Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:
The funny thing is that everyone actually seems to understand that Endor should have died. Just that for some reason people seem to throw the hierarchy out the window for this case.
I'm not neccesarily sure it HAD to have died. It might have gotten polluted and taken damage from the explosion (EG, momentum of impacts), but I don't think its possible for it to have been turned into a lifeless husk either (for the reasons I outlined above.) More like it was "brought back to life." through the efforts of the Rebellion and various sympathetic organizations (the Ho'Din, the Ithorians, etc.)
And alot of the opposition as I said comes from the fact that people don't believe the good guys will act like the bad guys. Not everyone idolizes the Empire like some on this board do, remember. (Frankly, I've been more fond of the Rebels than the Empire myself.)
As for throwing hierarchy out the window, wouldn't we have to do that for the holocaust theory as it stands now? Remember that if the DS2 exploded totally unimpeded, NOONE should have survived. Which means that we'd have to ignore the celebration, the fact that Han and Leia survived, etc. "throwing out the hierarchy" is a matter of perspective here, and most people arguing agianst it don't care about hte physics. (Including Lucas, I'd say.)
You know what I meant. If they got it off the portion facing the Death Star entirely, they got it off the moon. You are just stupidly twisting the quote, almost as if saying "under 12 miles" means the Executor can be one mile long.
And yet the quote itself remains very open ended regarding the fate of Endor. Which is the exact same poitn I have been (repeatedly) trying to make.
The only feeble explanations that immediately come to mind is:
1) The Death Star II is actually a very safe design, and in the event of an emergency can vent most of its energy in a harmless form, like neutrinos. It certainly had some to make such conversions than the DSI (you could see the destructive wave)
Which would require that:
a.) the device you propose is durable enough to survive the explosion (there's no reason to believe the debris is going to spontaneously convert itself into neutrinos, nor can any device perform this feat without surviving the explosion.)
b.) that all the energy from the explosion is sucked back into the device, including the kinetic energgy from the debris.
In short, not only would we would be seeing the same sort of "implosion" effect we get with the hyperspace wormhole (as well as seeing the debris halt in place, probably in orbit around the planet), but one would fail to understand how the station would blow up at all - surely any device such as that would be able to suck up the energy from the reactor BEFORE it blew up, thus sparing the station from destruction.
Either that, or you're basically proposing the entire station NDF'd in the process. Which is just as ludicrous (MUM anyone?)
2) As part of the design, virtually all of the remaining energy is designed
to be absorbed into the surrounding material with nearly perfect efficiency, thus the KE is it (after all, even air can absorb gamma rays after a short distance, creating the blast wave). One may be amazed at the efficiency of all this, but then, one has to be amazed at the efficiency of Imperial equipment in using unbelievable amounts of power and not let the tiny inefficiency in transfer bake themselves to death.
Which is possible and would spare the planet immediate irradiation. However, it doesn't save the planet from the debris (either as a solid mass or as vaporized matter - solid chunks will strike like asteroids and vapor will interact with the atmosphere in a way similar to ejecta.) However, not only would there be the Kinetic energy/momentum, but that debris would be superheated by the explosion as well (from the visiuals, most of the mass of teh station vaporized, and most of the rest would probably be at least molten to some degree) and still retain that energy when it impacts.
As I said, the energy still has to go somewhere, and all this does is having the mass of the station simply alters the form in which it strikes the planet. What this DOES do is that it makes it easier for the Rebels to deal with (debris moving at dozens of km/s rather than a massive dose of radiation moving at or near lightspeed.)
We discussed this one two years ago, and there wasn't a network in evidence. Let's try the repulsor delay idea for now.
Do you even recall an example of a single-generator planetary shield existing? All examples that come to mind immediately (Bothawui in the HoT duology, Coruscant in the X-wing series, and Ukio in TLC) have full planetary shielding composed of multiple generators (To be more specific, Ukio had 30 planetary shield generators, and the planetary shield generator facility taken out by Imperial agents on Bothawui protected an entire city - and that was only one section of the overall network.) By contrast, I cannot think of a single example of full planetary shielding being generated by a single generator, can you?
The real problem with planetary shielding comes from the fact that the energy absorbed by the shields gets dumped into the planet's interior (if ti works like the Hoth planetary shield, at least.) This means that there is only so much the planetary shield could absorb.
Besides, its also possible that the repulsor facility was destroyed along with the generator. I'm willing to bet that's what Curtis intended, anyhow (hence why the location for the repulsor and shield generator was the same.)
I know. I just can't understand this mentality either. Why must be Rebels be completely white and pure?
Wow, when did I say they were "completely white and pure?" (and you accuse me of twisting words!) There can be a number of non-altruistic reasons why they would bother to do it:
1.) Salvaging. How much metal do you think would strike that planet, anyhow? That's free materials that don't have to be mined. If they remove most or all of the populace, they can bring in World-devastator like machines and clean it all up without worrying about the sapient population (or most of the Ewoks at least). Afterwards the planet can be terraformed and repopulated. By saving the Ewoks they can also claim to act in the "primitive native population's" best interests with regarding to the disposition (it would probably belong to the Ewoks in name anyhow.)
2.) Its good propoganda material. We know the Empire tried to spin-doctor the Endor thing (either by suppressing it or by blaming it on the Rebels), so why couldn't the Rebels do the same? And if they tried "heroically" to save the native populace from the devastation the Empire tried to wreak on the planet, don't you think that makes their case stronger? Especially since the Empire (or rather, the Emperor) deliberately placed the station in close orbit around Endor for that very reason (according to ITW:OT at least.)
On top of that, I find it not only ridiculous to assume the Rebels would have ZERO idea of the catastrophic consequences their own technology can have on an ecology (The Rebels aren't THAT stupid), but that not one WORD of the true fate on the Rebels side ever got out. That the people on the ground would be totally, completely unaware of the fact that a mass-extinction event was occuring all around them, and that noone in space would notice and not be affected. Short of executing or mind-wiping everyone, can they keep such a thing secret? And if it got out, it would damage the Rebellion grreatly (among its own members as well as among the neutrals.)
Besides, does it matter to anyone whether they do or not? The fate of the Ewoks is a minor aspect of the overall issue anyhow and can easily be conceded without affecting the overall argument one iota. And having the desturction averted long enough to evacuate everyone doesn't save the planet anyhow - impacts against the shields or repulsor are going to still do damage via conservation of momentum (the momentum of the impacts will be transmitted along the force fields to the generators, and from the generators into the planet), and holding that much mass above the planet is still going to block out sunlight. The only long term consequence it would avoid would be pollution.
PROVE that it's better for a species to be OBLITERATED than SPARED. 