Base Delta Zero

[Admiral Breetai]

light minute ranges and billions of planets being mined..Curtis Saxton never watched a single star wars movie..ever none of that is supported at all any conclusions on that level are reached due to massive fan biased

[StarWarsStarTrek]

What? Last I checked, US marines don't wear grass to protect themselves from bullets.

Unless you're actually naive enough to suggest that the asteroids would hide them--in which case you're wrong considering that both fleets were effortlessly able to track each other throughout the entire affair.

Which suggests that any ship attacking from behind would probably detect them too. And even if they were to have trouble, any of the three ships currently tracking the fleet would be able to give them the exact coordinates.

Nor does that solve the fact that Grievous used the asteroids as effective shields to get his ships within effective firing range.

A better analogy might be that infantrymen use wooden objects as cover in an urban firefight. Surely wood cannot stop bullets, but it can obscure the people being fired upon and slow down the bullets.

Similarly, a turbolaser hitting an asteroid is probably going to vaporize it, but it will detonate prematurely, protecting the fleet behind it.

Really? Alright then. In order to successfully argue such a thing, we will require all involved quotes and of course, the contextual paragraphs and we'll need to look over the grammatical and contextual atmosphere in order to determine the nuances of the statements in question.

I warn you, I am very, very good with the written language. Want to see just how good I am?



I at no point denied them. I've denied your conclusions. Conclusions based on someone whose concept of our language is so clumsy that if told to 'break a leg', you'd logically jump off a two story building with one leg firmly aimed downwards.

The Imperial Star Destroyer has enough firepower to reduce a civilized world to slag

These colossal, wedge-shaped behemoths, bristling with turboweapons and carrying entire TIE squadrons within them, each possess more firepower than the entire planetary forces of most worlds, and can reduce a planet surface to smoking debris in a matter of hours.



So go ahead and try and rationalize the above using your supposedly great language skills (translation: nitpicking technicalities to make out "civilized" as "cities").

Not only that, but rationalize your claim that my conclusions are as ridiculous as I claim. "reduce a civilized world to slag" can be interpreted with some flexibility, but my interpretation, even if you disagree with it, is not ridiculous and completely reasonable.

So prove:

1. That the above somehow do not support that BDZ's reduce world surfaces to slag

2. That my conclusion based on the above quotes is not only wrong, but ridiculous. I'm tired of you labeling every reasonable interpretation that you disagree with as "ridiculous".

You know, the sad part was that I was actually going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that I had somehow mad a mistake in replying to you, somehow misremembering a portion of our discussion.

Then of course, I was about to point how you could think I was agreeing with you--or that trying to be too clever for your own good doesn't do you any favors...and then I remember to check out my response to you...and I suddenly realize that no, I didn't make a mistake.

I was echoing your basic stance. I was essentially re-asking the question of how it could be a farce. Perhaps an unwise method of response, given the limitations of internet communication and some of the subtly lost in translation, but the fact of the matter is that my intent was made clear and you could not have possibly have misunderstood the intent of my response--so you clearly were either trying to intentionally misunderstand me in hopes to make me look like a fool or you're actually stupid enough to think that by responding to what amounts to fumes of the debate would actually somehow get you by.

So I'll put it so that your delicate sensibilities won't overreact with some sort of self-inflated delusion of wit: post an actual DBZ operation that clearly and vividly supports your argument of a literal slagging of the planet.

Dankayo.

It was the 90s, the VFX for such a thing would be outright impossible. I've already well put aside the issue of nitpicking primitive or limited VFX. That's an infancy that I've grown well past. It's one thing to use it as a base for calculations supported by character comments or plot points, but it's another thing entirely to try and hamstring an entire franchise relying solely on petty bullcrap.

You think the VFX problem is a mess for Star Trek? Guess how long it would take for me to bump down your entire franchise from kiloton firepower to a few dozen pounds of TNT via the visuals in the movies and the Clone Wars saga?

Allow me to tell you: about fifteen minutes. Even your precious ESB asteroid field display of firepower fails given that said asteroids tended to explode upon impact with each other, despite moving at velocities too slow to cause such explosions.

So if you want to try and toss around VFX limitations, be my guess. You twist my arm at worst and mutilated Star Wars at best.

Stop with your "we will drop suspension of disbelief for Star Trek when it suites Star Trek, while nitpicking a children's show for technical details" double standard. You're (or others) so obsessed with nitpicking the appearance of stuff in ROTS as "diesel fuel" and such, but when I point out, for example, that the Federation fleet moved within spitting distance of a borg cube, many Trekkies respond with "that's just for dramatic effect!"

Yes, hence 'roughly half'. It was a vague number. He was likely referencing 60% of their armament, though of course he could have meant more. My point being, that it didn't require their entire argument as you tried to claim.

Right. I should have said "most" instead of all. My point still stands, however. Even the most generous estimates of the asteroid's size point to an individual photon torpedo being high kiloton to single digit megaton range.

I never claimed it wasn't made of rock. However, we are then hit with the problem of higher gravity--which cannot be projected by an asteroid of that size and of just normal rock composition.

There may be some exotic element in the asteroid causing these effects; but it is not going to change the calculations significantly in the energy needed to shatter the asteroid.

Why would it be? Attempting to redefine Data's comment to fit anything you want it to makes the statement worthless. Nor does it address the issue of the gravity issues the shuttle would face.

The only logical conclusion is that the object was larger than the VFX showed it to be, which would explain the gravitational problems and the issue regarding Data's comment. To claim otherwise is just silly mind gymnastics designed to strap one down to what is admittedly flawed VFX.

A child could understand that. Why do I have to repeatedly explain it to you?

Do you know what a special effect is? Or do you need me to explain to you that while it is rather amusing to point to Star Wars and point out that I could probably escape their weapons range in a Ford Mustang, that maybe the interstellar warship might actually have an effective aiming range that exceeds a few hundred meters and require it to be the width of a barn?

...

