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For polite and reasoned discussion of Star Wars and/or Star Trek.
Kane Starkiller
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Post by Kane Starkiller » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:19 pm

Nonamer wrote:Now you're just playing semantics. I was pointing out having the material volume need to produce a set amount of ships does not mean you have the ability. Doesn't matter what these things are. Simply put it's been very well established by every source in SW that the total number of ISDs is not outside of the thousands. Real world examples support this massive difference in ability to utilize construction materials. To claim that DS implies the ability for the Empire to millions of ISDs is unsubstanciated speculation and not support by either in-universe sources or real-world sources.
How am I playing semantics? They could build a starship therefore they could build a comparable amount of other starships. That's not semantics but mathemathics. Your example with cars which are not even military vehicles, have no weapons, don't have armour and aren't even ships completley misses the point.
Let me repeat it for you again: you got it backwards as your own example shows. Estimating industrial capacity based solely on military ships (like Death Star or aircraft carrier) will tend to produce underestimation in total industrial capacity and number of vehicles not oversestimation.

Nonamer
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Post by Nonamer » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:36 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Nonamer wrote:Now you're just playing semantics. I was pointing out having the material volume need to produce a set amount of ships does not mean you have the ability. Doesn't matter what these things are. Simply put it's been very well established by every source in SW that the total number of ISDs is not outside of the thousands. Real world examples support this massive difference in ability to utilize construction materials. To claim that DS implies the ability for the Empire to millions of ISDs is unsubstanciated speculation and not support by either in-universe sources or real-world sources.
How am I playing semantics? They could build a starship therefore they could build a comparable amount of other starships. That's not semantics but mathemathics. Your example with cars which are not even military vehicles, have no weapons, don't have armour and aren't even ships completley misses the point.
Let me repeat it for you again: you got it backwards as your own example shows. Estimating industrial capacity based solely on military ships (like Death Star or aircraft carrier) will tend to produce underestimation in total industrial capacity and number of vehicles not oversestimation.
If you don't like this examples we can play others. Under your thinking dams must cost hundreds of billions of dollars to build since they're so much bigger than most concrete and masonry structures with much more complicated moving parts. In reality Hoover Dam only cost about $676 million adjusted for inflation. Obviously when you get really big you can use economy of scale and greatly reduce the per unit cost. So unless you're going to suggest that every several hundred meter cubed block of the Death Star has it's own life support, engines, power system, shields, complete crew, etc., there's no way the DS didn't have the benefit of massive economy of scale. In fact, it is very reasonable to assume that the vast majority of the DS consists of large structural support beams and columns.

Kane Starkiller
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Post by Kane Starkiller » Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:41 pm

Your examples keep getting wider off the mark. First it was cars vs military ship and now it's a dam vs military ships. Please try to understand that Death Star is not an inert lump of metal/rock but that it has to all major systems that a standard ISD has plus a superlaser.
How about I try to find an example that actually compares, you know, military ships?
Nimitz class aircraft carrier has a displacement of 87,300t and costs 4.5 billion $. In comparison Arleigh Burke class destroyer has a displacement of 8500 t and costs 800 million $. This means that Nimitz class is 10 times larger than Arleigh Burke but only 5-6 more expensive.
Of course Arleigh Burke is a more modern ship with many advanced combat systems which will tend to rise it's cost.
As you can see mass/cost ratio is within the same order of magnitude for both ship even disregarding the fact that in our case the Death Star is a newer system with more advanced combat systems (superlaser).
The Empire might reduce some cost by building a larger ship but you cannot arbitrarily extrapolate that by thousands of times.

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Post by Nonamer » Sun Aug 27, 2006 10:42 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:Your examples keep getting wider off the mark.
What do you want then? Space Shuttle vs ISS? Unfortunately for us, in the real world, we don't have very many good examples at all.
First it was cars vs military ship and now it's a dam vs military ships. Please try to understand that Death Star is not an inert lump of metal/rock but that it has to all major systems that a standard ISD has plus a superlaser.
Neither is a dam, seeing how dams can make electricity. And it's a dam versus any other concrete or masonry building.
How about I try to find an example that actually compares, you know, military ships?
Nimitz class aircraft carrier has a displacement of 87,300t and costs 4.5 billion $. In comparison Arleigh Burke class destroyer has a displacement of 8500 t and costs 800 million $. This means that Nimitz class is 10 times larger than Arleigh Burke but only 5-6 more expensive.
Of course Arleigh Burke is a more modern ship with many advanced combat systems which will tend to rise it's cost.
As you can see mass/cost ratio is within the same order of magnitude for both ship even disregarding the fact that in our case the Death Star is a newer system with more advanced combat systems (superlaser).
The Empire might reduce some cost by building a larger ship but you cannot arbitrarily extrapolate that by thousands of times.
Well it still does show some form of economy of scale, and it should scale even further when you get bigger. Perhaps a better example would be the Freedom Ship which is 2.7 million tons and probably around $10bn. Ignoring the technical impracticalities (or impossibilities) of such a ship and the non-militarized nature of it, it does show that when you get massively bigger, costs simply may not increase nearly as much.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:07 am

