of wood from a tree that only grows in one specific grove in backwoods Mississippi and nowhere else and will mold up and become useless unless you have proper daily care for it.

Or does that sound kind of insane to you?

[Mechalich]

Because every two-bit smuggler doesn't really deal with the Jedi, even at the absolute height of their influence. And after the Empire? They're on the critically endangered species list, in a galaxy with billions of inhabited planets, not counting asteroid bases, space stations, etc. etc.

Would you like to buy this magic talisman that keeps the US Marshals away? Keeping in mind, of course, that there's only one Marshall in the country, your only crimes are robbing the local gas stations for petty cash, and the only evidence you have that it works are a reports of dead general of a foreign military who never actually publicized it. Also, the talisman is made out of wood from a tree that only grows in one specific grove in backwoods Mississippi and nowhere else and will mold up and become useless unless you have proper daily care for it.

Or does that sound kind of insane to you?

There are circumstances where the Ysalamiri would be very useful. In particular they are perfectly suited to building a force-user prison. Keeping force users captive has always been a problem in Star Wars, since it's very difficult to hold someone who can tear walls down with their mind and persuade guards to let them out and so on (this has shown up in live action, too, in the Mandalorian, Grogu tosses stormtroopers around when they put him in a cell). It would make sense for a large government like the New Republic or Imperial Remnant to build a prison either on Mykyr itself or just in some location where they could import ysalamiri wholesale for the purpose of confining force users (not just Jedi, there are quite a few dark side cults out there that regularly produce empowered criminals).

[Battleship789]

There are circumstances where the Ysalamiri would be very useful. In particular they are perfectly suited to building a force-user prison. Keeping force users captive has always been a problem in Star Wars, since it's very difficult to hold someone who can tear walls down with their mind and persuade guards to let them out and so on (this has shown up in live action, too, in the Mandalorian, Grogu tosses stormtroopers around when they put him in a cell). It would make sense for a large government like the New Republic or Imperial Remnant to build a prison either on Mykyr itself or just in some location where they could import ysalamiri wholesale for the purpose of confining force users (not just Jedi, there are quite a few dark side cults out there that regularly produce empowered criminals).

I seem to recall that the crazy Jedi in this series are kept captive in a ysalamiri-bubbled prison/hospital inside of the Jedi temple in an attempt to remove their insanity, though it doesn't work and they eventually have to encase them in carbonite.

[pendell]

Learned a new word today.


Because every two-bit smuggler doesn't really deal with the Jedi, even at the absolute height of their influence. And after the Empire? They're on the critically endangered species list, in a galaxy with billions of inhabited planets, not counting asteroid bases, space stations, etc. etc.

Would you like to buy this magic talisman that keeps the US Marshals away? Keeping in mind, of course, that there's only one Marshall in the country, your only crimes are robbing the local gas stations for petty cash, and the only evidence you have that it works are a reports of dead general of a foreign military who never actually publicized it. Also, the talisman is made out of wood from a tree that only grows in one specific grove in backwoods Mississippi and nowhere else and will mold up and become useless unless you have proper daily care for it.

Or does that sound kind of insane to you?

There are more kinds of force users in the galaxy than just Jedi. Sure, if you're a small two-bit gangster you're not going to want something so expensive for so little return. But if your gang is planetary or larger -- and there are a LOT of planets in the GFFA -- you're going to want at least one Ysalamir for your own personal protection. Unless you're absolutely, totally confident in your ability to resist Force Techniques like Mind Trick unaided.

The fact that there's only one source of it in the galaxy should make that planet akin to Arrakis in the Dune Universe. What ysalamir offer is one of the most valuable commodities in the galaxy, very expensive because it is rare. As one example, if Ysalamir existed on Coruscant in Episode 3 the throne room scene in which Senator Palpatine faces off with four Jedi would have gone down very differently; the arrest could have been made by ordinary police officers, and Palpatine would not have been 'too dangerous to leave alive'.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

Some authors make more use of them than others.

