B5, ST & SG stuff (ships, firepower, bits and bangs)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Continuing a discussion started there.

They used shields to spread damage, so it's logical that the larger they are, the more they can cope with.
It doesn't mean BC has thicker armour than a Scout though. I wouldn't assume unless strong evidence supports this idea.

What's the evidence of the 500 MT?

It is only logical inference on shields and armor given the clearly different roles of the craft and real-life precedent.

Are we sure it's even that clear at all?

All we saw was the Shadows sending one of such ships to sniff around, while the armada was waiting for the big battle. It was shot down by one of those advanced Minbari ships, White Stars.
We see that the Shadows didn't want to send one of their big ships to avoiding setting off the alarm.
That they sent a smaller ship doesn't mean much. It could still be as tough as hell (all relative).

In the end, it's still a Shadow ship, used in the battle against the Vorlons (obviously it has a relevance) and that's several hundred meters long and shot down by a distant 10 MT nuke.
There are ships in certain universes just that big which can cope with

As for the 500 MT, you of all people should recall G'Kar's statements from "Into the Fire" as well as Ivanova's from "The Hour of the Wolf" place the yield at somewhere around 500-600 MT. The one blast we see allows for up to at least 10% or so of the blast to be absorbed by the the Shadow vessel, or around 250,000 TJ (60 MT). At least 11-12 MT was absorbed, assuming somewhat less was absorbed. The battlecrab was also not completely destroyed, it was blown to large pieces, not utterly vaporized, nor reduced to tiny, barely recognizable fragments.

What was that incident? Because some tens of megatons is not like 500 MT. I was under the impression that the BC dealt with the entirety of that yield, which obviously isn't the case.

Losing the spine disabled the ship as much as it had to be tugged by another BC. So since losing a single arm is so crucial to the ship, it's more than logical that they'd be protected by the same shield strength. Otherwise it's silly to have an entire ship with a heavily armoured core, be crippled because it loses a small arm.

Or it was not possible to protect that structure in such a way as you can with the main body of the craft.

Possible, but then it's pretty telling that a BC can't even protect an appendage that puts it out of combat once it's damaged.
Then again, puts a limit to how tough they can be, and makes claims of resistance to high megatons, or even low gigatons rather silly.

As for the firepower, it cannot be so astonishing, considering that such ships were attacking human fleets and didn't curbstomp them so badly, and they're hardly given petawatt weapons of any relevance.

Now, we better start a B5 thread if you want to. We've gone too far on the offtopicness.

Again, establish an upper and lower limit for the firepower since we could be talking anything from hundreds of gigawatts to at least single terawatts per beam and remember that unlike a bomb blast, a beam is concentrating a great deal of energy into a much smaller area (which the shields and armor hopefully are able to deflect and dissipate).

Sure, e3~5 GW per beam, for six of them, that's no problem for me, pretty much in line with what I had in mind. Video of the battle.
Considering the size of a BC, the area that was hit was easily several meters wide, and the spine didn't even resist for a second.

That's very much contrasted with the claim of a BC resisting a couple gigatons blast when Z'ha'dum was nuked, a claim that solely rested on a very bad appreciation of the position of said BC when the explosion occurred (clue: the BC was outside the cavern, not inside).

Anyway, what's needed to be said has been said, either start a thread or let it rest here. B5 tech simply isn't up to the level of other sci-fi franchises.
-Mike

Of most of them. A battle with nBSG would be very interesting. You'd get the armour that takes nukes + nuke spam vs. long range lasers and still good enough armour. A skirmish between fighters would be most interesting.

Hell, even the ships of Hyperion are surprisingly less powerful, joule for pound, than the ground units.
They could engage Ouster ships, for what I've read of the destruction of the worlds of the Hegemony, or the capacities of even a Treeship above Hyperion.
Ranges are huge, but the Narn Cruisers have proven to be a very good match there.

[Kane Starkiller]

The thing is 500Mt upper limit is not as low as people imagine. Every time a ship in sci-fi is threatened by radiant energy of a nearby star that puts it squarely on Shadow spider level. The problem is other scifi fans wank out other franchises so Fivers tried to do the same. For example, I remember an episode of Stargate Atlantis where a narrow (100m or so) plasma jet from a star impacted one of Earth ships and they had to use their fancy ZPMs to keep the ship from getting destroyed. People claimed the plasma jet carried googletons of energy because normal flares usually carry 10^26J or something to that effect. No one bothered to notice that normal flares are 100,000km wide and not 100m wide as in the episode.
Shadow spider, with it's beam rated at 10kt (or order of magnitude more if you account for the fact that the beam was not at all impeded by the Narn ships), could easily slice through that Stargate ship.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The thing is 500Mt upper limit is not as low as people imagine. Every time a ship in sci-fi is threatened by radiant energy of a nearby star that puts it squarely on Shadow spider level. The problem is other scifi fans wank out other franchises so Fivers tried to do the same. For example, I remember an episode of Stargate Atlantis where a narrow (100m or so) plasma jet from a star impacted one of Earth ships and they had to use their fancy ZPMs to keep the ship from getting destroyed. People claimed the plasma jet carried googletons of energy because normal flares usually carry 10^26J or something to that effect. No one bothered to notice that normal flares are 100,000km wide and not 100m wide as in the episode.

