TCW Story Reels

For polite and reasoned discussion of Star Wars and/or Star Trek.
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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Oct 07, 2014 11:42 am

So did the Geonosians consider the use of such a crystal in their schematics of the murderous battle station?
And if Jedi might be needed to properly tune such a crystal and have it be used on the long term instead of, I don't know, blowing up fashionedly, couldn't the Sith do the same?
It's not like the Empire itself didn't count its fair number of Force-active members...

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Oct 07, 2014 9:13 pm

One would presume that is what Count Dooku was there for in the beginning since Palpatine himself couldn't be there, at least not most of the time, and later I would imagine Vader and Palpatine would handle the crystal(s) calibration during the Empire-era.
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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by 2046 » Tue Oct 07, 2014 10:31 pm

Given that this one was shot and started vaping people, I am not terribly excited by this idea of the Force being required in any way.

It does allow for Asajj Ventress or Maul or similar to end up trapped in the machine, which I think is fun, but that idea has been done to death anyway, from "Homeworld" to Ron's BSG.

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Darth Spock » Wed Oct 08, 2014 12:54 am

The Geonosians were obviously working closely with Dooku, who made no secret of his force aptitude, and it’s just as likely he contracted them to build it, and that it was not their own brainchild.

Whether they knew the main weapon would require a force sensitive individual to implement (assuming that is indeed the case, and not just an arrogant Jedi assumption as I said) wouldn't stop them from trying, especially if a Sith lord was placing the order for it. It’s likely they knew that such a crystal was necessary, but that the Sith overseer would perform the final calibrations surreptitiously, or openly, again assuming its actually impossible for non-force sensitive beings to calibrate it. I seem to recall that the weapon being devised over Iego in the "Mystery of a Thousand Moons" episode was also implied to be an early prototype for the Death Star's weapon. Whether that was an attempt at an alternative design, or just an early test for the more basic generators and emitters, who knows.

Thinking back to the original trilogy, there’s the scene were Motti asserts that the Death Star is the ultimate power in the universe, to which Vader replies "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." That sounds a bit contradictory to my earlier assertion, although, if Sith involvement in the final implementation of the weapon is a secret intended to keep the weapon firmly under Sith control, it could generate such an angry response from Vader.

Then again, at the beginning of "Return of the Jedi"
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-Return-of-the-Jedi.html wrote: VADER
You may dispense with the pleasantries, Commander. I'm here to put you
back on
schedule.

The commander turns ashen and begins to shake.

JERJERROD
I assure you, Lord Vader, my men are working as fast as they can.

VADER
Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them.

JERJERROD
I tell you, this station will be operational as planned.

VADER
The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.
It does cast some doubt on whether a Jedi or Sith is really needed to make such a weapon. Although I think it’s worth mentioning that both the original Death Star, which TAGGE stated was not yet operational halfway through the film, and the second Death Star, only went on-line under direct Sith supervision. By the time the final check-out was complete shortly before the destruction of Alderaan, Vader had long since returned from his pursuit of the plans near Tatooine. Likewise, it was after Vader arrived at the second Death Star that they were put "back on schedule" and the battle station was made operational.

At any rate, this is going a bit further down a speculator trail than I originally intended. My previous comments were originally made regarding the Jedi's likely beliefs that force sensitivity was needed to properly align such a crystal, although I'm starting to think it’s more likely than I first considered. As for enslaving a force user inside the machine, I don’t really like that idea either. Besides, a lightsaber needs only be assembled once and it operates normally afterwards, like any other piece of technology.

Likely or not, I confess I'm not entirely happy with the idea of a force powered weapon myself. Not just for my sympathies for the Star Wars side of the debate, but because it undermines part of the philosophical point I always thought made up a good chunk of the Star Wars narrative. Specifically, the exchange between Motti and Vader summed it up perfectly: that the mechanical monstrosity that was the Death Star was still just a small, insignificant part of the whole universe bound by the living force. Of course, you could say it’s balanced out by Luke needing an X-wing and a proton torpedo as guided by the force to destroy the station. But needing the force to make the Death Star hardly makes it an elegant weapon of mass destruction for a civilized military.
I’m even less thrilled about people being “vaped” period. Trek gave itself enough trouble explaining away “nadions” and what-not to *POOF* people in a flash of color. Having a crystal reflect Star Wars’ blaster bolts magically transformed into “disruptor” blasts just irks me.

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by 2046 » Tue Oct 28, 2014 12:45 pm

2046 wrote:Thank you for anticipating the inflationist tack. Deny, deny, deny.
Actually, Mr. O, you were spot-on.

