Playing Devil Advocate

[Connor MacLeod]

Think of your typical space opera setting: dozens of planets, each with it's own variation of culure, aethestics, etc. Your characters can gallop around with seemingly endless new places to explore.

But, realizing that even these grand space operas, like Star Wars, could conceivable fit around just one star, reminds you of just how big a star and solar system really is.

So basically you're arguing in the same vein Issac Kuo does when he says that FTL is unneccessary to tell good stories. I can see the point of it, since for any plausible scenario the system is full of tons of resources, but I guess that ultimately depends on the kinds of stories you want/set out to tell. For some people, a single system - even if it is possible, simply won't set the goals or be too limiting. I can think of lots of half-decent sci fi that wouldn't work in that scheme.

And once you get to "multiple system" type sci fi (regardless of the method of how it gets there) the need for "maximum resource usage" becomes less vital, barring certain circumstances.

Don't forget the biggest one: the Rebels won!

*SMACK*

I'm thinking it's more groundbreaking than you think... the second sentence here is still, in some way, equating number of stars to scale.

What I'm saying is in the big items that matter, they're on the same scale. Same average total power consumption, which implies the populations are likely similar, which implies the inhabited land area is likely similar, which implies their industrial capability (not potential, just current capability) is likely similar.

Assuming things remain unchanged amongst either side, yes, you have a point.

Now, of course, this kind of setup - Dyson sphere (s) - is outside the Star Wars paradigm, so aside from it being a cool realization, it's not something that would happen in setting nor in ST (aside from "Relics") so it isn't really on topic for a vs.

Doesnt that depend on the kind of Dyson sphere you're talking about? The term has kinda branched out from its original usage over time, after all. I think the original one (which was a means of efficiently tapping power from a star) might actually exist in Star Wars. I already hypothesized that SW "hypermatter" reactors might be some sort of FTL "beamed" power transmission - stars would be an ideal generator for that sort of thing. Sadly I don't recall any specific examples of them doing that kind of thing (although I think they may exist.. I know they did something like that for black holes, supposedly, to power their antigrav tech)

But, we can get one abstract vs lesson out of it: the number of systems, alone, doesn't say much. Like I've said before about Star Trek: does it matter if the Federation has 150 worlds or 8000 if the majority of them are just little colonies? 8000 little colonies combined might not equal even a single Earth or Vulcan in terms of population, industry, etc.

I wouldn't say that they're totally unimportant. They represent potential resource pools to draw from if needed, if nothing else. Whether or not they mean anything else depends on various factors (technology, settlement/development patterns of systems, and such.)

I do admit you also have a point about Trek.. we know that typically they don't seem to need large armies to take over planets for example (why bother keeping huge standing armies when everyone else is largely a colony?). Also, stuff like Dreadnought makes more sense if its striking at colonies too (although I suspect nothing absolutely prevents Dreadnought from carrying a greater payload.)

(I'm watching "For The Uniform" right now, and Sisko threatened to poison all colonies in the DMZ, to which Eddington said he'd make "hundreds of thousands" of people homeless, over several planets. That's not even the size of one large US city today!

BTW also in there, it was indeed poison and Cardassians lived on one, humans on the other. They swapped. The special effects too lol bright flash and fast spread!)

I remember that one for the 200 kg of trilithium resin (or whatever it was) being loaded onto torpedoes and fucking up their flight characteristics.

Back to number of systems, similarly, Star Wars having millions of systems doesn't necessarily tell us much. Like Star Trek, none of them are well developed; odds are most don't even rank a 0.5 on the Kardashev scale, and certainly none of them get even close to 2.0 - the theoretical max fully developed star. Like ST colonies, how many of them are sparcely populated single worlds not even close to one productive world in their own setting? For example, Tatooine, Naboo, Degobah, Hoth... simply controlling those systems might add to the number, but doesn't say much else.

SW doesn't seem to have a consistent pattern of development. Some systems are suggested to be highly developed (like Kuat or Corellia) but they also tend to be large corporate starship manufacturers. Others of course are nowhere near that (like Tattooine.)

On the other hand, the argument assumes that you HAVE some need or purpose for that level/scale of development, both to create and to sustain it. I mean, people have used the same logic to suggest SW must have billions of warships just lying around in wait because tens or hundreds of thousands (which are known numbers) seems too small. But they don't really have any need for it, other than pointless ego dick waving type things. there may even be political or economic reasons that prevent that level of development (monopolization of resources and activities.. places like KDY or Corellia probably don't like the idea that some other random out of the way system might develop the same levle of sophistication.)

Really its hard to say, becuase we've never had more than a tiny fraction of those mililons of systems depicted, and only the vaguest hints about others (how common coruscant like worlds are has always been up for debate for example.) At best we know the core worlds are the most well developed and likely the most technological.. with the pattern declining/varying far more as you spread outwards to the Outer Rim.

But yes, you have a point. By itself and with no other data, number of systems is misleading. REcently for example we have Legned of the galactic heroes, which demonstrates considerable ability to construct things as well as mass-energy handling capability (close to or at SW levels point of fact) but their "actual" level of colonization, population, development, and scope doesn't quite match that.

[Luke Skywalker]

Dude, I really don't care if your pro-wars, trek, B5, or pro-cthulhu. I'm as liable to yell at warsies as I am at trekkies or anyone else on this board. what bugs the hell out of me is tedious nitpicking and generally shallow, one-dimensional arguments, and this comes form having to deal with it for years (and figuring out WHY I hated it so much.) I'm trying to make a point here.

You're assuming that Slave-1's "maximum firepower" mode have absolutely no drawbacks that would make lower settings useful or viable. Rate of fire, for example. Slave-1 fires at a much higher clip than the starfighters of the prequel movies (X-wings and TIEs rarely fired that fast.) which may be related to power settings (due to issues like cooldown, recharge, etc. It doesn't scale linearly with big starships.) The existence of the "stutter shot" modes from the NJO is a strong indicator of this, actually.

