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AnonymousRedShirtEnsign
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Post by AnonymousRedShirtEnsign » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:25 pm

Counting every Republic ship I saw (double counting a lot to make up for not seeing what was on the other side of the fighters) I got between 150 and 200 ships. The CIS seemed to out number them around 3:1 so maybe there were as many as 1000 ships there from both sides.

Also, the trade federation blockade at Naboo didn't need to cover the entire planet. This is because SW vessels move slowly through planetary atmospheres, so an orbiting ship could move faster and intercept any out going vessel.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:48 pm

I scanned through RoTS, and did a recount, but I still don't get much more than 100 ships total, excluding the starfighters. Can anyone post some screencaps, or point out some screencaps (preferably high-quality) somewhere that can be used to do an accurate ship count here?
-Mike

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:20 pm

Hi all, sorry for the delay but I had 3 exams last two days and really didn't have any time or will left for the debate.
Well there has been some lenghty posts repeating the same point multiple times so I will try to divide the discussion into several related subjects and won't quote every single paragraph. If I've left out some points feel free to point them out.

Is unit=clone?
Sonofccn and AnonymousRedShirtEnsign I provided you with the dictionary definition of the word unit. Using it in military context is immediatly available from option 11 of the definition. Under military definition platoon/squad etc are also viable options. To make a long story short if you wish to claim that unit in that context meant individual clones it is up to you to provide evidence.


Republic military prior to TPM
Here are excerpts from CANON TPM novelization:
page 19 wrote:Again, they nodded, interested now, caught up in the wonder of coming face-to-face with a real pilot-not just of Podracers, but of fighters and cruisers and mainline ships.
page 19 wrote:His gaze shifted to the boys again. "Flew a cruiser filled with Republic soldiers into Makem Te during it's rebellion. That was a scary business."
I think no more needs to be said. It is obvious that Republic had both an army and a fleet prior to the events in TPM.


Han Solo's expertise regarding the total firepower of Imperial ships
Mike DiCenso wrote:First off, please stop with the silly semantics. Who cares if at the time of ANH there were super star destroyers or not? Also the light displacement for an Iowa was 45,000 tons:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/bb-61.htm

Heavy displacement could reach nearly 60,000 tons. But that's neither here nor there as you know. The fact is that Han was not just facing the equivalent of the Coast Guard, but also full out large (from the Star Wars sandpoint) Imperial starships from their navy. Another thing, while it is true that speed is important to Han, he has also been fired at, as was clearly demonstrated in ANH while breaking the Tatooine blockade. The shields on the Falcon were clearly able to withstand turbolaser fire, at least indirectly, if not full on. It strikes me as very peculiar that Han would not know by now about the firepower of ISD turbolasers, or at least have some idea of it from having been shot at so many times. That's all there is to it, and nothing you can do will change it.
That is not semantics Mike, it's called mathemathics. Elementary school level mathemathics at that. I can't believe you try to pretend that ships displacement is suddenly irrelevant for determining their functions in their respective navies. Furthermore Coast Guard is a part of the US navy. Your comparison of ISD with an Iowa class battleship has no basis and you know it.
Mike DiCenso wrote:If the Iowa opens fire on our hypothetical Floridian smuggler, what weapons will the Iowa use? If he gets fired at with the 16 inch guns, not only will he have observed that being fired, but the impact
nearby will certainly tell him something about the weapon's firepower. Unlike our Floridian, Han will have sensors (he can play the information back later, if he so chooses), or he can bribe an Imperial officer or whatever to supply him with information so that he can learn what defenses he needs to withstand the ISD's assault long enough to calculate and make the jump to light speed.
You used the silly Iowa analogy not me. Iowa obviously isn't suited to go around chasing smugglers unlike a Star Destroyer. This coupled with ISDs diminutive size compared to other ship classes clearly demonstrates that it cannot possibly be the equivalent of Iowa class but more likely of a small Coast Guard ship.

Starbase 74 sized stations and their capabilites
Mike DiCenso wrote:Even if the SB 74's acceleration is smaller than that of the DS9, it will still need greater thrust to overcome inertia and apply enough acceleration to maintain it's orbit (which is far lower in
altitude than DS9's). The structure alone, even if it is somehow weaker (doubtful), or just merely the same strength as DS9 still represents a significant increase in materials and industry to build. That the SB-74 by default of the natural consequence of being so much more massive than DS9, will need structral integrity, and more thrusters (or larger ones) to compensate. Just making due with a handful of DS9 size thrusters will not be enough.
You still provided no evidence or calculations. What is the acceleration provided by those stationkeeping thrusters? Why do you claim that that it is doubtful that Starbase 74's structure is weaker than DS9? What is your evidence? Not to mention that you still haven't even tried to answer my points about Starbase 74 not havnig impulse or warp engines (unlike Death Star).
Mike DiCenso wrote:We have Spacedock (6 km), SB-74 (13-16km), SB-84 (13-16 km), SB-133 (13-16 km), Lya Station Alpha (13-16 km). That's five so far, excluding the four visually confirmed large stations at Utopia Planita, which also happens to include a Spacedock/SB-74 type station (as per TNG's "Booby Trap"). So really that six very large space stations, not including the four "dumbell" shaped stations seen at Utopia Planita in VOY's "Relativity".
13 to 16 km? Let me see if I can provide a quick scaling of the starbases:
Link
The door is about 107px wide in the middle while that upper spherical area is 545px wide.
Link
In this screenshot the upper circular area is 312px wide while the mushroom itself is 663px wide.
Assuming the Starbase 74 has the same proportions and that the door is 500m wide the station is 5,411 meters wide.
Link
The station here is 189px wide and 220px tall (not including the antenae). At 5,411 meters width the station is 6,300 meters tall. If we include the antenas the station is 287px tall or 8,216m tall. Nowhere near 13-16 km you claimed.
Mike DiCenso wrote:As for scaling the dumbell Utopia Planita stations, we went over their scalings numerous times on the former Strek-v-Swars forum. Alyeska did a scaling that indicated 16 km height, and I did scalings based on a GCS ins a dry dock off in the background near to, but in front of one of the stations that suggests no less than 3 km as a height.
Yes we have and I see you developed amnesia about how I already pointed out that Alyeska stated he was mistaken in his scaling.
But by all means provide your Galaxy scaling (which as you said yourself results in 3km result).
Mike DiCenso wrote:No one is talking strength here, though in principle, the SB-74 would probably be built up to be the stronger of the two. The ease is based on the fact, as I've already made clear, that DS9 was a retrofitted alien platform, which the crew had other difficulties with when the first came on board, yet once the Dominion threat became apparent, the station was outfitted without anyone mentioning a word of it, nor even their Klingon allies getting wind of such modifications. So either the Federation put a lot of effort into it that, or the retrofitting was relatively easy.
It wasn't an "alien" platform. Federation had contact with the Cardassian empire for decades and their technology base was almost identical. Fusion reactor, duranium hull etc. nothing that Federation would consider alien.
I also like how the fact the Klingons were unaware that Federation is rebuilding the DS9 means it's retrofit was easy while the Empire building the 160km wide Death Star in secret still means the Empire used up most of their industry.
In any case you are still completley ignoring the fact that Starbase 74 is 1000 times bigger.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Then cut it out! The two stations are not part of the same class as you put it, but DS9 does represent where the Federation took an alien space station, retrofitted it to do maintance work on starships, and carry some impressive firepower and shields. It is an indicator of what is possible, or should be possible.
Here you go with "alien" again as if they were dealing with Dyson Sphere builders instead of Cardassians. Let me repeat again: Cardassians had the same base technology as the Federation. Their main reactor which fed power to shields and phaser was a laser induced fusion reactor.
I'm not saying that there won't be compatibility problems but you cannot extrapolate those problems into claiming that they could therefore arm Starbase 74 to be proportionally stronger than DS9.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Right, but we have seen what constitutes defenses in Star Trek. That means shields, phasers, torpedoes, spacecraft, and more.
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Like I said the phrase "defense perimeters" can mean anything.