Kane Starkiller wrote:No Sidious got them to get more militarized. They had their fleet before they made contact with him. And even so this does not explain the fact that Trade Federation feared reprisals from the senate. Obviously the senate must've had some kind of military force. And you still haven't answered my point about the seperate fleet that Republic members were known to maintain.
Their trade fleet. For point #2, see the fear of the Republic building an army in secret (justified).
Kane Starkiller wrote:I thought that we are going to have a rational debate here. Nowhere did the Jedi demonstrate the power to destroy battleships by usage of Force. Unless you are talking about a few extremly powerful individuals from EU.
Battleship-destroying abilities aren't necessary; assassination abilities alone are quite able to generate fear. So, for that matter, are unknown abilities. The Jedi are not particularly well understood by anyone else; this makes them feared. Understand now?
Kane Starkiller wrote:]They guy who wrote the article is wrong. We have seen both ground missiles in AOTC and missiles fired by Jango fett and as for his ridiculous claims that modern U.S. military could defeat the clone army I would really like to see conventional weapons that can carve up 800m wide sphercial ships in mere seconds. This of course doesn't even count in the energy shields. And what does it mean that Republic "doesn't know what to do with a war"? They demonstrated solid combined arms tactics which improved by the tome of ROTS. And of course you don't exactly have to be a military genious to know that more ships=better odds.
You're talking technology and numbers, not tactics and training.
Kane Starkiller wrote:What does it mean to be "maneuverable like a starship"? You do realize that Death Star is 20 million times bigger than ISD and therefore cannot possibly be as manuverable? How do you know how densly is the Death Star armed? We know that Doddona warned them about heavy turret concentrations which means they avoided those parts of the Death Star. Furthermore elaborate on what "hyperdrive slapped on" means. Do you mean the hyperdrive is literaly attached to the surface of the Death Star? If so provide evidence and screenshots. Or do you mean that hyperdrive on the Death Star is somehow inferior to the standard hyperdrive? If so please elaborate what is so substandard about an engine that can move 120 km starship around? And your "waste processing center" mass production is simply laughable. Those same parts like corridors and defense turrets would be mass produced for ISDs too. Not to mention the implicit assumption that Death Star's sewage system will somehow constitute significant cost next to the superlaser system and sublight engines.
As demonstated on the main website, the Death Star's mobility is severely limited.

Talk of size is amply addressed by others. For reference (I see some of you searching for figures, so I'll provide some for you to use), for each factor of ten of displacement a cutting-edge modern warship increases, cost increases by a factor of roughly four. 100 ton patrol boat, $60M; 1,000 ton corvette, $250M; 10,000 ton cruiser, $1B; 100,000 ton aircraft carrier, $4B.
Kane Starkiller wrote:We are talking about those huge spacedock starbases. What does DS9, which is thousands of times smaller, have to do with that? And even DS9 which is 1000 times smaler than SB74 and tens of millions of times smaller than Death Star can normally cross 160 million km in two months making it's standard acceleration rate about 0.01m/s2. Only by performing a dangerous modification did they manage to increase it's acceleration to 20m/s2. I'm not even comment on the "sophisticated medical facilities" which supposedly make those space stations as close to a starship as a Death Star.
And of course you still failed to produce any evidence whatsoever that those huge spacestations have shields or weapons or can move at all.
DS9 was supposedly unable to move, as a matter of fact; in practice, it more or less matched the Death Star's acceleration, to within MOE. This establishes similar mobility requirements. (Note to self: Update DS9 Sublight page.)

In the Dominion War, it was established that any station was a hard nut to crack. This establishes weaponry and shielding.

The considerably larger number of starbases and considerably smaller size of Starfleet's ships completes the analogy in utter equivalence.
Kane Starkiller wrote:A station is, by definition, a stationary object. Death Star is not stationary therefore it is not a station regardless of how in-universe characters refer to it. A Death Star is a starship while Starbase 74 is not. You can repeat your "Death Star is a station" mantra all you want but the evidence clearly demonstrates it's true nature.
See above.
Kane Starkiller wrote:They said 200,000 units not clones. Besides we have seen the long distance shots of the battle as well as holo displays and the droid army did not outnumber the clone army significantly. In fact we all saw that their droids were as deadly to clone army as the clone army to droids.
Unit=clone. As is perfectly clear in the movies as well as EU. As far as long distance shots showing as many clones, no, quite the contrary. 1 2 3

