This time, he really has pushed the maximalism very far.
Quick reminder:
4.184 e24 W = 1 petaton per second
4.184 e21 W = 1 teraton per second
4.184 e18 W = 1 gigaton per second
4.184 e15 W = 1 megaton per second
For starters, contrary to the impression given by the author of the post I'm looking at, it is necessary to remember that Warhammer 40000 hardly agrees with his nonsensical numbers.
For example, we can notice Connor's effort spent on calling upon his erroneous "Caves of Ice" calcs (see here), while ignoring everything that doesn't fit with his numbers, like, to name a few, clear cut statements that cap firepower from "Execution Hour", "Shadow Point", "Storm of Iron" or plenty of fluff from BFG, Rogue Trader, and other supplements that speak of ground based laser weapons which are more powerful than those on warships because of light scattering, putting them at an advantage over their space-carried equivalents, clear descriptions of yields of weapons such as magma bombs, etc.
There are more WH40K threads on this forum to look at.
So let's wade through his post and see what's claimed.
Let's point out here how his understanding of the quote here is most important. Although the one that follows below is also indicative of his methodology, it goes without saying that absolute literalism is what drives his argument for absurdly high numbers.CML wrote: Yes, I bought Dawn of War. I admit that. And with good reason. Goto may be a lousy writer, but he at least is worth providing some interesting (and calcable) technical tidbits. One of those that I've been most interested in acquiring was the exterminatus of Cyrene. I was debating holding this off until I actaully do my exterminatus essay, but that one is going to be fucking huge as it is, so I won't lose much by doing this one independently.
The quote as such, is as follows:
Dawn of War, page 98 wrote: Shortly afterwards, a flotilla of Naval and Inquisition vessels had joined the Ravenous Spirit in orbit and had proceeded to launch an unrelenting barrage of lance strikes, mass drivers and cyclone torpedoes, reducing the once green world to a primeval, molten state.
In a franchise that's known for epic exaggeration, metaphors and hyperbole, claiming that it's fine to take such things literally is like dancing on eggs and pretending you won't break any.
You will probably appreciate the double standard. It is quite spectacular in fact, considering some of his following posts.The passage identifying it as an exterminatus follows from here:
Dawn of War, page 161 wrote: "As I recall, you were the one who requested the assistance of the Inquisition in the performance of an exterminatus on Cyrene - the systematic annihilation of all life on the planet - genocide by another name."
Basically, CML is about to calculate the energy to assuredly destroy ALL life, as deeply buried as it can be, because Exterminatus is described the "systematic annihilation of all life on the planet".
And yet will say later that there have been several Exterminati executed with weapons which would never be able to attain that level of destruction.
His calculations will give ships a level of firepower that totally surpasses this degree of destruction.
And in the ending cutscene of "Firewarrior", it takes around 40 seconds to complete what would obviously be an Exterminatus, against a planet that's the size of Dione. :pParameters for the bombardment
As anyone who has had some knowledge of Star Wars BDZ incidents can tell you, melting a substantial portion of a planet's surface (IE crust) can be very energy intensive. But how intensive, and how do we determine this? The clue lies mainly in the manner in which the incident is phrased - that the planet is reduced to a "molten, primeval state."
Now, that by itself doesn't really tell us alot, ,aside from the fact the planet's surface is raised to the melting point. The context though suggests that the planet was reduced to such a state simialr to how the Earth was in the very early stages of its life. "Primeval Earth" on google does not turn up many results however (this being the only one I could find), but recalling my older "Cave sof Ice" bombardment analyis, I remembered discovering during that research that the Earth during that period was also quite molten.
That period is known as the Hadean era (or eon, either works.), named so for the hell-like conditions of the planet at that time. As a google search and browsing of some of the resulting links indicates that the earth at that peroid was in a mostly molten state. We can therefore infer that the conditions on cyrene would be similar as a result of the bombardment (IE a fair portion of the planet heavily molten.)
The next question of course is the depth to which the crust is molten. Again, this is not specifically indicated, but we can conclude based on the quote that since the planet would be made "molten", much of its solid mass would be affected. The obvious conclusion woudl be that much of the crust will be melted in the process of the bombardment.
This is perfectly likely, but it is worth noting that the crust is not the ONLY solid part that the bombardment would neccesarily affect. Part of the upper mantle also remains solid (which together with the crust is called the lithosphere.) The actual "depth" seems to vary tremendously.. I've seen as little as eighty kilometers well up to hundreds (300 km) of kilometers) Data on the lithosphere can be found in the google results here
That said, there are other considerations:
- most hatbitable planets also have a considerable quantity of water (water makes up 70% of the Earth's surface.) In a "molten, primeval" state, this almost certainly means that the vast majority of the planet's oceans and other bodies of water will be boiled away (reduced to vapor). In terms of energy, this will probably be alot smaller relative to melting most of the earth's crust (much less the lithosphere), but it serves as a useful lower-limit benchmark.