That's my entire point. Slave 1's laser cannons rate at around 11 shots per second, and based on the footage in the asteroid belt the firepower is a few dozen gigajoules per shot. You do the math.

You completely ignored what I was asking for. I didn't ask for you to "dump a youtube vid on me and expect me to work it out" I expected you to provide the math and the quotes to back up your particular claim.

Ridiculous stalling method is ridiculous. The blast radius of the torpedo was about the width of five or so battle droids, ie a few meters wide. The duration of the blast was a few seconds, whereas a kiloton level fireball would last for several seconds before going out.

So go to 3:15 on the video I sent you, then come back and tell me honestly that you still think that it's a kiloton level explosion.

Example: Do blasters work as a purely thermal damage mechanism, are they explosive, or can they be both (either in some hybrid form, or an ability to alternate between the two?) Is it a single pulse or a train of pulses? Does it behave like a laser, a particle beam, a proejctile, or an explosive warhead? or perhaps some combination, or even none of the above? How exactly does a bomb relate to a beam weapon, and what evdience exists to support it.

THAT'S the kind of data you need to provide in order to make a point. Simply saying "sub kiloton" and pasting a youtube clip isn't going to make a point if (for example) your blaster is working like a heat ray (which many of them actually do in sci fi, inefficient as that can be.)

Doesn't matter. Several kilotons of thermal energy is still going to do far more than make a tiny weeny explosion a few meters wide. I see no superheating of the air, persistent fireball or mass vaporization there, all of which you'd expect from a kiloton level thermal weapon. The battle droids are completely fine a few meters away (or at least the last time we see them), but if it were a kiloton level thermal weapon they would have been vaporized almost instantly. The idea that an explosion that looks like it's coming from light artillery is more powerful than Hiroshima because "it delivers its energy differently!" is silly.

I'll also point out you completely ignored my demands that you provide evidence for how proton torpedoes work.

According to LOTF, proton torpedo have a baradium charge, which is described by the Imperial Sourcebook to be a fusion reactor. Refer to Wookieepedia if you want more details.

Right, because people are 100% perfect all of the time, and someone who sets up a clever plan can't fuck it up along the line with overconfidence. You claimed "maul didn't take out the area with a laser or torpedo strike" which would imply stupidity, unless you're trying to create a false dilemma demonstrating sub-kiloton yields again (which in point of fact is dishonest, since it assumes no other possible explanation could account for it, and that remains completely unproven as yet.)

You don't need to be a genius, not do you need be perfect to think up of the brilliant idea of killing a target with a strafing run. It's pretty common sense; if you have kiloton laser cannons, a knowledge of the more or less exact location of your target, and no concern of collaterol damage, you do not engage the trained Jedi Master in personal combat, you get in your ship and launch a single laser cannon in the vicinity, vaporizing them all.

It is equally possible that he simply was under orders not to draw too much attention. Strafing an area with a starship and laying waste to it is not exactly subtle.

And who exactly is going to track him or pursue him? The corrupt Hutts? Random farmers? How are they going to know who Maul is, where his ship went or what his motive was?

Were the shields up? Do we know anything about the status of the shields? How were they angled/aligned (you do remember that Han said you can angle shields in ANH, and we know fighters could do that in ANH as well.)

We know from theater shields, droideka shields and ISD shields that there are no "gaps" in shields. Otherwise, the Naboo fighters would have aimed for this imaginary hole, while the imperials could have aimed for this imaginary hole in the Rebel theater shield. I don't see the AAT's maneuvering to take advantage of this gap in SW shields that you think exists, do you? Do you have any evidence suggesting that Naboo starfighters have some sort of gap in their shields that are conveniently located in the ship thrusters?

Based on what, exactly?

Because otherwise, the shields would be worthless against kiloton laser cannons.

Who says its several thousand times weaker? Where do you pull this number from, assuming its not completely arbitrary? And its quite possible, given much of the same rationale applies to Separatist vs REpublic naval ships. Rather amazing what magic forcefields can accomplish.

Look at the AAT hit that took it down. The Naboo starfighter is supposed to have shields capable of taking terajoules of energy before collapsing.

Because its not an all encompassing bubble. Gaps are mentioned specifically in the Black fleet criss, as well as the Lando Calrissian novels. They come from having multiple shield generators/projectors creating multiple, overlapping shields on multiple arcs. Remember the aforementioend "shield angling" bit? That's a consequence of it, and it means parts of the hull can be left exposed.

Those are in giant ISD's. A droideka's shield generator can easily cover itself, as can the Gungan shield. A small Naboo starfighter would have no problem covering itself in a shield.

How does it support sub kiloton yields? Are you claiming all laser cannons are "one setting only/one design only?" Even if I accepted your premise - DESPITE the fact you provided no evidence, no analysis, nothing - that just means the N-1 is packing subkiloton guns. Not really a shocking revelation, as I have expressly pointed out there's nothing requiring all SW laser cannons to be kiloton range even if we assume they can't adjust settings.

That's ridiculous. The presence of shields in SW means that there is no such thing as overkill; unlike in modern day warfare, where smaller ships can take out larger ships by virtue of weapons technology outstripping armor technology, in SW a starfighter with megajoule/gigajoule laser cannons is going to see its hits bouncing hopelessly off of the enemy while their terajoule laser cannons vaporize the ships in one hit.

Are you seriously suggesting that Zam Wessel could get close enough to attack and destroy not only Padme's Yacht, but also the escorts,

Since when does she have to get close enough? She could park off at orbit, track Padme's ship and fire a single shot at her as the ship lands. It's not as if you have to be that accurate with a kiloton range weapon, and it's not as if a space age society would lack the ability to hit stuff from orbit.

and manage to get away from Coruscant (the most important and secure world in the galaxy) completely unstopped? I suppose she just happens to have a cloaking device and invisible lasers lying around too huh?