All indications are that the clones (a) were outnumbered and (b) outperformed the droids.
Kane Starkiller wrote:You really havent been paying attention to the films have you? Didn't you see one of the admirals asking "how will the Emperor maintain control without the beaurcracy"? The senate did still have control. And as for leaks yes that is the point. It required "leaks" to know that Empire is constructing the Death Star. Which means that it didn't take up a large fraction of Empire's industrial capacity. Otherwise you could simply note that 50% of transporters are constantly moving supplies to a certain location or that 50% of workers are moved to a single system.
A question whose answer was quick - the Imperial governors, rather than the Senate. The question was not one of administration, but of political appeasement; the answer was that there would be no more political appeasement of the systems' original planetary governments, who selected the senators.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Why? What kind of logic dictates that ship in system=system under control? Have you seen how many ships are constantly taking off and landing on Coruscant? Do you think one ship will enable you to track and enforce control over all those ships? Granted Coruscant is extremly large planet but even Tatooine will have more than one ship.
Tatooine had no permanent Imperial fleet presence.
Kane Starkiller wrote:It must be nice to invent things as you go along. What exactly prevents the Empire, then, to use other ships such as ISDs and SSDs as "their own shipyards"? Could you please elaborate on your twisted logic that a huge 160 km ship can be easily built wherever they want without any supporting infractructure and yet small 1.6 km ships require some fancy shipyards?
Easily. It's easier to build ships in a dedicated enclosure, but nothing prevents you from just hanging them free in space.

It gets easier as they get larger, in fact, thanks to gravity. Microgravity helps keep things from drifting away.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Actually it's a lot like that since that entire galaxy has been mapped by SW civilization and no one will be photographing the entire cost of US unless they get a reason to do so. Like noting that US is spending an unusually high amount of resources on something.
You're still assuming the Empire has transparent finances - a poor assumption.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes but you must also keep the fact that you are sending hordes of transporters there also a secret. And that won't happen if Death Star took up most of their industry as you claim and they sent something like 50% of their transport fleet.
There is a large difference between "most of the industry" and "most of the industry that can be spared for military purposes."

That said, in Star Wars, very few personnel are required to actually ship something from location A to location B, and only pilot, navigator, and captain need know what system it is.

Kane Starkiller
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Post by Kane Starkiller » Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:02 pm

Nonamer wrote:What do you want then? Space Shuttle vs ISS? Unfortunately for us, in the real world, we don't have very many good examples at all.
I would like an example that actually proves your point. Let's go back at your example with cars. US produces 5 million cars a year. Assuming each one wheights about 1000kg we are talking 5 million tons per year. An average car costs say 10,000 $ so we are talking about 10$/kg for an average car.
Now let's say that US produces one aircraft every five years, that would be some 20,000 tons per year. An aircraft costs about 4.5 billion $ and that would make it's cost 45$/kg. So even though US produces roughly 200 times more cars, in mass, than aircraft carriers their price per unit of mass is still not orders of magnitude lesser.
Nonamer wrote:Neither is a dam, seeing how dams can make electricity. And it's a dam versus any other concrete or masonry building.
You seem to be forgetting that economy of scale works for mass production of many small objects just as well as for mass producing parts for one big object. You are silently assuming that Empire didn't mass produce smaller ships so you can claim that Death Star will be much cheaper than an ISD so you can claim that the Empire cannot mass produce the ISDs. That is circular reasoning and even if we accept it there is still no way that Death Star will magically become 1000 times cheaper per unit of mass than an ISD.
Could you please elaborate on just how big those buildings are and how much material was spent on them?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Their trade fleet. For point #2, see the fear of the Republic building an army in secret (justified).
No they had a full blown military fleet at the start of TPM. Haven't you watched the film? Their ships had weapons, shields and they had an army. And your point two is laugable. How can Republic's "secret" military production exceed Trade Federation's total military production expecially since, according to you, Republic still doesn't have a fleet.
And you still haven't answered my point about individual members maintaining their own fleets as demonstrated by Naboo.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Battleship-destroying abilities aren't necessary; assassination abilities alone are quite able to generate fear. So, for that matter, are unknown abilities. The Jedi are not particularly well understood by anyone else; this makes them feared. Understand now?
Don't make me laugh. How the hell are Jedi supposed to get through the weapons fire of enemy battleships, get through their shields and then get through the droid security in order to disable it? And to do so in thick of battle and against as many ships to actually make a difference in a war? Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had to escape from the battleship in order to save lives and they were invited.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:You're talking technology and numbers, not tactics and training.
Yes and that's all you need to build ships. As I sad you don't need tactics and training to know that more ships=better. You are suggesting that Republic leaders are so stupid that they cannot even comprehend that having more ships will help their cause. That's beyond ridiculous.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:As demonstated on the main website, the Death Star's mobility is severely limited.
No it isn't. For a starship of it's size it's manuverability is excellent.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Talk of size is amply addressed by others. For reference (I see some of you searching for figures, so I'll provide some for you to use), for each factor of ten of displacement a cutting-edge modern warship increases, cost increases by a factor of roughly four. 100 ton patrol boat, $60M; 1,000 ton corvette, $250M; 10,000 ton cruiser, $1B; 100,000 ton aircraft carrier, $4B.
Actually Cyclone class patrol boat displaces 336 tons while Nimitz class aircraft carrier displaces 87,300 tons. This means that Cyclone costs 180$/kg while Nimitz class costs 51$/kg. That's 3.5 times increase for a 263 times bigger ship. Of course this does not include the fact that cost of maintaining an aircraft carrier is much bigger nor the cost of it's fighter wing.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:DS9 was supposedly unable to move, as a matter of fact; in practice, it more or less matched the Death Star's acceleration, to within MOE. This establishes similar mobility requirements. (Note to self: Update DS9 Sublight page.)
Yes a ten million times smaller structure matched the acceleration of the Death Star while almost breaking apart. Very impressive. But you again missed the whole point: DS9 was not designed for such accelerations and it was very dangerous to move it like that unlike Death Star.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:In the Dominion War, it was established that any station was a hard nut to crack. This establishes weaponry and shielding.
Stop making things up. It was established that a certain Cardassian starbase on the front lines was a though nut to crack. Nobody said anything about those huge Federation starbases.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:The considerably larger number of starbases and considerably smaller size of Starfleet's ships completes the analogy in utter equivalence.
No it doesn't since we never saw those large starbases demonstrate any functions that are normally expected from a military starship unlike Death Star.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Unit=clone. As is perfectly clear in the movies as well as EU. As far as long distance shots showing as many clones, no, quite the contrary. 1 2 3
All indications are that the clones (a) were outnumbered and (b) outperformed the droids.
Please provide evidence that unit=clone since unit can be any homogeneous military organization. And I really don't see what you are trying to prove with your screenshots. The first one shows that number of clones is roughly equal to the number of droids while the other two are showing only droid forces.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:A question whose answer was quick - the Imperial governors, rather than the Senate. The question was not one of administration, but of political appeasement; the answer was that there would be no more political appeasement of the systems' original planetary governments, who selected the senators.
Yes but until that point senate still had some power. Power which wouldn't be needed anymore since Emperor though that through fear alone he could control the galaxy. This still doesn't answer how the Empire could keep Death Star a secret if significant amount of it's resources were being diverted to the Death Star.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Tatooine had no permanent Imperial fleet presence.
I merely mentioned Tatooine as an example. You still haven't answered my question of why do you think that ship in system=system under control.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Easily. It's easier to build ships in a dedicated enclosure, but nothing prevents you from just hanging them free in space.

