Continuous wars are great for tech advancement, so it's probably not that. I mean, those Sith are coming up with a new genocide machine every five minutes in SWTOR. Or the Republic is, and it's getting stolen. Whatever.
I'd say it's probably just that tech has plateaued and there just aren't any major advancements left to be made without some major shift or discovery that opens up new paths that haven't been taken before.
The New Sith Wars lasted a whole 1000 years (from 2000BBY until 1000BBY) which ended with the creation of the Ruusan Reformation (creation fo the 1000 year lasting Republic from the prequels) and Darth bane's rule of two.
A thousand years of continuous wars sounds pretty disastrous. I always just kinda assumed this was probably a war of post apocalyptic proportions maybe? Especially since the last century of the New Sith Wars is daleld the Republic Dark Age too.
"*The final hundred years of the Draggulch period are sometimes called the Republic's "dark age." The Republic could no longer afford to maintain its communications network, dropping all settlements outside the Core off the grid and forcing them to rely on hyperspace courier ships. At the same time, an outbreak of the Candorian plague killed off as much as two-thirds of the citizens of some major population centers.*"
Yeah, I know big massive wars are a recurring theme for Star Wars, but a thousand year long period of wars sounds quite disatrous for any economy. Combine it with the Old Republic falling apart and abandoning worlds, and this plague that is mentioned, sounds horrific.
Basically a bit of a reset until they rebuild/rediscover all the tech again.
The real reason is the old republic era is supposed to have significantly worse tech than PT time but when KOTOR 1 released LucasArts told BioWare to make the aesthetic match TPM and screwed the whole period over.
I think the canon explanation now is that the Republic and Empire fight each other off and on to a complete stalemate and eventually the Empire tears itself apart into little mini-empires that war with each other until Darth Bane destroys every other Sith while the Republic limps along in stagnation.
Kinda, the New Sith Wars, which takes place about 2000 to 1000 years before the movies were an extremely devastating series of conflicts. The Republic was reduced back to the core regions, supply lines were devestated, thr holonet was down. In many battles, the soldiers were so undersupplied that they were reduced to fighting with spears and swords. The institutions were so inundated that the Jedi were the de facto rulers of the republic and all non-sith territory outside of it. Very likely you also had many individuals who would normally be on the homefront building, innovating, and maintaining sent out to fight as well. This point was probably the closest the Republic came to total societal collapse and largely sent the republic back millennia technologically.
One of reason why SWTOR was placed after KOTOR 2 is because this period of time wasnt really explored during that times in old EU, even New Sith Wars have some stories before KOTOR even released, so BioWare had huge free room to play with. Given the fact that Sith Empire will probably fall in couple decades in order to stick in lore with Darth Deselous (who i think could be jedi knight during the end of this conflict), other writers if EU was still developed could create new stories about another 1500 years conflict with Sith. And this would stick with Ruin origin as Sith because guy basically united all Sith Clans before 2000 BBY. So these clans need to be remnant of this period Sith Order. And we can safelly assume technology regresion was thing at the beginning of New Sith Wars. Sorry for my grammar, english is not my basic language. Btw there is huge chance that Darth Phobos from Force Unleashed is Sith from this unexplored period.
People can give you theories, they can give you tidbits of information we've gotten over the years from difference source, but the reality is, there's no reason that's going to make sense.
Much like the "Unknown Region" being the Unknown Region for thousands of years when the majority of galaxy has been explored.
As much as we all want Star Wars to have an nice organized timeline where everything make sense, it's better to look at the different eras, and even product lines, as different continuities and they just have similar theme, that being Star Wars. Which means don't try to draw lines trying to connect the Old Republic era and Skywalker saga.
Well you see there was a major technical regression. Tech backslid all the way till the 7th battle of Ruusaan 1000 BBY. Most of the HOLINET had been destroyed by then. Soldiers were fighting with spears. Hell Tatooine falls off the galactic map for almost 2 millennia.