Oh, so now Coruscant security will instantly respond, magically track down the one out of billions of ship that could have fired the untraceable blast, and cut off its escape before Zam activates her ship's 3000 G thrusters and gets away, right? But when Zam uses what appears to be a chemical explosive, then later attempts assassination by bugs (instead of just arming her droid with a blaster cannon), and then uses her airspeeder to get away and later runs on foot, no police are seen even attempting to find her, right?

Uh yeah. If you did any research you'd realize the Geonosians are rather significant allies to the Separatist cause. You don't keep allies by blowing up huge chunks of the real estate.

If the Geonosians are so fond of their arena that they prize it over eliminating what is effectively the de-facto military leadership and special ops of the Republic, then...I don't know what to say. An arena could easily be rebuilt (especially given the ICS2's statement of mining corporations mining billions of planets) with minimal financial trouble.

Secondly, you assume that the Separatist leadership is competent (which is of course, why they didn't need Grievous, oh wait..) For that matter, the same logic applies to the Republic (as in the Jedi are leading, and the Jedi aren't military genius)

You don't need anything resembling more than a mild trace of competence to recognize that you can kill those closely clumped together infantry with teraton level weaponry and orbital bombardment. And it's not just the seperatists that were idiots; the Jedi were willing to go together in one bunch down to an arena open to bombardment with no shields or defense against orbital bombardment that they know exists. I guess that Windu was reaaaallly banking on his enemies being total idiots, right?

And if THAT weren't enough, ITW:AOTc makes mention that trade federation core ships (and other separatist ships) carried no weapons, and relied on the droids for defense. It was expllicitly mentioned as well that defense shields and the need to take the droid facilities intact precluded the use of starship weaponry.

You're referring to a poorly written excuse for the Clones not to use orbital bombardment, not the Seperatists, who could have wiped out the de facto commanders and super-special ops leadership of the Republic with a single blast dialed at 0.0000000001%.

So by your logic, the US should just go in and bomb the shit out of any country that harbors our enemies, simply because that's the best way to do it?

Actually, the US does just exactly that with anybody it's in a military conflict with, but they don't have kiloton level conventional weapons*.

The problem with your silly analogy is that typically said enemy countries have something cool called AA defenses, as well as plenty of bunkers and terrain that hinders the effectiveness of bombardment. The Republic's airforce was able to harrass the CIS ground troops as we saw in the movie, but the total damage they dealt would have been outmatched by a single 100 kiloton warhead.

Get it? There is no reason why the Clone army did not use kiloton level warheads to wipe out the enemy army which was on open terrain. Sure, they probably had AA defenses, but we saw the vast majority of LAATs survive and fire their missiles without getting shot down, the only difference being that their decided to pack conventional explosives instead of 100 kiloton warheads.

*And if you're going to make the analogy that the US does not use nuclear weapons on every random enemy, it's because they often want to dismantle said countries' governments, not kill their people, they fear MAD, and they fear for fucking up the planet. None of these apply in SW, where the clone army has no interest in occupying Geonosis (and even if they did, a few kiloton weapons are not going to cripple its infrastructure if fired into an open plain), and the planet is just one out of billions, and teraton level weaponry is regularly used in warfare; in a galactic civilization, MAD with kiloton weaponry is ridiculous.

Because that's basically what it amounts to. Nevermind you're assuming that either side has a reaosn to think up this tactic to begin with.

Are you even reading these excuses you're coming up with? "You're assuming that either side has a reason to think this tactic to begin with"? Hell yeah they do; with the use of kiloton level weaponry, the Clone Army could have wiped out the entire Seperatist leadership, millions of battle droids and have saved numerous clone and Jedi lives.

[
It's the Geonosian's home world, why the fuck would they NOT care? Do you seriously think Poggle the Lesser is going to shrug his shoulders and go "oh well, its for the best."

Yes, I do. The 50 megaton Tsar bomb was dropped in the USSR by the USSR, and their country didn't get fucked up. A turbolaser in a concentrated area in a big plain is not going to do much; especially since the Geonosians live mostly underground and there are consistent mass extinction events happening (Wookieepedia). If Poggle thinks that some mild environmental damage is not worth wiping out what may have been the entire clone army at the time and much of the Jedi Order's leaders, then fuck him.

Man, its hilarious how you're "presenting" and supposedly defending a series fo arguments that are shallowly contrived, poorly sourced, and utterly indefensible, yet you dare to accuse ME of speculating? REmember that you're the one insisting that a contradiction exists and that SUB KILOTON WEAPONS are the only answer. I'm simply saying we don't know. Burden of proof lies with the person making the definite claim, and you have utterly failed to make any sort of tangible argument.

When did I say that sub kiloton weapons are the only possible rationalizations? If there are better ones, you're clearly not coming up with any. You're coming up with some imaginary "political concerns" about using weapons are are supposedly used all the time in Star Wars in space combat, even though the Republic had no qualms with ordering Base Delta Zeros to take out Seperatists and vice versa.

So why don't you come up with a decent rationalization for both sides not using their weaponry to any more than 0.0001% of their full power that does not involve bullshit about "environmental damage" in a planet where most of its inhabitants live underground and experience occasional mass extinction events, or weak analogies to modern day warfare where we have to worry about very real MAD concerns and environmental damage (because, you know, we only have one home, unlike in Star Wars)?

I told you, I don't give a shit about Trek. I don't give a shit about "everyone does it" arguments either, becuase that's no justification whatsoever. Some Trekkies and some warsies may do it, but that doesn't mean everybody does it, nor does it make it good logic or a valid argument. I've actually had quite a few intelligent and well-reaseond arguments with Trekkies over some of that stuff, and it didn't descend to this level of absurdity once (Cf D13 and I discussing TDiC)

What makes you think 3 years is enough to learn how to fight intelligently? Humans have been spending decades, if not centuries, learning how to fight and that's largely been an imperfect, trial-by-error process.

