The Death Star's power output confirmed!

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Can you prove ANYTHING without the EU-fanwanking? It's not accepted here, so go back to SDN if you can't.

From what you claim, one could just make a hypermatter-warhead and blow up anything of any size.

Wanking? It's quite obvious:


"If it didn't work - well, the hypermatter reactor was capable of generating an energy burst equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequence stars; if anything went wonky, it wasn't likely he'd be around long enough to notice."

TOTAL WEEKLY OUTPUT OF SEVERAL MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS - it doesn't really get any more obvious than that, does it? But many trekkies are butthurt over it and keep on trying to debunk it, such as claiming that it refers to the hypermatter reactor exploding despite the fact that it was referring to a misfire, so the "capable of generating" is basically when it powers the superlaser, or claiming that the main-sequence stars are really red dwarfs, or as a last resort probably falling back to the "ha ha ha EU isn't canon!" claim.

[Lucky]

Can you prove ANYTHING without the EU-fanwanking? It's not accepted here, so go back to SDN if you can't.

From what you claim, one could just make a hypermatter-warhead and blow up anything of any size.

Wanking? It's quite obvious:


"If it didn't work - well, the hypermatter reactor was capable of generating an energy burst equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequence stars; if anything went wonky, it wasn't likely he'd be around long enough to notice."

TOTAL WEEKLY OUTPUT OF SEVERAL MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS - it doesn't really get any more obvious than that, does it? But many trekkies are butthurt over it and keep on trying to debunk it, such as claiming that it refers to the hypermatter reactor exploding despite the fact that it was referring to a misfire, so the "capable of generating" is basically when it powers the superlaser, or claiming that the main-sequence stars are really red dwarfs, or as a last resort probably falling back to the "ha ha ha EU isn't canon!" claim.

Your quote looks to be saying that if the reactor was used at full output it would blow up, and they can't contain the full output.

[User1462]

Can you prove ANYTHING without the EU-fanwanking? It's not accepted here, so go back to SDN if you can't.

From what you claim, one could just make a hypermatter-warhead and blow up anything of any size.

Wanking? It's quite obvious:


"If it didn't work - well, the hypermatter reactor was capable of generating an energy burst equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequence stars; if anything went wonky, it wasn't likely he'd be around long enough to notice."

TOTAL WEEKLY OUTPUT OF SEVERAL MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS - it doesn't really get any more obvious than that, does it? But many trekkies are butthurt over it and keep on trying to debunk it, such as claiming that it refers to the hypermatter reactor exploding despite the fact that it was referring to a misfire, so the "capable of generating" is basically when it powers the superlaser, or claiming that the main-sequence stars are really red dwarfs, or as a last resort probably falling back to the "ha ha ha EU isn't canon!" claim.

That "claim" has the merit of being the truth; there's no hypermatter-reactors in the movies.
When I say "It's not accepted here, so go back to SDN if you can't--" I'm quite serious.
Read the following, if you haven't seen it already:

LUCAS: I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, Aug. 2005 - "New Hopes" interview in Starlog #337
Leland Chee, 2006 at StarWars.Com:
"The only relevant official continuities are the current versions of the films alone, and the combined current version of the films along with whatever else we've got in the Holocron. You're never going to know what George's view of the universe beyond the films at any given time because it is constantly evolving. It remains elastic until it gets committed to film or another official source. Even then, we know there's always room for change.
[...] Anything not in the current version of the films is irrelevant to Film only continuity."

- Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor), Sept. 2005 - StarWars.com forum post:

"Within the issue of Starlog magazine with the War of the Worlds cover is an interview article with George Lucas. He stated something which he had said before, which is that he doesn't follow the SW EU, he doesn't read the books or comics. He also said that when they started doing all this (which is allowing other storytellers to tell their own SW tales), he had decreed that the Star Wars Universe would be split into two just like Star Trek (I don't know nuts about Star Trek, so don't ask me about that), one would be his own universe (the six episode movie saga), the other would be a whole other universe (the Expanded Universe). He continued to say that the EU tries as much as possible to tie in to his own universe, but sometimes they move into a whole other line of their own.”

