Alderaan, & problems with planetary shield claims

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Post by Cpl Kendall » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:27 pm

On the other hand dropping the entire shield would have allowed any dropships that were waiting to have landed directly near the Rebel lines.

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Mr. Oragahn
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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:28 am

Yes, it is definitely too ambiguous for any clear claim.

That said, this should not mislead us from the most solid facts about the severely illogical and nonsensical requisites associated to the presence of a planetary shield over Alderaan.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:07 pm

Here's something interesting I recently read. It comes from Star Wars Adventure Journal #2 (May 1994, West End Games):
A World to Conquer

"Admiral Ozzel, believing the Rebels were unprepared to evacuate, felt that surprise would throw the Rebels into confusion. He brought the fleet out of hyperspace too close within the Hoth system. However, the Rebels were prepared with a planetary shield and significant hardware to resist an attack. This prevented recon units from scouting the system and a careful deployment of the fleet. To prevent any Rebels from escaping, the fleet was forced to maneuver quickly and without proper planning."

[...]

Invasion

"While you will not be responsible for ground invasions, it will be necessary for you to assist and understand them. The first and most useful task you can perform is battling a planetary shield. These devices can reach full strength in only a few minutes. They consume energy at very high rates and are expensive to leave on all the time. They are usually only turned on when hostile forces arrive. If you can destroy a planetary shield generator in the few minutes it takes to fully raise the shield itself, your mission and the army's mission will be far easier.

"Many planetary shields do not cover the entire surface — they protect only the important locations such as major cities or Rebel bases. When faced with a strong shield, your only option is to land troops outside the shield and proceed underneath it, without orbital strike support, and attack the shield generator. This was the only phase of the Battle of Hoth that succeeded. The leading AT-ATs arrived at the generator taking heavy losses only because of unorthodox Rebel snowspeeder tactics. Imperial AT-ATs successfully destroyed the generator on schedule, though many Rebel transports still escaped due to poor fleet organization in orbit.
I find it interesting to note that contrary to popular belief, there's nothing such as planetary shield vs theater shield, since a planetary shield is, on the majority, only capable of the protection of an area, not a whole planet.

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Post by GStone » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:22 pm

Damn WEG for trying to stay close to the movie canon as possible. ;-)

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Sun Mar 30, 2008 1:13 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:1. Only one generator for the whole shield?


It is a peculiar idea. While it would be necessary to explain how the final and most destructive explosion occured on the other side of the planet, how does this mesh with multiple other EU references about planetary shields, which point out that this is never the affair of one single generator only, but rather a patchwork of several generators?
What evidence do you have the second explosion occuring on the other side of the planet? Remember that second fire ring was aligned with the first. In any case the secondary explosion is easily explained by superlaser not having uniform energy density throughout it's length.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:As we can see on frame 1, frame 2 and frame 3, a significant surface of the planet, the one facing the Death Star, is set on fire, to put it simply.

So the beam does go through the shield.
This is an incredible phenomenom, since Saxton's sink hole and wattage numbers, it is a very binary problem that we have on our hands: either the shield fails, or it does not.
So why does suddenly a zone of a shield, utterly pierced in between one and three frames, would still supposedly manage to stop a large percentage of the beam's power, when that zone of the shield precisely failed so quickly?
That is not the concept of Star Wars shield. They work as heat sinks as any heat sink (or a kitchen sink for that matter) which means they have both energy capacity and a rate at which they can dissipate that energy. Just like a kitchen sink which has a certain water capacity and a drain which can drain that water at a certain rate. Assume that sink has a capacity of 10l and drain has a "dissipation rate" of 0.1l/s. If you open a faucet to 0.05l/s then you will never fill up the sink, if you crank the faucet to emit 0.2l/s then drain will only be able to take away half of the incoming water and the sink will fill up after 100s and finally overflow.
Now if you set the faucet to emit 100l/s obviously drain will have no chance of draining all the water but it will still take 0.1s or two frames for the sink to overflow.
This situation is analogous to Death Star's superlaser: it transferred power to the shield faster than it could be dissipated however it still took a few fractions of a second to overflow the shield.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The shield withstood the beam's energy for nearly a whole second. So they say.
And then, it conceded. Of course, a shield which could handle a superlaser for nearly a whole second, must have tremendous reserves of reactant to produce the necessary energy for the shields, to work against such a vast amount of destructive energy.
Why? Mirrored surfaces will deflect laser beams without any power, dense fog will absorb laser beam again without requiring any power. Tank armor will protect from any small arms fire while requiring zero energy imput. There is no reason to assume that shield must consume as much energy as they are able to absorb.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's a problem in that. What would the shield have to withstand for nearly a second, while there was no beam hitting the shield anymore?
It doesn't. Planet starts to expand and fire rings are formed before the last of the beam impacts.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Probably one of the Wongies/Saxtonians' "best" idea, is that the energy is sucked, and radiated as harmless neutrinos. That's the way shields work. Apparently. There's like a vast "volume" of undefined dimensions, that catches any bolt that moves in close to a ship. Yes, I know, that is stupid.
When did anyone say that blaster bolts which do not hit the shields are somehow sucked in anyway?

