the star wars story, why it repeats.

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Orks da best

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with the release of the lastest trailer for swtor, someones mention that the basic star wars story never repeats. A few posts later, a poster posted this.

"As far as Star Wars goes you have to understand that the universe is supposed to be stagnant for a reason. Most people don't understand exactly what is going on with it, having sort of created their own versions of it in their head without understanding it. To some extent I think people blame Star Wars unfairly, when it's what it was always supposed to be.

See, Star Wars is a universe of pre-destination. The Force is not so much an energy field that people tap into through their will, but a living metaphysical entity, kind of like God, that pulls the strings of the universe. Star Wars is guided between cycles with good and evil both getting turns to rule the universe in between periods of balance. This is why there are prophecies that come true, like the whole thing with Anakin "bringing balance to the force" which was misunderstood, basically it was time for an era of good to end, and he was being used as The Force's pawn to bring it down. The thing is though that before the universe goes into full "evil mode" it's supposed to go through a period where the two forces are balanced, which is where Star Wars left off. See, this is why Vader actually killed The Emperor, it was pre-destnied, it wasn't time for an "evil empire" yet. He killed the good guys, killed the bad guy, and left things with one really strong force user who wasn't property trained (Luke) who could go either way.

The thing in Star Wars is that people BELIEVE they have free will though, and The Force works through manipulation to force people to do what it wants in terms of the big picture. That is why Anakin was such an emo wreck, he wanted to be a good guy, but the universe pretty much decided "you WILL bring down the Jedi" so every time he had his ducks in a row, the universe would cause something to happen... like him finding his mother being held by sand people, which caused him to start channeling some serious Dark Side.

This is also incidently why the force goes "cloudy" at specific points, and powers wax and wane, it's all based on what it wants. Jedi and Sith don't win based on personal skill or badassitude, but due to predestination, with their powers basically working to the degree the univerese wants. Of course the manipulations can be complicated, and it isn't always one sided, as enabling a good guy to win/survive during an coming era of evil (or vice versa) can set things up for it's overall plans down the road, after all The Force is trying to maintain the illusion of free will for whatever reason.

The whole Mitochloria thing is simply what The Force works through, think of it cooresponding to points of articulation on a puppet. Someone The Force wants to work through a lot... like Anakin, has a lot of points, less important guys have less of this for it to work through. It has a physical prescence because again, The Force is trying to maintain an illusion.

Generally speaking only one person in the canon or quasi-canon has figured this out, and that's Kreia from "Knights Of The Old Republic 2" which was ghost written by Geore Lucas (based on his notes and input, etc...). This kind of spells it out rather unsubtly, but people tend to forget about it. In that game Kreia was trying to kill The Force in order to restore free will. For her the first step was to wipe out all the Force users, but due to the problems with finishing the game details like how she planned to destroy a metaphysical entity that pretty much controls everything were glossed over due to the way she was defeated. Of course the simple fact that she started spouting prophecy in her final moments itself raises the question as to whether she herself was a giant tool and never had a chance of doing what she set out to do. After all her actions directly lead to the contact between The Republic and Sith Empire, which we know ends with the destruction of The Empire and the end of their era of evil.

At any rate, the reason why Star Wars deals with the same basic characters and situations in differant forms, and technology stays stagnant, and so on, is because of this basic truth. Tech doesn't really advance beccause the universe is periodically wiped out due to massive warfare with new empires (of good or evil) erasing the signs of their predecessors, sort of like how the Jedi committed Genocide on the Sith and wiped out all the records to the point where come the movies nobody REALLY knew what a Sith was anymore for all intents and purposes. Once in a while you see an ancient super weapon that is a step or two ahead of what people generally have... left over from a previous era (and probably preserved by The Force for later use in manipulation) but by and large you pretty much stick with the same general level of cruisers/space fighters/guns/etc... in slightly differant looking packages.

From the perspective of the people who live obliviously in this universe some cool stories can be told, but the idea does have it's problems. Likewise this is also why so much of the EU becomes garbage is that the guys writing it start playing around in introducing things to the universe that don't belong, leading to retcons later on and so on. A lot of fairly "common sense" stuff doesn't really happen because we have a giant Metaphysical entity sitting there preventing it from happening.

I'm not saying that your wrong, even if I'm not totally burned out with it yet, I just think it's more a matter of the whole universe having been fairly limited to begin with.