Now unless you're deluded into thinking, like Wong, that you have some secret mind-link with Lucas, then how do you read the above to mean "EU IS CANON!"????

I realize that some people are "Cartmanized" that they believe their own bullshit, but I'm genuinely curious as to how you can read that and STILL think that the EU is canon-- even despite those SDN-fruitcakes telling you so. One would have to be into some SERIOUS denial, and in need of mental help.

[User1462]

Can you prove ANYTHING without the EU-fanwanking? It's not accepted here, so go back to SDN if you can't.

From what you claim, one could just make a hypermatter-warhead and blow up anything of any size.

Wanking? It's quite obvious:


"If it didn't work - well, the hypermatter reactor was capable of generating an energy burst equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequence stars; if anything went wonky, it wasn't likely he'd be around long enough to notice."

TOTAL WEEKLY OUTPUT OF SEVERAL MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS - it doesn't really get any more obvious than that, does it? But many trekkies are butthurt over it and keep on trying to debunk it, such as claiming that it refers to the hypermatter reactor exploding despite the fact that it was referring to a misfire, so the "capable of generating" is basically when it powers the superlaser, or claiming that the main-sequence stars are really red dwarfs, or as a last resort probably falling back to the "ha ha ha EU isn't canon!" claim.

Your quote looks to be saying that if the reactor was used at full output it would blow up, and they can't contain the full output.

Then why couldn't they just use a hypermatter-bomb, and blow up anything they wanted? A planet, a star, a galaxy-- it's HYPERWANK, it doesn't matter!
(and THEY talk about "no-limits fallacy," while they pull magic-matter out of their ass -- er, "hyperspace").

[Lucky]

Then why couldn't they just use a hypermatter-bomb, and blow up anything they wanted? A planet, a star, a galaxy-- it's HYPERWANK, it doesn't matter!
(and THEY talk about "no-limits fallacy," while they pull magic-matter out of their ass -- er, "hyperspace").

Given the size of the DS-I's reactor that would be rather wasteful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtJpg4d93-w

By the way you sound like the question from Justice League Unlimited in a bad way the way you seem to be using they.

[User1462]

Then why couldn't they just use a hypermatter-bomb, and blow up anything they wanted?

Given the size of the DS-I's reactor that would be rather wasteful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtJpg4d93-w

That's like comparing an H-bomb to a fusion-generator; obviously it's going to be bigger for a controlled reaction; that's not "waste" it's simply the cost of CONTROL.

Hypermatter obviously pulls energy out of nowhere, so there's no limit to the size of the explosion-- you simply can't CONTROL it; but if it's a bomb, then there's no need to control it, is there? Then, losing control is the whole damn point of a warhead, right?
(Except to keep it from blowing up the whole damn universe, Force and all-- and this "no limits fallacy" is indeed become a no-limits HYPOCRISY).

For example, you could have a bomb the size of your thumbnail; such a "hypermatter" chain-reaction would create an explosion in which 1 hyperwank-particle, elicits 2 hyperwank particles, and so forth-- until every particle in the universe is converted to energy.... and so it doesn't MATTER that you fail physics forever, the SDN-jerk has come full circle with the Kurt Vonnegut School of Science.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Can you prove ANYTHING without the EU-fanwanking? It's not accepted here, so go back to SDN if you can't.

From what you claim, one could just make a hypermatter-warhead and blow up anything of any size.

Wanking? It's quite obvious:


"If it didn't work - well, the hypermatter reactor was capable of generating an energy burst equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequence stars; if anything went wonky, it wasn't likely he'd be around long enough to notice."

TOTAL WEEKLY OUTPUT OF SEVERAL MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS - it doesn't really get any more obvious than that, does it? But many trekkies are butthurt over it and keep on trying to debunk it, such as claiming that it refers to the hypermatter reactor exploding despite the fact that it was referring to a misfire, so the "capable of generating" is basically when it powers the superlaser, or claiming that the main-sequence stars are really red dwarfs, or as a last resort probably falling back to the "ha ha ha EU isn't canon!" claim.