- while considerable melting is almost certain from the calc, its also quite likely that, given the weapons being used, there was a not-insiginifcant amount of vaporisation involved (Asteroid impacts will create lerge amounts of vapor) as well as fragments. While its not directly possible to calc vaporization, it could argualby increase the calc by up to nearly an order of magnitude, dpeending on the percentage of vaporization inferred.
- it is quite possible that lower levels of the mantle are also heated, since the only temperature increases as you go down fruther towards the core. Considering the mantle makes up most of the Earth's mass and extends down for thousands of kilometers, it can potentially add alot to the calc. However, I ignore this avenue for several reasons. First, I'm not really sure yet how the temperatures breakdown beyond the lithosphere. before it reaches melting point. The lower layers (the ashthenosphere) tend to be more plastic, rather than molten, but the temps and pressures also fudge with calcs, ,whch would entail more research than I currently wish to engage. Secondly, given the probable length of time of the bombardment, inefficiencies will probably dictate that the lower levels will get heated up regardless.
Indeed, inefficiencies themselves could contribute significantly to the calc, as noted here with regard to Base Delta Zero, inefficiencies could contribute to an orders of magnitude increase in calcs.
Numbers of shisp involved
We know there was one strike cruiser present, as well as a "flotilla" of Navy and Inquisition vessels. As previously discussed in the Ciaphas Cain novel and the misc 40K analyis thread, "flotilla" is another word for "squadron" so this tells us there is roughly a squadron of ships here. Now the exact kind of squadron is not specified.
The distribution of "squadrons" is as follows
Battleships and Grand Cruisers are 2-3 ships
Cruisers and batltecruisers are 2-4 ships
Escorts are 2-6 ships.
For the purposes of the calc, I am going to assume cruisers. AS far as I know, the Inquisition does not normally have its own battleships (but they do have cruisers), and in the navy, cruisers are much more common than battleships (and much more likely to respond quickly.) Moreover, if there were a couple of battleships replying, a strike cruiser would more than likely be superfluous in the bombardment. Escorts, of course, are ignored because while there would be more of them, they'd acutally contribute less overall firepower than the cruisers.
Nonetheless, I may do breakdowns for different kinds of "squadrons" based on this. Battleships will be the conservative one.
Timeframe
According to Battlefleet gothic it takes a single capital ship "hours" to conduct an exterminatus. Given the squadron dispostions above, the timeframes should be arguably much "less" in evey case (with 3-5 cruisers the timeframe should, arguably be 1/3 to 1/5th what it is for a single ship.)
I'd be most interested into knowing what Connor thinks of this discrepancy and the obvious messed up nature of the Firewarrior outlier. Most logically, his talent for accurate observations and most reliable capacity for providing solid analyses would surely have him address this Firewarrior issue whenever it crops up, right? :)
We will simply assume that he is yet to see this cutscene.
We know this can be only explanation, since he's more than willing to point out the low end outlier from IA's Blood Ravens chapter:
Perhaps to inflict deep wounds when typical Exterminatus weapons are more of the "burning embrace" type?There is a small problem with this: The "Index Astarrtes" entry for the blood ravens (written by Graham McNeill) specifies it took the fleet a whole week of pounding with "mass drivers, lance strikes, and cylconic torpedoes. It also specifies that "fleets of Inquistorial and naval vessels" appeared, implying much greater numbers than what hte novel itself implies.
This cleraly represents a contradiction of sorts - the "fleets" bit can be disregarded probably, but the timeframe (arguably) could not. I am, howver, inclined to give more credene to the "novel" depiction of events for several reasons
- In the novel it is identified as an Exterminatus, and the timeframe of Exterminatus is well defined both within battlefleet gothic as well as corrobroated by other sources. No source I am aware of has ever indicated it takes a week of actual bombardment to exterminate a planet, and the BFG refrence does include brute force weapons (mass drivers and fusion wepaons)
Mass drivers and lance weapons would be good at digging into the crust while the Exterminatus weapons incinerate matter on the surface. That would also be consistent with what an Exterminatus usually is.
Perhaps because, in that version of the event, they conducted an Exterminatus without having any special weapons, so they had to count on several ships and a long duration for the bombardment?- The novel appears to present the incident from the viewpoint of Gabriel. This would be more consistent "in-universe", as Gabriel was present for the incident. The "Index Astartes" entry is written as if it were reporting an event secondhand.
