Target practice (2008-07-22)

[Darth Wong]

These people are always fine with trying to derive scientific conclusions from sci-fi movies until someone comes along and tries to do it properly, at which point they recoil and ask why anyone would do such a thing.

That's really the crux of the matter; they have no problem using science to analyze sci-fi, just so long as it's their own half-assed made-up kiddie version of science, not the real thing. When people who actually know what they're talking about get involved, they react as if they're children playing in a sandbox and an adult tries to step in.

[Aratech]

Thus the cycle continues.

As I always say to these morons: mid to high end estimates of the Halo-verse UNSC's SHIVA warheads place them in the triple digit terraton range. In other words, a single SHIVA has more power than several thousand GCSs' entire photorp loadouts. UNSC ships typically carry between 2-4 of these things.


The Galactic Empire in relation to the UNSC is what a speeding semi truck on the interstate is to a small woodland creature. Barely enough to shake the driver out of his stupor and warrant a 'Did I just hit something?' remark.

From this, we can logically conclude that if the Empire can bulldoze its way through a power like that in a manner that would barely qualify for a footnote in the annals of galactic history, a civilization where the ships are orders of magnitude weaker than said curbstomped UNSC (to say nothing of ship durability, which has some low ends for trek that would make it to where Star Wars level infantry would be a serious threat to them) would be squashed in such a brutal manner that its like sticking an Iowa up against a viking war galley.

[Darth Servo]

The whole thing is just silly. Just accept it makes no sense, and accept it with suspension of disbelief, like so many other events in Sci/Fi. Vorlon planet killers, species 8472 taking out planets, the Lexx, and so on. I just saw Dr Who tonight, and the Dalikes moved planets though time and space. Would you waste you time trying to calculate the power need to do that. Would you try to explain the power source? It's nonsense.

I like how he tries to state SW ships use fusion, but when he gets served up a faceful of actual math explaining why it would be impossible, his only response "why are you trying to calc it? IT MAKES NO SENSE!!11!"

Pep, we're talking about an idiot who wants to ignore hypermatter because its bullshit but turns right around and claims we might one day discover all the magic particles of the week in Trek. The idiot isn't even trying to be self-consistent.

[Wyrm]

Hi. I'm from SDN, the site administrated by Mike Wong, the fellow you kindly sent your hillarious letter to start this whole shebang.

Yes I have gotten a good laugh.

Outside, you're laughing. Inside, you are weeping.

<I didn't include this in my reposting of the message to SDN due to an oversight.>

Your grasp of logic, science and technology, not to mention millitary strategy is laughable at best. Your attack starts with the statement, "If SDs were as powerful as you say, you would never have had to build the Death Star." This statement assumes that the Death Star shares the same purpose as a Star Destroyer, when they clearly do not.

This is the kind of block headedness I was talking about. That was my point, a SD is for another purpose then the DS. SDs are general purpose forces, that can be used for a wide range of tasks. The DS is a limited purpose WMD. Strategic Nuclear Forces on earth, are of limited use. After WWII the US depended on nuclear deterrence to defend it self, and allowed it's conventional forces to atrophy. When the Korean War broke out we were almost defeated by a third rate Asian power. We have never let are selves get that weak again. The DS is also putting all you eggs in one basket. It's not invulnerable, as shown twice. All the nuclear powers on earth disperse their nuclear forces, for that reason.

Why, with all those badass nuclear weapons we have, we should just dispense with regular conventional armed forces entirely, and use only our nukes because, obviously, if we have to develop nukes, then our regular forces are useless. Oh wait... We don't, and you're an idiot.

Not every earthly millitary problem requires the use of nukes. Similarly, not every galactic millitary problem will require the Death Star. You always want something a little less ham-handed.

The point you keep missing no mater how many time I repeat it is that killing the population of a planet is all you need to do.

There's more to war than just destroying the enemy. Demoralization is also part of it. The Death Star, as has been pointed out, is a _terror weapon_. Even Tarkin admits that. "Fear will keep them in line. Fear of this battle station." If the Death Star can make a planet surrender without firing a shot, then it has done its job. But such a terror weapon needs street cred, hence Alderaan: Tarkin passed up an opportunity to wipe out a rebel base (he didn't know that Leia lied until later) in favor for an effective demonstration of the Death Star's capabilities on a Core World.

Again you miss the point. I know what Tarkin said, I saw all the movies, and loved them. What was demoralizing about the destruction of Alderaan was that the people died. If the Planet was left a burned out slag in space the effect would have been the same on the minds of people. Do you think they would have said. "I'm not impressed or frightened, because the mass of the planet was still is place"? You could have built a much smaller, cheaper, system that would be just as effective, a terror weapon.

The movies aren't the whole SW universe. There's also the EU.

What was demoralizing about the Death Star was _not only_ that all those people died, but *also* because they were snuffed out so quickly and easily. The Death Star swooped in and blasted Alderaan to smithereens in less than an hour. With a strong set of planetary shields, like those that protected Alderaan, a planet could expect to hold off a fleet of SDs for _months_. As TC Pilot (an SDN guy) noted, " Admiral Ackbar, in _Wedge's Gamble_ was resigned to a months-long siege of the capital, as well."

Now think about it: With a strong set of shields around your planet, you can expect your peers on other worlds to protest the unjustified Imperial bombardment of your planet (unless you've done something horrid and become a galactic pariah). The Empire is discouraged from from blockading and wiping you out wholesale unless it can paint your world as some sort of galactic villian. If nothing else, it gives you a chance to negotiate a surrender if worse comes to worst. Now along comes the Death Star. No months' long seige, just... poof! You're dead. Now your protective shield is naught but a security blanket. That's scary!

Just like in the 50's, after Russia got the bomb and flew Sputnik, the US as a whole realized it was very, very naked. That was some scary shit back then.

