Jedi Master Spock wrote:2046 wrote:In other words,
I was right on the money earlier. The "main-sequence stars" quote is not regarding the nominal output of the reactor, but only in reference to catastrophic superlaser self-destruction.
For my next trick, I shall now predict that the opposition will utterly fail to recognize this, and will continue claiming that this novel refers to the normal power output of the Death Star reactor as being equivalent to weeks of stellar activity in hours.
I see a small problem with that.
An uncontrolled reactor explosion is precisely what destroyed the Death Star; I've computed that, based on the effects described in the novelization, as~e28-29 J at the most generous, not ~e32-e33 joules as the "main sequence stars" quote suggests. Most of this reactor energy needs to end up imploding back into hyperspace.
Quick flux calculation: e32-33 J at a range of 200,000 km (assuming Yavin to be Jovian) is tens to hundreds of kilotons per square meter. There's no indication of a planetary shield around Yavin or any substantial damage to the planet - indicating, as I pointed out earlier, something ~4 orders of magnitude lower in total energy, even accounting for the fact that not all the energy left the Death Star at once.
The superlaser was mostly charged, too, if we're to trust the time indicators; the Death Star was only minutes away from firing on Yavin, not the ~4 hours the
Death Star novel suggests it would take to charge up.
There may not be a contradiction. They could have been charging up the beam all the way they were en route to Yavin, and were just a few minutes away from completing the precharge.
Or maybe it was just ready and they were simply going around the planet and voila.
It would work that way: the Death Star actually precharges the beam for quite some time, and the whole firing procedure takes only a few minutes.
It would fit with the references about how long it took the super weapon to recharge after firing.
Besides, the new well documented exotic reaction with matter that occurs explains why they couldn't fire through even the upper levels of the gas giant. It could have very well depleted the beam to a significant extent and damaged Yavin instead, possibly even endangering the Death Star considering its proximity to the gas giant, and the planet's likely mass.
A few more words to Kane now.
As usual, you leave aside the points you don't seem confident enough to defend. It's a pity, because they all turn out to be concessions in return.
You're welcome to adress the issue of the opposite surface of Alderaan that only gets remotely damaged anytime you feel warm inside.
Now, before adressing your other griefs, let me quote a previous post of mine;
Me wrote:Let's get through it step by step.
"... the hypermatter reactor was capable of generating an energy burst equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequencee stars."
I understand that sentence as the generator has a power equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequencee stars.
It's what I get because there's a combination of two elements.
A quantified energy (several stars weekly output), associated to "burst".
A burst is something pretty much sudden. It's fast. That's why all that energy turns out be produced as a burst, ergo in such a tight timeframe that we can speak of joules per one second, which turns out to be a figure of power.
Do you agree with this interpretation or not?
KS wrote:Are you kidding me?
Are you fucking kidding me?!?!?
No, KS, I'm not kidding you.
I'm simply tried to obtain a semblance of reasoned debate with you.
Even though the quote says energy he will interpret it as power because burst is "pretty much sudden...it's fast". So he goes on to pretend that sudden means one second so it's actually watts so it's actually power.
Even if it's more than one second, your energy
generated in a burst fashion can't be an event that last one hour.
By the sheer value and meaning of the definition of the word burst, this simply describes an event that happens fast.
A three hours precharge is
nowhere fast.
Yes, you seem to interpret the quote differently than how it should be read. It says "generate", not "release".
Stacking joules and joules over several hours, for one final shot... that's
releasing the energy in a burst.
Generating that same amount of energy in a burst... that's a matter of power, the
generation of energy during an extremely tight timeframe.
You have complained a lot. Waved a lot. Been quite vocal and gloated much, but you have not provided your own detailed understanding of that very sentence.
Now, I know how one could interpret the sentence the way you do, but I want to see
you precisely write it down, in a formulatic and detailed fashion, to dismiss any ambiguity.
Just what kind of a fucking idiot do you need to be to think that if energy is released very fast you can just substitute it with power? Doesn't he realize that energy is energy no matter how fast it is exchanged?
Strawman. I assumed that if burst represented a timeframe of one second, it could very well be substituted with a power figure.
If it takes two seconds, the energy figure will be divided by two, and refered to in watts. If it takes half a second, the energy figure will be multiplied by two, and refered in watts.
I don't see what's hard to understand here.
Does he even realize that his interpretation doesn't make any sense since it would then equate power to energy?
Simply amazing: it's all there black on white and says energy but the fanatic just chooses to interpret it as power.
[Kenny Banya]This is gold Jerry, GOLD![/Kenny Banya]
It makes sense to consider that the energy figure can be considered a power figure if that energy is released extremely fast.
Again, I refer to the meaning of burst.
If you think that an event described as happening as a burst, would actually last one to three hours, there's a problem with you, not me.
Unless you have an interpretation of that sentence, but you prefer to parade like a twit instead of actually being constructive and provide this very interpretation of yours, in a detailed way.
Me wrote:All point to the fact that it's all about a sudden act, or event. I'm going to repeat a bit of what I said earlier on:
That is a weapon that requires at the very least 1 hour 13 minutes to recharge the weapon, for 1/3 of the final power when the battle station will be fully operational.
The total power would be 3 hours and 39 minutes for a fully powered shot.
13,140 seconds to gather enough energy for a full fat shot. That's a power e5 times lower than the magnitude of the energy itself.
Considering that the words expressely say "generating an energy burst".
Ergo, this only happens under uncontrolled conditions.
