Base Delta Zero revisited

[Rogue 9]

We all know Mike Wong's and Curtis Saxton's evaluation of the Base Delta Zero operation, the destruction of a world's surface and its resources via orbital bombardment. While I realize that the ICS (not to mention the weapon mounts designed to take the recoil of gigaton-ranged weapons in Slave Ship) is canon and therefore the end of the discussion, that's not often a very satisfactory answer to those who wish to minimize its power, and I've lately run into one of those. Hence this thread.

So. What is the sum total of the evidence for crust-melting BDZ, in the face of the following:

On Base Delta Zero- it's not entirely clear if it mandates total melting of an entire planet's crust to a depth of at least one metre, as Saxton claims. Earlier sources describing Base Delta Zero, seem to imply that there is rubble, as well as dead bodies, left behind- something one would not expect with a total melting:

The worst problem, as far as Fel was concerned, was implementing order Base Delta Zero on Nar Shaddaa.

Fel knew that last wasn't Greelanx's fault. The Sector Moff had issued that order. But in the admiral's place, Fel would have at least tried to get Sam Shild to modify that instruction. The Emperor's directive had been to shut down the smuggling operations out of Nar Shaddaa and other smuggler nests, especially the gunrunners. The directive hadn't included anything about razing the entire moon. Fel had had considerable combat experience, and he knew that sentients of most species would fight like cornered Corellian vrelts when it came to protecting their homes and families.

There were millions of sentients on Nar Shaddaa, many of whom were only peripherally involved with the smuggling business. Elderly sentients, children . . . Soontir Fel grimaced.

This would be his first Imperial-ordered massacre. He'd been lucky to avoid such an order for this long, the way things were going.

Fel would carry out his orders, but he wasn't happy about them. He knew images of the flaming buildings would haunt him, as he gave each order to fire. And afterward . . . they'd have to send down shuttles and ground troops to mop up, and he, Fel, being a conscientious commander, would have to oversee that operation.

Visions of smoking rubble strewn with blackened corpses filled his mind, and Fel took a deep breath.

No, they're just going to batter down (not bypass) the shields [of a Borg cube] in a shot or two at most and blow them sky-high, because a ship that can slag a planetary surface including ocean floor in the span of an hour will do that to Star Trek ships, which... can't even come close.

this page discusses the whole issue of "What's the in-universe evidence for Imperial Star Destroyers being able to do that"

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWbd0.html

and demonstrates just how much power inflation there has been in these kind of claims- citing the original sources for Base Delta Zero.

Yes, he cited DarkStar. I pointed him to Master of Ossus' takedown of Mr. Anderson's site, and he cited DarkStar's response. He's not acting like a rabid follower, though; he's more playing the golden mean, which is if anything more irritating.

It's way past time for me to sleep, so I don't have time to go into why Mr. Anderson can't reason his way out of a paper bag right now. Instead, I'll let Mike Blackburn do it for me.

Read it. And I've read his rebuttal:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/BB/BBbd0.html#

I also noticed that people have claimed that the devastation of Emberlene was a Base Delta Zero- proving that even mercenary armies can do it- yet, in Vision of the Future, it's clear that limited farmland still survives on Emberlene, people have "grown up in the ruins" and so forth.

Descriptions of Base Delta Zero in the novels tend to be inconsistent with each other; the Hutt Gambit scene is the low end, while at the other it is supposedly easier to terraform an uninhabitable world than to restore one destroyed by a BDZ (reference Specter of the Past, description of the destruction of Caamas), which would be consistent with the destruction of all natural resources including easily mined minerals, since you'd have to ship in everything from off-world.

Actually, Spectre of the Past simply spoke of "re-forming a world to the Caamasi's specifications"- it didn't say the world had to start out as completely uninhabitable. Maybe it only has to have no sapient inhabitants.

Also, as to what had actually happened to Caamas:

Well back before I was born, right after the Clone Wars, the world of Caamas was brutally attacked and hit with enough firepower that the vegetation boiled off the world, leaving it a dead rock, and the vast majority of the Caamasi dead with it.

As far as I can tell, no sources speak of Caamas's surface being totally melted.

Indeed, the description here:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Caamas

seems to imply that even some of the vegetation may have survived- but severely mutated. That the oceans are still present- but heavily polluted. And so on.

And to put the icing on the cake:

Besides, stardestroyer.net's main page hasn't been updated in years, not at all since May, 2004 and many of the technical pages are 2001 or even older. It doesn't incorporate the ICS data because it simply wasn't available when most of the site was written.

