Luke Skywalker – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Tue, 24 Mar 2020 13:23:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-nerds_head_thumb2-100x100.png Luke Skywalker – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com 32 32 All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, under one umbrella. We create short run podcasts for nerds, covering D&D, Marvel, Starfinder, and more! You vote for your favorite shows and they just might get a second season. Luke Skywalker – Nerds on Earth false episodic Luke Skywalker – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. Luke Skywalker – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ Do they have Bitcoin in the Star Wars Universe and can I get more of my economic questions answered? https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/08/star-wars-economics/ Tue, 28 Aug 2018 12:00:39 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=19327

Listen, this is make believe. But it is sometimes fun to dig into the quirky corners of our favorite nerd properties. This post digs into the economics of Star Wars.

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When it comes to Star Wars, a few folks have cranked up the Hissy Fit Generator® and are driving it around like that one kid in the bumper cars who is just a little too into slamming everyone else. Yet the vast majority of the rest of us don’t need to burn things to the ground. We can focus on the aspects we love, and let the things we don’t roll off our duck backs.

That allows us to waste our time on the silly, pedantic things us nerds are known for. Yes, Star Wars is imaginary. But that doesn’t mean we can’t dig into the quirky corners of the Star Wars Galaxy!

So this is a post that collects all of Nerds on Earth’s smart takes on the economies of the Star Wars galaxy. Let’s assume that was a typo that should’ve been “smert.” No, “smert” is not a word, but it still makes more sense in this context that “smart.”

So, no, these aren’t smart takes that pass as solid economic advice. But let’s have a little fun with Star Wars for a change, shall we?

Star Wars Economics: The Value of Recycling

From the moment The Force Awakens began and we saw Rey on the big screen–goggled up and salvaging a piece of scrap, only to then repel down through the vast bulk of the decimated Star Destroyer–did you not wish you knew more about Jakku and Rey’s life?

It would be a tough life to get up day in and day out only to scrounge a few pieces of tech from old starships, only to have the junk dealer manipulate the price on you.

So how about we speculate on the economics of the scrap market on Jakku? By understanding what we know of the scrap market here on Earth, can we make some guesses about what life was like for young Rey on Jakku? I dunno.

But I’ve already written the article, so click here if you want to give it a browse.

Star Wars Economics: Flea Market or eBay?

Jawas have always been one of my favorite aliens of Star Wars, going back to my childhood years of watching A New Hope.

Jawas dealing in second-hand items is more social and networked than that of an eBay seller. It’s more like a picker and the flea market. And, let’s be honest, every thing us Americans know about picking, we learned from the television show American Pickers on the History Channel.

American Pickers follows antique and collectible scavengers Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, who travel around the United States to “pick” unique items for resale. While on the road, the men follow leads or sometimes “free-style”, which is to stop at a place that looks like it is ripe for the picking, holding items that are worth buying.

So click here to dive into what Jawas and the American flea market industry really have in common.

Star Wars Economics: The Cost of Doomsday Weapons

Being that it is the size of a moon, the Death Star has to be expensive to build. But just how expensive?

Well, we’re getting nerdy here with the economics of Star Wars, so let’s dig into the cost of the Death Star, shall we?

Click here for the full look.

Then the kicker? Well, spoiler alert, but the whole thing went up in an explosion caused by a couple measly proton torpedoes. I hope the Empire had good insurance.

Star Wars Economics: Taking out the Trash

But before the fiery explosion of the Death Star, they were producing a good deal of solid waste. We know this because we saw our rebellious heroes get trapped in one of the trash compactors.

But why didn’t the Empire just vent all waste out into space? Well, by looking at the guidelines of the US Navy, we might have some insight into why the trash compactor scene was smert filming.

Click here.

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Why Luke Skywalker Was Almost Fired out of a T-shirt Cannon https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/07/death-star-trash-compactor/ Thu, 19 Jul 2018 12:00:01 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=18676

The trash compactor scene in Star Wars is iconic. But does it also follow proper Naval protocol?