In conlcusion I would like to note that you don't seem to understand what you are required to do. This entire line of reasoning started because you claimed that SB74 could be used as starship building benchmark just like the Death Star. In order to do that you need to show that SB74 can be regarded as a starship just like Death Star is. You won't show that by claiming that Federation could build up SB74 until it's equally or several times stronger than DS9. It must be hundreds of times stronger than DS9 have warp engines have impulse engines.

Death Stars
Mike DiCenso wrote:I think you misunderstand, Kane. The bulb is teeny-tiny fraction of the reactor chamber, which is the point, unlike the SB-74 core structure, which represents a fairly good sized fraction of that empty volume. It's still empty, wasted space. The volume of the reactor housing is added into a total, larger fraction, that makes the Death Stars less substantial than some are trying to portray it as.
No I understand perfectly. You are claiming that even though completely empty reactor chamber still uses up merely 1/1000 of the volume while the mushroom chamber, including the cylinder, takes up a quarter of the volume the Death Star somehow has more wasted space.
That argument doesn't make any sense. If we downscaled DS2 to Voyager the reactor chamber would have a volume of 650m3 or 9x9x9m box. That's less than Voyager's shuttlebays.
Mike DiCenso wrote:You again misunderstand, I think. The massive structural beams do not in any way work in my favor. Think about it. They work against me, since that apparently is not a bunch of hollow tubing. That's good for you, in fact. What works the other way are the thousands apon thousands of hollow shafts, corridors, air shafts, trenches, the reactor housing, the Superlaser dish, and more that all together takes up substantial amounts of the interior volume of the station. Based on the superstructure pictures of the DS2, I'd say that those shafts make up a large proportion of the stations volume. I think you calculate that each one represents one 200 millionth of the total volume? But taken together, the represent a hollow space that is nearly as much as that.
I eagerly await evidence for "thousands apon thoousands" of shafts and corridors which every ship has that supposedly significantly drop the mass of the Death Star. I calculated the volume of the structures that we could see.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Kane, this has already been explained at great length. A Death Star does not necessarily equal its gross volume in ISDs in terms of cost - a better estimation is thousands or tens of thousands of times the cost.
Now you are making stuff up. Where do thousands of times lesser cost per unit of volume comes from? All of the examples you have showed show a same order of magnitude and that won't continue to rise because of the raw amount of material needed.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:You can easily "slight-of-hand" away as much as 10% through immediately citing any one of the following reasons:
That is nowhere near enough to explain away as much as 10% of military capacity but even if we accept that how does this translate into the ability to explain 20% or 40% or 60%?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:The simple explanation is that nobody would have noticed in the first place, because they had no means to compare.
Sure they would. Military producion during clone wars vd military production during the Empire.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Because their own state was pretty peaceful and then suddenly militarized. The frame of reference has shifted far too much.
As I have shown the Republic did have a military before the TPM.

Building in free-fall
Nonamer wrote:Even if you ignore every last one of those things, it'll still be way more expensive. I mean we're looking at the difference between >$100 billion and something like $7 billion.

And your whole statement has no evidence going for it anyways. The above claim did nothing but hurt it. I'm merely pointing out the weaknesses of your claims.
You really don't get it do you? All of the modules were assembled on the ground. Most of the cost is caused long before the station modules reach free-fall. But once they are there the construction becomes easier since they don't have to worry about any forces causing stress to the object. The price comes from the fact that space stations contain high-end technology and the fact you need to escape Earth's gravity to deliver the station parts.
In our discussion JediMasterSpock claimed that it is easier to build Death Star than ISD in open space because DS's microgravity will help. So you'll need to leave the planet either way.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Proper combination of size and density, Kane. You should be able to work out the math yourself as far as a few examples.
When you make a claim you are expceted to produce your own calculations to back them up not ask others to do your homework for you. Come on. Show me how you can have a geostationary object a fraction of planetary diameter above the surface while retaining a realistic planet.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Actually, we could build that fairly easily on the surface. The question of the structure holding together in gravity is another matter: The ISS isn't designed to.
It isn't designed because it didn't have to. It didn't have to have large load bearing areas since there is no gravity and therefore no stress. If they had to build it on Earth the entire structure would be far more expensive and difficult to build.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Pressure is only a problem if you have too much or not enough to the point of causing destruction.
Yes but they will have to calculate how much pressure is "too much" before starting the construction won't they? And then they'll have to modify their construction process accordingly. Therefore the building process would be more complicated not less.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Accidentally nudging something and then spending 30 mins carefully drifting it back into place. Explosive decompression. Hard rads. Having to hold things together instead of having them stay put. Micrometorites.

You can compensate for all of these technologically, but it's still a fuss.
And what happens if you accidentaly drop an object from 100 meter skycraper? You'd be lucky if you only destroy the object and not kill anyone. Accidents can happen anywhere. And as for explosive decompression and hard rads how does this help your case? It will be just as probable in Death Star microgravity environment as in builidng the ISD. Micrometeorits furthermore will be more likely to hit a much larger and more massive target like Death Star than an ISD so this actually disproves your point.
And as you admitted yourself technology like shields and tractorbeams will prevent any of those.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Do you have to worry about stress limits or load bearing? Yes, because the structure will undergo stresses when it moves, rotates, turns on artificial gravity, etc.
Don't try to confuse the issue. You were claiming that the buliding process itself will be harder for ISD than Death Star beacuse of "microgravity". Rotation, moving and turning on artifical gravity will all be done on both ships. How does this prove your claim?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Actually, given the Jedi Council keeps things secret better and many Senators consult with the Council, I'd say the Jedi Council is more likely to know. Especially given the Senate showed no signs of learning until told by the Jedi Council.
What "signs of learning" is the senate supposed to show? Runnigna round in streets shouting about the army? I want evidence that senate didn't know.