So let me get this straight:

You're suggesting that an asteroid that shows up as 5 to 10 kilometers long is really several hundred to several thousand kilometers long, and that the visuals is just an OOU VFX error/messup (even though the VFX team has no problem depicting properly scaled stars)? Yet you turn around and ridicule the 900 km Death Star 2?

I suppose, that star destroyers have petaton range firepower because of the Dodonna quote. Visuals contradict this? Pssst. VFX error! By your logic, Picard, if your buddy told you that it is cloudy today, and you go outside and the sun is out with no clouds, you would take your friend's word over your eyes.

Visuals > dialogue. The former is infallible from an in universe standpoint, because it's being told by the non-biased reflection of light photons. Dialogue is being told by fallible, biased in universe personas.

Lucky? Yeah, it's lucky when the enemy hits your weak spot and cripples your ship. It's lucky when an asteroid floats in the way of the torpedo about to vaporize you.

It isn't exactly 'luck' that has anything to do with an entire bridge tower being blasted into a shower of metal via a love tap that according to your claims of firepower, would have bounced off like a water balloon hitting a US tank.

Voyager: Deadlock. A space capsule sized object moving at the speed of about a Voyager length per second hits an unshielded (much like the star destroyer bridge, which did not glow blue like it normally would if shielded) part of the Voyager. Janeway feels the need to explicitly order her crew to brace themselves (despite having been hit by photon torpedos already), and the resulting impact breeches the hull, and causes a bigger shake than the photon torpedos hitting the hulls.

The boarding teams proceeds to easily penetrate the ship, with the retarded redshirts getting easily gunned down by phasers that do not penetrate the shirts of the privates. None of them prepare defensive positions, no defensive doors are sealed, no chemical weapons to thwart the non NBC protected intruders, no defensive turrets; the only solution is to self destruct.

Evidence? Under what claims do you make these? The asteroids in the provided scenes weren't moving that fast to provide such explosions, no absurdly large asteroids should have gotten close--assuming anything remotely competent about their weapons and crew--, and there isn't any information that I know of from the characters or the plot that would suggest that these asteroids were moving at those speeds.

Citations are your friend.

Star Wars: RODV. The asteroids are described as impacting like "multi megaton compression bombs."

Given that we only see a few seconds of asteroids impacting the star destroyers in the movie, this is not contradicted.

Again, this requires that the asteroids hid the CIS fleet. They did not. Both fleets knew exactly where the other was. And even if somehow they had lost sensor contact when they entered the asteroid field (which they didn't as we clearly see Ashoka tracking them throughout the entire trek through said field), then it would have been rather easy to target the asteroids they were using to hide themselves and blast them away.

That's sort of the problem with claiming absurd amounts of firepower; it means that anyone with any basic grasp of sense or combat tactics would use said firepower to fix their problems. In this case, Anakin would have just mass scattered the entire asteroid belt in that section, either vaporizing the rocks or causing the rapidly shifting debris to move out of the way in order to locate the ships.

So even if we were to accept your absurd claim (which we won't because it's not true), it still fails.

Not hide; more like block, or obstruct. Turbolasers detonate when they hit something.

I never claimed that they couldn't carry thermonuclear warheads, please pay attention. I am pointing out that if their weapons were so powerful that capital ships deal out gigatons for their military transports--then surely their fighters would be at least armed with kiloton level firepower, would they not?

They are. Any thermonuclear weapon larger than a handheld weapon is going to be at least kiloton level.

And yet instead of utilizing this for a carpet bombing, which would have reduced the weight of the craft and saved on gas, they decided, by your logic, to load them down with heavier, inferior bombs compared to their lasers and drop those instead of firing from a greater distance (since you wouldn't need to be above them--oh yeah, learn the difference between bomb and a warhead of a missile or torpedo).

The fighters would not have only have been more effective in carrying out their missions from a speed/gas perspective, but they could have also moved in smaller packs, making it harder to intercept all of them since so many of them wouldn't have been required to make an effective attack run.

What part of film novels > TCW don't you understand? You are so eager to point out that TCW is higher than the EU, and are so eager to dismiss low end ST showings as VFX errors, yet you take the visuals of a children's cartoon as gospel, and think it to override G canon?

The far more sensible G canon film novels describe photon torpedos as being thermonuclear weapons. Your argument fails.

Except fighters and bombers are weapons used against warships. We even see Y-Wings dealing significant damage to frigates during Storm Over Ryloth.

Which you still take as gospel over the higher G canon, in which Ackbar specifies that their starfighters will only stand a chance if they can drop the imperial fleets' shields, and where in TPM Naboo's starfighter squadron is completely helpless against an improvised battleship.

And again, even if I were to acknowledge this as a genuine case (as if this would be the first case of Star Trek lower end display), why would it matter? Trek doesn't rely upon a layer canon policy that means that just because x contradicts y, that y is no longer valid. That's Star Wars.

Yet you assume the unspoken "high end contradicts low end for ST" bias. Why should we take your high end ST calculations as fact, while dismissing the low end calculations? Because they help your argument more?

--And here we already see the cracks in your argument. So let me get this straight. Your argument relies solely upon the flawed VFX that never properly shows ST STL speeds correct (you know, in the case of the Enterprise D moving at least near the speed of light in BoBW to catch up with the Borg, yet is trudging along at the usual gliding speed we see in every episode, right past Jupiter) and crashing through an unshielded shuttle bay door, is somehow comparable to an ISD's command bridge being torn off by a random asteroid that may have very likely have torn its way through shields?

Do you see now why no one here takes you at all seriously? Even me responding half ass to your arguments was more effort than was necessary to match your arguments and I've just shown to everyone how horribly messy and poorly parroted these arguments are.

By that logic, star destroyers are darn near relativistic because of their implied speeds in the Battles of Yavin and Endor. The Death Star's hull is 300,000 times stronger than structural steel, because it would have to be in order to keep up. Star destroyers would logically have similar quality hulls. Any contradictions can be attributed to the "VFX" errors that you are so eager to apply without support to ST (assuming an asteroid to be planetary sized because Data vaguely says so).