Actually I did bother, and still do, even here, to point out that it made no sense for that thing to be such a narrow stream, or a stream at all.
This is why I say treat the episode by ignoring the visuals and take the scientific approach, just by paying attention to dialogue, which was correct.

The point, however, was that the CME was not usual.
Now, the blast would logically expand. However, the part of the blast that would hit the planet would carry enough energy to cause a mass extinction event.
It did so in the past, millenia ago, but was avoided by using Atlantis' three ZPMs to stretch the shield.

The super CME of this age was stated to be as powerful. Considering that one ZPM worked well as long as enough of the blast was intercepted ASAP, obviously the problem was that the shields were not meant to be stretched to cover such a large area.

So, in a way, even if visually it absolutely sucked big donkey balls, the idea is that they did use the ship and put it close enough to the star so it would create a kind of "blind cone" in the stream.

This, I suppose, still means that the ship deflected several millions of megatons or something, considering the energies involved in mass extinction events.

Shadow spider, with it's beam rated at 10kt (or order of magnitude more if you account for the fact that the beam was not at all impeded by the Narn ships), could easily slice through that Stargate ship.

Based on the stuff above, no. But the stuff above happened with a ZPM though.

[l33telboi]

For example, I remember an episode of Stargate Atlantis where a narrow (100m or so) plasma jet from a star impacted one of Earth ships and they had to use their fancy ZPMs to keep the ship from getting destroyed. People claimed the plasma jet carried googletons of energy because normal flares usually carry 10^26J or something to that effect.

I believe it was more the fact that this flare would've destroyed a planet that was more problematic. The most straight-forward interpretation of the episode also suggests this really is a normal CME... only condensed to a narrow jet.

[Kane Starkiller]

The very fact it managed to remain coherent proves it was of low energy content otherwise it would quickly expand in all directions.
The flare was said to cause mass extinction event which could be accomplished with gamma and ultraviolet radiation not necessarily raw energy.

I also don't see why we should simply declare a visual scene "incorrect" because it doesn't match the assumption on what the particular plasma ejection will look like. This is the similar reasoning Fivers used when they insisted on dismissing 2 Megatons that damaged the Sharlin as "wrong". It simply wasn't the huge CME people expected and the energy content was in TJ level.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The very fact it managed to remain coherent proves it was of low energy content otherwise it would quickly expand in all directions.

Ejection speed was greater. So it compensates for the greater expansion of the hotter ejecta.
"We're talking an intense proton stream travelling at over four thousand kilometres per second."

Some numbers: 1, 2.

That CME was a constant release of matter that lasted several minutes.

The flare was said to cause mass extinction event which could be accomplished with gamma and ultraviolet radiation not necessarily raw energy.

Earth naturally filters those. They have to be much more powerful to become a threat.
The radiation blast would be of fifty thousand rem, on the planet (not on some airless moon, which is a setting usually mentioned for how cosmonauts are exposed to space hazards).

I also don't see why we should simply declare a visual scene "incorrect" because it doesn't match the assumption on what the particular plasma ejection will look like. This is the similar reasoning Fivers used when they insisted on dismissing 2 Megatons that damaged the Sharlin as "wrong". It simply wasn't the huge CME people expected and the energy content was in TJ level.

I wasn't condemning the visuals in order to get bigger numbers at all.
My suggestion is to consider that on the whole burst of energy that the super CME was, the Deadalus intercepted enough matter, so what would have caused a mass extinction event on the planet couldn't reach it. Which means even that fraction of the CME the ship intercepted was that dangerous.

Now, I missed a detail. Even in the episode, McKay speaks about intercepting the stream before it fans out. At worst, that's a silly episode which there is no figure to extract from.

[l33telboi]

The very fact it managed to remain coherent proves it was of low energy content otherwise it would quickly expand in all directions.

I believe I pointed out last time already that that's a self-defeating argument. No matter how low energy it was, it would've been impossible for it to remain coherent.

The flare was said to cause mass extinction event which could be accomplished with gamma and ultraviolet radiation not necessarily raw energy.

Because gamma and ultraviolet radiation isn't 'raw energy'? Don't be absurd, they're just different areas in the EM-spectrum.

I also don't see why we should simply declare a visual scene "incorrect" because it doesn't match the assumption on what the particular plasma ejection will look like.

I certainly haven't done so. We see the flare remain intact even though it should be impossible - thus we have to accept it. McKay refers to it as a CME and tells us it would be able to destroy all life on the planet - thus we have to accept it. The visuals also tells us that the jet is incredibly dense, far beyond any stellar plasma we've ever seen, thus the problem is explained. It's a CME, only somehow confined to a narrow jet, it's a proverbial blowtorch.

Suggesting a mass-extinction event would be below the kiloton region is laughably braindead though. The problem isn't the Fivers or the Gaters, they're just being logical. A 2 megaton nuclear device detonated at range from the Sharlin could impossibly have killed it, therefore there's something we're missing. The visuals, which you seem to hold in such high regards, confirm this. Similarly a kiloton-scale event could impossibly kill off an entire planet. The problem is retards like yourself, who're so emotionally invested in your own franchise that it simply has to win everything and anything.