Besides Zahn, in stories set between TTT and HoT, there's Stackpole (used them in I, Jedi), and Kristine Kathryn Rusch (used them in The New Rebellion).

[Peelee]

There are more kinds of force users in the galaxy than just Jedi. Sure, if you're a small two-bit gangster you're not going to want something so expensive for so little return. But if your gang is planetary or larger -- and there are a LOT of planets in the GFFA -- you're going to want at least one Ysalamir for your own personal protection. Unless you're absolutely, totally confident in your ability to resist Force Techniques like Mind Trick unaided.

The fact that there's only one source of it in the galaxy should make that planet akin to Arrakis in the Dune Universe. What ysalamir offer is one of the most valuable commodities in the galaxy, very expensive because it is rare. As one example, if Ysalamir existed on Coruscant in Episode 3 the throne room scene in which Senator Palpatine faces off with four Jedi would have gone down very differently; the arrest could have been made by ordinary police officers, and Palpatine would not have been 'too dangerous to leave alive'.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

And the other Force users are also very rare. It's jsut not worth worrying about for the vast, vast majority of organizations, even assuming they know about the ysalimiri, which they almost certainly don't.

[hamishspence]

Yup - when the Cavrilhu Pirates use their anti-Jedi trap on Luke, ysalamiri aren't seen. It tends to be the protagonists, who already know of them thanks to TTT, who use them (Luke in I, Jedi, Karrde in A New Rebellion)

According to Wookieepedia's ysalamiri article, the crimelord Tyber Zaan used them. But the Zaan Consortium is portrayed as one of the most powerful organisations in the galaxy, capable of hijacking Super Star Destroyers.

[pendell]

And the other Force users are also very rare. It's jsut not worth worrying about for the vast, vast majority of organizations, even assuming they know about the ysalimiri, which they almost certainly don't.

We'll see how long that holds up in the Sequel Trilogy time frame, where since Episode 8 Force Sensitivity is supposed to be extremely common, as shown in the scene with Broom Boy. Although I don't think Ysalamir are nucanon (yet), so perhaps the question is still moot.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

We'll see how long that holds up in the Sequel Trilogy time frame, where since Episode 8 Force Sensitivity is supposed to be extremely common, as shown in the scene with Broom Boy. Although I don't think Ysalamir are nucanon (yet), so perhaps the question is still moot.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

It's not supposed to be extremely common, though, even with that scene we explicitly see the rare people who have it. We just happened to see the rare kid who could use it. That does not equate to "extremely common".

[Cikomyr2]

It's not supposed to be extremely common, though, even with that scene we explicitly see the rare people who have it. We just happened to see the rare kid who could use it. That does not equate to "extremely common".

I thought it was assumed there was always a certain number of new force sensitive that would spawn in the Galaxy to sustain the Jedi population. So I don't see what's different

[Mechalich]

A reasonable estimate of Force sensitivity in Star Wars is that it occurs at a rate of around one in one million sapient beings (with some variation between species). However, the number of Force users is considerably below that, since most Force sensitives are marginal talents in the Force at best and will manifest no abilities untrained and even if trained will be fairly weak. The number of Jedi and Sith is a small fraction of the number of Force users who are mostly scattered across countless small and localized Force traditions linked to individual species or communities.

However, there are still 100,000,000,000,000,000 sapient beings in the galaxy. That means there are 100 billion Force sensitives. If one out of every thousand of those is trained there are 100 million Force users and if even one percent of those form the elite of the Jedi Order (meaning they reach knighthood, which only a fraction of those trained do) the Jedi could be one million knights strong. And the evidence suggests that at various points in the 'Old Republic Era' this was true. The PT Era Jedi Order, with its 10,000 knights and masters, is an order that observed at the end of a 1000 year decline. The rate of decline necessary to drop from 1 million to 10,000 over that time period is actually quite small.

[Peelee]

I thought it was assumed there was always a certain number of new force sensitive that would spawn in the Galaxy to sustain the Jedi population. So I don't see what's different

The certain number can be one in a quintillion (relatively rare) or one in a million (exceedingly common). That does not matter from a "were following Character X, who is Force Sensitive" standpoint. It absolutely matters from a "my two-bit smuggling operation needs this obscure creature to protect us from all the force users!" Which is the entire basis of this tangent we're on.