In fact, my claims actually make sense. The rebel and imperial fleets have to have been that fast in order for the battle to play out like it did. There is no possible rationalization for such a fact, no way to explain it away with VFX errors, nor with editing errors baring a major error in the plot. In contrast, the asteroid bridge seen can easily be handwaved as the asteroid really having been moving at relativistic speeds, and the lower implied speed being a VFX error/imperfection.

However, the Rebel Fleet suddenly appearing hundreds of thousands or more km's away from Yavin cannot be waved away as a visual error. It's essential to the plot.

[Admiral Breetai]

Which you still take as gospel over the higher G canon, in which Ackbar specifies that their starfighters will only stand a chance if they can drop the imperial fleets' shields, and where in TPM Naboo's starfighter squadron is completely helpless against an improvised battleship.

so we're going to ignore individual fighters destroying multiple shield towers? oh yeah! we're gonna ignore the fact that a fucking ISD was blasted to pieces by fighters..all during the battle of endor

that's right X wings took out shield towers one Asian guy blew himself up hitting an ISD and causing enough damage there was a traditional explosion in space..ah and of course an ISD expldoing..nowhere near a Mon Cal cruiser getting gutted by fighters...

the executor bridge tower getting knocked asround after we only saw on screen fighters doing damage to her..multiple instances of the Deathstars armor being torn into and killing troopers inside in ANH oh and in Endor actual fucking fire along certain parts of the DS

the best of all this is going by the OT you have fighter fire power of a yield so weak it completely failed to blow more then a piece of R2's little head off mulching people inside the DS doing enough damager to her second incarnations super structure that there where actual fires erupting at certain points...and of course that ISD that blew into a couple sections after not being shown to be hit by anything other than the fighters and the falcon...yields that couldn't do more than knock R2''s block off...certainly kiloton fire power or megaton was not used by the republic in episode one when Anakins fighter opened fire in cockbit and the shots looked more like high power blaster rounds that tore up some droids? or how about those awesome anti cap ship missiles that did less damage than a modern RPG does?

or the battle of Geanosis you have never addressed this one when brought up how come normal fired in atmosphere clearly sub kiloton shit completely fucked up multiple ships including a trade federation cap ship core? armor that can withstand gigatons suddenly jobbed out to...routine military grade stuff? really?

really..so much for base delta zero..either that or R2 must of been made on Krypton

really now especially seeing as during the battle of naboo one fighter lobs off a missile and nails a part of the Trade fed ship and causes an explosion that utterly dwarfs the fighter I mean seriously..how much distorting and twisting evidence are you going to do to cover up your inability to actually do anything other than repeat arguments?

I mean it's not like you weren't recently infracted for this kinda behavior..really gonna be doing it again?

[Mike DiCenso]

Dankayo.

Dankayo did not involve slagging or melting except in a very localized area (the small Rebel base), and even then the bombardment by three ISDs left structures still intact on the surface, which is why a Rebel survivor was able to climb back up, and witnessed Imperial stormtroopers searching for the base's computers to obtain intelligence on the Rebellion.

The Imperial Star Destroyer has enough firepower to reduce a civilized world to slag

These colossal, wedge-shaped behemoths, bristling with turboweapons and carrying entire TIE squadrons within them, each possess more firepower than the entire planetary forces of most worlds, and can reduce a planet surface to smoking debris in a matter of hours.

Oh, so we're to take this colorful description literally? Smoking debris does not equate to the crust of the world being reduced to molten lava. A typical lnuclear weapons exchange in our real life Cold War could have done that. Would you be willing to do the same for Trek? So here's Trek's equivalent:

WORF: You were trying to override the launch controls for the quantum torpedoes.

GARAK: I was hoping to gain control of the phasers as well. I just hadn't got around to it yet. Don't you see? We have an opportunity here. A chance to end the Dominion threat once and for all. We have enough firepower on this ship to turn that planet into a smoking cinder. Personally, I think that would be a very good thing.

This using a single ship, the Defiant, which is about the same size as a Corellian Corvette.
-Mike

[Mith]

A better analogy might be that infantrymen use wooden objects as cover in an urban firefight.

Not really, no. It's like an infantry man trying hide behind wooden objects while being fired on by bullet piercing armor from several heavily emplaced mini-guns that can easily lock onto your position and tear through said protection within seconds.

Surely wood cannot stop bullets, but it can obscure the people being fired upon and slow down the bullets.

The problem is that in this scenario is that the objects would not provide adequate protection for the ships at the ROF we've seen Venator ships fire at in the series. It would take them less than a minute to punch their way through the field from the one side of it--let alone someone attacking them while they're hiding behind asteroids.

Similarly, a turbolaser hitting an asteroid is probably going to vaporize it, but it will detonate prematurely, protecting the fleet behind it.

Unless of course, said asteroid explodes near it and sends small bits of rock flying into your hull at high speeds, which we've already established is rather lethal to SW ships. Nor of course, was their asteroid thick enough that you couldn't easily adjust your aim to fire directly at said ship, since the ring was rather flat. Any ship could appear over it and start firing at the target--with only a handful of rocks in the way. When your ships can unload dozens of shots per second, that doesn't mean a damn thing.

The Imperial Star Destroyer has enough firepower to reduce a civilized world to slag. These colossal, wedge-shaped behemoths, bristling with turboweapons and carrying entire TIE squadrons within them, each possess more firepower than the entire planetary forces of most worlds, and can reduce a planet surface to smoking debris in a matter of hours.

So...this is it? You apparently didn't understand me (again). I want the quotes. All of them. And then I want to sit down and show you exactly why you're wrong. Simply quoting the ISB and expecting that to work isn't going to fly. The quote itself is designed to paint an image--the less space you have, the more likely you're going to use hyperbole to get the point across.

So go ahead and try and rationalize the above using your supposedly great language skills (translation: nitpicking technicalities to make out "civilized" as "cities").

I'm sorry, what?

Not only that, but rationalize your claim that my conclusions are as ridiculous as I claim. "reduce a civilized world to slag" can be interpreted with some flexibility, but my interpretation, even if you disagree with it, is not ridiculous and completely reasonable.