So what you're saying is, a source that's ten years old, that hasn't been updated since before Attack of the Clones came out, is valid? Even the newer parts haven't been updated since Revenge of the Sith came out.

I'm sorry, stardestroyer.net just lost any credibility it might have had as a source.

So citing the main page here isn't going to get me anywhere.

Ignoring the ICS for a moment, it's easy to see that he might have a point - and frankly, he's politer than Mike is, so he's naturally going to sound more persuasive to the uneducated listener in the first place when speaking against SDN's numbers. That's what makes this so infuriating; I'm running out of arguments that don't run into the brick wall of "instances X, Y, and Z don't support melting, so the numbers are suspect." I know this can't be a new problem, since the calculations have been around for years and have to have been challenged on this basis more than once, but I haven't been around the debate (versus or simple Star Wars firepower estimates outside of that) long enough to have run into this particular tack before. I also no longer have access to my formerly vast collection of Star Wars novels, so I'm hard-pressed to fact check claims about Specter of the Past and The Hutt Gambit beyond what's cited online, which is precious little in the way of context. So: What's our evidence? How do we know that the Empire's escort vessels are capable of slagging an entire planetary surface?

[Darth Tedious]

The examples cited have a few problems-

Visions of smoking rubble strewn with blackened corpses filled his mind, and Fel took a deep breath.

This is a character picturing rubble and corpses in his mind. Not a description of what the planet actually looked like after a BDZ.

Not hard evidence.

Actually, Spectre of the Past simply spoke of "re-forming a world to the Caamasi's specifications"- it didn't say the world had to start out as completely uninhabitable. Maybe it only has to have no sapient inhabitants.

Maybe. The most worthless word in any debate. Speculation on his part. And he didn't even provide a quote from the source to back himself up.

Not hard evidence.

Well back before I was born, right after the Clone Wars, the world of Caamas was brutally attacked and hit with enough firepower that the vegetation boiled off the world, leaving it a dead rock, and the vast majority of the Caamasi dead with it.

As far as I can tell, no sources speak of Caamas's surface being totally melted.

Indeed, the description here:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Caamas

seems to imply that even some of the vegetation may have survived- but severely mutated. That the oceans are still present- but heavily polluted. And so on.

Two problems with this one-
Firstly, the oceans being present afterwards does not mean that they weren't boiled. What does this guy think happens to water after it boils? It doesn't disappear... the oceans would have re-formed.
Secondly, Caamas suffered heavy orbital bombardment, not a BDZ.

Not even evidence.

This guy is an idiot.

[Captain Seafort]

Firstly, the oceans being present afterwards does not mean that they weren't boiled. What does this guy think happens to water after it boils? It doesn't disappear... the oceans would have re-formed.
Secondly, Caamas suffered heavy orbital bombardment, not a BDZ.

Whether or not it was a BDZ or not is debatable. What is not debatable is the fact that the only reason they were discussing reforming another planet to Caamas' specifications at all was because it was easier to do that than repair Caamas itself. What sort of state must the planet be in that it's easier to teraform another world to resemble it than to repair the original?

[TC Pilot]

A Base Delta Zero is an order to basically eradicate signs of civilization, and entirely context-sensitive. As far as I know, Caamas has nothing to do with a BDZ, it was just Palpatine contracting out some politically-beneficial genocide, and the completion of a BDZ on Nar Shaddaa wouldn't neccesarily need to be all that thorough.

The Imperial Sourcebook, which is one of the only sources that really treats it in a technical manner, says the order pertains to the destruction of all planetary resources, including population centers, arable land, and fisheries.

That said, there's also plenty of references to capital ships being able to turn planets to "slag" or "molten slag."

"Niathal was very quiet. And she hadn't said a word about Jedi StealthXs wandering around at will in the fleet assembly area. Any commander would have been in a flap about that, unless they thought it was a problem that didn't have their name on it.
I'm not stupid, Admiral.
"Thoughts?" said Caedus, looking her way.
"I've often fought the urge to reduce a planet to molten slag myself, "Niathal said, unmoved. "Probably for totally different reasons to you, Colonel. But I agree with Gil-holding what we seize is going to be a drain on resources, unless Fondor shows some pragmatism and rolls over. Let's give them an extra reason for doing that, beyond annihilation." - REVELATION,LEGACY OF THE FORCE

"Daala's Star Destroyers controlled enough power to turn entire planets to slag, but she didn't want to do that here. "Dantooine is too remote for an effective demonstration," she said, "but we can make use of it nonetheless." -JEDI ACADEMY DARK APPRENTICE

