The Death Star's power output confirmed!

[Mike DiCenso]

Red herring. This thread is about the power generation of the Death Star (which is arguably more important for the vs debate), not the nature of the superlaser.

Hardly. The nature of the superlaser ties into the power generation issue since if the beam is not DET, but something else that pushes matter into hyperspace, then it does not have to do the work that a DET beam does, hence power output of the reactor does not need to be the ridiculous wanked up power levels pro-Wars types have claimed. In this case the several main sequence star quote is put into it's proper perspective by the understanding of the superlaser's mechanism: Tenn means that if the reactor goes critical, that much power gets released. Anything else makes little sense given that the superlaser doesn't need that much power. It cheats and thrusts most of an Earth-like planet into hyperspace, so that means the reactor does not need 1e38, or even 1e32 J power. The reactor may be able to peak close to 1e32 J briefly to power shields, weapons and the superlaser. That much the book implies through the theoretical conversations between various characters.

Hypermatter reactors on ISDs? Only maybe on Type-IIs according to the novel, and it's vague since the prototype ISDs outfitted with them were destroyed. Every other star destroyer or starship type will not have hypermatter, especially smaller vessels as it is clearly stated that the smaller you try to make one, the more unstable the reactor. So it is a unique technology, it is not common, and will not be the factor you claim.
-Mike

[User1462]

Red herring. This thread is about the power generation of the Death Star (which is arguably more important for the vs debate), not the nature of the superlaser.

Hardly. The nature of the superlaser ties into the power generation issue since if the beam is not DET, but something else that pushes matter into hyperspace, then it does not have to do the work that a DET beam does, hence power output of the reactor does not need to be the ridiculous wanked up power levels pro-Wars types have claimed.

As I said before, that's impossible; energy cannot be created out of nothing, and it takes at least 11J/g in order to accelerate mater like that, due to the simple binding-energy of the planet which would need to be overcome, and that's at least E+29J-- far more than fusion could possibly generate.

However we see the planet going from mostly liquid to entirely solid-- i.e. a drop in temperature-- and so it could even out that way, i.e. converting thermal energy to potential energy, and so total net energy would even out

Again, this would simply involve a trade-off between hyperacceleration and distance; so while the planet actually exploded at 11kps in normal space, we see it explode at .05C or 15,000kps, about 1500 times actual speed, but still it winds up simply in orbit in the same place that Alderaan used to be; and instead of 6E+24kg of hot liquid rock in one big ball held together by gravity, you get the same amount of cold solid rock in a big spread-out area.

This is INEVITABLE, since otherwise that E+38J would 1) vapourize the planet, and 2) blast it out of the solar-system; but since neither one happened, then iit was simply hyperacceleration using a much-lower energy of about E+29J.
But that's still too much for fusion. So where'd the extra energy come from?
Geothermal's the only answer.

This "hypermatter" wank is just that, i.e. a hole in the plot to get something for nothing; but clearly it can't exist, it's a perpetual-motion machine.

[Khas]

I think I read somewhere that hypermatter is just tachyons. Also, according to Wookiepedia, when the superlaser beam hits, the effect of mass being pushed into hyperspace causes nearby atoms to split into matter-antimatter pairs. Given the power of that beam, it's possible that a decent amount of Alderaan's mass was converted into antimatter, thus causing the explosion.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Red herring. This thread is about the power generation of the Death Star (which is arguably more important for the vs debate), not the nature of the superlaser.

Hardly. The nature of the superlaser ties into the power generation issue since if the beam is not DET, but something else that pushes matter into hyperspace, then it does not have to do the work that a DET beam does, hence power output of the reactor does not need to be the ridiculous wanked up power levels pro-Wars types have claimed. In this case the several main sequence star quote is put into it's proper perspective by the understanding of the superlaser's mechanism: Tenn means that if the reactor goes critical, that much power gets released. Anything else makes little sense given that the superlaser doesn't need that much power. It cheats and thrusts most of an Earth-like planet into hyperspace, so that means the reactor does not need 1e38, or even 1e32 J power. The reactor may be able to peak close to 1e32 J briefly to power shields, weapons and the superlaser. That much the book implies through the theoretical conversations between various characters.