Yes it is. It is entirely unreasonable because you've decided on a literal meaning of the word when said word is not often used literally. Even the description of 'vaporized', 'leveled', and 'obliterated' are rarely used to describe their literal meaning. You willfully ignore that our language is more than just a collection of singular meanings per word--our words can have dozens of meanings depending upon context. That's why it's important to show us a proper, literal description of slagging.

So prove:

1. That the above somehow do not support that BDZ's reduce world surfaces to slag

Done.

2. That my conclusion based on the above quotes is not only wrong, but ridiculous. I'm tired of you labeling every reasonable interpretation that you disagree with as "ridiculous".

I've explained to you repeatedly why it's ridiculous. Your response is to keep whining that I'm nitpicking and avoiding posting the incidents of BDZs while trying to pass off obtuse flavor text as if it were some sort of scientific analysis.

It isn't.

Dankayo.

And? Where are my quotes? I need the quotes. The actual quotes you claim support your stance. How hard is it, for you to post the actual damn quotes that support what you claim to be 'the honest to God clear cut, inescapable truth!'?! You keep touting how this is true, yet you've been trying to float your entire argument on the ISB. Novel descriptions, where are they? Where is the slagged surface of the planets? Where is the at least five meter or so shedding of the surface?

Stop with your "we will drop suspension of disbelief for Star Trek when it suites Star Trek, while nitpicking a children's show for technical details" double standard.

I've done no such thing. I've already stated that I haven't at all used the visual limitations of CW against them. I've simply used plot points and actual statements. Of course, you'd know this if you actually knew about the CW episode in general. You clearly don't since you tried to claim that the asteroids hid them (yeah, restating your analogy to mean something entirely different isn't going to make me forget that you had no idea what you were talking about).

You're (or others) so obsessed with nitpicking the appearance of stuff in ROTS as "diesel fuel" and such, but when I point out, for example, that the Federation fleet moved within spitting distance of a borg cube, many Trekkies respond with "that's just for dramatic effect!"

Yes, because the stated distances, speeds, and so forth directly contradict the visuals. So either we must assume that everyone in Starfleet is incapable of reading the distance readout on their bloody consoles, or maybe we can suspend disbelief and assume they know what the fuck they're talking about.

However, not letting yourself being hamstrung by visuals does not mean that visuals are worthless. So when we see some sort of special fluid, we will try and determine what it is. Now, if a character says it's x and characters constantly treat it as x, even if it's y, then there's a good chance I'd say 'if the story is treating it as x, then so should we, even if that's wrong'.

There might be reasons to override this of course. I mean, if someone says something is '10 feet away!' and it's closer to say, twelve, then I wouldn't mind. Because that's not all that uncommon in real life for people to round to the best of their abilities because of limitations in our biology.

Right. I should have said "most" instead of all. My point still stands, however. Even the most generous estimates of the asteroid's size point to an individual photon torpedo being high kiloton to single digit megaton range.

Not it doesn't--and even if it did, it's on the lower order of the scale. It's the minimum energy needed to fulfill what Riker was stated to intend to do. Since we in fact, did not see the quantification of it, we cannot accurately claim either way. In fact, if one were to be honest, they'd go the middle road between the highest and the lowest interpretation.

There may be some exotic element in the asteroid causing these effects; but it is not going to change the calculations significantly in the energy needed to shatter the asteroid.

What brings you to that conclusion? That gravity and magnetic fields suddenly stop existing when it becomes inconvenient for you?

...

So let me get this straight:

You're suggesting that an asteroid that shows up as 5 to 10 kilometers long is really several hundred to several thousand kilometers long, and that the visuals is just an OOU VFX error/messup (even though the VFX team has no problem depicting properly scaled stars)? Yet you turn around and ridicule the 900 km Death Star 2?

I never claimed it was really several hundred to several thousand kilometers long, stop trying to make things up. We could be looking at a small planetoid here. Something on the order of a 20-40 kilometers could be correct-fullfilling Data's statement of 'planetary body' since planetoids are indeed fitting of that requirement. It would also more likely have the sort of gravity and magnetic shifts that might cause a shuttle to be overloaded.

Of course, we do still come to the problem of the collapsing cavern on the Enterprise D, but by adjusting the size to a more realistic setting, we can scoot on by.

I suppose, that star destroyers have petaton range firepower because of the Dodonna quote. Visuals contradict this? Pssst. VFX error! By your logic, Picard, if your buddy told you that it is cloudy today, and you go outside and the sun is out with no clouds, you would take your friend's word over your eyes.

I'm Mith.

I am not stating that visuals should be ignored. I am supporting what supports the story. A small, 10 km asteroid doesn't match up to what the story is saying it is. Similar to how I wouldn't start screaming like a banshee how everyone in Star Wars is crazy for believing they have hover cars when we see the wheels at the bottom of them.

You know, stuff like that.

Visuals > dialogue.

I disagree. I have absolutely no reason to support such an absurd, silly belief as that. VFX is just as often fucked up as character statements.

The former is infallible from an in universe standpoint, because it's being told by the non-biased reflection of light photons. Dialogue is being told by fallible, biased in universe personas.

Except of course, you ignore the fact of reality; that VFX isn't perfect. You can scream 'suspension of disbelief!' all you want, but the fact of the matter is that this is simply a poor man's way of ignoring what the story is saying and focusing simply on what is in reality, a flawed showing of the story's vision.

Take for example, Vader's force choke. We see that when he chokes one poor shmuck and he drops to the ground, that the two men helping him up are assisted by the dead man himself.

So what, does that mean the guy isn't dead and Vader doesn't actually have any force powers, they just all collectively fuck with him? Or again, the fact that the asteroids explode as if they're already rigged to do so, therefore vastly reducing any sort of firepower claim you could get?

Those are all valid points by your draconian claims of 'unbiased, perfect and infallible science'.