"Besany didn't think she'd been crashing around any-where. She was mortified. "Why should I believe you?"
"Because Qiilura has a fragile ecology and we know Skirata is a vengeful little piece of vermin who really could persuade the fleet to melt it to slag. We want to be left alone now. Really alone."
"I see."
"We'll maintain a presence here, by way of insurance," said the Gurlanin. "Not that you'd notice." " - REPUBLIC COMMANDO: TRUE COLOURS

"Niathal was watching the exchange with faint interest. "This is an exquisite ethical argument, but right now I'm more concerned with stopping Corellia repairing an orbital weapon that was capable of taking out the Yuuzhan Vong and that will, if brought back online, ruin the Alliance's entire day."
Omas almost twitched. The power play was luminous in its visibility. "What would you prefer to do, Admiral? We failed to destroy it last time."
"We can reduce a planet to molten slag from orbit. Let's not rule out the possibility of needing to do that to Centerpoint-even if it would be best preserved to defend the Alliance."
"It's populated," said Luke.
"So are warships." " - LEGACY OF THE FORCE BLOODLINES

Pay particular attention to this next one:

"Suddenly scrutiny from the Empire brought al normal life on Nar Shaddaa to a screeching halt. Moff Sarn Shild proclaimed the Hutts' lawless territory would benefit greatly from stricter Imperial control. As a public-relations stunt, Shild was authorized to blockade Nal Hutta and turn the smuggler's moon into molten slag." -Essential Chronology

"Have you ever seen what a Star Destroyer can do to the surface of an unshielded planet? Stones run like water and sand turns to glass. And I have two Star Destroyers at my disposal." -Crimson Empire

[TC Pilot]

There's a lot of dialog about slag, but there's very little evidence they melt much of anything a tall, and none whatsoever that they actually melt the whole planet's surface.

Well, Nar Shaddaa is an ecumenpolis, so when they say "turning the Smuggler's Moon into molten slag," it would be kinda silly for them to not mean the whole planet, though pretty much all of those quotes talk about planetary-scale destruction anyway. But even assuming ridiculously low-end amounts of "molten slag," as oppossed to, say, a moon covered entirely by multi-kilometer urban structures, you still end up with rather substantial firepower levels, at which point doing the same over an entire planet's surface is only a matter of time rather than capability. And in the case of the attempt on Nar Shaddaa, the Imperials didn't exactly bring a massive fleet for the job, nor were they going to conduct the attack in some overly long timeframe (as in hours).

The "fisheries" quote is especially hilarious. fishery : ocean :: farm : land.

I made a mistake there. That quote's not from the Imperial Sourcebook (which refers to an ISD's ability to reduce a planet to slag), it's from Galaxy Guide 9.

What's really hilarious is that it's in reference to an Imperial commando squad that performs acts quite similar to a DBZ.

[Vympel]

So what you're saying is, a source that's ten years old, that hasn't been updated since before Attack of the Clones came out, is valid? Even the newer parts haven't been updated since Revenge of the Sith came out.

I'm sorry, stardestroyer.net just lost any credibility it might have had as a source.

So because information is old its not credible? Wow. You're just going to let idiot reasoning like that slide? He must show its not credible, not merely assert it on the basis of age. Or does the evidence to which it refers all become somehow invalidated purely because it was last updated before RotS came out? Were all those sources declared non-canon?

That's not to say there haven't been changes. We know for a fact Caamas wasn't a BDZ, and it was performed by a mercenary fleet at Palpatine's orders.

As for literal melting:-

"Have you ever seen what a Star Destroyer can do to the surface of an unshielded planet? Stones run like water and sand turns to glass. And I have two Star Destroyers at my disposal."- Crimson Empire

"Throughout the Trioculus affair , the New Republic was engaged in a protracted military campaign for possession of Milagro, a world located at a key hyperspace junction. The Empire was prepared to lay waste to Milagro rather than allow the Rebels access to its manufacturing facilities. Following three months of exhausting clashes between AT-AT walkers and the New Republic Army, the defeated Imperials slagged the planet's surface with a withering orbital bombardment, then fled."- Essential Chronology, p71.

"Sunlight ripples across a sea of shimmering glass. Glass that had once been part of iridescent domes, towering minarets, soaring archways, vertical towers, and all the other structures that constitute a city. A city reduced to a sea of manmade lava, as Imperial laser cannon carved swathes of destruction through the once-beautiful metropolis."- Jedi Knight p47 (also referring to Milagro).