As referenced on my blog (hopefully to Lucky's satisfaction), Brian Young's response to the kyber crystal is threefold, with the first being to repeatedly state that nobody knows what it is intended to be used for in the episode.

I responded thusly:

The first is just an effort to play dumb. We know from Attack of the Clones that they had the Death Star plans at the start of the war, we know from the end of Revenge of the Sith after the war that construction was in progress, and we know from A New Hope that the Death Star was 'a weapon of unimaginable power', to borrow the phrase from Yoda. We also have all the assorted effects that this crystal and the Death Star exhibit in common.

It is, quite simply, mere denial to argue that the pursuit of a massive kyber crystal during the war was unrelated to the Death Star.

That makes about as much sense as suggesting the biochips in the clone brains as seen in TCW's sixth season were unrelated to Order 66, or that we wouldn't know who the devil those twin babies were at the end of RotS had Amidala not explicitly said "Luke" and "Leia".

I suppose one could make an Occam-esque argument here, too . . . after all, despite the joke about the EU's old Superweapon-of-the-Week addiction, the fact is that in canon the only known huge-mongous weapon being pursued by the Empire was the Death Star, and when that one was blown up the only other known huge-mongous weapon being pursued by the Empire was yet another Death Star.

Seems to me that, denials aside, the only logical conclusion is that it was for the Death Star.

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by 359 » Sat Nov 01, 2014 11:31 pm

According to REB: "Breaking Ranks" the Empire is still in the business of Kyber crystals, presumably ones of similar scale based on the expected destruction effects. So more reason to accept that these are intended for the Deathstar.

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Nov 02, 2014 2:04 am

2046 wrote:
2046 wrote:Thank you for anticipating the inflationist tack. Deny, deny, deny.
Actually, Mr. O, you were spot-on.

As referenced on my blog (hopefully to Lucky's satisfaction), Brian Young's response to the kyber crystal is threefold, with the first being to repeatedly state that nobody knows what it is intended to be used for in the episode.

I responded thusly:

The first is just an effort to play dumb. We know from Attack of the Clones that they had the Death Star plans at the start of the war, we know from the end of Revenge of the Sith after the war that construction was in progress, and we know from A New Hope that the Death Star was 'a weapon of unimaginable power', to borrow the phrase from Yoda. We also have all the assorted effects that this crystal and the Death Star exhibit in common.

It is, quite simply, mere denial to argue that the pursuit of a massive kyber crystal during the war was unrelated to the Death Star.

That makes about as much sense as suggesting the biochips in the clone brains as seen in TCW's sixth season were unrelated to Order 66, or that we wouldn't know who the devil those twin babies were at the end of RotS had Amidala not explicitly said "Luke" and "Leia".

I suppose one could make an Occam-esque argument here, too . . . after all, despite the joke about the EU's old Superweapon-of-the-Week addiction, the fact is that in canon the only known huge-mongous weapon being pursued by the Empire was the Death Star, and when that one was blown up the only other known huge-mongous weapon being pursued by the Empire was yet another Death Star.

Seems to me that, denials aside, the only logical conclusion is that it was for the Death Star.
Okay, so this raw footage's narrative is canon. Good to know.
BY's argument about lightsabre weight is silly. With the densities he goes for, lightsabres would be very dense silverware and fall at impressive accelerations anytime somone drops or throws one. They'd probably shatter equally spectacularly each time they'd hit a wall or the ground. And if they held that much mass and energy, anytime they'd get destroyed, you'd have the equivalent of, I don't know... a super heavy clay charge detonating?

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Darth Spock » Sun Nov 02, 2014 3:09 am

I think a better question is not if the crystal is going into the Death Star, but how many. What about the 8 tributary beams the original super laser had? It doesn't make much sense to supercharge a beam with the crystal, split it up, then have it coalesce again outside the station. Heck, for all we know it could look like the final level of the Force Unleashed game, (thank goodness the Disneypocolypse killed that series...) with dozens of the suckers in sequence feeding into each other.

Thinking back to the behavior of the crystal inside a lightsaber, such energy amplification could explain why lightsabers can exert so so much work energy, slicing and dicing without their power cells running dry very quickly, could it not? After all, blasters come with replaceable clips, and while lightsabers do need to be recharged occasionally, we've certainly never seen one go dry after a long battle...
Mr. Oragahn wrote: And if they held that much mass and energy, anytime they'd get destroyed, you'd have the equivalent of, I don't know... a super heavy clay charge detonating?
That reminds me, in SW:TCW 5:7 "A Test of Strength" one of the younglings put his light saber together incorrectly, then used it as a booby trap against the pirates, resulting in a modest sized explosion that destroyed the hilt and knocked their captors out briefly, though as I recall, no pirates were killed, and the crystal survived as well.

