Commentary on Spock v Sothis

[Who is like God arbour]

To Sothis:

I have no problem, when you refer to other websites. But by doing so, you are responsible for the repetition of the there made claims. That means, that you should check, that these are true, substantiated and well reasoned.

The site Star Wars: Imperial Propulsion Technology to which you have refered, has some unacceptable flaws.

Neither Mike Wong has explained, nor have you done it, from which he has the diameter of the gas giant Yavin. On that side, without any explanations, it's made up out of thin air.

Mike Wong has a faible to compare the size of objects, which are merely diagramed. He has done it, when he has argued, that the Death Star has had to accelerate, because it allegedly moved only 100,000 km in the first ten minutes and 200,000 km in the next five minutes.

If we would use his method, Yavin would only be 1'200 km in diameter because we know, that the Death Star is only max. 200 km in diameter.

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Or is he trying to argue, that the Death Star has a 28'570 km diameter? That would be a seventh of the 200'000 km diameter, he has accredited to Yavin.

The fact is, that these schematics can neither be used to ascertain the size of Yavin nor the velocity or acceleration of the Death Star nor the distance, the rebel fighters had to cover.

Furthermore, if we compare the from Mike Wong out of thin air made up size of Yavin with the sizes of the only us known gas giants (Jupiter: 142.984 km, Saturn: 120.536 km, Uranus: 51.118 km and Neptun: 49.528 km), we realise, that the 200'000 km, he has generously made up, lies far above the diameters of the us known gas giants. That doesn't mean, that there are no gas giants, that can have such a size - although, according to Wikipedia, it would be surprising to find a predominantly rocky planet more massive than Jupiter. But it shows, that Mike Wong is again drawing on plentiful resources.



The same applies to the shematics in the power generator bunker, to which Curtis Saxton is refering.

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It's only a schematic that is not true to scale and it is only a 2D schematic of an 3D event. We can't know, if the fleet would have collided with the Death Star.

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You still have a lot to do, if you want to prove the acceleration values, you are arguing.

My advice to you is, to look at some of the threads of that board. You will find, that your arguments were already invalidated. If you think, that some of the arguments in this threads are assailable, do it at once in your post. Otherwise you and Jedi Master Spock will need much time, if you want to repeat and go through each argument that was done once upon a time.

[l33telboi]

I'd just like to expand a little on what WILGA just said.

It's recommended that you know what the figures in the calculations you link to mean and know where they're derived from, because you will be expected to know how to defend against any counter-arguments or questions regarding these calculations. Generally, you shouldn't use or rely on arguments you yourself don't understand.

Of course, since I have no way of knowing if you do understand them just yet, that's more of 'good to know' thing. So take no offense.

[Mr. Oragahn]

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=0079gY_3y2E

Battle of Endor.

Plenty of stuff to look at for relative accelerations and moments (mechanical definition).

[Who is like God arbour]

At top power, typical impulse drives pull on the order of thousands of gravities.

[...]

In ANH, for example, the median estimate is ~80g for the Falcon [...]

Federation capships are more maneuverable than their Imperial counterparts, and I'm willing to concede that they may be slightly faster [...]

I am happy to concede that Federation capships are more agile than their Imperial counterparts, and I am even happy to concede a speed advantage to Federation ships. The issue is whether this would be relevant in a fire fight, which I feel I can argue successfully that it wouldn't be of any help. That is perhaps an argument for another debate.

Very well. I would be happy to continue it, but if you're perfectly willing to concede advantages in agility and acceleration to Federation capital ships, we should move on. Pick the next topic, then.

I wouldn't be that fast.
Sothis has merely conceded, that »Federation capships are more maneuverable [...] and [...] may be slightly faster« but he still thinks, that »wouldn't be of any help [...] in a fire fight«. To me, it seems, that it is important, to ascertain more exactly the difference in abilities. Your opinions are whole orders of magnitude apart. It's not only twice as fast, but hundred or even thousand times as fast. How great that difference is, is very important to ascertain, when later you have to decide, if it is relevant in a fire fight.

[Jedi Master Spock]

True. I have slightly edited my response to now say "substantial" to make that distinction clear.

[Praeothmin]

And as for the Defiant's maneuverability, Youtube has plenty of Defiant videos that shows just how good it is.
In fact, in many scenes, it is almost as good as the Millenium Falcon, and decidedly better then any Tie fighter's ever been shown to be...

And speaking of which, the falcon's acceleration and maneuverability both improved from ANH to ROTJ.

Just like the Defiant all along DS9, up to the last season's battles... :)

[Mr. Oragahn]

And as for the Defiant's maneuverability, Youtube has plenty of Defiant videos that shows just how good it is.
In fact, in many scenes, it is almost as good as the Millenium Falcon, and decidedly better then any Tie fighter's ever been shown to be...

