Better weather control tech

[FaxModem1]

Simple, who has the better weather control tech between the two interstellar governments, the Galactic Empire or the United Federation of Planets? We do know that the Federation has it at least to an extent, with both their ability to terraform planets into what they desire over a period of centuries or less(and if Genesis was still around, in hours), as well as controlling weather on a rather regulated basis for the desired effects, such as making Caldos II a more pleasant version of the Scottish highlands, Risa from swampland to a rather consistent beach paradise, and preventing major environmental disasters on Earth such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

As for the Galactic Empire, all I can find is that the Empire has the ability to control the rainfall of Coruscant to be once a month and prevent the lava flows on Mustafar from killing everyone working there.

So, who has the better weather control technology?

[The Romulan Republic]

They're both rather good at it from what you've said.

It seems like the kind of thing the Federation would invest more effort in, though. They seem to put more effort into high tech. luxury than the Empire, which is far more utilitarian and militaristic in its outlook.

[Lord Revan]

with the Federation weather control tech seems something new relatively speaking so there might be push for showcasing the tech kind of like flying boats and zeppelins were back in the days or how early cell phones were a status symbol while these days having a cellphone is nothing special.

With the Empire it seems weather control tech is something that's not seen as something special in and off itself so there's less insentive to showcase it (though I suspect there might be planets like Risa in the Empire that we've yet to see).

[FaxModem1]

If that's the case, and it's a relatively old and cheap technology, why isn't Tattooine, planet settled and center of trade for millenia, is still a rather desolate place to live? Unless dry desert is the way Hutts like it.

[Batman]

Or maybe weather control has limits. For all we know without weather control Tattooine would be completely uninhabitable instead of just being the desert shithole we've come to know and loathe.
Weather control doesn't mean you automatically get any weather you want. You have to work with what's available on the planet, and if there's not much water....there's not much water.

[biostem]

Or maybe weather control has limits. For all we know without weather control Tattooine would be completely uninhabitable instead of just being the desert shithole we've come to know and loathe.
Weather control doesn't mean you automatically get any weather you want. You have to work with what's available on the planet, and if there's not much water....there's not much water.

It also makes me wonder where, on a planet almost devoid of vegetation or seas to support vast colonies of algae, where all the oxygen comes from. If terraforming was used, perhaps they could extract oxygen from various minerals already present on the planet. I wonder how feasible it would be to tow ice asteroids to a desert planet and do a controlled descent of them into it, (or at least direct said objects onto an uninhabited area, making sure said impacts were of low enough magnitude to not adversely affect the other areas).

[The Romulan Republic]

Tatooine is an impoverished world with no real government other than a crime lord. Asking why it doesn't have some technology that's commonplace elsewhere is like asking why Somalia doesn't have first world standards of living.

[bilateralrope]

If that's the case, and it's a relatively old and cheap technology, why isn't Tattooine, planet settled and center of trade for millenia, is still a rather desolate place to live? Unless dry desert is the way Hutts like it.

Don't forget about the Sand People and Jawas. How would they react to any attempt to alter the climate ?

[FaxModem1]

If that's the case, and it's a relatively old and cheap technology, why isn't Tattooine, planet settled and center of trade for millenia, is still a rather desolate place to live? Unless dry desert is the way Hutts like it.

Don't forget about the Sand People and Jawas. How would they react to any attempt to alter the climate ?

Judging by the Lars family, and the way Jawas seem to be treated in cities like Anchorage and Mos Eisley, no one really cares what the Jawas or Tusken Raiders think.

Tatooine is an impoverished world with no real government other than a crime lord. Asking why it doesn't have some technology that's commonplace elsewhere is like asking why Somalia doesn't have first world standards of living.

If that's the case, and considering how much trade and ship traffic, as well as population Tatooine seems to get, then it isn't a technology that is regular and seen and used by everyone, in the same way that cell phones are in our world, with even countries like Somalia having them among their regular citizenry.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I'd imagine you wouldn't want a random citizen screwing with the weather, and weather control on a planetary scale is by definition a large-scale piece of infrastructure. It should probably be something only governments and maybe the very wealthy/corporations have.

[FaxModem1]

Or maybe weather control has limits. For all we know without weather control Tattooine would be completely uninhabitable instead of just being the desert shithole we've come to know and loathe.
Weather control doesn't mean you automatically get any weather you want. You have to work with what's available on the planet, and if there's not much water....there's not much water.

