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Jedi Master Spock
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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Aug 29, 2006 1:23 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:At the start of TPM, they were already puppets of Sidious. I already mentioned that a large coalition of those individual member fleets could be the instrument of the reprisal worried about by the Trade Federation.
I see you are admitting that one way or another the goverment did have a fleet at it's disposal which means that ship building infrastructure predates the TPM.
Kane, you're confounding two different things: The individual security forces of planets, such as Naboo (in that case, maintained for largely ceremonial purposes), are not an Army of the Republic. Or Fleet of the Republic.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:You aren't yet talking about anything I was talking about. Read back, please.
And now we enter into the phase where you pretend you adressed a point when you have not. Where have you explaind how Jedi alone can threaten the Trade Federation and it's fleet?
See, you're still confusing what I'm talking about.

I speak not of the fleet of the Trade Federation; I speak of its leadership, its backers, its financial integrity, etc. All these the Jedi Council can threaten.
Kane Starkiller wrote:First of all the per unit of mass cost will not continue to drop to infinity as you seem to suggest. Secondly you are still using your conclusion as premise. You assume that ISDs themselves are not mass produced so you can claim that Death Star will be cheaper per unit of mass so you can claim that Empire cannot mass produce the ISDs.
I haven't in the least assumed that the ISDs themselves would not be mass produced. Don't put words in my mouth; I've been comparing mass-produced ships with mass-produced ships the whole time.

Of course, you do have one valid point: The cost will not drop to infinity; the cost of the processed materials, for example, will remain constant with relation to the amount of processed materials.

This is, however, not a great portion of the cost of most modern warships, let alone supermodern starships.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:It stands by implication. Parity of powers, stations being put under seige, arming DS9 to Federation standards, and the simple fact that the starbases - critical to Starfleet - were not being hit one after the other. Stand back and think about how the Dominion War would have gone if Federation starbases were easy targets.
Here you go again trying to pretend that all starbases are the same. We are talking about those largest starbases remember? I don't care about 1000 times smaller starbases like DS9. Show me where Starbase 74 like stations demonstrated shields and weapons.
Show me where I said all starbases are the same. It's not part of my argument, Kane. The largest of starbases were just as critical as the smallest - if not more so.

I'll say this very plainly: Don't put words in my mouth; I won't put words in yours. That's not how we're going to play here on these forums.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And now you try to pretend that you have answered something when you have not, again. Explain how it is possible to hide something like 50% of military material being directed towards one place. And no "they have a super duper secret goverment" doesn't cut it.
I already have. And again. And again.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Please explain where exactly is that demonstrated. Where exactly is stated that one bulk cruiser is enough to control an entire system?
Which then explains why they have a Rebellion.

The simple fact is that Tatooine is an Imperial system, and sees usually no more than an occasional bulk cruiser on patrol.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And this will somehow vastly ease up the production? Because the gravity will always pull in the direction that is convenient to the workers? By the way the DS2 was no more than 5000km from Endor. At that distance the gravity of an Earth like planet will still be some 3 m/s2. More than enough to nullify any microgravity created by the Death Star. Really this argument is beyond pathetic.
Not only are you using a distance that is, IIRC, a matter of no small dispute, but you are ignoring the physics of the point - if you're in a stable orbit, the gravity of Endor is completely irrelevant - and the generality - not necessarily all large objects were built in entirety in low orbit. Such as the original Death Star, built in what appears to be deep space.
Kane Starkiller wrote:What draconian security? Explain how. How can this super duper security cover up the fact that vast majority of your military industry is focused to a single task.
Answer 1: It didn't.
Answer 2: There was no baseline for the population to compare it to. There has always secretly been a Death Star project as part of the military budget.
Answer 3: Non-transparent financing and the ease of control of personnel in a restricted system in which you control all ships.
Answer 4: How does someone else find out you're focused on a single task? Think about it.
Kane Starkiller wrote:But who is going to package the cannister? And of course that they won't have Death Star written on them but anyone can track all those transporters carrying most of industrial products to a single place.
Let me stage it to you this way: How are you going to track where the ship goes?

You can't unless you are the navigator, captain, or pilot. This means a very small number of individuals who could leak this information.
Kane Starkiller wrote:There you go again. Spout words that explain nothing and pretend that you already explained it.
I have already explained it.
Kane Starkiller wrote:How is this "massive corrupt super secret bureaucracy" supposed to hide that something like 50% of industrial production is gone? How are they going to explain away 50 billion toilet seats being ordered for Endor forrest moon?
Bribes, spoilage, defects, mis-shipments, piracy by Rebels... the list is endless, Kane. Use those an an excuse to nail some particularly unpopular governors and you can even turn that into an asset while discouraging independent investigations.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Aug 29, 2006 5:58 am

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:

Example 1
In ANH, the Empire knows that the stolen DS plans are on Tatooine, yet they send only two ships, which fail to stop the plans from leaving the planet.
In fairness:

HAN: It looks like an Imperial cruiser. Our passengers must be hotter

than I thought. Try and hold them off. Angle the deflector shield

while I make the calculations for the jump to light speed.



HAN: Stay sharp! There are two more coming in; they're going to try to

cut us off.


So there were at least three ISD Type-I's at Tatooine.
Example 2
The DS goes without an escort. It would make sense that you would want to stop any transports from leaving Yavin while the DS gets in position to blow it up, but no ISDs are there to prevent evacuation (this also goes a long way toward debunking the BDZ myth). An escort would also dispose of any pesky fleet the rebels sent to stop the DS.
Interestingly enough, in the Star Wars: A New Hope manga adaptation, we do see the Death Star surrounded by a fleet of ISDs. In one view we see a scene that has no less than 100 ISD swarming about the massive battlestation. However, given that the movie shows us no ISDs in the equivalent scenes, the utility of the manga version is probably somewhere approaching nil for the purposes of debate.
-Mike

