question in title
Removed by mod
In the Lucas movies, droids are pretty explicitly portrayed as chattel slaves. They are auctioned off, have separate inferior quarters (Jabbaās droid quarters are particularly notable), and are basically treated as beings without agency despite definitely having agency. Thereās even an explicit visual analogy - Anakin and Shmi have collars that control them and could kill them, and the droids also have (spaceships shaped like) collars that control them and can kill them.
No, but a lot of what Lucas wrote in the Star Wars universe isnāt defensible.
In Star Wars the droids seem pretty ok with their situation as servants. I suppose you could describe Zora in Discovery similarly, but Iām struggling to think of other examples in Trek.
I would say no. I mean, the treatment fits the universe (lots of people enslaving other people), but there isnāt even a subtle condemnation of this. In many ways, despite it tending to be a story about rebellion, Star Wars mostly tells a story with the status quo; especially in the original trilogy, thereās never really an āare we the good guysā moment. (I could be wrong - been ages since I watched anything Star Wars.)
Meanwhile, Star Trek is constantly examining itself, with Starfleet officers often āstop[ping] to debate the rights of a robotā or whether the self-respect of one Starfleet officer is worth the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. Even when they treat synths like crap, itās usually depicted as being morally wrong.
This is a bit of a tangent, but this question makes me think about the evolution of Ood depictions in Doctor Who. Their first appearance was a bit weird about their enslavement, but they rectified that in later episodes.
P.S: I think this question is more suited for c/startrek than Daystrom Institute, as itās more about comparing the themes of two franchises than any in-universe explanation.
The easy way to defend it would be to suggest that they arenāt actually sapient. The way they are treated in the original trilogy, and the way they are discussed in episode 2 in contrast to the clones would be consistent with the way we would view something like chatgpt. Sure, it can mimic a person, but anyone who is antheopomorphising it and trying to treat it like a real person is making a mistake.
Unfortunately, this isnāt consistent throughout the franchise. Hell, even episode 2 explicitly stating druids canāt think comes just one movie after we had a ceremony to present R2 a medal for saving the ship. And it certainly seems like more recent Star Wars stuff prefers to lean towards humanizing the droids.
The way it appears to work, broadly over all the content, is that the longer a droid is left to operate the more sentient it becomes. The empire is shown to wipe their droids regularly to inhibit this phenomenon.
The problem seems to be that because of this, you have characters that treat them as individuals and characters that treat them as tools.
Thereās also a lot of content that seems to blame the separatists for a lot of the animosity towards droids.
Keep in mind each droid is not the same. This was eluded to in episode 1. The battle droids were cheap so they had a centralized controller.
TCW tv show first episode calls this out where the battle droids explicitly said āwe are independent thinkersā
Which directly contradicts the statement in episode 2:
Obi-Wan: āWell if droids could think, thereād be none of us here, would there?ā
If we accept Obi-Wanās characterization, then those droids may be able to operate independently, but they arenāt actually thinking.
Again, I think a lot of Star Wars media has leaned towards making droids people and not just walking computers with a friendly ui. Itās convenient for storytelling because itās easier to write and allows for droid characters to play larger roles and be more relatable to the audience.
But from a world building perspective it creates a lot of unfortunate implications and just makes less sense. The existence of truly intelligent robots should fundamentally alter the world but it never does.
It doesnāt make sense to make battle droids hyper intelligent. They are supposed to be mass produced, why would you make them expensive?
We see that they can make hyper intelligent droids, TCW has assassin droids and commander droids.
They are clearly more expensive, since some are uniquely adorned with decorations.
Astromechs would have to be on the more intelligent side, since they handle flying, mechanic work, navigation, etc.
The average B1 droids doesnāt need much more than chatgpt.