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The Death Star is as big as a moon and let’s just assume it is roughly as dense as a Naval ship, because that’s a perfectly reasonable assumption but, more importantly, I need you to do that to make my stupid article work.

That type of mass would create a bit of surface gravity. Not much, mind you. But still enough that if you chucked your McDonald’s trash out the side of the Death Star into the vacuum of space, your Mickey-D’s wrappers would fall back and land somewhere else on the death star, even if you gave it a good heave-ho.

Even if you fired the trash out of a t-shirt cannon probably. So if simply shoving something out an airlock would result in it falling back towards the Death Star, then what do you do with your trash? Well, we’ve seen the trash compactor scene in A New Hope, so…SPOILERS, I guess. But let’s play along and see where this goes.

I mentioned previously that we can imagine the Death Star as a Naval ship, so let’s take a detour to lean into that a little more. The Navy is expected to adhere to MARPOL 73/78, which are the International protocols and maritime laws used to prevent pollution by seafaring vessels.

So the short story is that a ship like an aircraft carrier sorts their trash. Organics like banana peels are allowed to by chucked over the side, while other waste like plastics is pulped, shredded, or chunked before being compressed into a big pancake-shaped wagon wheel that is called a trash disk.

Shred, then compact. And those discs are supposed to be stored onboard until they can be later disposed of properly while in harbor. But things don’t always go that way. See below. (NSFW: Language)

And here is a look at the discs, after some had been found washed up on the beaches of the Outer Banks.

I’m one of those planet-loving liberals they mock in the video, so the dumping of trash into the ocean cheeses me off, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. Properly disposing of waste has heavy strategic advantages as well.

There are oodles of stories from the Cold War era that told of Soviet ships that would masquerade as simple merchants, masking a full array of sophisticated surveillance gear. These sly Soviet vessels would shadow U.S. Naval ships, hoping to gather military intel.

How did they track the Navy vessels? Well, they followed the trash, of course. Ships dumping their trash overboard created a Hansel and Gretel-like breadcrumb trail that was shockingly easy to follow. Then the solid waste was retrieved and sorted through like a crook looking for a credit card statement in your household trash.

Now let’s bring this back to the Death Star. We’ve already talked about how the sheer size of the Death Star created enough gravity to pull trash back toward it. Well, they could dump waste into the power core and allow proton torpedos to vaporize it. /ahem/

But vaporized stuff doesn’t just “cease to exist.” Even if they would have spewed vaporized trash out a t-shirt cannon nozzle, Death Star engineers still would have had to eject it fast enough to prevent the slower particles from falling back on the Death Star. No Imperial wants a Death Star covered in a thin layer of waste. It’s gross and doesn’t fit the cleanliness profile of the blacks, whites, and grays the Empire was known for.

Besides, the Death Star is big, the size of a moon. You’d need a sophisticated waste management system to move trash through the corridors. Han Solo and Finn understood this, having been an Imperial for a moment.

Trash from the center would need to be moved through miles of station before it could be vented into space, so the more compact it is the better, unless you want your entire station to be taken up by garbage chutes.

Besides, compacting is just hydraulics. Vaporization would use a lot of energy, and also creates the problem of transporting a lot of very hot gas through pipes that run the risk of bursting. That’d be a hot mess. And pulping into some sort of liquid sluice would simply be stinky and you’d have tanks of liquid waste sloshing around in corridors.

So compacting it is. But before compacting, the Empire would want clean up any organics. Seeding each compactor with a scavenging creature makes sense. Besides, trash attracts little vermin like rats or monkey-lizards, so having a creature to eat the vermin kills two birds with one stone.

The compacted trash is then easier to move around than loose piles. Plus, it could then be launched out of the gravity well with far less hassle and mess. It wouldn’t fall apart, so it could even to jettisoned in a strategically helpful direction, away from typical flight lanes.

Just like a Naval ship shouldn’t randomly throw trash overboard, lest they be laying down a trail to be followed, the Imperials chose appropriate times to eject trash. They dump right before a jump. Han took advantage of this.

Think of the Millennium Falcon as a Corellian Freighter version of a big trash disc.

