How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

[Mike DiCenso]

Which you will prove, of course, since we know Lightsabres are very good at immediately cutting guard rails, and Droids, and yet failed to penetrate Vader's shoulder pad on a direct hit...

Actually Vader's shoulder pad did spark as the tip of Luke's saber touched it, and Vader in turn howled in pain. There is also mention in the EU of the injury that Vader suffered as a result of tha duel. So no, Vader's armor is not that resistant, if at all to a lightsaber blade's energy.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Actually Vader's shoulder pad did spark as the tip of Luke's saber touched it, and Vader in turn howled in pain. There is also mention in the EU of the injury that Vader suffered as a result of tha duel. So no, Vader's armor is not that resistant, if at all to a lightsaber blade's energy.
-Mike

He was injured somewhat, yet never stopped using that arm.
Was the shoulder cut open, was the arm dangling?
No, yet the Lightsabres had no problem cutting through the guard rails on the Bespin platform where they fought, or cutting Battle Droids and Super Battle Droids alike with no effort by their users.
Is DV's armor impervious to Lightabres?
Nope.
Is it highly resistant?
I would seem so, which makes me doubt a standard Phaser hit would do more then hurt Vader, and would not even incapacitate him...

[KirkSkyWalker]

A phaser could easily cut through Vader's armor, and it won't stop gravitons.

Which you will prove, of course, since we know Lightsabres are very good at immediately cutting guard rails, and Droids, and yet failed to penetrate Vader's shoulder pad on a direct hit...

Then why'd he scream?
And that was just his cuirass, while the rest of his body didn't have that kind of thickness; Luke was able to chop his artificial hand clean off.
But anyway phasers don't act on matter in that way; they can cause it to vanish entirely, not just heat it up until melts or vaporizes, like a lightsaber does. If something can't block gravity, it can't block a phaser.

Likewise, not a single Jedi could sense the danger of being shot by clones, because the clones didn't have any emotions about it; so a Sith-lord would be even less able to sense it, since they're all about negative emotions.

Funny how that explanation, which I believe is the stupidest in the universe, fails to explain why then were the Jedi able to defend from or attack Droids directly at their backs, since Droids don't have any emotions either...

Only the stupidest person in the universe would think so. They knew the droids were attacking them, and droids can't think independently like the clones could.

Funy how Luke failed to sense the guard that shot his hand when on Jabba's barge, with all the negative emotions the guard surely held for Luke...

It shot his artificial hand.

Funny how Obi-Wan failed to detect Jango about to gtie his hands with his grapple gun, or Luke with Boba in RotJ, when both clearly hated the Jedi...

Now you're really reaching. A grapple-gun isn't really that much of an emotional weapon, and the Fetts were the model of cold-blooded ruthless efficiency.

Funny how that absence of emotions did not stop Yoda from detecting the impending attack from the two Clones at his back...

No, what's funny is how you missed Yoda clutching his heart as all the other Jedi were killed-- that's what tipped him off, otherwise the clones would have blasted him.
If the dramatic music didn't tip you off, then a singing telegram wouldn't have done it.

So if YODA didn't sense the danger to himself alone, then it's a cinch that Vader wouldn't.

I'm sure your only response will be a million more frivolous objections; so f you have more questions to ask in the next 10 minutes, go find a wise man with 10 years to waste answering them; I'm busy.

[Mike DiCenso]

He was injured somewhat, yet never stopped using that arm.
Was the shoulder cut open, was the arm dangling?
No, yet the Lightsabres had no problem cutting through the guard rails on the Bespin platform where they fought, or cutting Battle Droids and Super Battle Droids alike with no effort by their users.
Is DV's armor impervious to Lightabres?
Nope.
Is it highly resistant?
I would seem so, which makes me doubt a standard Phaser hit would do more then hurt Vader, and would not even incapacitate him...

