-
Naboo – Rise and Fall of an Ancient Society?
Keep in mind I haven’t researched what “canon” information may be out there to the past of Naboo, all of this stems from thinking of the organic technology the Gungans possess.
—-
Organic shield generators, organic EMP bombs of varying sizes, organic electro-staffs, etc. These are all complex technologies held by one of the least brilliant species seen in the Star Wars universe, but why are they the only ones? Why is there an astonishing lack of organic technology throughought the Star Wars, especially on the complexity level that the Gungans hold? The Gungans are by no means the brightest of the bunch, their intellect seems to stay around present-day human intelligence, but lessened due to their primitive life-style. It could be that there were more intelligent Gungan beings not seen that could be responsible for this technology, but if there were so then wouldn’t this technology have been sought out and become mainstream once the Gungans were recognized?
My theory is that the Gungans aren’t the creators of the technology.
We know that they have a “Sacred Place” on-land that they go to for refuge, which consist of stone heads of astonishing size, yet they are underwater dwellers. Why would they have made a sacred area on dry-land and in the open, when they would be much safer underwater? It obviously seems to suggest a species lived there long before they did, possibly long enough ago that the ground level has risen considerably and buried the rest of the titan-sized statues. This ancient species may have been the original dominant species of Naboo, as well as the creators of the organic technology.
If they were surface dwellers though, why create organic technology for existing underwater? It would seem from the statues that they flourished on the surface, so it’s quite possible that they retreated to the waters due to a predicted ecological disaster. Knowing that their mechanized technology would be much too suspectible to degradation over the centuries – perhaps millenia – that would have to pass while the world repaired itself, they focused solely on organic technology. If their ecological devastation was due to climate change, and thus their world flooding, they realized their best refuge would either be to leave their home, or go underwater where the least amount of changes would occur.
They would have required vehicles and technology that could survive at the deep depths as well as require methods to repel these vast amounts of mammoth foe. Thus, their organic shields, submarines and electro-staffs. Admittedly, the EMP bombs don’t make much sense against living creatures, but considering that their organic technology seems to be based on heightened levels of energy that is already present in lifeforms, it would make sense for their power sources to be organic as well. The EMP bombs could be nearly-depleted and unstable, pre-mature, or abnormal power source devices.
Could it have been enough for living underwater though? Prequel-era Nabooans seem to be just as delicate as modern-day humans, their survival underwater for countless lifetimes would be severely difficult even with the organic technology. The origin of the Gungans could be explained that genetic engineering was used in order to allow them to better explore and capture food sources of underwater life, as well as conduct any repairs on the organic structures on damage that may have been sustained from the giant creatures such as the Opee species. However, due to the purpose of the underwater refuge being so that they would be able to stay on their home planet they would have likely been very sentimental about living on the surface again as well. The Gungans may be the ascendants of volunteers that were willing to have the genetic engineering done, and breeded within their own “kind” in order to preserve the species need for the refuge to survive.
It could be supported that the entire planet was flooded at one point due to the abundance of massive-sized creatures that can live underwater without air, such as the Opee species, unlike present day water-giants such as whales that require surfacing for oxygen. These creatures had room to grow on a literal and mammoth scale, until having to retreat to the depths as the ecology fixed itself over the centuries or millenia, slowly dying off as their food sources as well as their room to sustain numbers dwindled. The Faamba may be the ascendant species of one of these creatures, perhaps as they were cut-off from their natural breeding grounds as the waters receded, and forced to evolve in the swampy areas.
Once the planet normalized once again, the Nabooan society could finally return to the surface with a generation that would not be familiar with a dry nature, thus would explain the prequel-era Nabooans’ love for nature. They obviously had much of their mechanical technology still with them, likely it stayed in storage throughout the years, and degraded some. Learning from stories passed from generation to generation that their ancestors’ way of life may have been the cause of the disaster due to preferring technology over nature, they embraced a more simple society, and encouraged self-growth instead of artificial growth such as fame, wealth, etc.
When it came time to leave the underwater refuge, the aquatic Nabooans didn’t want to go back to the surface, they preferred the water as they had only been raised to know of the water, with only hearing the occasional story of the surface-era. So, the Nabooans left the refuge to them, as well as the organic technology, possibly due to it evolving (like all life does) to be accustomed, and dependent on the depth in order to grow. Occasionally the two societies may have met on the surface where ruins of the ancient society still exist, which became what the Gungans referred to as a “Sacred Place.”
As each species’ civilization grew, the two species also grew apart, especially with Gungans evolving to be less, and less intellectual. An unfortunate side effect of the long-term attempt to exist with engineered genetics, eventually the Gungans may lose the ability to breed, and thus not exist anymore. As of the prequel-era, they were likely in an equilibrium with their organic technology, in that they didn’t change anything after the Nabooans had left (settings, programming, etc), thus the technology gave them what they needed, in return the Gungans took care of the “plants” (for lack of a better term).
The existence of two-types of Gungan races, but with the same intelligence levels, could be further indication of their genetic engineering origin. The type we saw with Boss Nass could have been from engineering with Frog or Toad-like DNA which may have been made as pilots and/or caretaking, due to their apparent ability to be slightly more intelligent than the other race of Gungans. The other race as we saw with Jar-Jar and Tarpals, may have been engineered from DNA from a Platypus-type of creature, hence the random physical features. Their roles would have been the most dependent on multiple skills, as well as depending on their own swimming ability for roles such as gathering, and repairs.
As for no other species using the organic technology after Gungans had become recognized, it’s quite possible that with so many generations the actual information for creating it had been lost, and the Gungans probably would have never had the information themselves. Also, just as they considered the surface area with the statue ruins a “Sacred Place,” they likely saw the organic technology as sacred as well, thus they would never part with nor let others study it.
—-
If anything is contradictory, random and/or just doesn’t fit with the flow of thoughts then I apologize, I don’t often write things like this, and the entire inspiration originated from random explanations I could think of for things such as the organic technology.
-
4 Replies
Sorry, there were no replies found.
Log in to reply.