[Jedi Master Spock]

The problem is retards like yourself,

l33telboi, I would call that rude. Specifically, an insult.

[Kane Starkiller]

Ejection speed was greater. So it compensates for the greater expansion of the hotter ejecta.
"We're talking an intense proton stream travelling at over four thousand kilometres per second."

Some numbers: 1, 2.

That CME was a constant release of matter that lasted several minutes.

No it doesn't. The ship was at least one diameter away from the star. That's on the order of million km and the jet would have plenty of time to expand even at 4000km/s. The jet simply didn't have significantly higher pressure than the surrounding corona.

Earth naturally filters those. They have to be much more powerful to become a threat.
The radiation blast would be of fifty thousand rem, on the planet (not on some airless moon, which is a setting usually mentioned for how cosmonauts are exposed to space hazards).

Earth naturally is in no danger of even the largest CMEs except for fears that it might damage our sensitive electronics. Obviously this particular one was considered to be more dangerous. 50,000 rem is 500J/kg and actually even 1000 rem or 10J/kg dose is enough to kill a human so obviously there are ways to cause havoc among organic life without causing extensive physical damage to the planet.

I wasn't condemning the visuals in order to get bigger numbers at all.
My suggestion is to consider that on the whole burst of energy that the super CME was, the Deadalus intercepted enough matter, so what would have caused a mass extinction event on the planet couldn't reach it. Which means even that fraction of the CME the ship intercepted was that dangerous.

Now, I missed a detail. Even in the episode, McKay speaks about intercepting the stream before it fans out. At worst, that's a silly episode which there is no figure to extract from.

The trouble is, with large CMEs, there is no point at which they are small enough to be intercepted by a ship no matter how close they are. Look at the picture from link 2, that thing is going to be hundreds of thousands of km wide at the origin point on the photosphere.
What is important is to differentiate between McKay's predictions and what we actually saw. Whether the actual event turned out as McKay thought it would has no bearing on the fact that the said event happened as we saw it.

I believe I pointed out last time already that that's a self-defeating argument. No matter how low energy it was, it would've been impossible for it to remain coherent.

All that it needs is that the pressure of the jet is roughly equal to that of the surrounding corona. This, of course, drastically limits the amount of energy the ship received.

Because gamma and ultraviolet radiation isn't 'raw energy'? Don't be absurd, they're just different areas in the EM-spectrum.

Yes but what I meant, as I explained to Mr. Oragahn above, is that with x-rays and such you need to bombard the organic targets with much less energy to kill them then what you'd expect from visible light. Thus you don't need to actually destroy the planetary surface to cause a mass extinction event.

I certainly haven't done so. We see the flare remain intact even though it should be impossible - thus we have to accept it. McKay refers to it as a CME and tells us it would be able to destroy all life on the planet - thus we have to accept it. The visuals also tells us that the jet is incredibly dense, far beyond any stellar plasma we've ever seen, thus the problem is explained. It's a CME, only somehow confined to a narrow jet, it's a proverbial blowtorch.

As I already explained the jet cannot be super dense. Stellar corona has the temperature on the order of 1,000,000K while the photosphere and thus the mass ejection has a temperature of roughly 10,000K. Now corona has a density of about 10^-16kg/m3 and thus about 10^11 particles/m3. We also know that pressure p=N*k*T/V therefore we can equate the pressure of corona(p2) and the plasma jet(p1).
p1=p2
N1*k*T1/V1=N2*K*T2/V2
Now since each part of plasma jet needs to have roughly equal pressure to each part of the corona or at least surrounding corona we can equate V1 and V2 thus:
N1*T1=N2*T2
N1=N2*T2/T1
N1=10^13 particles/m3
Assuming it consists mostly of hydrogen atoms that gives it a density of 10^-14 kg/m3.
At the width of 100m a layer of plasma jet 1m thick will have a mass of 10^-10kg. Since the jet, according to Rodney, was moving at 4000km/s the ship would be hit by 0.4 grams of matter for a kinetic energy of 3.2GJ every second or 3.2GW.

Suggesting a mass-extinction event would be below the kiloton region is laughably braindead though. The problem isn't the Fivers or the Gaters, they're just being logical. A 2 megaton nuclear device detonated at range from the Sharlin could impossibly have killed it, therefore there's something we're missing. The visuals, which you seem to hold in such high regards, confirm this. Similarly a kiloton-scale event could impossibly kill off an entire planet. The problem is retards like yourself, who're so emotionally invested in your own franchise that it simply has to win everything and anything.

It wouldn't be kiloton. For example 1000 rems or 10J/kg is enough to kill a person. Assuming a human presents a 0.3m x 0.1m surface to the star and has a mass of 100kg then we are talking about 33,333J/m2 or 2000 MT for a planetary hemisphere. Now this radiation doesn't need to be imparted instantly, even if you absorb this kind of radiation during the course of a day you are not going to be OK.
Thus it's easily possible to have a mass extinction event without the ship blocking millions of megatons or whatever even if we ignore the fact that in the end Rodney had no clue of whether the plasma jet would last a few seconds or a few hours. In other words he had no clue of the actual energy hitting the planet within three orders of magnitude.