A BDZ renders the planet uninhabitable, but only _after_ the world's protective shield (if any) has been eliminated, and with the powerful shields, that can take a while, and with help and sympezisers less than a day away by hyperspace, this is a powerful bargaining chip. Alderaan's shields were "as powerful as any in the Empire," yet it only held a fraction of a second against the sueprlaser. As small as the SW galaxy is to its citizenry, it isn't THAT small.

What shields? No one who watched the movies thought their were planetary shields on any planet. I never read about them in any of the books I read.

What books were you reading?

ANH novelization p.129-130: "The defense systems on Alderaan, despite the Senator's protestations to the contrary, were as strong as any in the Empire. I should think that our demonstration was as impressive as it was thorough."

Taken in context, this is a planetary shield. Star Destroyers are able to perform a Base Delta Zero, which is firing a helluva lot onto a planet. A planetary fleet is unable to stop a superior fleet from firing on their planet, so if you "have no weapons", then you could not hope that a fleet of any reasonable size to defend your planet against a committed force performing a BDZ. Therefore, Alderaan has a shield.

I never heard of them until I saw Mike's site. After reading some other sites I found out it's based on a few FX frames.

FX frames which nonetheless showed a spreading effect where none need've been added. A shield.

In the DVD remastered edition the FX effect is gone. So what was based on an interpolation of a special effect, is gone, because it was never there to begin with.

The FX frames were remastered, but the effect shown conforms to no physical phenomenon currently known. There's still a spreading of energy around Alderaan for a brief moment, coupled with a haze effect that is too high to be an atmosphere for a planet inhabited by anything approaching human.

The convergence of evidence points towards Alderaan having a shield.

If the point is terror scattering the mass is the planet is just gratuitous.

Or maybe the planetary shields of a typical target (rich) world is just that hard to crack. Remember, a typical seige operation using a fleet of SW ships on a wealthy world like Alderaan can take months.

Based on what? We have never seen or read about the long siege of any planet.

You mean _you've_ never seen or read about a long seige of a planet, but even in the movies, there is implication that there exists strong planetary shields. For instance, in the ROTJ, the mere fact that the Rebels had to steal a shuttle and Imperial codes to lower the shields and land in order for their gambit to work is clear evidence that there was a planetary shield around Endor. Furthermore, in the novelization, it's stated explicitly:

ROTJ novelization p.071: At the center of the briefing room was a large, circular light-table, projected above which a holographic image of the unfinished Imperial Death Star hovered beside the Moon of Endor, whose scintillating protective deflector shield encompassed them both.

Furthermore, the mere _existence_ of Torpedo Spheres (look it up on Wookiepedia) points to planetary shields. The damn things were purpose-built to take them out.

It doesn't matter if Lucas bothered to think about ramifications of a planet being shattered by a weapon, or if it was just for dramamtic effect in a story. The Death Star can blow up a planet.

Of course it can I never said it can't. What I said was your taking it too seriously. Calculating energy requirements, and extrapolating from that that ships must have so much power they should be able to do so much more then they are shown to be able to. 3.6x10*24 watts of power for an early model SD.

The first Death Star was ready to destroy Yavin IV about a day after it had destroyed Alderaan. Therefore, the first Death Star needed at least 2.5462963x10^27 watts of power, minimum, to be able to destroy a single planet each day. That's basic physics and basic math. Furthermore, it may well have a higher power level.

A fighter 6x10*20 watts, totally inconsistent with what we see, and generally absurd.

Cite the source you got that figure from, and show why is it inconsistent with what we see.

More then 100% energy conversion, just silly.

The "more than 100% energy conversion" is based on the premise that the total energy availible in fuel to be limited by the mass-energy of the fuel. True in this universe, proven to be false in the SW universe by the mere existence of the Death Star and demonstration of its capabilities.

If you think the Emperor was a good strategist your showing that the basic concepts of strategy are over your head.

And, as a matter of fact, I don't think the Emperor is a good strategist. If he had been, he would've won the battle of Endor.

And the Death Star can blow up a planet.

Since you under stand nothing about conserving forces, you think you have to be strong every were. That's why you think there are 10,000 SDs.

Funny, I never claimed any such thing.

Sorry I'm debating 3 people at the same time. If you don't think there are thosands of SD I give you credit. You two friends do think that.

You mean "debated". I haven't seen any of your responses to these friends on your discussion thread.

Napoleon once asked a staff officer to draw up a plan to defend the boarders of France. He spread the army out evenly across the frontier. Napoleon chewed him out, by saying "Are you trying to stop smugglers". May be you think the emperor was a better strategist then Napoleon? The Emperors strategy in the original trilagy, was bound to end in defeat, because he was setting more and more of the people in the Galaxy against him. His strategy in the prequel movies was good, because he was rallying people and worlds too his cause. They thought they were serving a good purpose. You can rule a huge empire with little force if most of it's people are willing to be ruled. Kublai Khan said "You can conquer the world from horse back, but you can not rule it from there". Brute force will only get you so far, especial when people have the physical means of resistance. The Emperor had no monopoly on force.

Whether the Emperor was right or wrong to have the Death Star built is another debate. You have not addressed the basic point: your argument that the need for a Death Star proves the Star Destroyers are impotent relies on the basic assumption that the two have the same purpose, when they clearly do not.

You missed the point. See above.

Your point was, in essence, "the Emperor was stupid." Quite personally, I agree on that part. The Death Star was a PR disaster. But, as I said before, that is another discussion. Your claim in the discussion of the Death Star was that the Death Star was built, ergo SDs must be ineffective. The Death Star delivered exactly what was promised: it was able to bust planets instantly. The SDs are able to deliver what they promised: serve as warships to fight the Empire's enemies, and sport power enough to glass an unshielded planet.

Finally trying to use some logic. Yes you have a point. The guns on fighters can hurt ships but only from very close range. SW was modeled on WWII. In WWII air craft could cripple, or sink ships with bombs, and rockets. To do that they had to get very close, and risk being shot down.

The main reason for this, of course, was that WWII missles and bombs were unguided. A bomb that misses doesn't do nearly as much damage as a bomb that squares a direct hit. Also, WWII fighters had to score direct hits on vulnerable parts of the ship to sink them. That requires getting closer.