What I'm asking is hardly military genius. We haven't ever had space combat yet, and I, with no military experience, can casually think up of better tactics than the Republic used in the Battle of Coruscant. Don't they have history books on the issue? Don't they have any drop of common sense? You don't have to even have combat experience to know that you should not be fighting space battles using age of sail warfare.

That is another possibility, yes. But I dont think it woul be the "best" rationalization. The best rationalization incorporates multiple separate ideas that mutually support each other. Not one single, all-encompassing idea that is forced to fit every inconsistency. "cornerstone" arguments are popular but they lack any real redundancy or versatility.

Then what is your rationalization? That the Republic's commanders are so stupid that they think that you should fight space battles ala age of sail?

YEah so should some of the places I've worked in. There's lots of "should have' arguments one cna make in fiction and real life, but that doesn't make it reality. America "should have" a decently functioning health care and social system, but we have rampant capitalism instead.

Health care and social systems cannot turn a planet's surface into molten slag in a few hours.

No I'm saying "we dont know", which makes your entire argument rather pointless. Why the fuck should we go out of our way to create contradictions on what amounts to imaginary, hypothetical evidence? Or do you have the evidence we need?

Based on scaling from medium turbolasers, heavy ones should have firepower in the teraton range, making each one a miniature mass extinction event. A single stray one could have caused global climate changes, yet the RotS novelization goes out of its way to mention the damage done by falling debris, even though a stray turbolaser blast should have been millions of times more significant.

Are you referring to Artoo spraying black gunk on them, the droids slipping in said gunk, and the gunk being ignited by his retro rockets? If so as I recall at no point did the battle droids actually witness the flames doing any external physical damage to the surface - they didnt even exhibit any obvious heating from proximity to the flame. If any damage was done, it likely came from the fluids getting inside the battle droids somehow.

Except that it was the flames that were harming the SBD's, not the "fluids".

You're making assumptions about the damage mechanisms of blasters and the nature of the target. If you HAD the evidence, you would have presented it, for fuck's sake. How is that hard to understand?

You seem to have the impression that a kiloton level thermal based weapon is going to look like a conventional explosive with a few tons of TNT. Where do you think that all that energy does? Do you realize that nuclear weapons release much of their energy as heat?

Evidence onto the nature of the projectile fired, and its damage mechanism? All we see is a glowy blue pulse, and that's ALL we know.

According to the ICS2, it's a railgun. But seriously, if these kiloton level weapons only did noticeable megajoule level effects, then they're horribly, horribly, horribly useless/inefficient, and the military should stick to more omnidirectional kiloton weapons that actually do more than replicate the effects of a megajoule shot.

Speculation. Funny how you mock me for supposedly "speculating" yet its perfectly alright for you to make up these elaborate scenarios that somehow force an either/or choice.

No, it's funny how you don't see the idiocy in using what appears to be a ton or less of TNT to blast a supernatural, magic wielding warrior instead of shooting at his general vicinity with a far more powerful weapon, and then vaporizing the lake he falls into just to be sure.

Proof?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09n0qd_n4c0

With a kiloton level weapon, Obi Wan and his pet would have been vaporized, and the mountainside would have collapsed, squashing him if he somehow survives while the clones take shelter behind the AT-TE's and their radiation shielded armor.

Oh nice. I ask you to provide further clarification, and you decide all you have to do is ask more questions. Good job shifting burden of proof.

Utapau obviously did not have a shield up, or else the clones couldn't have landed, and if they did, the droids control it. So when the droids get pushed back and start losing, and the only non expendable unit, Grevious, is dead, they (because obviously the CIS isn't so stupid that they don't have a chain of command) should have gone "fuck it, let's base delta this place. It's not as though a few million droids are not expendable. But Obi Wan certainly isn't, nor are his clones. That's what you get for invading a planet with ships hosting manmade mass extinction weapons, you idiots!" And if they don't have enough time to base delta zero it, just do as much damage as you can in a few minutes or even a few seconds. A single HTL is enough to mess up Utapau and collapse those fancy levels, killing Obi Wan.

"sort of?" Let's see some evidence, kid.

Steel's melting point is around 1370 degrees C. Lava is around 700 to 1200 degrees C. Durasteel was melting in lava. What's amazing is that you could easily figure this out by going here

You're confusing republic warships with separatist warships. They aren't the same or even of the same durability. This was expreseely pointed out in the ROTS ICS. Sepratist warships aren't true warships, nor are they constructed as durably. The Separatists rely far more on force field technology for defense.

So this is when you make the straight faced claim that Republic ships can take fusion warheads many times the temperature of the sun's core with little more than scorch marks, and yet they still get challenged by Seperatist ships which get noticeably burnt by the temperature of reentry into the atmosphere of an M class planet. This is where you claim that Republic armor is billions of times more heat resistant than their Seperatist counterparts, even though they both use the same tech base.

[Darth Tedious]

I'm just going to reply to a few of the earlier points you've made...

That's my entire point. Slave 1's laser cannons rate at around 11 shots per second, and based on the footage in the asteroid belt the firepower is a few dozen gigajoules per shot. You do the math.

Bolded the problem. It's not up to Connor to do your math for you. You must do your own calculations, and show them.

Ridiculous stalling method is ridiculous. The blast radius of the torpedo was about the width of five or so battle droids, ie a few meters wide. The duration of the blast was a few seconds, whereas a kiloton level fireball would last for several seconds before going out.

So go to 3:15 on the video I sent you, then come back and tell me honestly that you still think that it's a kiloton level explosion.