Trade Federation fleet
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Off the top of my head, I can estimate that roughly 1,000 ships were visible in those shots. Of course, we already had a firm figure for the Dominion fleet earlier in the war (30,000), but it's nice to see visuals that actually match with those fleet totals.

The comparison to the TPM shots is particularly dramatic.
The Trade Federation fleet was there to blockade the planet while Dominion fleet closed ranks in order to concentrate firepower and present the largest target to the allied fleet.
Here is an excerpt from TPM novelization:
page 24 wrote:The small Republic space cruiser, its red color the symbol of ambassadorial neutrality, knifed through starry blackness toward the emerald bright planet of Naboo and the cluster of Trade Federation fleet ships that encircled it. The ships were huge, blocky fortresses, tubular in shape, split at one end and encircling an orb that sheltered the bridge, communications center, and hyperdrive. Armaments bristled from every port and bay, and Trade Federation fighters circled the big beasts like gnats.
As you can see the fleet encircled the planet and according to the screenhots the average distance between the ships was 10-20km. Even assuming that average distance was 100km and assuming that ships were about 1000km above the surface the total number of battleships would be over 21,000! And that is for a blockade of a far away small planet and the entire event was described as "trivial" by Qui-Gon Jinn.
That ships, by the way, had a volume of 700,000 ISDs or 7 million Galaxy class ships or over billion Jem'Hadar fighters.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Very few TF battleships in ROTS.
That we saw on screen you mean? By the way TF battleship is some 100 times bigger than Venator class ship so there is nothing strange about them being outnumbered.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:A TF battleship being boarded by a Republic Attack Cruiser in ROTS.
And? Therefore?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:The Separatist fleet being driven off in ROTS.
And this means that individual Trade Federation ship is much weaker than Republic ship of equal size why exactly? You have heard the term "outnumbered" I assume.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:TF core ships - i.e., battleships minus their huge cargo banks - being completely maimed in AOTC.
By all means provide evidence that those horseshoes are only cargo banks and that Core ships had their shields on and that Republic cruisers would fare better in the same situation.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:And so on. The Trade Federation battleship is an enormous ship; if it could pull its weight in ship-to-ship battles, it would be the equal of an entire fleet of dozens of Republic cruisers.
You will, of course, provide evidence that TF battleship is not equal to an entire fleet of Republic cruisers?


Imperial fleet
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Incorrect. Read the novelization, it spends two pages on their curiousity and speculation. Not once did the possibility that it might be from a patrolling ship arise. Not once, even though there could have been one nearby and simply not yet registering on their scans.
I provided my own novel quotes I expect you to do the same. I really like how you pretend that the fact that no one thought it might be from a patrolling ship automatically constitutes proof. You do realize that people are not perfect don't you? That sometimes they simply won't think of a solution even if it's staring them in the face.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:It's very simple, and comes out particularly solidly in the EU: The Empire has a very thin presence.
No it's simple-minded. There is a difference. The Empire conists of million member planets and most of the galaxy. Even with 100 million ships it would still be spread thin. The EU it also states that a criminal organization was hired to ship the raw material for DS2 into place. So much for DS2 occupying most of Imperial resources.


Tracking ships in hyperspace
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Simple. If you can't track a ship accurately, you can't track what system it goes to. Inability to track ships accurately is inability to effectively track ships.
Really? So accurately means "narrowing it down to a system"? Please be so kind as to elaborate on that reasoning.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:And sneaky enough to not be noticed. And enough to follow most of the freighters. And somehow capable of tracking throuh hyperspace without being tracked. Etc. Another practical impossibility
So it's practically impossible to build a ship that has stronger sensors and lesser sensor profile than a huge freighter transporting parts to DS2 construcution site eh? You are getting funnier by the minute.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:At that point, it's easier to try and install tracking devices. The incredibly difficult nature of this class of project means you wouldn't attempt to track all Imperial freight unless you already knew something was amiss - which presupposes that you already know there's a Death Star project going on. Let's face it - you don't casually notice that 50% of Imperial military freight winds up at a single destination.
Yes the tracking devices are another perfectly viable option. And why would anyone need to know where the DS2 is being constructed? You notice that 50% of the military cargo carried by the transporters isn't showing up anywhere, you send a few hundred people to try to track down the freighters which take off with a load but continually come back empty and their supposed destination haven't received any shipment.

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AnonymousRedShirtEnsign
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Post by AnonymousRedShirtEnsign » Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:09 pm

So, Kane, your whole argument against one unit equaling one clone trooper, is that maybe, possibly unit could be referring to some other, predetermined, military denomination of troops. That is a rather large and unfounded leap of faith, that stems form your use of deductive reasoning (start with a conclusion and attempt to back it up) rather than inductive reasoning (start with observations and then draw conclusions based on those observations). There is also the fact that when Yoda shows up with the clone army on Genosis, there aren't millions of them. People tend to like to keep things simple and easy, hence Occam's razor and keep it simple stupid. If you take a random person, unfamiliar with the vs debate or the EU, and asked them to watch AotC and then tell you how many clones are in the republic army, every person who remembered the 200,000 units figure would tell you that there are 200,000 clones, with a 1,000,000 more at some stage of production (well on their way doesn't have an exact meaning).

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Post by sonofccn » Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:12 pm

Kane starkiller wrote:Hi all, sorry for the delay but I had 3 exams last two days and really didn't have any time or will left for the debate.
No problem.
Kane starkiller wrote:Sonofccn and AnonymousRedShirtEnsign I provided you with the dictionary definition of the word unit
Correct
Kane starkiller wrote:Using it in military context is immediatly available from option 11 of the definition
Correct
Kane starkiller wrote:Under military definition platoon/squad etc are also viable options.
Along with just about any other homoges military formation which makes the military unit worthless in the quote.
Kane starkiller wrote:To make a long story short if you wish to claim that unit in that context meant individual clones it is up to you to provide evidence
It's the only one that makes sense in context of the quote. If you wish for us to use squad or platoon instead of any military formation then you need to provide evidence.
Kane starkiller wrote:Iowa obviously isn't suited to go around chasing smugglers unlike a Star Destroyer. This coupled with ISDs diminutive size compared to other ship classes clearly demonstrates that it cannot possibly be the equivalent of Iowa class but more likely of a small Coast Guard ship.
Ah... the ISD is not a coast guard vessel. It is the empires main battleship, and comprises the core of thier navy.ref. it's use in all combat scenarios in the OT. It is only dwarfed by the SSD which is a command ship not a combatship, and the deathstar which is a rare, non mass produced starbase with hyperdrive and sublight engines.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:32 pm

