Idle Musing: "Gigatons of recoil."

[Jedi Master Spock]

the laser cannons being mounted into the open skeletal frames required bracing and recoil-dissipation casings that would have withstood explosions measured in the giga-tonnage range. Anything less, and a single shot fired in battle would rip a destroyer or battle cruiser in two, a victim of its own lethal strength

Idle thought: A "giga-ton" can, unconventionally, be taken as an English unit of force. A ton is 2000 pounds, after all, which would then give us a "gigaton" of force as 9x10^12 N.

The particularly creative will point also point out that 1x10^12 kg m/s is one gigaton meter per second.

Remarkable, just how creative you can get in trying to reconcile different sources.

[GStone]

And to creatively counter that point SS made, it doesn't need to be that strong. If they had a system that could channel weaker quantities in quicker succession (even having parts of the recoil explosion be channeled into different directions simultaneously), things don't have to be so strong. SS might be thinking in terms of handgun/machinegun/rifle design where the explosion is contained in one area except in one direction and used to move back the innards of the gun to set it up for the next round that scoots up because of the spring.

[Dragoon]

Anyone know how long this '200 gigaton' thing is going to last? It's really annoying to have pro-Wars debaters throw that at you.

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

"Anyone know how long this '200 gigaton' thing is going to last?"

Forever. Even if the revised ICS collection removes the ICS:AotC firepower, acceleration, etc. figures that still won't stop people from using it, they've already started justification for its continued inclusion as a contengency in case of deletion. Plus there is all that stuff about quadrillions of battle droids and 40,000 tons/second of fuel consumption for Venators, I doubt all that has been rewritten.

[l33telboi]

My guess is that it will end once the Clone Wars series comes out, showing us an example of BDZ in progress.

[Kazeite]

Nah - they'll probably invent "BDZ lite" or something, used when ship's commander wants to devastate a planet, but not so thoroughly to warrant "full BDZ" :)

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

I'm not saying that there won't be any Star Wars supporters who see reason and abandon the ICS figures. It is just that there are some people who are too entrenched and invested in "winning" the debate to make compromises or yield their position even when all the current evidence is stacked against them. It's not just Warsies that are pig-headed, Trekkies can be too, but I've never seen a Trekkie insist that despite everything else we've seen TDiC level firepower is 100% accurate no matter what, and that a small fleet of Trek ships are capable of matching the Death Star in terms of firepower.

[Mike DiCenso]

Nah - they'll probably invent "BDZ lite" or something, used when ship's commander wants to devastate a planet, but not so thoroughly to warrant "full BDZ" :)

I think you and Anon have called it there. Even though there are clear passages in the EU that don't support such a thing (The Judicator's inability to withstand being close to a star without a significant amount of damage to it's hull, or the SSD Knight Hammer's inability to do more than set forest fires, even when firing at full strength, X-wing's firing only kilojoules of energy, ect) they still cling to the Saxton AoTC ICS numbers. Their only justification is that Saxton's analysis is from the movies, and therefore it trumps all else. That's all they have left as an excuse, pitiful though it may be.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

I know that the people you're talking about aren't really posting actively here, but I'm not really interested in hearing about how they're "pitiful" or "pig-headed," or how you don't think there ever have been any such on the Trek side of things.

And if it is any consolation, we can be pretty sure from the movies that a hand blaster fires kilojoules, and fighter-grade cannons more on the GJ order. Mistakes happen.

[Mr. Oragahn]

the laser cannons being mounted into the open skeletal frames required bracing and recoil-dissipation casings that would have withstood explosions measured in the giga-tonnage range. Anything less, and a single shot fired in battle would rip a destroyer or battle cruiser in two, a victim of its own lethal strength

Idle thought: A "giga-ton" can, unconventionally, be taken as an English unit of force. A ton is 2000 pounds, after all, which would then give us a "gigaton" of force as 9x10^12 N.

The particularly creative will point also point out that 1x10^12 kg m/s is one gigaton meter per second.

Remarkable, just how creative you can get in trying to reconcile different sources.

Which would be quite interesting when coupled to those late fake G devices and other inertia fiddlers.