DAUL@OFFICE-2.ARPA (08/26/85)
From: William Daul / McDonnell-Douglas / APD-ASD <WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA> I suspect that the armor only protects against getting a bad sun burn. That seems to be the only thing it stops! --Bi//
Baidins@UDel-Huey.ARPA (08/26/85)
From: Baidins@UDel-Huey.ARPA The armor protected the Imperials from rocks thrown by Ewoks, for a while, long enough for them to do something if they had hand grenades. If, however, the armor does not actually protect the Imperials from anything else, that is one more example of Imperial incompetence, saddling troops with unnecessary extra weight. A more likely explanation for the armor not protecting is Lucas not thinking about the full implications of properly armored troops. He probably put Imperials in armor to suggest that the Empire is a depersonalized, mechanical force, whose troopers all look the same while the rebel troops all look different since you can see their faces.
slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) (08/27/85)
> He probably put Imperials in armor to suggest that the Empire is a > depersonalized, mechanical force, whose troopers all look the same > while the rebel troops all look different since you can see their > faces. To combine a few of the earlier ideas: There has been a recent advance in blaster technology (blasters are obviously relatively new, since light sabers where in use 1 generation ago), and armor technology has not kept up. Military bureaucracy always takes forever to catch up with reality, so troops are still required to wear armor even though it's inefective. The rebels, on the other hand, have no resources to waste. Since armor doesn't help against modern blasters, they don't wear any. It is just a useful coincidence that we can see the rebels faces and the empire's lackys look like something out of a cheap toy store :-). -- Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus Development Corp. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner slerner%sesame@harvard.ARPA
pete@stc.UUCP (Peter Kendell) (08/30/85)
Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: Keywords: Xpath: stc stc-b stc-a In article <308@sesame.UUCP> slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) writes: > >To combine a few of the earlier ideas: There has been a recent advance >in blaster technology (blasters are obviously relatively new, since >light sabers where in use 1 generation ago), and armor technology has >not kept up. Military bureaucracy always takes forever to catch up I don't think so. The light sabre was the traditional weapon of a Jedi knight. If you like, by using a weapon of limited range the Jedi knight can demonstrate his superiority by defeating better-armed enemies with an apparantly inferior weapon. Think of martial arts adepts defeating armed attackers bare-handed. The Force helps establish the mystique of the Jedi as well as providing practical help in battle. It's more likely that the blaster is the regular weapon of Imperial troops because it is very simple to use (just hit the trigger and wave it about like a sub-machinegun) and the Imperial soldiers, being expendible conscripts, aren't worth training properly. I wonder how much the Empire paid its suppliers for light bulbs (|+> <smirk>) ? -- Peter Kendell <pete@stc.UUCP> ...mcvax!ukc!stc!pete 'Not everything that is not forbidden is permitted'
jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (08/30/85)
[...] A good many military uniforms are not intended to offer protection against weapon fire. Modern infantry uniforms are good examples. They're just thick cloth -- good against mosquitos and scratchy undergrowth, but not much of anything else. I presume the reason for this is that armour which protected against weapon fire would be too bulky or expensive. Suppose the Empire subscribes to the same philosophy -- the armour should protect against minor irritations, but not to protect against weapon fire. Then the armour makes sense. What sort of irritations would the Empire face? Extreme weather conditions are the most obvious, and the armour clearly handles this -- in the Empire Strikes Back, normal armour was sufficient for the Empire infantry, so the armour obviously contains temperature control facilities. Another minor (or not so minor) annoyance would be local bacteria. The troops may well be sent to life-supporting planets at the drop of a hat. Who knows what kind of nasty diseases they might pick up from indigenous microbes? So they wear non-porous armour and breathe through filters. I dare say that this feature of the armour is vastly more important than defense against weapons. Firefights are few and far between; alien germs are omnipresent. One last function of uniforms is to encourage a psychological separation between military and civilian life. The army must create a psychological climate in which inhumane acts are possible, and in the Empire's case, they must also instill fear in the populace. The uniforms contribute admirably to this effect. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
milne@uci-icse (09/01/85)
