Chee Rejects EU Completism, Confirms Separate Continuities

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Post by Nonamer » Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:05 pm

The way I see it, it works something like this:

SW movies - All made directly or closely lead by Lucas. In other words, it's practically the work of one man's vision.

Original ST series, movies, and TNG - The same but with Roddenberry.

Later ST series and movies - This is the work of several writers closely associated with one another and with Roddenberry. Different visions and styles, but they mostly worked together and have the same colleagues. All work for the same company too.

SW EU - The work of dozens of writers, many of them very independent of each other and rarely work together. Probably very few colleagues in common as well and many different companies that they work for.

As you can see, the EU is a very loose collection of works compared to anything we see in the ST world and the movies. So you simply can't put it in and compare it to the ST series as a crutch against the lack of material.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:25 pm

If things were that simple, then why not the mere presence and participation of RSA on the forum attract more of the militant pro-Wars people?

As to the other reason, I postulated a similar idea some months ago. But now that it's become obvious that SFJ's forum is here to stay, why still the reluctance to come over and participate? Why are there a couple dozen or so new members signed up, but not doing anything?
-Mike

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:10 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Consistency of vision. George Lucas's tight creative control over what has been called the "film canon" is something that a single series of Trek is hard-pressed to match... let alone all five plus the movies.
That's a double-edged sword, actually. On one hand it is an advantage in portraying the storyverse of SW in a consistant manner. On the other hand can be a disadvantage in how matters like technology are portrayed and continue to be portrayed throughout both trilogies. It's the basis for the continuing arguement that SW firepower is not much higher than a few kilotons or megatons, the exception being the Death Stars. Without the EU, in particular the ICS books authored by Curtis Saxton, SW ships do not stand up especially well against the higher-end firepower and other technology examples from ST.
-Mike
And with the EU, Star Wars has to cope with "kilojoules" from X-Wings, grenade-like proton torpedos, ships that are damaged by brief exposure to solar radiation from close orbit, etc. Star Wars at the lower EU ends shows something barely advanced from our own technology in some fields.

To be honest, without the EU, Star Wars compares nicely to Star Trek in some ways, and the consistent picture of Star Wars - even if it comes up short against Trek tech in many ways - stands well above the lower Trek examples in other ways.

The Lysian destroyer's megajoule range disruptors, for example. A shuttle only having megajoule energy reserves. Riker's infamous comment about terawatt comm signals. Etc.

These are something that "film canon" Star Wars doesn't have to cope with; there's almost nothing technologic or scientific that you have to discard as inconsistent if you stick to the "film canon." Sure, you can't really support the ICS... but the rest of the EU won't do that either as time goes on, and never really has.

The recent "reinterpretation" (retcon, practically) of the ROTS ICS fuel figures should make the long term situation crystal clear.

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Post by 2046 » Sat Jan 13, 2007 1:30 am

Regarding fairness:

JMS's "consistency of vision" concept is valid and well-said, though I concur it can be a bit double-edged. So, too, can volume of material.

However, I question the very conception of fairness being discussed in this thread.

No offense intended or implied, but the type of fairness presently on the table is . . . if you'll forgive the use of the term . . . communistic.

The only real way to be fair to both is to apply a consistent standard for determining what is real for both.

All canon and nothing else for Wars? Okay, do the same for Trek. All licensed materials for Trek? Okay, the same for Wars.

Of course, such selections are subjective if you're just choosing them like that.

The really fair way to do things is to apply a consistent, objective standard. That's where the original idea of letting the makers/owners statements decide for us came from. They're the ultimate third-party for these purposes.

To borrow from myself elsewhere:
The very reason the concept {of canon} gets brought up so often among fans is because their discussions frequently require an objective standard to start from . . . a basis of discussion.

An obvious and extreme example would be someone trying to say "well, in my fanfic I established such-and-such". And on the flip side, you get people dismissing anything from certain later Trek series. Somewhere between the two extremes, you might end up with folks wanting to discuss Federation history or technology or whatever and they're trying to decide between them whether such-and-such date from such-and-such non-TV non-movie source should be allowed. The canon policy gives an objective third-party (and important-party) guideline for how to deal with that.