KS wrote:Can you believe this idiot? After pretending that energy burst is actually power output he can now go on to claim that since the reactor needs an hour to recharge for less than planet destroying shot then that means that the "total weekly output of several main sequence stars" only applies to "uncontrolled conditions".
Disagreement aside, it's pure logic.
If the noticeable energy delivered by a beam, which has been charged for at least more than one hour, if not much more, hardly matches the weekly output of several main sequence stars, then the figure provided there can only refer to another context.
A context which is largely hinted at, considering the reference to events going awry and out of control.
Connor MCL wrote:]If the Death STar's hypermatter reactor could only produce the stated level of power when it was unstable or "uncontrolled" conditions, then it wouldn't be a capability.
Because you say so?
You think it would be the first time, in SF, where a character refers to a given power core, that would generate an explosion of magnitude x, if it was to explode/overload/get ruined/etc.?
All of these cases are precisely descriptions of capabilities, but under specific conditions which have nothing to do with controlled conditions.
It wouldn't be without a precedent that a character in SF would say that an overloading reactor could generate an explosion of a given yield.
Since when do we rate power outputs in terms of "uncontrolled reactions" anyhow?
When the context is about an uncontrolled reaction.
In any case, the whole context indicates that the bit about malfunctioning applied to the firing process as a whole, not just the reactor independent of the rest (the power output is relevant to indicate just how much energy is involved, a nd how quickly someone would be decimated if something went wrong.) - they specifcally mention the superlaser backfiring, in fact. (I'll try to post quotes later.)
Which means nothing else but that the superlaser backfiring would precisely create the hyperspace rift
inside the battle station.
He's either never read the book or he's decided to be dishonest about Despayre too. They were testing the weapon on Despayre to see how powerful it would be - there were still uncertanties about how powerful it might be or how effective it could be. The first shot took no power, and was 1/3 the power. It was basically a planet "sterilizing" level event (atmosphere probably around 5000 degrees, implied.. that would take alot of energy. to accomplish, since that would also be an indirect effect..) Planet, however, was still intact.
Or maybe
you didn't bother reading what I said, before making accusations and building your neat bag of strawmen?
You can try to prove that I denied this. Go on. Or maybe you can shut up and actually talk about what you know, not what you don't.
The second shot, an hour and fiteen minutes later, cracked apart the crust and basically reduced the entire planet to a molten state, given what was described. This takes more energy than above, but the planet is still, basically intact.
No, it does not take more energy than before. The beam was still 1/3 of total power, and the entire planet was clearly not reduced to molten state.
Lava covered the surface, but the surface was largely solid enough to crack, for mountains to collapse or rise, and for many volcanos to erupt and be created. You don't get that when the very crust is melted. Above all, the cloud layer still remained there, blocking the view. Not much atmosphere blown into space.
An hour and nineteen minutes later, they fire the third and final time.. and the planet blows apart as its mass is finally scattered. Its also scattered so quickly that debris impacts on the Death STar's shield very shortly after firing. And this is all at 1/3 power. Also no funky hyperspace stuff.
Still 1/3, same recharge time than for the first two shots. Care to explain how for beams which are all equal, the last one is many many magnitudes higher than the first two?
I offered a solution (cumulative hyperspace related effect). Provide one.
Taking the three different results (ones increasing in firepower, up to mass scattering.)
First two shots are of a roughly very similar magnitude.
... with similar timeframes, as well as all the "need to test" stuff
There is zero "need to test" stuff. The only reference I got for the word test is that Tenn wondered for a brief moment if they were testing his loyalty. Nothing else.
...its rather obvious that they were fine tuning the beam after each shot
There is zero evidence of that.
- they weren't sure how much power could be managed, so it would make sense they conservatively go with lower power shots before working up to something more powerful.
Indeed, they fired beams at 1/3 of the maximum power. That's for your dialed down yield. Thank you.
Basically, here are several key points we can make out of this new book:
- The book precisely says that all the energy of the beam is delivered when the first ring is generated. We know what level of DET that would correspond to. This is nowhere e32 joules.
- A vast part of the superlaser's most destructive ability is largely dependant of an exotic reaction with hyperspace, where a significant amount of Alderaan's mass is shifted (boosted in the book), likely to trigger the complex mass conversion reaction described in the ANH novelization. Meaning that former energy estimations based on full planetary mass scattering have to be dramatically reconsidered and lowered, because lots of the planet's mass doesn't enter the equation anymore.
- The superlaser is not a turbolaser. It may have similarities, but it has just as much similarities as it has differences. Therefore, you can't scale down the superlaser to guess the firepower of turbolasers mounted on capital ships.
- The superlaser is a cumulative effect weapon, which induces an exotic chain reaction over a certain threshold, which in turn provides most of the destruction seen in the film, due to a complex mechanism.
- The power source for the Death Star was stolen by 501st legion, and at their beginning, only a few Imperial Star Destroyers were granted hypermatter reactors. One of these experiments even resulted in a dramatic failure. Meaning that hypermatter reactors applied to capital ships was not that common, and certainly not such a well rounded technology.
Ergo, the vast bulk of other imperial ships at that time did not have such reactors, and this also means that Venators and Acclamator did not have hypermatter reactors.
It also means that the CIS had an advantage here, and despite the difference of power technologies, the Republic wasn't horribly lagging behind in the war.
- The Death Star's defenses, superlaser specifically non included, can repel an assault from any fleet of star destroyers or super star destroyers. Which, in light of this EU product, shows that the rather over generous interpretation of Dodonna's words held by some is wrong. Dodonna precisely refered to the battle station's defenses, which is only logical considering the lenght of the briefing and what would matter the most to the rebels.
Feel free to adress these conclusions.