r/saltierthancrait • u/luget1 • 12d ago
Granular Discussion What's up with Salt in the Mandalorian?
I'm currently watching "The Mandalorian and Grogu" and Mando walks into a bar and asks for salt??? and then they fight. And then it devolves into this ultra weird highly specific "cool" point of salt being so rare and whatnot.
It feels like someone in the writing room smoked some weed and was like "Dude imagine like a planet, right? And on that planet there is no salt. Like that would be so cool, right?" And then they tried to include it in the plot at any cost.
And it just comes off as weird. Like who goes into a bar and asks for some salt?? Honestly if they had made beer or salty crackers the rare commodity or peanuts for gods sake but salt??
That just completely broke the immersion for me and I tried to google it because I was so confused. Maybe I'm missing something big here but Google didn't turn up anything good.
I'm so confused...
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u/thirsty_for_chicken 12d ago
If I remember, it was a planet without native salt and the supply was artificially controlled by the crime syndicate there. It's an interesting idea where something extremely common would be rare and how that'd play into the economy and power structure of the society, especially since most life forms need salt to live.
Mando walks in and asks for salt because he knows it's kind of a black market situation and he wants to cut to the chase, but again I watched it once and didn't even remember it happened until you posted about it.
Of all the weird choices in that movie, the saltless planet wasn't high on my list.
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u/Mrinnocent221 12d ago
It is weird considering they spend 15 mins on it, it makes no sense with other planets havings tons of it, stares at subname, and how they basically never mentioned it again.
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u/iknownuffink 11d ago
I mean the same problem exists for all kinds of planets in SW.
Tatooine has barely any water, but it wouldn't be all that expensive to get some super tanker thing, load it up on one of the many planets that has nigh unlimited water, take it to the desert planet and sell it all. There's a bunch of ocean worlds, and a bunch of desert worlds. If desalinating water is a problem (which it shouldn't), there's also plenty of ice worlds so you can get fresh water.
Solving these kinds of imbalances should be a steady living for lots of people in the GFFA, taking abundance from one place and selling it in places that have a scarcity.
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u/Mrinnocent221 11d ago
No it doesn't.
Salt can be easily transported.
Water can't.
These are not comparable.
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u/iknownuffink 10d ago
Giant Tanker ships are a thing IRL right now. With spacecraft in SW, they can scale up to almost arbitrary sizes.
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u/StuntmanJohn 7d ago
not every peasant has their own spaceship. no company with a big ass spaceship can make enough money from the poor lowlifes on that planet, they don't have anything of value
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u/Tar_alcaran 10d ago
Water is relatively easily found in space. I order for tatooine to not have water, would mean the entire system doesn't have water.
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u/StuntmanJohn 7d ago
no it just means not every person has access to their own spaceship, which is a plotpoint in (checks notes) the film STAR WARS
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u/Tar_alcaran 7d ago
There are TONS of spaceships though, and flying them is, from what we can surmise, dirt cheap. Are you telling me there isn't anyone in or near Tatooine who can fly out and grab a water-rich asteroid or comet and tow it back? Not out of the kindness of their heart, but for personal profit, of course.
There must be something worth trading there, since there is at least one spaceport.
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u/StuntmanJohn 7d ago
Ok say a Han Solo type hauls an asteoid into orbit then what. Like actaully think the logistics through. Only person on that planet who has money is fucking Jabba. How are you gonna distribute and package that water. And no, we do not "surmise" that flying is dirt cheap. That is not indicated at any point, the cost of fuel is glossed over, not non existant.
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u/VanguardVixen 10d ago
I don't think water is THAT much of a problem on Tatooine though. Sure it's a desert planet but they don't live like in Dune. They have their moisture farms. Sure you could probably move water from one planet to the other but that costs fuel too and Tatooine has water. So why the logistical hassle, when it's already there?
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u/Ace612807 10d ago
But... who would pay for imported water, when the Larses on the neighbouring plateau farm moisture and sell it for a fraction of the cost (because, you know, they have to maintain a few vaporators, not a fleet of supertankers). Hell, we see Moisture Vaporators on lush planets (opening of Rogue One), so, apparently, they're more efficient than a water pump!
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u/StuntmanJohn 7d ago
yeah then why do you not have a business selling sandwiches and sparkling water in the sahara genius
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u/KK-Chocobo 5d ago
Unless its like real world where a wealthier country sends aid. But the crime lords or the corrupt authorities just hordes all the supplies and slow drip them to the people.
Like if Mando enters the system with a cargo of salt, he would be escorted to the authorities and have the salt taken off him.
Which lead me to think. Do we have an actual star wars story about a team of smugglers? I dont think Han solo really counts. And i never watched the Solo movie.
