The Forerunner Appear in Star Wars

[Mike DiCenso]

Uh huh, "wookie voodo"? ;-)
-Mike

[Kane Starkiller]

Anyone of those written by Saxton, of course. It gives us the reactor output of vessels, shows us that it scales with size, and that almost all of that can be channeled into the weapons. Scaling from the Venator, and accounting for the hangars, you'll get an 19km SSD capable of turning a planet into an asteroid field, whether it will ever reform into a new planet is only a matter of how long the bombardment keeps up and the inefficiencies in question.

In terms of specifics; a Venator has a reactor output of a little over 800 teratons per second (IIRC). An SSD is about 10,000 times more volumous. That's an output in the e28W range, bare minimum because the hangars weren't taken into account, and neither the 'bigger bang for the buck' effect you tend to get when creating larger stuff when compared to smaller stuff. So a more likely figure being e29W or e30W. The minimum energy required to overcome gravitational binding energy is in the e32J range. Which means that the planet pretty much becomes an asteroid field with a short bombardment, and never again reforms with a longer bombardment.

Of course, no author is ever going to follow that logic, since it’s rather absurd. I mean, how would things like the Eclipse-class and their superlasers fit into all this? What we get is stuff like this instead, a ‘rain’ of sub-kiloton shots.

In other words nowhere does ICS state that SSD can blow up a planet with one second shot and you just made it up. The only thing actually derived from the figures in the ICS is 10^28W number everything else you made up.

Speaking outside the context of this thread for a moment; it's shown that the DS1 was a pretty hefty strain on the Empire, requiring re-tooling of their industry and re-allocation of major resources just to make it happen, as well as selling entire worlds away for slave labor. And even then it required Wookie voodoo or else the project would've taken hundreds of years to finish. Ergo, the DS2 must've been built by some radically different method, or perhaps with some new form of technology.

Wow is that the best EU can come up these days? In any case it's pretty much overriden by the movies in which DS2 was built in secrecy without any problems and the idea that after 25,000 years of galactic civilization Empire suddenly employed some new fancy construction technology in a few years (or months) is ridiculous.

[Roondar]

Anyone of those written by Saxton, of course. It gives us the reactor output of vessels, shows us that it scales with size, and that almost all of that can be channeled into the weapons. Scaling from the Venator, and accounting for the hangars, you'll get an 19km SSD capable of turning a planet into an asteroid field, whether it will ever reform into a new planet is only a matter of how long the bombardment keeps up and the inefficiencies in question.

In terms of specifics; a Venator has a reactor output of a little over 800 teratons per second (IIRC). An SSD is about 10,000 times more volumous. That's an output in the e28W range, bare minimum because the hangars weren't taken into account, and neither the 'bigger bang for the buck' effect you tend to get when creating larger stuff when compared to smaller stuff. So a more likely figure being e29W or e30W. The minimum energy required to overcome gravitational binding energy is in the e32J range. Which means that the planet pretty much becomes an asteroid field with a short bombardment, and never again reforms with a longer bombardment.

Of course, no author is ever going to follow that logic, since it’s rather absurd. I mean, how would things like the Eclipse-class and their superlasers fit into all this? What we get is stuff like this instead, a ‘rain’ of sub-kiloton shots.

In other words nowhere does ICS state that SSD can blow up a planet with one second shot and you just made it up. The only thing actually derived from the figures in the ICS is 10^28W number everything else you made up.

On the other hand, having 10^28W of firepower means you can do it in just under 2,78 hours.

An impressive display, to be sure. Which does indeed make one wonder about the mini-superlaser. You're quite close to it's burning-continents ability already at such powerlevels. After all, you can always shoot twice (or thrice, etc) instead of just once.

And I'm willing to bet flinging on the order of 10^29J (just ten seconds of firepower) at your target continent will effectively destroy it ;)

Any information on how long the mini-superlaser needs to charge up?

[l33telboi]

Uh huh, "wookie voodo"? ;-)

Pretty much. In the Force Unleashed novelization it's stated that if the Empire wouldn't have had access to Wookies in the construction phase of the Death Star, and instead had to rely on droids, the build-time would go up quite drastically.