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Nov 02, 2014 3:42 pm

Darth Spock wrote:I think a better question is not if the crystal is going into the Death Star, but how many. What about the 8 tributary beams the original super laser had? It doesn't make much sense to supercharge a beam with the crystal, split it up, then have it coalesce again outside the station. Heck, for all we know it could look like the final level of the Force Unleashed game, (thank goodness the Disneypocolypse killed that series...) with dozens of the suckers in sequence feeding into each other.
Disneycaust, Disneygeddon. The four horsemen, Uncle Scrooge, Huey, Dewie and Louie.

To expand on your idea of the tributary tubes requiring a kirby crystal each.
The tributary beams were really odd, they were shot at some invisible point ahead of the dish's central exhaust and were blocked there. Perhaps the whole conical field cast by the dish, in front of the Death Star, was a force field to both super focus and amplify the energy, by having the main beam straight out from the reactor, pass through a kind of energetic "construct" that would enhance the raw beam. The point of this would be to, one, keep that amplifying phenomenon outside of the space station, and secondly, protect the crystals by avoiding passing the core's output right through such crystals.
Thinking back to the behavior of the crystal inside a lightsaber, such energy amplification could explain why lightsabers can exert so so much work energy, slicing and dicing without their power cells running dry very quickly, could it not? After all, blasters come with replaceable clips, and while lightsabers do need to be recharged occasionally, we've certainly never seen one go dry after a long battle...

Lightsabres could be casting weaponized stick-like force fields where matter that goes in... vanishes, sometimes with very little heat loss (depending, I guess, on the resistance of the material).
The vanishing part would be perhaps a few atoms thick, just enough to make very perfect cuts. The rest would be heat, friction, due to the width of the overall forcefield that is needed to maintain that extremely needle-thin region at the core of the blade that does eat matter. And, the tougher the material, the more the force field that maintains that super thin nuclear-disruptive core would spill energy into the surrounding material, explaining the melting.
Eventually, the energy deliver by the blade would also end being amplified by the crystal so basically the lightsabre would be a two fold system:

1. A super thin (at best molecule wide) core that literally cuts through stuff like if erased matter. That's the audacious claim but finds purchase in the growing idea that hyperspace-based phenoman could suck matter into Lalaland.
2. A crystal-amplified force field (which you don't want to touch), constraining the annihilation core... oops sorry, constraining the NDF'ing inner sliver that's over a meter long. Any prolongated and normal interaction with this force field would dump energy into surrounding materials. Hence the melting, heating, scorching, especially if you stick the weapon inside the material long enough and if it's rather dense (there's no reason denser material wouldn't oppose more resistance to the NDF'ing core, even if the process is decidedly exotic).

Obviously some blades and crystals would vary in the way both force field and NDF'ing core combine.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: And if they held that much mass and energy, anytime they'd get destroyed, you'd have the equivalent of, I don't know... a super heavy clay charge detonating?
That reminds me, in SW:TCW 5:7 "A Test of Strength" one of the younglings put his light saber together incorrectly, then used it as a booby trap against the pirates, resulting in a modest sized explosion that destroyed the hilt and knocked their captors out briefly, though as I recall, no pirates were killed, and the crystal survived as well.
Which would rather contradict Brian Young's concept since the youngling's weapon being faulty and used as part of a trap should have most likely vaporized the closeby bad guys with the energy of a thousand stars (just channeling inflationist hammie spirit here :P).

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Kyber Crystals and Death Stars

Post by 2046 » Fri Nov 07, 2014 5:41 pm

Just some continuations of the points about kyber crystals. Basically, there's a quasi-debate of sorts going on, and the inflationists are slipping toward being excrementalists again:

http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2014/09/the-d ... power.html
http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2014/10/cryst ... ersus.html
http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2014/11/cryst ... ersus.html

To summarize, they're basically doing everything they can to try to keep the Death Stars as uber as possible, including still assuming DET (which either makes sane people laugh out loud or else have blood shoot right out of their eyes, and slightly-less-sane people might do both). They're also claiming that handling of waste heat and such still makes the Empire uber, as if nothing has changed.

Instead, what we have here is a hyperspace-powered superphaser, as far as I'm concerned.

But I'm on a vacation from the hobby, so what do I know?