Actually a bomb near miss on a ship can do more damage then a hit.

Bullshit. By the laws of physics, a non-direct hit can _never_ do as much damage as a direct hit can cause.

Skip bombing sets off a bomb under water next to the ship, and an underwater blast could blow the bottom out of a ship. Underwater damage of ships is almost always worse. The most heavily armored battleship has more to fear from torpedoes then bomb.

The analogy is obviously imperfect, idiot. There's no "below water" in space. All other things being equal, a hit to the underside of a spacegoing warship is just as deadly as a hit to the topside. This is why I limited the discussion to bombs and missles, as they're the closest analogues to what you'll find on a space fighter.

In addition, planes have and advantage the surface guns of battleships do not: they can strike beyond the horizion. There is no horizion in space.

True there is no horizon in space. However fighters in SW by virtue of their superior acceleration deceleration, operational speed, and maneuverability can move in and out of ship firing range. A carrier could operate just like they do on earth. Have their fighters attack targets while keeping the ship out of the range of direct fire weapons. Battleships on the other hand can lay down more tons of explosives on a given target in a short period of time, then the air wing of a carrier.

So you've identified one instance where a battleship can be superior to a carrier. Concession accepted.

In 1 hour the air wing could launch, form up and attack a target 100 miles away. A wing from the WWII Enterprise in 1942 would have about 36 dive bombers, and deliver 18 tons of bombs. 18 torpedo bombers, delivering 18 more tons of bombs. Any of the 16" armed US Fast BBs Could fire up to 2 broadsides a minute each delivering 9 2,200lbs HE shells. So the battleship would put out up to 1,199 tons, of HE vs 36 tons for the air wing per hour. An Essex class carrier only carried a load of 300 tons of Bombs., and torpedoes.

<snipped for irrelevancy. Is this guy trying to claim RAR! MILL-I-TARDY EKSPEAREEANCE?!?!>

As far as I know, the only thing Lucas credits WWII for is films of dogfights creating models for his own snub-fighter dogfights, and never claimed to pull the entire WWII naval tactics manual. Capitol-ship combat is actually pretty boring to watch.

If you look at a SD it has a lot in common with a floating ship. It's bottom is rounded, with no big guns on it. The top is built up in raising step levels. The turbo laser turrets look like the twin 5"38s turrets on American WWII ships. In fact there used the same way, duel purpose guns, used against aircraft, and surface targets. The bridge is a raised tower similar to the pagoda masts of Japanese ships, or even more like raised aft tee bridges on tankers. Their fields of fire are limited by this all guns on top arrangement, no heavy fire below, or behind. I could easily see them sitting in water. The Calamari cruisers seem more like submarines, with an organic look. Their fire power seems more all round, and so more appropriate for space.

I doubt you ever saw a battle ship vs battle ship combat. I really don't know of any ever shown in a movie. May be "Sink the Bismarck". The best naval battle I ever saw was in John Wayne"s "In Harms Way". with today's CGI you could show some great actions. The cruise of the Bismarck, which had 2 battleship fights. Showing 1,800lb shells slamming into armored ships would look much cooler then little light flashes peppering space ships. Seeing the Hood exploding, taking all but 3 souls down with her would be much more dramatic, then the SSD falling into the DS. Later seeing the Rodney, and the KGV blasting the Bismarck to pieces would look fantastic. A night action like Savo Island, would stun an audience, with the shock, and horror of ships and men killed and mauled by fire, and splinters. Torpedo hits blowing ships in half. A real naval action would top in violence and intensity any space battle we have ever seen. Space battles have been shown in a too antiseptic way. A real battle should be a seen of shock and terror.

<much of content summarily snipped>

In other words, fire, *boom*, rinse and repeat. Compared to fighter-vs-fighter battles, they're boring. In WWII dogfights, you have one man against another, maneuvering about to try to outsmart each other. Capitol ships just impersonally pound away at each other until one sinks, and have far less dramatic color. Fighter-vs-capitol ship battles are similarly boring. Unless a fighter gets shot down, or scores a hit on a vulnerable spot, it's trite.

And how does this answer my point that Lucas only borrowed the dogfighting from WWII?

Ships could engage each other at much greater range. Point blank fire from fighters score mostly hits. The longer range fire from capitol ships miss allot.

Please state your proof that the capitol ships' fire misses a lot. And for that matter, define what you mean by misses a lot.

In a ANH most of the SDs shots at Lea's ship miss, we only see one solid hit. Most of the shots at the MF miss.

Ah, another idiot who doesn't understand what "bracketting fire" is.

Most of the shots at fighters miss. The turbo lasers on the DS are stated to be ineffective against fighters, "We'll have to destroy them ship to ship".

You mean the turbolasers that were designed around a "large scale assault"? That is, _capitol ships_? That they hit any fighters at all, which they were not designed to target, is a miracle.

It does mater what Lucas wanted, because he shows us what he wanted us to see. We see fighters up close shooting up ships. Capital ships fire against other big ships is seen only in the far background. We can't make much out of what effect they have on each other. That's what I mean by saying we know allot more about ST ship combat, because we have seen so many more dimensions of it. Lucas wanted to focus on individual heroes, so they show 1 man fighters, or very small crewed little ships like the MF, over coming huge opponents. One brave man can save the day.

Except you don't know that. It could easily have been Lucas showing the tipping point of the battle in a dramatic way. After grinding against each other long and hard, the Rebels gained the upper hand in the battle by taking the Executor, the Imperial flagship, out of commission. After concentrating fire on the Executor, the Executor's shields weakened to the point where one-man fighters could penetrate their shields. This was the culmination of everyone's will and effort, and enabled the small contribution of nameless A-wing pilot to tip the balance in the Rebels' favor. The cooperation of the Ewoks' manpower and the Rebels' training enabled them to gain access to the shield bunker and blow it up, enabling the MF and Red Leader to fly into the Death Star and blow it up, the goal of everyone involved.