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Tue Aug 29, 2006 2:58 pm

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Kane, to answer your question from a while back about why you couldn't build a bunch of ISDs away from shipyards. You could, it would just cost a lot more and take a lot longer, not very efficient if you're trying to fight a war, spend a lot of unnessisary money and time. Much smarter to do what the TF did, convert a bunch of civilian ships into military ones.
Why would it not be efficient? How do you know that that didn't already have such shipyards in place? According to Obi-Wan the Jedi have been guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy for a thousand generations. That is 25,000 years of galactic civilization. And you are telling me that they only started building shipyards a few decades ago?
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:As for your other point about local militaries, doesn't that sort of proove that the Republic doesn't have galaxy spanning navy to protect its plantets. My theory is that the Republic can, in an emergency assume command of some of the local military forces. Based on what we see at Kashyyyk it makes sense that mat ny planets had their own ground forces also. Thus the grand army of the republic is the first federal military since that first full scale war that formed the republic, 1000 yrs before AotC.
Or like UN they could have both military from their members and an actual Republic military. The point is that either way shipbuilding infrastructure and fleet already exist prior to TPM.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Example 1
In ANH, the Empire knows that the stolen DS plans are on Tatooine, yet they send only two ships, which fail to stop the plans from leaving the planet.
How much time did they have? A galaxy is a big place and while hyperdrive is fast it is not instantaneous.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Example 2
The DS goes without an escort. It would make sense that you would want to stop any transports from leaving Yavin while the DS gets in position to blow it up, but no ISDs are there to prevent evacuation (this also goes a long way toward debunking the BDZ myth). An escort would also dispose of any pesky fleet the rebels sent to stop the DS.
This was a mistake to be sure but Death Star itself had the firepower of half of starfleet. Who could've guessed that Rebels would have the most powerful Force user with them who exploited Death Star weakness?
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Example 3
In the TESB, after the Empire's second in command points at hoth and says that is where the rebels are, only six ships are dispatched. These too are insufficiant to prevent the rebels from escaping.
One again you are assuming that other ships in the galaxy had nothing to do but search for Skywalker. This is like saying that since we never see more than few hundred US soldiers in northen Afganistan searching for terrorist then the US must not have much more soldiers.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Example 4
In RotJ, the Emperor knows that the entire rebel fleet will be attacking the DS2, but still we only see a few dozen ISDs and one SSD. Yes, I know it is supposed to be the DS2's show, but still the Imperial fleet had their hands full. If the Empire had more than a few thousand ships they could easily have spared a few hundred ships to end the rebelion.
Emperor wanted to make a trap which would not work if Rebel spies from all over the galaxy started reporting that thousands of ships are being dispatched to Endor. Besides I don't remember the exact count of ships that engaged at Endor. We only see a few dozen ships but the novelization describes the Rebel fleet that streches well beyond visual range and also Imperial communications ship which we never see on screen.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Well thier didn't appear to be much in the way of powerful forces floating around, and if each member had it's own defenses, It could be possible for a small fleet to get the job done.
The Trade Federation blockaded the entire Naboo and going by the distance between individual ships we are talking about thousands of battleships at the beginning of the TPM.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Something can still be a threat, and not be your equal. Keep in mind we are talking about the star wars equvilent of Ferengis. They don't strike me as the fearless warrior type.
This is a goverment we are talking about. Posing a threat is not enough. Goverment must be able to take control. How did they maintain 1000 years of peace if individual greedy private companies outnumbered the goverment's forces?
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:If they were in a fleet battle yes, but if it was just the Invisible hand by itself. I was refering to ROTS on how a single fighter managed to breach a starship, evade guards and kill a leader. Anyway It is a factor, not the only one, but one that should be considered.
A single fighter managed to breach fighterbay shields from a cruiser that was already in battle from some time and was the primary target thus inevitably sustained prior damage. And we are talking about two Jedi one of which was council member and the other was the chosen one.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Well that is very poor battle skill, harking back to neapolonic warfare or maybe WW1. A few well placed machinegun nests will slaughter such a formation.
Assuming they can breach the armour of course. And lack of shill from soldiers who just saw battle for the first time does not equate into Republic not knowing "what to do with a war" as someone here put it.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:They have ability, they shielded a planet in I think "Whom gods destroy" (TOS). So the basic ability for starbase shielding is there, we can only be talking about wilingness and I've shown that outposts get shields, and just about everything down to little shuttles get shields, so wouldn't on a starbase with space to spare would you not put shields on?
Thez shielded a planet against transporters which as shown in ST6 can be a mere magnetic field. Nothing similar to a shield which can deflect kilotons or megatons of energy.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Well I'll see if I can rewatch those movies/episodes and see. What episode had Kim stealing a ship anyway?
That parallel universe universe when Kim finds himself on Earth.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Because when refering to your product unit is quite acceptable.
Which brings us back to the fact that zou have no evidence that unit=individual clone.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Isn't that reaching? That an ambiguous word( in refrence to military) is really given an exact defination behind the scence. Besides If you were going to ask for a groups of clones at a certain number per group instead of simply asking for X clones, why give a definition to a non-defined word? Why not simply request for X brigades. Which brings us back to square one.
The only one reaching is you. According to the real world definition a unit may represent any homogenous military organization. It may be an individual clone but it may be more. We simply don't know. You insist on interpreting it in such a way that it diminishes the clone army. This is hardly objective analysis.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:And neither does the DS and ISDs. All the sources I've seen, the cost projections of the freedom ship is in the area of $8-11bn. Even if it was way more, it does not imply a small or inverted economy of scale.
The point is to compare ISD/DS with real world examples not to compare fictional ships with other fictional ships. That proves nothing.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Well it's pretty hard to find numbers here. What we do know is that a concrete house weighs in the neighborhood of about 64 tons (according to this) and costs about $300k to build. Considering how Hoover dam is about 7.5 million tons (at least) and cost about $676M to build in modern dollars, you have 117,187.5 times more mass for 2 253.3 times more cost, or a 52 times superior cost per ton for the dam. It's probably a bit more since we're dealing with just the concrete mass for Hoover dam and not any other parts of the dam.
So a 100,000 times more massive object is only 52 times more expensive than a small one. But the main point is that a person who wants a build a house orders a far lesser amount of concrete and brick than a person who orders a dam. This is why individual houses cost more. An Empire which mass produces it's smaller ships will have the roughly same price per unit of mass as it's bigger ships.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:Read up around on the main site here, or others if you wish (not pro-SW ones though). They're a lot of evidence that the total number of ships in the GE is in the neighborhood of thousands, and probably no more than tens of thousands.
Oh of course. I wouldn't want to read on those pesky pro-SW sites would I? Pro-ST sites will naturally be far more objective beacuse...well because. The only "evidence" of 1000-10,000ISD comes from Darkstar's article where he assumes that Dodona didn't include the superlaser in it's firepower estimation, assumes that Death Star doesn't have individual turbolasers which are bigger than ISDs turbolasers and then tries to pretend that his assumptions are evidence. Sorry but I'd rather go with the old fashioned way of industrial capacity.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Kane, you're confounding two different things: The individual security forces of planets, such as Naboo (in that case, maintained for largely ceremonial purposes), are not an Army of the Republic. Or Fleet of the Republic.
But either way ship building infrastructure predates the TPM.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:See, you're still confusing what I'm talking about.
I speak not of the fleet of the Trade Federation; I speak of its leadership, its backers, its financial integrity, etc. All these the Jedi Council can threaten.
You really have no clue on how to maintain control of a country do you? Or how to win a war? This may be news to you but wars are not won by countries with better assasins but the ones with more ships and soldiers.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:I haven't in the least assumed that the ISDs themselves would not be mass produced. Don't put words in my mouth; I've been comparing mass-produced ships with mass-produced ships the whole time.
Don't tell this to anyone but 8 Cyclone class patrol ships and 12 aircraft carriers are not mass produced.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Of course, you do have one valid point: The cost will not drop to infinity; the cost of the processed materials, for example, will remain constant with relation to the amount of processed materials.

This is, however, not a great portion of the cost of most modern warships, let alone supermodern starships.
Exactly. Most of the cost will come from things such as, oh I don't know, hyperdrive capable of moving a 120 km ship through hyperspace, 30km wide superlaser system which can blow up a planet etc.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Show me where I said all starbases are the same. It's not part of my argument, Kane. The largest of starbases were just as critical as the smallest - if not more so.

I'll say this very plainly: Don't put words in my mouth; I won't put words in yours. That's not how we're going to play here on these forums.
I am not putting words in your mouth. You claimed that DS9's weaponry and weaponry of some Cardassian starbase which we never saw are evidence that those largest Federation starbases also have weapons. Obviusly you implied similarity.
In any case since you obviously have no evidence I suggest we move on.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:I already have. And again. And again.
Sure you have. Let me see if I can find it. Oh here it is: "a massive corrupt bureaucracy". Here is a little tip for the future: when someone asks you to explain something he is expecting a mechanism not string of words.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Which then explains why they have a Rebellion.

The simple fact is that Tatooine is an Imperial system, and sees usually no more than an occasional bulk cruiser on patrol.
Occasional? How do you know it's not patroling Tatooine all the time? How do you know how many of them patrol Tatooine? You are using your own unsupported assumptions as evidence now.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Not only are you using a distance that is, IIRC, a matter of no small dispute, but you are ignoring the physics of the point - if you're in a stable orbit, the gravity of Endor is completely irrelevant - and the generality - not necessarily all large objects were built in entirety in low orbit. Such as the original Death Star, built in what appears to be deep space.
OK now you are showing some serious ignorance. How is gravity of Endor irrelevant if they are in stable orbit? It will still exert 3m/s2 acceleration and nullify and gravity created by Death Star. And where is exactly suggested that the distance between Death Star and Endor is more than 5000km? Besides even at one planetary diameter the acceleration will still be over 2m/s2 and would still vastly outstrip any gravity generated by Death Star.
Really now you are just showing that you won't concede a single point no matter how ridiculous your theory turns out to be.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Answer 2: There was no baseline for the population to compare it to. There has always secretly been a Death Star project as part of the military budget.

Always? What from the begining of time? Just because a new goverment is in office doesn't mean they can now magically transer a huge percentage of resources and no one will notice.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Answer 3: Non-transparent financing and the ease of control of personnel in a restricted system in which you control all ships.
But what prevents from Rebels spies tracking an unusual amount of transporters going towards that system? The only explanation is that the transporters going to Endor don't represent an unusual percentage of it's transport fleet.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Answer 4: How does someone else find out you're focused on a single task? Think about it.
Are you kidding me? He simply has to take note of the fact that half of your factories are churning out equipement and that equpiement later vanishes.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Let me stage it to you this way: How are you going to track where the ship goes?
You can't unless you are the navigator, captain, or pilot. This means a very small number of individuals who could leak this information.
Hmm Boba Fett tracked millenium falcon and he wasn't it's pilot or navigator. Obi-Wan tracked Jango, the Empire tracked Tantive IV and later Millenium Falcon. Are you sure we are talking about same Star Wars here?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:I have already explained it.
Sure thing: it's the big bad bureaucracy. Of course you provided no mechanism or evidence but hey it's not we are trying to have a rational debate here.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Bribes, spoilage, defects, mis-shipments, piracy by Rebels... the list is endless, Kane. Use those an an excuse to nail some particularly unpopular governors and you can even turn that into an asset while discouraging independent investigations.
Piracy by Rebels? They are going to claim "piracy by Rebels" to hide the fact that they are building the Death Star...from the Rebels? Are you trying to sound as ridiculous as possible?
Defects? Mis-shipmenst? Most of their military equipment is gone and that is their explanation?