---

Doesn't matter. Several kilotons of thermal energy is still going to do far more than make a tiny weeny explosion a few meters wide. I see no superheating of the air, persistent fireball or mass vaporization there, all of which you'd expect from a kiloton level thermal weapon. The battle droids are completely fine a few meters away (or at least the last time we see them), but if it were a kiloton level thermal weapon they would have been vaporized almost instantly. The idea that an explosion that looks like it's coming from light artillery is more powerful than Hiroshima because "it delivers its energy differently!" is silly.

---

According to LOTF, proton torpedo have a baradium charge, which is described by the Imperial Sourcebook to be a fusion reactor. Refer to Wookieepedia if you want more details.

Your entire argument is predicated on protorps being a purely thermal weapon.
The reference to fusion reaction does not come from the Imperial Sourcebook, but from this reference to thermal detonators. This is listed in the citations on Wookiepedia.
And what it said was:

The heart of a thermal detonator's explosive power is the compact sphere of volatile baradium found inside a thermite shell. Once the thumb trigger is activated, the baradium enters a state of fusion reaction that creates an expandable particle field capable of disintegrating everything within a 20-meter blast radius.

Bolded the important part. Assuming thermal detonators and protorps work the same way (as they both use baradium), they are apparently not true thermal weapons.

You don't need to be a genius, not do you need be perfect to think up of the brilliant idea of killing a target with a strafing run. It's pretty common sense; if you have kiloton laser cannons, a knowledge of the more or less exact location of your target, and no concern of collaterol damage, you do not engage the trained Jedi Master in personal combat, you get in your ship and launch a single laser cannon in the vicinity, vaporizing them all.
You don't need to be a genius, not do you need be perfect to think up of the brilliant idea of killing a target with a strafing run. It's pretty common sense; if you have kiloton laser cannons, a knowledge of the more or less exact location of your target, and no concern of collaterol damage, you do not engage the trained Jedi Master in personal combat, you get in your ship and launch a single laser cannon in the vicinity, vaporizing them all.

I'm going to point out again, laser cannon effects =/= explosive effects. A kiloton, megaton, gigaton or fucking teraton beam weapon will not produce the same effect as a nuclear detonation of equivalent energy. It's really not that hard to grasp.

[Azron_Stoma]

This may sound odd and daft but we do have precedents for Nuclear Yield weapons that make deceptively small blasts in Sci-fi, the Yamato cannon from Starcraft being the first that comes to mind as explicitly doing that (The plausibility of it's explanation in how it works notwithstanding.). The ICS suggests that there is some kind of "small blast, massive energy" dealy going on, and while I know the energy has to go somewhere, I'd imagine Saxton etc know that full well too. Are there any conceivable mechanisms or models in how this could be even remotely possible? or do we file it under the same category as the Hiesenberg compensator? (even though it's not necessarily a physical device or component of the weapon by any stretch)

[Ritterin Sophia]

Coruscant (the most important and secure world in the galaxy)

Minor nitpick. But I would argue that Coruscant, whilst heavily defended, isn't the most heavily defended. Anaxes is a Core World planet that is officially referred to as a 'Fortress Planet", and in addition to serving as nominal HQ of the Republic space forces and largest war college in the Republic also boasts it's own shipyards and what is referred to as an abnormally sizable fleet of it's own. It would make sense to assume a Core planet referred to as a 'Fortress Planet' would have static defenses at least comparable to Coruscant (Three tier shielding, with a planetary shield, district-level theater shields, and buildings with built-in deflector shields of their own) and given Coruscant didn't really have a fleet to protect it (or at least one that they knew about until later in the movie), Anaxes would've been slightly more secure.

[the atom]

On the topic, could somebody get me a passage of this infamous 'Base Delta Zero' incident (including the aftermath)? It seems to be the thing that everybody says is full proof of the validity of ICS based calcs, though I've never read the full passage, and I've wanted to analyze it for myself.

[SCRawl]

On the topic, could somebody get me a passage of this infamous 'Base Delta Zero' incident (including the aftermath)? It seems to be the thing that everybody says is full proof of the validity of ICS based calcs, though I've never read the full passage, and I've wanted to analyze it for myself.

Thirty seconds of Google-fu led me to this page. All the numbers are there, though they are not spoon-fed to the reader. If you want that, perhaps someone will oblige you, but I wouldn't count on it.

[the atom]

Yes I would certainly prefer the actual passage as opposed to somebody else's analysis.

[Darth Tedious]

I'm pretty sure if you search it on Wookieepedia you'll find a list of sources/appearences.

[Luke Skywalker]

Mike doesn't gives only the absolute minimum amount of primary evidence, so that page doesn't answer his question.

There's the dankayo example:

... to rendezvous at Dankayo and reduce the tiny base to molten slag. Even before the last of its atmosphere drifted away,
before the dense clouds of atomized topsoil could begin to settle, Imperial transports Elusive and Timely, as well as a
complement of TIE fighters, moved in to perform "mop-up" operations and a through search of Dankayo's now evenly-cratered surface.

The 3 ISD's blow off the atmosphere of Dankayo and atomize its topsoil.

[the atom]

Along what timeframe? An hour? 3 hours? A day? Also, which guns of an ISD are involved in such a bombardment

The Wookieepedia says nothing on the time frame. All I'm trying to do is figure out the yield of each gun involved.

[Connor MacLeod]

For smaller numbers, sure. The energy might get spread fast enough that it doesn't build up to cause damage, or it might be spent on relatively useless stuff like phase changes instead of acceleration, sound, light, etc. etc. etc.

But, when you get into such huge numbers like terajoules, with them already being in a small space and time, it's just such ridiculous overkill that you can put huge energy into all the other factors and still have a lot left over for the blast effect.