- In addition to #2, the Index Astartes article also makes it abundantly clear that some or much of hte information is unknown (the Inquisitorial records on the incident are still sealed.) In fact, they flat out state that "only the Inquisition and Gabriel Angelos" know what happened. Which reinforces the idea that Gabriel's recollection of events is more accurate.
- The timeframe given in the article is "months." Now, this is arguably debatable, but "months" may not be very "rapid" a response time for the Imperium (the Imperium in Caves of Ice responded to the Necron bombardment with a flotilla of battleshisp in weeks) Again, its debatable, but this does not seem very likely.
- the Index Astartes article conflicts with both the novel and Battlefleet Gothic on separate points: Two against one.
How does that go against the BFG's "hours" when it's clear that the BFG speaks of a typical Exterminatus?
It's like having a book describe the typical bombardment of a nation with megaton scale nukes by a few ships, call that operation a "Death From Above", but sometimes in exceptional cases, you don't have those heavy nukes and must rely on many many ships with conventional gigajoule weapons, pounding the target on and on for ages to achieve a similar end result.
Needless to say that he's being very generous with himself when it comes to reconcile "week long" with "hours".- The "week long" timeframe can be more easily reconciled with "hours" (depending on circumstances) without bending over backwards for rationalization. Whereas you can rationalize a "week" as falling under "hours" only in a very loose sense. Moreover, from a logical standpoint, ,constantly firing for over a week is unrealistic - there would have to be reloading, resupplying of ammunition, allowance for maintenancec and cooldown, etc.
He's actually very generous for a lot of other things. But not when it comes to criticism and parsimony.
There are two terms which Connor uses to pin point the time in Earth's history which we have to look at.Nonetheless, to be conservative, I will further include the use of the week-long timeframe, even though I consider "hours" to be the reliable timeframe.
Calculations
The first number will be ocean vaporizing, as specified before. Having done this previously, this will come out to roughly 4e27 joules. works well as a low limit baseline. In reality melting a significant portion of the crust will result in the oceans boiling off as a side effect (energy radiated away elsewhere, etc.)
Now, to calcualte the actual crust melting, I did two different ways.
The first way, I pulled the classic "one meter, one hour" figure from Mike's Base Delta Zero page. The energy figure is (of course) 2.2e24 joules. I then multiplied by an assumed 30-40 km crust depth, and then took 30% of that figure (only about 30% of the surface of the planet is "solid" from the top of the crust to the bottom - the crust under the oceans is only about 10 km thick at most..) To account for the "ocean crust" I take 2e24 J, multiply by 10 kilometers (10,000 meters) and then take 70% of that. the result for the first calc is between 2e28 and 2.64e28 joules. The energy for the "ocean crust" would be ~1.54e28 joules.
The total energy input would be at least between 3.5e28-4.2e28 joules.
The lazy calc was fairly straightfoward: it involved using the crustal mass figures pulled from the nineplanets, which is roughly 2.6e22 kg. multiplying that by the melting enegy from the BDZ page yielded an energy requirement of around ~5e28 joules.
Since there isn't much difference between the two I'll use the second figure.
Assuming 2 vessels (of any kind) + 1strike cruiser did it:
For 2 hours: Ocean vaporizing: 1.85e23 watts Complete crust melting: 2.32e24 watts
For 24 hours: Ocean vaporizing: 1.54e22 watts Complete crust melting: 1.93e23 watts
For one week:Ocean vaporizing: 2.2e21 watts Complete crust melting: 2.76e22 watts
Assumign 3 Battleships + stirke cruiser did it
For 2 hours: Ocean vaporizing: 1.4e23 watts Complete crust melting: 1.74e24 watts
For 24 hours: Ocean vaporizing: 1.17e22 watts Complete crust melting: 1.45e23 watts
For one week: Ocean vaporizing:1.67e21 watts Complete crust melting: 2.1e22 watts
Assuming 4 cruisers + strike cruiser did it
For 2 hours: Ocean vaporizing: 1.12e23 watts Complete crust melting: 1.4e24 watts
For 24 hours: Ocean vaporizing 9.33e21 watts Complete crust melting: 1.17e23 watts
For one week: Ocean vaporizing 1.33e21 watts Complete crust melting: 1.67e22 watts
Assuming 6 escorts + strike cruiser did it:
For 2 hours: Ocean vaporizing: 8e22 watts Complete crust melting: 1e24 watts
For 24 hours: Ocean vaporizing 6e21 watts Complete crust melting: 8.33e22 watts
For one week: Ocean vaporizing 9.52e20 watts Complete crust melting: 1.19e22 watts
The above do represent a fairly wide range of numbers, but none of them should be considered upper limits. But, rather, a range of lower limit values. I'm only considering the crust ATM (I'll do calcs for the lithosphere later, with more research permitting), it ignores any inefficiencies in the proceses (which, as noted, could significantly increase the calcs), and I'm also ignoring the fact that the "hours" timeframe applies to a single ship. Logically, with multiple ships in this case the bombardment should be over sooner (IE, with 4 vessels, the 2-24 hour timeframe would be between half an hour and 6 hours.)