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Post by sonofccn » Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:46 pm

kane starkiller wrote:The Trade Federation blockaded the entire Naboo and going by the distance between individual ships we are talking about thousands of battleships at the beginning of the TPM.
I meant before the Trade fleet started it's naboo conquest. The galaxy had been in a largely peaceish era, no evil badguys running around attacking planets or anything.
kane starkiller wrote:The Trade Federation blockaded the entire Naboo and going by the distance between individual ships we are talking about thousands of battleships at the beginning of the TPM.
I'm not sure, but I think the novel mention hundreds of ships at Naboo. I'll have to look through the book and see.
kane starkiller wrote:This is a goverment we are talking about. Posing a threat is not enough. Goverment must be able to take control
How a goverment takes controls however can differ. The republic wouldn't need a large fleet if every member already had one, and there was no major threat against them. If the biggest threat to galatic peace was some smugglers or space pirates local defenes would work.
kane starkiller wrote:A single fighter managed to breach fighterbay shields from a cruiser that was already in battle from some time and was the primary target thus inevitably sustained prior damage.
Ship didn't look damaged, but I guess that's logical.
kane starkiller wrote:Assuming they can breach the armour of course
Well at the very least the thing got to have weakspots.
kane starkiller wrote:And lack of shill from soldiers who just saw battle for the first time does not equate into Republic not knowing "what to do with a war" as someone here put it.
It implies that from the ground atleast thier tactical skill was archaric by our standards.
kane starkiller wrote:Thez shielded a planet against transporters which as shown in ST6 can be a mere magnetic field. Nothing similar to a shield which can deflect kilotons or megatons of energy.
The one in "Whom gods destroy" Starship phaser fire was used against a weak spot to punch threw. That is not a mere magnetic field like on Ruthe penta.
kane starkiller wrote:Which brings us back to the fact that zou have no evidence that unit=individual clone.
Well at the very least you also have zero evidence that unit=military formation. The Unit=clone atleast allows the quote to have a purpuse instead of a useless figure.
kane starkiller wrote:The only one reaching is you. According to the real world definition a unit may represent any homogenous military organization.
Correct. Now tell me, Which military organization does unit mean? just about anything from a squad up,correct? Therefore the term when used in military context is a loosly defined word and makes saying it pointless since you couldn't gleam any useful data from it.
kane starkiller wrote:It may be an individual clone but it may be more. We simply don't know. You insist on interpreting it in such a way that it diminishes the clone army. This is hardly objective analysis.
My way fits with the evidence and make sense within the quote. When I am presented with a better defination of unit that fits with the quote I will gladly change my opinion.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:22 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:Or like UN they could have both military from their members and an actual Republic military. The point is that either way shipbuilding infrastructure and fleet already exist prior to TPM.
For reference, there is no "actual" UN military - forces are sent by members on an individual basis.
Kane Starkiller wrote:But either way ship building infrastructure predates the TPM.
For civilian ships. We're not talking about building armed merchantmen and freighters, which necessarily make up the majority of ships manufactured; we're talking about dedicated warships.

There's a huge difference.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:See, you're still confusing what I'm talking about.
I speak not of the fleet of the Trade Federation; I speak of its leadership, its backers, its financial integrity, etc. All these the Jedi Council can threaten.
You really have no clue on how to maintain control of a country do you? Or how to win a war? This may be news to you but wars are not won by countries with better assasins but the ones with more ships and soldiers.
I'm not talking about winning wars; I'm talking about striking fear into the heart of the Trade Federation.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Don't tell this to anyone but 8 Cyclone class patrol ships and 12 aircraft carriers are not mass produced.
One as much mass produced as the other; as much as any warship, really.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Exactly. Most of the cost will come from things such as, oh I don't know, hyperdrive capable of moving a 120 km ship through hyperspace, 30km wide superlaser system which can blow up a planet etc.
I.e., the sort of stuff I've been talking about, which drops in cost vs size for large projects - like aircraft carriers - relative to small projects, like destroyers and corvettes.
Kane Starkiller wrote:I am not putting words in your mouth. You claimed that DS9's weaponry and weaponry of some Cardassian starbase which we never saw are evidence that those largest Federation starbases also have weapons. Obviusly you implied similarity.
Along with many other examples and materials, those imply that Federation starbases can be expected to have weaponry and shields.
Kane Starkiller wrote:In any case since you obviously have no evidence I suggest we move on.
Kane, that's evidence. We're working scientifically here, not dogmatically; common sense and perfectly good reasoning is just fine for us.

We don't need specific evidence that even the largest of Federation starbases are armed and shielded; we simply need to have very good reasons to conclude that Federation starbases are in general armed and shielded.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Sure you have. Let me see if I can find it. Oh here it is: "a massive corrupt bureaucracy". Here is a little tip for the future: when someone asks you to explain something he is expecting a mechanism not string of words.
This is not an argument, Kane, nor does it even make sense.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Occasional? How do you know it's not patroling Tatooine all the time? How do you know how many of them patrol Tatooine? You are using your own unsupported assumptions as evidence now.
By the fact that there usually wouldn't be any Imperial ships in the system; as to how many, it doesn't matter. If only a couple bulk cruisers show up at a time, and show up occasionally, it doesn't matter whether it's the same one or not.

Similarly, it is unusual - not usual - to see so much as a TIE fighter in the general neighborhood of Alderaan. It isn't the slightest bit unusual to find no Imperial ships there - and Alderaan is a core system.
Kane Starkiller wrote:OK now you are showing some serious ignorance. How is gravity of Endor irrelevant if they are in stable orbit? It will still exert 3m/s2 acceleration and nullify and gravity created by Death Star.
Kane, quick tip for you: Never accuse me of ignorance. Especially on an issue of physics, mathematics, or the theory of argumentation. And for a point this minor, it barely seems worthwhile for us to argue about it - but I see now that there's a lesson to teach. I'm always happy to spread knowledge, so I'll talk a bit more about this - as marginally relevant as it is to the discussion at hand:

So, physics lesson time. If you are in a stable orbit, you are in "free" fall, which is to say that you are falling at (for example) 3m/s/s.

Along with everything else in your orbit. During this, you experience what is known as weightlessness. If you're on the international space station, and you let go of a ball, it doesn't appear to fall down to Earth. (It does, but so do you, and so does the rest of the space station). The acceleration due to gravity has no relevance in a stable orbit, nor does it magically "nullify" any other forces.

So let's say I'm sitting on a large chunk of dense metal, which has its own gravity of 1 cm/s/s. We are in the same orbit; sitting down, I feel a 0.8 newton force pressing up against my behind. That's all the gravity I feel at that moment; if I dropped a rock from a half meter while sitting, I would watch it slowly fall to the surface over the course of ten seconds.

It doesn't matter that I, the rock, and the chunk of metal are all falling towards the planet; the attraction remains.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And where is exactly suggested that the distance between Death Star and Endor is more than 5000km?
You may look here, which examines some of the problems of a 5000 km orbit. The evidence is somewhat conflicting over how high the Death Star is - and the problem is, of course, dependent on the density and size of Endor, which I recall are also in dispute to some small degree.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Besides even at one planetary diameter the acceleration will still be over 2m/s2 and would still vastly outstrip any gravity generated by Death Star.
Really now you are just showing that you won't concede a single point no matter how ridiculous your theory turns out to be.
Kane, you've been here several days, and you're already accusing me of all sorts of things. Knock it off; I'm not interested in creating an environment of conflict, just reasoned discussion.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Answer 2: There was no baseline for the population to compare it to. There has always secretly been a Death Star project as part of the military budget.

Always? What from the begining of time? Just because a new goverment is in office doesn't mean they can now magically transer a huge percentage of resources and no one will notice.
Since the Military Creation Act. The Senate was completely unaware that the Clone army had been bought, let alone knowing what it had cost, and what continuing to rapidly expand the Republic (and later Imperial) military would cost.
Kane Starkiller wrote:But what prevents from Rebels spies tracking an unusual amount of transporters going towards that system? The only explanation is that the transporters going to Endor don't represent an unusual percentage of it's transport fleet.
The freighter traffic for a million system empire should be large enough to lose Death Stars in. As for the other, see below.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Are you kidding me? He simply has to take note of the fact that half of your factories are churning out equipement and that equpiement later vanishes.
Simply? The Rebels have to take accurate inventory of the product and exports of a million systems, and track where all the exports are shipped.