"Dark Apprentice" shows that the provoked explosion of an hyperspace-based device can release much more energy than a large starship does normally.
It's like in Stargate when they say that when a ZPM goes wonky, it will release enough energy to destroy a planet or even a star system. Yet we've never seen a ZPM capable of spitting supernova wattages.

[User1462]

"Dark Apprentice" shows that the provoked explosion of an hyperspace-based device can release much more energy than a large starship does normally.
It's like in Stargate when they say that when a ZPM goes wonky, it will release enough energy to destroy a planet or even a star system. Yet we've never seen a ZPM capable of spitting supernova wattages.

So why not just have a hypermatter-bomb, and destroy anything you want-- a star, a galaxy, the universe?

[StarWarsStarTrek]

...wow.

1. Those of you that claim that the quote was referring to if the reactor was running at full power do not get the context of the quote. The quote is in the context of if the superlaser misfires. A misfire does not mean that it's more powerful than usual; it just hits the wrong thing.

2. The official Lucasarts canon policy still has EU sources as canon. George Lucas's informal statements do not change this. Interestingly enough, the ICS's would not really fall under this category; they're directly related to the movies, and are actually cross sections of the movies; essentially reference guides. George Lucas was referring to story lines after the movie, not reference guides to the movies themselves. This is further reinforced by the fact that the EU products have to be approved by Lucasarts.

So this leads us back to the blatant fact that the quote proves quite bluntly the Death Star's power generation. It really can't get more blatant than that short of actually saying the power generation's exact number. Interestingly enough, it fits almost exactly with the low end estimates for the Death Star's power. Hmmm.

[Lucky]

Then why couldn't they just use a hypermatter-bomb, and blow up anything they wanted?

Given the size of the DS-I's reactor that would be rather wasteful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtJpg4d93-w

That's like comparing an H-bomb to a fusion-generator; obviously it's going to be bigger for a controlled reaction; that's not "waste" it's simply the cost of CONTROL.

Hypermatter obviously pulls energy out of nowhere, so there's no limit to the size of the explosion-- you simply can't CONTROL it; but if it's a bomb, then there's no need to control it, is there? Then, losing control is the whole damn point of a warhead, right?
(Except to keep it from blowing up the whole damn universe, Force and all-- and this "no limits fallacy" is indeed become a no-limits HYPOCRISY).

For example, you could have a bomb the size of your thumbnail; such a "hypermatter" chain-reaction would create an explosion in which 1 hyperwank-particle, elicits 2 hyperwank particles, and so forth-- until every particle in the universe is converted to energy.... and so it doesn't MATTER that you fail physics forever, the SDN-jerk has come full circle with the Kurt Vonnegut School of Science.

Considering the planets/moons right next to the Death Star were unharmed by them exploding/imploding it is clearly not a case of what you claim, and they clearly can't be used in the manner you suggest, or they would be.

[Lucky]

...wow.

1. Those of you that claim that the quote was referring to if the reactor was running at full power do not get the context of the quote. The quote is in the context of if the superlaser misfires. A misfire does not mean that it's more powerful than usual; it just hits the wrong thing.

Your quote is talking about the reactor not working right, and not the superlaser. If the quote is about the superlaser doing something to the reactor then it does not tell us the reactor output.

"If it didn't work - well, the hypermatter reactor was capable of generating an energy burst equivalent to the total weekly output of several main-sequence stars; if anything went wonky, it wasn't likely he'd be around long enough to notice."

If you omitted evidence I'm pretty sure that is against the rules.

2. The official Lucasarts canon policy still has EU sources as canon. George Lucas's informal statements do not change this. Interestingly enough, the ICS's would not really fall under this category; they're directly related to the movies, and are actually cross sections of the movies; essentially reference guides. George Lucas was referring to story lines after the movie, not reference guides to the movies themselves. This is further reinforced by the fact that the EU products have to be approved by Lucasarts.

Lucus canon policy states: Movies>Star Wars: The Clone War>The EU

You have repeated argued The lowest level of the EU>Everything else.

THe ICS 2 and 3 contradict the movies.

So this leads us back to the blatant fact that the quote proves quite bluntly the Death Star's power generation. It really can't get more blatant than that short of actually saying the power generation's exact number. Interestingly enough, it fits almost exactly with the low end estimates for the Death Star's power. Hmmm.