BTW I'm a Fiver, back in 2005 my first thread on SDN got HOSed because I claimed Shadow battlecrab has a firepower of billion TW :)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Ejection speed was greater. So it compensates for the greater expansion of the hotter ejecta.
"We're talking an intense proton stream travelling at over four thousand kilometres per second."

Some numbers: 1, 2.

That CME was a constant release of matter that lasted several minutes.

No it doesn't.

Both visuals and dialogue prove it.

The ship was at least one diameter away from the star. That's on the order of million km and the jet would have plenty of time to expand even at 4000km/s. The jet simply didn't have significantly higher pressure than the surrounding corona.

Although this is totally irrelevant to the fact that matter was constantly ejected over minutes, let me add something here: even without visuals, the characters were reporting that the ship was struggling with the ejected matter. This would never happen with the typical gas density in a corona.
We can infer that the density was considerably greater here.

Earth naturally filters those. They have to be much more powerful to become a threat.
The radiation blast would be of fifty thousand rem, on the planet (not on some airless moon, which is a setting usually mentioned for how cosmonauts are exposed to space hazards).

Earth naturally is in no danger of even the largest CMEs except for fears that it might damage our sensitive electronics. Obviously this particular one was considered to be more dangerous. 50,000 rem is 500J/kg and actually even 1000 rem or 10J/kg dose is enough to kill a human so obviously there are ways to cause havoc among organic life without causing extensive physical damage to the planet.

It's a highly oceanic planet, and the last blast would have killed plant life and oxygen producing life forms, no matter how deep they would be.
Would doses of 50000 rem manage to reach that deep into the ocean?

I wasn't condemning the visuals in order to get bigger numbers at all.
My suggestion is to consider that on the whole burst of energy that the super CME was, the Deadalus intercepted enough matter, so what would have caused a mass extinction event on the planet couldn't reach it. Which means even that fraction of the CME the ship intercepted was that dangerous.

Now, I missed a detail. Even in the episode, McKay speaks about intercepting the stream before it fans out. At worst, that's a silly episode which there is no figure to extract from.

The trouble is, with large CMEs, there is no point at which they are small enough to be intercepted by a ship no matter how close they are.

That, I know. Hence my point.

Look at the picture from link 2, that thing is going to be hundreds of thousands of km wide at the origin point on the photosphere.
What is important is to differentiate between McKay's predictions and what we actually saw. Whether the actual event turned out as McKay thought it would has no bearing on the fact that the said event happened as we saw it.

Well then I don't get what you're trying to say. Your position doesn't make sense to me. You complained about people claiming big numbers, but if we go with visuals and dialogue, then this is quite what happened, no matter how unscientific it was, and that blast at that point had enough energy to kill life. The stream had more to do with ejecta from a near perfect powerful ion thruster than a chaotic CME.
No one tried to explain how the stream, that started from a large patch on the photosphere, was tunneled into such a narrow jet. It would require a focusing magnetic field of biblical force, literally mimicking the equivalent of a tokamak's stream thrown at a starship.

That's TV SF written in a rush: you can consider yourself lucky when it seems to make sense.
That said, considering the amount of technical details that have been flying in SGU, it may be possible that there's a modicum of scientific advisory brought to the writing room.

[l33telboi]

All that it needs is that the pressure of the jet is roughly equal to that of the surrounding corona. This, of course, drastically limits the amount of energy the ship received.

Setting aside that you just proved my point considering the pressure of the corona is infinitesimal (you can't actually contain anything within it considering the densities). I'd also point out that the ship was holding station more far in excess of a solar diameter from the star.

And what happens once this plasma jet gets so far away from the star that the pressure drops to almost zero? Oops.

Yes but what I meant, as I explained to Mr. Oragahn above, is that with x-rays and such you need to bombard the organic targets with much less energy to kill them then what you'd expect from visible light.

So you're suggesting that a terajoule worth of radiation is enough to not only penetrate the atmosphere (your calculation didn't even factor this in), but also kill every living thing on the planet? Even though only half of the planet is even in line-of-sight to the radiation? And even then life that's not within direct line of sight to the sun is going to be unharmed. Even then you're going to have life underwater remain unhurt. Vegetation is going to remain largely unscathed, etc.

Your theory has so many holes in it you might as well call it Swiss cheese.

As I already explained the jet cannot be super dense.

Your explanations mean little when faced with visual proof to the contrary. You are, after all, saying that visuals can never be wrong, right?

Assuming it consists mostly of hydrogen atoms that gives it a density of 10^-14 kg/m3.

When's the last time you saw a medium a few hundred meters away, with a density of the above, look like a solid jet of yellow matter?

Since the jet, according to Rodney, was moving at 4000km/s

No, no, no. Your original argument was that the jet moved no more then a few hundred meters per second, because that's what we see on-screen, remember? Come on now, the least you could do is try to remain consistant.

Now then, tell us again how this jet of plasma, delivering at most about 200 joules of energy per second to the shields is supposed to kill all life on a planet.

You're literally saying that shooting a pistol at planet earth would kill all life.