True enough, but Tatooine isn't Arrakis, it has no special resource that makes it necessary to keep the planet a desert. The Hutts have had centuries, if not millenia, to make Tatooine into the perfect swamp world for slugs, which seems would be something they would want considering Jabba was headquartered there. Though, regarding the Hutts, Nal Hutta, as well as Nar Shadda, are rather heavily polluted worlds. Heck, pollution is a rather large problem on almost every industrial world in the Empire/Old Republic. It seems that non-industrialized worlds are the ones who aren't having to deal with those problems.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't recall Coruscant appearing or being described as heavily polluted, except maybe for that run down area Sideous was hiding in during Attack of the Clones.

Edit: Also, weather control on Tatooine comes down to how much it costs to do it and weather the Hutts are both able and willing to spend that much. Because who the hell else is going to do it? The major governments in the films don't seem like promising sources for such a project. The Republic didn't control Tatooine, as I recall. Nor did the separatists as far as I know, and in any case they weren't around for long. And the Empire probably wouldn't give a shit about poor people on Tatooine, which isn't exactly a high-value world.

[Lord Revan]

also the way the moisture vaporators were discribed in the Novelization of ANH it one could argue that they are low scale weather control tech.

IIRC the Republic had nominal control of Tatooine during episode 1 (as in there was republic governor present but he had no true power), I wonder if Tatooine is the SW equilevant of the Pirate Republic (which was on an insland that was nominally a british colony but in practice independent).

[Simon_Jester]

The Pirate Republic and other such micronations make up only a tiny fraction of the world's land. Whereas it seems like there are a lot of undeveloped or underdeveloped planets out on the galactic rim.

[Lord Revan]

The Pirate Republic and other such micronations make up only a tiny fraction of the world's land. Whereas it seems like there are a lot of undeveloped or underdeveloped planets out on the galactic rim.

true enough but I was referring to Tattooine specifically not making a general statement about outerrim planets.

It's possible that some of those were simply not cost efficient to Terraform and/or develop.

When I said that it's more common what I meant is that novelty of simply having weather control tech has worn out, not that it's cheap and easy to get.

[Lord Pounder]

IIRC the Republic had nominal control of Tatooine during episode 1 (as in there was republic governor present but he had no true power), I wonder if Tatooine is the SW equilevant of the Pirate Republic (which was on an insland that was nominally a british colony but in practice independent).

I don't think so. Qui-Gon Jinn specifically referred to it as being controlled by Hutts and Republic Currency was not accepted by any vendor.

[FaxModem1]

When I said that it's more common what I meant is that novelty of simply having weather control tech has worn out, not that it's cheap and easy to get.

Is there any proof that the Federation considers such technology a new and wondrous thing, or as standard procedure for their member worlds?

[Borgholio]

When I said that it's more common what I meant is that novelty of simply having weather control tech has worn out, not that it's cheap and easy to get.

Is there any proof that the Federation considers such technology a new and wondrous thing, or as standard procedure for their member worlds?

The Feds use weather control tech on at least two worlds we know of, Earth and Risa. On Earth, they limit it to controlling destructive weather such as tornadoes. Earth remains a temperate world and doesn't appear to have been terraformed into anything else. Risa, on the other hand, was heavily modified to be a paradise world. We don't hear of any terraforming tech used on other member worlds, but Vulcan is still quite clearly a desert...so obviously it hasn't been substantially tampered with. So probably what the Feds do is use weather tech sparingly on worlds that are already suited for their native species (limited to, for lack of a better term, weather normalization), but they are capable of doing extreme modification if need be.

With the SW galaxy, the simplest explanation as to why Tatooine wasn't terraformed is money. The world is a shithole. It's a backwater desert planet that has a relatively sparse population and is controlled by a rather vile gastropod. Why go through the expense of terraforming if there's nothing / nobody of value there to benefit from it? Given how they are capable of keeping a planet such as Coruscant livable despite it being one giant city, it's clear they have the ability to affect global weather. And the capital of the Republic / Empire is naturally going to justify the expense.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes; Vulcan remains a rocky desert planet because the Vulcans like it that way, or at least would deem the costs of changing it to be "illogical."

Then again, the Vulcans do not breed quickly, and may well have a preference for high temperature, low humidity, and so on- for all we know that is their idea of a terraformed world. They've had spaceflight for something like two thousand years, after all.

This seems to be a key point for the Federation. In Star Wars there is basically only one dominant galactic race (humans) and everyone else is a de facto minority. In Star Trek there are still lots of humans running around, but they haven't had time to completely dominate the population balance out in the 'hinterland' of space- most heavily inhabited worlds seem to be full of their own native intelligent species.