At any rate, what you might find interesting, especially if your initial reaction is to argue with me about how I'm wrong, is to re-experience a lot of the core works with what I say in mind. You'll find a lot of things suddenly "click" that didn't quite make sense before. Oddly enough this includes Emo-Anakin, nothing can undo the horrible writing, but you can understand the character a bit better when you get past the whole "Ultimate Bad Arse Vader" and "Final Redemption" ideas and start to think of him as a tool being manipulated by the universe. Everything, from The Emperor's lies, to his plotting against the emperor, to the way he developed through "Clone Wars" and the movies and his resistance to his fate without really understanding it kind of sells the character a bit better. He's not the "Vader" a lot of people created in their minds, but a pretty solid character.

Really Battlestar Galactica's "This has all happened before, it will happen again" schtick fits in perfectly with Star Wars. If anything think of Anakin as Gaius Baltar from the remake (although logically you could say Baltar is more like him given the age of Star Wars) except with Anakin being a generally good, and well intentioned person, as opposed to a self-serving douchebag, at his core, making him a bit more tragic. This includes the "WTF" reveals with the trippy space angels and religious revelations... albiet Star Wars never had any kind of a reveal like that except KoToR2 to some extent.

Thanks for reading for those who made it this far. :)" by Therumancer.

In short the force seems to prevent free will by misleading people so they think they have it, when really they do not. Forceing entire the galaxey to repeat history again and again. The only person figure this out was Kreia from kotor 2, and try to get rid of the force to restore free will upon the galaxey. Rather sad ain't it? An entire galaxery forced to relive history forever unless all force users are killed and force is destoryed. It explains why the star wars story never really changes, but why only kreia? Or was she used as a tool by some other being?

Rather interesting isn't it what is seen as the highest thing of an entire galaxey also controls it to repeat history. Tis be worthy of shreding tears it be.

Edit: drats i put it in the wrong forum section, unless ye counts the star wars games...
 

emeraldrafael

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I dont see how the force kills free will. it has to be voluntarily used, and at one point in Episode One Gin says that the force comes from everyone and it can be cultivated in an individual. the empire kills more free will then the force does, because it makes you follow a set way, and not always through the force, but more through brute strength.
 

FrostyChick

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emeraldrafael said:
I dont see how the force kills free will. it has to be voluntarily used, and at one point in Episode One Gin says that the force comes from everyone and it can be cultivated in an individual. the empire kills more free will then the force does, because it makes you follow a set way, and not always through the force, but more through brute strength.
The thing is that it doesn't kill free will in the way you think it does.
If the force is a sentient entity, that can manipulate people. What's to stop it manipulating people into making them believe they're in control?
It's a fairly standard cliche/trope in regards to faustian bargain type plots.

Great being offers massive power.
Man takes power.
Being subtly manipulates man.
Being achieves malign goal.
???
PROFIT!!!

Essentially it's the exact kind of logic your using that make such plots viable.
 

emeraldrafael

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FrostyChick said:
emeraldrafael said:
I dont see how the force kills free will. it has to be voluntarily used, and at one point in Episode One Gin says that the force comes from everyone and it can be cultivated in an individual. the empire kills more free will then the force does, because it makes you follow a set way, and not always through the force, but more through brute strength.
The thing is that it doesn't kill free will in the way you think it does.
If the force is a sentient entity, that can manipulate people. What's to stop it manipulating people into making them believe they're in control?
It's a fairly standard cliche/trope in regards to faustian bargain type plots.

Great being offers massive power.
Man takes power.
Being subtly manipulates man.
Being achieves malign goal.
???
PROFIT!!!

Essentially it's the exact kind of logic your using that make such plots viable.
That still seems like an awful lot of assumption on the part of the viewer with little actual evidence. not to bring it in, but it sounds an awful lot like the idea of Fate vs Free will that made religion so popular when it first started. That you can choose your place in the universe rather then the universe choosing your place. you could easily say that fate is choosing to make this option true and hiding the truth and apply it to any real world concept where there's a gray area of debate.
 