BTW I'm a Fiver,

No, Starkiller, you're a Warsie. The fact that your nick is Starkiller already tells us as much. The fact that you post almost exclusively at SDN tells us as much. And the fact that you have the omnipresent need for Star Wars to win everything and anything tells us as much. What you're doing now I've seen a million times before: You’re just one more in a long line of people realizing that they're recognized as biased and thus try to convince people you're not really biased to give their arguments more credit.

[Kane Starkiller]

Both visuals and dialogue prove it.

I meant that 4000km/s speed doesn't compensate for the lack of expansion because of the distances involved: million km or more. Thus the plasma would still have time to expand had it had the pressure.

Although this is totally irrelevant to the fact that matter was constantly ejected over minutes, let me add something here: even without visuals, the characters were reporting that the ship was struggling with the ejected matter. This would never happen with the typical gas density in a corona.
We can infer that the density was considerably greater here.

I never claimed it had the same density as the corona. As I calculated the density would be greater. I already calculated the energy that could be striking the ship: 3.2GW which is not a small amount of power by any means.

It's a highly oceanic planet, and the last blast would have killed plant life and oxygen producing life forms, no matter how deep they would be.
Would doses of 50000 rem manage to reach that deep into the ocean?

It doesn't need to be 50,000 rem. 1000 rem will kill a human as I already said. Furthermore 50,000 rem was a prediction by McKay. Whether the actual jet stream carried the total energy of 50,000 rem per human is never revealed. Rodney didn't even know whether the jet would last a few seconds or a few hours. 50,000 rem was thus most likely a worst case scenario.

Well then I don't get what you're trying to say. Your position doesn't make sense to me. You complained about people claiming big numbers, but if we go with visuals and dialogue, then this is quite what happened, no matter how unscientific it was, and that blast at that point had enough energy to kill life. The stream had more to do with ejecta from a near perfect powerful ion thruster than a chaotic CME.
No one tried to explain how the stream, that started from a large patch on the photosphere, was tunneled into such a narrow jet. It would require a focusing magnetic field of biblical force, literally mimicking the equivalent of a tokamak's stream thrown at a starship.

That's TV SF written in a rush: you can consider yourself lucky when it seems to make sense.
That said, considering the amount of technical details that have been flying in SGU, it may be possible that there's a modicum of scientific advisory brought to the writing room.

How do visuals point to high yield again? I already demonstrated the jet had an infinitesimal density and pressure thus limiting the total power. The calculations are in my post above. The dialogue consists of predictions of how powerful the ejection could be but in the end Rodney has no idea within 3 orders of magnitude what the total energy released would be.

Setting aside that you just proved my point considering the pressure of the corona is infinitesimal (you can't actually contain anything within it considering the densities). I'd also point out that the ship was holding station more far in excess of a solar diameter from the star.

And what happens once this plasma jet gets so far away from the star that the pressure drops to almost zero? Oops.

I provided the calculations above. The GW level power the ship would receive for the duration of minutes is not trivial. If the ship's position indicates an even lower density of local space then the jet is even less powerful. There are no contradictions here.

So you're suggesting that a terajoule worth of radiation is enough to not only penetrate the atmosphere (your calculation didn't even factor this in), but also kill every living thing on the planet? Even though only half of the planet is even in line-of-sight to the radiation? And even then life that's not within direct line of sight to the sun is going to be unharmed. Even then you're going to have life underwater remain unhurt. Vegetation is going to remain largely unscathed, etc.

Your theory has so many holes in it you might as well call it Swiss cheese.

Are you even reading my posts? I just provided a calculation of what would be a roughly sufficient energy level to cause mass extinction.
Again: Rodney was making a prediction no one said that prediction had to come true. In the end he didn't know whether the flare would last seconds or hours. Obviously this will affect the total energy the planet absorbed and the consequences.
If the plasma jet we saw didn't have enough energy that means Rodney was wrong in his predictions. It's very simple.

Your explanations mean little when faced with visual proof to the contrary. You are, after all, saying that visuals can never be wrong, right?

No visuals do not prove any such thing. The plasma jet didn't expand therefore visuals prove the jet did in fact have very low density.

When's the last time you saw a medium a few hundred meters away, with a density of the above, look like a solid jet of yellow matter?

It didn't look like solid to me. It looked more like a stream of fire. But such subjective evaluations are worthless in the face of physical equations I have shown.

No, no, no. Your original argument was that the jet moved no more then a few hundred meters per second, because that's what we see on-screen, remember? Come on now, the least you could do is try to remain consistant.

Now then, tell us again how this jet of plasma, delivering at most about 200 joules of energy per second to the shields is supposed to kill all life on a planet.

You're literally saying that shooting a pistol at planet earth would kill all life.

Actually I believe I said it was 100km/s. However since the plasma jet was moving toward the camera such frame analysis might be deceptive so I decided to take Rodney's word after all. If, however, the plasma jet was truly moving 100km/s that will reduce the energy accordingly. If it turns out that it doesn't have enough energy to cause mass extinction that means Rodney was wrong.