This is especially true when you're actually comparing two separate universes.
If the maker and owner of my less-preferred franchise said that all licensed stuff was canon, I'd accept that even though, by the amount-of-content standard, that would be unfair to my more-preferred franchise. I would accept it because at least the way what's real is determined would be consistent.

The consistent, objective standard means that fairness has been achieved by any reasonable measure.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:17 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:
2046 wrote: I disagree there. I've barely scratched the surface of all the tech stuff in the novelizations, and there's a lot more in the films and scripts to work with.
The amount of information you may have not pointed out from novelisations would never outmatch the vast quantity of data simply revealed by what? eleven films and so many shows.
You're right that six films and their novelizations, scripts, radio dramas, etc, can't possibly measure up to the amount of information given by eleven films and twenty eight seasons of television (each of which individually adds up to a similar amount of produced screen time as the entire SW film saga). We're talking about thirty times as much material. I would say that the scripts and novelizations treble the amount of information available or so, but that's still a factor of ten.

Similarly, however, there are something like 200 novels in the Star Wars EU, and then comic books, computer games, technical manuals, RPG books... etc. If you include the whole SW EU and compare to the Trek series and movies, Star Wars has a similarly huge "advantage" over Star Trek in terms of the quantity of available material.
With far more than 500 episodes total, that's not easy to say.
Maybe Star Wars is a little advantaged if you include the EU, which I'm not convinced of, but above all, the gap is not such a disadvantage, as both Wars and Trek have now enough material to work from if you include Wars' EU.
It's clearly not the case with the purist SW canon, where only Trek has enough material to engage into detailed and rich versus debates.
By bulk, it's not "fair" either way you take it; the only way to be working with a similar quantity of material is to use the whole of both the ST and SW EUs.
That for sure would be better, because the more material both universe would get, they'd reach a point where even a difference of 100 products would be negligible, as there would already be a large enough base of material for the universe coming with the least sources.
IMO, Star Wars taken from a film-purist perspective has a very serious advantage over Star Trek:

Consistency of vision. George Lucas's tight creative control over what has been called the "film canon" is something that a single series of Trek is hard-pressed to match... let alone all five plus the movies.
I agree. But I'm convinced that this may be partially plot driven. I think Lucas is simply not interested in enemues engaging their oponent bataillons with nuke level weaponry. He by far prefers to pit armies against each other with craptastic weapons and absurd logics.

So again, what would happen when GL would die? What if he dies tomorrow, or in the middle of the TV show production, and if the franchise lives and is expanded by more people?

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sat Jan 13, 2007 7:22 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:With far more than 500 episodes total, that's not easy to say.
Actually, it is. If you don't add any extra information to an episode, it turns into a short story. Novella if you're really detailed, but in general, you get about as much information out of the Blish adaptations, which go about 10:1 into a modern SF novel.

Alternately, I could tell you that in general, a full length novel, uncut, is worth about four hours of screen time - a feature film needs to be filled out to get to a 200 page novel, and a 200 page novel needs to be pared down substantially to make it onto the screen in two hours. Heck, look at LOTR... the trilogy was pared down slightly less than is usual to fit onscreen in films whose director's cuts push four hours.

Ergo, 40 minutes of screen time is worth about 33 pages... that's seven to a typical Star Wars novel of today. I can get back to ten by slicing out the credits and stock footage. Multiply that by 200 or so...

What that means is that SW EU novels alone have several times as much information as found on the small screen of Trek.

Then there's all the rest - the RPGs, the comics, the cartoons and TV specials, the computer games... it really is incredibly more, and includes the sort of detail-rich material VS debaters love (particularly RPG sourcebooks and technical guides.)

Convinced?
It's clearly not the case with the purist SW canon, where only Trek has enough material to engage into detailed and rich versus debates.
I still disagree with this in part. One reason why I break my site up into sections is to demonstrate just how much you can get out of just one movie.

Especially since I know I haven't squeezed nearly as much out of them as I could.
By bulk, it's not "fair" either way you take it; the only way to be working with a similar quantity of material is to use the whole of both the ST and SW EUs.
IMO, that's also a fair way to go - you just have to get used to having to throw a lot of material out if you do that, because both are rife with contradictions large and small.