So I have a hard time seeing how huge energy small blast would work, especially in an atmosphere. (In open space, the energy might not be visible - things like x-rays on a nuke, for example, may be invisible on screen. In atmosphere though, they'd quickly be absorbed by the air, heating it up to cause a fireball.)

If we were talking about anything like a realistic energy weapon (RL laser, particle beam, etc.) I would agree. But I think its safe to say
Blasters (or phasers, or something like a Lensman Delameter) are only loosely like RL weapons. Blasters, for example, have no consensus on their nature. They range from weird massless beams composed of magic particles that decay into photons, to phyiscal projectiles or small warheads, to your typical plasma weapons. They can behave like heat rays or explosives or even have weird effects interchangably (like blasters failing to inflict severe third degree burns or blow out large holes in people.)

That tends to make predicting the results hard - I mean how exactly does a blaster, phaser, etc deposit energy into the target? How well does it penetrate (particle beams penetrate well, and as I recall that affects how they deposit their energy into the target compared to projectiles or lasers. Laser frequency certainly impacts penetration aspects as well.) In what manner does it release that energy, and how does it interact with the target? Lightsabers if we go by TPM can melt a roughly fist-sized hole through a blast door in about a second, but they clearly don't radiate even a fraction of that energy to the enviroment or even underwater.

A good example is Mike's 'convert into neutrinos' theory for phasers. Under that mechanism a phaser could actually generate produce huge amounts of power, but with little to no effect on the enviroment or even on the target, becuase the neutrinos wouldn't interact much or at all. A variation of that could explain the various burns and such they cause - maybe different settings cause different degrees of interaction, which may result in cases of severe burning or thermal effects we sometimes see (or even heating rocks, or blasting down those boulders to cover that entrance in one ep of TNG I vaguely recall.)

Which leads to the question: What do we know about blaster bolt that allows us to determine what a hypothetical Terajoule (or even gigajoule - GJ outputs are not exactly trivial as far as enviromental effects either.) output would look like?

Also: One of the interesting things I've noted with Luke Campbell's own research into lasers is that he makes it quite clear that parameters like this matter. I know when on SFConsim he posted his "laser small arms" pictures and stats, he mentioned that his 5-10 kj "pulsed laser train" weapons created ~2 cm holes (that overpenetrates like mad, at that), whereas it might take 40 kj or so to drill a 1 cm hole through a body. Roughly the same effects, but vastly different in terms of energy usage. Mike came to similar conclusions IIRC on his "destruction" page WRT simulating explosives, which is what the Campbell-style "blasters" technically are doing.

[Luke Skywalker]

Along what timeframe? An hour? 3 hours? A day?

Most sources seem to confirm that Base Delta Zero's are done within a few hours, hence the "no survivors" goal and the "matter of hours" claim by the Technical Journal.

Also, which guns of an ISD are involved in such a bombardment

Presumably the heavy guns.

The Wookieepedia says nothing on the time frame. All I'm trying to do is figure out the yield of each gun involved.

Given about 10^26 joules needed to blow the atmosphere off a planet, and even if the operation took a full day, that would be an output of tens of teratons per second for each ISD, assuming 100% efficiency. That's a lot.

[the atom]

Given about 10^26 joules needed to blow the atmosphere off a planet, and even if the operation took a full day, that would be an output of tens of teratons per second for each ISD, assuming 100% efficiency. That's a lot.

According to Mike's calculations that figure is closer to 2E24 J if I read the article right. Converting that to explosive power gives me something like 478.011472276 TT overall. Divvying that up between the three ships gives me 159.337 TT total from each ship. Dividing that up further into their output per second gives me a less impressive figure of 14GT per second.

However I cannot claim to be very good at math and I used some conversion programs along with a bit of division to come to that number, so if anybody wishes to correct me feel free.

[Batman]

Given about 10^26 joules needed to blow the atmosphere off a planet, and even if the operation took a full day, that would be an output of tens of teratons per second for each ISD, assuming 100% efficiency. That's a lot.

According to Mike's calculations that figure is closer to 2E24 J if I read the article right. Converting that to explosive power gives me something like 478.011472276 TT overall. Divvying that up between the three ships gives me 159.337 TT total from each ship. Dividing that up further into their output per second gives me a less impressive figure of 14GT per second.
However I cannot claim to be very good at math and I used some conversion programs along with a bit of division to come to that number, so if anybody wishes to correct me feel free.

Your math seems OK, though I'd ease up on the digits to the right of the decimal point Besides, even for 1E26J that amounts to no more than 92GT per second per ship so I'm not sure where he gets tens of TT per second per ship from.

[Luke Skywalker]

Given about 10^26 joules needed to blow the atmosphere off a planet, and even if the operation took a full day, that would be an output of tens of teratons per second for each ISD, assuming 100% efficiency. That's a lot.

According to Mike's calculations that figure is closer to 2E24 J if I read the article right. Converting that to explosive power gives me something like 478.011472276 TT overall. Divvying that up between the three ships gives me 159.337 TT total from each ship. Dividing that up further into their output per second gives me a less impressive figure of 14GT per second.
However I cannot claim to be very good at math and I used some conversion programs along with a bit of division to come to that number, so if anybody wishes to correct me feel free.

Your math seems OK, though I'd ease up on the digits to the right of the decimal point Besides, even for 1E26J that amounts to no more than 92GT per second per ship so I'm not sure where he gets tens of TT per second per ship from.

I was using a different calculation than him, in case if you didn't notice. He was referring to Wong's calcs, I was referring to Dankayo calcs.

[Batman]

Yes, and you did that wrong anyway. 1E26J at 10TT (absolute minimum for '10s' of TT) per ship per second gives the operation a duration of a whopping 13 minutes. I thought we were talking hours here?
However, I seem to have slipped up somewhere myself-for 1E26J, 3 ships and 1 hour I get slightly over 2TT.