"The shield has to cover everything from the beach to the tops of the mountains. On the North side it should be possible to blast through the mountain and open up enough of a gap to let our bombers in. Once we're under the shield, the generators go and it's over ... Grand Isle would be no match for two squadrsons of Y-wings. In addition to two laser cannons, the Y-wings sported twin ion cannons and two proton torpedo launchers. Each ship carried eight torpedoes, which meant either of the squadrons packed enough firepower to turn the lush, verdant landscape of Grand Isle into a black, smoking mass of liquid rock."- Rogue Squadron, p216,224 (even tiny little Y-wings can do some serious slagging with the right loadout).

Note, the slagging of Milagro was incomplete (the city was reduced to a sea of lava, not the immediate area around it), but the point is that when someone says "slag" there is evidence to conclude that they mean what they're saying.

[Rogue 9]

So what you're saying is, a source that's ten years old, that hasn't been updated since before Attack of the Clones came out, is valid? Even the newer parts haven't been updated since Revenge of the Sith came out.

I'm sorry, stardestroyer.net just lost any credibility it might have had as a source.

So because information is old its not credible? Wow. You're just going to let idiot reasoning like that slide?

No, I'm not and I didn't, but calling him on it and being acknowledged and believed are two separate things. Also note that it was a separate person who called it into question.

[PainRack]

From JAT, Admiral Daala specifically states that her 4 star destroyers have the power to turn any planet surface to slag.

Hyperbolic perhaps.

But her orbital bombardment in Darksaber was proof of the ability to execute such acts. Daala saw turbolaser strikes eliminate entire forest areas from space, and her bombardment was sufficient to cause a massive firestorm that was visible from space. The so called forest fire was actually a massive cloud that again, obscured the ground, VISIBLE from space.

Spectre of the Past reinforces that this firepower isn't limited to heavy warships like the Knight Hammer. The bombardment of Bothawui had 4 single turbolasers cause a firestorm and the glow was again, VISIBLE from space.

The area affected must had been simply massive, and hence, the firepower too.

Rebuttals like the Yavin IV forest fire is put into perspective by the full paragraphs quoted, in which we see Daala turbolaser causing entire strips of forest to disappear(visible from space), and said areas emitting smoke(again, visible from space).

Nar Shaadaa is simply the most... bogus rebuttal ever. Fel,a relatively green commander at this time who had never committed a BDZ before, is wavering at the act of having to execute an war atrocity is simply comparing the scale of destruction to things that he would had been familar with. Its not an actual description, at best, it tells us that a BDZ involves BDA and follow up troops to actually search and discover any survivors. Given that we know that deep shelters are supposed to be secured from such random attacks and BDA is well... logical, this does not suggest a lower limit on the firepower involved in a BDZ.

One also needs to consider that BDZ is not a weapon of mass destruction, but rather, the use of heavy firepower to deny resources to an enemy. Scorched earth. This will mean that the scale of operations, and the guidelines given to Imperial commanders like Fel would need to be flexible enough that operations could be conducted against asteroids mines, gas giants or even mining operations in the corona of a star.

It would also focus more on a strategic attack plan in which strikes against targets would be coordinated using available weapons. This could involve the use of precision strikes by TIE bombers to ensure elimination of key targets before general bombardment against cities, farmland, mines and etc make assessment of the damage difficult. BDZ operations may be logically assigned to bombard squadrons, but the Imperial strike force at Nar Shaadaa was not that. Troops might had been neccessary to board ships or secure spaceborne assets before the guns of the fleet or demolition charges are used against such targets.

[Sea Skimmer]

Any nuclear weapon can turn sand into glass and metal into slag, so could some conventional explosions and a good cutting torch. These terms are not very meaningful for judging if a given force has the firepower to melt an entire planet surface, but anyone insisting a ISD cannot do it even slightly is just retarded.

[Connor MacLeod]

There's a lot of dialog about slag, but there's very little evidence they melt much of anything a tall, and none whatsoever that they actually melt the whole planet's surface.

Actually the Essential Chronology (and the revised one after it) specify that Nar Shaddaa was to be reduced to molten slag. It may or may not mean the crust itself was melted, but Nar Shaddaa is consistently depicted as being a Coruscant-like city planet (albeit smaller, though it has close to standard gravity and atmosphere for human habitation so it cannot be TOO much smaller.) that extends some depth below the surface (at least 100 or so levels if I recall the Tales of the Mos Eisley Catina story involving Greedo.) The Galaxy guides for TESB and IO believe ROTJ also mention slagging a planet within hours.

