The SSD and 12 ISD's mix it up in Romulan space

[Trinoya]

Not if it's obvious.
Warp-drive involves bending space, just like gravity does; and ISD's don't have warp-drive.

I don't care what you presume to be obvious, making blanketed claims as you are doing requires evidence. I don't care if you tell me 2+2 = 4, you best damn well back it up. And I find it absolutely funny that you presume that because an ISD doesn't have warp drive it doesn't bend space at all.

That's one of those things when someone calls you "stoopid," i.e. it's a rock thrown by someone in a greenhouse.

I didn't call you stupid, I was shocked that you would claim something with the associated mass of the death star doesn't have greater stress points than something hundreds, thousands, or millions of times smaller. You act like just because it is in space it doesn't' have to deal with gravity or the laws of physics suddenly.

Artificial gravity works both ways, and the DS was built in zero gravity.
But the DS doesn't "move around planets--" it pops up in hyperspace and WAITS for them to orbit into range; they don't call it a "station" for laughs.

Obviously you're under the illusion that the DS was rocketing around Yavin in order to zap the Rebel base; but somehow you missed the absence of BIG HONKIN' THRUSTERS, like on the ISD's.

I'm under no illusions of anything. You can, of course, prove that the death star is incapable of propulsion beyond hyperspace, yes? I'm pretty sure there are some EU sources that claim otherwise, since it would be stupid to make a station incapable of adjusting its orbit or moving to some degree.

More like just lots of time and resources to waste building a big tub of junk that gets hulled in one shot. Oh yeah, it takes a miracle to build something in the zero gravity of outer space.
Clearly you don't understand it as well as you pretend... or much else.

The first part is not relevant to the conversation, and yes, if you want to build something like the death star without it collapsing in on itself it's pretty damn impressive... the death star itself emits gravity, all sorts of neat things emit gravity.

And the glass-house dweller throws one more stone....

I threw nothing, I made a statement of your apparent ignorance on the subject of blackholes.

Actually a black hole at the middle of an earth-sized planet, would require no more than 22 minutes for the planet to be entirely consumed.

You will provide your math, or your source, right? Or is this going to be another one of those 'it's just obvious' things?

Manipulating time and gravity are technically the same thing. However losing containment of a warp-drive is always pretty destructive.

*headdesk*

We've also seen Federation starships destroyed, and we don't see the anti-matter doing what it does elsewhere when unleashed.
More like it dissipates in both cases-- with the Romulan ship it's due to the small size, since normally it takes something 3x the mass of the sun to keep it from dissipating.
However in both cases, that's not the same as losing containment.

We shall just ignore how bringing up the antimatter has nothing to do with the topic... Naturally though if we need to go back to it, you'll tell me how much antimatter was on board, correct? Moving on...

You can quantify the mass of said singularities, their density? How about how they are contained? I mean if it just evaporates away after doing some damage to the surrounding deck then it wasn't very impressive, and I'm willing to bet puts less stress on the ship than the death star puts on itself by existing. I digress, this is clearly not going to get us anywhere any time soon.


Tell you what, when you come back with some evidence for the stuff you're saying, rather than just saying it I'll start to take you seriously. Till then, enjoy. The last one like you I wasn't a big fan of and it caused some problems, as such I shall respect the mods enough to leave things civil and leave the thread for now. See ya on the forums SW.

[User1601]

Not if it's obvious.
Warp-drive involves bending space, just like gravity does; and ISD's don't have warp-drive.

I don't care what you presume to be obvious,

That's nice, but I'm not here to spoonfeed and convince every noob who hocks out a contradiction.

That's one of those things when someone calls you "stoopid," i.e. it's a rock thrown by someone in a greenhouse.

I didn't call you stupid, I was shocked that you would claim something with the associated mass of the death star doesn't have greater stress points than something hundreds, thousands, or millions of times smaller.

Except that it's stationary with regard to inertia.

You act like just because it is in space it doesn't' have to deal with gravity or the laws of physics suddenly.

Or maybe inert objects simply involve different figures than ones that accelerate suddenly.

Artificial gravity works both ways, and the DS was built in zero gravity.
But the DS doesn't "move around planets--" it pops up in hyperspace and WAITS for them to orbit into range; they don't call it a "station" for laughs.

Obviously you're under the illusion that the DS was rocketing around Yavin in order to zap the Rebel base; but somehow you missed the absence of BIG HONKIN' THRUSTERS, like on the ISD's.

I'm under no illusions of anything. You can, of course, prove that the death star is incapable of propulsion beyond hyperspace, yes?

Obviously you're under the illusion that I have to prove a negative, when you have yet to prove a positive... however irrational thinking gives a good indication of why you hold such absurd beliefs.