None of the proposed rules really bother me so long as they're consistently applied. It doesn't make much difference how much material you use - SW EU vs Trek onscreen, ST EU vs SW original trilogy films - it's all enough to start drawing out the basic math.
I agree. But I'm convinced that this may be partially plot driven. I think Lucas is simply not interested in enemues engaging their oponent bataillons with nuke level weaponry. He by far prefers to pit armies against each other with craptastic weapons and absurd logics.
Which speaks to what Lucas's vision of Star Wars is, doesn't it? For the record, in spite of Trek's much greater volume of material, we don't know as much about Trek ground armies from the entire Trek EU as we do from the SW films alone.
So again, what would happen when GL would die? What if he dies tomorrow, or in the middle of the TV show production, and if the franchise lives and is expanded by more people?
I wouldn't put it past Lucas to have something very specific set up for his death regarding the Star Wars franchise. We'll see what happens.

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Post by Lord Edam » Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:29 pm

2046 wrote: I disagree there. I've barely scratched the surface of all the tech stuff in the novelizations, and there's a lot more in the films and scripts to work with.


"The only relevant official continuities are the current versions of the films alone, and the combined current version of the films along with whatever else we've got in the Holocron"

If it's in the novellisation but not in the films, you'd be working beyond the films alone. Or is there some get-out-clause you forgot to quote that explains alone means only, but also this other stuff


----
To be honest, both sides can claim victory in this debate. If you want to work with film-only continuity, go ahead. that's a valid view of Star Wars. If you want to work with a combined film & EU continuity, go ahead. That is also a valid view of Star Wars (but remember the films are the most important aspect if something is different between them)

The only real useful thing that has come of this is the explicit confirmation that it is the current versions of the films that are important. So if you are going to work with films at all, work with the latest DVD releases. You can't say "but it was like this in the original film", for example as happens in reference to the Alderaan shield.

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Post by GStone » Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:06 pm

Lord Edam wrote:"The only relevant official continuities are the current versions of the films alone, and the combined current version of the films along with whatever else we've got in the Holocron"

If it's in the novellisation but not in the films, you'd be working beyond the films alone. Or is there some get-out-clause you forgot to quote that explains alone means only, but also this other stuff

That would be Sansweet, who is higher in the heirarchy than Chee, both generally and the fact Chee just works with the holocron, and has yet to be contradicted. He even reinterated it like last year or something. Mike D quoted him. Besides, the film novel adaptations are not EU. The EU is by authors that don't write the film adaptations. These film novels are said to be accurate depictions of the films, that's why they are below the films.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Jan 13, 2007 5:23 pm

GStone wrote:
Lord Edam wrote:"The only relevant official continuities are the current versions of the films alone, and the combined current version of the films along with whatever else we've got in the Holocron"

If it's in the novellisation but not in the films, you'd be working beyond the films alone. Or is there some get-out-clause you forgot to quote that explains alone means only, but also this other stuff

That would be Sansweet, who is higher in the heirarchy than Chee, both generally and the fact Chee just works with the holocron, and has yet to be contradicted. He even reinterated it like last year or something. Mike D quoted him. Besides, the film novel adaptations are not EU. The EU is by authors that don't write the film adaptations. These film novels are said to be accurate depictions of the films, that's why they are below the films.
Yes, that could be seen as walking a fine line, but an overwhelming majority of purists I've met do consider the novelisations reliable.
This can even extend to the radio dramas. It was, after all, pretty much the standard purist canon I've been hearing for years until this new century came.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Jan 13, 2007 5:38 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:With far more than 500 episodes total, that's not easy to say.
Actually, it is. If you don't add any extra information to an episode, it turns into a short story. Novella if you're really detailed, but in general, you get about as much information out of the Blish adaptations, which go about 10:1 into a modern SF novel.

Alternately, I could tell you that in general, a full length novel, uncut, is worth about four hours of screen time - a feature film needs to be filled out to get to a 200 page novel, and a 200 page novel needs to be pared down substantially to make it onto the screen in two hours. Heck, look at LOTR... the trilogy was pared down slightly less than is usual to fit onscreen in films whose director's cuts push four hours.