What did we learn here? IDK, it’s just a movie, so don’t start a petition if my research into Imperial Navy Waste Management got a little something wrong. It’s just fun to think how scenes from the movies us nerds love can have interesting little parallels in the Galaxy that’s not far away.

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What can be learned from the history of Luke Skywalker’s Hideaway? https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/05/luke-skywalker-hideaway/ Thu, 17 May 2018 12:00:23 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=17747

Star Wars fans know it as Ahch-To, but its Skellig Michael to the Irish. We look at the historical origins of Luke Skywalker's Hideaway from The Last Jedi.

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Hey, can we just talk about The Last Jedi without fighting about it? Seriously, let’s just slip into a little lore, determined to leave the shouting behind, replacing it with a little nerdery on Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Hermit Hole.

Luke Skywalker’s hermitage on Ahch-To was filmed on the island of Skellig Michael, just southwest of Ireland. It’s not rare for Star Wars to use Earth’s exotic beauty in filming. Tatooine was filmed in Tunisia in the region actually called Tataouine. Hoth was filmed on Norway’s glaciers. And Endor’s forest moon is the redwood groves of Northern California.

But the producers of The Last Jedi did something a little different with Skellig Michael. They also adapted the bizarre, very real structures built by its former inhabitants. Luke Skywalker’s ancient Jedi shelter is actually a building type called a clochán, a primitive stone dwelling that stands preserved on Skellig Michael.

Clocháns are sometimes called beehive huts and were built by Christian monks who first settled the island in the 6th or 7th century, folks who knew a little something about isolating themselves. A beehive hut typically has a circular footprint that tapers into a domed roof. Skellig Michael lacked timber large enough for construction, so the monks used the stone that was available. The stones are cut flat, rough and uneven on the outside face, but smoother on the inside. And the walls of the clocháns are unmortared masonry, most likely due to the absence of lime for making mortar.

The clocháns of Skellig Michael were inhabited from the founding of the monastery until about 1200, after which the monks left the island due to a worsening climate. They abandoned their huts, as well as a stone church, but the monastic order continued to visit and maintain Skellig Michael.

Christian monasticism is the tradition of individuals who live ascetic and cloistered lives that are fully dedicated to Christian worship. The word monk originated from the Greek monachos, meaning “alone” and their origin story traces back as far as the Old Testament and the stories of pious prophets in the wilderness. In fact, early monks lived entirely alone like Luke Skywalker, and didn’t even gather and form monasteries.

Enda of Aran is considered the “patriarch of Irish monasticism.” Early in life Enda was a warrior-king, until he was converted to Christianity by his sister.  When Enda’s father died, he succeeded him as king and went off to fight his enemies.

As an incentive to coax him into laying down arms, he was promised a young girl for a wife. The girl he was promised died tragically, and in viewing the girl’s corpse, he was reminded that he too would face death and judgment. So, faced with the reality of death, and guided by his sister’s persuasion, Enda decided to study for the priesthood.

I’ll leave it to you to decide if Enda’s story has any parallels with that of the Skywalker line.

The Irish monastic rule was rigorous. And they developed a distinctive form of penance, which was considered therapeutic rather than punitive. Whereas confession was made privately to a priest, handbooks were made for the Skellig Michael monks, called “penitentials”, which were designed as a guide for confessors and as a means of regularising the penance given for each particular sin.

The daily routine of monastic life was prayer, study, and manual labor, the central themes poverty and obedience. In keeping with the traditional asceticism of Christian monks, they developed a simple system for collecting and purifying water in cisterns.

Food was very strict. Only one meal a day, at 3 o’clock p.m., was allowed, except on Sundays and Feast days. Monks of that ilk would typically farm but the lack of arable land on Skellig Michael meant they grew less grain and vegetables, and out of necessity, instead relied on fish and the meat and eggs of birds nesting on the islands. Sorry, porgs.

Speaking of the porgs, well, that was an unintended consequence of filming in a location with protected puffins. Rather than try and work around it, The Last Jedi just leaned into it…just like they did with the rest of Ahch-To.

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