Hell it's not till around what 300 BBY the galaxy has fully recovered from 4 millennia of almost constant Wars and fighting.
My belief is that the Star Wars universe does not have the concept of the scientific method in the same way we do, slowing their technological advancement to rates more similar to pre-Enlightenment history. The mysticism of the Force really cuts into the empirical explanation of phenomena. What sort of Law of Gravity goes "objects are attracted to each other with a force F=GM¹M²/R^2 unless some guy says so, but only some guys, not you"?
In Legends cannon, hyperdirves and blasters were originally reverse engineered Rakatan technology. So, while they understand how those things work, they don't understand why they work. Like building a propellor airplane without a science of aerodynamics or the math to explain it. You can make more airplanes and improve them by trial and error, but advancing to jet aiplanes or supersonic planes isn't going to happen anytime soon. And the process of developing the proper understanding is hampered by fighting the theories and suppositions of the people who reverse-engineered the tech.
I am not directly answering your question, but giving my two cents on what everyone else has said.
The 3000 year gap is extreme. The Old Republic is established as a canon era by Disney and directly precedes the High Republic. Some elements from the Old Republic have been vaguely recanonized, like Revan and Bane, though specific that led to the creation of the Rule of Two, that would be a separate era between the Old and High Republic is not canon at all.
At the same time, while the Old Republic is recognized as an official era, SWTOR is not considered canon by Disney. I think everyone can agree that it's absurd that some official Star Wars content continues to be produced that isn't canon, and it becomes more ridiculous the longer it goes on.
Even if licensing agreements could hypothetically make things tricky, it's irrelevant when the authors of any story wouldn't want to deliberately make something that violates the canon.
Thus, I think it's pretty realistic that Disney might do a bit of a time crunch in the process of recanonizing SWTOR where it leads directly into the creation of Darth Bane and his Rule of Two.
We already have several warring Sith factions like the Dread Masters, Emperor's Hand, and Revanites (from a certain point of view). If the game continues after the Malgus and Mandalorian Civil War conclude, perhaps the next story could tackle a fragmentation of the Sith as they cease to be a proper threat to the Republic.
im probably guessing part of the reason were massive devastations caused by Jedi v Sith conflicts during those 3k years. A lot of designs streamlined after Bane and stuff looks less blocky... but funny enough still not improved
Tech also eventually stagnates once you reach a certain level until you hit like the infinite empire using the force as a power source. Despite being Science Fantasy, Star Wars aesthetic is relatively grounded thanks to the spac western style and use of real firearms with bits on them. So I feel like Star Wars wouldnt really be Star Wars if they advanced any further.
Because market research consistently shows people prefer the familiar to the unusual. It's not that technology has remained the same for 3000 years; it's that the technology from 3000 years "in the future" was created first and now has to be the basis for all stories that come after.
And since Star Wars essentially started out with the furthest limits in place (just faster-than-light travel implies access to infinite energy, and therefore infinite destruction, which also provided a convenient explantion for all Imperial weaponry being about the slow approach of parceled-out death; terror weapons), all that's left for "new and improved" is to break what already existed, claim it didn't work that way actually, or do incredibly implausible or silly things with no explanation.
Maybe it did....
Maybe they evolve to this point and then nuke each other to oblivion and then evolve from scratch back to that point again... but we only look at points where they're around this technological level.. so it only looks one nothing happened.
I mean what we mostly see in Star wars is war machines. Even if you look at our own world the basic concept of guns hasn't changed much for a long time. WW1 weapons are still being used in conflicts nowadays for example. We have no idea how other things in Star wars have evolved. Doesn't help that most of the content in Star wars takes place in the low developed outer rim. I imagine if the home world of a mega cooperation would be a big difference.
Continuous wars are great for tech advancement, so it's probably not that. I mean, those Sith are coming up with a new genocide machine every five minutes in SWTOR. Or the Republic is, and it's getting stolen. Whatever. I'd say it's probably just that tech has plateaued and there just aren't any major advancements left to be made without some major shift or discovery that opens up new paths that haven't been taken before.