I could go on and on making a case about it, but that's not really the point. This being sci fi analysis, I simply cannot generate a case with the level fo precision to make it completely, totally impossible for someone else to nitpick some aspect of it into ambiguity. But on the other hand, that just opens the door to similar nitpickery of all other universes. At best you simply cannot have a debate, at worst the debate simply becomes pointless, boring semantics. Because what the nitpicking over BDZ (and similar cases, like TDiC) is always about is about firepower, and one cannot let the other side have TEH MASSIVE FIREPOWER. Hell, that's also an underlying reason why the Death Star has to be thrown out. Or the scale of the Empire. Or whatever.

(note I'm not directing this at you SPECIFICALLY D13. I'm just saying that there is no way to make BDZ 100% foolproof. Someone will always find a way to nitpick some issue to death, no matter the universe or evidence or whatnot. That's VS debating for you.)

The "fisheries" quote is especially hilarious. fishery : ocean :: farm : land.

By itself perhaps. But fish are a natural resource, are they not? Some of the qualifications of a BDZ operation insist on it destroying natural resources.

[Connor MacLeod]

Any nuclear weapon can turn sand into glass and metal into slag, so could some conventional explosions and a good cutting torch. These terms are not very meaningful for judging if a given force has the firepower to melt an entire planet surface, but anyone insisting a ISD cannot do it even slightly is just retarded.

As I noted, this is purely an artefact of vs debating. It's all about TEH FIREPOWER! because if an ISD can melt planets (or trek can do, say, TDiC) then one side has TEH GAMEWINNING ADVANTAGE. Which of course the other side has to throw out, and nitpicking it is the easiest means of doing that.

If the vs debates INSIST on keeping BDZ firepower away from ship to ship combat, there's a much easier (and well supported) way to do it. It's safe to infer that BDZ level firepower, extensive as it is, probably involves a substantial fraction of a starship's fuel supply (even an ISD's.) and it more than likely requires maximum firepower to accomplish (with all the associated drawbacks therein.) There could be all manner of cooling and wear and tear issues (strain that hours of recoil places on the hull) that make BDZ level bombardments impractical for common usage (no safety margin for the guns or reactor for one thing.) Hell, the recoil issue alone will bring up myriad problems. We know already that recoil is a serious issue for high end firepower (the slave ship quote), so that means that to use certain yields invariably requires special measures (Extra bracing, force field reinforcement, etc.) Which is going to mean at least more mass and such... which in turn is going to hamper the mobility/tracking ability of the turret in combat. If the gun is going to tear the ship off on firing, I doubt you can afford to be moving it like a point defense weapon, after all. It may even need to be fixed axis. Either will not be a probelm firing on a stationary target (or perhaps one immobilized/crippled), but an intact, mobile starship can be another matter entirely.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah, especially since so much of it is based on two colorful words ("slag" and "surface")...

Yes you do realize not all quotes involving BDZ and slagging are the same though? I just pointed out one. I could also point to TEH HATED ICS depiction. If we're going to take every bit of evidence purely in isolation independent from everything else or try to put a spin or slant on everything then it's going to be pointless. But then agian this just invites the other side to do it, and how many times does that happen to Trek on here or elsewhere? I know that it pisses YOU off when Warsies do the same.

This goes both ways - it's in the same list as mines, for one big example. Another analogy here with mines is to ore.

Sure. But if we're going to take this tack its going to degenerate into semantical nitpickery. Again, is that what you really want to do, or would it be better to actually reach a consensus on this. I've already admitted I don't care as much if BDZ level firepower corresponds to ship to ship firepower, so we can do away with that as far as VS crap is concerned.

Along with the mines thing, this is also an impossible request. They don't destroy the matter. It's a question of making them sufficiently hard to access that it just isn't worth it anymore. Where is that line drawn? Nobody really knows for sure, so we can fight endlessly and get nowhere.

Again, we're getting into semantics about what the destruction involves and what suffices. And if we're going to nitpick this into the "noone knows" terirtory, then discussion is pointless, as is any sort of sci fi analysis, because it is frankly IMPOSSIBLE to reach the level of precision required for that sort of definitive statement. Maybe you don't care, but I prefer at least some precision to none (especially since the vs alternative is flaming, chest beating, and general tribal/sports fan type bullshit.)