FrostyChick

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emeraldrafael said:
That still seems like an awful lot of assumption on the part of the viewer with little actual evidence. not to bring it in, but it sounds an awful lot like the idea of Fate vs Free will that made religion so popular when it first started. That you can choose your place in the universe rather then the universe choosing your place. you could easily say that fate is choosing to make this option true and hiding the truth and apply it to any real world concept where there's a gray area of debate.
Well we are talking about the mechanics of a fictional universe. The only way we have to ascertain anything about the Star Wars universe is assumption and speculation based on observation and literary techniques.
For all we know George Lucas could retcon this explanation in favour of an invisible pink unicorn tomorrow.
Or some random aspiring novelist could write the origins of the force in a months time.
 

Orks da best

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Panzervaughn said:
"People misinterpret the Star Wars universe all the time, heres my 100% correct interpretation of it"
um someone thought of, it just sounds like it would be an explaintion as to why the sw story doesn't really change.
 

remulean

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that, was one the best yarns on star wars i've ever encountered and i've watched those ultra long reviews at least three times.
as to what i think of it, its an allright explanation, but frankly i cannot imagine george lucas coming up with it. this is something that only fans can speculate on and create. i would be extremely surprised if it turned out this was somehow lucas' theme.
 

Evil Top Hat

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A very interesting and thoughtful post, especially for somebody like me that's fascinated by the force and star wars lore... yeah I'm a nerd I know.

I had to give a little chuckle when I finished reading that well thought out and sophisticated post and then took a look at your username.
 

MetroidNut

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Well, the thing about free will is an interesting idea, but I myself can contribute more to a different aspect of that - technological stagnation.

I used to spend an appallingly large amount of time roleplaying in the Star Wars universe (it's not appalling because of how much time I spent roleplaying; it's appalling because, in retrospect, I kind of hate both the Star Wars universe and the group I RPed with).

Anyway, once I started to get sick of the setting, I began injecting a lot more original stuff into it, most notably significant technological advances a few thousand years after the original movie. In the process of doing this, I came up with a little theory.

See, it's canon that not one but several precursor races existed; the Rakata, from KotOR, will make an excellent example for my purposes. KotOR implies (possibly states outright, I forget exactly) that the Rakata developed at least one of the technologies commonplace in Star Wars: the hyperdrive. The "modern" galactic civilization simply reverse-engineered these Rakatan hyperdrives.

If that's the case, it seems reasonable a lot of other technologies - lightsabers, shields, communications equipment - were also reverse-engineered from the Rakata. As such, it's quite likely that the specifics of how these technologies work - the principles behind them - are more-or-less unknown; people know how to build them, but not why they work.

Investment in new technology is therefore highly unprofitable, since no matter what, new kinds of FTL drives, shields, or weapons are going to be inferior to the reverse-engineered Rakata equipment in common use. As a result, technology stagnates, and will continue to do so until the Star Wars universe's poorly-funded scientific research finally surpasses the technology level of the Rakata.

That's my explanation for Star Wars' eternal technological stagnation, anyway.
 

CommanderL

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when you die you become one with the force so it does stand to reason that ever time it has evoled due to all the dead people and devloped a being damn my spelling sucks
 

Don Savik

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Listen Orks da Best, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.




Go on the SWTOR website and watch the history videos. That explains everything. You want to know why everything is in perpetual war? because its star WARS and thats how the franchise remains in business. A lot of good a lightsaber does if it cant cut people all the time.
 

SpaceBat

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Holy shit, that had to be one of the best star wars related theories I've ever read. Great job to anyone who came up with that.
 

Hinro

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MetroidNut said:
Well, the thing about free will is an interesting idea, but I myself can contribute more to a different aspect of that - technological stagnation.

I used to spend an appallingly large amount of time roleplaying in the Star Wars universe (it's not appalling because of how much time I spent roleplaying; it's appalling because, in retrospect, I kind of hate both the Star Wars universe and the group I RPed with).

Anyway, once I started to get sick of the setting, I began injecting a lot more original stuff into it, most notably significant technological advances a few thousand years after the original movie. In the process of doing this, I came up with a little theory.

See, it's canon that not one but several precursor races existed; the Rakata, from KotOR, will make an excellent example for my purposes. KotOR implies (possibly states outright, I forget exactly) that the Rakata developed at least one of the technologies commonplace in Star Wars: the hyperdrive. The "modern" galactic civilization simply reverse-engineered these Rakatan hyperdrives.

If that's the case, it seems reasonable a lot of other technologies - lightsabers, shields, communications equipment - were also reverse-engineered from the Rakata. As such, it's quite likely that the specifics of how these technologies work - the principles behind them - are more-or-less unknown; people know how to build them, but not why they work.