Sorry, that doesn't fly as far as reasoning is concerned. Luke's lightsaber blade only hit Vader with a glancing of the tip, not the full part of it, so one would not expect Vader, who is a combat vetern, suffered far more horrendous injuries in his life, is a major Darkside Force user, and who is cyborged up to be stopped more than momentarily by a relatively minor flesh wound in the heat of battle.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Sorry, that doesn't fly as far as reasoning is concerned. Luke's lightsaber blade only hit Vader with a glancing of the tip, not the full part of it, so one would not expect Vader, who is a combat vetern, suffered far more horrendous injuries in his life, is a major Darkside Force user, and who is cyborged up to be stopped more than momentarily by a relatively minor flesh wound in the heat of battle.
-Mike

I'll rewatch the scene tonight, but this image seems to indicate a full hit with the side of the blade, not just the tip, so if it truly, fully penetrated, then why was Vader able to continue using his arm?

[Praeothmin]

Then why'd he scream?

Because it hurt.
But it doesn't have to be a life-threatening injury for something to hurt.
I played Paintball last week-end, and while people did scream when getting hit by the paint balls, because they hurt, they were not injured beyond a few bruises.
It's called a reflex action...

And that was just his cuirass, while the rest of his body didn't have that kind of thickness; Luke was able to chop his artificial hand clean off.

Which still didn't kill him automatically, and Luke had fought him before, and thus knew his body armor's weak points...

But anyway phasers don't act on matter in that way; they can cause it to vanish entirely, not just heat it up until melts or vaporizes, like a lightsaber does. If something can't block gravity, it can't block a phaser.

Oh, but they do sometimes.
Didn't you watch Star Trek?
Phasers are used to heat up rocks, melt doors, and explode rocks.
They can even fire modified Borg nanites.
So please provide evidence that they are graviton based and that they would thus be unaffected by Vader's armor.
Although I know I'm requesting it for nothing, since you never provide such evidence...

Only the stupidest person in the universe would think so. They knew the droids were attacking them, and droids can't think independently like the clones could

Oh, so basically, their "combat sense" only works when they know they are threatened, and doesn't actually protect them by warning them of impending danger.
Noted.
And because the Clones can think independantly, but are devoid of emotions, that makes them non-readable, but because the Droids are not indepent thinker (although remarks like "run" and fear-induced ones like "Jedi, oh no!" would seem to indicate otherwise), they can be felt by Jedi and responded as such.
So the Jedi who were in Combat, already using their "combat sense" to protect themselves from enemies, can sense whent he enemy is a soulless, non-emotional Droid, but not a CLone...
Got it.
It makes no sense at all, but at least I understand how you think...

It shot his artificial hand

Oh yeah, right, since the bad guy was aiming for Luke's artifical hand, not his real one, it completely negated Luke's senses and he was incapable of feeling the emotions of the guy at his back trying to kill him, because the guy was clearly aiming for Luke's hand...

Now you're really reaching. A grapple-gun isn't really that much of an emotional weapon, and the Fetts were the model of cold-blooded ruthless efficiency

But wait, we are now back at the "emotionless people cannot be read" argument?
But I thought emotionless things like Droids could be read and detected?
I mean, Obi-Wan knew Jango was attacking him, like those Jedi defending against the Droids, so why did his "combat sense" not warn him?
Speaking of reaching, no matter how hard you try, you won't be able to touch those clouds... :)

I'm sure your only response will be a million more frivolous objections; so f you have more questions to ask in the next 10 minutes, go find a wise man with 10 years to waste answering them; I'm busy

I'll try that, perhaps that real wise man will actually prove his points instead of just answering "because I say so!"... :)

[Mike DiCenso]

I'll rewatch the scene tonight, but this image seems to indicate a full hit with the side of the blade, not just the tip, so if it truly, fully penetrated, then why was Vader able to continue using his arm?