Think about the sheer effort that requires for a minute. The GAO spends a half billion dollars a year and has 3200 full time employees to try and keep track of government spending in one country representing 1/20th of the population of one world - and sometimes they don't catch rather significant things for years. This, with a government under orders to cooperate, rather than a hostile power you're trying to covertly spy on - and you're suggesting the Rebels will have an easy time watching where everything is going.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Hmm Boba Fett tracked millenium falcon and he wasn't it's pilot or navigator. Obi-Wan tracked Jango, the Empire tracked Tantive IV and later Millenium Falcon. Are you sure we are talking about same Star Wars here?
In all cases, a matter of hot pursuit - usually with the assistance of tracking devices. As Han shows in ANH, ships can't be tracked far into hyperspace.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Sure thing: it's the big bad bureaucracy. Of course you provided no mechanism or evidence but hey it's not we are trying to have a rational debate here.
No; we're trying to have a rational discussion. This isn't about scoring points here, Kane. It's just about talking things out.
Kane Starkillers wrote:Piracy by Rebels? They are going to claim "piracy by Rebels" to hide the fact that they are building the Death Star...from the Rebels? Are you trying to sound as ridiculous as possible?
Defects? Mis-shipmenst? Most of their military equipment is gone and that is their explanation?
In order to hide the information from people in general. Not just the Rebellion. If it leaves the Rebels frustrated and denying they engage in piratical acts, so much the better - helps keep the Rebellion's image poor.
Last edited by Jedi Master Spock on Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:25 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:While you can argue for absolute secrecy for the construction of DS2, the construction of the DS1 was not such a closely guarded secret that the Rebellion could not discover it on their own. The Rebels had to have been tipped off that something was going on, and one possible way is that someone, somewhere probably found out about the massive expenditures the Death Star project required, and alerted the Alliance's agents.
Kane Starkiller wrote:

The secrecy of DS2 construction is all I need to prove the Empire's industrial capacity. As for DS1 we know that Rebels had spies in imperial senate no less. This will undoubtedly play a part in revealing it's existence.
The DS2 is a special case apparently, the DS1 is what we were discussing since the Rebellion was able to discover that battlestation's existance on their own at some point during it's 23-year-plus long constuction period. Somehow they were able to do that, either by noticing the DS project's expenditures (possibly, but not necessarily at the expense of other goverment projects), or just simply stumbling across the files in the Imperial bureaucracy, but somehow they did find it.

Mike DiCenso wrote:Remember Han's comment in ANH? "It's too big to be a space station."
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Oh I remeber his comments: "the Empire can't destroy a planet", "you can trust Lando" etc. Forgive me if I don't take his word at face value all the time.
That's not exactly accurate, Kane, and you know that. Han specifically stated disbelief because he knew or had a good idea that the entire Starfleet couldn't pull off such a task. Han is an experianced spacer, a smuggler who has gone up against big Imperial ships as well as local bulk cruisers. He's probably been shot at, probably has a good idea how much energy those weapons can deliver, and probably could surmise reasonably that the entire fleet couldn't pull it off, at least not in a timescale that would be considered reasonable.

Trying to fall back on the tired old Warsie fallacy of "attacking an expert" is not going to work here. Han is experianced enough to know his business, and he's travelled around enough to know about what kind of facilities are out there.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Also, it's been brought up before, and it'll be brought up again. If you allow millions of Imperial starships because of the Death Stars, then you probably have to do a similar thing for the Federation since we have seen that they have the industrial capacity to build a fair number of multi-km space stations (Starbase 74, the Utopia Planita space stations, ect) that are each worth thousands of Galaxy or Sovereign class starships in volume and mass. Just because the Federation has built those stations does not necessarily mean they have hundreds of thousands of GCS and SCS flying around. The same is true for the Galactic Empire. So just because they can do something, doesn't automatically mean they have or will do it.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
We already had this discussion and I already pointed out those largest Federation stations are just that: stations. Which have no impulse engines, no warp engines, never demonstrated any shielding and no weaponry. This cannot be compared to Death Stars which are starships and more.
Not to mention that there are huge open spaces inside those stations which would reduce their actuall mass even further.
That's silly. The ability to build space frames is there, even if there is no way to build engines for them. The ability to build engines for them should also be there since a space station still has to have some level of basic propulsion for station-keeping purposes, like every real-life space station from Salyut to Skylab, and Mir to ISS. The scale of those thrusters would easily be comparable to a starship impulse engine, would likely require some kind of fusion power, just like the thrusters and impulse engines on a starship do.

As for hollow structures, that is not quite true either. While the docking bays of the SB 74 stations are quite large, they only represent a modest portion of those stations' overall volume. They are not one big hollow tube, and at the center of the docking bay area is a rather substantial core structure where the starships actually dock to. It is show here in this image:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... edock1.jpg

Likewise, the Death Stars have demonstrated vast hollow spaces, from yawning, unsafe chasms, to 8-16 kilometers-wide open spaces in their reactor chambers' housings, to large tubeways in their superstructures. Oh yes, and the docking bays in the equatorial trench area (the trench itself being empty space). On starbase defenses, we've heard that at least one starbase was a tough nut to crack. Deep Space Nine already came with shields and weapons, though nothing really special, but was easily retrofitted with more powerful versions within 3 years of the Dominion threat becoming known. In "Valiant", Jake and Nog have to have clearence to leave Starbase 257's "defense perimeter". Such a thing implies very strongly shields and weapons, since no starships other than Jake and Nog's runabout were visible or even mentioned.
-Mike

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Post by AnonymousRedShirtEnsign » Wed Aug 30, 2006 11:43 pm

The whole DS2 being a secret and thus not representing much of the total production potential for the Empire is crap. It is based on the notion that people are allowed to know what is going on in the Empire. Palpatine's Empire, being an oppressive government that keeps its planets in line through fear, would not grant its citizens many freedoms. In the United States, yes it would be impossible for 50% or so of our annual steel production to be diverted to a single place in secrecy. However I highly doubt that the Empire has anything resembling the first amendment, or the freedom of information act. Anyone who asks too many questions is likely to end up dead in a ditch, or just disappear.

And in the case of the Jedi vs. the Trade Federation, the Jedi could actually win. With the droid army, if you remove their leadership the droids shut down. Thus assassination is a very useful tool against the TF. Also a Jedi could just use the force to ram TF ships into each other, remember Yoda's "size matters not" lesson in TESB.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:44 pm

sonofccn wrote:Well at the very least you also have zero evidence that unit=military formation. The Unit=clone atleast allows the quote to have a purpuse instead of a useless figure.
I already admitted that neither of us had any evidence. And you have no evidence that unit is a useless figure. The word unit could've very well be defined in the contract for clone army.
But you once again insist that we should interpret that "unit=clone" without providing any evidence.
sonofccn wrote:When I am presented with a better defination of unit that fits with the quote I will gladly change my opinion.
In other words you have decided which definition is "better" based on nothing but your subjective opinion.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:For civilian ships. We're not talking about building armed merchantmen and freighters, which necessarily make up the majority of ships manufactured; we're talking about dedic better - ated warships.


There's a huge difference.
No not only for civilian ships. Those fighters employed by Naboo were not civilian ships. And those Trade Federation "armed merchantmen" seemed to do just fine in ROTS battle.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:I'm not talking about winning wars; I'm talking about striking fear into the heart of the Trade Federation.
I didn't want to go into this in greater detail before since I thought the entire line of reasoning is ridiculous but you leave me no choice.
First I want evidence that the goverment of the Galactic Republic condoned assasination of it's own citizens and that this was a publicly known policy hence your claim that it was assasination that Neimodians feared.
Secondly I want evidence that Jedi would be willing to perform such actions especially in light of Anakin's and Mace's first thought's were to capture and not kill even such dangerous Sith lords as Dooku and Sidious.
Furthermore explain how is a goverment, whose only method of control are assasins, supposed to maintain control when Trade Federation can simply use their battleships to turn the senate hall into a molten metal lake in response to assasinations of it's leaders. More than that any private corporation could simply hire their own assasins to try and kill the senators.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:One as much mass produced as the other; as much as any warship, really.
8 Cyclone class ships wheigh some 3000 tons while 12 aircraft carriers wheigh over million tons. One is not as mass produced as the other.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:I.e., the sort of stuff I've been talking about, which drops in cost vs size for large projects - like aircraft carriers - relative to small projects, like destroyers and corvettes.
Except of course you are again assuming that smaller ships were not mass produced thus you call them "small projects". Million ISDs are not a "small project".
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Along with many other examples and materials, those imply that Federation starbases can be expected to have weaponry and shields.
What many other examples and materials? And how does the fact that something the size of a Romulan Warbird has weapons mean that Starbase 74 has weapons? Where were those weapons and shields when Kirk and Kim stole ships?

