I challenge darkstar to a debate

[Mr. Oragahn]

I think Palpatine bribes Anakin through his lust for power and talks about uncounted quadrillion beings... there is something like that anyway.
However, I never verified if it worked alongside the movie, or if the scene was present in the movie and thus had to be rejected, since there's never such a mention in the movie.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Anti-fighter flak flashed on all sides. Even louder than the clatter of shrapnel and the snarl of his sublight drives ...

Strongly implies that the guns we saw in the Battle of Coruscant were anti-fighter flak, justifying their relatively low firepower.

He had the Force to guide him through, and the tri-fighter had only its electronic reflexes- but those electronic reflexes operated at roughly the speed of light. It stayed on his tail as if were dragging it by a tow-cable.

1. The Force operates at faster than C.
2. SW droids operate at C.

"Look out there, Anakin. A trillion beings on this planet alone- in the galaxy as a whole, uncounted quadrillions- and of them all, I have chosen you, Anakin Skywalker, to be the heir to my power. To all that I am."

Quadrillions of beings, a number supported by the Essential Atlas, which also specifies that there are 100 quadrillion sentient beings in the Galactic Republic alone.

The vast semisphere of the view wall bloomed with battle. Sophisticated sensor algorithims compressed the combat sprawled throughout the galactic capital's orbit to a view the naked eye could enjoy: cruisers hundreds of kilometres apart, exchanging fire at near lightspeed, appeared to be practically hull-to-hull, joined by pulsing cables of flame. Turbolaser blats became swift shafts of light that shattered into prismatic splinters against shields, or bloomed into miniature supernovae that swallowed ships whole ...

We don't know how much these weapons massed, but no cross-sections of cruisers show any projectiles that would be microscopic or exceptionally tiny. In addition, the quote establishes that cruisers can fire at each other from hundreds of kilometers. We also know that turbolasers, from the perspective of one in atmosphere, explode into blooms big enough to be seen from the surface even when there is no atmosphere for a fireball!

While twilight enfolded the sinkhole, over the bright deser above assault craft skimmed the dunes in a tightening ring centred on the city. Hailfire droids rolled out from caves in the wind-scoured mesas, unleashing firestorms of missiles toward the oncoming craft for exactly 2.5 seconds apiece, which was how long it took for the Vigilance's sensor operators to transfer data to its turbolaser batteries.

Establishes SW targeting capabilities.

"My lord", the general replied, choosing each word with care, "the fleet has moved out of light-speed. Com-Scan has detected an energy field protecting an area of the sixth planet of the Hoth system. The field is strong enough to deflect any bombardment."

Vader stood, rising to his full two-meter height, his cloak swaying against the floor. "So, the Rebel scum are alerted to our presence." Furious, he clenched his black-gloved hands into fists. "Admiral Ozzel came out of light-speed too close to the system."

"He felt surprise was a wiser-"

"He's as clumsy as he is stupid," Vader cut in, breathing heavily. "A clean bombardment is impossible through their energy field. Prepare your troops for a surface attack."

This establishes several things. One, that SW sensors work past a star system. Two, that they do mean star system when they say "system" as shown by "sixth planet of the Hoth system". Three, and you already know this, the Rebels had a theater shield powerful enough to withstand "any bombardment" from the Executor and its several ISD's.

[Mike DiCenso]

Strongly implies that the guns we saw in the Battle of Coruscant were anti-fighter flak, justifying their relatively low firepower.

Very bad logic, as we saw in the movie TL fire exchanged between Republic cruisers and Seperatist ships and some of that was indeed anti-fighter, a lot of it was clearly anti-capital ship.

1. The Force operates at faster than C.
2. SW droids operate at C.

There is nothing here to indicate the Force operates FTL. If anything, "but those electronic reflexes operated at roughly the speed of light" indicates parity as the fighter was able to stay on who ever is the pilot's tail.