Nonetheless, this does serve to indicate a nice level of consistency with other esablished calcs (IE the Caves of Ice bombardment, nova cannons and bombardment cannon calcs, etc.)
More to come...
"Primeval", and "molten".
The first gives a good indicator of the era.
The second helps us focus on an even narrower period, because it seems we have to find a time when Earth was molten. I emphasize "seems" since things are not what they seem. Wait for the end of this post to get what I mean.
So, the question being how far do we go back into what we understand as "primeval"?
Merriam Webster wrote: Main Entry: pri·me·val
Pronunciation: \pr?-?m?-v?l\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin primaevus, from primus first + aevum age — more at aye
Date: 1662
1: of or relating to the earliest ages (as of the world or human history) : ancient, primitive <100 acres of primeval forest which has never felt an ax — Mary R. Zimmer>
2: primordial 1b
"Earliest ages of Earth", or "when it began to exist".MacMillan wrote: 1. relating to the period when the universe or the Earth first began to exist; primeval rock
2. primeval feelings are natural and happen without thinking; a primeval desire
Where do we begin?
With molten bit, this would leave out the ages when life grew out of primeval conditions.
Perhaps that brings us back as far as when Earth was... a small ball that was growing to about 40% of its present radius?
If so, then I'm sure Connor's calcs absolutely are conservative, since it would mean he forgot to add all the energy necessary to reduce Cyrene's radius by 60%.
Perhaps we could push the time index even further, who knows?
These are periods which occured over 4.x Ga ago.
Wait.
Aren't we supposed to be looking for a time when Earth was entirely molten? Let's find one where Earth was relatively as big as it is now.
What about the giant impact hypothesis?
It's said to have happened around 4.533 or 4.48 Ga, when Earth was a proto-Earth (with the planet forming about 4.54 billion years ago).
By that time, there already was a crust, and the planet had yet to gain anything near its final mass.
That one would seem right.
But what about oceans then?
They were already there as well.
True, they actually came a bit later, apparently between 44 Ga and 4.0 Ga.
Is that not primeval enough, though?
Yes, it is, but it wouldn't exactly match with the idea of a molten ball of rock. Assuming we do want to look for a time corresponding to such a state of matters. If not, all observations about the presence of life and oceans matter.
In the end, that means we have to make a choice. And this is where things get tricky. What are the options?
- We try to go further back in time, but hhen Cyrene needs to lose 60% of its radius (something that would make Abaddon's Planet Killer almost unworthy of notice... and you'll have to wait for the end of this post for a little surprise anyway).
- Or we settle on the time of the impact, which would give us both the right size, and the molten state. However, it's a time where energies were so vast that the Moon was ejected while Earth gained its final mass (minus more or less a few extra minor asteroids and comets impacts) after being hit by a Mars-wide planet at 3-4 km/s (KE > 2.8883 e30 J), a scenario just as ridiculous as above.
- Or we go to the age where the planet had its final mass (with again, a variation due to future minor impacts), but then the crust was already there, solid and all, with volcanoes spewing lava and seas of magma existed here and there. However, that would mean a colder planet, not molten, and above all, oceans other than of molten rock would have begun to form.
Figures obtained from the first two solutions are so absurdly high that it's a miracle if you have not died of laughter yet, and the much more reasonable figures one could obtain from the third option would be rejected by anyone thinking molten is key to the understanding of what happened to Cyrene.
And yet...
I'm curious as to why he didn't apply the same degree of analysis to other quotes from DoW:
Dawn of War, The Trials of Isidor wrote:Not unlike the falsely-cursed Prospero, Cyrene was a planet with well-developed nascent psykers and communes of sorcery. It was a place of wonder. But rather than utilising his power to save the souls of his homeworld and the knowledge that they cherished, Gabriel reacted to this realisation with fear and loathing, summoning the Exterminatus and raising the planet to the ground.