Ergo, 40 minutes of screen time is worth about 33 pages... that's seven to a typical Star Wars novel of today. I can get back to ten by slicing out the credits and stock footage. Multiply that by 200 or so...

What that means is that SW EU novels alone have several times as much information as found on the small screen of Trek.

Then there's all the rest - the RPGs, the comics, the cartoons and TV specials, the computer games... it really is incredibly more, and includes the sort of detail-rich material VS debaters love (particularly RPG sourcebooks and technical guides.)

Convinced?
Yes, that's what I was thinking after rereading my post. Those transcripts are just so short in fact, in comparison to books. But the fact is that a book needs lines and lines to describe one element, while a show can do it with one single image, so in a way you actually end with a large amount of data in a very tight timeframe, that is not necessarily found in the shooting script.
For example, a shooting script will have the people say this or that, but a book will add to that many details about the surrounding environment and the way people and things move, react and eventually explode. However, this takes a lot of space, which can be summarized within seconds for a show, and forcedly spread over pages for a book, or skipped by said book.

Imagine that a film's novelisation had to describe absolutely everything that happens on screen, frame by frame. It'd take an insane amount of space, while the film does this in, what? a couple of seconds.
That's why shows can also deliver a lot of extremely tighly packed information within a very short timeframe. The sheer lenght of a script is not always a complete reliable yardstone.
It's clearly not the case with the purist SW canon, where only Trek has enough material to engage into detailed and rich versus debates.
I still disagree with this in part. One reason why I break my site up into sections is to demonstrate just how much you can get out of just one movie.

Especially since I know I haven't squeezed nearly as much out of them as I could.
Which equally applies to Star Trek, and by definition, makes its canon far more complete in terms of sheer data.
It's not even a matter of opinion, it's a strict matter of quantifiable data.

With Trek canon, you at least know a good deal info about ships, and you can fill the gaps with plenty of theories.
In Wars, for a space opera, you barely know enough about the ships to boot. How is that even remotely interesting?

Right now, depending on the support and involvement Lucas puts into the new TV show, there are strong chances that it would get integrated into the purer canon, and even a bit the differences.
I agree. But I'm convinced that this may be partially plot driven. I think Lucas is simply not interested in enemues engaging their oponent bataillons with nuke level weaponry. He by far prefers to pit armies against each other with craptastic weapons and absurd logics.
Which speaks to what Lucas's vision of Star Wars is, doesn't it? For the record, in spite of Trek's much greater volume of material, we don't know as much about Trek ground armies from the entire Trek EU as we do from the SW films alone.
And as I said, you barely know nits about ships in Star Wars. You barely get the basics. You can get lots of technical data, but only a portion of this data is relevant to most versus debates.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:14 pm

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
To be honest, without the EU, Star Wars compares nicely to Star Trek in some ways, and the consistent picture of Star Wars - even if it comes up short against Trek tech in many ways - stands well above the lower Trek examples in other ways.

The Lysian destroyer's megajoule range disruptors, for example. A shuttle only having megajoule energy reserves. Riker's infamous comment about terawatt comm signals. Etc.
With "The Dauphin" quote, you certainly are correct, though the other two examples really don't effect the usual versus debate as much as you may think. For the megajoule energy reserves of a shuttle ("The Outcast"), it's more like "megajoules" at minimum as here is the dialog:

RIKER
The null space must be affecting
the annular confinement beam...

SOREN
We used ten megajoules with that
attempt. We're down to
thirty-four percent of reserves.

RIKER
We can give it one more try. More
than that and we won't have enough
power to get ourselves out of
here.


Note the emphasized dialog; they used 10 MJ with the attempt, and there is no actual way of knowing exactly how much energy the remaining percentage represents, though it could be that 10 MJ is a significant portion of it, since a third attempt would leave them without the power necessary to escape. Also earlier we know the shuttle was at 68% reserves before the attempt, but the shuttle was also losing power from the "null space pocket" at the same time. Given the percentages, the shuttle has at least 29 MJs of energy reserves total.

With the Lysian example, well that's fairly easy to get by as we know clearly that they were incredibly weak and primitive compared to the E-D, which was the whole actual point anyway. By how much the E-D overtakes the Lysians is never actually made known, and here's something else to consider that places "Conundrums" as showing high firepower levels for Starfleet vessels: A single photon torpedo was more than sufficent to destroy the several km wide and tall Lysian Central Command space station.