) the Jedi could be one million knights strong. And the evidence suggests that at various points in the 'Old Republic Era' this was true.

Source? Most of Legends tended to point towards the Prequel Era Jedi at being at the height of the orders prominence. I'm not as up to date on current Canon, but I've never seen a anything to indicate a million-Jedi-strong Order.

[Mechalich]

Source? Most of Legends tended to point towards the Prequel Era Jedi at being at the height of the orders prominence. I'm not as up to date on current Canon, but I've never seen a anything to indicate a million-Jedi-strong Order.

"A key element of a Knights of the Old Republic campaign is the many Force-using characters active throughot the galaxy at this time. Unlike campaigns set in the classic era Jedi, Sith, and other Foruce-using groups are spread throughout the galaxy." - Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, SAGA edition RPG.

Moreover, if you actually play SWTOR you'll end up on planets with hundreds of Jedi or Sith npcs, and a single character playing through the game will slay hundreds of Jedi/Sith by themselves, sometimes dozens in a single mission (the Red Reaper, a vessel belonging to a single Sith Lord, had hundreds of Sith onboard). It's simply impossible for a PT size Jedi Order to function in a galaxy presented in games like KOTOR and SWTOR. Keep in mind that even with a million Jedi Knights, there's still not even a single Jedi for every 70 planets represented in the Empire.

On the Disney canon side of things its very clear from the High Republic that the Jedi were much more powerful and numerous in that scenario a mere two hundred years prior to the Prequels.

And of course, in AotC itself, Mace Windu gives the line "Jedi we have left," prior to assembling the Geonosis strike team, which is the single best source for declining Jedi numbers.

The PT Era Jedi may have been at the height of their political connectivity because they'd been roped into serving as the Republic's special forces (a situation which was not to the benefit of the Jedi or the Republic and ultimately contributed heavily to the rise of the Empire), but there is every indication that it was not even close to the height of the numeric strength.

[Cikomyr2]

The certain number can be one in a quintillion (relatively rare) or one in a million (exceedingly common). That does not matter from a "were following Character X, who is Force Sensitive" standpoint. It absolutely matters from a "my two-bit smuggling operation needs this obscure creature to protect us from all the force users!" Which is the entire basis of this tangent we're on.


Well, in addition unless a force user Order finds the individual and explicitly teach him to exploit his gifts, the young Force User will only use it subconsciously and there won't be any outward signs of space magic.

These people are just super charismatic, gifted and lucky

[Peelee]

"A key element of a Knights of the Old Republic campaign is the many Force-using characters active throughot the galaxy at this time. Unlike campaigns set in the classic era Jedi, Sith, and other Foruce-using groups are spread throughout the galaxy." - Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, SAGA edition RPG.

Moreover, if you actually play SWTOR you'll end up on planets with hundreds of Jedi or Sith npcs, and a single character playing through the game will slay hundreds of Jedi/Sith by themselves, sometimes dozens in a single mission (the Red Reaper, a vessel belonging to a single Sith Lord, had hundreds of Sith onboard). It's simply impossible for a PT size Jedi Order to function in a galaxy presented in games like KOTOR and SWTOR. Keep in mind that even with a million Jedi Knights, there's still not even a single Jedi for every 70 planets represented in the Empire.

On the Disney canon side of things its very clear from the High Republic that the Jedi were much more powerful and numerous in that scenario a mere two hundred years prior to the Prequels.

And of course, in AotC itself, Mace Windu gives the line "Jedi we have left," prior to assembling the Geonosis strike team, which is the single best source for declining Jedi numbers.

The PT Era Jedi may have been at the height of their political connectivity because they'd been roped into serving as the Republic's special forces (a situation which was not to the benefit of the Jedi or the Republic and ultimately contributed heavily to the rise of the Empire), but there is every indication that it was not even close to the height of the numeric strength.
Taking that to mean there were a million Jedi seems like an incredibly liberal reading.