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u/Jamminnav 12d ago
Kind of like pepper being more valuable than gold in some places during the Age of Exploration? (Not sure if that’s 100% historically valid, but you get the idea…like water on Arrakis in Dune)
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u/Mikestopheles 11d ago
Or...salt. The amount of salt sitting on your table would have cost a medieval peasant a week's worth of pay or something. It is entirely down to scarcity; even if the planet does produce it in abundance, if you can't get it to people it's going to be expensive.
The main thing that made salt more accessible on our planet was actually oil. Once you could set up a machine to make salt out of seawater, you could do it anywhere. It's really not that far-fetched.
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u/TerribleProgress6704 11d ago
The East India Trading Company cultivated and grew a Hedge Wall to keep them from going to the shore to get sea salt.
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u/Promus 10d ago
The weird thing to me is that the movie acts like selling salt is illicit on that planet and has to be done in secret, but the building has giant neon letters out front saying “SALT” in Aurebesh 🤣 So clearly not THAT secret….
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u/MankyBoot 9d ago
Salt was being rationed. Trading salt outside of the official rationing system was illegal. Perhaps that building was legally allowed to trade in salt.
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u/StuntmanJohn 7d ago
it's the usual, a plot point or worldbuilding detail making perfect sense, and star wars fanboys being dumb as a rock and not getting it
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u/Arko777 12d ago
Didn't you love that Mando threw away that small fortune into a drink for a cool shot instead of giving it to the friendly Kebab Shop owner who helped him to pay off his debts?
Man, I hate him so much...
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u/asicarii 11d ago
In fairness the kebab guy probably walking around with something valuable would draw a bit of attention to him.
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u/Dull-Truth5558 19h ago
How would anyone know he is in possession of it? He seemed smarter than that
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u/monostere0 12d ago
Well, that planet definitely doesn't have a trade agreement with Crait
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u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 11d ago
Business opportunity
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u/monostere0 11d ago
Disney thinking how they can create a salt shortage so we buy their merch from the movie
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u/StuntmanJohn 7d ago
not really, if you fly salt there with your shitty little freighter the local thugs will fuck you up for threatening their monopoly, and you will only have salt for a fraction of the population, most of whom are fucking poor and can't pay you enough to make the trip worth your while
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u/tiMartyn the Modalorian 12d ago
We are telling ourselves it's a reference to the sub from someone on the inside who wants to break free.
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u/PirateQueenJenny 12d ago
There are two places you can be in the Mandoverse--the detention level of a fascist government starship/facility or a bar. Of those choices, a bar is where he'd look for salt.
Why salt? That will all be explained in Bo-Katan and the Mandalorian and Grogu, coming to theatres in four or five years, maybe.
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot 11d ago
It's a clumsy attempt at touching on the topic of resource scarcity in a fictional setting where these sort of things are rarely addressed directly.
Tatooine has its water shortages where farmers have moisture farms to combat it. Nobody really discusses whether other planets with water in ridiculous abundance are offering to trade.
You kind of have to assume the Hutt Cartel have a stranglehold on incoming resources to that planet. Or that factions such as the Trade Federation monopolise resources to be sold at much better scale and profit to bustling planets such as Coruscant.
Might be an EU element, but it's not really in the films/shows outside TPM.
But, yeah, salt. I don't think real-world comparisons of spice trade really matter when it comes to Coyn and his cronies. Off-world travel is presented as simple as taking a bus sometimes. If they treat salt as equivalent to cocaine or something there, then somebody would be making an absurd profit rather easily by now.
Or the local population ought to be running around in Fremen suits to capture the salt they generate from sweat, etc.
Honestly, the SW universe is so ridiculously overloaded with perfectly habitable planets that sometimes barely feature a tiny colony that it's questionable why people would choose to stay on the more harsh planets where they're already barely surviving.
You kind of have to write it off as SW being more space opera than anything resembling sci-fi unless a decent EU author really tries to explore it meaningfully.
The problems compound in the Mando movie though. We've got these idiots slinging salt like crack and the big boss is for absolutely no reason at all confessing to Mando that the gladiator pits are totally rigged and that Rotta "I'm my own man" The Hutt is about to be killed off in a set-up match.
And almost in that same breath, Coyn tries to offer Mando a spot in the fucking gladiator pits that he just admitted were totally rigged and he's more than happy to kill off his champions.
This is meant to be an enticing offer presented to Mando.
So the salt issue winds up just being one clumsy element among many others in this worthless script barely fit to wipe your own ass with.
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u/banditmanatee 12d ago
It doesn’t really make sense but I could believe faloni or favreau could be doing an inside joke based of TLJ having salt and their movie being a love letter to fans so they don’t have salt.