I'm pretty sure there are some EU sources that claim otherwise,

And I'm absolutely positive that the EU has absolutely zero relevance to this topic.

since it would be stupid to make a station incapable of adjusting its orbit or moving to some degree.

Not if the station's only purpose was to destroy anything it orbited, since then there would be little time for the orbit to decay.

And the glass-house dweller throws one more stone....

I threw nothing, I made a statement of your apparent ignorance on the subject of blackholes.

"Apparent" to a complete pseudo-intellectual.

Actually a black hole at the middle of an earth-sized planet, would require no more than 22 minutes for the planet to be entirely consumed.

You will provide your math, or your source, right? Or is this going to be another one of those 'it's just obvious' things?

Kinda, since it requires 22 minutes for an object to fall to the center of the Earth, if there was a hole that deep; so if there were a black hole at the center, then it would require no more than 22 minutes for the planet's entire mass to collapse in on the black hole.

Manipulating time and gravity are technically the same thing. However losing containment of a warp-drive is always pretty destructive.

*headdesk*

I agree, you're quite out of your league-- no picnic for me either... in fact it's much worse.

We've also seen Federation starships destroyed, and we don't see the anti-matter doing what it does elsewhere when unleashed.
More like it dissipates in both cases-- with the Romulan ship it's due to the small size, since normally it takes something 3x the mass of the sun to keep it from dissipating.
However in both cases, that's not the same as losing containment.

We shall just ignore how bringing up the antimatter has nothing to do with the topic...

Speak for yoruself, it's called an "analogy." Look into it... as well as everything else.

Naturally though if we need to go back to it, you'll tell me how much antimatter was on board, correct? Moving on...

Enough that an ounce of it will rip away half a planet's atmosphere, if converted to energy-- but that draining an ounce has no appreciable effect on the ship.

You can quantify the mass of said singularities, their density? How about how they are contained? I mean if it just evaporates away after doing some damage to the surrounding deck then it wasn't very impressive,

The purpose is to move the ship at warp, not to impress the ignorant. The black hole is artificially created and maintained, and that IS impressive.

and I'm willing to bet puts less stress on the ship than the death star puts on itself by existing. I digress, this is clearly not going to get us anywhere any time soon.

Yes, you do "Babylon..." that's annoyingly obvious.

Tell you what, when you come back with some evidence for the stuff you're saying,

BWAHAHHAHHAHA

It's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun.

[Praeothmin]

Good old KSW is at it again.

Trinoya, don't waste your time with him, it's really not worth it... :)

[Mr. Oragahn]

I'm under no illusions of anything. You can, of course, prove that the death star is incapable of propulsion beyond hyperspace, yes? I'm pretty sure there are some EU sources that claim otherwise, since it would be stupid to make a station incapable of adjusting its orbit or moving to some degree.

The Death Star HAS ion thrusters. But they're massive. In fact, they're of the same type as those found here. And the performance of the thrusters on the Black Ice does hint at the Death Star not pulling impressive maneuvers at all. Nudges, perhaps.
I presented some figures, notably one that compared the volume of a ship to the cross section area of all its engines. The Black Ice had a ratio that was more than 157 times superior than the Death Star's, yet the BI is said to be lumbering, and technically has the agility of a beached whale.
Then, if you compare the Death Star to another imperial ship known to have ion engines, you'd be looking at the TIEs, and notice that although the crafts are quite agile, the twin ion engines are easily visible.
If you were to scale a TIE's ball cockpit to the dimensions of a Death Star, the engines would be enormous in the absolute.
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xbrook ... omber2.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/Xsydne ... 220067.JPG
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/chron/tieball2.jpg
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/ep4/dvtie2.jpg

[Praeothmin]

Funny thing is, if the DS was immobile, and simply waiting for the Rebel base to rotate into view, this means the Rebel base's moon must rotate at extremely high speeds, because it cleared almost half of Yavin IV (let's say 1/3) in less than 30 minutes...
Impressive...
That means, if Yavin IV had Jupiter's circumference, close to 450 000km, it means the moon rotates around Yavin IV at 300 000 km/h.
Except that if it did, wouldn't the people in the rebel base have felt it?
You know, since the moon most likely didn't have inertial dampeners and the moon was obviously moving very, very fast, like 83 km/second...

Yeah, much more plausible then the DS having thrusters... :)

[Lucky]

Funny thing is, if the DS was immobile, and simply waiting for the Rebel base to rotate into view, this means the Rebel base's moon must rotate at extremely high speeds, because it cleared almost half of Yavin IV (let's say 1/3) in less than 30 minutes...
Impressive...
That means, if Yavin IV had Jupiter's circumference, close to 450 000km, it means the moon rotates around Yavin IV at 300 000 km/h.
Except that if it did, wouldn't the people in the rebel base have felt it?
You know, since the moon most likely didn't have inertial dampeners and the moon was obviously moving very, very fast, like 83 km/second...