Jedi Master Spock wrote:Kane, that's evidence. We're working scientifically here, not dogmatically; common sense and perfectly good reasoning is just fine for us.

We don't need specific evidence that even the largest of Federation starbases are armed and shielded; we simply need to have very good reasons to conclude that Federation starbases are in general armed and shielded.
The trouble is that you are again assuming that Starbase 74 and Deep Space 9 are similar. They are not. Starbase 74 is 1000 times bigger than DS9 as I already mentioned. Don't try to pretend that such difference in size means nothing. You are using DS9, a starbase the Federation specifically armed later because of it's location and strategic importance, as evidence that 1000 times larger starbases, whose only observed function so far was as drydock, have the same capabilities.
By the way "common sense" is worthless. "Common sense" was used to claim that Earth is flat. "Common sense" told people that when no forces are applied to an object it will stop moving because no one could've guessed that friction is also a force. "Common sense" was the reason no one thought that time itself will change when you approach the speed of lignt. It took extraordinary people to use their own "UNcommon sense" to make scientific breakthroughs. So I'm going to have to ask you to come up with evidence and keep your "common sense" to yourself.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:This is not an argument, Kane, nor does it even make sense.
I'm simply asking you to describe a mechanism through which the "corrupt bureaucracy" can hide the fact that half of their military rescources are dissapearing.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:By the fact that there usually wouldn't be any Imperial ships in the system; as to how many, it doesn't matter. If only a couple bulk cruisers show up at a time, and show up occasionally, it doesn't matter whether it's the same one or not.
By all means provide a source for your claim that cruisers patrol Tatooine only occasionally.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Similarly, it is unusual - not usual - to see so much as a TIE fighter in the general neighborhood of Alderaan. It isn't the slightest bit unusual to find no Imperial ships there - and Alderaan is a core system.
What does "general neighborhood of Alderaan" mean? A system is much larger than a planet and it's "neighborhood". In fact Solar system, for example, is some 15 trillion times bigger than volume of space that is defined by Moon's orbit. Not to mentioned that Alderaan was just blown up so obviously no ships would be present there.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Kane, quick tip for you: Never accuse me of ignorance. Especially on an issue of physics, mathematics, or the theory of argumentation. And for a point this minor, it barely seems worthwhile for us to argue about it - but I see now that there's a lesson to teach. I'm always happy to spread knowledge, so I'll talk a bit more about this - as marginally relevant as it is to the discussion at hand:

So, physics lesson time. If you are in a stable orbit, you are in "free" fall, which is to say that you are falling at (for example) 3m/s/s.

Along with everything else in your orbit. During this, you experience what is known as weightlessness. If you're on the international space station, and you let go of a ball, it doesn't appear to fall down to Earth. (It does, but so do you, and so does the rest of the space station). The acceleration due to gravity has no relevance in a stable orbit, nor does it magically "nullify" any other forces.

So let's say I'm sitting on a large chunk of dense metal, which has its own gravity of 1 cm/s/s. We are in the same orbit; sitting down, I feel a 0.8 newton force pressing up against my behind. That's all the gravity I feel at that moment; if I dropped a rock from a half meter while sitting, I would watch it slowly fall to the surface over the course of ten seconds.

It doesn't matter that I, the rock, and the chunk of metal are all falling towards the planet; the attraction remains.
Well I have to admitt you got me there. I completley forgot about the centripetal force there but the reason for that is that I got completley exasperated with this entire line of reasoning.
The thing is I was completley concentrated on the specific DS2 case and in that case the Death Star couldn't have possibly be in free fall. First of all we know that it was protected by a shield projected from a fixed position on the surface. So if it did have a natural orbit with no usage of it's own engines it had to be in geosynchronous orbit. However geosynchronous orbit for an Earth sized planet is about 35,000km or nearly three planetary diameters which was clearly not the distance between the Death Star and Endor therefore the Death Star was not in free fall therefore it's own microgravity would've been nullified by the gravity of Endor.
However I want to further discuss your claim that Death Star's "microgravity environment" will somehow make construction easier than freefall.
First of all this supposedly useful microgravity would only "kick in" noticeably after a large portion of the Death Star was completed. In the first stages when the Death Star is still as big as an ISD-10ISDs-100ISDs-SSD-10SSDs etc. there would still be no more gravity than in usual smaller ships.
And finally what exactly is the usefulness of the microgravity? You said something to the effect of equipement not drifting away. Are you envisioning hordes of carless workers dropping their tools every which way with microgravity bringing the tools back? A simple toolbelt will prevent that. Besides I expect the Death Star to be assembled from larger pieces put together by tractor beams and gravitic equipment as described in ANH novelization. Free fall does not exert any acceleration and therefore the equipement won't go anywhere if only the workers show some care which is not exactly an unresonable assumption for a galactic civilization.
And finally free fall means that there won't be any stress on the unfinished structure and that can only be a good thing. Microgravity caused by the Death Star will exert enormous pressure on it's load bearing structure and this can only make construction much harder not easier.
Do you think we could construct those flimsy space station on Earth gravity? Do you think that "gravity helping workers not to loose their equipement" would make things easier?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:You may look here, which examines some of the problems of a 5000 km orbit. The evidence is somewhat conflicting over how high the Death Star is - and the problem is, of course, dependent on the density and size of Endor, which I recall are also in dispute to some small degree.
That page from what I can tell actually suggests lower orbit than 5000km which only further proves my point. And as you said the size and density of Endor won't significantly change from an Earth sized planet.
But honestly do we have to go on further into this "microgravity will somehow make Death Star's construction much easier than that of an ISD in free fall" discussion?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Kane, you've been here several days, and you're already accusing me of all sorts of things. Knock it off; I'm not interested in creating an environment of conflict, just reasoned discussion.
I'm sorry but when you state that buliding large structures is easier in gravity than in free fall despite everything we know today it strikes me as if you really are not at all interested in any kind of resoned discussion.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Since the Military Creation Act. The Senate was completely unaware that the Clone army had been bought, let alone knowing what it had cost, and what continuing to rapidly expand the Republic (and later Imperial) military would cost.
I would like some evidence that senate was unaware of the creation of the clone army. I would also like some evidence that clone army ordered from Kamino represented a noticeable fraction of Galactic military production hence your assumption that you can use it as evidence of Emperor hiding something like half of military production for Death Star.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:The freighter traffic for a million system empire should be large enough to lose Death Stars in. As for the other, see below.
It should, if the Death Star does not occupy something like half of military production as you claim.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Simply? The Rebels have to take accurate inventory of the product and exports of a million systems, and track where all the exports are shipped.