Quadrillions of beings, a number supported by the Essential Atlas, which also specifies that there are 100 quadrillion sentient beings in the Galactic Republic alone.

Quadrillions in the galaxy as a whole, not the Republic, which according to other sources mentioned already was in the trillions, thus 100 quadrillion as the Republic population is impossible in the G-canon since there is a clear contradiction. At best you can say is that inside and outside the Republic combined there is a population in the single-digit quadrillions.

We don't know how much these weapons massed, but no cross-sections of cruisers show any projectiles that would be microscopic or exceptionally tiny. In addition, the quote establishes that cruisers can fire at each other from hundreds of kilometers. We also know that turbolasers, from the perspective of one in atmosphere, explode into blooms big enough to be seen from the surface even when there is no atmosphere for a fireball!

The movies and TCW establish no greater than 220 km as a generous upper limit from the visuals, so hundreds of km in this case is just that, the upper limit, not a lower one. The combat scenes in RoTS show ships exchanging broadsides only hundreds of meters apart rather than kilometers. But this is nothing like the thousands of kilometers you claim these sources claim for ship-to-ship combat.

Establishes SW targeting capabilities.

Where is this from? Why no chapter or page number citations? It took 2.5 seconds just to feed the data to the computers? That's terrible. And they are not even shooting the missiles down, just trying to feed data.

This establishes several things. One, that SW sensors work past a star system. Two, that they do mean star system when they say "system" as shown by "sixth planet of the Hoth system". Three, and you already know this, the Rebels had a theater shield powerful enough to withstand "any bombardment" from the Executor and its several ISD's.

There is no demonstration here that the term system means star system as we hear of similar terminology elsewhere in the trilogy, when ships exit or enter hyperspace near a planet. Furthermore, the novelization as well as the movie show that Death Squadron exited only tens of thousands of km from Hoth:



That is Hoth there. So the best you can get is maybe 36,000 km planetary bombardment range, and we have no idea what Vader intended to do had the fleet jumped in from further away.
-Mike

[2046]

"Look out there, Anakin. A trillion beings on this planet alone- in the galaxy as a whole, uncounted quadrillions- and of them all, I have chosen you, Anakin Skywalker, to be the heir to my power. To all that I am."

As noted in the other thread, we are told that the population of the Republic numbers in the trillions, re: "trillions of common folk".

The vast semisphere of the view wall bloomed with battle. Sophisticated sensor algorithims compressed the combat sprawled throughout the galactic capital's orbit to a view the naked eye could enjoy: cruisers hundreds of kilometres apart, exchanging fire at near lightspeed, appeared to be practically hull-to-hull, joined by pulsing cables of flame. Turbolaser blats became swift shafts of light that shattered into prismatic splinters against shields, or bloomed into miniature supernovae that swallowed ships whole ...

I've always loved comparing the quote above to the fact that you have manned turrets. It's just not compatible.

That said, the picture Mike DiCenso provided shows that anyone here with a spacesuit and a pistol could've hit Hoth from the range shown. Magically transmute the bullets into 200GT warheads and accuracy becomes irrelevant.

Who cares about the Rebel shield when you should, in principle, be able to slag the area around it and make the whole base collapse into the frickin' mantle?

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Very bad logic, as we saw in the movie TL fire exchanged between Republic cruisers and Seperatist ships and some of that was indeed anti-fighter, a lot of it was clearly anti-capital ship.

Of course, it was clearly anti-capital ship. My bad, that reasoning and logic converted me.

There is nothing here to indicate the Force operates FTL. If anything, "but those electronic reflexes operated at roughly the speed of light" indicates parity as the fighter was able to stay on who ever is the pilot's tail.

Strangely, you are right. In which case you can disregard the first point, and still regard the first point, which is more relevant to the discussion and still very much favorable to my side.

Quadrillions in the galaxy as a whole, not the Republic, which according to other sources mentioned already was in the trillions, thus 100 quadrillion as the Republic population is impossible in the G-canon since there is a clear contradiction. At best you can say is that inside and outside the Republic combined there is a population in the single-digit quadrillions.

