Starfleet Jedi

Here's a blurb from the pro-Saxton thread from SDN:

"Given that Saxton's energy calculations were off by a very wide margin, can you see any reason why his rates of energy consumption would have to be revised downward? And, given this, it would stand to reason that some means other than completely conventional rocketry must account for the maneuver characteristics we observe in SW starships? And, given that SW technology already includes methods of gravitational manipulation (which, by logical extension, requires manipulation of the spacetime continuum), that they might find a way to use this gravity-control technology to "get more bang for their buck" when using ion engines? Perhaps changing the relative inertia of the reaction mass at the moment it is propelled from the ion engines, thereby providing more thrust than that mass and speed would normally produce? (This is certainly plausible given that SW technology already includes "inertial compensators" that reduce inertia and the force exerted on a body within a limited space, so is it unreasonable to think that a technology that does the reverse is also within the grasp of SW technology?)"

So, what do you guys think? Does the movie canon give any indication that this kind of tech could exist, even though there's nothing explicit about it?

I think nearly every sci-fi universe has some sort of "mass lightening" or "propulsion enhancement" technology.

Isn't it basically the same idea that the author who disagreed with Saxton put forward, the idea that SDNers got all riled up about.

The one that started it off was a way to make the fuel lighter. He went further and suggested sublight engines are part continuum distortion and part reaction engines and the result is what pushes vessels.

To reduce effective mass... why not. There's already those tractor beams, that seem to be some sort of focused gravity conundrum, and in the EU they can create those interdiction gravity wells that are sufficiently massive to prevent shipsfrom leaving a zone. Plus all the inertia dampening stuff, I think the suggestion rests on some solid ground.

GStone wrote:The one that started it off was a way to make the fuel lighter. He went further and suggested sublight engines are part continuum distortion and part reaction engines and the result is what pushes vessels.

So... they're saying what exactly? That SW ships have impulse engines? ;-)
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:

GStone wrote:The one that started it off was a way to make the fuel lighter. He went further and suggested sublight engines are part continuum distortion and part reaction engines and the result is what pushes vessels.

So... they're saying what exactly? That SW ships have impulse engines? ;-)
-Mike

Yes. Exactly.

I'm going to state for the record that gravitational manipulation is completely different from inertial mass lightening. What you do in traditional inertial compensation is simply provide an artificial internal gravitational force. Antigravity traditionally simply cancels gravity's effect on mass, making you effectively weightless as you would be in space; you still need to accelerate through the traditional application of force to accelerate mass.

Prior to this, there was basically no precedent within Star Wars that I'm aware of for such a thing... and as I've mentioned, mass lightening is not something that comes cheap in terms of energy expenditures.

Mike DiCenso wrote:

GStone wrote:The one that started it off was a way to make the fuel lighter. He went further and suggested sublight engines are part continuum distortion and part reaction engines and the result is what pushes vessels.

So... they're saying what exactly? That SW ships have impulse engines? ;-)
-Mike

I proposed that about five years ago, based on AOTC ICS's description of hyperdrives (specificaly ...without altering the complex mass/energy of the ship)

Apparently I was totally wrong.

What is the full AoTC ICS entry for the hyperdrives? Is there anything listed on the sublight drives that might reinforce the idea of SW ships basically having Trek-style impulse engines?
-Mike

"Hyperdrives allows voyages through an eerie realm called hyperspace--i.e. the ordinary universe viewed from the ship travelling faster than the speed of light. Hyperdrives adjust faster-than-light 'hypermatter" particles to allow a jump to light-speed without changing the complex mass and energy of the ship. In addition to hyperdrive travel, an equally wonderous technology exists, called hyperwaves: supralight signals for real-time transgalactic communications through public HoloNet relays. Hyperwave transceivers require almost stellar-scale power, yet signals can be blocked by nearby massive obstructions or by deflector shielding."

Sublight engines from the OT ICS:

"Spacecraft engage their sublight engines once they are well clear of any facilities or personnel that might be harmed by the mildly radioactive emissions. A variety of sublight engine designs exploit the principle of ion thrust, achieved through various reactants and electronic accelerators from potent fuel mixtures. Fuels can take the form of pressuried radioactive gas, volatile composite fluids, or explosive liquid metal. Acceleration compensators project appropriately modified gravity effects within a spacecraft to preserve pilots and passengers from forceful sublight acceleration."

In the MF section, it describes one part of the ship as the "warp vortex stabilizer" and says in one of the sections around it, it says "The secrets of its hyperdrive performance is in Solo's modifications that 'streamline' the ship in hyperspace, controlling the warp of the space-time continuum around it."

G. M. Sarli's explanation in detail of what his reasoning is and why is here.

I find it in some ways very interesting. I'll be posting something following up on it.

Interesting Sarli quotes. Key phrases bolded.