So there are two kinds of inhabited planets- lightly populated ones that haven't been settled for very long (and are likely not fully terraformed for a variety of reasons), and heavily populated ones that are settled by an intelligent race that evolved there and is presumably used to the climate.

[FaxModem1]

The Feds use weather control tech on at least two worlds we know of, Earth and Risa. On Earth, they limit it to controlling destructive weather such as tornadoes. Earth remains a temperate world and doesn't appear to have been terraformed into anything else. Risa, on the other hand, was heavily modified to be a paradise world. We don't hear of any terraforming tech used on other member worlds, but Vulcan is still quite clearly a desert...so obviously it hasn't been substantially tampered with. So probably what the Feds do is use weather tech sparingly on worlds that are already suited for their native species (limited to, for lack of a better term, weather normalization), but they are capable of doing extreme modification if need be.

With the SW galaxy, the simplest explanation as to why Tatooine wasn't terraformed is money. The world is a shithole. It's a backwater desert planet that has a relatively sparse population and is controlled by a rather vile gastropod. Why go through the expense of terraforming if there's nothing / nobody of value there to benefit from it? Given how they are capable of keeping a planet such as Coruscant livable despite it being one giant city, it's clear they have the ability to affect global weather. And the capital of the Republic / Empire is naturally going to justify the expense.

At least three, Caldos II, the Scottish, almost theme park like, world, does what it can to make things a bit 'authentically' Scottish. The only times that these have been brought up is in the main plot, with Earth's going on the fritz due to Act of Q for an execution, the Foundationists and Worf hijacking Risa's, and an alien being/ghost messing with Caldos II to move from the planet to the Enterprise and create fog on the Enterprise. Any other time, it is not brought up. As Simon mentioned, the UFP is a rather diverse bunch, so changing Vulcan to be less warm and more suitable for humans might not be appealing for the native Vulcans there, nor would it be as preferable for Andorians to terraform Andoria to be more warm so that it has winters above freezing, the different species want different things on their worlds, while still sort of remaining in the 'Goldilocks zone' of worlds.

In 'Sub Rosa', the Governor of Caldos II, comments to Picard:

"Well, As you know, Caldos is one of the first terraforming projects of the Federation. Our weather controls and fusion systems are nearly a century old. I wouldn't mind a starship engineer looking at them, maybe give us a few upgrades, maybe in exchange for a tour of the colony and a home cooked meal?".

So, clearly, this has become rather common technology for the Federation, with Caldos own tech being old enough that it's tech is considered a bit obsolete and in need of an overhaul, though working fine 'for over 22 years'. Geordi notices some problems later(though, this is due to ghosts, which the governor did not know about). The thing the governor is most worried about, while chatting with Data, is the seismic stabilizers, due to earthquakes 'ruining his afternoon tea'.

Do we see anything like this anywhere in the Star Wars galaxy, on non-mafia run worlds? I would be willing to believe Naboo's environment has been engineered or maintained by technology, but do we have any evidence for that?

[Borgholio]

changing Vulcan to be less warm and more suitable for humans might not be appealing for the native Vulcans there,

Exactly, so the weather control tech on Vulcan is probably similar to the kind used to control bad weather on Earth while leaving the overall climate suitable for the native species.

[FaxModem1]

So, has the Empire, or the Republic before it, ever terraformed a world, or purposefully changed a climate to what they want? If not, this might be a field that the Federation beats them in.

[Lord Revan]

So, has the Empire, or the Republic before it, ever terraformed a world, or purposefully changed a climate to what they want? If not, this might be a field that the Federation beats them in.

Well I think the old legendaries implied that Taris was "terraformed" sometime between KOTOR and imperial era (maybe due the project in SWTOR).

[FaxModem1]

Only implied? Is there anything more solid than that? I know the Republic has been around for millenia, but is there anything that is proof of the terraforming and controlling of weather on Republic or Imperial planets aside from Coruscant not being completely dead due to the entire planet being covered in city, or Tatooine being a complete desert?

[Lord Revan]

Only implied? Is there anything more solid than that? I know the Republic has been around for millenia, but is there anything that is proof of the terraforming and controlling of weather on Republic or Imperial planets aside from Coruscant not being completely dead due to the entire planet being covered in city, or Tatooine being a complete desert?

none that I can remember at this point.

Well Corusant weather was outright stated to be regulated and controlled in the legendaries, then there's the towers outside the Imperial Capital at Dromund Kaas (Sith Empire that is not Galactic Empire) in SWTOR but those could just be high tech lightning rods.