What can a scientist in the New Republic have left to do?
Science in Star Wars is a tricky thing. It’s hard to see if their is any progress at all but books and TV shows give us hints. In Master and Apprentice, which takes place in the Old Republic around 39 BBY, Czerka has been working for centuries to create a stable hyperlane and finally succeeded. During the era of the Clone Wars, the Sepratists and New Republic worked on weapons like the Electro-Proton Bomb, The Defoliator and that thing Wat Tambor was working on that disintegrates targets. By the era of the Empire, scientists were working with weaponizing giant kyber crystals and creating a giant moon sized battle station with a superlaser. By the in between years, the First Order discovered sub-Hyperspace and the method of draining a Star and channeling dark energy to destroy an entire solar system. Also in Star Wars Resistance, some new TIE’s has hyperdrives. That’s by the time of the New Republic but that’s the First Order._
Any ideas on what the New Republic can be working on? Teleportation is not an option as by that time, it probably has been proved to be impossible and it is further implied by a sarcastic comment by Finn in The Force Awakens novelization.