It gets easier as they get larger, in fact, thanks to gravity. Microgravity helps keep things from drifting away.
You really are desperate now arent you? "Helps keep thing from drifting away" What "things"? They do have sublight engines, magnets and tractor beams in case you forgot. How strong is this microgravity anyway?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:You're still assuming the Empire has transparent finances - a poor assumption.
Who cares abot finances? I am talking about something like thousands of trillions tons of metal being transported to one place in one year. I'm talking about billions of workers being transported to one place. If this represents a large fraction of Imperial resources then someone is going to notice. Do you think that USSR could round up, say, 25% of it's workers and no one would notice?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:There is a large difference between "most of the industry" and "most of the industry that can be spared for military purposes."
So? How does this make it any easier? If 50% of workers in military sector are tranferred to a single post you think they will be able to hide it?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:That said, in Star Wars, very few personnel are required to actually ship something from location A to location B, and only pilot, navigator, and captain need know what system it is.
And to unload it? To load it? To carry that material from the factory to the tranporter? Give me break.
And you are still missing the point. This is not about people talking, although that is also a problem, but about people simply noticing that a large fraction of military production and workers have disappered.

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Post by Nonamer » Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:29 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Nonamer wrote:What do you want then? Space Shuttle vs ISS? Unfortunately for us, in the real world, we don't have very many good examples at all.
I would like an example that actually proves your point. Let's go back at your example with cars. US produces 5 million cars a year. Assuming each one wheights about 1000kg we are talking 5 million tons per year. An average car costs say 10,000 $ so we are talking about 10$/kg for an average car.
Now let's say that US produces one aircraft every five years, that would be some 20,000 tons per year. An aircraft costs about 4.5 billion $ and that would make it's cost 45$/kg. So even though US produces roughly 200 times more cars, in mass, than aircraft carriers their price per unit of mass is still not orders of magnitude lesser.
Nonamer wrote:Neither is a dam, seeing how dams can make electricity. And it's a dam versus any other concrete or masonry building.
You seem to be forgetting that economy of scale works for mass production of many small objects just as well as for mass producing parts for one big object. You are silently assuming that Empire didn't mass produce smaller ships so you can claim that Death Star will be much cheaper than an ISD so you can claim that the Empire cannot mass produce the ISDs. That is circular reasoning and even if we accept it there is still no way that Death Star will magically become 1000 times cheaper per unit of mass than an ISD.
Could you please elaborate on just how big those buildings are and how much material was spent on them?
What happened to my Freedom ship example? Use that one instead. And you didn't exactly reply to my dam example either.
And your whole arguments stems from the idea that just because there isn't huge economies of scale in some cases then there it must be the case that the DS didn't. Stop play this trick. We know that there are not millions of ISDs given nearly all available sources, therefore the massive economy of scale explanation is the more reasonable explanation.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Mon Aug 28, 2006 3:58 pm