Further, even in it's primitve days; Earth was still capable of fielding a starship that was many times more powerful than the. Two point one megajoule "disrupter-style" weapons versus phase cannons, each rated for 500 gigajoules!
Jedi Master Spock wrote:
These are something that "film canon" Star Wars doesn't have to cope with; there's almost nothing technologic or scientific that you have to discard as inconsistent if you stick to the "film canon." Sure, you can't really support the ICS... but the rest of the EU won't do that either as time goes on, and never really has.
Like I said before, the film canon is just as much a double-edged sword as said consistant portrayal still leaves much to be desired. For example, Han in ANH stating that the Falcon can mave "Point five past light", or in AoTC the statement about Tatooine and Geonosis being "less than a parsec" distant from each other make for a less-than-impressive FTL capability on SW's part.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:
The recent "reinterpretation" (retcon, practically) of the ROTS ICS fuel figures should make the long term situation crystal clear.
Actually I don't mind that so much as high-density fuels explains away somewhat how a fusion powered SW ship could maintain relatively high power generation figures over an extended period of time.
-Mike

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:14 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Yes, that's what I was thinking after rereading my post. Those transcripts are just so short in fact, in comparison to books. But the fact is that a book needs lines and lines to describe one element, while a show can do it with one single image, so in a way you actually end with a large amount of data in a very tight timeframe, that is not necessarily found in the shooting script.
A picture is only worth a thousand words in FX analysis, I'm afraid. Granted, we've gotten loads of information out of FX analysis of a few key scenes... but those are far and few between, and the amount of work it takes to extract the information is much greater. Videographic analysis is a pain to get done accurately, and half the time (e.g., phaser effects) is so strange as to defy conventional conception.

(A line like "Scotty looked at the manifest. It showed that all ninety six torpedos were still there," for example, would have been much easier than zooming in on a frame of a DVD and counting the blobs.)
The sheer lenght of a script is not always a complete reliable yardstone.
Not really, no. However... it's worth looking at how much is lost and gained in novels and movies - there are a lot of cases where a novel has been turned into a movie and vice versa. That's what I base my comparison on.
With Trek canon, you at least know a good deal info about ships, and you can fill the gaps with plenty of theories.
We do know more hard specs, i.e., exact numbers, like the GCS having a load of 275 torpedos, the CCS refit having 96 torpedos, etc. More of these hard specs disagree with each other, of course (e.g., warp speed figures).
In Wars, for a space opera, you barely know enough about the ships to boot. How is that even remotely interesting?
Let's go back a minute and double-check what we do know about SW ships from the "film canon." I might be forgetting a few things...

We know:
  • They use fusion furnaces that burn hydrocarbons, ion engines for thrust, and antigravity drives for maneuvering close to planets.
  • Thermonuclear weapons are used in naval combat.
  • How fast they accelerate.
  • Approximately how big they are.
  • What the hyper limit is.
  • From acceleration figures and the use of ion engines, as well as the hyper limit, ballpark peak power-generation-per-unit-mass figures.
  • The firepower available to patrol ships, and the firepower used by lighter quick-firing Star Destroyer weapons.
  • Overall typical rates of fire.
  • Effects of impact vs ships.
  • Some about effective ranges of engagement.
Most of the ones that are problematic above (e.g., "How big they are") are problematic because multiple sources of information within the films conflict, although a few are just "ballpark" figures, i.e., order of magnitude estimates, properly speaking.
Right now, depending on the support and involvement Lucas puts into the new TV show, there are strong chances that it would get integrated into the purer canon, and even a bit the differences.
Agreed.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Jan 14, 2007 1:52 am

* They use fusion furnaces that burn hydrocarbons, ion engines for thrust, and antigravity drives for maneuvering close to planets.
They don't say what kind of fuel they use, do they?
What if it's some exotic and yet explosive shmuk?
* Thermonuclear weapons are used in naval combat.
Practically, yes, but we don't know how focused they are.
* How fast they accelerate.
Rather how fast they manoeuver. Their acceleration abilities seem to greatly differ depending on who makes the analysis, or if you watch the combat scenes or actually give weight to the schematic in the imeprial bunker at Endor, and above all, this is all relative to the DSII's size.
Then you can also give ROTS's opening scene a chance, and how that empty sky suddenly fill up with gazillons ships, supporting the idea the Venator Obi-Wan and Anakin flew by was orbiting the planet pretty fast.