See? Where you see "the difference of the one" wankery, I see "the triumph of the team." Yet it's the same film. What Lucas wanted to show doesn't matter. What he did show does.

Actually, one blew up _completely_ in the scene where Ackbar ordered concentration of fire on the Executor. Since we never seen a fighter do nearly this much damage to the Executor, we can safely credit this kill to the capitol ships.

I never said capital ships can't take each other out. Sure they can, that's what their made for. Do we see any of the fire from capital ships hitting the Excutor? No, so we have nothing to compare the fighter hits against. We can only logically assume a Turbo laser hit is stronger then one from fighter guns, be we can't say by how much.

You first said that because the only damage being caused was by fighters, capitol ships are useless. This was based on the moronic assumption, if you don't see it, it didn't happen. When I called you on that... IT'S THE INCREDIBLE MOVING GOALPOSTS! That's dishonest fuckwittery, fella.

And, no, don't say that the desctruction of the Death Stars by fighters proves otherwise. Both tasks required specific circumstances that wouldn't be availible to ST ships. The DS1 was taken out through a specific chink in its armor that could only be taken advantage of by a Force user; the second required fighters flying into the damn thing to shoot directly at the reactor, a route unavailible in a completed battlestation.

If the DS attacked a Federation Planet, and needed to round a gas giant, or just needed to get into range like in ANH, it might be engaged by say 6 starships. Say they have 10 mins to engage, and they know what the DS is, (It's already destroyed a Federation planet). They engage in long range torpedo runs for the first 5 minutes, hitting it with 120 max yield torpedoes. Each hits with 64 megatons. The first dozen hits are directed to the main weapon destroying it. The DS has no shields of it's own, so each hit scores against the hull.

Bullshit. The Death Star survived being in close proximity to a 1e38 J explosion without damage (Alderaan), no further than 300,000 km. That's at least 2000 teratons per square kilometer. If it's not shielded, it has very sturdy armor, which WOULD make an X-wing more powerful than any Federation ship. And the Empire _does_ know how to shield a ship 160 km in diameter, your protests notwithstanding. They can shield entire planets. A mere 7 gigatons is not going to do squat.

The next 24 are directed against engine systems, knocking out propulsion. The last 84 are directed in volley's of 12 blanketing the whole surface of one hemisphere. The first volley would destroy almost the whole surface of it, and blast about 1/2 mile into it. Each new volley would blast deeper and deeper into the interior. After the torpedo barrage, the DS would be an immobile wreak, suffering from massive secondary explosions.

Given that the surface of the DS is designed to be smacked in the face with at least 1.7 billion teratons, this is a little hard to swallow.

The SF commander would then offer the DS a chance to surrender. If they refused, SF would ether start a new torpedo attack, or close on the damaged side, for phaser attacks. Against a huge none maneuvering object they can fire long deep strike blasts miles deep into it. If they still refuse to surrender, they can just fire more torpedoes into the deep holes, till they get to the reactor core, then boom.

Sigh. Can we stop the wankery now? Photon torpedoes have never shown to execute the 9000 g turns that proton torpedoes are able to demonstrate, which seems to be necessary to trigger the precise hit that sets of the chain reaction that destroys the Death Star.

Who said only a force user could do what Luke did? The other pilots thought they had a chance. Are own guidance systems today could do it.

None of them _could_ do it, even with the 9000 g turns the proton torpedoes were able to demonstrate. The only other one to try (Red Leader) failed, utterly.

We never see all this capitol ship fire hitting the ship. The fire your crediting is implied. We see a SD in the back ground blowing up under fire. We see no details. The only specific damage on the SSD is from fighters.

If that were true, why doesn't the Rebellion ditch capitol ships completely and just use their uber-fighters?

Because big ships can do many things fighter can't. Range, endurance, fire power, and surviability.

Precisely. Your entire previous argument on this matter was 'fighters score the killing shots, therefore, capitol ships == teh weakness'. It's right up there in your (quoted) section: You say, "The only specific damage on the SSD is from fighters."

Your concession is gratefully accepted.

To make this work you have to create a power source (Hypermatter) that gets more then 100% energy from matter.

Wrong. The calculations above are for energy generation availible to ST powers, nuclear fusion and matter/antimatter, and here I was assuming these efficiencies were 100% just to show that even under the BEST theoretical circumstances, the amount of fuel needed to perform a task the Death Star can do requires too much fuel if such power sources were all that were availible to SW powers.

If your getting more power then you would get from 100% conversion, then your saying the same thing I'm saying. You argue with me even when you agree with me. Your very smart, but you don't seem to understand the implications of what you just wrote.

Yes I do. The fuel required by the Death Star has more total energy than the fuel's mass-energy. Impossible in our universe, but required in the Death Star. The _demonstrated effectiveness_ of the Death Star shows it is NOT impossible in the Star Wars universe.

Please note, your "greater than 100% conversion/efficiency" assertions assume that the amount of energy in the fuel is limited by its mass-energy. If this assumption is wrong, then that assertion goes down the toilet.

The Death Star can blow up a planet. That task requires too much fuel if SW powers were limited to those availible to ST powers. Therefore, whatever powers Death Stars is more powerful still than any nuclear fusion or matter/antimatter reactor, and therefore, SW powers have access to such a reactor. Its existence is _demanded_ by the Death Star.

My point is that the DS is an anomaly in the SW universe as far as power requirements are concerned.

An _anomaly_?! A full third of the filmed saga revolves around the Death Stars and their threat to galactic peace!

When we saw the DS2's reactor core, we saw plasma held in a magnetic field. They blow out the field generator, and we see the plasma expand out blowing out the DS in the process. Since your so good at math please calculate the size of an explosion that releases 1x10*38j of energy?

An explosion continues forever until stopped by something, idiot.

The whole DS would have disappeared in a flash, along with every thing with in a few thousand miles. The blast would be 10*15 power bigger then the asteroid blast that killed the dinosaurs.