I would like context of the quote and the PoV of which it was in, since the novels are not third person omniscient. As I explained in the seperate thread, quadrillions works much better than trillions from a rational and mathematical standpoint. You'd have to assume a population of only a million per planet, which is ridiculous since less than two centuries of growth from 10,000 or so settlers would produce a population far exceeding that number.

The movies and TCW establish no greater than 220 km as a generous upper limit from the visuals, so hundreds of km in this case is just that, the upper limit, not a lower one.

So because you see ranges of 220 kilometers onscreen, you conclude that this must be the "upper limit" for no apparent reason at all?

The combat scenes in RoTS show ships exchanging broadsides only hundreds of meters apart rather than kilometers. But this is nothing like the thousands of kilometers you claim these sources claim for ship-to-ship combat.

Except that the RotS novel was obviously referring to an earlier time in the battle; the Seperatist was trying to run away and the Republic fleet was presumably chasing them. Beforehand, the Seperatists had to surprise attack Coruscant with a ground invasion, and take Palapatine. This dictates the need to get up close to the planet, and by extension the Republic fleet for obvious reasons.

Where is this from? Why no chapter or page number citations?

RotS novelization. Page 27, I think. I will confirm once I get my desktop fixed.

It took 2.5 seconds just to feed the data to the computers? That's terrible. And they are not even shooting the missiles down, just trying to feed data.

Wrong. Look at the quote. It clearly implies that the hallfire missiles only have 2.5 seconds to survive:

unleashing firestorms of missiles toward the oncoming craft for exactly 2.5 seconds apiece

Obviously the reason why the missiles all die in 2.5 seconds is because:

which was how long it took for the Vigilance's sensor operators to transfer data to its turbolaser batteries.

So the time that the missiles have to survive = the time needed to lock on to them, meaning that the missiles are shot down the instant they are locked on to. Otherwise, they would not have stayed in the air for exactly 2.5 seconds apiece.

The quote does not just say that the missiles are tracked in 2.5 seconds (although this is far faster than most, but not all, Trek examples). It says that the missiles stay in the air for 2.5 seconds and then die (imagine a volley of missiles all exploding after a certain distance) and then states that this is the time needed for them to be tracked, ie, in 2.5 seconds they are tracked, and then they die. 2.5 seconds is both when they are destroyed AND when they are tracked, the two are one and the same

There is no demonstration here that the term system means star system as we hear of similar terminology elsewhere in the trilogy, when ships exit or enter hyperspace near a planet.

"Sixth planet in the Hoth system". Your counter examples prove nothing, since the ship is presumably also in the system that the planet it is right next to is in as well.

Furthermore, the novelization as well as the movie show that Death Squadron exited only tens of thousands of km from Hoth:



That is Hoth there. So the best you can get is maybe 36,000 km planetary bombardment range, and we have no idea what Vader intended to do had the fleet jumped in from further away.
-Mike

Obviously this means that Hoth was on the edge of the star system, as its cold climate would not contradict. That is a good observation (although I would question your 36,000 km figure).

[Mr. Oragahn]

So because you see ranges of 220 kilometers onscreen, you conclude that this must be the "upper limit" for no apparent reason at all?

Technically, and based on evidence predefined as stemming from movies, it would indeed, for all intents and purposes, be possible to anyone of us to claim that there's no more upper limit than what we saw. It's not a theoretical upper limit, but one of evidence. Could they do better? Perhaps, but we don't see that, and here is the crux of the argument. Without any evidence of any better range, any claim of higher range is speculation and unsubstantiated. Which, in the end, brings us back to the observation of a statistical "upper limit".