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:So, Kane, your whole argument against one unit equaling one clone trooper, is that maybe, possibly unit could be referring to some other, predetermined, military denomination of troops.
Each and every one of those definitions is equally viable. Definition number 11 is just as probable as definition 1. Platoon is just as probable as single clone. Squad is just as probable as single clone. Squad is just as probable as Brigade. etc. etc. WE DON'T KNOW.
If you wish to narrow down the options it is up to you to provide evidence.
sonofccn wrote:It's the only one that makes sense in context of the quote. If you wish for us to use squad or platoon instead of any military formation then you need to provide evidence.
No it doesn't. 200,000 brigades makes just as much sense. And if you wish to claim "single clone" then it is YOU who needs to provide evidence. I already told you that "single clone" is not a default value of unit.
sonofccn wrote:Ah... the ISD is not a coast guard vessel. It is the empires main battleship, and comprises the core of thier navy.ref. it's use in all combat scenarios in the OT. It is only dwarfed by the SSD which is a command ship not a combatship, and the deathstar which is a rare, non mass produced starbase with hyperdrive and sublight engines.
It is used to attack and hunt Rebels which are basically a guerrila army. Hardly a job for the main battleships. And I really don't see who you think you are fooling with Death Star semantics: "starbase with hyperdrive and sublight engines". That is by, by definition, a starship.

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Post by sonofccn » Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:34 pm

kane starkiller wrote:No it doesn't. 200,000 brigades makes just as much sense. And if you wish to claim "single clone" then it is YOU who needs to provide evidence. I already told you that "single clone" is not a default value of unit
Yes brigade makes just as much sense and if one of the dozen definitoin had been brigade you would have point, but it doens't. Unit doens't mean brigade or squad or platoon. It means something that can be anyone of those things but is not any one specificly. Therefore in the context of the quote saying x amount of any military formation is totally useless. So unless you have new evidence unit=clone is the only logical answer.
kane starkiller wrote:It is used to attack and hunt Rebels which are basically a guerrila army.
Who can stand toe to toe with the empire in an even match.
kane starkiller wrote:Hardly a job for the main battleships
Attacking enemy bases and fleets and keeping order on the border is closer to a battleship then the coast guard. Add to that we know of lesser ships being used mainly for "coast guardish" duty(ie bulk cruisers) and the fact that Ventor class warships twenty years ago were about the same size and the core of the republic navy, it seems pretty clear that the ISD is a warship not a rinky dink coast guard ship.I mean really that the empire employed SSD sized battleships but failed to bring any in all thier battles with the rebellion is just to far fetched to be believable.
kane starkiller wrote:And I really don't see who you think you are fooling with Death Star semantics: "starbase with hyperdrive and sublight engines". That is by, by definition, a starship.
1.Your arguing semantics. You want it classified as a ship which since it does move I guess is technically correct, but the thing is basicly a starbase that can limp at impulse and jump to lightspeed.
2. How does that disprove my point that your two examples of bigger ships are neither battleships?

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:43 pm

sonofccn wrote:Yes brigade makes just as much sense and if one of the dozen definitoin had been brigade you would have point, but it doens't. Unit doens't mean brigade or squad or platoon.
Provide evidence that it doesn't mean squad or platoon as I have provided dictionary definition proving that it can mean those things just as easily as single soldier.
sonofccn wrote:It means something that can be anyone of those things but is not any one specificly.
Yes it is not determined specifically: not squad, not brigade and not single soldier. We don't know.
sonofccn wrote:Therefore in the context of the quote saying x amount of any military formation is totally useless.So unless you have new evidence unit=clone is the only logical answer.
No it isn't. Unit=brigade is just as logical, unit=squad is just as logical, unit=platoon is just as logical. Neither of us has any evidence yet you choose clone over all other equall viable and useful definitions.
sonofccn wrote:Who can stand toe to toe with the empire in an even match.
This is some good shit. The Rebels can go toe to toe with Empire in an even match huh? No shit Sherlcok that's the definition of an even match.
sonofccn wrote:Attacking enemy bases and fleets and keeping order on the border is closer to a battleship then the coast guard. Add to that we know of lesser ships being used mainly for "coast guardish" duty(ie bulk cruisers) and the fact that Ventor class warships twenty years ago were about the same size and the core of the republic navy, it seems pretty clear that the ISD is a warship not a rinky dink coast guard ship.I mean really that the empire employed SSD sized battleships but failed to bring any in all thier battles with the rebellion is just to far fetched to be believable.
"All their battles"? How many battles have we seen? ANH where they brough in Death Star with firepower of half of starfleet and it took the most powerful Force user in the galaxy and a nice tocuh of luck to destroy it? TESB where we see a group of ships chasing freighters and small fighters? Or ROTJ which was basically a trap for Rebels and Imperials wanted to leave the impression of business as usual?
sonofccn wrote:1.Your arguing semantics. You want it classified as a ship which since it does move I guess is technically correct, but the thing is basicly a starbase that can limp at impulse and jump to lightspeed.
Man you really crack me up. Do you even know what "arguing semantics" means? It means that you are using names and designations to derive the function of objects and their nature. And which one of us is using the word "battlestation" to claim Death Star is not a starship? You are. I am focusing on it's capabilities: the abiliy to move at sublight and supralight speeds.
sonofccn wrote:2. How does that disprove my point that your two examples of bigger ships are neither battleships?
By all means, explain how Executor and Death Star don't fit the category of a battleship while the ISD does.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:05 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:First off, please stop with the silly semantics. Who cares if at the time of ANH there were super star destroyers or not? Also the light displacement for an Iowa was 45,000 tons:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/bb-61.htm

Heavy displacement could reach nearly 60,000 tons. But that's neither here nor there as you know. The fact is that Han was not just facing the equivalent of the Coast Guard, but also full out large (from the Star Wars sandpoint) Imperial starships from their navy. Another thing, while it is true that speed is important to Han, he has also been fired at, as was clearly demonstrated in ANH while breaking the Tatooine blockade. The shields on the Falcon were clearly able to withstand turbolaser fire, at least indirectly, if not full on. It strikes me as very peculiar that Han would not know by now about the firepower of ISD turbolasers, or at least have some idea of it from having been shot at so many times. That's all there is to it, and nothing you can do will change it.
Kane Starkiller wrote:

That is not semantics Mike, it's called mathemathics. Elementary school level mathemathics at that. I can't believe you try to pretend that ships displacement is suddenly irrelevant for determining their functions in their respective navies. Furthermore Coast Guard is a part of the US navy. Your comparison of ISD with an Iowa class battleship has no basis and you know it.
Oh yes it is, Kane. Whether or not you consider the Coast Guard a part of the Navy is irrelevant; it is sufficently different in the type and number of ships used. We were comparing being chased by a small cutter to being chased by a big huge battleship, after all. So this is another attempt at yours of switching the arguement once it no longer goes in your favor.
Mike DiCenso wrote:If the Iowa opens fire on our hypothetical Floridian smuggler, what weapons will the Iowa use? If he gets fired at with the 16 inch guns, not only will he have observed that being fired, but the impact
nearby will certainly tell him something about the weapon's firepower. Unlike our Floridian, Han will have sensors (he can play the information back later, if he so chooses), or he can bribe an Imperial officer or whatever to supply him with information so that he can learn what defenses he needs to withstand the ISD's assault long enough to calculate and make the jump to light speed.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
You used the silly Iowa analogy not me. Iowa obviously isn't suited to go around chasing smugglers unlike a Star Destroyer. This coupled with ISDs diminutive size compared to other ship classes clearly demonstrates that it cannot possibly be the equivalent of Iowa class but more likely of a small Coast Guard ship.