Nonamer wrote:What happened to my Freedom ship example?
It doesn't exist and no one even tried to build a mobile ship coming close to that size so excuse me if I don't take cost projection of a single Internet article at face value.
Nonamer wrote:And you didn't exactly reply to my dam example either.
Your example was incoplete. I alredy asked you where are your prices for buildings and material used.
Nonamer wrote:And your whole arguments stems from the idea that just because there isn't huge economies of scale in some cases then there it must be the case that the DS didn't. Stop play this trick. We know that there are not millions of ISDs given nearly all available sources, therefore the massive economy of scale explanation is the more reasonable explanation.
And from where do we know that there aren't million ships in the Imperial fleet? You are proposing a ridiculous state of affair in the Imperial fleet: that they have maybe 1000-10,000 ISD worth of ships and then suddenly decide to build a ship that outmasses the rest of their fleet by a factor of 2000.

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Post by sonofccn » Mon Aug 28, 2006 6:56 pm

First off, Hi Kane. Glad to see you here.
Kane starkiller wrote:No they had a full blown military fleet at the start of TPM.
Are you sure? I've always heard they were converted tradeships. It also kinda make sense since A) they are the trade federation and B) thier ships look more like a cargo ship then a fearsome warship.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Their ships had weapons, shields
True but so does the millenium Falcon. I wouldn't call that a warship just because it has it has weapons and some defense.
Kane starkiller wrote:How can Republic's "secret" military production exceed Trade Federation's total military production
Wouldn't need too exceed to pose a threat. Just be enough to be a fraction of thier fleet strenght. However I believe the Republic could have had a fleet, just not a very big or good one because of the Republic general nonmilitary nature.
Kane starkiller wrote:Don't make me laugh. How the hell are Jedi supposed to get through the weapons fire of enemy battleships, get through their shields and then get through the droid security in order to disable it?
Isn't that what happened in ROTS? They appeared to do all right all things considered. Now imagine if jedis sent more then two onboard a ship.
Kane starkiller wrote:And to do so in thick of battle and against as many ships to actually make a difference in a war?
If you kill of the entire command staff,well the war might not be over,but that is a dent in the enemies ability to wage war.
Kane starkiller wrote:as for his ridiculous claims that modern U.S. military could defeat the clone army I would really like to see conventional weapons that can carve up 800m wide sphercial ships in mere seconds.
While I doubt the US has a conventiol weapon that could duplicate a Spha-t(that's it name?) that doesn't change the fact that soldiers in AOTC linned up in sort of a line formatoins and simply walked towards thier enemy,that blasters were on par with bullet based guns,that missile weapons (if used at all) were fired at visual ranges. The AT-TE depending if it's as tough as it's decendet the AT-AT could pose a serious problem as well as thier heavy artillary unit which could cut through most earth based fortifactions like butter. However for the most part the clone army would be at best on even footing or at worst outclassed by US forces. Assuming roughly even numbers of course.
Kane starkiller wrote:No it doesn't since we never saw those large starbases demonstrate any functions that are normally expected from a military starship unlike Death Star.
Maybe we never seen them fire weapons but DS9 a cardasion mining station had shields and weapons I believe, but are you really trying to say that those starbases lack shielding? Why would they do that? an outpost guarding a archological dig had shields, why wouldn't those starbases?
Kane starkiller wrote:Please provide evidence that unit=clone since unit can be any homogeneous military organization.
Because when a company refers to a unit they refer to products not military formations(and if they were going to refer to the clones via military jargon why not say plattoons,brigades,or anyother actual jargon that help give a real count instead of an ambusgish "unit".)
kane starkiller wrote:Yes but until that point senate still had some power.
Maybe a little, but most likely they were a figurehead/rubberstamper group. Simply acting as a go between between imperial rule and it's subjects to give them the illusion they still had a say.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:28 pm

Most of this has already been answered before or addressed by others. I won't repeat too much of this too much more; you already have lots of people you're talking to at once, so don't feel like you need to reply to everything at once. For most of these, I don't think you and I have anything more to say right now that we haven't already said to each other.
Kane Starkiller wrote:No they had a full blown military fleet at the start of TPM. Haven't you watched the film? Their ships had weapons, shields and they had an army. And your point two is laugable. How can Republic's "secret" military production exceed Trade Federation's total military production expecially since, according to you, Republic still doesn't have a fleet.