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:15 pm

Kane Starkiller wrote:What evidence do you have the second explosion occuring on the other side of the planet? Remember that second fire ring was aligned with the first.
Because looking at the origin of the second explosion is done by looking how the fireball expands, and as you can track the movement of its coloured masses, you can track their origin back at the other side of the planet.
In any case the secondary explosion is easily explained by superlaser not having uniform energy density throughout it's length.
No, and this is already explained. The second explosion occurs well after the beam has finished hiting the planet.
Also note that all canon examples of continuous beams (SPHA-Ts, sphere on the LAATs, beam coming from a hangar bya in ROTS) show that they're fairly constant in their wattage, and pretty much end when the beam ends.
Is Star Wars incapable of delivering a constant beam now?
That is not the concept of Star Wars shield. They work as heat sinks as any heat sink (or a kitchen sink for that matter) which means they have both energy capacity and a rate at which they can dissipate that energy.
I perfectly understand the concept of heat sinks, I have one chapter that deals with it.
What you don't understand is that if an explosion occurs, it's because the shield has already failed. If the shield has already failed, there's no reason for it to keep working and delay the bigger explosion, while the rest of the beam is going through a hole, and thus no shield remnant could even "capture" whatever last portion (and in fact, most important portion) of the beam remains to come.
You can't have both.
Why? Mirrored surfaces will deflect laser beams without any power, dense fog will absorb laser beam again without requiring any power. Tank armor will protect from any small arms fire while requiring zero energy imput. There is no reason to assume that shield must consume as much energy as they are able to absorb.
Cool. So with a big ass mirror, and can fire the superlaser back at the Death Star.
Your analogies all fail on the fact that none of the mirror or the armour will suddenly blow up some time after they have dealt with the impactors, be they large bullets or millions of energetic photons.
Besides, but the book clearly indicates that it's not a matter of photons only, but also electrons and positrons.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's a problem in that. What would the shield have to withstand for nearly a second, while there was no beam hitting the shield anymore?
It doesn't. Planet starts to expand and fire rings are formed before the last of the beam impacts.
I ask a question with a what, and you reply with it doesn't. That makes little sense. Please clarify your point.
When did anyone say that blaster bolts which do not hit the shields are somehow sucked in anyway?
That is not my point. Please reread the chapter in question.

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Post by Kane Starkiller » Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:19 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Because looking at the origin of the second explosion is done by looking how the fireball expands, and as you can track the movement of its coloured masses, you can track their origin back at the other side of the planet.
Only if you assume the explosion is symmetrical which is not necessarily the case.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:No, and this is already explained. The second explosion occurs well after the beam has finished hiting the planet.
Also note that all canon examples of continuous beams (SPHA-Ts, sphere on the LAATs, beam coming from a hangar bya in ROTS) show that they're fairly constant in their wattage, and pretty much end when the beam ends.
Is Star Wars incapable of delivering a constant beam now?
Actually we don't actually see when the second explosion occurs merely the moment it overtakes the first explosion. Secondly the frame when camera vanishes from camera's view is not necessarily the same frame it actually stops hitting the planet. Alderaan was 50,000km-100,000km away, at that range superlaser won't be visible.
Finally superlaser's speed was not constant. When the Death Star first fires it takes 2 frames to clear the scene a distance of some 50km. This puts the initial superlaser speed at about 600km/s. But in scene after it crosses 50,000km-100,000km in 10 frames putting it's speed at 120,000km/s-240,000km/s. Thus it is perfectly possible that parts of the beam were slower thus accounting for the secondary explosion.
By the way how did you get from my argument that Death Star's superlaser beam did not necessarily have uniform energy density to no Imperial beams being able to achieve uniform energy density?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:I perfectly understand the concept of heat sinks, I have one chapter that deals with it.
What you don't understand is that if an explosion occurs, it's because the shield has already failed. If the shield has already failed, there's no reason for it to keep working and delay the bigger explosion, while the rest of the beam is going through a hole, and thus no shield remnant could even "capture" whatever last portion (and in fact, most important portion) of the beam remains to come.
You can't have both.
I'm not using the shield as an explanation for the secondary explosion. However why would breaching the shield contradict delayed destruction of it's reactants which creates larger explosion?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Cool. So with a big ass mirror, and can fire the superlaser back at the Death Star.
Your analogies all fail on the fact that none of the mirror or the armour will suddenly blow up some time after they have dealt with the impactors, be they large bullets or millions of energetic photons.
Besides, but the book clearly indicates that it's not a matter of photons only, but also electrons and positrons.
Honestly how do you arrive at these conclusions based on my original statement? I never said mirror can deflect any kind of beam or laser merely that it is an example of how your "shield" doesn't need to consume power equal to the one it is shielding you from. Since you already mentioned charged particles another good example would be the magnetic field. If you release current through a iron coil it will produce a magnetic field of certain strength which will deflect a beam of protons or electrons of certain power. If you use copper coil instead of iron you'll get the same magnetic field for less power and even less power if you use super conductors.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:I ask a question with a what, and you reply with it doesn't. That makes little sense. Please clarify your point.
You ask "what would shield have to withstand for nearly a second after the beam stops impacting". My point was that it doesn't have to withstand anything. I'm not using the shield to explain the secondary explosion and even if I was breaking through the shield as in the energy field around the planet is not the same as rupturing the containment of the shield reactor a few moments later.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:That is not my point. Please reread the chapter in question.
You assume that reradiating energy as neutrinos is some deliberate mechanism rather than the consequence of the nature of the shields. If you heat up an iron plate by hitting it with plasma particles it will shed it's energy by glowing, in other words emitting photons. This is not a consequence of some deliberate design but merely the nature of metal.
Secondly why do you assume that neutrinos can pass through shields?