[Connor MacLeod]

It doesn't have to be "middle ground" - it just has to do away with the retarded VS debate crap bullshit and the pointless semantics. Like I said, virtually all the argument over BDZ is less bout whether melting happened, its about the rate of firepower IMPLIED by the event. As Skimmer noted, it's silly to assume that its totally, UTTERLY impossible for a ISD to melt a planet's surface, given the right mechanism. Hell, given long enough, even MT (or even KT) level firepower from an ISD could melt a planet (not very efficient, but it could be done.)

I also admit I'm not comfortable with the idea of a "middle road" approach because it implies negotiation and consensus is the most important - too much like a Wiki mentality for me, and vs debating is plauged with that sort of factional bullshit ("eg" everyone else is assumed to be a rabid fanboy automatically regardless of what they say, therefore I have a right to be equally fanatical.) I much prefer taking it on a case by case basis, because the middle road might also be wrong. Besides, the middle road still won't address the "rate of firepower" issue, because it won't neccesarily allow one side (or the other) to "win".

If it helps any, I'm perfectly willing to go against the majority and consider the validity of TDiC, at least as an example that the lesser ST powers have the ability to demolish the planet BDZ or Exterminatus like (it can still be debated whether it is brute force, partly brute force and partly not, or wholly not.) Hell, I won't lose much sleep even allowing for brute force since liek I pointed out with the BDZ firepower example, blowing the hell out of a stationary target does not neccesarily confer the ability to a smaller, more mobile one. OR Covenant "glassing". or Protoss Purification, or whatever similar events happen.

[Connor MacLeod]

Just a thought experiment, let's compare an ISD to a Ohio class submarine. an Ohio class can carry (in theory, depending on payload) anywhere up to several tens to (at most) several hundred megatons worth of firepower, total. I dont know how many torpedoes it carries, but I'd guess fewer than 100, and a ~300 kilo warhead. I think its safe to say that the total payload is well under a kiloton.

Even just a superficial guess shows that there is hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times difference between the two capabilities, which could be equally true for ISD firepower (conventional vs "WMD" level, eg Max firepower. A case can be made for that.) Hell, if we use the Death Star as a benchmakr, that disparity could be even greater (billions or even trillions of times difference) In any event it also doesn't actually address the actual rates of fire involved, or the consequences (you could probably use a nuke to kill an enemy ship, but its wasteful overkill when a torpedo can probably do it as well.) Hell, rates of fire don't have to be fixed as far as the "ending" event is considered (hours, days or weeks only affect the sustained firepower, not the total firepower delivered. And given the "energy" inovlved with the Death sTar (regardless of whether you think the station delivered it directly, or just chain reactioned it, energy was involved) melting an entire planet does not seem beyond them, given sufficient time (Even if they have to use nukes to do it.)

Point being: I don't see any problem with the firepower inherent in the BDZ operation, but there's also no reason (or evidence I know of) to assume that that firepower corresponds to "conventional" ship to ship firepower in any significant way. It's far easier to argue that route (at least) than it is to engage in pointless nitpickery. It's also much less abusive of canon (eg you aren't forced to choose which interpretation, or even what evidence, is right.)

[Connor MacLeod]

That might work too. There is no one true path here. (I'm sure each author has their own interpretation too, which is why the evidence varies from source to source.)

That's true in any universe I think, and a prime source of inconsistency. I mean, how much of Trek's problems stemmed from the writers either having a different idea, or ignoring precedent? That's why I dislike semantics arguments - we can't ever know the real meaning, and its impossible to get the precision required, so we have to settle on some degree or another and just work from there. without some level of consensus, or rules, or some sort of guideline, analysis is utterly impossible.

Even now though, I don't think we really disagree. The heavy turbolasers probably do pack quite a whallop, and if they had sufficient time and fuel, I don't doubt they could do the melting thing on a global scale.

I think its safe to say there are many TL variants that vary in design and quality. Hell, the same is probably true of warships too. What it ultimately will get down to is tradeoffs (quantity vs quality, etc.) At this point I dont really mind if a BDZ occurs over hours, days, etc. There's advantages and problems both ways, and much of this ultimately comes down to tradeoffs - something not often considered in the vs debates I've known.

Where I take offense with it is assuming "this order says melt the surface" translates to "TERATONS PER SHOT REPEATED INDEFINITELY!11!!11!1!!11!! TREK HOPELESS ANTS"

Well there ya go, Vs debating strikes again. Trekkies or Warsies, ONE MUST WIN. I've seen it happen over all the time I wasted in the debates, and I've seen it drag unrelated people in. Believe it or not, Curtis Saxton never really HAD any interest in the "Great Debate" (as some laughingly call it.). However, he did analysis and put out useful numbers, so he got dragged into it because other people (people who would not understand then numbers) used them. I've had personal experience with this frustration when I do 40k stuff as well (and attracted my own share of vitriol, accusations of bias, trying to maximize 40K like Star Wars, etc.)