[the atom]

As far as my understanding goes the operation lasted three hours.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yes, and you did that wrong anyway. 1E26J at 10TT (absolute minimum for '10s' of TT) per ship per second gives the operation a duration of a whopping 13 minutes. I thought we were talking hours here?
However, I seem to have slipped up somewhere myself-for 1E26J, 3 ships and 1 hour I get slightly over 2TT.

It won't matter. 3e26 joules (closer to 4e26 joules really) is a dramatically underestimated lower limit for any sort of beam weapon. A nuke at least can use airbursts to 'efficiently' heat the air, but a beam weapon will pass through it and strike the ground. Which means you will only be heating the air indirectly (either by simulating nuclear detonations on the ground, which means you'll have to be vaporizing parts of the ground to do so, or heating it so that energy radiates up and heats the air anyhow.) And this assumes no other matter (like water vapor) pollutes the air, since that will only add to the calc (ejecting vaporized oceans + atmosphere would up the calc to e29 joules, for example, and that still doesn't include inefficiencies.)

The problem is, this is not a precise, unambiguous calc, and it is therefore easily contested. No timeframe, no obvious indications of the nature of the planet, etc. What little we do know suggests it was a fairly major base - it held records and data for Rebel operations in 3 sectors, suggesting it may have been a sector level base or better (less than the main rebel headquarters, like Yavin and Hoth, but still significant.) Bases of that nature, as far as we know, are all on open-air, habitable planets and moons (again Hoth and Yavin) rather than airless asteroids, but "likely" is not "certain", and so it remains contested.

Base Delta Zero, by comparison, is actually far EASIER to argue, even without a timeframe, because we can infer timeframe from maximum operation times in the ICS if nothing else, and even if the capability can be performed to lesser degrees, the fact it encompasses a wide vareity of planet types (from a small colony to Coruscant-like worlds) means that BDZ has to encompass the greater feats as well as the lesser, as well as address the means of bombardment available to a given vessel or fleet of vessels (EG projectiles, beams, missiles, viral weaponry, whatever.)

[Rama]

As far as my understanding goes the operation lasted three hours.

Based on what evidence? After all, you've demonstrated none of your calculations, have not taken into account any of the parameters of the operation in lieu of evidence to the claim, assumed it was a BDZ where no such order is mentioned anywhere, failed to elucidate upon the basic planetary variables that you used to calculate the energy required to cause total global destruction across Dankayo on the scale depicted (diameter, gravity, water content etc.), have yet to specify any time frame sans a number you pulled from your ass and worst of all? You harp on about how a BDZ is intended to destroy everything without limits or holds barred, yet even a fraction of the energy required to evenly crater the surface of a planet (or a minor percentage - less than 0.001% - of the figure you proposed) would be more than sufficient to atomize the Rebel base.

The Rebel base that they intended to pick apart for information after causing a mass extinction event across the rest of the globe, which means that they probably never intended to slag the entire surface, just render life an obsolete concept.

Internal consistency in your own method much?

[the atom]

As far as my understanding goes the operation lasted three hours.

Based on what evidence? After all, you've demonstrated none of your calculations, have not taken into account any of the parameters of the operation in lieu of evidence to the claim, assumed it was a BDZ where no such order is mentioned anywhere, failed to elucidate upon the basic planetary variables that you used to calculate the energy required to cause total global destruction across Dankayo on the scale depicted (diameter, gravity, water content etc.), have yet to specify any time frame sans a number you pulled from your ass and worst of all? You harp on about how a BDZ is intended to destroy everything without limits or holds barred, yet even a fraction of the energy required to evenly crater the surface of a planet (or a minor percentage - less than 0.001% - of the figure you proposed) would be more than sufficient to atomize the Rebel base.

The Rebel base that they intended to pick apart for information after causing a mass extinction event across the rest of the globe, which means that they probably never intended to slag the entire surface, just render life an obsolete concept.

Internal consistency in your own method much?

I was told that the operation took somewhere close to that time. If you know better then let's hear it. I used Dankayo because apparently everybody else seems to describe it as one. For my conversions I basically used Mike Wong's calcs and did a bit of converting and dividing. If you have specific issues with my math then I'm all ears. If it's the original energy calcs then I'm afraid you'll have to take it up with him.

[Rama]

I was told that the operation took somewhere close to that time. If you know better then let's hear it.

We're never told the time frame full stop (and neither were you), making any claims to an otherwise unreliable canon reference immediately questionable in lieu of a typically Weasel-like tact when responding in such a fashion to someone who is demanding evidence. In debating "that's what I was told by a friend. What friend? He's some guy I know and can't reference" isn't a typically accepted response, and is usually seen as a rather maligned attempt to make up whatever shit you want and not have to support, defend or even treat it with considerable objectivity when challenged to do so. There's a reason that "Weasel words" are a legitimate clause for dismissing citations in essays and associated research papers after all.

Although thanks for transparently shifting the burden of proof, I hate it when users try to obtusely foist their own claims onto others.

I used Dankayo because apparently everybody else seems to describe it as one.

A BDZ is an explicit order, one that follows a set of circumstances, not application. Which is why, for example, there are mobile troop divisions equipped to handle the execution of a BDZ order on a local scale, presumably with heavy weapons and under the express order to fuck shit up to the best of their abilities.

Of course not every orbital bombardment is a BDZ, and thus of course not every BDZ involves the use of orbital or starship weapons (big bombs such as the Clone Wars era Planet Killer or Barradium Fission warhead seem to suffice).

For my conversions I basically used Mike Wong's calcs and did a bit of converting and dividing. If you have specific issues with my math then I'm all ears. If it's the original energy calcs then I'm afraid you'll have to take it up with him.