Well, in addition unless a force user Order finds the individual and explicitly teach him to exploit his gifts, the young Force User will only use it subconsciously and there won't be any outward signs of space magic.

These people are just super charismatic, gifted and lucky

Luke, as much as we saw him as a farmboy, was not charismatic or lucky. And only gifted in the sense of being a good pilot (who hung out among good pilots, such as Biggs). No reason to believe anything he achieved until he met Kenobi was influenced by the Force.

[Mechalich]

Taking that to mean there were a million Jedi seems like an incredibly liberal reading.

The thing is, a million-strong Jedi Order is still, abysmally tiny compared to the scope of the galaxy. There were over a billion settled planets, and 70 million planets of sufficient importance that they qualified for representation in the Empire in some fashion (which is generally presumed to mean the Empire had a garrison there, so even a planet as consequential as Tatooine lies outside that group). So even if you have a million Jedi each and every Jedi has to cover an area of 70 major planets plus hundreds of minor settlements, smuggler bases, uncontacted aliens, and more. On a per capita basis, one million Jedi means that there's a single Jedi for every 100 billion people in the galaxy (note the PT Era Jedi were trying to hold the galaxy together with 1 Jedi per 10 trillion). That's a pathetic level of coverage - a single Jedi would need to cover 12 Earths!

It would not be unreasonable to claim a max size Jedi Order of ten million or even one hundred million knights. One million is actually a very modest compromise.

[hamishspence]

Actually the Empire did establish a small garrison in Mos Eisley, in both Legends and Newcanon (Complete Locations, one of the books revised and republished for the newcanon, shows it).

[LibraryOgre]

Yet, oddly, after the Thrawn trilogy concluded they are never heard of again. Even in the later Duology no one uses Ysalamiri. You would expect there to be a criminal market for Ysalamiri as every two-bit smuggler, spice lord or warlord scrambles to adopt a Jedi-B-gone pet, but they just ... vanish. Why? Did the Sith exterminate the species?


Headcanon: Not exterminate. Accidentally drive extinct.

While the nutrient frames will keep yslamari alive, the depletion of their population by sending them off-world meant that their predators soon hunted them to extinction; especially when you consider the mass death of yslamari at Wayland and on various destroyed Star Destroyers. Meanwhile, undetected environmental requirements meant that the yslamari were not able to reproduce in space. There's now a small farm of yslamari jealously guarded by Imperial Remnants, at an unknown, off-Myrkyr location. But sessile lizards also reproduce slowly, so they're in terribly short supply.

[pendell]

Headcanon: Not exterminate. Accidentally drive extinct.

While the nutrient frames will keep yslamari alive, the depletion of their population by sending them off-world meant that their predators soon hunted them to extinction; especially when you consider the mass death of yslamari at Wayland and on various destroyed Star Destroyers. Meanwhile, undetected environmental requirements meant that the yslamari were not able to reproduce in space. There's now a small farm of yslamari jealously guarded by Imperial Remnants, at an unknown, off-Myrkyr location. But sessile lizards also reproduce slowly, so they're in terribly short supply.

is that all head-canon? If so, it's some very cool world-building.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Cikomyr2]

is that all head-canon? If so, it's some very cool world-building.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

It is headcanon, but it's also sensible lore

[LibraryOgre]

Headcanon: Not exterminate. Accidentally drive extinct.

While the nutrient frames will keep yslamari alive, the depletion of their population by sending them off-world meant that their predators soon hunted them to extinction; especially when you consider the mass death of yslamari at Wayland and on various destroyed Star Destroyers. Meanwhile, undetected environmental requirements meant that the yslamari were not able to reproduce in space. There's now a small farm of yslamari jealously guarded by Imperial Remnants, at an unknown, off-Myrkyr location. But sessile lizards also reproduce slowly, so they're in terribly short supply.


is that all head-canon? If so, it's some very cool world-building.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Headcanon in that I don't believe it's actually canon... just something that makes sense, and lets them be present, but super-rare.