No, Starkiller, you're a Warsie. The fact that your nick is Starkiller already tells us as much. The fact that you post almost exclusively at SDN tells us as much. And the fact that you have the omnipresent need for Star Wars to win everything and anything tells us as much. What you're doing now I've seen a million times before: You’re just one more in a long line of people realizing that they're recognized as biased and thus try to convince people you're not really biased to give their arguments more credit.

So because my nick is Kane Starkiller that means I'm a Warsie? If my middle name is Hussein does that also means I'm a terrorist?
In any case I couldn't give less of a shit what you consider me to be.

[l33telboi]

I provided the calculations above. The GW level power the ship would receive for the duration of minutes is not trivial.

I also pointed out why those calculations are flawed. Flailing around while ignoring the counter-arguments won't help you get far. Following your methodology we are to assume that 200 joules per second is enough to kill all life on planet earth - and that, my friend, is braindead. You can try to squirm all you like, you can try to explain it all you like - but you just said the energy equivalent of a pistol shot can destroy all life on a planet. And that is enough to decidedly prove that your argument is nothing more then a pile of shit.

If the ship's position indicates an even lower density of local space then the jet is even less powerful.

By now you should've been able to figure out that I'm smart enough to call you on your bullshit. And yet you don't seem to be. The pressure around those distances is effectively zero. That means the pressure of the jet has to be roughly zero. Your figures dip so low that they become self-defeating. You’re suggesting that about zero joules can kill all life on planet earth.

And this is also why I said the argument was self-defeating from the start.

Are you even reading my posts? I just provided a calculation of what would be a roughly sufficient energy level to cause mass extinction.

And I pointed out why those calculations of yours are braindead. You're not taking into account the atmosphere. You're not taking into account the effects water has on radiation. You're not taking into account line-of-sight issues, etc. Those figures of yours are a pathetic mess.

Again: Rodney was making a prediction no one said that prediction had to come true. In the end he didn't know whether the flare would last seconds or hours. Obviously this will affect the total energy the planet absorbed and the consequences.

Or just the duration in which that total energy was transmitted to the planet.

You'd think that would be obvious.

No visuals do not prove any such thing.

Ignoring the point won’t get you anywhere: You're basically saying that something that has a density of 10^-14 kg/m^3 can be seen with the naked eye in open space, when only a few hundred meters before you. Bullshit my friend. Something with that density would be completely transparent to us – yet what we see is very obviously visible.

It didn't look like solid to me. It looked more like a stream of fire. But such subjective evaluations are worthless in the face of physical equations I have shown.

There's nothing subjective about pointing out that you can't see a volume of space that has a density of 10^-14 kg/m^3 with your naked eye when standing a few hundred meters away. It’s called fact. As for 'solid'. I was not referring to the physical state solid. Which anyone with a functioning brain should've been able to pick up on. If we'd have to gauge what would cause visuals like we saw in the episode - then liquid metal would come the closest. So, something with a density of 7,000 kg/m^3 moving at 4,000 km/s?

Actually I believe I said it was 100km/s.

Nah. I don't think so. It'd be pointless in any case, since we can exclusively prove that the jet moves at most 1,000 m/s if we use visuals. And as a result your argument trips, falls, and slams its head into the pavement. Effectively dying on the spot.

However since the plasma jet was moving toward the camera such frame analysis might be deceptive so I decided to take Rodney's word after all.

Hoho. No. The reason you decided to take Rodney's word “after all” is because you realized just how fucked the numbers you're presenting are. You literally had to find some way to make them go higher just so your theory wouldn't look completely retarded right from the outset. And in the process you pretty much contradicted your own methodology. The whole thing is a bad joke.

If, however, the plasma jet was truly moving 100km/s that will reduce the energy accordingly.

About 1 km/s, like I said earlier. Which brings energy to... oooh, about 200 joules per second hitting the ship. And that's still relatively close to the star. What do you imagine the energy will be once it hits the planet? 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 joules? Not quite enough to kill all life on the planet, I'd say.

So because my nick is Kane Starkiller that means I'm a Warsie?

If I see someone nicked Spartan735 on the net, I assume he's a halo fanboy. If I see someone called General Duke, I assume he's a Starcraft fanboy. If I see someone nicked Jack O'Neill, I assume he's a Stargate fanboy, and if I see someone nicked Starkiller, I assume he's a Star Wars fanboy.

That’s disregarding the fact that you’re hanging out on SDN and that your arguments are always and exclusively in favor of your own fucking pet franchise. At least have the balls to admit who you are you impotent little twat.

In any case I couldn't give less of a shit what you consider me to be.

Then this would be a good time for you to drop the pretentious act, wouldn’t it?

[Kane Starkiller]

I also pointed out why those calculations are flawed. Flailing around while ignoring the counter-arguments won't help you get far. Following your methodology we are to assume that 200 joules per second is enough to kill all life on planet earth - and that, my friend, is braindead. You can try to squirm all you like, you can try to explain it all you like - but you just said the energy equivalent of a pistol shot can destroy all life on a planet. And that is enough to decidedly prove that your argument is nothing more then a pile of shit.

Provide calculations and evidence behind your 200 joules energy figure.

By now you should've been able to figure out that I'm smart enough to call you on your bullshit. And yet you don't seem to be. The pressure around those distances is effectively zero. That means the pressure of the jet has to be roughly zero. Your figures dip so low that they become self-defeating. You’re suggesting that about zero joules can kill all life on planet earth.