Hypermatter reactors on ISDs? Only maybe on Type-IIs according to the novel, and it's vague since the prototype ISDs outfitted with them were destroyed. Every other star destroyer or starship type will not have hypermatter, especially smaller vessels as it is clearly stated that the smaller you try to make one, the more unstable the reactor. So it is a unique technology, it is not common, and will not be the factor you claim.
-Mike

Except that the novel states that the Death Star's hypermatter reactor is equal to the weekly output of several main sequence stars. Whether or not that energy is used to destroy a planet via DET or whether it's even all able to be diverted to the superlaser is irrelevant to the discussion. The Death Star's hypermatter reactor is on par with the weekly output of several stars. Fact. Do you get it? There's no point in you trying to refute the power generation stats because it's canonically and quite blatantly stated. Therefore, to try to refute it by saying "zomg it could be chain reaction and won't need that energy" is trying to argue against a canon fact. Not to mention that, no offense, but your reading comprehension skills weren't put to good use in reading the quote, since the novel states that the hypermatter reactor is capable of making bursts on par with the weekly output of several main sequence stars, not that it would do that if it exploded.

[Mike DiCenso]

Sorry, but you are ignoring the contexts of the whole thing. What would be the point of having a battlestation whose power output could yeild several main sequence stars, and yet you could not put it to use, either for your primary weapon, or for your shields or propulsion, or any combination thereof? Not to mention, in the canon heirarcy, why does the higher canon novelization also point out that the Death Star power source is not several stars' worth, but a "small sun" at best... when it explodes? Why was Endor in the movie not fried instantly by the explosion of said reactor? Even if the Rebel fleet somehow was able to shield a portion of the planet, even a fraction of 1e32 J or 1e38J would so totally devastate 99 percent of that planet that it would make Saxton's Endor Holocaust look like a holiday outing. So what do we have:

1.) Tenn talks about main sequence stars and things going boom.

2.) The superlaser does not use DET in either the ANH novelization, nor the EU.

3.) As UNG pointed out, the amount of energy required to blow Alderaan apart as Warsies claim should have completely thrown all debris out of the system, never mind anything else. Yet there is significant debris for the Falcon to encounter when she exits hyperspace, and according to the ANH novelization, this debris was located about 1 planetary diameter out and in the same orbit as where the whole planet should have been.

4.) The higher ranking ANH novelization only through colorful description gives the Death Star's exploding reactor at most a "small sun" in yeild.

5.) Endor could only be protected a tiny fraction by the Rebel fleet, yet no signs of massive devastation, or anything else are evident, thus even if Tenn were describing the normal station output, even a fraction of that would have rendered the little celebration on Endor's surface impossible.

Conclusion, the Death Star is incapable of the power outputs you describe, and hypermatter technology is not readily available for normal starships, especially anything built prior to Mk. II ISDs, and anything below a certain size is extremely difficult, if not impossible to outfit hypermatter reactors because it is so unstable at smaller than Death Star sizes.
-Mike

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Sorry, but you are ignoring the contexts of the whole thing. What would be the point of having a battlestation whose power output could yeild several main sequence stars, and yet you could not put it to use, either for your primary weapon, or for your shields or propulsion, or any combination thereof?

Of course, you do not provide any evidence that they could not put it into those things.

Not to mention, in the canon heirarcy, why does the higher canon novelization also point out that the Death Star power source is not several stars' worth, but a "small sun" at best... when it explodes? Why was Endor in the movie not fried instantly by the explosion of said reactor? Even if the Rebel fleet somehow was able to shield a portion of the planet, even a fraction of 1e32 J or 1e38J would so totally devastate 99 percent of that planet that it would make Saxton's Endor Holocaust look like a holiday outing. So what do we have:

Wow, just wow. I guess that you also think that a fusion reactor "explodes" like a nuke if blown up, eh?