Think about the sheer effort that requires for a minute. The GAO spends a half billion dollars a year and has 3200 full time employees to try and keep track of government spending in one country representing 1/20th of the population of one world - and sometimes they don't catch rather significant things for years. This, with a government under orders to cooperate, rather than a hostile power you're trying to covertly spy on - and you're suggesting the Rebels will have an easy time watching where everything is going.
You are trying to provide real world analogy for a situation that was never seen in the real world. Namely that Empire can hide the project that takes up something like half (or more) of their military production. It doesn't matter how many systems the Empire has, we are talking about percentages. And 50% of million systems will be just as noticeable as 50% of hundred systems.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:In all cases, a matter of hot pursuit - usually with the assistance of tracking devices. As Han shows in ANH, ships can't be tracked far into hyperspace.
The point is ships can be tracked and Han Solo outran the Imperial ships and moved beyond their range.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:In order to hide the information from people in general. Not just the Rebellion. If it leaves the Rebels frustrated and denying they engage in piratical acts, so much the better - helps keep the Rebellion's image poor.
I don't know what kind of drooling idiots you think populate the Galactic Empire to think that they would buy the Rebellion stealing fifty percent of Imperial military equipment. "Um...we won't be able to build another aircraft carrier since Mafia stole 20% of our military production...yeah that's it". And such lies won't leave the Rebels frustrated, it will leave them happy since they will know the Empire is up to something.
Mike DiCenso wrote:That's not exactly accurate, Kane, and you know that. Han specifically stated disbelief because he knew or had a good idea that the entire Starfleet couldn't pull off such a task. Han is an experianced spacer, a smuggler who has gone up against big Imperial ships as well as local bulk cruisers. He's probably been shot at, probably has a good idea how much energy those weapons can deliver, and probably could surmise reasonably that the entire fleet couldn't pull it off, at least not in a timescale that would be considered reasonable.
Really. So if a guy smugling refugees from Cuba to Florida gets shot by US coastal patrol he now gets a good idea about the range, numbers and payload of nuclear submarines?
Mike DiCenso wrote:Trying to fall back on the tired old Warsie fallacy of "attacking an expert" is not going to work here. Han is experianced enough to know his business, and he's travelled around enough to know about what kind of facilities are out there.
Or is it old Trekkie "pretending it's an expert" fallacy? Here is a news flash for you: smuggler is not a military expert.
Mike DiCenso wrote:That's silly. The ability to build space frames is there, even if there is no way to build engines for them. The ability to build engines for them should also be there since a space station still has to have some level of basic propulsion for station-keeping purposes, like every real-life space station from Salyut to Skylab, and Mir to ISS. The scale of those thrusters would easily be comparable to a starship impulse engine, would likely require some kind of fusion power, just like the thrusters and impulse engines on a starship do.
Except we don't know a thing about those spaceframes. How though are they? Can they withstand the kind of accelerations starships are subjected to? And stationkeeping thrusters even on a station as small as DS9 only provide something like 0.001G. That is nowhere near the acceleration used by starships. Then there is the fact starbases have no warp drives etc.
Mike DiCenso wrote:As for hollow structures, that is not quite true either. While the docking bays of the SB 74 stations are quite large, they only represent a modest portion of those stations' overall volume. They are not one big hollow tube, and at the center of the docking bay area is a rather substantial core structure where the starships actually dock to. It is show here in this image:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... edock1.jpg
That central core still represents only a fraction of the total empty volume and we also saw large hangarbays on the cylinder section as well.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Likewise, the Death Stars have demonstrated vast hollow spaces, from yawning, unsafe chasms, to 8-16 kilometers-wide open spaces in their reactor chambers' housings, to large tubeways in their superstructures. Oh yes, and the docking bays in the equatorial trench area (the trench itself being empty space).
Please. Don't tell me that those little hangars can in any way be compared to the mushroom on the Starbase 74. The same goes for the tubeways which are a few dozen meters wide and cannot represent any significant amount of volume. Hell that large tubeway on Sovereign represents a far greater proportion of volume. The only truly large structure is the reactor and even at 16km we are still talking about an insignificant amount of vlume. Nowhere close to even those large hangars on the cylinder of the starbase.
Mike DiCenso wrote:On starbase defenses, we've heard that at least one starbase was a tough nut to crack. Deep Space Nine already came with shields and weapons, though nothing really special, but was easily retrofitted with more powerful versions within 3 years of the Dominion threat becoming known. In "Valiant", Jake and Nog have to have clearence to leave Starbase 257's "defense perimeter". Such a thing implies very strongly shields and weapons, since no starships other than Jake and Nog's runabout were visible or even mentioned.
So we have a grand total of two Federation starbases mentioned with any kind of defence. One of those stations was DS9 for which we know was a pivotal place for Federation. For other we know it has a "defense perimeter". But what does that mean? Mars's defense perimeter in "Best of Both Worlds" consisted of 3 little pods.
Once again only vauge dialougle lines that don't even mention those largest starbases.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:The whole DS2 being a secret and thus not representing much of the total production potential for the Empire is crap. It is based on the notion that people are allowed to know what is going on in the Empire. Palpatine's Empire, being an oppressive government that keeps its planets in line through fear, would not grant its citizens many freedoms. In the United States, yes it would be impossible for 50% or so of our annual steel production to be diverted to a single place in secrecy. However I highly doubt that the Empire has anything resembling the first amendment, or the freedom of information act. Anyone who asks too many questions is likely to end up dead in a ditch, or just disappear.
Yeah that's right people in the Empire are stupid idiots who can't even figure out that 50% of military production has disappered. And haven't you been paying attention? We are talking about the Rebels which have spies in the Empire and probably have surveilance of their major shipyards and fleets. It's a good thing you chose to compare US with the Empire though since you know that US is a democracy and cannot imprison their own citizens without probable cause if you are a terrorist...uh I mean a Rebel. It's not you will find yourself in Guantanamo...err I mean a ditch like in Empire. Of course the Empire blew up Alderaan only beacuse of unsupported accusation that it harboured Rebels. It's not as if US would bomb the shit out of a country only based on an unsubstantiated evidence it harbours terrorists or has weapons of mass destruction.
AnonymousRedShirtEnsign wrote:And in the case of the Jedi vs. the Trade Federation, the Jedi could actually win. With the droid army, if you remove their leadership the droids shut down. Thus assassination is a very useful tool against the TF. Also a Jedi could just use the force to ram TF ships into each other, remember Yoda's "size matters not" lesson in TESB.
Remember "figure of speach"? Remeber "burden of proof"?

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Post by sonofccn » Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:53 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:And you have no evidence that unit is a useless figure. The word unit could've very well be defined in the contract for clone army.
Oh it's possible that unit was defined as a squad/plattoon/etc. HOwever since there is no evidence for it, and it's kinda odd I highly doubt such a thing happened.
In other words you have decided which definition is "better" based on nothing but your subjective opinion.
No. Units=clones makes the quote make sense. Units=any military formation doesn't since it wouldn't have told Obiwan anything. That's make clone=unit better. Not my subjective opinion.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:18 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:That's not exactly accurate, Kane, and you know that. Han specifically stated disbelief because he knew or had a good idea that the entire Starfleet couldn't pull off such a task. Han is an experianced spacer, a smuggler who has gone up against big Imperial ships as well as local bulk cruisers. He's probably been shot at, probably has a good idea how much energy those weapons can deliver, and probably could surmise reasonably that the entire fleet couldn't pull it off, at least not in a timescale that would be considered reasonable.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Really. So if a guy smugling refugees from Cuba to Florida gets shot by US coastal patrol he now gets a good idea about the range, numbers and payload of nuclear submarines?
This isn't an equivalent situation, Kane. Being chased down by actual star destroyers as Han has, would be more like the "smuggling guy" in Florida occasionally being chased down by a Iowa class battleship instead of a Coast Guard cutter. Remember this line:

HAN: I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local
bulk-cruisers, mind you. I'm talking about the big Corellian ships
now. She's fast enough for you, old man. What's the cargo?


Mike DiCenso wrote:Trying to fall back on the tired old Warsie fallacy of "attacking an expert" is not going to work here. Han is experianced enough to know his business, and he's travelled around enough to know about what kind of facilities are out there.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Or is it old Trekkie "pretending it's an expert" fallacy? Here is a news flash for you: smuggler is not a military expert.
Unfortunately for you, he is an experianced smuggler who's gone up against big Imperial starships, that's why his skills are in such demand, and Jabba continued to make an exception for him after Greedo's death.
Mike DiCenso wrote:That's silly. The ability to build space frames is there, even if there is no way to build engines for them. The ability to build engines for them should also be there since a space station still has to have some level of basic propulsion for station-keeping purposes, like every real-life space station from Salyut to Skylab, and Mir to ISS. The scale of those thrusters would easily be comparable to a starship impulse engine, would likely require some kind of fusion power, just like the thrusters and impulse engines on a starship do.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
Except we don't know a thing about those spaceframes. How though are they? Can they withstand the kind of accelerations starships are subjected to? And stationkeeping thrusters even on a station as small as DS9 only provide something like 0.001G. That is nowhere near the acceleration used by starships. Then there is the fact starbases have no warp drives etc.
Be careful here; I use DS9 as a lower limits baseline here. The fact that the Cardassians built that particular class of station that way does not necessarily mean that the Federation builds a station like SB 74 like that. Also there's the scaling issue, too. DS9 is only at most 2 km wide, while SB 74 is 8-10 km wide and outmasses DS9 by a considerable margin. It would require a far more massive series of thrusters, or a lot of smaller ones to station-keep for a spacecraft of that magnitude. Also the loading on the SB-74 structure will require at least an order of magnitude greater tolerances over DS9's, and likely several more given the R cubed law.

Also we must look at it from a materials and industrial standpoint. The resources were marshalled and the industrial capability was there to build, not one, but a fair number of 6-16 km tall space stations.