AS for the 2.5 seconds thing, not only it clearly tells the reader that it took that long to transfer data from sensors to weapon computers (shitty in other words), but the claim of any capacity to intercept missile fire with turbolasers is completely contradicted by recurring abilities from fighters, both in movies and TCWS, to enter walls of flak unscathed and even fly close to warships.
Actually, it is not even suggested by the book at all:

While twilight enfolded the sinkhole, over the bright desert above assault craft skimmed the dunes in a tightening ring centered on the city.
Hailfire droids rolled out from caves in the wind-scoured mesas, unleashing firestorms of missiles toward the oncoming craft for exactly 2.5 seconds apiece, which was how long it took for the Vigilance's sensor operators to transfer data to its turbolaser batteries.
Thunderbolts roared down through the atmosphere, and hailfire droids disintegrated. Pinpoint counterfire from the bubble turrets of LAAT/i's met missiles in blossoming fireballs that were ripped to shreds of smoke as the oncoming craft blasted through them.

Only the LAAT's weapons are said to be able to destroy the missiles. What the book says is that each droid only had time to fire for 2.5 seconds before they got targeted by the turbolasers and blasted.
It's rather impressive that LAAT's bubble turrets are given such a high accuracy, that capacity to intercept missiles. Based on the accuracy displayed in AOTC and their range, it could only be achieved with a constant hail of green beams fired in the general direction of missiles until they'd be hit at close range with the LAATs. It's even more intriguing of a claim considering how, in AOTC, the Hailfire droids' missiles were not flying in strictly straight trajectories. In general, aim in SW, computer assisted or not, is rarely that impressive. Now, against low profile missiles about the size of a pixel until they're right ontop of you, fired in large numbers, and following sinuous trajectories if we go by AOTC... there's just no way LAATs could do that.
Heck, I don't even know if the globes are capable of firing forwards instead of merely firing downwards. The book doesn't even talk about a special anti-missile variant. It's the bog standard LAAT/i here.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Technically, and based on evidence predefined as stemming from movies, it would indeed, for all intents and purposes, be possible to anyone of us to claim that there's no more upper limit than what we saw. It's not a theoretical upper limit, but one of evidence. Could they do better? Perhaps, but we don't see that, and here is the crux of the argument. Without any evidence of any better range, any claim of higher range is speculation and unsubstantiated. Which, in the end, brings us back to the observation of a statistical "upper limit".

Yet many official sources list far higher range figures. Since these are not contradicted by G canon evidence, they are canon. So there is indeed evidence to the contrary of your denial, and none of it is contradicted. The only way that it would be is if a hard upper limit was established in the movies like this:

[aboard a star destroyer]
Officer 1: Um, sir...the enemy vessels are approaching!
Officer 2: Range? Number?
Officer 1: About two hundred from...two hundred kilometers away.
OFficer 2: Darn it! That's far beyond weapon range!

Only the LAAT's weapons are said to be able to destroy the missiles. What the book says is that each droid only had time to fire for 2.5 seconds before they got targeted by the turbolasers and blasted.
It's rather impressive that LAAT's bubble turrets are given such a high accuracy, that capacity to intercept missiles. Based on the accuracy displayed in AOTC and their range, it could only be achieved with a constant hail of green beams fired in the general direction of missiles until they'd be hit at close range with the LAATs. It's even more intriguing of a claim considering how, in AOTC, the Hailfire droids' missiles were not flying in strictly straight trajectories. In general, aim in SW, computer assisted or not, is rarely that impressive. Now, against low profile missiles about the size of a pixel until they're right ontop of you, fired in large numbers, and following sinuous trajectories if we go by AOTC... there's just no way LAATs could do that.
Heck, I don't even know if the globes are capable of firing forwards instead of merely firing downwards. The book doesn't even talk about a special anti-missile variant. It's the bog standard LAAT/i here.

Good observation, Mr. O. Unfortunately, you then procede to blabber on about how the LAAT were only able to shoot down missiles by firing randomly at it and overwhelming it with sheer volume of firepower, even though its laser-globes are visually depicted to not have the rate of fire or fire spread to do this at all.

