Mange the Swe . . . er, I mean, Oragahn, and Kane of recent 'anonymous' fame on the blog seem to both be quite against my page.
Let's start from the top:
I. ST-v-SW.Net fulfills the promise of those who came before in the Vs. Debates, inasmuch as it actually represents an analysis of canon facts. Those who made the claim previously ignored (and redefined) canon at their whim.
I-A. Ergo, my range page is based on what the canon says, and there are numerous examples given of perilously short SW ranges. Nonetheless I generously grant fighter-scale vessels effective ranges of a handful of kilometers. Oragahn can consider the direct observations an absurd underestimate if so desired, but personal desire is irrelevant. The canon has spoken, and it is canon fact in which we are interested. If anything, I should reduce my conclusions to fall in line with the canon.
I-B. Similarly, we know a great deal about the construction of Docking Bay 94. It is not identified as one of the "low-grade concrete, stone, and plastoid" structures composing most of the town, nor does it give any evidence of having durasteel walls with coolant flowing within. The most that can be said is that it is a dirt pit. Yet Oragahn claims that this is all invalidated by the film.
If you wish to quibble with whether the raised area represents packed dirt or very low-grade concrete you are at liberty to do so, but remember that the wall section blasted by Han was of such flimsy material that a massive chunk of it shattered upon collision with a stormtrooper helmet, doing so without significantly accelerating said stormtrooper's head. This gives it all the density and structural integrity of a dirt clod, if not less.
I-C. Dealing with the canon also means we don't insert our own ideas into said canon. For instance, even Kane understands that "shining hairlines" = turbolaser bolts, as we're told, and does not try to suggest otherwise. Logic allows us to deduce that these are the bigger bolts, but that is increased precision, not re-understanding to something else entirely. And indeed, given that it is the bolts, plural, identified as being powerful enough to vaporize a small town, in keeping with the bolt exchanges that even Kane noted, it is entirely generous of us to grant that honor to single bolts.
II. Oragahn, the fact that you refer to your urban environment as a village is entirely irrelevant. Even a moment's research will show you that there is significant overlap between areas designated as towns, villages, and cities. An entertaining aspect of this is the claim for "
Largest village in England", not to mention looking at
various state regulations regarding the term "village". Also noteworthy are the traditional definitions of village contained
here.
There's a note on one of those of villages with a population a full order of magnitude larger than nearby cities . . . implying a similar size differential.
Generally speaking, one prefers villages to be smaller than towns and towns to be smaller than cities as a matter of denotation. However, both denotation and connotation of the terms overlap. Therefore this is not something upon which to try to base an argument.
II-A. Anchorhead is canonically identified as a town. Mos Eisley is canonically identified as a town that is larger than Anchorhead. Ergo these are both towns, and it may even be rather polite for us to focus on Mos Eisley. It is, at least, practical, since we never see Anchorhead.
The fact that some existing Earth locations called villages might outmatch these towns constitutes an entertaining etymological note, but is otherwise of no importance.
III. The wide shot of Anchorhead is perfectly valid. There are only two ways in which you can try to assert that it is not:
III-A. First, you can claim that there are much taller buildings in Mos Eisley than we see directly in town, and that areas on the CGI wide shot that don't appear to have any construction on them at all actually represent the smaller buildings. There is no evidence for this position.
III-B. The only other possible place you can attempt to assert a contradiction is in regards to the visibility of the parking area where the transport vessel is later seen . . . yet despite the presence of a large field corresponding to the location along the road (given the visible two towers in the wide shot and the assumption that these are the same as seen near the transport), you reject that this area could possibly be the same, for no logical reason.
III-C. You are therefore attempting to reject the wide shot completely, which is bad policy. As a rule, one should try to keep as much data as possible. Even if we granted your position from III-B above, for instance, there is no reason to discard the entire wide shot . . . only to note an inaccuracy or similar issue.
By analogy, standard practice is to engage in line-item veto, whereas you're just trying to veto the whole thing and dissolve parliament, too.
IV. I have already explained how visibility of bolts from the ground would be enhanced given the black backdrop and lack of obscuring elements compared to the assorted non-black backdrops the space shots offer. However, Oragahn continues to resist. But what Oragahn further fails to realize is the contradiction of, on the one hand, denying that turbolaser bolts would be visible at all (on the grounds that some in a kilometers-distant battle were not), he simultaneously rejects the notion that only the largest ones would be. Yet it follows that the ones from the distant combat he notes . . . even seen as they are against the hues of the upper atmosphere . . . are not the largest.
V. Kane
V-A. Kane attempts to assert the following:
First of all I see that there is a link to Nuclear weapon FAQ in the Darkstar's article yet Darkstar uses simple geometric scaling which disregards atmospheric effects rather than using ready available empirical nuclear effect formulas.
In our case thermal radiation formula:
r=Y^0.41*r_const where r_const is 1.
Kane is dead wrong. I did not disregard the formula or atmospheric effects, as even a passing read ought to have made clear.
First, the above formula is one of three by which one can estimate the thermal, blast, and nuclear radiation effects of a nuclear weapon, calibrated to the production of 3rd degree burns, blast overpressure of 4.6psi at optimum burst height, and 500 rem radiation doses from the nuclear reactions. In other words, it is not an infinitely-applicable formula even when dealing with nukes.
Further, those are general approximations, even within the context of Sublette's write-up. Later, in a dedicated section, we're told:
"r_thermal_3rd = Y^0.41 * 0.67
Range is in km, yield is in kt; the equations are accurate to within 10% or so from 1 kt to 20 Mt."