Raised to the ground... all living tissue on the planet's surface consumed... don't really depict a situation where the crust has been melted, or very superficially.Dawn of War, Chapter One: Visions wrote: When he closed his eyes, he could see nothing except the tortured hell of Cyrene as the Exterminatus finally consumed all the living tissue on the planet's surface. Not only had Cyrene been unsuitable for recruitment on that visit, but it had been riddled with corruption, taint, mutation and heresy. Gabriel had not had any choice - he could not suffer those abominations to live. From orbit, he had killed the entire planet.
So there is a need for an Exterminatus array after all. Why bother, if other weapons are just as capable? Surely, mass drivers and lance batteries in the teratons would easily provide the necessary destruction.Dawn of War: Chapter Fifteen: Ascension wrote: 'Sergeant Saulh - Hold this position and provide assistance to the Cobras,' said Gabriel. 'I assume that the Exterminatus array is still functioning aboard the Rage of Erudition, sergeant?'
'Yes, captain. It remains undamaged,' replied Saulh, his image crackling and snowing on the view screen.
'You are to fire on Rahe's Paradise when you are ready,' directed Gabriel firmly. This was not the first time that he had ordered the destruction of a planet, but perhaps that was why it felt like such a weight of responsibility. 'We can no longer leave it intact - its labyrinthine structure is riddled with slumbering Necron. It must be destroyed.'
Assault on Rahe's Paradise.Dawn of War: Chapter Fifteen: Ascension wrote: The last of the Dirge Raiders spiraled down into the atmosphere of Rahe's Paradise, flames pouring from its engine vents and armoured plates free falling from its hull. Beneath its fall, the planet's surface was vaguely visible beneath the clouds of toxic smoke and viral contagions that roiled around in the atmosphere. The Exterminatus arrays had caused all of the volcanoes around the equator to erupt at once, spilling the planet's core out onto its surface and effectively turning the entire world inside out. For good measure, the epic bombardment had continued, throwing viral and bacterial agents down into the mix to ensure that nothing could survive, even if it could swim in molten rock and breath sulphur. In a matter of minutes, the atmosphere had been completely eaten away and then, in less than an hour, the planet's structural integrity collapsed and it simply fell apart, scattering itself into asteroids and meteorites.
Several things of importance are to be noted here.
An Exterminatus array was deemed necessary to proceed with the planetary destruction. In fact, several arrays were responsible of the destruction. The planet could not be damaged with conventional weapons. Most obviously, even if terrible technobabble weapons could not melt the crust, it's more than likely that the conventional weapons would fail at this task as well.
Secondly, the crust was still there, but volcanoes on the equator were vomiting the planet's core and that "turned the entire world inside out".
For some unknown reason, bacterial and viral agents were also fired into the biosphere, or whatever could still be called a biosphere.
They weren't sure, somehow, that the weapons would kill the Necrons. Although I don't see what bioweapons would do to the living metal machines.
The atmosphere was eaten away (?), perhaps because some virus bombs would be involved.
Then, perhaps the most bizarre thing of all, the structural integrity of the planet collapsed, and it turned into an expanding field of asteroids and meteorites (basically what the Planet Killer could do in a relatively similar timeframe), like if most of the gravitational binding energy just disappeared. Snap.
The magnitude of destruction is only matched by the advanced level of technobabble.
Had the planet not exploded, then the importance of conventional weapons would be more than obvious, as I pointed out at the beginning of this post.
Indeed, with no magical planetary scattering, the crust was hardly endangered, and reinforced structures would have survived.
This degree of destruction is also very reminiscent of the destruction brought upon Nostramo and Caliban.
A shielded fortress like the Tower of Angels would have easily survived the onslaught (well, it actually survived the crust being cracked into bits by some burst of Chaos piss).
If anything, those rare Exterminatus cases are totally overkill, and the Exterminatus weapons absolutely not conventional at all.
Finally, the timeframe might be gauged.
The final stages of destruction happened within minutes for the destruction of the atmosphere, and then less than an hour for the planetary scattering. Likely, the whole process didn't take much more time, perhaps under two hours at best.
It seems one ship was involved only, but since several Exterminatus arrays were mentioned, and since the Rage of Erudition had one array, other ships must have helped. Yet, there only were escort ships (Cobras) alongside the large cruiser (I guess some special equipment was de rigueur).
Although it wasn't Cyrene, but Rahe's Paraside this time, it still was achieved with the involvement of Blood Ravens naval forces.
On a sidenote, should I also quote the bit about the Necron Shroud Cruiser hit by a solar flare from a red star, channeling the energy from what hit the pyramid structure, and delivering a near critical blow to an eldar warship? :]
Or bombardment cannons designed for planetary assaults (you know, the kind that "can level cities") and punching through the hull of the Necron cruiser and detonating inside?
Oh and a spell-check program wouldn't hurt either.