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:27 pm

The only part of the beam that definitely acts as a conventional weapon is precisely what happens when the beam hits.
Now views differ on what happens exactly and what is behind the glow, odd to some, sure.
What I pick as a sure thing is that the first explosion and massive whitening are safe to consider DET. The magnitude of this destructive event, once rated as a classic energetic release, could be rated with the TNT equivalent scale, within the extreme high teraton region (e23 J), perhaps low-to-mid petaton range (e25 J): it's a dirty gauging, quick and rough, but this level of destruction seems to fit with extrapolated nuclear blasts (a bit sketchy at those magnitudes), the extrapolated K-T event (not hard to imagine how bigger an equivalent impact would need to cover more area than what caused the Chicxulub crater) and, funnily enough, Saxton's calcs. The crust does not need to be broken on a vast area either, as most of the superhot plumes could easily be understood as the atmosphere suddenly put on a fire by an advanced particle beam that does kinda splash over the dome-like exposed section of the planet. Only at the very point of impact the crust would probably be massively damaged.
We would still be more than half a dozen orders of magnitude below the low end estimation which was around something e32 J iirc.
A figure peddled by Saxtonites and applied to the ENTIRE destruction of the planet in a few microseconds, transformed into superfast hot pebbles. Of course, a nice figure that simply doesn't even conform to the events, which anyone could easily observe for more than two decades at least.

EDIT: forgot that point: the crystal could be playing a huge role in amplifying the DET part of the beam. In fact, aside from the unfinished visuals, it's what the dialogue seems to have to focused on, largely. It would amplify DET just as much as the exotic fancy wobbly part of the beam's destructive process. This would assume the exotic function is native to the weapon array without the crystal.
Or ... or said crystal would literally add the funky extra sauce to the plain normal beam... said plain normal beam which, again, could also be boosted from an energetic standpoint alone, before anything special would come on top of it.
In other words, outside of the odd effects, the final DET part of the beam that strikes the planet could very well be a gross amplification of the original power level.
The question would then be, how many OoMs this big crystal seemed to provide, roughly.

And if inflationists want to claim that each single piece of hardware in SW is boosted with a Kirby Force Crystal, they'd still have to deal with the fact that measures of observed power or energy levels would still be lower than what they claim: usually they'd see teratons when there are kilotons. Therefore meaning that not only we would still stick to the normal, obvious and (not truly low end but still ludicrously low end to them) figures, but not stop there and also add to them the new parameter; that they're the result of magic amplification!
Double F.

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:58 pm

Oh, and all is

GREEN

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sun Nov 09, 2014 4:30 am

Darth Spock wrote:I think a better question is not if the crystal is going into the Death Star, but how many. What about the 8 tributary beams the original super laser had? It doesn't make much sense to supercharge a beam with the crystal, split it up, then have it coalesce again outside the station. Heck, for all we know it could look like the final level of the Force Unleashed game, (thank goodness the Disneypocolypse killed that series...) with dozens of the suckers in sequence feeding into each other.
That's pretty much what I was thinking would be the case. It makes no sense to have one crystal whose beam has to be split up and then refocused back at a single point like that. At the base of each tributary shaft there may be a single large crystal amplifying the power that comes from the fusion reactor core. The plans handed to Count Dooku in AoTC then becomes quite interesting:

Image

The conical superlaser mechanism coming directly from the main reactor bulb at the station's center splits early on into several large branches, each looking to be their own power train before reaching the focusing dish itself. There has to be a reason for this, and the only thing I can think of is some kind of amplification system in the works, and nested somewhere in there Kyber crystals. Perhaps even several to each power train branch.
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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by 2046 » Sun Nov 09, 2014 9:11 pm

Just finished "Tarkin". Ugh. The EU is alive and well, but in any case there was specific reference to the kyber crystal assembly. However, there was also a throwaway reference to a hypermatter reactor for it, though other vessels were seen to need to refuel with fuel cells containing possibly either radioactive gas, liquid metal, or composites… will need to reread not-for-pleasure (such as there is any in EU-grade tripe) to confirm.

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Re: TCW Story Reels

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Nov 10, 2014 7:30 pm

2046 wrote:Just finished "Tarkin". Ugh. The EU is alive and well, but in any case there was specific reference to the kyber crystal assembly. However, there was also a throwaway reference to a hypermatter reactor for it, though other vessels were seen to need to refuel with fuel cells containing possibly either radioactive gas, liquid metal, or composites… will need to reread not-for-pleasure (such as there is any in EU-grade tripe) to confirm.
It's posterior to the Disneying? Are all books to be treated like canon now?
Looks like there is a small brewing Resistance, wherein some EUphiles attempt to smugle old EU concepts across the border and implant them into new sources. It's some kind of Operation Parperclip.

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