And this is also why I said the argument was self-defeating from the start.

I'm not interested in your vague claims like "effectively zero". I have used the standard figure for coronal density and temperature to derive the density of the plasma jet. If you claim that the density was even lower then provide evidence and numbers. And if your numbers are correct that means that the ship is even less resistant than I calculated. That's tough for the Daedalus but it doesn't in any way make my argument incorrect.

And I pointed out why those calculations of yours are braindead. You're not taking into account the atmosphere. You're not taking into account the effects water has on radiation. You're not taking into account line-of-sight issues, etc. Those figures of yours are a pathetic mess.

Those figures are the general order of magnitude. Secondly those figures are Rodney's prediction which may or may not have come true with the actual plasma jet.

Or just the duration in which that total energy was transmitted to the planet.

You'd think that would be obvious.

This doesn't make any sense. What mechanism could cause such uncertainties in the rate of the energy release? And this still doesn't make Rodney more credible: if he had no idea how long the flare would last why should we trust in his estimate of the total energy even if we accept your bizarre notion that the duration of the flare is somehow not connected with it's energy content.

Ignoring the point won’t get you anywhere: You're basically saying that something that has a density of 10^-14 kg/m^3 can be seen with the naked eye in open space, when only a few hundred meters before you. Bullshit my friend. Something with that density would be completely transparent to us – yet what we see is very obviously visible.

Bullshit? Because you say so? Provide some evidence, numbers and physical formulas and we'll talk.

There's nothing subjective about pointing out that you can't see a volume of space that has a density of 10^-14 kg/m^3 with your naked eye when standing a few hundred meters away. It’s called fact. As for 'solid'. I was not referring to the physical state solid. Which anyone with a functioning brain should've been able to pick up on. If we'd have to gauge what would cause visuals like we saw in the episode - then liquid metal would come the closest. So, something with a density of 7,000 kg/m^3 moving at 4,000 km/s?

I didn't think you were talking about physical state when you called it solid. This is why I was declaring it subjective. And now you just pick arbitrary numbers from thin air. 7000kg/m3? Why not 7,000,0000,000,000,000kg/m3? Honestly. Provide some evidence and calculations or stop wasting my time.

Nah. I don't think so. It'd be pointless in any case, since we can exclusively prove that the jet moves at most 1,000 m/s if we use visuals. And as a result your argument trips, falls, and slams its head into the pavement. Effectively dying on the spot.

You are as dishonest as usual. In this thread you insisted that the plasma jet moved at thousands of km/s complete with screencaps which you claim prove your point but now when I actually agree that my method of measuring the speed might not have been accurate you turn around. Why? Because you realized there is no way to support the high numbers so you turn around and try to lower the numbers to such absurd level so that you can claim it can all be dismissed.

Hoho. No. The reason you decided to take Rodney's word “after all” is because you realized just how fucked the numbers you're presenting are. You literally had to find some way to make them go higher just so your theory wouldn't look completely retarded right from the outset. And in the process you pretty much contradicted your own methodology. The whole thing is a bad joke.

See above. You are describing yourself now. It is you who had to lower the numbers in a desperate attempt to have them dismissed. Too bad that physics dictates the limitation on the density of the plasma jet and the slower it becomes that only means that Deadalus is weaker. It doesn't somehow mean my argument is invalid.

About 1 km/s, like I said earlier. Which brings energy to... oooh, about 200 joules per second hitting the ship. And that's still relatively close to the star. What do you imagine the energy will be once it hits the planet? 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 joules? Not quite enough to kill all life on the planet, I'd say.

So? Who said Rodney has a crystal ball? If the flare turned out not to be energetic enough then he was wrong. He is only human. And if the plasma jet indeed had 200 J/s energy content then that is very damning for the Daedalus. Of course we know that it's also incorrect. Ambient radiation from a star at that distance would be roughly 8MW/m2 so the flare had to be more energetic to matter to Daedalus. I calculated the rough upper limit within a order of magnitude. Depending on actual coronal density it could be 30GW or 300GW or even TW level. The point is that it's certainly not millions of megatons and that it can be penetrated by concentrated beam of a Shadow battlecrab.

If I see someone nicked Spartan735 on the net, I assume he's a halo fanboy. If I see someone called General Duke, I assume he's a Starcraft fanboy. If I see someone nicked Jack O'Neill, I assume he's a Stargate fanboy, and if I see someone nicked Starkiller, I assume he's a Star Wars fanboy.

That’s disregarding the fact that you’re hanging out on SDN and that your arguments are always and exclusively in favor of your own fucking pet franchise. At least have the balls to admit who you are you impotent little twat.

Liking SW is not the same as being a Warsie the way you use the term. Secondly SDN is not a physical place so I can't really "hang out". I merely post there occasionally. That you have to keep resorting to insults only reveals how weak your argument is.

Then this would be a good time for you to drop the pretentious act, wouldn’t it?

It's not an act and you are not the only person reading this forum. I trust my arguments speak enough for me and that your desperate attempt to cover for your own lack of solid argumentation with attacks upon my character also speak volumes about you.