Investment in new technology is therefore highly unprofitable, since no matter what, new kinds of FTL drives, shields, or weapons are going to be inferior to the reverse-engineered Rakata equipment in common use. As a result, technology stagnates, and will continue to do so until the Star Wars universe's poorly-funded scientific research finally surpasses the technology level of the Rakata.

That's my explanation for Star Wars' eternal technological stagnation, anyway.
I too have thought a lot about the tech but I have a different thought on why it's stagnated.

Think about how much tech has increased in the last 500 years. If you go by cars and computers it has changed a lot but, if you go by something like a door or a bed it hasn't really changed. They may have changed what they are made of but a bed today looks almost the exact same as a bed from the 1500's. The reason for this is because they have already found the best design for a beds appearance that they will look the same even if everything changes on what they are made out of.

Now let's go to the Star Wars Universe. The Galactic Republic has been around for over 20000 years. Before the Republic could have been made the individual races would have had to learn space travel and would have all been a lot more technologically advanced then we are.

Not only that, because each race would have raised up in different scenarios, they would have all likely advanced more in different fields which means, once they started working together, they would advance even faster than before.

As an example let's go to the lightsaber. If you read some books on EU, or even just looked up some information online or in the book Jedi vs Sith: Essential Guide to the Force, you will see that the original lightsaber required a battery that was basically the size of a backpack and the lightsaber was connected to the Jedi. As time went on the battery got smaller and smaller and it took more time for the lightsaber to run out of energy. Of course, the hand of the being doesn't change size so the handle would still be the same length even as the battery and cell got smaller and smaller allowing for more power and lifetime.

Therefore, even though the outwards appearance stayed the same, the internal has changed and advanced which is what I believe has happened in most aspects of the Star Wars Universe.

As for the Force taking free will away from everyone, it's a nice theory but I don't agree with it.

My theory is that the Force is actually two different entities. One being the Light Side and one being the Dark Side. I believe that both Forces are set out to destroy the other and they recruit strong willed people to fight for their side so they can win. It is because of this fighting that a Jedi can fall to the dark side and a Sith can be redeemed and step into the light. I'd go on more about my theory but I think my post is long enough. If any one is interested in more detail just send me a PM and I'll explain it better.
 

Orks da best

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SpaceBat said:
Holy shit, that had to be one of the best star wars related theories I've ever read. Great job to anyone who came up with that.
um i put the guy who came up with it at the end "by therumancer"...
 

Woodsey

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Its an interesting take on things (I wouldn't wholly agree or disagree with it), although you can argue that technology doesn't advance much because its reached a natural plateau of how far they can push things; there's still 20,000 years of the Old Republic that exists before KotOR, and before that is the Infinite Empire.
 

CommanderL

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Hinro said:
MetroidNut said:
Well, the thing about free will is an interesting idea, but I myself can contribute more to a different aspect of that - technological stagnation.

I used to spend an appallingly large amount of time roleplaying in the Star Wars universe (it's not appalling because of how much time I spent roleplaying; it's appalling because, in retrospect, I kind of hate both the Star Wars universe and the group I RPed with).

Anyway, once I started to get sick of the setting, I began injecting a lot more original stuff into it, most notably significant technological advances a few thousand years after the original movie. In the process of doing this, I came up with a little theory.

See, it's canon that not one but several precursor races existed; the Rakata, from KotOR, will make an excellent example for my purposes. KotOR implies (possibly states outright, I forget exactly) that the Rakata developed at least one of the technologies commonplace in Star Wars: the hyperdrive. The "modern" galactic civilization simply reverse-engineered these Rakatan hyperdrives.

If that's the case, it seems reasonable a lot of other technologies - lightsabers, shields, communications equipment - were also reverse-engineered from the Rakata. As such, it's quite likely that the specifics of how these technologies work - the principles behind them - are more-or-less unknown; people know how to build them, but not why they work.

Investment in new technology is therefore highly unprofitable, since no matter what, new kinds of FTL drives, shields, or weapons are going to be inferior to the reverse-engineered Rakata equipment in common use. As a result, technology stagnates, and will continue to do so until the Star Wars universe's poorly-funded scientific research finally surpasses the technology level of the Rakata.

That's my explanation for Star Wars' eternal technological stagnation, anyway.
I too have thought a lot about the tech but I have a different thought on why it's stagnated.