And you still haven't answered my point about individual members maintaining their own fleets as demonstrated by Naboo.
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.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Don't make me laugh. How the hell are Jedi supposed to get through the weapons fire of enemy battleships, get through their shields and then get through the droid security in order to disable it? And to do so in thick of battle and against as many ships to actually make a difference in a war? Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon had to escape from the battleship in order to save lives and they were invited.
You aren't yet talking about anything I was talking about. Read back, please.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes and that's all you need to build ships. As I sad you don't need tactics and training to know that more ships=better. You are suggesting that Republic leaders are so stupid that they cannot even comprehend that having more ships will help their cause. That's beyond ridiculous.
Kane Starkiller wrote:No it isn't. For a starship of it's size it's manuverability is excellent.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Talk of size is amply addressed by others. For reference (I see some of you searching for figures, so I'll provide some for you to use), for each factor of ten of displacement a cutting-edge modern warship increases, cost increases by a factor of roughly four. 100 ton patrol boat, $60M; 1,000 ton corvette, $250M; 10,000 ton cruiser, $1B; 100,000 ton aircraft carrier, $4B.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Actually Cyclone class patrol boat displaces 336 tons while Nimitz class aircraft carrier displaces 87,300 tons. This means that Cyclone costs 180$/kg while Nimitz class costs 51$/kg. That's 3.5 times increase for a 263 times bigger ship. Of course this does not include the fact that cost of maintaining an aircraft carrier is much bigger nor the cost of it's fighter wing.
To expound further... only the first few Nimitz class carriers were sub-100,000 ton machines. Full displacement of the Theodore Rooseveldt and all subsequent carriers classed as Nimitzes is ~104,000 tons.

And the Cyclone isn't really a good example of a small front-line warship. You really want to go outside the US Navy, which believes in its carriers - e.g., the Molinya is a prime example of a small fighting boat intended to take on warships - and yet stay within the realm of powers with similar labor costs to the US (i.e., not Russia or China).

For example - for truly competitive small ships, you might look at:

Visby (Sweden) - $184m, 600 tons.
Sa'ar 5 (Israel) - $260m, 1200 tons.

Now... it's true that there are plenty of ships falling above and falling below, but in general, it fits with a schema of increasing by a factor of four in cost for every increase of a factor of ten in displacement. If you compute the cost of the "20 million Star Destroyer" big Death Star you're talking about using that formula, you wind up with 25,000x the cost of an ISD.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Stop making things up. It was established that a certain Cardassian starbase on the front lines was a though nut to crack. Nobody said anything about those huge Federation starbases.
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.
No it doesn't since we never saw those large starbases demonstrate any functions that are normally expected from a military starship unlike Death Star.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes but until that point senate still had some power. Power which wouldn't be needed anymore since Emperor though that through fear alone he could control the galaxy. This still doesn't answer how the Empire could keep Death Star a secret if significant amount of it's resources were being diverted to the Death Star.
I've already answered that question several times. If you don't like the answer or don't understand it, there's no reason for me to keep repeating it, and no reason for you to keep asking for it when all you'll get is the same answer back.
Kane Starkiller wrote:I merely mentioned Tatooine as an example. You still haven't answered my question of why do you think that ship in system=system under control.
Actually - as Tatooine demonstrates in ANH - a system that only occasionally has an Imperial bulk cruiser ship in the system is a system under Imperial control.
Kane Starkiller wrote:You really are desperate now arent you? "Helps keep thing from drifting away" What "things"? They do have sublight engines, magnets and tractor beams in case you forgot. How strong is this microgravity anyway?
"Things" being any loose part. In general, we're talking mm-cm/s^2 - very little, but enough to keep that spar from travelling too far.
Kane Starkiller wrote:Who cares abot finances? I am talking about something like thousands of trillions tons of metal being transported to one place in one year. I'm talking about billions of workers being transported to one place. If this represents a large fraction of Imperial resources then someone is going to notice. Do you think that USSR could round up, say, 25% of it's workers and no one would notice?

So? How does this make it any easier? If 50% of workers in military sector are tranferred to a single post you think they will be able to hide it?
Through draconian security, yes. We're not talking about any significant fraction of the population of the Empire on the project site.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And to unload it? To load it? To carry that material from the factory to the tranporter? Give me break.
One to push the button to unload the canister.

