4th Empire Planetoid planet-killer?

[18-Till-I-Die]

I was thumbing through some of Empire from the Ashes when i remembered, and found, this little tidbit that i thought was interesting.

In addition to small, two-seat fighters that may be employed in either attack or defense, Dahak deploys sublight parasite warships massing up to eighty thousand tons. Shipboard weaponry centers around hyper-capable missile batteries backed up by direct-fire energy weapons. Weapons payloads range from chemical warheads through fusion, antimatter, and gravitonic warheads. Essentially, Commander, this ship could vaporize your planet.

Notice the highlighted parts. I was reading the Death Star power ratings page and it occured to me...Would this put the Dahak and it's brother ships on par with the Death Star? Or would vaporizing the planet be a different effect than what the Death Star did? How would they measure up, i mean?

It would seem that the Death Star blew the planet apart more than actually vaporized it, so it seems like, considering the ammount of energy required to vaporize a human--which was discussed elsewhere, but if i recall it was in the gigajoules--that vaporizing a planet would be a considerably more powerful feat.

I dont know how it could go about it, other than a massive antimatter and fusion missile strike with enough power to do the job, but the machine, Dahak's computer, didnt seem to have any reason to lie. In fact, i doubt it could or even would.

So what do y'all think? I would think this puts the Utu-class Planetoids in the DS level range, but i ask because i'm not too sure and i'd like a second opinion.

[SirNitram]

Last I checked, the latent heat of vaporization for the Earth is substantially less than the energy required to make it explode like a bomb. I could be wrong, but run the size of the earth through the asteroid destruction calculator for a vague idea of how much it takes to vaporize.

A merely vaporized planet will still coalsce back where it was.

[White Haven]

For Earth's construction projects in the third book, Alpha Centauri's worlds are blown to splinters with gravitonic warheads, and the resulting planetary-scale debris carted back to Sol. As for vaporization...Dahak could have been simplifying things for Colin, as, well, Colin was somewhat shellshocked at the time. Given Dahak's stated armament (Antimatter and gravitonics, leaning towards gravitonics), planetary-grade /vaporization/ doesn't seem possible. Use antimatter and you go in one side of vaporization and out the other, use gravitonics and it's not vaporized, just...screwed in so many different ways. Energy weapons are the wildcard, 4th Imperium energy weapons broke molecular bonds in their target, so given a rediculous degree of determination, Dahak's energy weapons could do the job, but /not/ his missile weapons. They've got enough firepower, just in the wrong form.

[Captain Cyran]

There are numerous examples of planetoids stated as being able to wipe out planetary systems. First coming from Dahak when he states it plainly. Second in the second book where they talk about planets being splintered and then sent back to earth, and in the third book a flotilla is mentioned to something along the lines of 'having enough weapons online to destroy the solar system'. Of course that final one is from the Empire, not the Imperium, big difference.

A note on the firepower of Imperium energy weapons. In the second book during the Earth seige a battleship uses one of its energy weapons to destroy a full mile of an unfortunate Aku-Ultan ship. I'd give you guys a page number and a specific quote... but currently all my stuff is packed away.

[White Haven]

And that's leaving aside the ability of Enchanach (or however you spell 'em drives being used close enough to a system's primary. An FTL method used via generating black holes can wreak havoc on stellar equilibrium, triggering nasty effects like, say, novas.

[technomage]

Aren't you guys forgetting the gravitonic super-bomb capable of wiping out planets outright or tearing a star apart?

And since we're talking planet-killers as well as planet destroyers, how about the Umak Weapon? Y'know, that nasty little bioweapon that wiped the entire Fourth Empire (minus one planet) from the galaxy?

That screwed up the infected planets as well.

When you're talking Dahakverse capabilities, take care to keep in mind the differences in the capabilities of the Fourth Imperium vs. the Fourth Empire vs. the Fifth Imperium. Different eras, seriously different capabilities. For example, Fourth Imperium capital energy weapons tore apart the target at the molecular level. Fourth Empire and Fifth Imperium capital energy weapons caused atoms to split apart, effectively turning the target's mass into a fission bomb.

[Black Admiral]

According to Star Marshall Tao-ling, the unidentifed gravitonic warhead first seen in Heirs of Empire is capable of destroying any planet and everything with 3-400,000 kilometers of it.

Also, from Heirs of Empire, page 98, fifteen Asgerd-class planetoids are capable of destroying an entire solar system.

[consequences]

A note on the firepower of Imperium energy weapons. In the second book during the Earth seige a battleship uses one of its energy weapons to destroy a full mile of an unfortunate Aku-Ultan ship. I'd give you guys a page number and a specific quote... but currently all my stuff is packed away.

Fortress beam, the fortress massed 3.75 times more than the Battleships of the same tech base, and their power was provided by an outside source, making it difficult at best to estimate their total power.
But you were spot on for the length of ship destroyed.

[NecronLord]

I was thumbing through some of Empire from the Ashes when i remembered, and found, this little tidbit that i thought was interesting.

In addition to small, two-seat fighters that may be employed in either attack or defense, Dahak deploys sublight parasite warships massing up to eighty thousand tons. Shipboard weaponry centers around hyper-capable missile batteries backed up by direct-fire energy weapons. Weapons payloads range from chemical warheads through fusion, antimatter, and gravitonic warheads. Essentially, Commander, this ship could vaporize your planet.

Notice the highlighted parts. I was reading the Death Star power ratings page and it occured to me...Would this put the Dahak and it's brother ships on par with the Death Star? Or would vaporizing the planet be a different effect than what the Death Star did? How would they measure up, i mean?

It would seem that the Death Star blew the planet apart more than actually vaporized it, so it seems like, considering the ammount of energy required to vaporize a human--which was discussed elsewhere, but if i recall it was in the gigajoules--that vaporizing a planet would be a considerably more powerful feat.

I dont know how it could go about it, other than a massive antimatter and fusion missile strike with enough power to do the job, but the machine, Dahak's computer, didnt seem to have any reason to lie. In fact, i doubt it could or even would.

So what do y'all think? I would think this puts the Utu-class Planetoids in the DS level range, but i ask because i'm not too sure and i'd like a second opinion.

Vapourising a planet is as stated before, substantially less than exceeding its gravitational binding energy, otherwise gas giant planets would not exist.

[Captain Cyran]

A note on the firepower of Imperium energy weapons. In the second book during the Earth seige a battleship uses one of its energy weapons to destroy a full mile of an unfortunate Aku-Ultan ship. I'd give you guys a page number and a specific quote... but currently all my stuff is packed away.

Fortress beam, the fortress massed 3.75 times more than the Battleships of the same tech base, and their power was provided by an outside source, making it difficult at best to estimate their total power.
But you were spot on for the length of ship destroyed.

Wrong, page 322 Empire from the Ashes:

He [Brashieel] watched in horror as Avenger's forward quadrant shield shields went down. A single nest-killer beam pierced the chink in his armor and ripped his forward twelfth apart.

That was from the very first encounter between Imperium forces and the Aku'Ultan. There was only ships to fire the beams in that first fight.

The ODC beams (from the fortresses), Weber doesn't even mention the shields holding against them for very long, only thing I can see right now is that three shots from ODC's were causing an Aku'Ultan ship's shields to faulter. Page 331 Empire from the Ashes.