And speaking of which, the falcon's acceleration and maneuverability both improved from ANH to ROTJ.

Just like the Defiant all along DS9, up to the last season's battles... :)

Solo and Chewie were directly involved in Alliance affairs. It is not out of possibility that the upgrades he got came from the Alliance stockpiles.
The presence of missile launchers between the mandibles would just support this idea.

[Praeothmin]

Excellent video of the Defiant maneuverability here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txDYihz8Ngk

Pay particular attention to the time between 1m15 and 1m50, and look at the Miranda class vessels accompanying it too, and keep in mind that the smallest of these vessels (the Defiant), is between 120 to 150 meters long.
That's for Trek maneuvering... :)

[Roondar]

Excellent video of the Defiant maneuverability here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txDYihz8Ngk

Pay particular attention to the time between 1m15 and 1m50, and look at the Miranda class vessels accompanying it too, and keep in mind that the smallest of these vessels (the Defiant), is between 120 to 150 meters long.
That's for Trek maneuvering... :)

The Defiant is really something. If this is the direction Starfleet will be taking for their future ship designs (and looking at the Sovereign class it seems they are - that ships is far more of a warship than previous era capital ships) it would be fun to see what they'd come up with further in the future.

(And no, I don't count 'future feds' as being the only option. In my view -and this is clearly supported by the series and movies- the future is not set in stone)

Pitty we'll never get to see that as no one seems interested in building a '25th century' Startrek series. Or even a 'Futher in the 24th'...

On a sidenote, that video is the final nail in the coffin of the idea that phasers can't cut through metal or metal like substances efficiently ;)

[Who is like God arbour]

Maybe someone can calculate the endured g-forces and executed acceleration in the scene, in which the Defiant is hunting a Bird of Prey respectively is hunted by a Bird of Prey around the DS9 Station [time index: 1:40 - 1:50].

In less than ten seconds, the Defiant has circled Deep Space Nine at least one and an half time.

According to Memory Alpha, Deep Space Nine has 1'451,82 meters overall diameter, what would correspond to circa 4'561 m circumference. 1,5 times of that circumference would be circa 6'840 meters.

That would mean, that the Defiant has covered circa 6'840 meters in less than ten seconds or 684 meter in one second. That would be a velocity of 2'462,4 km/h.

Taking that velocity and the diameter of the station as the turn radius, one should get interesting values.

But whatever the results of that calculation will be, it should be noticed that the here seen acceleration is not the forward acceleration capability. The forward acceleration capability would be far higher.

[Jedi Master Spock]

For uniform circular motion, inward acceleration is v^2/r, or using the figures you posted, 645 m/s^2.

[Sothis]

Hello all.

Sorry for not posting in the debate- have been busy lately and haven't had much access to the puter- that should hopefully change this weekend, so I am hoping to reply to JMS at the weekend.

[The Elder Dwoof]

A Note: Both Trek and Wars appear to have drives that are not normally considered FTL that at least allow FTL-like speed.

In Trek, they often fly between stars at impluse, taking less than 4+ years to do so (I'm using 4 light years as an "average distance between stars")

In Wars, specifically TESB, The Millenium Falcon flies from the Hoth system to the Bespin system, taking less than 4 years to do so. (or at least we can assume that Boba Fett wasn't patient enough to wait four years, once he realised their hyperdrive was out.)

Conclusion: both sides have drives, other than their main long range FTL drives, that are capable of FTL speeds.

[Jedi Master Spock]

If you're the type that is willing to accept the EU, the Falcon is listed as having a low-powered backup hyperdrive, which really does help explain how they limped to Bespin; I'm not averse to that explanation myself, or suggesting that Han eventually managed to get it to work well enough to jump once before finishing dying.

Most impulse FTL moments seem to be simple oversights, but there are an awful lot of them, even discounting the cases where a captain may have simply been ordering impulse speed to warm up the drives before later (offscreen) switching to warp.

[The Elder Dwoof]

If you're the type that is willing to accept the EU, the Falcon is listed as having a low-powered backup hyperdrive, which really does help explain how they limped to Bespin; I'm not averse to that explanation myself, or suggesting that Han eventually managed to get it to work well enough to jump once before finishing dying.

Most impulse FTL moments seem to be simple oversights, but there are an awful lot of them, even discounting the cases where a captain may have simply been ordering impulse speed to warm up the drives before later (offscreen) switching to warp.

Well, where it isn't directly contradicted in the movies, I'm fine with EU. The question becomes, when he discovered the main hyperdrive was out, why didn't Han fire up the backup immediately to get them out of the battle zone, instead of ducking into the asteroids?