Another Blow to Hypermatter Fuel's Existence?

[Mike DiCenso]

A most recent episode needlessly trampled the continuity of one of the Coruscant Nights books

Oh really? This is the first I've heard of that. How does this TCW episode trample the continuity of CN?
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Actually, it is possible to have a "steam powered" spacecraft. Read here.
-Mike

I knew that kind of ship could be made. I didn't know they'd try it for real, but you can see the problems: it's water powered as much as it's an "elaborate" shower with its pumping systems actually powered by solar energy and nothing else. The thrust itself will be limited to how much energy the water can contain before turning into plasma. It must remain steam once leaving the ship.
It's completely ridiculous in SW, and way too weak to serve as a yardstick of any other technology. Not to say it's extremely selective in terms of choice of evidence, and completely nixed by pretty much all the EU and the upper canon.

[Jedi Master Spock]

I've split the divergent discussions from this thread into three other threads. You may continue to discuss those topics there at your leisure.

[User1601]

The first and last blow to hypermatter's existence, is the claim itself-- i.e. that it can pull endless energy out of nowhere, and convert matter to energy directly. That's never seen anywhere in SW tech-- even in the Death Star; however if they had it, then a single ISD could easily destroy a planet, either directly or by using just a hypermatter-bomb.

And that's why it's never seen: i.e. because it's physically impossible to convert matter to energy by itself, being an endothermic process.

[Trinoya]

The first and last blow to hypermatter's existence, is the claim itself-- i.e. that it can pull endless energy out of nowhere, and convert matter to energy directly. That's never seen anywhere in SW tech-- even in the Death Star; however if they had it, then a single ISD could easily destroy a planet, either directly or by using just a hypermatter-bomb.

And that's why it's never seen: i.e. because it's physically impossible to convert matter to energy by itself, being an endothermic process.

Of course.. since these movies consistently show that the laws of physics are never broken... ever.


That said... any pro-wars debater will say, and rightfully so, the reason that an ISD can not 'perform' the death star blast with hypermatter is because it lacks the required facilities and techs to utilize the 'near infinite energy correctly.'


All of this of course being moot since we now know it shunts the planet into hyperspace and destroys it that way.

[Praeothmin]

And that's why it's never seen: i.e. because it's physically impossible to convert matter to energy by itself, being an endothermic process.

It is also physically impossible to create a finite beam of energy able to cut through anything and repel other energy beams, yet SW does it, easily...
It is also impossible to create artificial gravity plates similar to what we see in SW spaceships, yet SW achieves this, easily...

[General Donner]

The first and last blow to hypermatter's existence, is the claim itself-- i.e. that it can pull endless energy out of nowhere, and convert matter to energy directly. That's never seen anywhere in SW tech-- even in the Death Star; however if they had it, then a single ISD could easily destroy a planet, either directly or by using just a hypermatter-bomb.

And that's why it's never seen: i.e. because it's physically impossible to convert matter to energy by itself, being an endothermic process.

Who claims SW pulls infinite energy from nowhere? Connor and the rabid hammies claim that for 40k, but AFAIK even Wong doesn't for the ICS.

The Saxtonites usually make a huge point of hypermatter _adhering_ to conservation of energy (vaguely at least), as opposed to "fantasy stuff" like 40k, the Culture, etc. It's supposed to be based on annihilation of mass. It's just that with the hypermatter technobabble, they can store greater fuel masses than the internal volumes of their ships should allow for. (Or whatever, but that's pretty much what the ICS says.)

The mass/energy conversion process as such however, certainly is magic.

[User1601]

The first and last blow to hypermatter's existence, is the claim itself-- i.e. that it can pull endless energy out of nowhere, and convert matter to energy directly. That's never seen anywhere in SW tech-- even in the Death Star; however if they had it, then a single ISD could easily destroy a planet, either directly or by using just a hypermatter-bomb.

And that's why it's never seen: i.e. because it's physically impossible to convert matter to energy by itself, being an endothermic process.

Who claims SW pulls infinite energy from nowhere? Connor and the rabid hammies claim that for 40k, but AFAIK even Wong doesn't for the ICS.

The Saxtonites usually make a huge point of hypermatter _adhering_ to conservation of energy (vaguely at least), as opposed to "fantasy stuff" like 40k, the Culture, etc. It's supposed to be based on annihilation of mass. It's just that with the hypermatter technobabble, they can store greater fuel masses than the internal volumes of their ships should allow for. (Or whatever, but that's pretty much what the ICS says.)

The mass/energy conversion process as such however, certainly is magic.

First of all, it's contradicted by onscreen evidence, as I explain above.

