What is the mass of the Death Stars?

[Praeothmin]

You seem to not understand what I was saying.

You don't seem to understand what happened in the movie...
The DS was jamming sensors, Lando confirmed it...
The DS was jamming the state of this powerful shield which protected the DS from any attack, generated from the surface of the moon...
Now you're saying it was also powerful enough to hold the DS in place?

Jamming that hides the reactor out put would require a massive power-source...

Like the DS's reactor, perhaps?
Also, hiding the state of this powerful protective shield would not?

Why can't you see the contradictions in your assumptions?

[mojo]

Sensors were being jammed, which is a great way to have a fully operational Battlestation seem non-operational...

That actually is as much of a give away that the Death Star is fully operational as readings the reactor would be. YOu would need a massive power source or sources to do such a thing.

i disagree. wouldn't it be standard operating procedure to jam the sensors of anyone who has just found your super-special-secret new death star? i don't know, maybe to increase the chances that it would stay a secret until it's actually completed? come on, man.

[Praeothmin]

Sensors were being jammed, which is a great way to have a fully operational Battlestation seem non-operational...

That actually is as much of a give away that the Death Star is fully operational as readings the reactor would be. YOu would need a massive power source or sources to do such a thing.

i disagree. wouldn't it be standard operating procedure to jam the sensors of anyone who has just found your super-special-secret new death star? i don't know, maybe to increase the chances that it would stay a secret until it's actually completed? come on, man.

Ok, let me rephrase:
"Sensors were being jammed, so there was no need for the DS's antigrav unit to be offline and for the planetary shield to hold it up, since even the state of the shields were not obtainable through sensor sweeps..."

In other words, Lucky's hypothesis adds unecessary complications...

[mojo]

i missed a [quote] tag there. just on the million to one chance that that added some confusion, i was not in agreement with lucky.

[Lucky]

You don't seem to understand what happened in the movie...
The DS was jamming sensors, Lando confirmed it...
The DS was jamming the state of this powerful shield which protected the DS from any attack, generated from the surface of the moon...

And where do you prove the Death Star's reactor was active at this point? By reactor I mean the one that would power the superlaser, and seemingly was not suppose to be on line yet.

Now you're saying it was also powerful enough to hold the DS in place?

Actually that came from a quote posted by General Donner in this tread.

Like the DS's reactor, perhaps?
Also, hiding the state of this powerful protective shield would not?

The fact there was jamming was a dead give away there was a trap.

Why can't you see the contradictions in your assumptions?

Since you are only saying there are contradictions rather then pointing them out and explaining what you mean
So far the only thing you've claimed is that the Death Star 2 must have been using it's propulsion system to not crash into Endor when the base on Endor blew-up

In other words, Lucky's hypothesis adds unecessary complications...

You honest think someone was piloting the Death Star so that it never crashed into the Endor shield with only part of the entire propulsion system installed? I'd hate to be that pilot.

You also ignore that the Death Star after the shield went down was floating away from Endor. It's only logical the Death Star was in an orbit that would send it farther from Endor rather then into Endor

[Lucky]

i disagree. wouldn't it be standard operating procedure to jam the sensors of anyone who has just found your super-special-secret new death star? i don't know, maybe to increase the chances that it would stay a secret until it's actually completed? come on, man.

Praeothmin is just being a troll in the bad way, and not able to keep track of multiple unrelated points..

Praeothmin is arguing that someone was sitting in the Death Star piloting it so that it didn't hit the shield at all times, and that the Death star should magically fall to the surface of Endor as soon as power is cut even though I provide evidence that what we see in the movie could be done without a propulsion system in place. All you need is a way to spin the Death Star, and stop the spinning.

What is easier to recover if something goes wrong, something that crashed into a planet or something floating off into space, and just needs a bleep load of ships armed with tractor beams to catch it?
_______
We honestly can't know when the Death Star's Main reactor was activated, but that doesn't stop him from insisting he's right when there are equally supported possibilities that are at least in some ways more likely.
_______
My point about the jamming was:

Jamming is rarely done in star wars at least to the level it was done at Endor, and is what told the Rebles there was a trap. Had there not been any jamming the rebels would have just thought the shield had not been brought down yet, but the Empire wasn't on to them yet.

The Rebles are idiots for not reading their instrumentation, and for not believing it. They should have spotted the trap as soon as they came into sensor range.

[KSW]

Sensors were being jammed, which is a great way to have a fully operational Battlestation seem non-operational...

That actually is as much of a give away that the Death Star is fully operational as readings the reactor would be. YOu would need a massive power source or sources to do such a thing.

i disagree. wouldn't it be standard operating procedure to jam the sensors of anyone who has just found your super-special-secret new death star? i don't know, maybe to increase the chances that it would stay a secret until it's actually completed? come on, man.