OT: a nice little observation from your best friends over there:

http://206.210.96.66/viewtopic.php?f=2& ... 38&start=0

[Mr. Oragahn]

Technically, and based on evidence predefined as stemming from movies, it would indeed, for all intents and purposes, be possible to anyone of us to claim that there's no more upper limit than what we saw. It's not a theoretical upper limit, but one of evidence. Could they do better? Perhaps, but we don't see that, and here is the crux of the argument. Without any evidence of any better range, any claim of higher range is speculation and unsubstantiated. Which, in the end, brings us back to the observation of a statistical "upper limit".

Yet many official sources list far higher range figures. Since these are not contradicted by G canon evidence, they are canon. So there is indeed evidence to the contrary of your denial, and none of it is contradicted. The only way that it would be is if a hard upper limit was established in the movies like this:

[aboard a star destroyer]
Officer 1: Um, sir...the enemy vessels are approaching!
Officer 2: Range? Number?
Officer 1: About two hundred from...two hundred kilometers away.
OFficer 2: Darn it! That's far beyond weapon range!

I haven't made any claim. I'm merely pointing out what one can get from movies. ROTS' novelization has engagements between capital ships going over hundreds of kms, at a time when the battle would tend to get cramped iirc.
However, this wasn't directly confirmed in the movie. All evidence of greater ranges is very sketchy and circumstantial.

Hoth does leave some doors open, notably with that ISD flying some good distance from Hoth, and getting shot down by the ion cannon. Was that ISD actually a threat to the base, or was the shield kept up to protect the Rebels from fire coming down from ships much closer to the planet? Or where they keeping the shield up just in case a ship would decide to get closer?
The greatest range ever achieved in the movies, aside from the superlaser, is the ion cannon, but that against a target with a predictable path and with a slow moving bolt of energy (largely implying a rather poor maneuverability from the ISD, which is later confirmed in the asteroid chase sequence, much contrary to ludicrous claims such as found in the ICS books).

The Clone Wars series decidedly put a silly spin on way too many things, so I don't take visuals at face value as other people do. However, I take statements by characters and overall events to be solid.
Still, Lando's line in ROTJ about the range at which they'd be battling if getting closer to the ISDs is quite interesting. What one could understand is that by getting closer, they'd get hit more often (there's no other way to take his words). Meaning that at greater ranges, they'd get less hit, which wouldn't make much sense for ships capable of much greater ranges (10 to 100 times superior). Indeed, capital ships with ranges over thousands of km would see no difference in hitting rates between an engagement at low 100s km or dozens of them and spitting range.

Only the LAAT's weapons are said to be able to destroy the missiles. What the book says is that each droid only had time to fire for 2.5 seconds before they got targeted by the turbolasers and blasted.
It's rather impressive that LAAT's bubble turrets are given such a high accuracy, that capacity to intercept missiles. Based on the accuracy displayed in AOTC and their range, it could only be achieved with a constant hail of green beams fired in the general direction of missiles until they'd be hit at close range with the LAATs. It's even more intriguing of a claim considering how, in AOTC, the Hailfire droids' missiles were not flying in strictly straight trajectories. In general, aim in SW, computer assisted or not, is rarely that impressive. Now, against low profile missiles about the size of a pixel until they're right ontop of you, fired in large numbers, and following sinuous trajectories if we go by AOTC... there's just no way LAATs could do that.
Heck, I don't even know if the globes are capable of firing forwards instead of merely firing downwards. The book doesn't even talk about a special anti-missile variant. It's the bog standard LAAT/i here.

Good observation, Mr. O. Unfortunately, you then procede to blabber on about how the LAAT were only able to shoot down missiles by firing randomly at it and overwhelming it with sheer volume of firepower, even though its laser-globes are visually depicted to not have the rate of fire or fire spread to do this at all.