So a 500 kiloton bomb by the general version comes out to 12.8km, whereas the more specific version gives us 8.6 kilometers. One could naturally argue that a handful of kilometers difference would be minor compared with the overall emotional impact of being around ten klicks from a nuke blast, but that's neither here nor there.
Kane then argues that intensity will be proportional to yield at a given distance, and thus affixes a multiplier onto the formula for human vaporization. In other words, in criticizing my so-called "simple geometric scaling which disregards atmospheric effects", Kane derives new figures by employing . . . simple geometric scaling which disregards atmospheric effects.
(And of course, he used my human vaporization figure that's some 50 times higher than what would cause flesh to flash into steam, in the usual given-an-inch-take-a-mile mentality of my opponents.)
Second, we're not dealing with nukes.
The gamma rays from the weapon's nuclear reactions (often produced via various isotope decays and neutron radiation) are the origin of the initial layer of "smog", formed by the ionization of the atmosphere around the bomb. As Sublette notes, "thus the apparent surface brightness at a distance, and the output power (total brightness) is not nearly as intense as the fourth-power law [i.e. "simple geometric scaling"] would indicate."
Given the temperature of a nuclear detonation, you won't get gamma rays except via the reactions. Assuming a turbolaser bolt detonation will feature similar temperatures, then, we are only talking about X-rays. Therefore, as we are not discussing nuclear weapons and their penetrating gamma radiation, it hardly seemed logical to rely on a calculation which relied on a nuclear weapons origin, as Kane's one-of-three formula does.
In other words, for the initial radiant pulse of the detonation, I have assumed no smog, which entails almost perfect energy transport through the atmosphere for the initial pulse. That still implies high-energy photons, but in the form of much-easier-for-any-high-energy-explosion-to-produce X-rays. At this stage, then, the turbolaser detonation is much more efficient at thermal effects than a nuclear weapon.
However, blast and thermal effects are what we are interested in. As Sublette notes:
"Thermal radiation and blast are inevitable consequences of the near instantaneous release of an immense amount of energy in a very small volume, and are thus characteristic to all nuclear weapons regardless of type or design details. The release of ionizing radiation, both at the instant of explosion and delayed radiation from fallout, is governed by the physics of the nuclear reactions involved and how the weapon is constructed, and is thus very dependent on both weapon type and design."
But yes, even blast can produce atmospheric opacity similar to the smog. As I noted on the page:
"And when the blast shockwave separates from the initial fireball, the atmosphere is so rapidly compressed and heated by the absurdly-fast shockwave that it ionizes and becomes incandescent. While extremely hot itself, this shockwave shell is opaque, and the far hotter interior is thus temporarily invisible. It is only when the shockfront cools to 3000 degrees or so that radiant energy from the interior starts to pass through it again."
In other words, the sheer violence of the blast does produce atmospheric opacity because the air ionizes
itself, briefly shielding distant objects before the shock front cools and begins allowing direct thermal effects through again in a phenomenon called "breakaway". But observe my next sentences:
"For a 20-kiloton nuclear weapon this all happens quite quickly . . . the shockfront hits a 'mere' 3000 degrees while the shockwave is only 220 meters across, though its moving at a speed of multiple kilometers per second. Maximum thermal effects thus begin around 150 milliseconds into the event. But even a one-megaton bomb takes longer for this . . . almost a full second elapses. By this time the blast wave's shockfront has travelled at least a couple of kilometers, if not more, meaning that by the time of maximum thermal effect for even a single megaton bomb, most of Bastrop would've been blasted into debris."
The atmospheric opacity is a two-way street, meaning everything within the shockwave is exceptionally warm. (Sublette left it vague as to whether the entire interior constitutes the isothermal sphere (i.e. the uniformly ridiculous-hot area of radiative transport) or not at the time of breakaway, but even if the expanding isothermal sphere is not quite the same size even the remaining interior will be hella-warm.)
Hence my statement: "Within the dome of the shockfront would be a new form of hell as the remaining debris was exposed to the many thousands of degrees of the fireball and the superheated wind left in the passing of the shockwave."
A discerning reader would thus note that, given my conclusion of 1.5 megatons, the town has been blasted by default and then it gets cooked by the fireball. A discerning reader would also note that, despite my earlier statement wherein I noted that using Sublette's value would be inappropriate for a probably-lower-radiation non-nuke turbolaser bolt, I still used that same formula when calculating required blast radius in III-C . . . a deliberate move.
In other words, there is method to my madness.
V-B. Similarly, Kane rejects canon facts . . . e.g. flak bursts . . . and claims that only a ground-striking shot could occur, with all the energy apparently being released at the point of impact, arguing that objects on the ground will increase yield requirements based on the number of objects. This also represents a very poor understanding of what is involved.
Even assuming a ground strike, even a poorly-designed ground level blast event will more than take care of most obstructions at the ranges and yields we're talking about. Further, by the time the shock front has cooled to allow the second pulse of thermal radiation (longer-lasting and releasing more of the energy from the event than the initial pulse), the isothermal sphere behind it is still cooking at 8000 degrees, the superheated wind has not just stopped, and . . . given the size of the fireball, isothermal sphere, and shock front for a megaton-size bomb . . . we're still looking at thermal radiation from hundreds of meters and more in the air. And, of course, the breakaway of the shock front's cooling isn't even going to occur before the shock front is outside town anyway. In other words, there's going to be a superheated dome of suck where Mos Eisley used to be.
That's more than sufficient to take care of pesky hiding humans.
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I feel everything's pretty well covered with the above, though of course I expect responses. However, I won't be investing this much time on wrong-headedness again. So if you've got something you think is really good lemme know, but don't waste my time.