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Re: Alderaan, & problems with planetary shield claims

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:23 pm

Bumping this. I thought we had a dedicated "SW planetary shields", but couldn't find one with Google, so here's another reference.

Starships of the Galaxy, Saga Ed., p. 138 wrote: Lusankya
[...]
The Lusankya was covered in a superframe of girders and electronics, then lowered onto Coruscant disguised as a massive planetary shield generator an its repulsorlift cradle. The fact that a Super Star Destroyer was at the heart of the "generator" was kept secret, allowing the Lusankya to serve as a secret prison facility.
In that book, the ship is 19 km long. People found it perfectly logical that a massive shield generator, meant to protect an entire planet like Coruscant (which in the EU at times had more than one shield layer), could be that long.
Here goes, of course, the idea that Wankatine used his dark powers to mask the ship's arrival/construction to the whole planet.

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Re: Alderaan, & problems with planetary shield claims

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:50 pm

Two thread necromancies within a week. This reference almost deserves it's own thread as it helps to show the difference in scale required for a single generator for SW to cover a planet (I assume the Lusankya pseudo-generator would cover a planet by itself). For comparison, the considerably smaller Elba II shield generator contained within the asylum dome as seen in TOS' "Whom Gods Destroy", could on it's own cover an entire planet, though it was not so strong that the most powerful starships at the time could not break through it with an all out attack. However the one attempt using the the Enterprise's main phasers at full power were unable to break through the weakest part of that shield located on the far side of the planet.
-Mike

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Re: Alderaan, & problems with planetary shield claims

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue May 04, 2010 3:29 pm

Update: There's actually no proof that this single shield generator would cast a shield that would cover the entire planet. While this one seems very large, remember that the one on Hoth, which provided a limited radius cover, was rather huge, even when seen from a good distance. It's possible that it was underpowered though.
Still, there's no proof that there was only one shield generator on Coruscant. If anything, it would go against what's generally said about full coverage planetary shields, and it's even more true when you remember that Coruscant supposedly has two layers.
I bet the EU has some stories about Coruscant's planetary shield generators.

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Re: Alderaan, & problems with planetary shield claims

Post by Mike DiCenso » Wed May 05, 2010 8:05 am

The Hoth shield generator, big as it was, was nowhere near the size of an Executor class Super Star Destroyer. However I would say that shield size is not the only factor, and certainly powering such a beast would be a factor. In the case of the Hoth generator, nothing is said ever in the movies, nor the novelization about it being underpowered. Knowing as little as we do about how SW shields work, it is hard to say if they can extend shields to the point of coverging around a planet from a single source, though at the expense of shield strength or not, and the Hoth shield could not be very wide in coverage given how quickly the slow moving AT-ATs reached Echo Base. A few tens of kilometers or so.
-Mike

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Re: Alderaan, & problems with planetary shield claims

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon May 10, 2010 4:25 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:The Hoth shield generator, big as it was, was nowhere near the size of an Executor class Super Star Destroyer. However I would say that shield size is not the only factor, and certainly powering such a beast would be a factor. In the case of the Hoth generator, nothing is said ever in the movies, nor the novelization about it being underpowered. Knowing as little as we do about how SW shields work, it is hard to say if they can extend shields to the point of coverging around a planet from a single source, though at the expense of shield strength or not, and the Hoth shield could not be very wide in coverage given how quickly the slow moving AT-ATs reached Echo Base. A few tens of kilometers or so.
-Mike
Well the thing that was sitting outside of Echo Base also was a power generator. It's possible, although unproved, that it may exploit more power if properly fed.
For example, the shield generator on Endor used a dish structure as the projector, and covered a large surface (but not the moon), larger than what the shield at Hoth did. By the novelization, it's possible it was using... abusing geothermal energy. I refer to Han's words about how this would kill Endor, when talking to the Ewoks. Of course it could also be entirely made up and just stuff to impress the nature loving teddy bears.

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