The fact that we've seen some pretty impressive firepower retrofitted to the Cardassian facility in less than 3 years indicates that it should be fairly easy to do the same for any actual Federation space station.
Mike DiCenso wrote:As for hollow structures, that is not quite true either. While the docking bays of the SB 74 stations are quite large, they only represent a modest portion of those stations' overall volume. They are not one big hollow tube, and at the center of the docking bay area is a rather substantial core structure where the starships actually dock to. It is show here in this image:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... edock1.jpg
That central core still represents only a fraction of the total empty volume and we also saw large hangarbays on the cylinder section as well.
True, but the main bay is not "empty" as some Warises have tried to portray it, and the core docking structure is still a substantial fraction of the total volume.

Compare that to the reactor "bulb" in the DS2, which takes up far less space than the Spacedock/SB-74 core does in their respective docking bays:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/laserd ... core05.jpg

Also, there are no "large" hangerbays on the lower structures, at least nothing anywhere near the magnitude of the main docking bay:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... edock6.jpg

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... edock4.jpg
Mike DiCenso wrote:Likewise, the Death Stars have demonstrated vast hollow spaces, from yawning, unsafe chasms, to 8-16 kilometers-wide open spaces in their reactor chambers' housings, to large tubeways in their superstructures. Oh yes, and the docking bays in the equatorial trench area (the trench itself being empty space).
Please. Don't tell me that those little hangars can in any way be compared to the mushroom on the Starbase 74. The same goes for the tubeways which are a few dozen meters wide and cannot represent any significant amount of volume.
Hell that large tubeway on Sovereign represents a far greater proportion of volume. The only truly large structure is the reactor and even at 16km we are still talking about an insignificant amount of vlume. Nowhere close to even those large hangars on the cylinder of the starbase.
Well, taken individually, you would be correct, but the superstructure tubes, the hangers, trenches, innumerable chasms, and more make up a very substantial volume when taken together. So theoretically, the DS is mostly hollow space, which fits in with the early construction we seen in RoTS:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/rots~/GW7vq.jpg

The Death Star 2 showing the space devoted to the shafts and the reactor housing open space (also note the non-trival space carved out by the superlaser dish, too):


http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/zs ... holo36.jpg

There appear to be substantial structural members running both laterally and longitudially. Each of these mighty beams appear to be one the order of a kilometer wide, and span many kilometers long.

Mike DiCenso wrote:On starbase defenses, we've heard that at least one starbase was a tough nut to crack. Deep Space Nine already came with shields and weapons, though nothing really special, but was easily retrofitted with more powerful versions within 3 years of the Dominion threat becoming known. In "Valiant", Jake and Nog have to have clearence to leave Starbase 257's "defense perimeter". Such a thing implies very strongly shields and weapons, since no starships other than Jake and Nog's runabout were visible or even mentioned.
Kane Starkiller wrote:
So we have a grand total of two Federation starbases mentioned with any kind of defence. One of those stations was DS9 for which we know was a pivotal place for Federation. For other we know it has a "defense perimeter". But what does that mean? Mars's defense perimeter in "Best of Both Worlds" consisted of 3 little pods.
Once again only vauge dialougle lines that don't even mention those largest starbases.
Except that there was no evidence of defense craft at all, and Jake and Nog's runabout was merely a visiting courier vessel. Also, your "logic" is getting funky again. We have no proof that all ISDs, for instance, are outfitted with weapons, only about a dozen or so, tops. The rest, for all we know, are just hulls with some basic propulsion. Silly no? Well that's the path you're going down. With DS9, a station originally not Federation, not heavily armed as it was merely a refinery, and yet easily outfitted by the Federation with top of the line weapons and shielding. Are you suggesting the Federation cannot outfit it's own stations, specially in a time of war? Is it not logical to assume that Starbase 257 has shields and weapons? Similarly, why would major starbases, like 74, not have at least basic shields and weapons? There is a good sound reason for it, after all.
-Mike

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:13 am

Oh the topic of ship fleet counts, I scanned through some sites to find some good screencaps. I found these at the ever-excellent Trekcore, which illustrates how many ships the Dominion their Breen allies could field:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=366

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=367

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=367

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=369

Notice in the first and last screencaps that you can see the fleet extending into a tiny dots forming sizable "clouds" off into the distance as compared to planet Cardassia's limb. If the Federation and Allied fleet was sizeable enough to surround and contain this fleet, it would speak of a combined ship count greater than 30,000 to accomplish such a task.

I can't find any good screencaps of the Trade Federation fleet at Naboo, except these so-so quality views from the Galactic Republic cruiser's cockpit POV shots:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/tpm/radiantcp1.jpg

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/tpm/radiantcp2.jpg

Note the spacing of the battleships compared to that of the Dominion fleet high-density.
-Mike

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:14 pm

sonofccn wrote:Oh it's possible that unit was defined as a squad/plattoon/etc. HOwever since there is no evidence for it, and it's kinda odd I highly doubt such a thing happened.
sonofccn wrote:No. Units=clones makes the quote make sense. Units=any military formation doesn't since it wouldn't have told Obiwan anything. That's make clone=unit better. Not my subjective opinion.
So you admit that it is possible that word unit meant platoon/brigade/squad as well as "single clone" yet you discard that option anyway? Based on what? "Kinda odd"?
And you provided no explanation why "200,000 clones" would make more sense than "200,000 squads" for example. And you are still ignoring my point about "unit" being defined in the initial contract between Kamionans and Sifo-Dyas.
Mike DiCenso wrote:This isn't an equivalent situation, Kane. Being chased down by actual star destroyers as Han has, would be more like the "smuggling guy" in Florida occasionally being chased down by a Iowa class battleship instead of a Coast Guard cutter. Remember this line:

HAN: I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local
bulk-cruisers, mind you. I'm talking about the big Corellian ships
now. She's fast enough for you, old man. What's the cargo?
Really now? Iowa class has a displacement of 40,000 tons which makes it little over two times smaller than the largest ships employed by US navy. In comparison Star Destroyer is 16 million times smaller than largest ship employed by Imperial navy. Or even using Executor as benchmark Stardestroyer is over 100 times smaller. So, yes, ISD is more like a Coast Guard cutter in Imperial navy than Iowa class ship.
Besides even if a smuggler is chased by an Iowa class ship that still doesn't mean the smuggler will know it's full firepower. All he needs to know how fast it can move and how to outrun it.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Unfortunately for you, he is an experianced smuggler who's gone up against big Imperial starships, that's why his skills are in such demand, and Jabba continued to make an exception for him after Greedo's death.
Yes, yes he's a good smuggler I never questioned that. You still haven't provided any evidence, however, that he knows the full capabilities of Imperial ships. He wouldn't need to know the full firepower of ISD's heavy turbolasers any more a smuggler would need to know the firepower of Iowa's broadside. All he needs to know is that he's dead if he get's hit.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Be careful here; I use DS9 as a lower limits baseline here. The fact that the Cardassians built that particular class of station that way does not necessarily mean that the Federation builds a station like SB 74 like that. Also there's the scaling issue, too. DS9 is only at most 2 km wide, while SB 74 is 8-10 km wide and outmasses DS9 by a considerable margin. It would require a far more massive series of thrusters, or a lot of smaller ones to station-keep for a spacecraft of that magnitude. Also the loading on the SB-74 structure will require at least an order of magnitude greater tolerances over DS9's, and likely several more given the R cubed law.
How can you use the acceleration of a smaller object as a lower limit for acceleration of bigger one? This would be like using X-wing's acceleration as a lower limit for ISD's acceleration. It only works the other way around. And you are right Starbase 74 would need larger thrusters in order to attain the same acceleration as DS9 and those thrusters would exert 1000 times greater force upon the Starbase 74 structure than they did on DS9 structure. Therefore the materials that were used to build Starbase 74 would have to be 1000 times stronger in order for Starbase 74 to be capable of the same acceleration rate. There is of course no evidence for this.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Also we must look at it from a materials and industrial standpoint. The resources were marshalled and the industrial capability was there to build, not one, but a fair number of 6-16 km tall space stations.
First as I recall we saw four Starbase 74 type starbases all of which were completed in an unknow timeframe. As for 6-16 km starbases I believe you are talking about Utopia Planitia shipyards. I never saw any scalings done that would suggest such size.
Mike DiCenso wrote:The fact that we've seen some pretty impressive firepower retrofitted to the Cardassian facility in less than 3 years indicates that it should be fairly easy to do the same for any actual Federation space station.
How do you know it was "fairly easy"? I suppose you could also build up Starbase 74 until it's strong as DS9 in three years but to build it up until it's proportionally stronger than DS9(1000 times)? We have no indications how much time it would take the Federation nor wether it is even possible.
Mike DiCenso wrote:True, but the main bay is not "empty" as some Warises have tried to portray it, and the core docking structure is still a substantial fraction of the total volume.
No more than a fifth of the tota volume of empty mushroom.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Compare that to the reactor "bulb" in the DS2, which takes up far less space than the Spacedock/SB-74 core does in their respective docking bays:
The size of the bulb is completley irrelevant. That entire reactor chamber is less than 1/1000 of the total DS2 volume.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Also, there are no "large" hangerbays on the lower structures, at least nothing anywhere near the magnitude of the main docking bay:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... edock6.jpg