Voyager: Deadlock. A space capsule sized object moving at the speed of about a Voyager length per second hits an unshielded (much like the star destroyer bridge, which did not glow blue like it normally would if shielded) part of the Voyager. Janeway feels the need to explicitly order her crew to brace themselves (despite having been hit by photon torpedos already), and the resulting impact breeches the hull, and causes a bigger shake than the photon torpedos hitting the hulls.

So what? It was clearly a boarding vessel that was moving at the high sublight speeds that we're told they move at in Trek. What's your deal?

The boarding teams proceeds to easily penetrate the ship, with the retarded redshirts getting easily gunned down by phasers that do not penetrate the shirts of the privates. None of them prepare defensive positions, no defensive doors are sealed, no chemical weapons to thwart the non NBC protected intruders, no defensive turrets; the only solution is to self destruct.

I really don't care since the Voyager crew is not only half filled with civilians armed with guns, but a rather incompetent crew to begin with. To the point that where even the dumber TNG and DS9 crew clearly draw conclusions that the entire crew can't think of.

Like revoking the traitor's access codes.

Star Wars: RODV. The asteroids are described as impacting like "multi megaton compression bombs."

Given that we only see a few seconds of asteroids impacting the star destroyers in the movie, this is not contradicted.

Here's a hint for the future: when I say I want a citation, I mean the quote, not just the book. I'm not going to the library to read a dreadful SW book because you can't provide what you're required to.

Not hide; more like block, or obstruct.

But that's not what you said. Stop trying to pretend that you were trying to imply something else when you clearly weren't. No one is that stupid.

Turbolasers detonate when they hit something.

...And? There would be, at best a half dozen rocks between them and any ship that tried to hyperjump from behind to strike at them (since they'd appear over the asteroid field). A single volley would not only remove the asteroids in the way, but they'd also strike the unshielded rear.

They are. Any thermonuclear weapon larger than a handheld weapon is going to be at least kiloton level.

Except they clearly don't as they clearly never use them in higher canon when logic would dictate that they would.

What part of film novels > TCW don't you understand?

And in what instance is there that their guns have nuclear firepower? I never claimed that they can't arm their ships with nuclear missiles or bombs. I never said that at all. So again, where is the evidence that their blasters are kt level?

You are so eager to point out that TCW is higher than the EU, and are so eager to dismiss low end ST showings as VFX errors, yet you take the visuals of a children's cartoon as gospel, and think it to override G canon?

I have never at any point said that. Stop drawing conclusions based on faulty arguments.

The far more sensible G canon film novels describe photon torpedos as being thermonuclear weapons. Your argument fails.

Allow me to be very, very clear:

WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT PROTON TORPEDOES. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT BOMBS. BOMBS ARE NOT TORPEDOES. THEY FALL AND BLOW UP. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE LIMITATIONS OF THE BOMBS AND THE LASERS ATTACHED TO THE FIGHTERS. YOUR ARGUMENT IS NOT ADDRESSING THE POINT.

Oh yeah, and just because something is a thermonuclear warhead, doesn't mean that it's kiloton. Tactical nukes the size of footballs have the yield of 10-40 tons.

Which you still take as gospel over the higher G canon, in which Ackbar specifies that their starfighters will only stand a chance if they can drop the imperial fleets' shields,

...So what? There's a difference in not being able to present a naval threat and not being able to harm something period. These fighters do not have even ton level firepower in their lasers, yet we see that in the Clone Wars, they can harm capital ships with them. Whether that applies to ISDs or SSDs twenty years later when combat technology has significantly changed from the more peaceful Republic has no implications upon that fact.

and where in TPM Naboo's starfighter squadron is completely helpless against an improvised battleship.

So what? Just because some fighters are helpless in one case does not make them useless in all other cases. It depends upon armament, durability, and other assets. A Munificient is not the same as an ISD. A handful of Naboo fighters is not the same as a wing of heavily armed Y-Wings.

Yet you assume the unspoken "high end contradicts low end for ST" bias.

No I don't.

Why should we take your high end ST calculations as fact, while dismissing the low end calculations? Because they help your argument more?

I do dismiss high end trek feats. I typically assume that the TDiC fleet had some sort of subspace weapons or something with them when they wanted to bomb the Founder homeworld. I assume that subspace weapons were used in Booby Trap instead of ancient conventional ones. I take conservative calculations in regards to Apocalypse Rising. I assume that when Garak said "This ship [Defiant] has enough firepower to turn this planet into a cinder!" I don't assume he's speaking literally and that the Defiant literally has enough firepower to reduce an entire planet to a small burning cinder in space or that it's going to literally slag the surface--no, I assume that he means heavy bombardment of a Class M world that would render said world uninhabitable and ensure planet-side population centers and life all but--if not totally exterminated.

That is what I assume. And that is what I uphold.

By that logic, star destroyers are darn near relativistic because of their implied speeds in the Battles of Yavin and Endor.

Why?

The Death Star's hull is 300,000 times stronger than structural steel, because it would have to be in order to keep up.

Again, why?

Star destroyers would logically have similar quality hulls. Any contradictions can be attributed to the "VFX" errors that you are so eager to apply without support to ST (assuming an asteroid to be planetary sized because Data vaguely says so).

But you would need evidence to support they're moving that fast, not simply because you want them to be that fast in some sort of petty attempt at trying to level the playing fields to fit your version of events.

In fact, my claims actually make sense. The rebel and imperial fleets have to have been that fast in order for the battle to play out like it did.

Why? Please post evidence supporting your claims.

There is no possible rationalization for such a fact, no way to explain it away with VFX errors, nor with editing errors baring a major error in the plot.

You need a reason to make these assertions, you just can't use it as an attempt to hand wave the holes in your argument. That's no better than embracing your draconian stance on VFX being always right.

In contrast, the asteroid bridge seen can easily be handwaved as the asteroid really having been moving at relativistic speeds, and the lower implied speed being a VFX error/imperfection.

Since when do asteroids travel at relativistic speeds? Why would we believe it would be traveling that fast? You can't just pick and choose evidence and methods of determining truth just because it suits you.