Let's face it - transportable parts aren't going to have "DEATH STAR" stamped all over them.
Kane Starkiller wrote:And you are still missing the point. This is not about people talking, although that is also a problem, but about people simply noticing that a large fraction of military production and workers have disappered.
People noticing that stuff is disappearing? Through a massive corrupt bureaucracy? I've already answered this.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:29 pm

sonofccn wrote:Are you sure? I've always heard they were converted tradeships. It also kinda make sense since A) they are the trade federation and B) thier ships look more like a cargo ship then a fearsome warship.
Yes the EU describes them as converted transports. Is EU allowed here? Anyway this is irrelevant, for all intents and purposes they are warships and if Republic doesn't have a military then Trade Federation leaders would have no reason to fear the senate and it's actions.
On a less serious note while Trade Federation ships don't look particularly fearsome they still look far more menacing than a Galaxy class :)
sonofccn wrote:True but so does the millenium Falcon. I wouldn't call that a warship just because it has it has weapons and some defense.
MF is not a warship primarily because of it's size. Even so it is still better than having no ships which is what you seem to be suggesting for pre TPM Republic.
sonofccn wrote:Wouldn't need too exceed to pose a threat. Just be enough to be a fraction of thier fleet strenght. However I believe the Republic could have had a fleet, just not a very big or good one because of the Republic general nonmilitary nature.
How could a goverment maintain any kind of control if it's fleet is only a fraction of that owned by private companies? The Rupublic fleet must've been at least on par with the Trade Federation for them to be so afraid of senate's action.
sonofccn wrote:Isn't that what happened in ROTS? They appeared to do all right all things considered. Now imagine if jedis sent more then two onboard a ship.
The claim here was that Jedi can threaten the Trade Federation by themselves hence Neimodian's fear. That is not what happened in ROTS. Jedi were accompanied by an entire fleet of capital and fighter craft. Obviously two Jedi alone would have been blown off the sky long before they could approach the Invisible Hand.
sonofccn wrote:If you kill of the entire command staff,well the war might not be over,but that is a dent in the enemies ability to wage war.
Now you really are reaching. How will they approach the command staff without Republic having any fleet? Jedi are fearome enemies to be sure but they cannot win a war by themselves.
sonofccn wrote:While I doubt the US has a conventiol weapon that could duplicate a Spha-t(that's it name?) that doesn't change the fact that soldiers in AOTC linned up in sort of a line formatoins and simply walked towards thier enemy,that blasters were on par with bullet based guns,that missile weapons (if used at all) were fired at visual ranges. The AT-TE depending if it's as tough as it's decendet the AT-AT could pose a serious problem as well as thier heavy artillary unit which could cut through most earth based fortifactions like butter. However for the most part the clone army would be at best on even footing or at worst outclassed by US forces. Assuming roughly even numbers of course.
You admit that their mechanized forces would defeat the US mechanised forces yet the US would still outclass them? How? The only mistake was clones rushing straight towards the clones.
sonofccn wrote:Maybe we never seen them fire weapons but DS9 a cardasion mining station had shields and weapons I believe, but are you really trying to say that those starbases lack shielding? Why would they do that? an outpost guarding a archological dig had shields, why wouldn't those starbases?
This is not a question of wilingness but ability. The Federation simply never demonstrated the build shields around such a starbase. Besides we saw admiral Kirk and later Harry Kim stealing ships from starbases and no shields, tractor beams or weapon systems were used against them.
sonofccn wrote:Because when a company refers to a unit they refer to products not military formations(and if they were going to refer to the clones via military jargon why not say plattoons,brigades,or anyother actual jargon that help give a real count instead of an ambusgish "unit".)
But then why not simply say "clone"? The word unit is only ambiguous to us the viewer. There is no reason to believe that word unit wasn't clearly defined in the order.
sonofccn wrote:Maybe a little, but most likely they were a figurehead/rubberstamper group. Simply acting as a go between between imperial rule and it's subjects to give them the illusion they still had a say.
I never said they were as powerful as in the Republic. Besides this entire line of argument was brought up by people thinking that Empire can somehow hide that a sizeable fraction of it's military industry has been diverted to Death Star without someone easily tracking it.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:08 pm

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.
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?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:To expound further... only the first few Nimitz class carriers were sub-100,000 ton machines. Full displacement of the Theodore Rooseveldt and all subsequent carriers classed as Nimitzes is ~104,000 tons.

And the Cyclone isn't really a good example of a small front-line warship. You really want to go outside the US Navy, which believes in its carriers - e.g., the Molinya is a prime example of a small fighting boat intended to take on warships - and yet stay within the realm of powers with similar labor costs to the US (i.e., not Russia or China).

For example - for truly competitive small ships, you might look at:

Visby (Sweden) - $184m, 600 tons.
Sa'ar 5 (Israel) - $260m, 1200 tons.