Voodoo is just about the only thing I can think of to explain it. :P

In other words nowhere does ICS state that SSD can blow up a planet with one second shot and you just made it up. The only thing actually derived from the figures in the ICS is 10^28W number everything else you made up.

I stated my position quite clearly. If there's something wrong then you're free to point out specifics. Waving your hands and saying "ur rong!" without explanation is pointless.

Wow is that the best EU can come up these days? In any case it's pretty much overriden by the movies in which DS2 was built in secrecy without any problems and the idea that after 25,000 years of galactic civilization Empire suddenly employed some new fancy construction technology in a few years (or months) is ridiculous.

Hey, the EU has been far worse. Back in the day they hired this guy called Saxton to-

Well, you already know about all that.

And a new technology is just about the only way to explain the problem, I'm afraid. And guess what? The ITW ironically backs me up on this, since it states that the construction process used self-replicating robots to accomplish this. This has not been heard of before or seen since.

On the other hand, having 10^28W of firepower means you can do it in just under 2,78 hours.

That's not quite how it works. e32J is the amount of energy needed to overcome gravitational binding energy. That means that you insert enough energy into a planet to prevent it from ever reforming into a planet. It would become an asteroid field way before that, it'd just form itself back into a planet after a few thousand (or million, or billion?) years.

And I stress the point that this is a minimum figure.

An impressive display, to be sure. Which does indeed make one wonder about the mini-superlaser. You're quite close to it's burning-continents ability already at such powerlevels. After all, you can always shoot twice (or thrice, etc) instead of just once.

The dinokiller asteroid was speculated to be in the 4e23J range, and quite capable of destroying everything on whatever continent it landed. The figure we're talking about now is almost 100,000 times larger, per second. We're not in the burn continent area of energy, we're talking about tearing sizable chunks from the planet with each shot, with the rest of the planet turning into a brightly glowing molten chunk of rock.

[Kane Starkiller]

I stated my position quite clearly. If there's something wrong then you're free to point out specifics. Waving your hands and saying "ur rong!" without explanation is pointless.

It's very simple: you lied that ICS states that SSD can blow up a planet with a one second burst.

Hey, the EU has been far worse. Back in the day they hired this guy called Saxton to-

Well, you already know about all that.

And a new technology is just about the only way to explain the problem, I'm afraid. And guess what? The ITW ironically backs me up on this, since it states that the construction process used self-replicating robots to accomplish this. This has not been heard of before or seen since.

What problem? The only problem is that certain EU books state Wookies are critical to building the Death Star faster without ever bothering to explain how or why unskilled labor makes any difference when constructing something billion times larger than a Nimitz class carrier.
In light of Death Star blowing up planets, FTL drives and multikilometer ships,yes, 10^28W power generation is far more plausible than simply stating Wookies are magical ingredient for Death Star construction.

[l33telboi]

It's very simple: you lied that ICS states that SSD can blow up a planet with a one second burst.

No. I was quite right in my claim. I said the following last post already, but since it didn't seem to hit home; if you have something to complain about then point out specifics. Simply repeating "ur rong!" over and over again will get you nowhere.

What problem? The only problem is that certain EU books state Wookies are critical to building the Death Star faster without ever bothering to explain how or why unskilled labor makes any difference when constructing something billion times larger than a Nimitz class carrier.

Nope. The problem goes much further then that. The Force Unleashed campaign booklet says that all funds pertaining to galactic exploration efforts are pretty much halted and redirected to the Death Star project. One of the earlier RPG supplements states that the Empire re-tools their industry so that everything, no matter how small or large, can contribute to the Death Star without even knowing about it. The Rebels can no longer build a Death Star during the NJO due to a lack of funds. There are a myriad smaller details also mentioned, like the Empire seizing entire planets and selling off the inhabitants as slave labor to further expand their own wealth.

Ergo, the second Death Star had to have incorporated something new. And the ITW tells us what: Self-replicating robots, that are lost afterwards and never seen before.

In light of Death Star blowing up planets,

Not raw power anymore, I'm afraid. It's still impressive, but a few OoM under e32J. Not that it matters, the Death Star used a hypermatter reactor. Those things were said to tear Star Destroyers apart whenever they tried making them that compact.