Besides, we can get the Gs, but we don't know the material properties, ergo we don't know the real average mass of the ships.
* Approximately how big they are.
Yeah, at least that's god enough to know how you need to manoeuver around them, and how many people they may carry.
But we know virtually nothing about the crew numbers.
* What the hyper limit is.
There seems, again, to be much disagreement about that.
* From acceleration figures and the use of ion engines, as well as the hyper limit, ballpark peak power-generation-per-unit-mass figures.
There's still plenty of room for exotic materials, and acceleration figures are all but fixed.
Which seem to be quite impressive, in seeing how intermitent engines can make an ISD rotate so fast after being hit by ion bolts.
* The firepower available to patrol ships, and the firepower used by lighter quick-firing Star Destroyer weapons.
A couple of megatons, eventually, based on dubious old asteroid destruction VFX.
Yet a very extreme low end figure for such civilisations which have mastered fusion at packed it down to very small levels, literally down to the equivalent of personnal flying cars and domestic reactors for small houses.
* Overall typical rates of fire.
Actually, we just got one blurry instance in some murky background in ROTJ. Hold me back.
In comparison, you have the main bigass cannons of those CIS ships in ROTS firing several shorts bursts within a second.
Plus those prequel continuous beams and a theory I fancy about how you can accelerate bolts if you spend the right amount of energy for that, and those typical rates of fire aren't even empirically evidenced, since I don't consider one instance as enough.
You have the Venators at Coruscant firing at decent rates.
I've spotted a Venator firing its four main
12 shots within 3 seconds. That's 4 shots per second. Thus one shot per second per heaviest turret, even sometimes faster than that, like two volleys from the same turret within a fraction of a second. Not bad.
But that's for the Venators. So what do we do from there? Assume that the ISDs are crappier or the same, or better? SFJ's page about TLs gives a rate of fire between 5 and 10 seconds.
Technically, it's correct, since based on one single event. But that's all we get. However, does it make sense in regards of the prequels? Not much. Basically, it's left wide open to anyone.
I don't call that a definitive answer at all.
* Effects of impact vs ships.
Yes, based on VFX were the guy in charge simply removed a whole part of the ship after he considered that most of the asteroid explosion occupied enough room on screen, which leads to some funky material disappearance with some visual nonsense, where there's either a glaring lack of debris from the ship's part that's been obliterated, or from the super massive cloud of utterly vaporized that could only explain why matter disappears so conveniently.
* Some about effective ranges of engagement.
Wraith of Khan like ranges, or some more generous ones, as the one seen in TMP when the nubian ship was escaping the planet. Or the best one, with a heavy heavy ion cannon firing at ISDs located at a fair distance from the planet.
We can grant SW a large orbital firing capacity, but nothing is practically fixed there either.

What about eventual missiles silos, their numbers, quantity of ammo, time to reload, range of various weapons, exact shields power, hull toughness and composition, sensor range, the way they really work, number of squadrons carried, firing arc of most TL cannons in fact, etc.
How many soldiers do ISD carry? How many of them can they deploy on planets?

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sun Jan 14, 2007 5:14 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
* They use fusion furnaces that burn hydrocarbons, ion engines for thrust, and antigravity drives for maneuvering close to planets.
They don't say what kind of fuel they use, do they?
What if it's some exotic and yet explosive shmuk?
It could be exotic; however, everything points to it being either (a) some variety of hydrocarbon or (b) something very similar.

IMO, it's likely to be a "heavy" hydrogen, deuterium/tritium enriched version, but the pieces are all there.
Practically, yes, but we don't know how focused they are.
Rather how fast they manoeuver. Their acceleration abilities seem to greatly differ depending on who makes the analysis, or if you watch the combat scenes or actually give weight to the schematic in the imeprial bunker at Endor, and above all, this is all relative to the DSII's size.
Then you can also give ROTS's opening scene a chance, and how that empty sky suddenly fill up with gazillons ships, supporting the idea the Venator Obi-Wan and Anakin flew by was orbiting the planet pretty fast.
No, we have very good figures for acceleration - as well as maneuvering, actually, which is to say acceleration along non-linear vectors/turn rates. The problem is not on the whole precision, but consistency.