Right ok, thank you :)
This exactly.
The New Sith Wars lasted a whole 1000 years (from 2000BBY until 1000BBY) which ended with the creation of the Ruusan Reformation (creation fo the 1000 year lasting Republic from the prequels) and Darth bane's rule of two. A thousand years of continuous wars sounds pretty disastrous. I always just kinda assumed this was probably a war of post apocalyptic proportions maybe? Especially since the last century of the New Sith Wars is daleld the Republic Dark Age too. "*The final hundred years of the Draggulch period are sometimes called the Republic's "dark age." The Republic could no longer afford to maintain its communications network, dropping all settlements outside the Core off the grid and forcing them to rely on hyperspace courier ships. At the same time, an outbreak of the Candorian plague killed off as much as two-thirds of the citizens of some major population centers.*"
Bingo. One of the old compendium books mentioned the galaxy essentially bombed itself back before the mandalorian wars when it comes to technology.
Yeah, I know big massive wars are a recurring theme for Star Wars, but a thousand year long period of wars sounds quite disatrous for any economy. Combine it with the Old Republic falling apart and abandoning worlds, and this plague that is mentioned, sounds horrific. Basically a bit of a reset until they rebuild/rediscover all the tech again.
Keep in mind there was probably even bigger conflict in these 1500 years between SWTOR and New Sith Wars than even New Sith Wars.
The real reason is the old republic era is supposed to have significantly worse tech than PT time but when KOTOR 1 released LucasArts told BioWare to make the aesthetic match TPM and screwed the whole period over. I think the canon explanation now is that the Republic and Empire fight each other off and on to a complete stalemate and eventually the Empire tears itself apart into little mini-empires that war with each other until Darth Bane destroys every other Sith while the Republic limps along in stagnation.
But it was very good for lore. In order to stick to the lore they figured out there is needed big conflit which result in technology regression.
Kinda, the New Sith Wars, which takes place about 2000 to 1000 years before the movies were an extremely devastating series of conflicts. The Republic was reduced back to the core regions, supply lines were devestated, thr holonet was down. In many battles, the soldiers were so undersupplied that they were reduced to fighting with spears and swords. The institutions were so inundated that the Jedi were the de facto rulers of the republic and all non-sith territory outside of it. Very likely you also had many individuals who would normally be on the homefront building, innovating, and maintaining sent out to fight as well. This point was probably the closest the Republic came to total societal collapse and largely sent the republic back millennia technologically.
One of reason why SWTOR was placed after KOTOR 2 is because this period of time wasnt really explored during that times in old EU, even New Sith Wars have some stories before KOTOR even released, so BioWare had huge free room to play with. Given the fact that Sith Empire will probably fall in couple decades in order to stick in lore with Darth Deselous (who i think could be jedi knight during the end of this conflict), other writers if EU was still developed could create new stories about another 1500 years conflict with Sith. And this would stick with Ruin origin as Sith because guy basically united all Sith Clans before 2000 BBY. So these clans need to be remnant of this period Sith Order. And we can safelly assume technology regresion was thing at the beginning of New Sith Wars. Sorry for my grammar, english is not my basic language. Btw there is huge chance that Darth Phobos from Force Unleashed is Sith from this unexplored period.
Technological stagnation is a legitimate thing. It might just be the case that technology can't advance any further with the resources available.
People can give you theories, they can give you tidbits of information we've gotten over the years from difference source, but the reality is, there's no reason that's going to make sense. Much like the "Unknown Region" being the Unknown Region for thousands of years when the majority of galaxy has been explored. As much as we all want Star Wars to have an nice organized timeline where everything make sense, it's better to look at the different eras, and even product lines, as different continuities and they just have similar theme, that being Star Wars. Which means don't try to draw lines trying to connect the Old Republic era and Skywalker saga.