FTL drives and multikilometer ships,

Oh, so simply because someone has FTL and multi-kilometer long ships it demonstrates power production in the e28W range? And don't do the mistake of quoting Wong and what he wrote on his page about the 'planetary civilization', he managed to misquote the source material and thus the point is a moot one.

[Mr. Oragahn]

On the other hand, having 10^28W of firepower means you can do it in just under 2,78 hours.

An impressive display, to be sure. Which does indeed make one wonder about the mini-superlaser. You're quite close to it's burning-continents ability already at such powerlevels. After all, you can always shoot twice (or thrice, etc) instead of just once.

And I'm willing to bet flinging on the order of 10^29J (just ten seconds of firepower) at your target continent will effectively destroy it ;)

Any information on how long the mini-superlaser needs to charge up?

You can try to scale down the DSI reactor to whatever could be the Eclipse's.
It took the best part of a day to get a solution ready for the DSI superlaser, at a stage when it wasn't fully operational I think.

As for the power ratio, let's see.

Acclamator: 200 GT per HTL (four tubes). With six cannons, plus all the smaller turrets, you would easily come around one teraton of power total, and that's for a ship which, in comparison to the Venator, could not put all its power into the guns.
Notice, though, that we're yet to see Acclamators ever fire once in anything outside of the EU and its specially armed Acclamators. The vanilla models just don't seem to have anything worth a shot.

Venator: +800 teratons/s, all can be put into guns.

ISD: likely more powerful due to a bigger reactor, and if you mix the ICS to the EU, notably the novel Death Star, the ISDs may have had newer hypermatter reactors (they previously had an old make).

Executor, now even longer (and bigger), 19 km instead of 17.6 km.

It's pretty much logical that the Executor could blast whole chunks off a planet in little time. The ICS comes from the group think that argued that used the Executor's shields surviving the accidental impact of three ISDs at relativistic speed, right out of hyperspace. Make the measure. Near c, perhaps billions of tonnes of stuff. The shields didn't flicker.
(In reality, there's no proof that the ships came in that fast, since deceleration out of hyperspace is extremely quick, and no ISD leaves a trail of ejecta from its ion engines.)

What problem? The only problem is that certain EU books state Wookies are critical to building the Death Star faster without ever bothering to explain how or why unskilled labor makes any difference when constructing something billion times larger than a Nimitz class carrier.
In light of Death Star blowing up planets, FTL drives and multikilometer ships,yes, 10^28W power generation is far more plausible than simply stating Wookies are magical ingredient for Death Star construction.

The advantage with Wookies is that you don't need to build them, they already exist. I suspect that the Empire never exploited its potential industrial base before, and all that might went down with the Empire and its secret shipyards.
Self replicating robots would be something totally new, and thus require long studies, projects, tests at various scales to see how that works. The whole system, with the inertia of the Imperial bureaucracy, would probably not be ready until the least years of the DSI project, but would be fully capable for the second Death Star. This would conveniently explain the lack of noticeable industrial activity around the DSII, also as how fast it was built and why it could even be bigger.

That's also only one part of the problem. You still need to look up to industrial and commercial deals to get all the raw materials and refined pieces shipped to the construction site. You know, merely deciding to build one totally new skyscrapper can takes ages, if only to get the thing greenlit, then started.

The use of self replicating machines is also interesting, because it offers a neat excuse as to why those machines were not capable of doing anything else but Death Stars.
Had Palpy not been greedy for an even bigger ball, the DSII would have been already completed, with even enough spare resources to probably another stupid pet project.

[Kane Starkiller]

No. I was quite right in my claim. I said the following last post already, but since it didn't seem to hit home; if you have something to complain about then point out specifics. Simply repeating "ur rong!" over and over again will get you nowhere.

I already explained in great detail you are wrong. Scaling up reactor figure up from Venator gives us 10^28W. This is not enough to destroy a planet in one second. You simply assume that SSD will have greater power per cubic meter to try and make ICS ridiculous.