Try this video of Luke and Vader's fight that Luke hits him with the flat of the tip, just brushing it as he makes full extension of his arm and the blade, then pulls back on the rebound.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Since I'm at work, I can't see your video, but my video shows someting else... ;)

At 5:18, Luke hits Vader square on the shoulder in side swing, and gets a direct hit.
It's not a glancing hit, Luke was sweeping to the side, in a slightly downward angle, in a clean hit after ducking under Vader's swing...
Vader yells of pain, but continues to use his arm as if he didn't even get hit after...

That video shows that throughout the fight, even low-momentum swings from Luke were sufficient to cut guardrails, or other metallic objects.
Any swing of the type Luke performed on Vader, if Vader's armor wasn't resistent, with Lightsabres having shown many times over that they cut through anything (almost anything), would have cut Vader's arm clear off...

[KirkSkyWalker]

This is all irrelevant; lightsabers cut by heating things, while phasers disrupt sub-nuclear structure. An object with a very high melting-point would obviously deflect a ligthsaber; however it wouldn't stop a phaser set at maximum disruption, since the impact wouldn't heat the object, but simply disrupt the sub-nuclear binding forces and cause it to simply fall apart as sub-nuclear particles.

In TPM. Qui-gon tries to cut though the blast door to get to the Knute Gunray, and so he stabs his saber directly into the door and it begins melting through; meanwhile Luke's saber slashes Vader's durasteel shoulder-plate and it glances off since it's more heat-resistant than the door, the saber struck at an angle, and/or it was a briefer impact.

However Vader still screams, so some of it got through, or else perhaps he had some feeling on his mechanical body; we see in the end of the film, that Luke gets a bionic hand which has feeling.

[KirkSkyWalker]

Put it this way; in "Bread and Circuses," Kirk and the Roman prefect agreed that 100 men with phasers could defeat the combined forces of his 20th Century-level planet.

Meanwhile if it was 100 stormtroopers with blasters instead, obviously this wouldn't achieve the same result; it's hard to see how they could even beat 100 modern soldiers.

[Lucky]

This is all irrelevant; lightsabers cut by heating things, while phasers disrupt sub-nuclear structure. An object with a very high melting-point would obviously deflect a ligthsaber; however it wouldn't stop a phaser set at maximum disruption, since the impact wouldn't heat the object, but simply disrupt the sub-nuclear binding forces and cause it to simply fall apart as sub-nuclear particles.

In TPM. Qui-gon tries to cut though the blast door to get to the Knute Gunray, and so he stabs his saber directly into the door and it begins melting through; meanwhile Luke's saber slashes Vader's durasteel shoulder-plate and it glances off since it's more heat-resistant than the door, the saber struck at an angle, and/or it was a briefer impact.

However Vader still screams, so some of it got through, or else perhaps he had some feeling on his mechanical body; we see in the end of the film, that Luke gets a bionic hand which has feeling.

Can you provide proof phasers are "disruptive nuclear effect" weapons?

[KirkSkyWalker]

Not precisely; but the obvious facts are that it's not anything NDF or larger-- which would leave material residue. I.e. it was vaporized, or otherwise disrupted at the nuclear or larger level, then of course it would make a very devastating exlosion; or if it was converted to pure energy, then it would result in an explosion of 1 megaton per 30 grams.

Obviously, neither is the case; when something is "zapped out of existence" by a phaser, it simply disappears, which implies SNDF or smaller, i.e. it's converted to tachyons, neutrinos or other particles which are fairly small and relatively harmless. Or it might convert to something else we don't know about-- in any event, it's not simply heated to the point of vaporization, like a DET weapon would such as a blaster, laser, lightsaber etc.

There's a question about what happened to Spock in "The Omega Glory," when he was standing too close to the computer zapped by Capt. Tracy's phaser, and apparently got some type of internal radiation-injury; he might have been hit by some partially-converted residue, or he might have caught some reflected rays from the phaser-beam itself. However the fact that the others weren't harmed at all by standing a bit further away, indicates that at least 10kg of solid matter was simply passed out of normal presence by some unknown process.
The same thing happens in other cases; when the redshirt-guard in the room was zapped by Capt. Tracy's phaser (because he was reaching for his own phaser), he likewise simply disappeared-- phaser and all.