The Endor bunker schematic calculations are, I would suggest, pure hand-waving. I'll be happy to explain why I settle on the figures I do - and why I don't bother to use that scene, which can't be pegged down to a solid value.
Besides, we can get the Gs, but we don't know the material properties, ergo we don't know the real average mass of the ships.
No, we don't know the bulk density ... although we can actually deduce limits directly from fuel, energy, and acceleration requirements, as well as behavior. For example, we can actually take a very good guess as to the density of X-Wing fighters, and take a reasonable crack at what the Republic attack cruisers and Invisible Hand.

(Surprise! Remind me to stick the mass/fuel limitations somewhere on my website. Actually, they're not that useful.)
Yeah, at least that's god enough to know how you need to manoeuver around them, and how many people they may carry.
But we know virtually nothing about the crew numbers.
True.
There seems, again, to be much disagreement about that.
Not within the "film canon." Oh, sure, there's the issue of Han coming out of hyperspace at one planetary diameter from the surface instead of the six that the Death Star approached to, but that's not as curious as it may seem at first glance.
There's still plenty of room for exotic materials, and acceleration figures are all but fixed.

Which seem to be quite impressive, in seeing how intermitent engines can make an ISD rotate so fast after being hit by ion bolts.
Start a thread about the ISD rotation over in Trek/Wars, I'll be happy to take a look at it.

In real world terms... Star Wars accelerations are quite impressive.
A couple of megatons, eventually, based on dubious old asteroid destruction VFX.

Yet a very extreme low end figure for such civilisations which have mastered fusion at packed it down to very small levels, literally down to the equivalent of personnal flying cars and domestic reactors for small houses.
More importantly, it's a low end for an advanced civilization that's mastered fusion and can miniaturize guided missiles to the size of a football. And that's why estimates for the total firepower of a Star Destroyer inevitably are significantly more than the figures touted for a single middle or small sized bolt.
Actually, we just got one blurry instance in some murky background in ROTJ. Hold me back.
No, actually, we get a feel for the typical rates of fire through every single battle scenes of the entire saga.

I think the ROTS battle is probably the most picturesque capital ship battle to date. Since you provide so much about rates of fire, I'm going to go start a thread quoting you in Trek/Wars.
Yes, based on VFX were the guy in charge simply removed a whole part of the ship after he considered that most of the asteroid explosion occupied enough room on screen, which leads to some funky material disappearance with some visual nonsense, where there's either a glaring lack of debris from the ship's part that's been obliterated, or from the super massive cloud of utterly vaporized that could only explain why matter disappears so conveniently.
The failings of the details of the VFX aside, the effects are described quite clearly - and for the most part, the ISDs hold up quite well against impact.
Wraith of Khan like ranges, or some more generous ones, as the one seen in TMP when the nubian ship was escaping the planet. Or the best one, with a heavy heavy ion cannon firing at ISDs located at a fair distance from the planet.
We can grant SW a large orbital firing capacity, but nothing is practically fixed there either.
Nothing is fixed, perhaps, but again, the problem is not precision, but consistency. As I point out on the main website, the bolts are simply depicted as too slow.
What about eventual missiles silos, their numbers, quantity of ammo, time to reload, range of various weapons, exact shields power, hull toughness and composition, sensor range, the way they really work, number of squadrons carried, firing arc of most TL cannons in fact, etc.
How many soldiers do ISD carry? How many of them can they deploy on planets?
Firing arcs are a physical issue you can best resolve through study of the model. Effective rates of fire we've talked about. Sensor range we actually have more information about than you might think. Hull toughness we have some information on through TESB and ROTJ - the hull is fairly tough, but not extraordinarily so.

The effectiveness of shields is measured best against the weapons... and yes, we don't know how many craft or soldiers they carry.

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Mr. Oragahn
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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:54 pm

Like you did for the ROF, we'd probably better start a thread for each main point cited above.

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