Nope. The problem goes much further then that. The Force Unleashed campaign booklet says that all funds pertaining to galactic exploration efforts are pretty much halted and redirected to the Death Star project. One of the earlier RPG supplements states that the Empire re-tools their industry so that everything, no matter how small or large, can contribute to the Death Star without even knowing about it. The Rebels can no longer build a Death Star during the NJO due to a lack of funds. There are a myriad smaller details also mentioned, like the Empire seizing entire planets and selling off the inhabitants as slave labor to further expand their own wealth.

Ergo, the second Death Star had to have incorporated something new. And the ITW tells us what: Self-replicating robots, that are lost afterwards and never seen before.

What was the percentage of GDP directed to exploration before they were halted?
The book also contradicts itself: supposedly they completely retooled their industry but somehow no one noticed a huge construction project was underway? The very fact the entire industry was being retooled would blow the lid quite effectively.

Not raw power anymore, I'm afraid. It's still impressive, but a few OoM under e32J. Not that it matters, the Death Star used a hypermatter reactor. Those things were said to tear Star Destroyers apart whenever they tried making them that compact.

Oh, so simply because someone has FTL and multi-kilometer long ships it demonstrates power production in the e28W range? And don't do the mistake of quoting Wong and what he wrote on his page about the 'planetary civilization', he managed to misquote the source material and thus the point is a moot one.

I only stated the figure agrees more with things seen in the movie than the idea that Wookie slave labor is critical for construction of Death Star.

[l33telboi]

ISD: likely more powerful due to a bigger reactor, and if you mix the ICS to the EU, notably the novel Death Star, the ISDs may have had newer hypermatter reactors (they previously had an old make).

Death Star mentions that when they tried outfitting ISDs with hypermatter reactors, the things simply exploded. Force Unleashed says that they use solar ionization reactors, which are supposedly much better then previous types of reactors. And, IIRC, the very first ICS also mentions the same type of reactor.

That's also only one part of the problem. You still need to look up to industrial and commercial deals to get all the raw materials and refined pieces shipped to the construction site. You know, merely deciding to build one totally new skyscrapper can takes ages, if only to get the thing greenlit, then started.

The first Death Star drew most of its raw materials from one single star system, to avoid most of the logistics costs. I'm thinking the same would be done for number two.

I already explained in great detail you are wrong.

I must've missed your explanation. Was this "great detail" in the first post which had all of two sentences in it in regards to the power generation? Or the second one which was a one sentence reply? No really, here's the first post from you:

"In other words nowhere does ICS state that SSD can blow up a planet with one second shot and you just made it up. The only thing actually derived from the figures in the ICS is 10^28W number everything else you made up."

And here's the second:

"It's very simple: you lied that ICS states that SSD can blow up a planet with a one second burst."

Would you mind highlighting the parts you think constitutes an explanation of great detail? Because I'm having trouble seeing it. :D

Scaling up reactor figure up from Venator gives us 10^28W. This is not enough to destroy a planet in one second.

Is it really that hard for you to read and understand what is being written?

"Scaling from the Venator, and accounting for the hangars, you'll get an 19km SSD capable of turning a planet into an asteroid field, whether it will ever reform into a new planet is only a matter of how long the bombardment keeps up and the inefficiencies in question."

The e28W figure does not account for the fact that most of the volume of the Venator is dedicated to fighter hangars, while most of the volume of the SSD isn't. And yes, e28W to e30W ranged firepower is enough to destroy a planet in a second. Most of the planet will be turned into an asteroid field, the only question is how big the chunks would be and how soon it would collapse back in on itself.

What was the percentage of GDP directed to exploration before they were halted?
The book also contradicts itself: supposedly they completely retooled their industry but somehow no one noticed a huge construction project was underway?

Reading comprehension strikes again. Or is it that it didn't strike? I guess the latter. The re-tooled part is in an earlier RPG supplement, which I quite specifically mentioned. The bit about exploration is in the Force Unleashed booklet. And no, the two sources are not in contradiction. The re-tooling was done without someone going: "Hey guys, we're making a Death Star, let's in secret re-tool our industry so that no one will notice, k?" It was more like: "To make industry more efficient, we'll re-tool stuff a bit, k?"