And you are trying desperately to bait and switch here with it. It's the closest analogy we have to what Han was doing while being a space-going smuggler during the time of the Galactic Empire. Does the Falcon have sensors? I'am sure it does as Han is able to detect when other ships show up without visual sighting through the cockpit windows, and Han was able to know about the "wild energies" left over from the Alderaan's destruction in the ANH novelization. I would think Han would be prudent enough to be able to measure what kind of firepower is being directed at his ship, and extrapolate from there what is or is not possible. What we know:

* Han is an expert smuggler. One of the best as proclaimed by Jabba the Hut. That's why Jabba spared Han. Therefore Han is not bragging too much over his abilities as a smuggler. We have to assume he's reliable as an expert in matters pertaining to his business.

* Han prior to ANH had tangled with big Imperial Navy starships, not just local patrol cruisers.

* Being chased often means getting shot at, if ANH is anything to go by. Just running away at sublight isn't enough. You have to have good enough shields to let you withstand even near misses from TL flackbursts while you make your jump calcs.

If Han had no knowledge whatsoever of what Imperial weapons could do, then he'd really be in trouble given that the Falcon endured a number of shots from one pursuing star destroyer, and likely would have been destroyed or disabled and captured, if the shields couldn't last long enough for the jump calcs to be made. Therefore Han has a good working knowledge based on experiance of Imperial TL firepower. It's that simple, and does not require us to do any unnecessary math. Han maybe had done such math himself, or maybe he could infer enough about Imperial firepower to take an educated guess that the entire Imperial starfleet couldn't have destroyed Alderaan.

It would be quite reasonable for our Floridian smuggler to say that the entire U.S. Navy could not destroy the island of Cuba such that it would leave only ocean based on having seen what the guns on an Iowa class battleship could do. Even with nukes, the U.S. Navy couldn't erase the island from the face of the map, leaving only ocean. This is the comparable difference.


Starbase 74 sized stations and their capabilites
Mike DiCenso wrote:Even if the SB 74's acceleration is smaller than that of the DS9, it will still need greater thrust to overcome inertia and apply enough acceleration to maintain it's orbit (which is far lower in
altitude than DS9's). The structure alone, even if it is somehow weaker (doubtful), or just merely the same strength as DS9 still represents a significant increase in materials and industry to build. That the SB-74 by default of the natural consequence of being so much more massive than DS9, will need structral integrity, and more thrusters (or larger ones) to compensate. Just making due with a handful of DS9 size thrusters will not be enough.
Kane Starkiller wrote:

You still provided no evidence or calculations. What is the acceleration provided by those stationkeeping thrusters? Why do you claim that that it is doubtful that Starbase 74's structure is weaker than DS9? What is your evidence? Not to mention that you still haven't even tried to answer my points about Starbase 74 not havnig impulse or warp engines (unlike Death Star).
Let me turn this back onto you. What evidence do you have the SB74's structure is, in fact, weaker than DS9's? What evidence do you possess that the rest of us do not have that the SB-74 (a vastly larger and more massive structure than DS9) only needs to get by on DS9-sized thrusters? It is only common sense that it likely needs to be stronger structure (greater mass = greater structural loads), and that the thrusters need to either be more numerous, or need to be larger and more powerful to overcome the station's inertia.

The warp and impulse issue are related to the size of the thrusters and fusion power required to do the job station keeping. The impulse engines of a starship might only be the size and power of a single SB-74 thruster. The amount of material that went into the building of the station can be translated into the amount of material resources required for the warp coils, ect.

Mike DiCenso wrote:We have Spacedock (6 km), SB-74 (13-16km), SB-84 (13-16 km), SB-133 (13-16 km), Lya Station Alpha (13-16 km). That's five so far, excluding the four visually confirmed large stations at Utopia Planita, which also happens to include a Spacedock/SB-74 type station (as per TNG's "Booby Trap"). So really that six very large space stations, not including the four "dumbell" shaped stations seen at Utopia Planita in VOY's "Relativity".
Kane Starkiller wrote:

13 to 16 km? Let me see if I can provide a quick scaling of the starbases:
Link
The door is about 107px wide in the middle while that upper spherical area is 545px wide.
Link
In this screenshot the upper circular area is 312px wide while the mushroom itself is 663px wide.
Assuming the Starbase 74 has the same proportions and that the door is 500m wide the station is 5,411 meters wide.
Link
The station here is 189px wide and 220px tall (not including the antenae). At 5,411 meters width the station is 6,300 meters tall. If we include the antenas the station is 287px tall or 8,216m tall. Nowhere near 13-16 km you claimed.
Uh, you do realize that the images you are using are not of the Enterprise when it is actually entering into the spacedoors, do you? This is only typical of your nonsense, and crappy scalings. That and we're not even looking at the spacedoors head on. There are good views available of that in ST3:TSFS, if you bothered to look. All you've done is set a lower limit to each station's size by picking the worst possible views you could!

Let's try this again, only using more proper scaling views, shall we? This image from Trekcore comes of SB-74 itself as the E-D backs out of the station, it is as good a view of how big the SB-74 spacedoors are, and the E-D itself can be compared to the height of the mushroom docking bay section:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 15&pos=148

Now the E-D isn't actually right inside the frame of the spacedoors, so any numbers derived with likely be conservative with regards to the size of the station. The E-D width measures just under 1.45" in the screencap, while the doors measure 1.8". 1.45 divided by 1.8 gives us a 20% difference, or 564 meters for the spacedoors' width. Again, fairly conservative here since it is clear the E-D is some distance backed way from the doors. Measuring that to the height of the station, the main mushroon docking bay has a height from lower rim to the flat section of 1.817 km. Since the SB-74 footage is a reuse of the scene above, we can now estimate conservatively the width of SB-74's main section using your picture, the height of the station main section (somewhat distorted) is 1.65", while the width is just over 7.12". That when divided gives us a ratio of 4.315 to 1. So the width of the main section from rim to rim as you have marked out in red is no less than 7.84 km wide! Now let's plug that into your final image which has the height at 3.4" and the width at 2.7 inches for a ratio of 1.26 to 1, or a height of 9.87 km without the ariel tower structures and their bases. With the tower structures, the station height conservatively goes up to 12.912 km. Pretty damn close to 13 km, I would say. Likely the station is larger given that the E-D is not actually inside the spacedoor frame, but a few hundred meters beyond it.


