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"?