Second, it's only mentioned in the EU, so there's no reason to suggest that it exists in the film-universe. If it existed in the film-universe, there would be no need for something as large as the death-star to blow up a planet... particularly if you had 200GT turbolasers (guffaw).

Third, you can't annhilate mass without annhilating an equivalent amount of anti-mass, since E-M is an exothermic process. Therefore this "magic" process of producing antimatter is just so much fanwank-- along with the 200GT turbolasers, tne neutronium hulls and the 7-figure hyperdrive speeds.

Fourth and last, the ICS2 is contradicted by the ICSS1, which says that everything-- including the Death Star-- is powered by FUSION.
As I stated in other threads, the DS simply takes a planet made mostly of molten rock concentrated in a small area, and turns it into an equal mass of cold frozen rock spread over a large area-- THAT'S conservation of energy, applied, i.e. it simply converts thermal energy to potential energy.
That's really the only way it can possibly work on fusion-- and hypermatter, is hyper-wank.

[Praeothmin]

the 7-figure hyperdrive speeds.

Well, ANH's Tatooine-Alderan run can suggest a 7 digit speed, but I agree most of the movie universe shows more examples of 5 and 6 digit speeds...
For example, in RotJ, if the Rebels made the Endor - Sullust run (hundreds of LY, thus max of 1000LY) in less than a day, it points to speeds of up to 315 000c...

The problem is, these speeds are much higher than most ST ones...

[User1601]

the 7-figure hyperdrive speeds.

Well, ANH's Tatooine-Alderan run can suggest a 7 digit speed, but I agree most of the movie universe shows more examples of 5 and 6 digit speeds...

5 figures at most, never 6-- and it's the low 5-figures.

Likewise, there's the question of hyperspace-lanes or "conduits," which wouldn't exist in our galaxy; control of space-lanes couldn't be based on every simple path to avoid passing through a star or bouncing too close to a supernova. The Borg have warp-hubs too, and they appear to have built them a lot faster.

[2046]

ANH's Tatooine-Alderan run can suggest a 7 digit speed

Not from the film, script, or book it doesn't.

[Praeothmin]

Not from the film, script, or book it doesn't.

Not from your interpretation of them, you mean...

[sonofccn]

For example, in RotJ, if the Rebels made the Endor - Sullust run (hundreds of LY, thus max of 1000LY) in less than a day, it points to speeds of up to 315 000c...

The problem is, these speeds are much higher than most ST ones...

Well out of curiosity how many examples are we talking about? of the six and seven figure range versus the rest.

As well Trek has a really mixed bag in regards to speed, almost to the point I swear the writers were delibertly doing it to yank our chain, so yeah overall I'd agree but it does have more than a couple that equal or exceeds ROTJ.

Well, ANH's Tatooine-Alderan run can suggest a 7 digit speed, but I agree most of the movie universe shows more examples of 5 and 6 digit speeds...

Where is this being derived from if I may ask? I know Han gives a round trip figure in the novel but where's the distance from?

[Praeothmin]

Well, all the speed examples I have I have gleaned mostly from here, on the main database.
Others have been taken form other boards over the years.

What I conclude is that while upper speeds are comparable between SW and ST in known territory, SW have a higher average speed overall at FTL...

[User1601]

Well, all the speed examples I have I have gleaned mostly from here, on the main database.
Others have been taken form other boards over the years.

What I conclude is that while upper speeds are comparable between SW and ST in known territory, SW have a higher average speed overall at FTL...

But again, "space-lanes" point to a network of conduits, rather than simply the ship's hyperdrive doing all the work by itself.

And the Borg-conduits were far faster than the space-lanes in SW-- as shown in "Endgame," when Janeway went about 40,000LY in seconds using the Borg hub.
Even if she did it in a day, that would be 14,600.000C.

Likewise, the ST ships could presumably use these SW space-lanes, just like they could use the Borg-conduits; meanwhile SW obviously couldn't use hyperdrive in the Milky Way galaxy, beyond their measly Warp factor 1.5 for "the fastest ship in the galaxy."

This obviously makes a lot more sense, how SW's lower-tech can allow the ships to travel faster than ST ships-- i.e. they've just had more TIME to set up the space-lanes between every system.

And this is likewise the only card which Warsies can play against ST, without EU-completism: i.e. that SW ships are faster; but clearly we see that when one considers the existence of space-lanes, it simply isn't so... and again that only stands to reason, given their massively lower tech.

Rather, ST ships could invade, and learn to use the SW space-lanes, while SW ships couldn't invade our galaxy without puttering around at extremely low speeds.