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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2DOUQ2e:
Rogue One is actually about internet freedom:
kylostahp:
The fate of the whole galaxy depends on these Death Star plans making it back to the Rebel base, and for the entirety of A New Hope, our heroes are running around with the sole copy on one little disk.
No one thought to make backups, upload the files somewhere else, or even better: post them publicly somewhere. After all, only the Empire wants to keep the plans secret. It’s no skin off the Rebel Alliance’s nose if the entire galaxy can see the schematics of the Death Star. Why go cloak-and-lightsaber if you could just make an anonymous Tumblr?
So this whole article is tongue-in-cheek commentary but also actually a really good piece of meta re: mass media in Star Wars.
It doesn’t address my personal interpretation, which is that the sci-fi side of Star Wars is perpetually stuck in the 1970s–a time when fitting a full set of technical plans and specifications for a major engineering project on a single disk was beyond the capabilities of modern computing. (Remember: 3.5″ floppies didn’t exist until right around when A New Hope came out. George would have been using 5.25- or even 8-inchers.) The use of long-distance high-speed communication in Star Wars is also clearly based on the early concept and use of the Internet–distinct from the World Wide Web, the public mass media tool we know and love, which didn’t exist until twenty years later–as a government-developed and sponsored communications network for high-level political, military, and research use.
Why has Star Wars canon stayed technologically stuck in the ‘70s? Harder to say. Part of it is tradition. But I think part of it is also scaling problems (which are endemic to the setting in other areas, as well). We don’t even have a single global news media network in real life–conceptualizing a galactic one, across thousands of planets with trillions of citizens speaking hundreds of languages, is a mind-boggling problem that the setting isn’t prepared to support. It also draws attention to questions like, “just how the fuck does galactic government work?” and “what services is the Republic even providing to its constituents?”… followed by “wait, what even are the galactic politics issues at hand when there isn’t a war on?” WE DON’T KNOW. Taxes, apparently. (But again, what services do those taxes even fund?)
So basically, the sci-fi end of Star Wars–such as it is–can’t be updated without exposing the crumbling foundations of the entire setting. Whoops.
(Your picture was not posted)
Rogue One is actually about internet freedom:
kylostahp:
The fate of the whole galaxy depends on these Death Star plans making it back to the Rebel base, and for the entirety of A New Hope, our heroes are running around with the sole copy on one little disk.
No one thought to make backups, upload the files somewhere else, or even better: post them publicly somewhere. After all, only the Empire wants to keep the plans secret. It’s no skin off the Rebel Alliance’s nose if the entire galaxy can see the schematics of the Death Star. Why go cloak-and-lightsaber if you could just make an anonymous Tumblr?
So this whole article is tongue-in-cheek commentary but also actually a really good piece of meta re: mass media in Star Wars.
It doesn’t address my personal interpretation, which is that the sci-fi side of Star Wars is perpetually stuck in the 1970s–a time when fitting a full set of technical plans and specifications for a major engineering project on a single disk was beyond the capabilities of modern computing. (Remember: 3.5″ floppies didn’t exist until right around when A New Hope came out. George would have been using 5.25- or even 8-inchers.) The use of long-distance high-speed communication in Star Wars is also clearly based on the early concept and use of the Internet–distinct from the World Wide Web, the public mass media tool we know and love, which didn’t exist until twenty years later–as a government-developed and sponsored communications network for high-level political, military, and research use.
Why has Star Wars canon stayed technologically stuck in the ‘70s? Harder to say. Part of it is tradition. But I think part of it is also scaling problems (which are endemic to the setting in other areas, as well). We don’t even have a single global news media network in real life–conceptualizing a galactic one, across thousands of planets with trillions of citizens speaking hundreds of languages, is a mind-boggling problem that the setting isn’t prepared to support. It also draws attention to questions like, “just how the fuck does galactic government work?” and “what services is the Republic even providing to its constituents?”… followed by “wait, what even are the galactic politics issues at hand when there isn’t a war on?” WE DON’T KNOW. Taxes, apparently. (But again, what services do those taxes even fund?)
So basically, the sci-fi end of Star Wars–such as it is–can’t be updated without exposing the crumbling foundations of the entire setting. Whoops.
(Your picture was not posted)