From: Alastair Milne <milne@uci-icse> I think the idea behind the armour is possibly more psychological than physical: confront the enemy with battalions of human (probably) killing machines, with a faintly insectlike appearance about the face; demoralize and intimidate, and in many cases you'll already have the battle halfway won. The Empire appears to enjoy this strategy of giving machines menacing, disturbing appearances which are of no real mechanical advantage to the machines themselves: look at the probe droid, or the walkers, especially the big quadrupedal ones. Those cockpits looked as if they had great compound eyes on each side of them. Intimidation and oppression is the Empire's game, and not just with weaponry. Though I imagine that it's true enough about their being encumbered with bureaucracy, and rules that exist simply because they always have done. I see no real reason, though, to assume that blasters are particularly modern; and I'm pretty certain that the use of lightsabres could never have been common, since using them effectively required training with the Force. For the average fighter, the blaster has probably been the weapon of choice for quite a while. I would imagine that the armour is still used because of its demoralising appearance, and because it has a certain usefulness against weaponry less powerful than blasters (garotting, gassing, or drowning troopers would be just about impossible); and also because its communications equipment provides immediate, personal contact with every single trooper. Furthermore, I doubt whether the Empire much cares whether individual troopers get mown down by blaster fire. There are always more where they came from, and the Empire usually attacks in masses anyway. I agree about the economic use the Rebels must have to make of their resources. Better to concentrate on weaponry that actually reduces enemy forces (like ion cannons, speeders, X-wings, etc.) than to waste equipment on merely holding them off. And psychological warfare is not (or has not been) one of their strategies. A previous message paraphrased, I believe, a remark of Kenobi's from "A New Hope" about the "accuracy" of the stormtroopers' fire. Considering the context, I think he just meant that they were more accurate than Tuscan raiders with the blaster equivalent of flintlocks. Which they bloody well should have been, since they were aiming at something the size of a barn, and which hardly moved any faster than a barn. Certainly he spoke of blasters being "clumsy or random" when he first showed Luke Annakin's lightsabre. Ever notice how the window-like nature of the Star Wars films so far allows an enormous amount of speculation on subjects that the films don't cover? Alastair Milne
joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) (09/04/85)
>From: Alastair Milne <milne@uci-icse> > I see no real reason, though, to assume that blasters are > particularly modern; and I'm pretty certain that the use of > lightsabres could never have been common, since using them > effectively required training with the Force. For the average > fighter, the blaster has probably been the weapon of choice for > quite a while. I don't agree. While a Jedi Knight can use a light saber much more effectively than a ordinary person, that doesn't mean that a ordinary soldier, with the proper training, couldn't make good use of one. In close combat, A light saber would be more useful than a blaster. I will admit that only a Jedi could deflect blaster shots, like Luke did on Jabba the Hutt's barge, since that would seem to require prescience. On a related topic, are blasters projectile or energy weapons? I had assumed that they were energy weapons, but I noticed that when I was watching 'The Empire Strikes Back' on tape a couple of nights ago, that the results were more like a explosive projectile. I also noticed what seemed to be an ammo clip on one blaster. Since, I don't recall ever seeing anyone reload a blaster, I would have to postulate a very small projectile, like a small needle, so that each blaster could fire a hundred rounds or more without reloading. It would also have an extremely high muzzle velocity, since KE = 1/2MV**2. Also do you remember Darth Vader deflecting a blaster bolt with his hand in TESB? What kind of armor is he wearing? Also notice that it didn't stop a light saber!
Susser.pasa@Xerox.ARPA (09/05/85)
From: Josh Susser <Susser.pasa@Xerox.ARPA>
Alastair Milne writes:
I think the idea behind the armour is possibly more psychological
than physical: confront the enemy with battalions of human
(probably) killing machines, with a faintly insectlike appearance
about the face...The Empire appears to enjoy
this strategy of giving machines menacing, disturbing appearances
which are of no real mechanical advantage to the machines
themselves...Those cockpits looked as if they had great
compound eyes on each side of them.
Remember - these are films we are dealing with! You are right about the
"menacing, disturbing appearances" being used for psychological reasons,
but these were created by George Lucas for the benefit of the audience,
not by the Empire for the troopers' foes. Storm troopers probably
fought insectoid creatures with compound eyes as often as they fought
mammalian sentients. In fact, quite a few troopers were probably
insectoid themselves.