Mike DiCenso wrote:As for scaling the dumbell Utopia Planita stations, we went over their scalings numerous times on the former Strek-v-Swars forum. Alyeska did a scaling that indicated 16 km height, and I did scalings based on a GCS ins a dry dock off in the background near to, but in front of one of the stations that suggests no less than 3 km as a height.
Yes we have and I see you developed amnesia about how I already pointed out that Alyeska stated he was mistaken in his scaling.
But by all means provide your Galaxy scaling (which as you said yourself results in 3km result).
Alyeska backtracked mistakenly. The window scalings were all wrong as was pointed out. Again, you seem to have your own selective amnesia about things.
Mike DiCenso wrote:No one is talking strength here, though in principle, the SB-74 would probably be built up to be the stronger of the two. The ease is based on the fact, as I've already made clear, that DS9 was a retrofitted alien platform, which the crew had other difficulties with when the first came on board, yet once the Dominion threat became apparent, the station was outfitted without anyone mentioning a word of it, nor even their Klingon allies getting wind of such modifications. So either the Federation put a lot of effort into it that, or the retrofitting was relatively easy.
Kane Starkiller wrote:

It wasn't an "alien" platform. Federation had contact with the Cardassian empire for decades and their technology base was almost identical. Fusion reactor, duranium hull etc. nothing that Federation would consider alien.
I also like how the fact the Klingons were unaware that Federation is rebuilding the DS9 means it's retrofit was easy while the Empire building the 160km wide Death Star in secret still means the Empire used up most of their industry.
In any case you are still completley ignoring the fact that Starbase 74 is 1000 times bigger.

The construction of the station was alien to them, no matter how you try and twist things. They new little about the layout initally. It's like saying that the U.S. could just grab up a MIG fighter and maintain it indefinately without any documentation since it operated on principles very similar to U.S. ones. That's just messed up thinking, Kane on your part. Take real life historical examples. The U.S.S. Levithan was a captured German ocean liner. At the time she was built (1914), it was the biggest ship in the world. The U.S. did not magically rebuild the ship as a troopship overnight. They had to send in a team of expert draftsmen to scour through the vessel and map every centimeter of it first, even though that vessel operated on the same basic principles as any U.S. ship. The same thing with cars, even though they operate on the same principles; you still have to get parts and documentation and training from the company that made the cars in order to properly maintain them. This is a simple concept, I don't know why you can't or won't accept it and move on.

Oh, and I don't ignore the orders of magnitude size difference between the two stations. In fact, I've made it part of my arguements all along. Yes the station is bigger, but we have seen that the Federation can, when it needs to, refit a station it did not design or build in less than 3 years time, and did it in secret from even the closest allies. You don't like that, but you have no problem taking the DS2 as a shining example of industrial might for similar reasons.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Then cut it out! The two stations are not part of the same class as you put it, but DS9 does represent where the Federation took an alien space station, retrofitted it to do maintance work on starships, and carry some impressive firepower and shields. It is an indicator of what is possible, or should be possible.
Here you go with "alien" again as if they were dealing with Dyson Sphere builders instead of Cardassians. Let me repeat again: Cardassians had the same base technology as the Federation. Their main reactor which fed power to shields and phaser was a laser induced fusion reactor.
I'm not saying that there won't be compatibility problems but you cannot extrapolate those problems into claiming that they could therefore arm Starbase 74 to be proportionally stronger than DS9.
Again, the difference is many times more than you understand, and I am graciously allowing for the fact that large Federation starbases would not be outfitted with at least some weapons and defenses against all common sense. All you are doing is agreeing that at the very minimum, the Federation could outfit it's stations with weapons and shields comparable to DS9.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Right, but we have seen what constitutes defenses in Star Trek. That means shields, phasers, torpedoes, spacecraft, and more.
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Like I said the phrase "defense perimeters" can mean anything.
But in context of what we do know for ST, that is what we must assume until there is some better evidence that says otherwise.
Kane Starkiller wrote:

In conlcusion I would like to note that you don't seem to understand what you are required to do. This entire line of reasoning started because you claimed that SB74 could be used as starship building benchmark just like the Death Star. In order to do that you need to show that SB74 can be regarded as a starship just like Death Star is. You won't show that by claiming that Federation could build up SB74 until it's equally or several times stronger than DS9. It must be hundreds of times stronger than DS9 have warp engines have impulse engines.
Not precisely. The SB-74 stations are representative of the marshalling of a large-scale amount of resources by the Federation far above what any individual class of starship requires, just as the Death Stars represent a similar effort for the Empire. You can argue the minutiae of warp drives and hyperdrives, but that in a nutshell is what we are talking about. The total overall resources required to accomplish tasks.


How many cars could I build from the steel used to construct the Empire State Building? You would become concerned that cars have engines, whereas the ESB does not. But that is insignificant compared to the resources being marshalled, which is what this is all really about.

Death Stars
Mike DiCenso wrote:I think you misunderstand, Kane. The bulb is teeny-tiny fraction of the reactor chamber, which is the point, unlike the SB-74 core structure, which represents a fairly good sized fraction of that empty volume. It's still empty, wasted space. The volume of the reactor housing is added into a total, larger fraction, that makes the Death Stars less substantial than some are trying to portray it as.
Kane Starkiller wrote:

No I understand perfectly. You are claiming that even though completely empty reactor chamber still uses up merely 1/1000 of the volume while the mushroom chamber, including the cylinder, takes up a quarter of the volume the Death Star somehow has more wasted space.
That argument doesn't make any sense. If we downscaled DS2 to Voyager the reactor chamber would have a volume of 650m3 or 9x9x9m box. That's less than Voyager's shuttlebays.
Okay fine. But we are talking about wasted space. The reactor chamber housing is not comparable, but if we did, then the reactor bulb itself is far smaller than the SB-74 core structure relative to their respective spaces in which they exist. That is what I am speaking of.