If I seem like I get harsh or snarky with someone who I see getting nitpicky, I'm sorry, but having to deal with that stuf for years tends to leave a mark on you

[Connor MacLeod]

Anyhow as far as the larger issue goes: As I said I dont think you can make an ironclad, nitpick proof, case for BDZ. And I think it just wastes time to bother, since it devolves always about the rate of fire. If it came down to the point that it HAD to be an actual war against the Federation and Empire, the fact is that size matters (and few actually will dispute the Empire being larger than the Federation.) In pure attritional terms the Empire can simply swamp them in sheer quantity - I mean assume all sides involved did a MAD type scenario with FTL uber-missiles (loaded shuttles/fighters/etc. up with large amounts of antimatter or nukes or whatever and flung them at each other's terriotry and resources.) Barring some comic book type super-tech/magic, divine intervention, luck, or some contrived scenario (EG the Empire spontaneously fragments as Palpatine has a heart attack from one too many Space Cheeseburgers), size the size disparity ensures victory, and everything else is just trivial details (such as whether a GCS or an ISD is superior.)

but then again, what is VS debating without the trivial details to argue over?

Edit: Hell, it doesn't even need for SW to have firepower/raw enerrgy superiority over ST, massive numbers of warships/troops/etc. or whatever. Sea Skimmer had the fun notion that you could "kill" a planet's population with sufficient numbers of conventional weapons (something like billions of tons) and that the ability to make and transport that should be well within SW's capabilities. Heck, if we technobabble away alot of the brute force approaches (sublight engines, hyperdrive, etc.) that actually becomes EASIER (it doens't cost as much energy to transport large amounts of material.)

[Rogue 9]

+http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthre ... st10621025

LOL. The flailing is hilarious. Unfortunately, it happened to come up in a thread where it's off topic, so I don't want to press further there.

[Connor MacLeod]

Eh. I still think you're wasting your time. They're casual fans, so they're not likely to want to play by the rules "we" do (That's one reason D13 and I can reach a consensus, he's at least willing to humor me by playing by the same imaginary rules I try to. )

Also, I think Mike has had a point about SW fans obsessing too much over "planet melting" even in literal terms. In non literal terms it clearly can be qualified as a mass extinction event (of varying magnitude) and that is quantifiable enough as long as it doesn't degenerate into nitpicking by either side. It will still come down to timeframe and rate of fire though and even means. I do think for example you don't need to use just TLS to BDZ a planet - a BDZ is simply defined as a massive and wasteful amount of overkill to demolish a world. That can be melting, vaporizing, blasting massive holes in it, removing the atmosphere, etc. And its quite possible not all methods have to be brute force either (but some clearly are, so you can't use the use of non-brute force methods to argue brute force methods are invalid.)

Time frame is largely a minor issue as well, since taking longer could simply be a leisurely bombardment for whatever reason (whim, making a statement, keeping weapons within reasonable safety/maintenance tolerances, whatever.)

When it gets down to it, I think what REALLY matters is the amount of energy SW is wililng to sling around in any event, at least when it comes to an actual, serious "war" type scenario. Blowing up lanets (eg Death Star), destroying planets by various methods (such as BDZ, ramming a starship into it, etc.), accelerating starships (small and capital), traveling at relativstic velocities (MANY novels), being able to cart off a world's oceans, etc.... all indicate the ability to wield truly staggering amounts of energy in total, regardless of the timeframe. And that energy, or even a fraction of it, applied to a wartime scenario (at least in a halfway intelligent manner) would be frighteningly effective. Imagine loading a hyperdrive starfighter or a Falcon-sized vessel with say, just fusion and/or antimatter munitions (we know SW could use either) and hypering it at whatever target you wanted. Now imagine millions (even billions) of such munitions being produced and used... I don't think they would AUTOMATICALLY do that of course (then again I don't think wAr would be the first option either, so we're really thinking silly on this regardless.)

Hell, depending on the enemy, even using "primitive" fission munitions in a hyperdrive equipped bomb (doesnt even have to be purpose designed for the scenario) in massive quantities could be enough to do whatever is needed (see earlier reference to Sea Skimmer's clever idea using "primitive" high explosives to wipe out a world.) IT doesn't even need to be top end construction rates, or hyperdrive, or whatever (It just needs be fast enough.)