Here's a tangential question for you all: In a galaxy with such a
diverse population of sentients, why were most of the Imperials and
Rebels human, while non-humans were mostly scum and villainy? And as a
story teller, how could Lucas justify this?
-- Josh Susser
"I'm making this up as I go along!"milne@uci-icse (09/08/85)
From: Alastair Milne <milne@uci-icse> > On a related topic, are blasters projectile or energy weapons? > . . . were more like a explosive projectile. I also > noticed what seemed to be an ammo clip on one blaster. Personally, I think energy weapons; or at most, a combination. The energy probably induced the explosion in the target material. And what looked like an ammo clip could be a charge pack. But I really don't have anything to base this on: it's just my impression. > Since, I don't recall ever seeing anyone reload a blaster, . .. Don't forget, no single blaster user is followed consistently enough to let us see such details. Could you assume from never seeing a soldier reload in a WWII film, that their weapons didn't use projectiles. Usually, we are simply spared such minutiae unless it has an impact. (I am not actually changing my belief, but I thought this point could use answering). > Also do you remember Darth Vader deflecting a blaster bolt with his > hand in TESB? What kind of armor is he wearing? Also notice that > it didn't stop a light saber! Vader was wearing what he always wears: that black uniform from crown to toe, which contains his life support, possibly communications, and who knows what else. The shots that Han fired at him he intercepted either with his glove, or using the Force just slightly in front of the glove (I defy anybody to distinguish by looking at the scene). It would indeed be very interesting to know more about the properties of Vader's uniform. It may well be a type of armour in itself. Why do you say it didn't stop a lightsabre? It certainly seemed to to me. I grant that Vader got a lovely jolt out of it, but my impression from the sparking when the sabre made contact was of a force field "shorting" (or whatever the equivalent in a force field is). Had the sabre not been stopped, Vader's head and shoulders would have parted company from the rest of him. And I don't think we need imagine that it was Luke who stopped it. Alastair Milne
milne@uci-icse (09/08/85)
From: Alastair Milne <milne@uci-icse> > Remember - these are films we are dealing with! You are right about > the "menacing, disturbing appearances" being used for psychological > reasons, but these were created by George Lucas for the benefit of > the audience, not by the Empire for the troopers' foes. Storm > troopers probably fought insectoid creatures with compound eyes as > often as they fought mammalian sentients. In fact, quite a few > troopers were probably insectoid themselves. I agree with you about Lucas, but I don't think that excludes the Empire (Lucas' creation) from the same kind of thinking. Obviously, until and unless Lucas confirms or denies it, this is simply speculation with which I'm filling in the story; but it hangs together logically, and I don't see any reason within the story to reject it out of hand. About the species of the troopers: say rather that "there were possibly troopers who were themselves insectoid", and I will agree, though I confess it hadn't occurred to me before. Perhaps because, unlike the rebel personnel, all imperials whose forms were visible were human. I am, of course, not counting TESB's bounty hunters as imperials. Maybe high-level prejudice at work as hard as ever. For this reason, the word "probably" seems to me a bit too optimistic. Besides, I don't think any such consideration would keep the Empire from using a tactic that might help against enemy populations. > Here's a tangential question for you all: In a galaxy with such a > diverse population of sentients, why were most of the Imperials and > Rebels human, while non-humans were mostly scum and villainy? And > as a story teller, how could Lucas justify this? I'm not really sure how true this is. There is at least two major, heroic non-humans: Chewie and Yoda. And the Rebel fleet personnel, particularly in Return/Jedi, is of many different species. Nor is there a lack of humans among the scum. I suspect any apparent preponderance is because of the number of settings on Tattoine, essentially a planetwide dive, and home to a wide variety of sentients. You may indeed have a point, but without a rather careful count of humans and non-humans, and their positions, it's hard to know. However, if you are looking for equity, justice, and dedication to the proposition that all intelligent species are created equal, look elsewhere than the Empire, that well known bastion of liberty and justice. Alastair Milne
laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) (09/08/85)
I am not sure that most of the non-humans were skum and villanry. But suppose that the empire opresses non-humans in a way that it does not opress humans. (Or at least it doesn't opress humans in this fashion systemetically. If most non-humans are either enslaved or exterminated as a matter of policy, it is not surprising that there are a great many rebel non-humans, or that non-humans tend to no associate with humans (so they hang out at the Cantina Bar or Jabba's place). -- Laura Creighton (note new address!) sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa
jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (09/09/85)
In article <3577@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> milne@uci-icse writes: > >> Here's a tangential question for you all: In a galaxy with such a >> diverse population of sentients, why were most of the Imperials and >> Rebels human, while non-humans were mostly scum and villainy? And >> as a story teller, how could Lucas justify this? > The game "Freedom in the Galaxy" from Avalon Hill is a fairly accurate recreation of a Star Wars-like setting, and it proposes a useful explanation for the widespread domination of humanoid life. Humans entered the galaxy from another one (far far away) in search of scientific freedom (in much the same way that many people came to North America in search of religious freedom). In particular, they were looking for a place where they could perform far-sweeping genetic experiments. The humans created many many genetic hybrids that were half-human, half another race. In this way, they hybridized most of the existing sentient species in the galaxy, making humanoid versions of everything. Time passed. Hybrids spread. The older races became worried about the hybrids, because they had all the good points of the old races plus the good points of humans as well. Wars broke out. The hybrids all aided each other, while the older races tended to fight individually (they had no evolutionary ties to species in other star systems). In the end, most of the older races were wiped out and replaced by hybrids. The result is a galaxy where most of the sentient beings are about human height, are bipedal, have two arms, one head, and so on (one could sometimes be fooled into thinking they were just humans in costumes!) The dominant race was purely human because the hybrids had built in deference instincts to humans (the scientists who built the original hybrids weren't dumb). Therefore humans were the natural rulers (because hybrids would defer to them) and the human form was the de facto standard. Gross deviations (like Jabba the Hut) are hold-overs from the old races and only achieve power through exceptional circumstances. I love pseudo-science. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo
joel@peora.UUCP (Joel Upchurch) (09/09/85)
>Here's a tangential question for you all: In a galaxy with such a >diverse population of sentients, why were most of the Imperials and >Rebels human, while non-humans were mostly scum and villainy? And as a >story teller, how could Lucas justify this? > >-- Josh Susser A think that what we are dealing with here is a HUMAN empire. What non-humans we see on the imperial side are more in the nature of auxliaries rather than full imperial citizens. The rebel forces consisted of human colonists and non-humans that are chaffing under the restrictions of the empire. Also remember in 'Return of the Jedi' there were many non-humans in the rebel forces. Joel Upchurch
ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (09/14/85)
> On a related topic, are blasters projectile or energy weapons? > [more stuff] *** Oh, could be either. I remember the 'ammo clip' you describe on one blaster. Either way, the blaster bolts are traveling *way* too slow. One could almost step out of their way! > Also do you remember Darth Vader deflecting a blaster bolt > with his hand in TESB? What kind of armor is he wearing? > Also notice that it didn't stop a light saber! **** I think that was artistic license: Showing you that ole Darth could deflect blaster bolts by the power of the force. Don't need no light saber anymore. As to why it didn't stop a light saber, well, I always thought that a duel between Jedi's would take place on many levels sort of in parallel. So Luke not only had to physically direct his blow, but also had to mentally defeat Darth's mental deflection of it. Or something. If some ordinary Joe took a lightsaber to Darth, I don't think the blows would be effective. Ron -- -- Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.) {pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix,vecpyr,certes,isi}!wjvax!ron Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: "If you are seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it."
john@hp-pcd.UUCP (john) (09/18/85)
<<<< < <> Also do you remember Darth Vader deflecting a blaster bolt <> with his hand in TESB? What kind of armor is he wearing? <> Also notice that it didn't stop a light saber! <**** < < I think that was artistic license: Showing you that ole Darth could < deflect blaster bolts by the power of the force. Don't need no light < saber anymore. If I remember right he used his right hand to stop the blaster shot in TESB. That same hand was shown in ROTJ to be a mechanical replacement so we can assume that it could be armor. He may have even guessed that Han would fire and could have replaced his whole arm with a dummy one made of solid neutrons. Nothing is to good for a Dark Lord and it would put a healthy fear in the stormtroopers that saw this demo. John Eaton !hplabs!hp-pcd!john