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... edock4.jpg
I never said that they were as big as the main hangar door but they are several hundred meters wide and likely that deep even if we assume that they don't lead to large cavity like the one in the main "mushroom".
Mike DiCenso wrote:Well, taken individually, you would be correct, but the superstructure tubes, the hangers, trenches, innumerable chasms, and more make up a very substantial volume when taken together. So theoretically, the DS is mostly hollow space, which fits in with the early construction we seen in RoTS:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/rots~/GW7vq.jpg

The Death Star 2 showing the space devoted to the shafts and the reactor housing open space (also note the non-trival space carved out by the superlaser dish, too):


http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/zs ... holo36.jpg

There appear to be substantial structural members running both laterally and longitudially. Each of these mighty beams appear to be one the order of a kilometer wide, and span many kilometers long.
We have seen the size and spacing of hangars and they cannot comprise a significant amount of volume. They appear to be 20X50X50. They appear to be 5 of their widths apart and there are two rows of them. So we are looking at a total of 1/6,000,000 of the total volume. The trench is about 1.5km wide and about 1.5km deep. That is 1/1000 of the volume. And finally two tubeways we see in ANH are about 10m wide and assuming that they are 60km long that amounts to 1/192,000,000 of volume.
And you figure this makes DS1 mostly hollow. And I just love your picture at the end of ROTS which show DS1 that was still in the primary stages of construction.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Except that there was no evidence of defense craft at all, and Jake and Nog's runabout was merely a visiting courier vessel.
Exactly. There is no evidence for anything. Just one line: defensive perimeter. Which, as I have shown, can mean anything.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Also, your "logic" is getting funky again. We have no proof that all ISDs, for instance, are outfitted with weapons, only about a dozen or so, tops. The rest, for all we know, are just hulls with some basic propulsion. Silly no? Well that's the path you're going down.
Please. Don't insult both of our intelligences. DS9 and Starbase 74 like stations are not the part of the same class and you know it. You pretend that asking for evidence that at least one member of a certain class has weapons is the same as asking for evidence that all members of that class have weapons.
Mike DiCenso wrote:With DS9, a station originally not Federation, not heavily armed as it was merely a refinery, and yet easily outfitted by the Federation with top of the line weapons and shielding. Are you suggesting the Federation cannot outfit it's own stations, specially in a time of war? Is it not logical to assume that Starbase 257 has shields and weapons? Similarly, why would major starbases, like 74, not have at least basic shields and weapons? There is a good sound reason for it, after all.
What stations? Here you go again playing a semantics game and assuming that what goes for one "station" must be true for other "station". The question here is wether Starbase 74 type starbases have integrated weapon systems that are proportionally stronger than starships. This is what we need in order for considering Starbase 74 as benchmark for Federation starship production capacity. I said "considering" because we still nedd sublight propulsion, warp propulsion, shields neither of which were demonstrated. The fact that they could slap on a few weapons systems in moment of need means nothing.
Mike DiCenso wrote:Oh the topic of ship fleet counts, I scanned through some sites to find some good screencaps. I found these at the ever-excellent Trekcore, which illustrates how many ships the Dominion their Breen allies could field:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=366

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=367

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=367

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 73&pos=369

Notice in the first and last screencaps that you can see the fleet extending into a tiny dots forming sizable "clouds" off into the distance as compared to planet Cardassia's limb. If the Federation and Allied fleet was sizeable enough to surround and contain this fleet, it would speak of a combined ship count greater than 30,000 to accomplish such a task.

I can't find any good screencaps of the Trade Federation fleet at Naboo, except these so-so quality views from the Galactic Republic cruiser's cockpit POV shots:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/tpm/radiantcp1.jpg

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/tpm/radiantcp2.jpg

Note the spacing of the battleships compared to that of the Dominion fleet high-density.
Those images don't seem to show more than a few hundred ships for the Dominion fleet.
As for the Trade Federation fleet you should notice that the battleships on the second image appear much closer to the planet than the first which indicates that there are actually multiple "layers" of the blocade.
Besides the fleet at Cardassia was the totality their entire fleet and it was still considered a threat to Romulan/Klingon/Federation fleet. The blockade at Naboo was considered "trivial" by Qui-Gon Jin.

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Post by sonofccn » Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:38 pm

Kane starkiller wrote:So you admit that it is possible that word unit meant platoon/brigade/squad as well as "single clone" yet you discard that option anyway? Based on what? "Kinda odd"?
Yes I admit it's possible. Since we never see the order contract I can't swear that unit wasn't given a predetermined number. However why would any lifeform go to all the trouble of doing that when there already exists the words to do the task.
Kane starkiller wrote:And you provided no explanation why "200,000 clones" would make more sense than "200,000 squads" for example
Because I didn't say that. 200,000 squads make plenty of sense and if they had said that I would be fine with it. 200,000 units where units can mean literaly any military formation doesn't since saying it is a waste of breath. It wouldn't have told anyone anything. So now do you understand how unit=clone is a defined word that makes sense in the quote while unit=any military formation doesn't since noone would know what the hell the guy was talking about.
Kane starkiller wrote:And you are still ignoring my point about "unit" being defined in the initial contract between Kamionans and Sifo-Dyas.
How can I ignore something when I said it was possible? NOw if you have evidence for it, I'll gladly hear it, but if your entire argument is
"Well maybe they defined unit when we weren't looking" I'm afraid that is just reaching to avoid the obviouse outcome.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Fri Sep 01, 2006 4:08 pm

Sonofccn brigade, squad, platoon and single soldier are ALL EQUALLY viable and acceptable options for the word unit.
You are claiming that you get to pick a definition without evidence (unit=single soldier) but that I must back up a different, but equally viable, explanation (for example unit=squad) with evidence. Why the double standard? Why do you get to choose which definition to use while I need to back up mine with evidence?
Try to understand that none of the aforementioned definitions for unit, including "single soldier", does not have an advantage over other definitions. If you wish to determine which of these definitons is used in this particualr case you must provide evidence wether it's for brigade, single soldier, platoon or whatever.

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Post by sonofccn » Fri Sep 01, 2006 4:53 pm

Kane starkiller wrote:Sonofccn brigade, squad, platoon and single soldier are ALL EQUALLY viable and acceptable options for the word unit.
I'm aware of that. Thats the problem. Unit means all of them, ie you can't just assume squad, or platoon, or anything if we go down your theroy. We have to assume the quote reads something like this.
"200,000 military formations of any size ready, and a million more on the way"
Which makes the quote stupid and usless. I trust I don't need to go indepth on why that is.
Kane starkiller wrote:You are claiming that you get to pick a definition without evidence (unit=single soldier) but that I must back up a different, but equally viable, explanation (for example unit=squad) with evidence.
Because unit=clone makes sense in the quote and is how busness refers to it's products. That's all the evidence I need. You on the other hand want me to belive that something we never saw or was implied happened to make you theroy viable.
Kane starkiller wrote:Why the double standard?
It isn't. I'll allow unit as any military formation but that doens't make any sense. If you want me to believe unit was given a precise defination then you need evidence.
Kane starkiller wrote:If you wish to determine which of these definitons is used in this particualr case you must provide evidence wether it's for brigade, single soldier, platoon or whatever.
No I don't. I simply have to point that via context it was never implied squad/platoon/etc. It was simply units. Thus the military unit is out because it lacks sense. You know 200,000x doesn't explain anything, even through that is what you demanding we use. That The word was defined behind the scences lacks evidence and thus is thrown out of the running.
Kane starkiller wrote:Try to understand that none of the aforementioned definitions for unit, including "single soldier", does not have an advantage over other definitions.
Ah I may have stumbled apon our problem. I am not using the military unit for a single soldier(which you are correct is just as likely as all the other defination thereof) I am using units as any busness would use to refer to thier products which always is one product one unit. So I'm using something with a definate defination while your trying to use a losely defined word. So you see no double standard.

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