First off, in the Suspention of Disbelief approach to comparing two disjoint universes, you _must_ assume that the physics portrayed is consistent. To assume that the physics of SW allows such a blatant violation of the usual physical laws only in Death Stars is patently ridiculous. If Death Stars can do it, then a tramp freighter can do it, too, though not necessarily as easily.

Secondly, you're assuming that, if the controlled release of energy from the hypermatter reactor is on the order of 1e38 J, then an uncontrolled release of energy is of the same order. Not so. Uncontrolled releases of energy tend to be a lot less efficient than controlled releases. Cars rarely explode in accidents. They burn, but they don't go BOOM! The thing is, the DS's power source has so much potential, that if even a teensy-tiny fraction of it was released in an uncontrolled explosion, that's still a helluva lot of energy, and will destroy the station. Hypermatter can be extremely nonvolitile, comparatively speaking. We therefore do not know the power of the DS explosion.

No, don't cite nukes as evidence of the efficiency of uncontrolled reactions. Nuclear devices create _very_ controlled reactions. Explosives, too. They're _designed_ to blow up, doncha know.

That makes this a waste of time trying to make sense of it.

Of course. All hobbies are a waste of time. If they weren't, they wouldn't be hobbies, just jobs that you happen to enjoy.

Yes you do have a point. Nether of us would be having this debate if we didn't enjoy it. You do reach a point though were rational calculation is just beyond pseudoscience, and enters silly land. Like trying to quantify the power of Galactus, or like I said what the Dalikes did the other night.

Unlike the feats of Galactus, or Daleks, the energy necessary to scatter a planet is very well quantified. It's also very relevant in real science to calculate this value: the energy required to scatter the Earth across the universe is _precisely_ the same energy that is liberated when the Earth formed. This energy is important, because it limits how fast the Earth could have formed.

The fact that the free energy of a system is limited by its mass-energy is also very important. If it weren't true in general, the universe would be a crazy place. Atom smashers wouldn't work either, and we use them to probe the workings of the universe.

Obviously, in SW, the breaking of this limit is confined to black boxes, so the universe appears otherwise normal. However, the existence of the Death Stars demonstrates that the SW universe is NOT normal.

Of course it's nonsense. But its fun to speculate. Don't be jealous because I have the intellectual chops to find speculation more fun than chore, even when solving ordinary differential equations in thermodynamics. I even learned under what conditions hydrogen turns metallic.

Yes tom I can tell your smart, it's wisdom were arguing about. Some people know the value of every thing, but the worth of nothing.

I consider the ability to think through the implications of _any_ observation to be very worthwhile. Being able to understand why a Death Star is impossible in our universe and what has to change to make it possible is good, fun mental exercise. It's like cross-country biking for your brain!

Do you think I can't see through this transparent lie? Your entire spew was based on 'turbolasers = lasers, therefore, can be countered by tuning a trek shield.'

When you keep calling me a liar you make your self seem childish.

Yeah, I'm really hurt when a dishonest unschooled idiot calls me 'childish'.

You started with admitting the salient differences between lasers and turbolasers, and _then ignored them_, stating that "Lasers can be countered in several ways." Well, if turbolasers weren't really lasers, and don't behave like lasers, why is a discussion of how to counter lasers relevant or necessary? There's only one reason to do it; you want to distract us into thinking the same principles applying to lasers apply to turbolasers. You told the truth only to go on in hopes I'd forget it and fall into a trap into _thinking_ that what applies to lasers also applies to turbolasers.

When I didn't fall into the trap and called you a liar, you point out the truth that you were hoping I'd forget and then accuse me of calling you names. Only you _are_ a liar. You lied by trying to misdirect me; by trying to pretend that lasers had anything to do with turbolasers.

<I think I was channeling Mike there for a bit! >

Nether of us is lying we are iterpating things differently. It's like arguing about politics. It reflects how you see the world.

Arguing about science is not anything remotely resembling arguing about politics. Science has a gold standard: the real world. The real world is not required to conform to your beliefs or wants. With Suspention of Disbelief, the "real world" of your chosen sci-fi franchise is not required to conform to your beliefs or wants either.

Except for this small little matter called the first law of thermodyamics, also known as the conservation of energy. The energy you absorb from the EM bands you block has to go *somewhere.* If you cannot store 200 GT of energy in your shielding system, you cannot defend against a laser weapon the same power as the light turbolasers on a Star Destroyer. Either the remaining energy slips past your shields, or your shielding system blows up in your face with the force of 200 GT.

Wrong. Shields could work like stealth does.

Shields work _nothing_ like the stealth of Star Trek, and only one aspect of real stealth — that is, absorbing the energy of an emitted active signal, which works by detecting the return signal.

Some energy is absorbed, some deflected around the shield radiating back into space. They call them deflector shields for a reason, deflecting energy, and matter.

Rate of energy dispersion is limited, you know, again by thermodynamics (second law, this time). Until you disperse that energy, you have to store it somewhere. If you can't? Bye bye, shield system.

Vorlon, and Shadow ships have energy absorbing skins.

The physics of Vorlon and Shadow ships do not interest me.

ST shields are not called absorbers, they talk about them dispersing energy.

As the "turbolaser" lesson shows, names can be deceptive.

Are you saying a light TL puts out a blast = to 200 GT of energy? You are F ing nuts. One shot from a light Turbo laser would wipe out the whole UK?

_Any_ interesting spacefaring race should be able to easily cause planetary destruction. Google "Kzinti lesson".

What a joke. What is that based on? did we ever see any thing like that from a SD?

Vaping 40m diameter asteroids in ESB. The task requires energy on the order of 200 GT. I may be misremembering the exact figure, but the required energy is definitely orders of magnitude more than the 400 GJ that the Enterprise-D had trouble with in The Survivors (400 GW * less than 1 s = no more than 400 GJ).

400 GJ won't melt a cube of iron 6 meters on a side. Absolutely pathetic.

<mega-snip>

Why would there be a fireball? The fireball of a nuke is caused by the nuke heating up a section of the atmosphere. This is impossible in space, due to the conspicuous lack of said atmosphere. This was all in the quoted paragraph above.