Think about how much tech has increased in the last 500 years. If you go by cars and computers it has changed a lot but, if you go by something like a door or a bed it hasn't really changed. They may have changed what they are made of but a bed today looks almost the exact same as a bed from the 1500's. The reason for this is because they have already found the best design for a beds appearance that they will look the same even if everything changes on what they are made out of.

Now let's go to the Star Wars Universe. The Galactic Republic has been around for over 20000 years. Before the Republic could have been made the individual races would have had to learn space travel and would have all been a lot more technologically advanced then we are.

Not only that, because each race would have raised up in different scenarios, they would have all likely advanced more in different fields which means, once they started working together, they would advance even faster than before.

As an example let's go to the lightsaber. If you read some books on EU, or even just looked up some information online or in the book Jedi vs Sith: Essential Guide to the Force, you will see that the original lightsaber required a battery that was basically the size of a backpack and the lightsaber was connected to the Jedi. As time went on the battery got smaller and smaller and it took more time for the lightsaber to run out of energy. Of course, the hand of the being doesn't change size so the handle would still be the same length even as the battery and cell got smaller and smaller allowing for more power and lifetime.

Therefore, even though the outwards appearance stayed the same, the internal has changed and advanced which is what I believe has happened in most aspects of the Star Wars Universe.

As for the Force taking free will away from everyone, it's a nice theory but I don't agree with it.

My theory is that the Force is actually two different entities. One being the Light Side and one being the Dark Side. I believe that both Forces are set out to destroy the other and they recruit strong willed people to fight for their side so they can win. It is because of this fighting that a Jedi can fall to the dark side and a Sith can be redeemed and step into the light. I'd go on more about my theory but I think my post is long enough. If any one is interested in more detail just send me a PM and I'll explain it better.
i would go with this
 

Something Amyss

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Orks da best said:
This is why there are prophecies that come true, like the whole thing with Anakin "bringing balance to the force" which was misunderstood, basically it was time for an era of good to end, and he was being used as The Force's pawn to bring it down. The thing is though that before the universe goes into full "evil mode" it's supposed to go through a period where the two forces are balanced, which is where Star Wars left off. See, this is why Vader actually killed The Emperor, it was pre-destnied, it wasn't time for an "evil empire" yet. He killed the good guys, killed the bad guy, and left things with one really strong force user who wasn't property trained (Luke) who could go either way.
Word of God says otherwise. You may have decided to INTERPRET it as such, but Lucas's vision was different. It sounds like you "sort of created your own version of it in your head without understanding it."

Seriously, were you trying for irony, or did it just swoop down on you?
 

teebeeohh

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for some reason this sounds like a fundamental christian theory to me, you can explain EVERY fickinal universe by saying that everything is predetermined and free will is an illusion.
the one reason why i think nothing ever changes in star wars: profit. people like it when everything looks nice and starwarsy so they keep it that way.
and who knows maybe technological development just seems to slow to a crawl at some point because the outward appearances of things stop to change a lot, maybe newer hyperdrives are not faster but allow to take less stable hyperspace lanes.
and since i am a huge fan of the theory that the dark side is just people being dicks (and a lot of force users and others tend to flock to them when they seem powerful since they promise personal gain) this explains why neither jedi nor sith ever truly die: there will always be dicks who are force sensitive and they will just pick up the mantle of the sith and shape it to fuel their very own insanity(like Darth Krayt did) and there will always be people who prefer a stable universe and will support the jedi.
 

Orks da best

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Orks da best said:
This is why there are prophecies that come true, like the whole thing with Anakin "bringing balance to the force" which was misunderstood, basically it was time for an era of good to end, and he was being used as The Force's pawn to bring it down. The thing is though that before the universe goes into full "evil mode" it's supposed to go through a period where the two forces are balanced, which is where Star Wars left off. See, this is why Vader actually killed The Emperor, it was pre-destnied, it wasn't time for an "evil empire" yet. He killed the good guys, killed the bad guy, and left things with one really strong force user who wasn't property trained (Luke) who could go either way.
Word of God says otherwise. You may have decided to INTERPRET it as such, but Lucas's vision was different. It sounds like you "sort of created your own version of it in your head without understanding it."

Seriously, were you trying for irony, or did it just swoop down on you?
as I said its from therumancer.