It's a CANON FACT. Why don't you understand this? Canon states that hypermatter really is extremely powerful. You can try to deny this all you want, but canon states this. So concede.

1.) Tenn talks about main sequence stars and things going boom.

Yeah. Canon fact.

2.) The superlaser does not use DET in either the ANH novelization, nor the EU.

Whether or not it uses DET is irrelevant, because it's a canon fact that its power output is equal to the weekly output of several main sequence stars. Whether such power is used for DET or chain-reaction is irrelevant.

3.) As UNG pointed out, the amount of energy required to blow Alderaan apart as Warsies claim should have completely thrown all debris out of the system, never mind anything else. Yet there is significant debris for the Falcon to encounter when she exits hyperspace, and according to the ANH novelization, this debris was located about 1 planetary diameter out and in the same orbit as where the whole planet should have been.

It's a canon fact that the Death Star's hypermatter reactor is equal to the weekly output of several main sequence stars. You can try to deny it all you want, but canon states that it is that powerful. Case closed.

4.) The higher ranking ANH novelization only through colorful description gives the Death Star's exploding reactor at most a "small sun" in yeild.

What makes you think that the hypermatter reactor would explode and release all of its energy upon doing so, when modern reactors typically don't?

5.) Endor could only be protected a tiny fraction by the Rebel fleet, yet no signs of massive devastation, or anything else are evident, thus even if Tenn were describing the normal station output, even a fraction of that would have rendered the little celebration on Endor's surface impossible.

See above.

Conclusion, the Death Star is incapable of the power outputs you describe,

Canon fact supports the power output I describe.

and hypermatter technology is not readily available for normal starships,

Canon fact states that hypermatter technology is used for star destroyers.

especially anything built prior to Mk. II ISDs, and anything below a certain size is extremely difficult, if not impossible to outfit hypermatter reactors because it is so unstable at smaller than Death Star sizes.

WHAT IS YOUR POINT? We know that hypermatter reactors are extremely powerful. It's a canon fact.

[Mike DiCenso]

Of course, you do not provide any evidence that they could not put it into those things.

Why yes I did, along with several other people in this thread and others we have done nothing but provide evidence and quotes. You just ignore them, or try to spin that evidence into something it isn't.

Wow, just wow. I guess that you also think that a fusion reactor "explodes" like a nuke if blown up, eh?It's a CANON FACT. Why don't you understand this? Canon states that hypermatter really is extremely powerful. You can try to deny this all you want, but canon states this. So concede.

When did I say we were dealing with a fusion reactor? Please stop distorting my words or take the time to understand what I wrote and keep it seperate from other people. I'm tying in all sources relevant to the issue at hand. You claim the Death Star novel supports ICS, and yet myself and others have pointed out were within the novel itself as well as other sources, be it hypermatter, fusion, hamsters or what-have-you, the DS reactor is not as powerful as you claim it to be. So yeah, it is powerful, but not as powerful as you want.

Whether or not it uses DET is irrelevant, because it's a canon fact that its power output is equal to the weekly output of several main sequence stars. Whether such power is used for DET or chain-reaction is irrelevant.

It is relevant. If you do not need even 1e32 W to power the superlaser, then why have a reactor that is many orders of magnitude more powerful than your main planet-busting weapon? Propulsion? The DS1 maxed out it's velocity while orbiting Yavin at about 100 km/sec on the generous side of things, which gives maybe around 1e25 J, and the thousands of TL bolts, none of which anywhere in the higher canon of the movies, novelizations, and most especially TCW demonstrate the uber-gigatons of firepower Warsies claim don't exist, and therefore would require a fraction of that, leaving a hefty amount of power to be used to charge up the superlaser, which in turn does not require DET at all to shunt most of a planet's mass into hyperspace.