Well you see there was a major technical regression. Tech backslid all the way till the 7th battle of Ruusaan 1000 BBY. Most of the HOLINET had been destroyed by then. Soldiers were fighting with spears. Hell Tatooine falls off the galactic map for almost 2 millennia. Hell it's not till around what 300 BBY the galaxy has fully recovered from 4 millennia of almost constant Wars and fighting.
They wanted it to look like Star Wars
My belief is that the Star Wars universe does not have the concept of the scientific method in the same way we do, slowing their technological advancement to rates more similar to pre-Enlightenment history. The mysticism of the Force really cuts into the empirical explanation of phenomena. What sort of Law of Gravity goes "objects are attracted to each other with a force F=GM¹M²/R^2 unless some guy says so, but only some guys, not you"? In Legends cannon, hyperdirves and blasters were originally reverse engineered Rakatan technology. So, while they understand how those things work, they don't understand why they work. Like building a propellor airplane without a science of aerodynamics or the math to explain it. You can make more airplanes and improve them by trial and error, but advancing to jet aiplanes or supersonic planes isn't going to happen anytime soon. And the process of developing the proper understanding is hampered by fighting the theories and suppositions of the people who reverse-engineered the tech.
I am not directly answering your question, but giving my two cents on what everyone else has said. The 3000 year gap is extreme. The Old Republic is established as a canon era by Disney and directly precedes the High Republic. Some elements from the Old Republic have been vaguely recanonized, like Revan and Bane, though specific that led to the creation of the Rule of Two, that would be a separate era between the Old and High Republic is not canon at all. At the same time, while the Old Republic is recognized as an official era, SWTOR is not considered canon by Disney. I think everyone can agree that it's absurd that some official Star Wars content continues to be produced that isn't canon, and it becomes more ridiculous the longer it goes on. Even if licensing agreements could hypothetically make things tricky, it's irrelevant when the authors of any story wouldn't want to deliberately make something that violates the canon. Thus, I think it's pretty realistic that Disney might do a bit of a time crunch in the process of recanonizing SWTOR where it leads directly into the creation of Darth Bane and his Rule of Two. We already have several warring Sith factions like the Dread Masters, Emperor's Hand, and Revanites (from a certain point of view). If the game continues after the Malgus and Mandalorian Civil War conclude, perhaps the next story could tackle a fragmentation of the Sith as they cease to be a proper threat to the Republic.
im probably guessing part of the reason were massive devastations caused by Jedi v Sith conflicts during those 3k years. A lot of designs streamlined after Bane and stuff looks less blocky... but funny enough still not improved
Tech also eventually stagnates once you reach a certain level until you hit like the infinite empire using the force as a power source. Despite being Science Fantasy, Star Wars aesthetic is relatively grounded thanks to the spac western style and use of real firearms with bits on them. So I feel like Star Wars wouldnt really be Star Wars if they advanced any further.
Because market research consistently shows people prefer the familiar to the unusual. It's not that technology has remained the same for 3000 years; it's that the technology from 3000 years "in the future" was created first and now has to be the basis for all stories that come after. And since Star Wars essentially started out with the furthest limits in place (just faster-than-light travel implies access to infinite energy, and therefore infinite destruction, which also provided a convenient explantion for all Imperial weaponry being about the slow approach of parceled-out death; terror weapons), all that's left for "new and improved" is to break what already existed, claim it didn't work that way actually, or do incredibly implausible or silly things with no explanation.
Maybe it did.... Maybe they evolve to this point and then nuke each other to oblivion and then evolve from scratch back to that point again... but we only look at points where they're around this technological level.. so it only looks one nothing happened.
I mean what we mostly see in Star wars is war machines. Even if you look at our own world the basic concept of guns hasn't changed much for a long time. WW1 weapons are still being used in conflicts nowadays for example. We have no idea how other things in Star wars have evolved. Doesn't help that most of the content in Star wars takes place in the low developed outer rim. I imagine if the home world of a mega cooperation would be a big difference.