The fireball is the core of the blast which generates millions of degrees C.

Go back to school, kid. Temperature isn't heat.

Any thing in that zone is vaporized.

Stop pretending to know anything about how an atomic bomb works, kid. The zone where the detonation reaches millions of degrees C is in the small uranium/plutonium core, and vaporizes it. The rest of the energy escapes as gamma rays. That's what vaporizes the outer bomb casing, and it's immediate surroundings.

The surroundings of a proton torpedo detonation would be armor plating with an unknown specific heat function, an unknown melting point and heat of fusion, and an unknown vaporization point and heat of vaporization, _and on top of that_ an unknown albedo in the gamma rays. In other words, we don't know how much heat it takes to vaporize a cubic meter of Death Star armor, or even how much energy it will absorb. (The Death Star might be SHINY in the gamma ray spectrum!)

We saw how little damage the armor actually took, so this must be _tough stuff_.

I know about the atmospheric effect your taking about, so my term my not be précis, but the effect is the same. That zone even on the smallest nuke is at least a few hundred feet across. Those PTs would have vaporization zones miles across.

You can only produce a fireball in space if you can make sufficient vapor. The problem is that the fireball in an atmosphere, once it stops expanding, is at just about equal pressure with the surrounding atmosphere; that's why it stops expanding. The pressure in space is nearly zero.

Also, the fireball is yellow-orange because the fireball itself is about 4000°K max. That's why it's orange (it behaves as a blackbody). The fireball cools because during its expansion, it does work against the surrounding atmosphere (that's why you get a shockwave). There's no atmosphere to do work against in space, so the fireball expands without losing energy or falling in temperature. Starting out at a mean temperature of one million degrees, that makes the rms speed of 10,237 m/s for the cloud's constituent atoms.

Yes, that is 10 kilometers every second — in one twentieth of a second, about one frame of film, the main body of the vapor cloud would be about the size of a Star Destroyer! Assuming we started from a 1 metric ton warhead (as we've seen, the Death Star itself makes up very little of the cloud), that's a cloud that is 200 µg per cubic meter in density. Yes, MICROGRAMS per cubic meter. Not very dense.

So, yeah. We _should not_ see a fireball!

Furthermore, because the fireball expands so fast, there would be little time for the armor to absorb the heat of the proton torpedo's detonation by direct contact. It's the same reason you can tap a hot stove without getting burnt.

Did part of the DS vaporize?

You mean the DS which is covered with SF-grade armor plate, which may be tougher than any material we can currently make?

You think the metal in the DS can stand up to millions of degrees? So you think it could fly into the core of a star? You are F ing nuts.

You don't know how much the armor would be heated. Heat transfer would be dominated by radiation, which is an unknown value since we do not know the albedo of the armor in the gamma ray spectrum. Flying through a sun's core is a different feat altogether.

Yes. Han Solo's _hand blaster_ takes out torso-sized chunks of building material that can withstand the backwash of SW ships taking off. We can actually guage the amount of energy that takes. Of course, such a weapon would produce a lot of rock vapor which will kill you, so it is arguable that a phaser would be more useful than Han Solo's blaster if you happen to be trapped in a cave. But this isn't an argument about which weapon makes the better swiss army knife, isn't it?

What do you think the launch pads at Cape Kennedy are made of?

Mostly water.

What, you didn't know that? They spray water underneath the shuttle when they launch. That's what absorbs the heat and keeps the underlying concrete from damage. The big billowing white cloud that sprays out the sides underneath the launchpad is steam. You really didn't think that was all engine exhaust, did you?

did you see Han shooting the bounty hunter, in a ANH?

He was wearing armor of unknown composition, and therefore unknown heat capacity, melting point and heat of fusion, vaporization point and heat of vaporization.

And blasters have a setting knob. They can be tuned for the occasion.

The blast went right though him, killed three other people in the bar, went though the wall, passed though 5 more buildings, till it reached open ground. It kept going until the curviture of the planet carried the blast out into space narrowly miss some space ships. Oh wait that didn't happen. Actually we can't gauge that, because both universes use anti gravity devises to help them land and take off.

If the concrete walls are even _remotely_ like modern concrete, Han's blaster *still* delivers two-ton bags of kick and ass.

In most fights we see Stupid Troopers standing in the open shooting with poor accuracy, and taking heavy losses.

You mean ANH, where the MF was equipped with a tracking device to lead the DS to the Rebel base, meaning that it was essential that _the crew escape alive_?

Their armor never protects from anything, blasters, or even sling shots.

You mean the same blasters that would get more and more powerful to penetrate better and better protection? How do you know the troopers were killed? Armor does its job if it prevents a fatal wound.

And you mean the sling shots that wrapped around the soft-socked necks of the stormtroopers, where there would be a weak point due to its design?

All it seems to do is make them impersonal, and limit their field of vision.

Stormtrooper HUDs are canon.

We have only seen small "Away Team" shoot outs. Characters do hug the ground, unlike stupid troopers.

Were you even paying attention in the battle of Endor?

We have never seen a big ground battle in ST.

No wonder they're out of practice!

Cause they wanted to save on the squibs, not because of any need to tone down of the badassness of the phaser. On the contrary, you want your weapons to be as badass as possible.

It's a TV show. The writers say they did that.

It doesn't matter _why_ they depowered phasers, because they didn't want to spring for squibs or because they wanted to make "clean kills." The producers depowered the them. Sorry. Baddassery is messy. Accept it, and move on.

<snip>

What strength shoving Artoo. What does he weigh 50 pounds? Luke stood him up when he was full of water, with little trouble.

Luke did it only with a grunt and a clear bracing stance. The Ewoks did it as if they were lifting a wallet.

The Ewoks also had the advantage of surprise, terrain, millitary engineering, air support, and guerilla tactics. Their tactics were not stand-up slugfests between Ewok forces and Imperial troopers; they popped out of nowhere, killed or severely injured a few troopers, and then faded back into the forests.