The reactor not working right is what your quote is talking about, and says nothing about the superlaser.

[Jedi Master Spock]

So this leads us back to the blatant fact that the quote proves quite bluntly the Death Star's power generation. It really can't get more blatant than that short of actually saying the power generation's exact number. Interestingly enough, it fits almost exactly with the low end estimates for the Death Star's power. Hmmm.

But even ignoring the context of the quote and the rest of the novel, that isolated line is still problematic for the Saxtonite model of the Death Star. The Saxtonite model needs the Death Star to be able to release e38-e39 joule energy bursts.

One week is 6e5 seconds. The output of our own sun is about 4e26 watts - and is, in fact, a fairly bright main sequence star, brighter than about 90% of all main sequence stars. Even if we exclude red dwarf stars and restrict ourself to the narrow band of Sun-like stars, our sun is still above the median, which would look something like Alpha Centauri B (2e26 watts).

The "weekly output of several main sequence stars" would line up with the e31-e32 joule range. This is seven orders of magnitude below the Saxtonite model of the Death Star. It's much like the difference between my calculations of peak reactor output of an Imperial Star Destroyer (e18 watts) and Saxton's calculation of peak power output of an Imperial Star Destroyer (e25 watts).

The Death Star novel also tells us how long the Death Star needs to charge up for a full shot - about four hours, or e4 seconds, meaning that even interpreting the quote the way you want it to be interpreted, we're left with a Death Star reactor that time-averages an output of maybe 1.7e28 watts, generously. (Other EU sources say the first Death Star needed 24 hours to charge the reactor up between shots, of course, but we should work within the source first.)

Now, divide that by the size ratio between the Acclamator and the Death Star, just for kicks. You get 68 exawatts. This is a generously myopic interpretation of the Death Star novel, and it's still less than a thousandth of the proportionate power generation the AOTC:ICS gives for a far less advanced craft.

Now, the problem with being generously myopic is that the quote is speculative. We actually get to see, empirically, what happens when a Death Star reactor goes supercritical. Twice. And if released anywhere near the weekly output of several main sequence stars, it was mostly shunted into hyperspace.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

So this leads us back to the blatant fact that the quote proves quite bluntly the Death Star's power generation. It really can't get more blatant than that short of actually saying the power generation's exact number. Interestingly enough, it fits almost exactly with the low end estimates for the Death Star's power. Hmmm.

But even ignoring the context of the quote and the rest of the novel, that isolated line is still problematic for the Saxtonite model of the Death Star. The Saxtonite model needs the Death Star to be able to release e38-e39 joule energy bursts.

One week is 6e5 seconds. The output of our own sun is about 4e26 watts - and is, in fact, a fairly bright main sequence star, brighter than about 90% of all main sequence stars. Even if we exclude red dwarf stars and restrict ourself to the narrow band of Sun-like stars, our sun is still above the median, which would look something like Alpha Centauri B (2e26 watts).

The "weekly output of several main sequence stars" would line up with the e31-e32 joule range. This is seven orders of magnitude below the Saxtonite model of the Death Star. It's much like the difference between my calculations of peak reactor output of an Imperial Star Destroyer (e18 watts) and Saxton's calculation of peak power output of an Imperial Star Destroyer (e25 watts).

The Death Star novel also tells us how long the Death Star needs to charge up for a full shot - about four hours, or e4 seconds, meaning that even interpreting the quote the way you want it to be interpreted, we're left with a Death Star reactor that time-averages an output of maybe 1.7e28 watts, generously. (Other EU sources say the first Death Star needed 24 hours to charge the reactor up between shots, of course, but we should work within the source first.)

Now, divide that by the size ratio between the Acclamator and the Death Star, just for kicks. You get 68 exawatts. This is a generously myopic interpretation of the Death Star novel, and it's still less than a thousandth of the proportionate power generation the AOTC:ICS gives for a far less advanced craft.

Now, the problem with being generously myopic is that the quote is speculative. We actually get to see, empirically, what happens when a Death Star reactor goes supercritical. Twice. And if released anywhere near the weekly output of several main sequence stars, it was mostly shunted into hyperspace.