Now... it's true that there are plenty of ships falling above and falling below, but in general, it fits with a schema of increasing by a factor of four in cost for every increase of a factor of ten in displacement. If you compute the cost of the "20 million Star Destroyer" big Death Star you're talking about using that formula, you wind up with 25,000x the cost of an ISD.
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.
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.
No it doesn't since we never saw those large starbases demonstrate any functions that are normally expected from a military starship unlike Death Star.
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.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes but until that point senate still had some power. Power which wouldn't be needed anymore since Emperor though that through fear alone he could control the galaxy. This still doesn't answer how the Empire could keep Death Star a secret if significant amount of it's resources were being diverted to the Death Star.
I've already answered that question several times. If you don't like the answer or don't understand it, there's no reason for me to keep repeating it, and no reason for you to keep asking for it when all you'll get is the same answer back.
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.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Actually - as Tatooine demonstrates in ANH - a system that only occasionally has an Imperial bulk cruiser ship in the system is a system under Imperial control.
Please explain where exactly is that demonstrated. Where exactly is stated that one bulk cruiser is enough to control an entire system?
Jedi Master Spock wrote:"Things" being any loose part. In general, we're talking mm-cm/s^2 - very little, but enough to keep that spar from travelling too far.
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.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Through draconian security, yes. We're not talking about any significant fraction of the population of the Empire on the project site.
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.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:One to push the button to unload the canister.

Let's face it - transportable parts aren't going to have "DEATH STAR" stamped all over them.
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.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:People noticing that stuff is disappearing? Through a massive corrupt bureaucracy? I've already answered this.
There you go again. Spout words that explain nothing and pretend that you already explained it. 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?

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Post by AnonymousRedShirtEnsign » Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:30 pm

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.

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 many 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.

My reasons for thinking the Empire has a small ship count are simple. In each of the three OT films, every time there is an important thing/ person/ event in a system the Empire shows up with a few ships, and is under prepared for what happens.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Post by sonofccn » Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:26 pm

Kane starkiller wrote:Yes the EU describes them as converted transports. Is EU allowed here?
First I quote not the EU, but what the general belief as I saw it as. The information seemed to fit with what I saw of the Trade federation. Second I think that is left up to each thread as this site lacks formal cannon policy.
Kane starkiller wrote:Anyway this is irrelevant, for all intents and purposes they are warships and if Republic doesn't have a military then Trade Federation leaders would have no reason to fear the senate and it's actions.
It's not completly irrelevant because of what it may indicate to production capabilites etc. However yes I agree the Republic had access to something resembling a fleet.
Kane starkiller wrote:How could a goverment maintain any kind of control if it's fleet is only a fraction of that owned by private companies?
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.
Kane starkiller wrote:The Rupublic fleet must've been at least on par with the Trade Federation for them to be so afraid of senate's action.
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.
Kane starkiller wrote:That is not what happened in ROTS. Jedi were accompanied by an entire fleet of capital and fighter craft. Obviously two Jedi alone would have been blown off the sky long before they could approach the Invisible Hand.
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.
Kane starkiller wrote:You admit that their mechanized forces would defeat the US mechanised forces yet the US would still outclass them? How?
Overall yes. Through the use of combined arms, ie. using infantry or airpower to knock out thier armor,then sending armor to mop up thier infanrtry
Kane starkiller wrote:The only mistake was clones rushing straight towards the clones.
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.
Kane starkiller wrote:This is not a question of wilingness but ability.
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?
Kane starkiller wrote:Besides we saw admiral Kirk and later Harry Kim stealing ships from starbases and no shields, tractor beams or weapon systems were used against them.
Well I'll see if I can rewatch those movies/episodes and see. What episode had Kim stealing a ship anyway?
Kane starkiller wrote:But then why not simply say "clone"?
Because when refering to your product unit is quite acceptable.
kane starkiller wrote:The word unit is only ambiguous to us the viewer. There is no reason to believe that word unit wasn't clearly defined in the order.
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.
kane starkiller wrote:I never said they were as powerful as in the Republic.
You made it seem like the senate had some sort of special insight into the empire, when all it would get is whatever the empire wanted.
Kane starkiller wrote:Besides this entire line of argument was brought up by people thinking that Empire can somehow hide that a sizeable fraction of it's military industry has been diverted to Death Star without someone easily tracking it.
Well I am a believer in that theroy, but I'll leave the debate of that to others.

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Post by Nonamer » Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:42 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:
Nonamer wrote:What happened to my Freedom ship example?
It doesn't exist and no one even tried to build a mobile ship coming close to that size so excuse me if I don't take cost projection of a single Internet article at face value.
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.
Nonamer wrote:And you didn't exactly reply to my dam example either.
Your example was incoplete. I alredy asked you where are your prices for buildings and material used.
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.
Nonamer wrote:And your whole arguments stems from the idea that just because there isn't huge economies of scale in some cases then there it must be the case that the DS didn't. Stop play this trick. We know that there are not millions of ISDs given nearly all available sources, therefore the massive economy of scale explanation is the more reasonable explanation.
And from where do we know that there aren't million ships in the Imperial fleet? You are proposing a ridiculous state of affair in the Imperial fleet: that they have maybe 1000-10,000 ISD worth of ships and then suddenly decide to build a ship that outmasses the rest of their fleet by a factor of 2000.
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.

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