Mike DiCenso wrote:
You again misunderstand, I think. The massive structural beams do not in any way work in my favor. Think about it. They work against me, since that apparently is not a bunch of hollow tubing. That's good for you, in fact. What works the other way are the thousands apon thousands of hollow shafts, corridors, air shafts, trenches, the reactor housing, the Superlaser dish, and more that all together takes up substantial amounts of the interior volume of the station. Based on the superstructure pictures of the DS2, I'd say that those shafts make up a large proportion of the stations volume. I think you calculate that each one represents one 200 millionth of the total volume? But taken together, the represent a hollow space that is nearly as much as that.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
I eagerly await evidence for "thousands apon thoousands" of shafts and corridors which every ship has that supposedly significantly drop the mass of the Death Star. I calculated the volume of the structures that we could see.
Here in this pic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DeathStar2.jpg

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/books/sw2ij/ds2.jpg

Look at the incomplete superstructure sections of the station. That is not solid structure, but thousands of individual tubes and trusses, like the ones the Falcon and starfighters flew into. Also note in the second photo the spacings between some of the "deck" structures. More hollow space. We even see in RoTS that there are branching shafts along the way, in particular when two fighters split up to draw off the TIEs by heading back to the surface. Lots and lots of shafts and tributaries all over the place.
-Mike
Last edited by Mike DiCenso on Sun Sep 10, 2006 1:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

sonofccn
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Post by sonofccn » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:48 am

Kane starkiller wrote:Provide evidence that it doesn't mean squad or platoon as I have provided dictionary definition proving that it can mean those things just as easily as single soldier.
No it doesn't. It can mean a single thing or person, or it can mean any military formation. Therefore it unit doesn't mean squad or platoon, it means something that can be a squad or platoon but you would need addintional information for that to work.
Kane starkiller wrote:Yes it is not determined specifically: not squad, not brigade and not single soldier. We don't know.
Single thing/person is specific and it's even definition number 1. So out of the 12 definitions only number 1 makes sense with the current level of evidence. Do you understand know?
Kane starkiller wrote:No it isn't. Unit=brigade is just as logical, unit=squad is just as logical, unit=platoon is just as logical.
Unit doesn't equal those Kane. It equals a military formatin, which could be such a thing, but then again it might not. A single thing or person on the otherhand is quite spefic and it makes the quote make sense.
Kane starkiller wrote:Neither of us has any evidence yet you choose clone over all other equall viable and useful definitions.
No I went through them all, nunber 1 was the only one that made sense since you can't assume squad or platoon in place of a military formation in order to make the quote make sense since unit doens't mean squad or platoon, but any miltary formation.
Kane starkiller wrote:This is some good shit. The Rebels can go toe to toe with Empire in an even match huh? No shit Sherlcok that's the definition of an even match.
I was refering to roughly equal number of units,etc. The rebel forces were no push overs in battle.
Kane starkiller wrote:All their battles"? How many battles have we seen?
Endor ROTJ a trap set by the emperor saw only ISD as combat ships,and one SSD as a command ship, no magical SSD sized warships. Hoth, TESB featured one SSD acting as a comand ship, commanding a small fleet of ISDs.
Kane starkiller wrote:ANH where they brough in Death Star with firepower of half of starfleet and it took the most powerful Force user in the galaxy and a nice tocuh of luck to destroy it?
Actually that attack and boarding of the Tantive by an ISD, the sending of ISDs to recapture/destroy the plans.
Kane starkiller wrote:TESB where we see a group of ships chasing freighters and small fighters?
The empire plays fair now? They were assulting an enemy base, but decided to use coast guard ships. Yeah right.
Kane starkiller wrote:Or ROTJ which was basically a trap for Rebels and Imperials wanted to leave the impression of business as usual?
So you believe the empire can hide DS2, but can't hide a few mainline battleships? Plus no one even comments that thier lucky to be fighting the coast guard?
Kane starkiller wrote:Man you really crack me up. Do you even know what "arguing semantics" means? It means that you are using names and designations to derive the function of objects and their nature. And which one of us is using the word "battlestation" to claim Death Star is not a starship? You are. I am focusing on it's capabilities: the abiliy to move at sublight and supralight speeds.
yes it moves, so technicaly yes it's a starship, but by any real measure it a starbase. Your the one pushing for starship as if it makes it somehow better, when it a starbase that can lumber around. Sigh, call it whatever you like it doens't change it's perfomance or function.
Kane starkiller wrote:By all means, explain how Executor and Death Star don't fit the category of a battleship while the ISD does.
Okay I'll do this real simple like.
A ISD has been shown as the primary ship involved when the Imperials need to attack/defend something.

The Exectutor is a command ship. It's a mobile command center for the fleet basicly. Therefore it's not designed to go fight otherships since it's supposed to be incharge of a fleet.

The deathstars are rare, non-mass produced ,unique, terror weapons built at a scale never before seen. It is not a mainbattleship.



Also what about Bulk cruisers, and Ventors which imply that the ISD is a main battleship?

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Sep 08, 2006 2:20 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:Now you are making stuff up. Where do thousands of times lesser cost per unit of volume comes from? All of the examples you have showed show a same order of magnitude and that won't continue to rise because of the raw amount of material needed.
Kane, the raw price of steel is $250/ton - for an aircraft carrier, that represents less than 1% of the cost. For talking about modern naval vessels, and continuing to scale exponentially with the algorithm I demonstrating, raw materials costs don't skew the curve significantly for several more orders of magnitude - and I provided examples ranging over three orders of magnitude in size.

In terms of raw costs, the simple quantity of material involved in putting together something the size of a Death Star isn't that high compared to the cost of manufacturing starships.
Kane Starkiller wrote:That is nowhere near enough to explain away as much as 10% of military capacity but even if we accept that how does this translate into the ability to explain 20% or 40% or 60%?
For each of those reasons. It's very easy to handwave away military budgets, hide expensive secret projects, etc. Look at China - not, by the standards of the Galactic Empire, a large, sprawling, corrupt, technologically advanced, and secretive power, but estimates on China's real defense expenditures vary wildly. The variation in the estimates makes it perfectly clear how easy it is for outsiders to lose track 50% of the military budget.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Sure they would. Military producion during clone wars vd military production during the Empire.
Kane Starkiller wrote:As I have shown the Republic did have a military before the TPM.
And the public had a good grasp of what the military production really was during three years of constant military expansion and sudden warfare? Besides which, the secret project of the Death Star began during the Clone Wars - which did not mark the end of conflict. The Empire continued to expand.