[l33telboi]

Provide calculations and evidence behind your 200 joules energy figure.

0.0004 kg* striking the vessel at 1 km/s (the visuals) every second. What, you need me to spell out the kinetic energy formula for you?

* That's your estimate of the mass involved, but you subsequently admitted it would be lower, so the real energy is probably below 1 joule per second.

I'm not interested in your vague claims like "effectively zero". I have used the standard figure for coronal density

And using the standard figure for coronal density is fucked because they’re not inside the corona you twat. Furthermore the jet would have to travel through empty space to get to the planet. Which means the pressure of the jet has to be roughly on par with total and complete vacuum. This in turn means the energy being delivered to the planet will drop to less then a trillionth of a joule.

And if your numbers are correct that means that the ship is even less resistant than I calculated.

Perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough for you: It means your argument is self-defeating. Because you're claiming that less then 1 joule of energy is capable of killing all life on planet earth. This is not possible. Neither is it possible that less then a joule of energy is capable of destroying a BC-304.

What mechanism could cause such uncertainties in the rate of the energy release? And this still doesn't make Rodney more credible: if he had no idea how long the flare would last why should we trust in his estimate of the total energy

Because he estimated the entire planet would die. Then he estimated that the ship might be able to prevent it. What happened? The ship barely prevented it. Thus his predictions came true.

even if we accept your bizarre notion that the duration of the flare is somehow not connected with it's energy content.

Are you so fucking dumb that you need me to explain the difference between power and energy to you? You know - watts and joules?

Bullshit? Because you say so? Provide some evidence, numbers and physical formulas and we'll talk.

Alright. Why don't we start by looking at something gaseous with the density of, say, 1 kg/m^3. How do you imagine something like that would look to the human eye? I mean this is something more then a trillion times more dense then your hypothetical jet. And since your jet is clearly visible, then this should be a trillion times more visible, no?

So is there some gas near you, right now, that might be around 1 kg/m^3?

I didn't think you were talking about physical state when you called it solid. This is why I was declaring it subjective. And now you just pick arbitrary numbers from thin air. 7000kg/m3? Why not 7,000,0000,000,000,000kg/m3?

You're right in a way, it'd be pretty impossible for us to spot the difference between 7,000 kg/m^3 and 7,000,0000,000,000,000 kg/m^3 with our eyes. So hypothetically that could be the density of the jet we saw.

You are as dishonest as usual. In this thread you insisted that the plasma jet moved at thousands of km/s complete with screencaps which you claim prove your point but now when I actually agree that my method of measuring the speed might not have been accurate you turn around.

Because in that thread I suggested we shouldn't look at visuals exclusively. Your methodology however suggests we should look at visuals exclusively. I'm just forcing you to follow through on that logic and do it uniformly for the entire quantification.

I stand by what I said just now however: That jet moved no more then 1 km/s according to visuals.

See above. You are describing yourself now. It is you who had to lower the numbers in a desperate attempt to have them dismissed.

I'm just forcing you to follow your own methodology to completion. Which leads us to conclude that less then a joule of energy threatened to kill all life on a planet much like earth. You're trying to up the figure slightly because you know just how retarded you would look if you came out and said that a planet could be killed with less then a joule of energy, thus you try to increase the velocity to higher then the visuals show.

If we take your densities as fact, and apply the velocity of the jet to it, then what I'm saying becomes undeniable physical fact.

So? Who said Rodney has a crystal ball? If the flare turned out not to be energetic enough then he was wrong.

His prediction was that the planet would be destroyed but the ship might be able to deflect the flare. What happened? The ship barely managed to deflect the flare. That means he was right in his estimation.

If the flare had been trillions upon trillions of times weaker, then he would've said: "Lol guys, let's go home, this thing literally couldn't kill a single human even at this range."

And if the plasma jet indeed had 200 J/s energy content then that is very damning for the Daedalus.

This is something I will forever remind you of in every debate henceforth. That you literally suggested that a pistol shot could destroy a BC-304. It’s so stupid that you don’t even need to say anything more then so to point out just how braindead your arguments get.

Ambient radiation from a star at that distance would be roughly 8MW/m2 so the flare had to be more energetic to matter to Daedalus.

As I said: Your figures are self-defeating. Sunlight is more dangerous then this CME, if we're to believe your figures.

Depending on actual coronal density it could be 30GW or 300GW or even TW level.

No. The figures would range from 200 joules to less then 1 joule. Why? Because you're assuming 4,000 km/s jet velocity even when visuals show us that it doesn't exceed 1 km/s.

Liking SW is not the same as being a Warsie the way you use the term.

Of course not. You're just a poor misunderstood fan, aren't you? :(

Secondly SDN is not a physical place so I can't really "hang out".

Of course. Because a place has to be physical in order to “hang out”.

Christ.

It's not an act

Of course not. You really are a Fiver at heart. It's just that you exclusively argue against B5 and exclusively argue for SW, no matter the topic. Because that's what Fivers do, apparently.

I trust my arguments speak enough for me

Oh they do. You're suggesting that if I shot a pistol at the ground, all life on the planet dies, and that if we shoot a pistol at a BC-304 it dies. That speaks volumes of the validity of your argument.