However, the Rebel Fleet suddenly appearing hundreds of thousands or more km's away from Yavin cannot be waved away as a visual error. It's essential to the plot.

You need to explain your claims and then support them. What makes you think it wasn't a jump-cut? Or that they performed a small hyperspace jump? Or that, if going the route of a VFX error, that they simply weren't closer than what they had been originally shown? Where is the logic to support these sudden claims of yours?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Mith, I'd be surprised if the Imperial Sourcebook quotes weren't already provided in this thread.

[General Donner]

I don't see anything huge about it.
Check out the Dankayo quotes, and you'll see that it's very easy to conflate the references to the planet with those to the base of the same name.
With an artificial atmosphere, the question isn't evenworth asking anymore.
And if the surface was so damaged to the point where a lot of it would be turned into some viscuous liquid, you couldn't see shit, and certainly not easily get out and have a walk on the surface. Yet the rebel agent did, used binoculars and could look at the base's buildings on the surface without any problem.

Obviously Dankayo wasn't a molten orb like Humbarine (from EP3:ICS) was supposed to have been after a BDZ-like bombardment. I acknowledged as much, the people who claimed that were being dishonest even back in 2000 when (IIRC) this stuff first came up on SWTC and ASVS if they bothered to read the book.

It does still talk about atmosphere and topsoil, though. Doesn't topsoil indicate an earthlike planet with a native atmosphere and a climate? And there's nothing saying Dankayo was a small planet with microgravity and stuff either I can remember.

It's an inconsistency, but isn't it a bit too easy to just write it off as the base's artificial atmosphere?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Soontir_ ... al_service
Fel was born in 28 BBY. He became a captain at the age of 24-25, so 4-3 BBY.
The blockade took place in 2 BBY.

Then something's wonky with either the timeline or the original comic where this was mentioned. In the comic ("The Making Of Baron Fel"), the guy was still in the starfighter force by then -- he got promoted to major shortly after ANH. I don't think I have to explain to anyone why that's inconsistent with a captain's rank in the navy ... ;)

Not only it's quite absurd to believe that one would be put at the helm of a warship without having the slightest idea of what it's capable of, but he certainly had commanded the dreadnought he'd used for the blockade for more than a year. More than enough to, again, know what it can do, even when pushed at full.

Where does it say he had commanded the ship for that long? The impression I got was that he was new on the post and nervous because this was his first major operation.

I might be misremembering stuff of course, or maybe it's yet another retcon. But I remember it differently, hence asking. ;)

[General Donner]

The Imperial Star Destroyer has enough firepower to reduce a civilized world to slag

These colossal, wedge-shaped behemoths, bristling with turboweapons and carrying entire TIE squadrons within them, each possess more firepower than the entire planetary forces of most worlds, and can reduce a planet surface to smoking debris in a matter of hours.

Oh, so we're to take this colorful description literally? Smoking debris does not equate to the crust of the world being reduced to molten lava. A typical lnuclear weapons exchange in our real life Cold War could have done that.

While it doesn't need crust melting by far, the Cold War really couldn't, not on a global scale. Even a total nuke-out in the 1980s wouldn't kill more than maybe a couple of hundred million people absolute tops from direct effects. The billions who'd die later on would do so from starvation, thirst, and disease as global infrastructure broke down. But most of the planetary surface would still be untouched by any weapon.

To cause destruction of that kind on a global scale you quite likely still need gigatons of firepower, if not more. Lord Edam from ASVS had a page on this stuff way back, and while his numbers were of course smaller than Wong's, they still came out quite impressive IIRC.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Obviously Dankayo wasn't a molten orb like Humbarine (from EP3:ICS) was supposed to have been after a BDZ-like bombardment.

Yes, but that's a forced BDZ interpretation by Saxton himself. That's quite the crux of the cheating here. Regardless of introducing major inconsistencies, he made it good enough to have his wanky views inserted into the EU through no less than three books, one of which he was the author (E2:ICS), and two others for which he was a consultant (E3:ICS and ITW:OT); and you can safely assume that he pretty met no resistance whatsoever for the last two, considering what got sneaked into those, from the teraton broadsides to the 900 km wide DSII.

He pretty much ruined those three books because he couldn't give a rat's arse about true consistency.

It does still talk about atmosphere and topsoil, though. Doesn't topsoil indicate an earthlike planet with a native atmosphere and a climate? And there's nothing saying Dankayo was a small planet with microgravity and stuff either I can remember.

Nothing says it was big either. Topsoil can be found on places such as Mars, Mercury and the Moon:

Last year the French astronomer, Audouin Dollfus, called attention to striking similarities in the regolith (top soil) of the Moon, Mercury and Mars, ...

It's an inconsistency, but isn't it a bit too easy to just write it off as the base's artificial atmosphere?

Why not? Since Dankayo is also used to identify the base, it's totally possible that the surface of Dankayo was that of the base, which we know had stuff on its surface, buildings and defenses, and the atmosphere that of the base as well.

As I said, to remove the atmosphere of a planet would require to input so much energy into the ground (it's a very unefficient process) that you'd leave a pool of molten material all over the planet while having, at the same time, created a completely opaque raging storm that would piss at your average ionic storm you can find in the typica TV SF.

The idea that stortroomers and TIEs would be sent down into that for some mop-up operation is most laughable. Not only they couldn't do anything worth it due to the conditions, be it walking in seas of lava, surviving the ever falling debris, or flying TIEs through that storm, but there's the simple fact that there's just no point achieving some mop up operation once you've damaged a planet to that extent.

That's why it doesn't work at all. You can read ALL the Dankayo quote here (numerous typos, unfortunately).
I made one single error, in thinking the planet was small. But in the end, nothing says it's anywhere Mercury, Mars or even Earth sized. Not that it matters much because I don't think the text says the whole planet was bombarded, but only the base of the same name:

Contrary to the commander's beliefs, however, the datapacks are not worthless. Dankayo's automatic destruct sequence, designed to destroy every last scrap of data contained in the base's memory banks in case of an attack, had failed. The seemingly useless datapacks actually contain complete, detailed information about every Rebel intelligence operation under Dankayo's control. Now that information is enroute to the Imperial Intelligence center on Coronar. Once decoded and analyzed, the Empire will use the data to hunt down and destroy the unsuspecting agents, safehouses, and contacts that help the Alliance.

