Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

I have always hated when the battledorids, in episode I, said "Coruscant...eeehhhh....that does not compute!" (it's the "eeehhh" I hate).
Thats why I have made up this little idea. They say "eeehhh" because the main processor is in the controle ship. Battledroids would be too expensive to make, if you were to make them with a large droidbrain. They only need some basic functions to go to battle and things like that. If there's something their small droidbrain can not compute, they will have to communicate with the controleship. And this is why they say "eeehhh", because even with the speed of light, it will take a small amount of time to reach the controleship, go through the processor and then back again to the battledroid (about 1 second).
Then you say: "But it's very normal to do real-time communication between starsystems, and even when you are in hyperspace!". That's right, but this would also be too expensive to equip a droid army with.
Is this just a stuppid idea? What do you think?

Well, thd droid army is most certainly a cheap and cheerful thing nearly totally controlled by the brain in space... incidentally, the australian lightsabre guiy also has an exhaustive section on this... and it's worth pointing out that the blue-coloured pilot droids must be independant from the control ship, otheriwse they would all stop working on the other ships when the fleet left the control ship!

So the "eeehhh...." could easily have been the delay as it looked for instructions from command (if only they'd made the yellow command droids independant as well, their invasion would have gone a lot better!)

I have also heard it said that the "eeehhh..." was the confusion caused as Qui-Gon tried to use the Mind Trick on a robot.

I just chalked it up to the battle droid persona...kind of like 3PO having his "unique" personality.

Maybe it's just Lucas making a joke, making the droids have human characteristics. 3PO is very unlike any computer or AI I have ever seen, he stutters, he shouts, gets excited. GL makes them human so we can enjoy them.

I also always thought it was because Qui Gon was using the mind trick on him.

If he used mind tricks on them they would agree in the end. A tiny computer brain.

I think we can all assume that the mind trick is very difficult on robotic brains.

Aside from anything else, Qui-Gon would have done it if he could! He would have avoided a fight if possible. As it is, he either tried and failed or didn't try.

I don't think mind tricks work on those who aren't really "alive"

True. But really 'alive' is a bit of a fuzzy concept in Star Wars land.

Errrr..... hello..... Just a GL joke?

Careful, queeq. For a moment there I thought you weren't taking the whole thing, EVERY SINGLE FRAME, seriously...

I left a message on that Australian guy's forum and he never replied. Ho-hum.

"Roger Roger"

Sorry, didn't mean to leave that impression.

Isn't the basic programming of droids include an emotive sense of being. This I believe was done simply onn the grounds of if having a sense of being and recognition of emotion they would therefore be able to react o others emotions. It may be asked why this would be necessary i a battle droid, well the point is in Episode One the group walked calmly towards thedroid comander and as such were not immediatley gunned down, whereas had they instead rushed in looking like they were about to attack, the reaction would be different. Plus a droids automatic sense of emotive senses can be seen in 'Star Wars Tals issue 1' in skippy the droid and also in The RPG droid manual and I believe it is described as being an inherent prgramming logic loop in the encyclopedia that normally leads to droids as they are left active gaining persona.

That's right. And that's why threepio has a personality, like the one he got. His memory has not been ereased for a long time. Battle droids should operate as effective as possible - that meens, there shouldn't be time for an "eeehhh". It gives the enemy a warning!!!

Whoa- EU overload! NOT RELEVANT!

Those Battle driods work differently to normal Star Wars droids, don't forget that. The whole network system means they have none of the emotive stuff of the other driods.

The basic point is, they are cheap and cheerful- and terribly badly designed!

ooh harsh. I think that you will find as already stated that it is intrinsic to the design when programming droid, that to make it effective it is necessary to be able to relate to others. Even if it is claimed that there networking crates a hive like mentality this does not prevent the units from bing able to emote if for no other reason than to declare there destruction in a manner that is relatively universally noticeable. Besides who says that they are badly designed. CHeap and expenable maybe, badly designed me thinks not, they are just cheap and expendable.

They are TERRIBLY designed! They mak the security and pilot droids capable of operating independantly- but not the Command driods! D'uh! That's just asking for trouble!

The whole design of the droid army was lousy- presumably the Neimodians didn't have a clue how to buld a decent one- they are just merchants after all. Any one of us, with a bit of thought, could build a better one. If you get what I mean.

Anyhow, those droids (certainly the troopers) are not even vaguely sentient, like other Star Wars droids. Any emoting they do is not much more sophisitcated than modern day computer conversation programmes. Of course, that's just fine in a battle droid, especially a stock stnadard one like that.

I KNEW that Skippy the droid reference meant something...grr...

If you want to know though yuo probably are unceratain, 'skippy the droid.' Was R5 D4 the red one who was declared to be a sentient jedi droid, just thought you might wanna know that.. hmm , then again maybe not.

The "eeehhh" is probably to make the droids that bit easier to relate to when giving orders & so on. What cannot be explained is the "uh-oh" as the Jedi ignite their lightsabres in the gas-filled conference room, others include the scream as that droid is smashed against the wall by Qui Gon, or that odd high pitched whine they sometimes make after they've been shot.