Nowhere did I say that I support a 1e38 watt Death Star hypermatter reactor. I do, however, support the idea; and basically canon fact, that the Death Star's hypermatter reactor is in the 1e32 watt range, which is still orders of magnitude greater than the power generation of the Federation in its entire existence. In fact, it's more energy than the entire human race in both modern day and Star Trek have produced in history too.

So sure, the Death Star doesn't have a 1e38 watt reactor...it has about a 1e32 watt reactor...which still beats Star Trek...by slightly less. OMG.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Nowhere did I say that I support a 1e38 watt Death Star hypermatter reactor. I do, however, support the idea; and basically canon fact, that the Death Star's hypermatter reactor is in the 1e32 watt range, which is still orders of magnitude greater than the power generation of the Federation in its entire existence. In fact, it's more energy than the entire human race in both modern day and Star Trek have produced in history too.

So sure, the Death Star doesn't have a 1e38 watt reactor...it has about a 1e32 watt reactor...which still beats Star Trek...by slightly less. OMG.

You're mixing watts and joules. The Death Star's reactor had to charge up for hours in order to be ready to fire a superlaser shot. (A number of EU sources specify at least a full day, in fact.) Power is energy per unit time. That means e27-e28, not e32, watts is the correct calculation for your interpretation - using, generously, Sunlike, non-red dwarf stars as the benchmark.

1e32 joules would be more energy than the entire human race has produced to date; however, it is far less than the quantity of energy unleashed by humans in the whole of Star Trek. Genesis created and then detonated a planet. A trilithium missile can explode a star.

Now, let me tell you what the calculation would be if I used a couple median main-sequence stars, and the more common EU recharge time of 24 hours for the Death Star: About 2e30 joules (1% of the energy required to mass scatter a planet), and about 2e25 watts of power. This is what Saxton believes an ISD can fire downrange. Or, in other words, a small fleet of ICS Acclamators.

Problematically, that level of energy would still be multiple orders of magnitude higher than the apparent strength of the first "one third power" shot from the Death Star in the novel. This is what the other posters in this thread have been pointing out to you; if they seem frustrated, it's because after the novel came out, we had a fairly lengthy discussion here on the subject.

That said, you're still missing the point. The ICS are carefully constructed. Saxton has, or had, in his mind a fairly coherent model of what Star Wars looks like. It bears little relation to Lucas's Star Wars, but it is intended to be internally consistent. Saxton's model of Star Wars relies in no small part on the Death Star's beam being more or less an actual laser, and that's totally incompatible with the Death Star novel, including the quote you're focusing on.

If you compare my model of Star Wars with Saxton's model of Star Wars, it's pretty clear which one of us is describing something closer to what the Death Star novel describes, and it's still clear even when you decide to ignore 90% of the novel to focus on pulling a single quote out of context.

Now, I don't go ignoring the context to focus on a single quote, as a general rule. I'll start by looking at the single quote, but you have to look at it in the larger context, and the larger context, here, pretty clearly indicates that the reactor managing to explode itself is projected to release a lot more energy than the Death Star's superlaser requires. Which makes a lot of sense; if your reactor is operating within normal output parameters, it's not going to overload the safeties and blow everybody to kingdom come.

[User1462]

The question is also where this energy comes from.
Hypermatter is nonsense, since it pulls energy out of nowhere; if you can do that, then you can set off a chain-reaction that can destroy all matter in the universe and cause another Big Bang. Clearly that's not in the movies, but rather the DS uses fusion, which simply breaks the mostly liquid planet up into little solid bits and moves it away from the core-- but even this is more than fusion can provide, or what the speed of the explosion requires.

Rather, moving the planet as seen on screen, would require e+5X the energy needed to vapourize it, so clearly that's a trick of hyperacceleration-- which agan, cannot create energy, but only catalyze it over greater distances than its speed in normal space would allow.

So my original hypothesis stands, that the DS simply created a hyperspace-field which catalyzed the planet's thermal energy to kinetic energy by reducing the distance from the hot core to cold space, causing the energy to shift by normal thermodyanmic radiation-differentials.