It's also likely that the exact yields of existing warships don't matter. I'm sure they could design a ship that could unleash Gt/TT level firepower somehow if they needed (again, cramming a large amount of explosive into a warhead if nothing else.) SW society never has needed (and probably argues against) persistant large scale militarization simply to keep things stable (and prevent people from blowing themselves up) so lower yields in general are probably a good thing, actually. It would be bad if the Space Terrorists got hold of a multi-Gt/TT bomb and decided to blow up a continent, after all...

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh yeah, in the thread one guy mentioned the Death Star novel and the "boiling dry a lake/sea" bit. Funny thing that it's come up before as an argument *against* BDZ, but it isn't neccesarily inconsistent. For example if you used the Caspian Sea as a benchmark (and given the description it seems fairly plausible as one) it could involve quite a bit of energy to boil off... teratons by my estimate, but even gigatons would be impressive. And while it says it's more powerful than one ISD, it stands to reason from the statement a couple could do it (nevermind the kind of Star Destroyer we're talking about.. as I said they may not all be the same.. and I dont remember if a specific one was implied anyhow.)

[erik_t]

Long, long ago I went down the Daala-burning-forests path and even that results in, as I recall, tossing around gigatons without so much as a second glance. Gil Hamilton cheerfully noted:

Someone should note that Howedar's figures for the forest fires are absurdly low end. These events happened on Yavin, right? Yavin looked like a jungle in ANH (at least the area around the Rebel base did) and setting a forest fire in a jungle is an entirely different proposition than setting a forest fire in the reasonably dry forests of SoCal. For one thing, jungles are completely different in nature... and part of that nature is that for the most part, they are soaked with moisture. In fact, the trees themselves have a higher precentage of water in them per volume. Thus, a turbolaser making them explode in a cloud of steam is one thing, but actually setting a sustaining forest fire is quite another. I'd wager that the temperature of the air had to be raised to quite a bit greater than 400C to get a jungle to actually burn on any sort of scale. That makes Howedars figures viciously low end.

[PainRack]

To be honest, what pissed me off about BDZ towards the end is how we used it to calculate firepower.

Hmmm, destroy all useful resources. Ok, pro warsies argue this means a Star Destroyer must be able to do this in an hour due to... and trekkies then argued this means nothing.

BDZ is a strategic objective intended to create scorched Earth. As such, the execution of BDZ, unless one subscribes to cartoon villany must then be subordinated to some larger, strategic plan. Now, given the scale of Star Wars firepower, the use of shockwaves to destroy a city or the firestorm over Bothawui, one certainly could argue that a ISD could execute such an operation in an hour. Against a planet with no means of combating them or shielding.

But that would be backwards in terms of defining firepower, won't it? Shouldn't the incidents of Bothawui, Yavin IV, asteroid calcs be used to set the limits on how a BDZ is conducted instead of it being the other way around?

[Darth Hoth]

The "fisheries" quote is especially hilarious. fishery : ocean :: farm : land.

I made a mistake there. That quote's not from the Imperial Sourcebook (which refers to an ISD's ability to reduce a planet to slag), it's from Galaxy Guide 9.

What's really hilarious is that it's in reference to an Imperial commando squad that performs acts quite similar to a DBZ.

It does say that they can perform it only "within the limits of their resources," i.e. their would-be Base Delta Zero is not the equivalent of a real one. The full quote:

The First Sun is a repulsorlift infantry regiment designed primarily to run search-and-destroy missions, which the troops of the unit jocularly refer to as SLAMs (Search, Locate, Annihilate mission). Indeed, the regiment often undertakes missions with the same objective as the Empire’s "Base Delta Zero" command: the elimination of all assets of production, including factories, land, mines, fisheries, droids, and sapient beings (particularly any witnesses that may have seen atrocities being committed). Within the limits of their resources, the First Sun have proved completely reliable at achieving this self-imposed objective.

Now, the wording here still implies that total destruction of assets of production and the local population is the goal, which might imply a contradiction between this and the usual BDZ description/interpretation, which requires firepower ground troops should not be lugging around. (From what I recall, Darkstar tries to pull that card on his site, though he snips out the important last sentence.) Personally, I think rather that a First Sun SLAM is more like a BDZ on a local scale; that is, it requires broadly the same level of destruction, but on a much smaller scale (a local city or perhaps, say, county, rather than the whole planet).