Saxton's numbers didn't match those previous sources, presumably because he wasn't aware of them; as Saxton notes on his website, he gives priority to older sources when settling canon disputes, so I can only assume this was a matter of ignorance and not intentional violation of continuity.

Older sources? I've heard a lot of people say that new sources take priority.

So, we have the following things that I, as a fellow scientist, can only characterize as erroneous assumptions:
* Overestimating the energy required for Base Delta Zero, by at least a factor of 1,000. (Note: Even at this reduced level, the surface would be "slagged" in the form of ejecta from the craters created from turbolaser blasts -- the liquified rock would essentially settle over the entire planet's surface to an average depth of approximately 1 mm, give or take depending on how much is blasted out of the planet's gravitational pull.)
* Underestimating the amount of time required for a Base Delta Zero, possibly by an order of magnitude or even more.
* Underestimating (again perhaps by an order of magnitude) the number of starships that would normally be involved in a Base Delta Zero.

I found this section really interesting.

Note here that Sarli is essentially saying that Saxton's estimations of ISD firepower are off by roughly 5 orders of magnitude... on his website. The website article, written pre-ICS, only estimates "at least 5x10^8 TW."

Sarli, in other words, is here placing ISD sustained firepower on the order of 500 petawatts, i.e., ~5.5 kg/sec of mass annihilated, or 2-5 tons per second of fuel fused under the diesel fusion paradigm I've outlined. This is roughly half what I've characterized as an estimate of ISD drive power on my website. It is also roughly 6 times what I've characterized as the upper limit of ISD turbolasers in onscreen action. Sarli is clearly thinking in the same ballpark as I am.

With this kind of energy consumption, a one-second burst from a ship's ion engines would immediately render a planet uninhabitable.

Something that's been pointed out before, I believe.

Now...

For the record - and I wish Sarli would take note here - the impulse of 10 tons per second of diesel fusion-burned fuel is 2.4 x 10^11 N... which is, for the record, enough to accelerate a 1 million ton ship at 24 g.

Increase the propellant mass to reflect additional spent reserves of fuel used to power antigravity drives, life support, hyperdrive, etc., and the available real-space impulse goes up. If only ~10% of power consumption is in the sub-light drives over the lifespan of the ship, we can increase the thrust to ~750 giganewtons (momentum/energy ratios go up as v goes down), which is a very good match for the performance of the ISD as described on this website without invoking subspace continuui.

The only thing that requires mass-lightening is the ICS' 3000 G acceleration figure - which isn't any better founded than Saxton's power figures. Sarli should be able to see that as well as I can. The only kink in that is that if you only have 73,600 tons of fuel on board, "only" gives you 20.4 hours of full maximum thrust using spent reserves, or 204 hours of full power on one load of fuel. This means that ships can't realistically fight for more than eight days straight, but that's not a real problem. Eight and a half days of absolute maximum combat power is enough for several months' of missions, I should say.

(Hey! Look at me! I'm holistically consistent! I'd recommend someone put a bug in Sarli's ear to come chat with me, but I suspect that bugging Sarli will only be counterproductive - and now he has to live with that ridiculous mass-lightening explanation.)

What's interesting is that the ep 2 description still fits with the earlier established continuum distortion in the OT ICS. Adjusting FTL hypermatter can be viewed as fission to get energy out of it to supply what's required for the distortion (hypermatter annihilator reactors in the core ships back this up-and hypermatter was created like 50 years before ep 4, so it isn't natural; I don't have a copy of rogue planet, so I can't be sure of exactly what all was said about it aside from plasma and an implosion core being used) and they were using hyperspace long before hypermatter was made and they weren't changing the complex mass/energy of objects back then and they can't be what creates the distortion or there'd be no need for the annihilator at all.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:Interesting Sarli quotes. Key phrases bolded.

Saxton's numbers didn't match those previous sources, presumably because he wasn't aware of them; as Saxton notes on his website, he gives priority to older sources when settling canon disputes, so I can only assume this was a matter of ignorance and not intentional violation of continuity.

Older sources? I've heard a lot of people say that new sources take priority.

Mostly said by the opposition. Sansweet/Cerasi say that the closer to the time of the moveis is more accurate EU, which means when it's published is irrelevent. Rostoni says that they have to retcon stuff to fit with Lucas' changes, which is time independent mostly because he could still make more changes and he may give the go ahead for more movies. Chee says that the canon of a thing depends on many things when conflicts arise, such as the number of previous published sources, date, how cool it is, etc., which is partially time dependent. Lots of stipulations.

However, I do get the feeling that, for the most part, the number of sources are the main determining factor. For instance, even though things are said to be a cool explanation, if there has been a large number of sources citing a thing for 'EU canon', but they stick with the previous explanation (even though it isn't as cool), they'll still put out more sources of the older version. If they went with the newer and cooler idea, they'd stop using the old and put out more new things with the cooler explanation, where it'd one day surpass the previous canon in terms of sources.