For me to have any problem with your mathematical analysis, you would have to present one in the first place. You haven't, instead you've just presented a figure without once taking into account or comprehending the exact same parameters he took into account when scaling the required level of destruction to achieve a desired goal on a precisely sterile testbed. Of course in lieu of his established parameters he even states that he merely uses a his original figure as a baseline, and that his considered energy proponent would actually (because planets are not sterile laboratories) be far higher, citing figures as high as 5 PT, 23 PT and even as high as 239 PT for time averaged operations intended to achieve direct objectives.

So again we have the following problems:

- Dankayo wasn't explicitly a BDZ, just a heavy bombardment as far as we can tell.
- Their objective wasn't to destroy the base given that they sent Troopers to the surface to pick through the intel from the base (ST armor is vacuum sealed BTW), and even if Dankayo was the size of our moon, evenly cratering the surface would more than do the job of pulverizing the base itself back to component atoms.
- We have no idea how long the bombardment lasted, the surface gravity of Dankayo, the diameter etc.

[the atom]

We're never told the time frame full stop (and neither were you), making any claims to an otherwise unreliable canon reference immediately questionable in lieu of a typically Weasel-like tact when responding in such a fashion to someone who is demanding evidence. In debating "that's what I was told by a friend. What friend? He's some guy I know and can't reference" isn't a typically accepted response, and is usually seen as a rather maligned attempt to make up whatever shit you want and not have to support, defend or even treat it with considerable objectivity when challenged to do so. There's a reason that "Weasel words" are a legitimate clause for dismissing citations in essays and associated research papers after all.

Ah I see where I goofed now. I thought I had read it from General Schatten on SB, but on further inspection it seems I garbled his claim of " in under an hour three ISDs have evenly cratered the surface of an entire planet and hit it hard enough to vaporize the ocean and blast it's atmosphere off." Dissmiss my figures then.

A BDZ is an explicit order, one that follows a set of circumstances, not application. Which is why, for example, there are mobile troop divisions equipped to handle the execution of a BDZ order on a local scale, presumably with heavy weapons and under the express order to fuck shit up to the best of their abilities.

Of course not every orbital bombardment is a BDZ, and thus of course not every BDZ involves the use of orbital or starship weapons (big bombs such as the Clone Wars era Planet Killer or Barradium Fission warhead seem to suffice).

Ah well that clears things up immensely. I had been lead to believe a BDZ was another word for exterminautus.

For me to have any problem with your mathematical analysis, you would have to present one in the first place. You haven't, instead you've just presented a figure without once taking into account or comprehending the exact same parameters he took into account when scaling the required level of destruction to achieve a desired goal on a precisely sterile testbed. Of course in lieu of his established parameters he even states that he merely uses a his original figure as a baseline, and that his considered energy proponent would actually (because planets are not sterile laboratories) be far higher, citing figures as high as 5 PT, 23 PT and even as high as 239 PT for time averaged operations intended to achieve direct objectives.

True. I just converted what I saw into explosive energy and divided that up among the ships and into a certain time-frame. However seeing as I was wrong about the length of time the operation took and that Dankayo was not, in fact, a BDZ, my conversions don't work.

So again we have the following problems:

- Dankayo wasn't explicitly a BDZ, just a heavy bombardment as far as we can tell.
- Their objective wasn't to destroy the base given that they sent Troopers to the surface to pick through the intel from the base (ST armor is vacuum sealed BTW), and even if Dankayo was the size of our moon, evenly cratering the surface would more than do the job of pulverizing the base itself back to component atoms.
- We have no idea how long the bombardment lasted, the surface gravity of Dankayo, the diameter etc.

Do we ever actually get to see a crust-melting planet scale BDZ? Out of all his citations Dankayo was the only complete incident mentioned so I just went with that. Everything else seemed based on off-hand quotes and assumptions really, which bothered me quite a bit.

[Rama]

Do we ever actually get to see a crust-melting planet scale BDZ? Out of all his citations Dankayo was the only complete incident mentioned so I just went with that. Everything else seemed based on off-hand quotes and assumptions really, which bothered me quite a bit.

A BDZ doesn't require literal crust melting since the most egregious of all Imperial interpretations was the elimination of all life, which can be accomplished with the reduction of the atmosphere and atomization of the soil and water content (4E27) versus the sheer energy required to vitrify the contents of the crust (5E28). It may seem a trivial comparison, but a BDZ already goes as far as to render the planet unusable to almost all complex life for decades (before terraforming can take place) and requires an extensive devotion of resources anyway (hypermatter isn't free), whereas further vitrification seems to be an act of callousness used only when absolutely necessary to send a message that the planet is to never be used again - even after wiping away the surface population.

General Grievous carried out one such attack on the world of Humbarine, in which his fleet slagged the world down to the crust in an hour long bombardment - which makes sense in lieu of his despicable character. The Republic only bombarded entrenched armies in order to dislodge them (out of practicality), and the Imperials often tried to cover up their planetary attacks as Pirate or mercenary retaliations (Palpatine wanted to retain a positive public image), but Grievous was a monster who wanted to literally burn off worlds for the sake of doing so.

[Connor MacLeod]

The problem there is it actually says tiny base!

'tiny' relative to what?

What I think Danakyo is is an asteroid like base, similar to the thing we see at the end of Revenge of the Sith, though surely a lot bigger than that specifically. Maybe something the size of Charon; 1000km across or less.

Except that if they did that, they'd call it an asteroid or a moon or something else. I don't remember all the detials of Scavenger hunt, but I do remember them calling it a planet.

The base has a tiny surface presence and a much larger underground complex, hidden from plain view. It has an artificial environment - gravity, atmosphere, etc. The asteroid itself doesn't have an atmosphere.

Yes, that's possible, but we really can't be sure either way. What we know argues that it probably isn't a small asteroid base, but that doesn't neccesarily rule out other things (planet's may not have atmospheres for whatever reason, for example.) and therein lies the problem.