It's a canon fact that the Death Star's hypermatter reactor is equal to the weekly output of several main sequence stars. You can try to deny it all you want, but canon states that it is that powerful. Case closed.

What, a couple of very small red dwarf stars? Maybe. But not 1e32 J, and certainly not 1e38 J, not even close. As much as you try to claim it high ICS power, the more we'll just keep trotting out that it is not so, and showing the evidence. Tenn is talking in terms of the station going boom and the yield being that high, not for normal operations. End of story.

What makes you think that the hypermatter reactor would explode and release all of its energy upon doing so, when modern reactors typically don't?

Because of what happened to the ISD Battle Lance in the DS novel, and what is described by Tenn as happening when the DS reactor goes boom.

See above.

Disproven.

Canon fact supports the power output I describe.

Again, they do not, and you keep ignoring other people's arguements and the vast amount of evidence that has been either posted or linked to.

and hypermatter technology is not readily available for normal starships,

Canon fact states that hypermatter technology is used for star destroyers.

They tried to use it for SDs, didn't work:

"The Battle Lance.

His nephew, Hora Graneet, had been a navy spacer on the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mark II class vessel, which had been selected for a shakedown cruise testing one of the improved prototype hypermatter reactors. Tenn didn't know the specifics of what had happened, and didn't have anything close to the math needed to understand it anyway. He knew that hypermatter existed only in hyperspace, that it was composed of tachyonic particles, and that charged tachyons, when constrained by the lower dimensions of realspace, produced near-limitless energy. How this "null-point energy" had become unstable he didn't know. He only knew it had been powerful enough to turn an ISD-II and its crew of thirty-seven thousand people into floating wisps of ionized gas in a microsecond."

Take a hypermatter reactor too small, and it goes boom.

WHAT IS YOUR POINT? We know that hypermatter reactors are extremely powerful. It's a canon fact.

And they're highly unstable the smaller you try to make them, not to mention, every ship prior to a Mark II ISD did not have them, and they are clearly not anywhere near as powerful as you claim.
-Mike

[User1462]

I think I read somewhere that hypermatter is just tachyons. Also, according to Wookiepedia, when the superlaser beam hits, the effect of mass being pushed into hyperspace causes nearby atoms to split into matter-antimatter pairs. Given the power of that beam, it's possible that a decent amount of Alderaan's mass was converted into antimatter, thus causing the explosion.

But you can't convert matter into anti-matter, you can only combine it with.
"Pushing mass into hyperspace" only shrinks normal distances-- in this case, the planet's mass was accelerated about 15,000 times faster, for the same amount of energy would move it; but still you can't create energy out of nowhere.

However the planet's thermal energy is normally insulated by space from radiating away; and so if you were to shrink that distance by 15,000 times, then the planet would indeed explode from the sudden temperature-change.

So look at the stats:
the DS is a giant hyperdriven ship, powered by fusion, which also destroys planets.
Alderaan, mostly liquid, wasn't vapourized-- but was distribted over a larger area as solid rock.
Alderaan also exploded at .05c, which wouldvapourize it under normal spatial circumstances; so it couldn't have.
The DS also didn't even have enough power to blow up Alderaan under normal spatial circumstances.

Ergo: the DS used its hyperdrive to shorten the distance around Aderaan 15,000 times, causing to explode via temperature-change.
SCIENCE! :D

[Khas]

Technically, you can convert matter into antimatter, but only with very specific conditions present.

[User1462]

Technically, you can convert matter into antimatter, but only with very specific conditions present.

Sure-- like changing just much anti-matter into matter, in which case you might as well stay home.
Physics is always a zero-sum game, you can't get something for nothing-- no matter how SDN (aka "Fanwankers Anonymous") tries to slice it.

And there's no way to "chain-react" matter into energy, without anti-matter-- and again, the DS was pure fusion, so there was no AM onboard.