Yeah, much more plausible then the DS having thrusters... :)

There was also the fact that after destroying Alderran the DS-I seems to have moved to a farther orbit from the star since what was left of the planet kept following the original orbit at the original speed..

[Mike DiCenso]

Funny thing is, if the DS was immobile, and simply waiting for the Rebel base to rotate into view, this means the Rebel base's moon must rotate at extremely high speeds, because it cleared almost half of Yavin IV (let's say 1/3) in less than 30 minutes...
Impressive...
That means, if Yavin IV had Jupiter's circumference, close to 450 000km, it means the moon rotates around Yavin IV at 300 000 km/h.
Except that if it did, wouldn't the people in the rebel base have felt it?
You know, since the moon most likely didn't have inertial dampeners and the moon was obviously moving very, very fast, like 83 km/second...

Yeah, much more plausible then the DS having thrusters... :)

Except that that's not what was happening. The Death Star orbited Yavin at "maximum velocity", thus that is as fast as the thing can go under the circumstances. But why bother orbiting the gas giant when they could have powered out to a distance where Yavin IV would be completely visible, and in less time than orbiting the primary would allow? It's as if when the DS exits hyperspace, it has some KE imparted to it that can be controlled with the application of thrusters in a manner not unlike conventional real-world spacecraft that cannot make big changes on their own, but can use thrusters to nudge their trajectories for flybys or for other maneuvers.

So we have a bit of a mystery here as to what's actually going on with the DS1 at Yavin, and possibly at Alderaan as well since as Lucky points out, the DS1 was quite some distance out from where Alderaan was when the Millennium Falcon arrived on the scene.
-Mike

[User1601]

The question was not whether the DS moves at STL, but whether it uses thrusters in doing so, since this would produce unfathomable stresses on the hull-- which you're claiming is testament to miraculous engineering on the part of the empire; but I maintain that it does not use thrusters.

ALL SW ships (while the DS is not a ship but a station) use glowing thrusters for STL movement in outer space-- with the sole exception of Count Dooku's "solar-winds parachute" driven ship in AoTC (and which are obviously only good for moving away from the sun).

Since we don't see any glowing thrusters on the DS-- and we definitely would see them if they existed-- one would have to ask how it moves at STL?

Note here at 0:29, we see the DS very close to the surface of Yavin: this would indicate that it's using some means to keep from being pulled into it-- which would be anti-grav; and so, it can presumably likewise move parallel to Yavin's surface using the same means, like a giant sand-speeder; but it couldn't move independently of low-orbit of a planet, like a SD does.

Likewise, look at 5:46; the two shots are exactly 10 minutes apart (i.e. 15 and 5 minutes to firing-range, respectively), and the DS has orbited approximately 12 degrees-- or 1/30 the planet in low-orbit; so even if it was as small as Jupiter (unlikely, given an earth-type planet as a moon), thus yielding a velocity of over 2km/s.

So there's no question that the DS does move at STL speeds-- relative to a planet's surface, indicating some type of repulsor/antigrav tech for STL movement.
However again, using antigrav/repulsor tech, this wouldn't stress the hull in the same manner as a thruster-- which sustains my point about the DS using artificial gravity vs. thrusters.

Consider the structure of an ISD: the bigger it is, the more one-dimensional its design; for example, a SSD is proportionately much longer than a normal ISD, without having the same proportionate height-- as becomes obvious if we scale them to similar size:



As shown, the smaller SD's are much more 3-dimensional in shape, while the SSD is comparatively much flatter.
This difference in design, is clearly to accomodate the stress on the hull from linear acceleration of a thruster's uneven power-output (which makes a loud "roaring" sound inside the ship due to the white-noise from the randomness of it-- even in space; meanwhile an antigrav-driven ship like Luke's speeder or a Scout-bike, doesn't make a similar loud sound, even in an atmosphere).

Taking this into account, it's outright absurd for something the size of the DS to both move by thrusters like a ship, while being also spherical; even moving something 120km long by thrusters, would be impossible due to simple random differences in acceleration from thrusters causing it to collapse due to stress-point leverage.

Assuming that the DS is not made of anything thousands of times stronger than the ISD's (a safe assumption, since otherwise they'd naturally use that in constructing the ISD's), then there's no reason to suppose that the DS's structure would be immune to the same forces that affect ISD's when moving by thrusters.
Therefore, there's no reason to suppose that it could use thrusters at all.
If it could, then it would be ridiculous to make ISD's so linear in design, according to direction of acceleration-- and increasing relative linear proportions according to size.