Air support? You are funny. A Teddy Bear dropping rocks from a hang glider. I thought that was one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

It's air support, no matter how primitively implemented. They grasp the importance of the high ground.

Those swinging logs, wouldn't crush a bradly. See below.

Logs that big? Yes, they would.

The rolling logs would have no effect on tracked vehicles, you can't trip them. You might damage a wheel on a Striker, but they have 8.

AT-STs aren't tracked.

I'd like to see Chewie try to swing onto the top of a vehicle with a machinegun on top. He might try to shoot the commander on top, and then try to jump up, still a dangerous move.

The AT-ST doesn't have a machinegun on top. And the troopers inside were tricked into opening the hatch.

A Bradley carries 6 riflemen, who would dismount in this type of terrain.

An AT-ST is legged.

Armor needs infantry support.

The AT-ST is a scout.

Empire tactics are piss poor, and these are elite troops?

The Emperor is an idiot blowhard, remember?

The music made me want to cry. Your so funny. (yes it did make me said). If you had a company of US light infantry, supported by 4 Bradley's, standing in for the AT-STs, and a troop of 6 strikers for the scout troopers. You get 1,000 dead Ewoks. You set up their mortars in the flat open ground near the shield building, covered by an infantry squad, and a machinegun section, along with a Javelin team. The perimeter would be wired with a few hundred Claymore Mines. The M16s have a higher rate of fire then blasters, which would make them more effective at close range, Once the action starts order your men to fix bayonets. Their SAWs (light machineguns) would hose down the brush in front of them. Every 4th rifleman has a grenade launcher.

Blah blah blah. AT-ST's are not equivalent to bradleys, moron. They're scouts, whose main defense is their speed and active balance. You see an AT-ST weather several meter-wide boulders being lobbed at them, because they could ride the punch, as it were, and soften the blow. Riding the punch would enable them to get away with less armor and be lighter and quicker. It would also leave them more vulnerable to pancaking.

I also like to see a bradley survive a freakin' boulder being dropped onto it.

Not having face covering helmets gives the GIs much better visibility. One of the biggest problems of Stupid Trooper is their almost blind, (Luke says "I can't see any thing in this helmet")

Probably because he couldn't work the HUD. Stupid farmboy.

Each of the vehicles has a mounted MG, and the Bradley's have a 25mm chain gun. Unlike SW blasters MGs along with phasers can deliver sweeping fire. GI armor seems more effective then the Worthless Stupid Trooper armor.

You mean the same phasers against which PACKING CRATES are adequate cover? THOSE phasers?

If fighters can't take out ships on their own why did the Empire attack the Rebel Fleet at Endor with out capitol ship support?

They _did_ have capitol ship support, you goddamn moron! What the hell did you think "grinding away at each other" meant? Physically scraping past each other?

Tom don't be a moron. At the start of the battle the Imperials send in their fighters to attack the Rebel Cruisers. The SDs stay out of range. The fighters are attacking on their own with out support, other then moral support. The SD are only engaged after the DS starts firing, and the Rebels attack the SDs to make it harder for the DS to fire with out hitting their own ships. Didn't you see the movie?

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the Rebels.

Please think of some thing better then, "They were ordered to".

The _Imperials_ were ordered not to fire, unless the Rebels tried to get away. The Rebels were under no such orders! Furthermore, the Imperials started firing at them when the Rebels attacked them point blank.

Your memory is faulty. Only the SD hold back. Do you think the TIE Interceptors just flew by the Rebel Cruisers at point blank range with out shooting? Just exposing them selves to enemy fire to scare the enemy?

Listen, kid. Putting aside the fact that obeying your superiors is drilled into the core of every millitary head, if your Emperor could Force choke you over a comlink, you wouldn't dare disobey him, either.

The Imperial capitol ships' orders were to not engage the Rebel ships unless they tried to escape. In the millitary, you obey ORDERS, dispite your better judgement.

How many fighters do you think were shot down in that battle?

Not many. At the start of the battle the Rebels seem to have about 50 fighters or less, with the MF.

The operative word here is "seem". You have no solid count of how many fighters there were. You also realize that there could've been plenty of fighters mixed in with the capitol ships, which would be nearly invisible at that scale.

They get caught up in the furball, and most of them seem to be there when the shield came down. A few were lost inside the DS, but most of them seemed to make it out. They did a lot better then the attack on the first DS, were they lost 27 out of 30 fighters. I have no idea how many Imperials were lost. If the SDs had full groups there would have been 1,800 fighters present. They clearly don't have that many in the battle, so you can only assume many groups are way under strength.

Under strength, but you can't assume that there were as few as 50 fighters. Do you really think that the survival ratio between TIEs and Rebel snubs could improve by over two orders of magnitude in just four years? If there were really 1,800 TIE fighters vs 50 rebels, it would've been a slaughter.

And furthermore, why bother with fighters when there's a capitol ship vomiting huge blasts of energy at you?

I notice you didn't answer this either. Do you want to answer why a capitol ship would bother with fighters when there are bigger fish to fry?

If SW shields are so strong, why do rocks the size of houses smash up their ships?

Evidence of house sized rocks smashing up their ships?

Did you see TESB? The asteroid field? The Admiral reporting heavy damage? A SD losing it's bridge to a house sized rock? Vader telling him to keep taking it, It's more important to find my "Little Boy".

You don't know that the bridge was taken off, moron. All we know is that damage was severe enough to disrupt communications. We don't get a clear view of the bridge after the hit, but we also don't see any bridge debris. Secondly, that's not a "house-sized" asteroid. That was 70 fucking meters of rocky kickass. The damn thing is clocked at 5e14 J, or half a megaton, as a lower limit. The EU has this ship surviving the impact as a whole, even after enduring several days of murderous impacts.

Can the Enterprise survive even one such impact?

[Darth Wong]

He's still talking about the "house sized rock"? The 650,000 square foot house? Where does he live, where they have these massive houses?

