Turbolaser questions

[SuperSaiyaMan12]

I've been wondering about the turbolaser, the main armament of almost every capital ship in Star Wars. Like...when was it first invented? Why hasn't a new type of technology been implemented to replace it, like lasers/phase cannons to phasers in Star Trek? If you were to make a replacement, what would you make?

[Monroe]

First proto-'blasters' were backpack units 25k BBY. The Empire worked on some that were invisible. But honestly I don't see that catching on. Not neat enough to watch

Ion Cannons are from about 4000 BBY, to combat a druid revolt (which also explains why droids aren't more advanced).

I think to guess the next type of weapon you'd have to look at super weapons the Empire uses. The Galaxy Gun converts matter to energy. Smaller versions could be very lethal.

[Lt. Staplic]

the other thing is that it's kind of a characteristic of the SW universe to take a single technology, and push it to the extremes, for example they still use fusion reactors to power their ships. Rather than switching to M/AM, they simply supersized the tech and worked to get a very high energy gain.

I'd imagine it's the same with the turbolaser.

[Tsukiyumi]

...a druid revolt...

Take that, pagan b*stards!

[Monroe]

...a druid revolt...

Take that, pagan b*stards!

Was playing WoW while i made that post :p

[Deepcrush]

Also remember that the views on tech are far far far different in SW. Most people are happy with what they have. Also, while they still call their main heavy weapons Turbo Lasers, that by no means says they have to be the very same thing as a Turbo Laser from 10k years ago.

We have Tanks now, we had them a hundred years ago, we'll have them a thousand years from now. Doesn't mean they don't change.

[Sionnach Glic]

Like...when was it first invented?

No idea. Energy weapons of some description have been around for tens of thousands of years at least. Whether or not these are the turbolasers we know from the films is completely unknown.
Also, the fact that the turbolasers from the movies bear no resemblance to the name itself would seem to imply that the name itself is a hold-over from previous times, when they did use lasers. This obviously makes pinning down any dates even more difficult, since we can't really tell if turbolasers used ten thousand years ago are the same as the turbolasers from the movies.

Why hasn't a new type of technology been implemented to replace it, like lasers/phase cannons to phasers in Star Trek?

Again, the name would seem to imply that the original weapon (turbo-charged lasers, whatever the hell they are) were indeed replaced over time, as the weapons named as turbolasers "now" are neither turbo nor lasers.

[Monroe]

Like...when was it first invented?

No idea. Energy weapons of some description have been around for tens of thousands of years at least. Whether or not these are the turbolasers we know from the films is completely unknown.
Also, the fact that the turbolasers from the movies bear no resemblance to the name itself would seem to imply that the name itself is a hold-over from previous times, when they did use lasers. This obviously makes pinning down any dates even more difficult, since we can't really tell if turbolasers used ten thousand years ago are the same as the turbolasers from the movies.

This is a good point. But we do have some knowledge. We know from comics and video games that they used turolasers 4000 BBY that acted the same. And we'll know in a few years about 7000 BBY (cause of the new MMO). And like I said in my ole essential guide to weapons they talked about the first blaster being 25,000 years ago but it wasn't very practical and probably wasn't on ship scale yet. 25k years ago seems to be a good estimate though because most SW tech seems to have came from that time period.

[Sionnach Glic]

Cool, so we have a lower limit on how long the movie's turbolasers have been in service.

[Mark]

The timeline of SW always blows me away. Its easy to forget that the SW timeline is tens of thousands of years old. Blows me away.

[Captain Seafort]

they still use fusion reactors to power their ships. Rather than switching to M/AM, they simply supersized the tech and worked to get a very high energy gain.

Don't be mislead by their use of the word "fusion" - the basic principles of smashing stuff together obviously must be the same, but they use hypermatter (whatever that is), not hydrogen fusion.

[Lt. Staplic]

true, but that just furthers my idea of taking one technology and pruning it until it's as good as or better than what you can get from a supposedly "superior" tech.

[Captain Seafort]

My point is that it isn't the same technology.

[Lt. Staplic]

My point is that it isn't the same technology.

isn't it? just b/c their smashing together hypermatter instead of Hydrogen. Hypermatter must just be something that releases much more energy and has a longer fusion chain before it stops producing more energy than it consumes.

[Captain Seafort]

isn't it? just b/c their smashing together hypermatter instead of Hydrogen.

Exactly

Hypermatter must just be something that releases much more energy and has a longer fusion chain before it stops producing more energy than it consumes.

For the sort of stuff we see it achieve, it's energy density would have to be close to rest energy. I think RotS:ICS refers to it as tachyonic matter - you'd have to get Thorin in here to explain that.