Building in free-fall
Kane Starkiller wrote:When you make a claim you are expceted to produce your own calculations to back them up not ask others to do your homework for you. Come on. Show me how you can have a geostationary object a fraction of planetary diameter above the surface while retaining a realistic planet.
Kane, if you don't believe me that the numbers can't be manipulated, demonstrate they can't stay reasonable under such manipulations.
Kane Starkiller wrote:It isn't designed because it didn't have to. It didn't have to have large load bearing areas since there is no gravity and therefore no stress. If they had to build it on Earth the entire structure would be far more expensive and difficult to build.
Actually, it wouldn't have cost nearly so much to assemble on Earth, and adding structural members to hold the individual components together would have added relatively little to the cost. The latter is particularly irrelevant in the case of the Death Star, since the finished Death Star has to meet the structural considerations of 1-g level stresses (artificial gravity) or more (any accelerations in addition to this.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes but they will have to calculate how much pressure is "too much" before starting the construction won't they? And then they'll have to modify their construction process accordingly. Therefore the building process would be more complicated not less.
A trivial consideration and a trivially simple calculation, Kane.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And what happens if you accidentaly drop an object from 100 meter skycraper? You'd be lucky if you only destroy the object and not kill anyone. Accidents can happen anywhere. And as for explosive decompression and hard rads how does this help your case? It will be just as probable in Death Star microgravity environment as in builidng the ISD. Micrometeorits furthermore will be more likely to hit a much larger and more massive target like Death Star than an ISD so this actually disproves your point.
And as you admitted yourself technology like shields and tractorbeams will prevent any of those.
Actually, for internal assemblies, you don't need to worry about hard rads and micrometeorites. If you drop an object during construction, the odds are it lands on the nearest solid floor or object - which is usually fairly close.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Don't try to confuse the issue. You were claiming that the buliding process itself will be harder for ISD than Death Star beacuse of "microgravity". Rotation, moving and turning on artifical gravity will all be done on both ships. How does this prove your claim?
Kane, you're confusing the issue, not me. Rotation, moving, and turning on artificial gravity would not normally even take place until major structural assembly is complete (at least for that area). The reasons microgravity is easier than [next to zero] gravity are listed above.
Kane Starkiller wrote:What "signs of learning" is the senate supposed to show? Runnigna round in streets shouting about the army? I want evidence that senate didn't know.
Actually, yes. Senators have constituents, and senators are getting very antsy about the military question. As soon as the clone army is revealed, the Senators start talking about it a mile a minute.

Watch the movie. No reasonable person would conclude that the Senate, or any significant fraction thereof apart from Palpatine himself, had any idea there was a clone army.


Trade Federation fleet
Kane Starkiller wrote:The Trade Federation fleet was there to blockade the planet while Dominion fleet closed ranks in order to concentrate firepower and present the largest target to the allied fleet.
Here is an excerpt from TPM novelization:
page 24 wrote:The small Republic space cruiser, its red color the symbol of ambassadorial neutrality, knifed through starry blackness toward the emerald bright planet of Naboo and the cluster of Trade Federation fleet ships that encircled it. The ships were huge, blocky fortresses, tubular in shape, split at one end and encircling an orb that sheltered the bridge, communications center, and hyperdrive. Armaments bristled from every port and bay, and Trade Federation fighters circled the big beasts like gnats.
As you can see the fleet encircled the planet and according to the screenhots the average distance between the ships was 10-20km. Even assuming that average distance was 100km and assuming that ships were about 1000km above the surface the total number of battleships would be over 21,000! And that is for a blockade of a far away small planet and the entire event was described as "trivial" by Qui-Gon Jinn.
That ships, by the way, had a volume of 700,000 ISDs or 7 million Galaxy class ships or over billion Jem'Hadar fighters.
Are these necessarily evenly distributed? No. The Trade Federation ships were there to keep Naboo ships in; the Dominion ships were there to keep the Federation from getting at Cardassia. There's as much a requirement for even distribution in both cases - the Dominion ships are much closer together, and are much "deeper" - there are more layers, or rather a much thicker layer, of ships.
Kane Starkiller wrote:That we saw on screen you mean? By the way TF battleship is some 100 times bigger than Venator class ship so there is nothing strange about them being outnumbered.

And? Therefore?

And this means that individual Trade Federation ship is much weaker than Republic ship of equal size why exactly? You have heard the term "outnumbered" I assume.
They were doing the outnumbering in AOTC, and neither fleet was particularly heavily outnumbered in the battle over Coruscant - there were just very few Trade Federation battleships present.

We may surmise that - like the Republic Assault Ship - they have been largely replaced.
Kane Starkiller wrote:By all means provide evidence that those horseshoes are only cargo banks and that Core ships had their shields on and that Republic cruisers would fare better in the same situation.
By all means, even the core alone is much larger than the assault ships that kicked their tails. In that same battle, the Republic ships did a great deal better. That the horseshoes were only cargo banks is not necessary, but that they were primarily cargo banks (with bridge, controls, hyperdrive, etc) is certain from the novelization as well as from what we have seen of the internal structure of the vessels within the films.

If they were unable to raise shields, well, that only speaks poorly of their design.
Kane Starkiller wrote:You will, of course, provide evidence that TF battleship is not equal to an entire fleet of Republic cruisers?
I have. The ROTS battle and AOTC battle both show the TF battleship not being equal to an entire fleet of Republic cruisers.


Imperial fleet
Kane Starkiller wrote:I provided my own novel quotes I expect you to do the same. I really like how you pretend that the fact that no one thought it might be from a patrolling ship automatically constitutes proof. You do realize that people are not perfect don't you? That sometimes they simply won't think of a solution even if it's staring them in the face.
Sometimes they won't - but that's a very bad assumption to make. The simple fact of the matter is that no Imperial ships were expected.
Kane Starkiller wrote:No it's simple-minded. There is a difference. The Empire conists of million member planets and most of the galaxy. Even with 100 million ships it would still be spread thin. The EU it also states that a criminal organization was hired to ship the raw material for DS2 into place. So much for DS2 occupying most of Imperial resources.
Actually, with 100 million ships, it would not be spread thin among its million systems.

For that matter, with 100,000 ships, it would not be spread thin. Imperial cruisers are not exploration vessels, or science vessels, or transports for civilian use; they are warships whose sole purpose is to maintain and expand the order of the Empire.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Really? So accurately means "narrowing it down to a system"? Please be so kind as to elaborate on that reasoning.
Really. If they could know what system Han would head for, they could know exactly what planet he was heading for.
Kane Starkiller wrote:So it's practically impossible to build a ship that has stronger sensors and lesser sensor profile than a huge freighter transporting parts to DS2 construcution site eh? You are getting funnier by the minute.
It's practically impossible to maintain a fleet of cloaked ships with hypersensors that don't even exist in Star Wars.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes the tracking devices are another perfectly viable option.
No. They are the most viable option, but even so, not particularly.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And why would anyone need to know where the DS2 is being constructed? You notice that 50% of the military cargo carried by the transporters isn't showing up anywhere, you send a few hundred people to try to track down the freighters which take off with a load but continually come back empty and their supposed destination haven't received any shipment.
Kane. Before you make another post repeating the same fallacious reasoning, go back and read what I already wrote about this. Again, if necessary, until you understand why you won't accidentally "notice" anything like 50% of military cargo "not showing up anywhere."

Otherwise, don't bother to reply to me; we're clearly not communicating if you don't understand how nobody would just happen to notice 50% of the military cargo doesn't show up anywhere. You would have to be trying very hard to just "notice" the 50% - i.e., already knowing where all the Imperial military cargo is going. I just went over this again - you're putting the cart before the horse. In order to notice, you need to already know.

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