[The Vortex Empire]

Why do people like this always compare AT-STs to Bradleys? Just because it's made of metal doesn't mean it's well armored, and the AT-ST is an SCOUT Transport, whereas a Bradley is an IFV.

[Darth Wong]

Why do people like this always compare AT-STs to Bradleys? Just because it's made of metal doesn't mean it's well armored, and the AT-ST is an SCOUT Transport, whereas a Bradley is an IFV.

It's doubly aggravating because they insist on acting as if it's a serious fighting vehicle even though we've seen some of the Republic/Empire's serious fighting vehicles, and they look like they could chew up an AT-ST and spit it out.

On Miss Manners boards you're never allowed to call someone a liar, but once is enough for this kind of "mistake". In other words, if someone makes that mistake once and gets called on it, I could forgive it as a genuine "d'oh" mistake. But if he keeps using that argument over and over, it's pretty obvious he's a fucking liar.

[Patrick Degan]

I see we have a Darkstar acolyte on our hands. I'm waiting for the Solarmonite Theory of Alderaan's destruction to make its inevitable appearance here.

[Peptuck]

I love how these morons continue to insist there are no planetary shields when a major plot point of ESB is the presence of a planetary shield protecting part of Hoth that can deflect any bombardment, and this is owned by a small, cash-strapped Rebellion. And if you can build one shield, you can build more, and with the industrial powerhouse that is SW, you can easily have enough to cover an entire planet's surface.

[Darth Servo]

He's in full-blown WOI mode now. I provided him with novelization quotes and the DVD version of the Alderaan shield proving he was full of shit and here he is just repeating his claims again. Go back to my post on page 3 of this thread.

He has NEVER provided any proof of his DS2 reactor = plasma claim. He just repeats it over and over.

[Aratech]

He's in full-blown WOI mode now. I provided him with novelization quotes and the DVD version of the Alderaan shield proving he was full of shit and here he is just repeating his claims again. Go back to my post on page 3 of this thread.

He has NEVER provided any proof of his DS2 reactor = plasma claim. He just repeats it over and over.

You were expecting any different, my good Servo? Next we'll be hearing claims of them beaming imperial storm troopers into space, and navigational deflectors stopping Death Star shots.

[Batman]

Beaming Stormtroopers into space is at least something they're technically capable of (assuming stormtrooper armour doesn't disrupt transporters which given the variety of things that DO wouldn't particularly surprise me), the fact that the Feds never even think of that option notwithstanding.
And from what I can tell he has never provided proof for ANY of his claims, leave alone dealt with any of the the points brought up on the SW side.

[Aratech]

As an aside, does anyone have the Complete Cross sections or OT cross sections, I've got a lying SOB over at SB.com I need to smack down, and I need a scan of the Imperator showing its triple MTL batteries on the ship to do so.

[Swindle1984]

As an aside, does anyone have the Complete Cross sections or OT cross sections, I've got a lying SOB over at SB.com I need to smack down, and I need a scan of the Imperator showing its triple MTL batteries on the ship to do so.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, READ THE GODDAMN IMAGE RULES, DUMBFUCK

[Batman]

How about you leave it at the link next time, Swindle. Thread format breaker? And I'm on 1440x900.

[Revy]

I'm sure there was a scene in ROTJ where we see a holo display of Endor and the orbitting DS2, and it clearly shows a glowy diagram of the planetary shield sorrounding both. I don't suppose someone could find a screenshot of that can they?

[Terralthra]

I'm sure there was a scene in ROTJ where we see a holo display of Endor and the orbitting DS2, and it clearly shows a glowy diagram of the planetary shield sorrounding both. I don't suppose someone could find a screenshot of that can they?

No, it does not.

[Revy]

Well I was half right

At the very least the guy seems to be insisting that Death Stars have no shields of their own, but in ANH they tell the Rebel pilots before their attack that it is heavily shielded. The DS2 was superior to the DS1 as well. What kind of advantages did the second one have over the first? I know it was bigger, and was able to recharge its shots faster.

[ArcaneDude]

Well, for one, it could fire on capital ships as well, not only planets. Making it useful in actual combat situations as well.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Well, for one, it could fire on capital ships as well, not only planets. Making it useful in actual combat situations as well.

We don't know if the DS1 had this capability or not. The cap-ship firing, as I understand it, was a sort of 'oh, I guess we could do that too' idea that came along during the design phase.

[Swindle1984]

The DS1's defenses were geared SOLELY towards capital ships, which is why all those turbolasers had a hard time tracking the rebel fighters.

The DS2 being able to obliterate capships in a single blast from its main weapon is a wonderful psychological weapon; not only does it already have more firepower than most fleets (turbolasers), but now it can pick you off with impunity with its main gun.

[Darth Wong]

Honestly, fighters would not be a problem for a competent commander anyway, so there is no need to install extensive anti-fighter defenses. For one thing, he has his own fighter complement. For another, he could simply engage his hyperdrive for a split-second and obliterate any fighters buzzing close to the surface by crushing them against the vast bulk of the Death Star itself. Unfortunately, the Empire seemed to suffer from a surplus of unimaginative commanders.

[Darth Ruinus]

Well, for one, it could fire on capital ships as well, not only planets. Making it useful in actual combat situations as well.

We don't know if the DS1 had this capability or not. The cap-ship firing, as I understand it, was a sort of 'oh, I guess we could do that too' idea that came along during the design phase.

I remember something about the Death Star being discovered by some Rebel fleet, and the DS blew up a couple of their Lucrehulks with its superlaser.

[ArcaneDude]

I read somewhere that it was only the DS2 that could do that.

Anyhow, I'm going off from EaW, in the first game, the first Death Star can't fire on capital ships, and if you build the DS2 in the expansion, it can. So...

*shrugs

Anyhow.

Who really knows what other advantages it may have had? After all, it was never finished. Still a big gaping hole, right there.

[Darth Ruinus]

I could be wrong though, and I probably am. I am just saying what I *remember*.