As far as I know, the Rebels didn't plan to blow the whole planet, did they?
Nor could they, anyway.

Besides, it's clearly established in the very first quote that it's the base that would be targeted. Otherwise, the order would have been to slag the planet, not the base.
In the Read Aloud section, it's again confirmed that it's the base that was attacked, not the entire planet, and we see that although the orders were to slag the base, the effects were simply nowhere near the inflated interpretation we got served with by Saxtonites.

See the link to my post, and then the replies and other comments following it, to enhance your interpretation of this.

Then something's wonky with either the timeline or the original comic where this was mentioned. In the comic ("The Making Of Baron Fel"), the guy was still in the starfighter force by then -- he got promoted to major shortly after ANH. I don't think I have to explain to anyone why that's inconsistent with a captain's rank in the navy ... ;)

Perhaps. Can't tell, it's all up to the dates. I still find it totally odd to see a TIE pilot suddenly put at the helm of a dreadnought though. And even more odd the idea that this same individual would have no clue about what a BDZ is or what the ship is capable of.

Where does it say he had commanded the ship for that long? The impression I got was that he was new on the post and nervous because this was his first major operation.

I might be misremembering stuff of course, or maybe it's yet another retcon. But I remember it differently, hence asking. ;)

Well, the difference between the time he became captain, and the attack on Nal Hutta.

[General Donner]

Yes, but that's a forced BDZ interpretation by Saxton himself. That's quite the crux of the cheating here. Regardless of introducing major inconsistencies, he made it good enough to have his wanky views inserted into the EU through no less than three books, one of which he was the author (E2:ICS), and two others for which he was a consultant (E3:ICS and ITW:OT); and you can safely assume that he pretty met no resistance whatsoever for the last two, considering what got sneaked into those, from the teraton broadsides to the 900 km wide DSII.

He pretty much ruined those three books because he couldn't give a rat's arse about true consistency.

Saxton wasn't just consultant on Ep3:ICS, he wrote it wholesale. Additionally, he did consulting on Inside The Worlds: Attack of the Clones. So it was two books he authored (ICS), two he was consultant on (ITW).

Otherwise you're more or less right. I didn't mean to use it as an example of what BDZ can canonically and consistently do, just an example of how I don't interpret Dankayo. Sorry if that was unclear.

I still kind of like the ICS and their attention to scientific detail though, even if the numbers don't usually mesh with the rest of the EU. It's nice to see books written by someone who both knows this stuff a bit and cares ... ;)

Nothing says it was big either. Topsoil can be found on places such as Mars, Mercury and the Moon:

Last year the French astronomer, Audouin Dollfus, called attention to striking similarities in the regolith (top soil) of the Moon, Mercury and Mars, ...

Hmm... odd. I thought topsoil required a biosphere.

[Some snippage]

Besides, it's clearly established in the very first quote that it's the base that would be targeted. Otherwise, the order would have been to slag the planet, not the base.
In the Read Aloud section, it's again confirmed that it's the base that was attacked, not the entire planet, and we see that although the orders were to slag the base, the effects were simply nowhere near the inflated interpretation we got served with by Saxtonites.

See the link to my post, and then the replies and other comments following it, to enhance your interpretation of this.

I still don't agree entirely, but you do make a lot of good points. I'll reread the actual book (I hate reading long texts off screens!) and see what it says, with your arguments duly noted. Consider the issue conceeded for now.

Perhaps. Can't tell, it's all up to the dates. I still find it totally odd to see a TIE pilot suddenly put at the helm of a dreadnought though. And even more odd the idea that this same individual would have no clue about what a BDZ is or what the ship is capable of.

From what I get it there can maybe be different kinds of Base Delta Zero -- some of them take a whole planet, and others smaller areas. Darkstar talks about an armored regiment doing BDZs I think; those are obviously going to be not the same kind as the ones Star Destroyers fire off at people. Maybe Fel (who was in the airforce/starfighters) was used to the smaller kind, the one the First Suns (regiment) did?

Though this is speculation from me. But all BDZ definitions I've seen do say they have to kill off all life on the target. If the orbital bombardment leaves a significant number of people alive to hide in the ruins -- even a fractional percentage -- I have a hard time seeing how the few troops Greelanx's fleet carried would be able to hunt them all down. They'd need much larger ground forces for that, I'd think.

Well, the difference between the time he became captain, and the attack on Nal Hutta.

The wikia article might have mixed up his starfighter captain's rank with his naval one. Or maybe they got the date wrong. I'll try and check around my books to see what I can find -- as things stand now the whole business is just confusing to me. Because as you said, it makes no sense to give a dreadnought to a starfighter squadron leader.

[Picard]

The Imperial Star Destroyer has enough firepower to reduce a civilized world to slag

Over how many milennia? One heavy TL shot "vaporizes" small city according to canon - that is 1.4 megatons to 4.6 megatons high end. That is... quite below what you suggest.

You cherrypick from Star Wars non-canon, while ignoring loads of evidence that both canon and EU provide to contrary.

So go ahead and try and rationalize the above using your supposedly great language skills (translation: nitpicking technicalities to make out "civilized" as "cities").

"Civilized" civilization usually have cities, which are centers of commerce, industry, etc. To destroy advanced civilization, it is enough to destroy cities, eventually returning them back to pre-industrial era.

Stop with your "we will drop suspension of disbelief for Star Trek when it suites Star Trek, while nitpicking a children's show for technical details" double standard

Unlike EU, that "Children's show" is canon, althought ways below movies and their novelizations.

so obsessed with nitpicking the appearance of stuff in ROTS as "diesel fuel" and such,

Beacouse it appears that way in canon. (Booze powered starships... might explain quite few things about Imperial "competence").

http://www.drawingboard.org/files/drunktrooper_867.jpg

http://picard578.hostoi.com/startrek-vs ... power.html

but when I point out, for example, that the Federation fleet moved within spitting distance of a borg cube, many Trekkies respond with "that's just for dramatic effect!"