The forward globes are seen to have a non impressive rate of fire. Certainly nowhere close enough to modern CIWS. However, the globes can fire beams for longer periods, and beams essentially are continuous streams of chained bolts if you want, so that makes for a better barrage, assuming they can hit anything, which evidence in general tends to go against. They can't even hit fighters at close range with any kind of stellar accuracy. But now we're supposed to believe that LAAT's weapons are as good as CIWS, all the while the ships are moving and missiles adopting mildly evasive trajectories?
That's not compatible, I'm afraid.
The feat described completely flies in the face of all observables cases of accuracy.
I wish the author rather have the LAATs fire advanced forms of decoys which are extremely effective and far cheaper than missiles to explain why missiles are generally useless, than this wank drivel that doesn't fit with general Star Wars.

EDIT: what's about that link? Can you summarize it, quickly?

[KSW]

That said, the picture Mike DiCenso provided shows that anyone here with a spacesuit and a pistol could've hit Hoth from the range shown. Magically transmute the bullets into 200GT warheads and accuracy becomes irrelevant.

Who cares about the Rebel shield when you should, in principle, be able to slag the area around it and make the whole base collapse into the frickin' mantle?

Have we ever seen anything of that firepower, aside from the DS?
Likewise, we've seen that the AT-AT's could walk right under/through the shield, so why not cruise-missiles?

[Admiral Breetai]

the funny part is..I think this thread was created, so that one lone Wars fan amidst a sea of critics could take on DS who seems like a satanic figure for the Wong crowd and valiantly defend his sides views and make a show of it. a white knight against a Dragon

I think that failed spectacularly and the dragon ate his thread alive to discuss with more experience and knowledge technical aspects..lol

[Picard]

You mean, SWST created it to get attention...

[Admiral Breetai]

You mean, SWST created it to get attention...

well I tried to put a romantic spin on it..but yeah you're absolutely right

[mojo]

the funny part is..I think this thread was created, so that one lone Wars fan amidst a sea of critics could take on DS who seems like a satanic figure for the Wong crowd and valiantly defend his sides views and make a show of it. a white knight against a Dragon

I think that failed spectacularly and the dragon ate his thread alive to discuss with more experience and knowledge technical aspects..lol

are you suggesting that swst posts on this board for the purpose of impressing sdn and the extreme warsie contingent, rather than for the purpose of enjoyable, reasonable debate? clearly not, because otherwise EVERY SINGLE POST HE'S EVER MADE WOULD BE DISHONEST AND THEREFORE A BANNABLE OFFENSE.

[Admiral Breetai]

are you suggesting that swst posts on this board for the purpose of impressing sdn and the extreme warsie contingent, rather than for the purpose of enjoyable, reasonable debate? clearly not, because otherwise EVERY SINGLE POST HE'S EVER MADE WOULD BE DISHONEST AND THEREFORE A BANNABLE OFFENSE.

I'm accusing him of exactly that..and if any one wants to try and prove me wrong do so if not..he should have the book thrown at him for it

[Mike DiCenso]

the funny part is..I think this thread was created, so that one lone Wars fan amidst a sea of critics could take on DS who seems like a satanic figure for the Wong crowd and valiantly defend his sides views and make a show of it. a white knight against a Dragon

I think that failed spectacularly and the dragon ate his thread alive to discuss with more experience and knowledge technical aspects..lol

That SWST chose to challenge Robert to a debate is all well and good whether or not he (or she) wins. We want to encourage debate, even if it is a lone debater against the many. Certainly SWST is not the first, nor the only pro-Wars person on the board. It also does not matter what SWST's motivation for doing so, except in the more recent thread where it is clear that istrolling, and this time Praeo acted on those particular offenses rather than me.

As a result, SWST is one warning away from a 3 week ban, I believe.

That being said, I expect you guys to remain on best behavior. I don't want you trolling or anything else at SWST, as I don't want to give him or anyone else ammunition for claims of bias and hypocrisy.
-Mike