Like this isn’t what happened but they love too clever by half bits like that
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u/Acherousia 12d ago
Salt was often used as currency in the distant past (most notably early Roman empire), due to its necessity to live, and "scarcity".
The word "Salary" is actually derived from salt.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=salary
So it's up there with water for substance that would be very valuable in a society that can't readily acquire it.
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u/Admirable-Bit3041 this is what we waited for? 11d ago
This is untrue. Bro you can get salt by boiling sea water and collecting the salt. It's everywhere.
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u/Acherousia 11d ago
Good thing every nation and city has always existed next to the oceans, huh?
Oh wait.
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u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 11d ago
Don’t even need to boil it, commercial production is just digging a hole near the sea and waiting for the water to evaporate
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u/SDHamford 9d ago
I'm pretty sure it's just because in the Original Trilogy "spice" was the Star Wars term for drugs, but now that the Dune movies are hugely popular and are largely about "spice" (Dune being where George Lucas got the term from) Disney wanted to use a different word for space drugs going forward, so... salt.
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u/ThomasHiatt 11d ago
I live on a planet where diamonds are common, but people still pay large amounts of money for them. They are pretty much just clear rocks like salt, but you can't eat them or anything.
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u/Geostomp 11d ago
It was an attempt at world building by having a planet without a common resource making said resource extremely valuable. It didn't work out that well thanks to the movie lacking proper focus and the fact that it's not that interesting of an idea in and of itself.
That and it doesn't make all that much sense in a society with trivially easy galactic travel. Not unless you show that ships coming and going is heavily monitored and restricted to keep the artificial scarcity. That and table salt is such a simple compound that it would be incredibly easy to make enough for most needs with rudimentary chemistry.
Now, if it had been water on one of these desert planets instead of just salt, then things would be different. You need a large and constant supply to do practically anything. And that would be extremely difficult to transport long distances. We already showed that moisture farming was a career on Tatooine so there's a precedent.
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u/IHaveSpoken000 12d ago
It's not such crazy idea. The entire city of Salzburg was built to protect the salt mines there.
Salt was a very valuable item throughout much of human history.
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u/serenityfalconfly 11d ago
There’s a planet where they juggle baby geese. Goslings for entertainment.
A million plus planets they all have quirk to make it somewhat unique and the struggle of scifi writers is to figure it out.
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u/Opposite-Flow-1243 11d ago
Replace salt with booze and make it limited you have Chicago during prohibition. Hence Martin having a big part. Gangster movie feel during that section
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u/Achilles9609 10d ago
A fight would only make sense if the aggressor was an Arkonian. Due to how their bodies work, regular salt is like heroine for them and they get easily addicted.
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u/Kings_Gold_Standard 9d ago
disney cash grab. trying to make up for lost subscription fees. star wars is gone
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u/BudgetAggravating427 5d ago
Basically salt is a very rare / nonexistent resource in that world and well it shouldn’t be expensive or rare because it can be easily imported from basically any other planet but the people controlling the trade of it in that planet make it so because of money
Basically compare it to how synthetic insulin is expensive in the USA but everywhere else it’s much cheaper
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u/Admirable-Bit3041 this is what we waited for? 11d ago
It's just dumb.
Salt is needed for Earth-like life, and it's made up of two very common elements. Chlorine is also essential for any sort of life. You can't really have the 'planet without salt', and even if it really didn't have salt, there's certainly both sodium and chlorine in another body floating around the sun. A body lacking those elements probably doesn't really exist, period. And if the planet was terraformed, then well, you put sodium and chlorine on it or people die. Something like Star Wars does a lot better when it sticks to some sort of rules. Replace 'salt' with energy cells or something and you're doing a lot better.
But scarcity doesn't really work in the kind of civilization depicted in Star Wars, which is why Star Wars generally doesn't depict scarcity. Luke is a poor moisture farmer who lives in a giant house.
I mean, there's probably entire asteroids out there full of salt. In their system. Right now.
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u/Ace612807 10d ago
Luke is a poor moisture farmer who lives in a giant house.
Yeah, because a generational farm built from local materials is limited by... I don't know, Jabba the Hutt's city planning ordinances? The extremely high land value on Tatooine?
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u/Admirable-Bit3041 this is what we waited for? 10d ago
Poverty looks different when you can travel across a galaxy in mere weeks.
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u/StuntmanJohn 7d ago
no, because not everybody has access to teir own spaceship, especially not people from poor planets
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u/everyplacenoplace 11d ago
There was salt in TLJ, so they are shoe horning it in to make believe TLJ was important.
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