Beacouse we have canon evidence that they can engage from much further away. And I don't remember anyone saying it was for dramatic effect only - it might be to improve accuracy against subsystems, due to jamming (we know sensors can be jammed (TNG: "Wounded" for example), and Borg cube is probably as massive as small fleet), or beacouse Borg exited from warp in middle of fleet.

Right. I should have said "most" instead of all. My point still stands, however. Even the most generous estimates of the asteroid's size point to an individual photon torpedo being high kiloton to single digit megaton range.

If that is about "Pegasus", I already explained why asteroid was most likely about to be vaporized.
http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 2&start=15

Yet you assume the unspoken "high end contradicts low end for ST" bias. Why should we take your high end ST calculations as fact, while dismissing the low end calculations? Because they help your argument more?

Beacouse all, or most, low-end ST calculations I saw on SDN, for example (those for "Pegasus" and "11% improved yield" episode) are biased and, in case of second one, ignore the fact that torpedoes have variable yield.

Battles of Yavin

Star Destroyers in Battle of Yavin? Where?

In contrast, the asteroid bridge seen can easily be handwaved as the asteroid really having been moving at relativistic speeds, and the lower implied speed being a VFX error/imperfection.

It's... this.

However, the Rebel Fleet suddenly appearing hundreds of thousands or more km's away from Yavin cannot be waved away as a visual error. It's essential to the plot.

Where? When?

In fact, if one were to be honest, they'd go the middle road between the highest and the lowest interpretation.

No, they would go with most logical explanation given the context.

EDIT:
http://picard578.blogspot.com/2010/10/e ... -zero.html

[Mr. Oragahn]

Pica, could you please avoid taking the bait when SWST brings irrelevant Star Trek related arguments into this thread? Thanks!!! ;)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Saxton wasn't just consultant on Ep3:ICS, he wrote it wholesale.

Got mixed up. Didn't he write it along another dude though? I thought only AOTC's ICS had 100% Saxtonian writings?

I still kind of like the ICS and their attention to scientific detail though, even if the numbers don't usually mesh with the rest of the EU. It's nice to see books written by someone who both knows this stuff a bit and cares ... ;)

Of course those books are nice. The ITW are awesome as well, full of gorgeous details. It's just a pity that their text sections were made unreliable.

From what I get it there can maybe be different kinds of Base Delta Zero -- some of them take a whole planet, and others smaller areas. Darkstar talks about an armored regiment doing BDZs I think; those are obviously going to be not the same kind as the ones Star Destroyers fire off at people. Maybe Fel (who was in the airforce/starfighters) was used to the smaller kind, the one the First Suns (regiment) did?

Though this is speculation from me. But all BDZ definitions I've seen do say they have to kill off all life on the target. If the orbital bombardment leaves a significant number of people alive to hide in the ruins -- even a fractional percentage -- I have a hard time seeing how the few troops Greelanx's fleet carried would be able to hunt them all down. They'd need much larger ground forces for that, I'd think.

There has been an application of a localized BDZ. It was supposed to be about applying BDZ effects to a localized area, and that was achieved by infantry.
Still, Fel was given order to achieve a BDZ over the whole of the Hutt planet.
Oh wait, did I say it was Nal Hutta? Damn, I think it's Nar Shaadda.

You don't need to literally melt the surface of a planet to kill life. A rigorous carpet bombing of high kiloton shots will do that. The turbolaser can even hit deep water targets.
The rest, the pollution and the intense nuclear winter resulting from the complete bombardment of the planet will achieve killing all life as the lowest tiers of the food chain will collapse.
Plus since TL are actually radioactive, this just adds another destructive effect to the bombardment.

Aside from absolute destruction levels, we have definitions of BDZs that merely point at the destruction of agricultural and industrial assets and population centers, not the melting of every single possible grain of sand that may be exploited by the Empire or someone else.

The wikia article might have mixed up his starfighter captain's rank with his naval one. Or maybe they got the date wrong. I'll try and check around my books to see what I can find -- as things stand now the whole business is just confusing to me. Because as you said, it makes no sense to give a dreadnought to a starfighter squadron leader.

You're right. It's totally possible, and wouldn't be the first time a wiki author gets his stuff wrong.

[General Donner]

Got mixed up. Didn't he write it along another dude though? I thought only AOTC's ICS had 100% Saxtonian writings?

EP3:ICS lists him as the author. Co-credits as best I know went to the illustrators, not any co-author.

I suspect executive meddling however, since all the clearly stated numbers from the previous book were absent in that one, replaced with vaguer stuff like "annihilation of 40,000 tons of fuel" or "power to melt an icemoon x miles in diameter" etc.

You don't need to literally melt the surface of a planet to kill life. A rigorous carpet bombing of high kiloton shots will do that. The turbolaser can even hit deep water targets.
The rest, the pollution and the intense nuclear winter resulting from the complete bombardment of the planet will achieve killing all life as the lowest tiers of the food chain will collapse.
Plus since TL are actually radioactive, this just adds another destructive effect to the bombardment.

But to do it in a couple of hours the way the Technical Journal was talking about, I don't think you can fire enough low kiloton blasts fast enough ... it'll have to be a little hotter, even if not crust melting and high teratons.

Aside from absolute destruction levels, we have definitions of BDZs that merely point at the destruction of agricultural and industrial assets and population centers, not the melting of every single possible grain of sand that may be exploited by the Empire or someone else.

Don't all BDZ stuff say it has to destroy all or almost all sentient life? I suppose I might have missed some, but all the ones I can think of offhand say stuff to that effect.

[Picard]

Pica, could you please avoid taking the bait when SWST brings irrelevant Star Trek related arguments into this thread? Thanks!!! ;)

Maybe I should make "My answers to StarWarsStarTrek" thread...