I only stated the figure agrees more with things seen in the movie than the idea that Wookie slave labor is critical for construction of Death Star.

The movie implies the Death Star manages to pop planets via raw power alone, sure. But that was changed in the EU because people realized that it was just not physically possible for something as small as a Death Star to do it, and it wouldn't make sense in context of other ships, vehicles and weapons. The movie does not imply that the GE was able to produce a similar amount of ships as the equivalent mass of the Death Star, thus that was also explained away.

Author’s intent is just about the last thing you should try to appeal to, because when Lucas made Star Wars, he certainly wasn't pondering how many gigatons his ships would be blessed with.

[Mr. Oragahn]

ISD: likely more powerful due to a bigger reactor, and if you mix the ICS to the EU, notably the novel Death Star, the ISDs may have had newer hypermatter reactors (they previously had an old make).

Death Star mentions that when they tried outfitting ISDs with hypermatter reactors, the things simply exploded. Force Unleashed says that they use solar ionization reactors, which are supposedly much better then previous types of reactors. And, IIRC, the very first ICS also mentions the same type of reactor.

Well, they mention the ISD Mk-I Talon got one of those new hypermatter reactors, and it went wrong. The question was, if "new" meant that the introduction of a whole new genre of reactor, or just an upgrade from an older class of hypermatter reactors.
The text isn't very clear on that.

That's also only one part of the problem. You still need to look up to industrial and commercial deals to get all the raw materials and refined pieces shipped to the construction site. You know, merely deciding to build one totally new skyscrapper can takes ages, if only to get the thing greenlit, then started.

The first Death Star drew most of its raw materials from one single star system, to avoid most of the logistics costs. I'm thinking the same would be done for number two.

I recall hearing the same thing about the DSII, that they chose Endor and its system for the raw resources.
Perhaps I'm mixing things up, especially since Xizor's carter played a role in the construction of the DSII I think.



Besides, does anyone know how to obtain the height and width of the Executor?

[Mike DiCenso]

Besides, does anyone know how to obtain the height and width of the Executor?

We more or less have a length between 17.5 and 19 km, so the trick would simply be to find high-quality pictures of the SSD model in full side profile and top profile views.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Besides, does anyone know how to obtain the height and width of the Executor?

We more or less have a length between 17.5 and 19 km, so the trick would simply be to find high-quality pictures of the SSD model in full side profile and top profile views.
-Mike

If I only knew where to find those. It's hard to get a full view, or even a shot with no perspective proving problematic. Perhaps using a tower globe and getting at least a good profile of that portion of the ship.

[Mike DiCenso]

The few decent side and top profiles (all behind the scenes shots of the model) show the ship is very flat and narrow. Not much more than 2 km tall from tower globes to the bottom of the furthest engine nacelle casings, and not more than 6.5 km wide (assuming 19 km length).
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

The few decent side and top profiles (all behind the scenes shots of the model) show the ship is very flat and narrow. Not much more than 2 km tall from tower globes to the bottom of the furthest engine nacelle casings, and not more than 6.5 km wide (assuming 19 km length).
-Mike

Ok thanks. I'll go with 19,000 x 6,500 x 2,000. Both Venator and Executor have a similar shape, so if you assumed they were rectangular prisms, the Executor would come with a convenient figure of 2.47 e11 m³ and the Venator with a convenient figure of 1.6698 e8, and therefore a factor of 1479.
Scaling up from the Venator's output, this would give the Executor an hypothetical ability to unleash a total of 1,183,200 teratons at once (282,791 e21 W), based on a perfect annihilation based power generation.

Topic wise, it was said the Forerunner extensively used internal slipspace ruptures to destroy ships. Just opening portals inside your ships. Nothing you can do about it.

[Roondar]

Topic wise, it was said the Forerunner extensively used internal slipspace ruptures to destroy ships. Just opening portals inside your ships. Nothing you can do about it.

Not even changing the shield polarity of the sub-space matrix tachyon stream generator to a verteron profile on a triaxilar modulation of the chroniton particle wave?

Whoops. Sorry about that, I tend to get that way when 'no-limit' scenarios present themselves ;)