The fact that his phaser was likewise zapped, without releasing its energy (which is enough to destroy several decks of the Enterprise, according to Kirk on "Conscience of the King"), indicates that we're dealing with some unknown process for converting matter (and energy) into a different, undetectable state.

We see the same thing also happen in "What are Little Girls Made Of?" when the female android zaps herself and Korby out of existence with her own phaser, by holding onto him while firing it-- and Korby also had a phaser.

So that's 2 phasers zaped by phaser-fire, and they simply disappear while leaving the ground untouched beneath them. (In the novelization, they left "a pile of ashes;" however Roddenberry obviuosly changed this).

Whatever this is, it's quite an advancement over DET.

[Praeothmin]

And in 95% of the shows, Phasers set to "kill" simply leave burn marks on the uniforms and bodys of the victims, as if they "burned" through the target...

While at higher settings, such as the "disruption setting", I have no doubt Vader's armor wouldn't help and he'd be vaporized (if he doesn't feel Spock coming), the Feds rarely use that setting in first encounters...

[Lucky]

Not precisely; but the obvious facts are that it's not anything NDF or larger-- which would leave material residue. I.e. it was vaporized, or otherwise disrupted at the nuclear or larger level, then of course it would make a very devastating exlosion; or if it was converted to pure energy, then it would result in an explosion of 1 megaton per 30 grams.

Obviously, neither is the case; when something is "zapped out of existence" by a phaser, it simply disappears, which implies SNDF or smaller, i.e. it's converted to tachyons, neutrinos or other particles which are fairly small and relatively harmless. Or it might convert to something else we don't know about-- in any event, it's not simply heated to the point of vaporization, like a DET weapon would such as a blaster, laser, lightsaber etc.

There's a question about what happened to Spock in "The Omega Glory," when he was standing too close to the computer zapped by Capt. Tracy's phaser, and apparently got some type of internal radiation-injury; he might have been hit by some partially-converted residue, or he might have caught some reflected rays from the phaser-beam itself. However the fact that the others weren't harmed at all by standing a bit further away, indicates that at least 10kg of solid matter was simply passed out of normal presence by some unknown process.
The same thing happens in other cases; when the redshirt-guard in the room was zapped by Capt. Tracy's phaser (because he was reaching for his own phaser), he likewise simply disappeared-- phaser and all.

The fact that his phaser was likewise zapped, without releasing its energy (which is enough to destroy several decks of the Enterprise, according to Kirk on "Conscience of the King"), indicates that we're dealing with some unknown process for converting matter (and energy) into a different, undetectable state.

We see the same thing also happen in "What are Little Girls Made Of?" when the female android zaps herself and Korby out of existence with her own phaser, by holding onto him while firing it-- and Korby also had a phaser.

So that's 2 phasers zaped by phaser-fire, and they simply disappear while leaving the ground untouched beneath them. (In the novelization, they left "a pile of ashes;" however Roddenberry obviuosly changed this).

Whatever this is, it's quite an advancement over DET.

Yes I am well aware that phasers, disruptors, and similar weapons don't work through pure direct energy transfer, but we only see one D.N.F. beam in all of Star Trek, and it is not a phaser, or disruptor. It is fired from the main deflector dish in the "Cost of Living", and there appears to be no association to phasers.

If phasers are N.D.E./N.D.F. weapons then they would not be able to shoot anti-matter, or nano-probes.

It really looks to me like the one thing we know phasers and disruptors are not is N.D.E./N.D.F. weapons

[Praeothmin]

What is funny is that, in TWoK, the same type of Phaser that completely "disrupts" Captain Terrell without any steam or even a trace of his body, merely burns the Ceti Alpha eel and leaves a pile of ash on the ground...

Different settings, different effects?