[Khas]

By "very specific conditions", I mean there have to be certain particles involved, namely the proton/neutron, electron, and X-boson.

The X-boson, according to the Grand Unified Theory, is a particle that has the power to turn quarks into leptons, and vice versa, as well as turn them into their antimatter counterparts. For example: An X-boson will come to a proton, which is composed of three quarks (two up quarks, one down quark). The X-boson will change one of the up quarks into an anti-up, and the down quark into a positron. The up-quark and anti-up annihilate, followed soon afterwards by the positron annihilating with an electron. It is quite possible that the superlaser, upon impact with baryonic matter, triggers the release of X-bosons, causing the effects seen in the movies.

And in case if you're wondering why we don't see the effects of X-bosons afterwards, that's because the X-boson is incredibly unstable, decaying after a tiny fraction of a microsecond into a shower of particles and antiparticles. However, this is enough time for the X-boson to zap at least one proton, and if there are enough X-bosons, all hell will break loose.

[User1462]

By "very specific conditions", I mean there have to be certain particles involved, namely the proton/neutron, electron, and X-boson.

The X-boson, according to the Grand Unified Theory, is a particle that has the power to turn quarks into leptons, and vice versa, as well as turn them into their antimatter counterparts. .

And like I said, that process takes just as much energy as you'd get by combining them anyway-- more, in fact, due to inevitable waste. So you cannot create a "chain reaction" which causes matter to yield more energy than you put into it-- except by transmutation toward iron, via fusion or fission, and we already ruled that out.

Once again: You can't cheat the laws of physics to create energy-- or to convert more matter to energy, than vice-versa: it's the basic law of conservation.
Put it on the shelf with all the other "perpetual motion" gadgets.

[Lucky]

By "very specific conditions", I mean there have to be certain particles involved, namely the proton/neutron, electron, and X-boson.

The X-boson, according to the Grand Unified Theory, is a particle that has the power to turn quarks into leptons, and vice versa, as well as turn them into their antimatter counterparts. .

And like I said, that process takes just as much energy as you'd get by combining them anyway-- more, in fact, due to inevitable waste. So you cannot create a "chain reaction" which causes matter to yield more energy than you put into it-- except by transmutation toward iron, via fusion or fission, and we already ruled that out.

Once again: You can't cheat the laws of physics to create energy-- or to convert more matter to energy, than vice-versa: it's the basic law of conservation.
Put it on the shelf with all the other "perpetual motion" gadgets.

We are talking about sci-fi settings. They cheat/ignore real world physics all the time.

[Khas]

I wasn't referring to how the Death Star's reactor works, I was referring to how the superlaser destroys planets. The superlaser probably works by opening a rift in hyperspace, through which some of the planet's mass is shifted. This shifting of mass would work as a particle accelerator, what with the massive surge of energy from hyperspace that has just appeared. This "particle accelerator" would have far more energy than any man-made one, and would trigger the release of X-bosons, which would have the effect of turning a good chunk of the planet's mass into antimatter, causing the planet to explode. This is the only way I can think of that's consistent with both descriptions of how the turbolaser works, both the mass-shifting into hyperspace, and the splitting of atoms into matter-antimatter pairs.

[User1462]

I wasn't referring to how the Death Star's reactor works, I was referring to how the superlaser destroys planets.

With a junk-science argument-- which you're now repeating.

By your argument, every trip into hyperspace would create a mega-weapon, and so they could have just saved themselves the trouble and put any hyperdrive-capable vessel on auto-pilot smack into a planet's core.

This is the only way I can think of that's consistent with both descriptions of how the turbolaser works, both the mass-shifting into hyperspace, and the splitting of atoms into matter-antimatter pairs.

EU descriptions, I take it?
Again, that description defies the laws of physics by creating more energy than it uses.
You can't "split atoms into matter-antimatter pairs," since it would take just as much energy to convert matter to antimatter as you'd get from combining it with other matter.