[Praeothmin]

Likewise, look at 5:46; the two shots are exactly 10 minutes apart (i.e. 15 and 5 minutes to firing-range, respectively), and the DS has orbited approximately 12 degrees-- or 1/30 the planet in low-orbit; so even if it was as small as Jupiter (unlikely, given an earth-type planet as a moon), thus yielding a velocity of over 2km/s.

Yes, and then, barely 10 seconds before firing (less then five minutes later), it travelled 10 times that distance, indicating it accelerated.
Do you think it did that using Anti-grav only?

[User1601]

Yes, and then, barely 10 seconds before firing (less then five minutes later), it travelled 10 times that distance, indicating it accelerated.
Do you think it did that using Anti-grav only?

You've got to be joking.
As seen in the above two spots, the DS-graphic didn't move real-time: it moved in INCREMENTS.
So you're saying what-- one increment was bigger than the other, and so on that flimsy proof of a cheap graphic, you're claiming sudden tenfold acceleration in 10 seconds?

hold on...

wait a second.....


BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!
ROTFLMAO!

[Praeothmin]

Ah, so that "flimsy proof of a cheap graphic" can be used for your quasi-arguments, but I can't use it for my counter argument?
So you debate like Wong.
Noted... :)

[Admiral Breetai]

preaoth laying the smack down...there

[User1601]

Ah, so that "flimsy proof of a cheap graphic" can be used for your quasi-arguments, but I can't use it for my counter argument?
So you debate like Wong.
Noted... :)

So you compare 15 minutes of it, with 10 seconds of it-- when it only moved about 12 degrees overall, by which you're thus quibbling over a scant 1 degree of movement-- i.e. 2 minutes-worth advancement of a clock's hour-hand?

YOU debate like a GIRL!

Ok, ok... that was harsh... I apologize. :D

[Mike DiCenso]

The question was not whether the DS moves at STL, but whether it uses thrusters in doing so, since this would produce unfathomable stresses on the hull-- which you're claiming is testament to miraculous engineering on the part of the empire; but I maintain that it does not use thrusters.

ALL SW ships (while the DS is not a ship but a station) use glowing thrusters for STL movement in outer space-- with the sole exception of Count Dooku's "solar-winds parachute" driven ship in AoTC (and which are obviously only good for moving away from the sun).

Since we don't see any glowing thrusters on the DS-- and we definitely would see them if they existed-- one would have to ask how it moves at STL?

That was actually a very well thought out essay, KSW, and brought up a rather interesting point, neither I, nor anyone else has considered about Star Destroyer construction before. I wish you would do more like that instead of getting into screaming matched with people disagree with you.

Speaking of disagreement. I have to say that given the massive scale of the Death Stars, any one of the thousands of little lights we see in the distance shots of the battlestations could be thrusters, and we wouldn't be the wiser for it. All those thrusters have to be for is not main propulsion at all, but rather for attitude control, and minor course adjustments. Main propulsion is likely to be, if it exists at all, repulsor lift, since it is explicitly mentioned in the ANH novel that the DS1 had entered "antigravity range" of Alderaan. Thus the battlestation can pop out of hyperspace, allow a gravity well to pull it in, as may be the case at Yavin, and then "bounce" around or away from it once the repulsor antigrav range is met.
-Mike

[User1601]

I have to say that given the massive scale of the Death Stars, any one of the thousands of little lights we see in the distance shots of the battlestations could be thrusters, and we wouldn't be the wiser for it.

But then it would be the same with its resultant motion, so the point is moot: i.e. if you can't see it, then it can't do enough to be worth seeing.

All those thrusters have to be for is not main propulsion at all, but rather for attitude control, and minor course adjustments.

Assuming they are thrusters-- i.e they're there to spin the globe (and thus point the superlaser at the planet); but that's about all. That's not so much stress-- or power.
Likewise, it could be done strictly using antigravs/repulsors.

Main propulsion is likely to be, if it exists at all, repulsor lift, since it is explicitly mentioned in the ANH novel that the DS1 had entered "antigravity range" of Alderaan. Thus the battlestation can pop out of hyperspace, allow a gravity well to pull it in, as may be the case at Yavin, and then "bounce" around or away from it once the repulsor antigrav range is met.
-Mike

That also seems to be what we see n the "Starships" in AotC did-- i.e. the spherical ones on Geonosis, having no visible thrusters when they took off as the clones attacked them.

Clearly the DS couldn't accelerate to 2kps via thrusters in that amount of time; and it was mostly reactor, so the energy would be translated to motion via some invisible means-- which in SW tech, is only antigrav/repulsors.

And given the purpose of the DS, i.e. to destroy planets, then this would be the preferred means of propulsion; it wasn't exactly going to move from one planet to another in realspace, but simply destroy a planet in a system.

This bears out the notion, that the DS's propulsion-system was simply a titanic version of the speeder-cars on Coruscant.