Yeah I think jamming sensors would tend to make one suspicious.
Besides, the emperor didn't want to complete the station, he wanted to trap the rebel fleet so that he could force Luke to join him.
Obviously he LEAKED the information to the rebels.

[Praeothmin]

Praeothmin is just being a troll in the bad way

And you are, as always, quite obtuse...

[sonofccn]

We honestly can't know when the Death Star's Main reactor was activated, but that doesn't stop him from insisting he's right when there are equally supported possibilities that are at least in some ways more likely

We know the reactor is obviously on line when it fires the superlaser later during the battle of Endor. We know the station has some power from lights, artifical gravity etc. We have no reason to believe the generated shield is transmitting power ergo the simplist solution which involves the least variables is that the reactor, which we know is fully funcitonal, was on.

Jamming is rarely done in star wars at least to the level it was done at Endor

Ah off the top of my head Jamming was done in ANH, ROTJ and ROTS which happens to be nearly every major engagment of vessels in Movie/Novelization Canon. I think its fair to conclude that jamming does happen in Star Wars fleet battles. In addition Lando, the guy who figured out it was a trap,:

LANDO
We've got to be able to get some kind of a reading on that shield, up
or down. Well, how
could they be jamming us if they don't know if we're coming.

Didn't deduce it from the intensity of the jamming only questioning why the Imperials would already have it up if they weren't expecting a rebel strike. So your argument that the Endor jamming was unusually strong is suspect.

Had there not been any jamming the rebels would have just thought the shield had not been brought down yet, but the Empire wasn't on to them yet.

If they read the shield was not down Ackbar would have called an immedite retreat, they had no hope of punching their way through that deflector screen. The whole point of jamming them was so they couldn't get a reading on the shield and buy time for the Imperial fleet to pin them in against the deathstar.

[Lucky]

We know the reactor is obviously on line when it fires the superlaser later during the battle of Endor. We know the station has some power from lights, artifical gravity etc. We have no reason to believe the generated shield is transmitting power ergo the simplist solution which involves the least variables is that the reactor, which we know is fully funcitonal, was on.

You are ignoring the fact that Star Wars ships, and even the first Death Star had more then one reactor.

Lando said: "Lock on to the strongest power source, it should be the power generator"

Anyway, we don't know how long it takes to start up the DS2's main reactor. It could be a matter of seconds to years.

Ah off the top of my head Jamming was done in ANH, ROTJ and ROTS which happens to be nearly every major engagment of vessels in Movie/Novelization Canon. I think its fair to conclude that jamming does happen in Star Wars fleet battles. In addition Lando, the guy who figured out it was a trap,:

Where is jamming talked about in the movie versions of ANH, and ROTS?

Show me anywhere else then ROTJ that has jamming making it so that one side can't tell if the other's shields are up or down. If you read the sentence you quoted you would know I was talking about the degree of the effects.

Didn't deduce it from the intensity of the jamming only questioning why the Imperials would already have it up if they weren't expecting a rebel strike. So your argument that the Endor jamming was unusually strong is suspect.

The problem is that jamming isn't standard for Star Wars space battles. It's used about once in 4 seasons of SWTCW, and is only used in ROTJ.

If they read the shield was not down Ackbar would have called an immedite retreat, they had no hope of punching their way through that deflector screen. The whole point of jamming them was so they couldn't get a reading on the shield and buy time for the Imperial fleet to pin them in against the deathstar.

The Rebels had only one chance at the DS2 and the Emperor at the same time. The plan was to try to catch the Imps by surprise, but if the Rebels are already there, and they think they have time they might send down more troops.

Given the nature of Hyperlanes the Imps may not have even had a fleet at Endor.

[Lucky]

Praeothmin is just being a troll in the bad way

And you are, as always, quite obtuse...

Your arguments have as far as I can tell been so far been: because I say so, and you expect me to read your mind. Now you start throwing blatant insults. I do hope you have a real reason to be in such a bad mood.

[mojo]

Praeothmin is just being a troll in the bad way

And you are, as always, quite obtuse...

Your arguments have as far as I can tell been so far been: because I say so, and you expect me to read your mind. Now you start throwing blatant insults. I do hope you have a real reason to be in such a bad mood.

i'm just pleased somebody else thinks it's possible to be a troll in a 'good' way.

[Praeothmin]

Your arguments have as far as I can tell been so far been: because I say so, and you expect me to read your mind. Now you start throwing blatant insults. I do hope you have a real reason to be in such a bad mood.

My arguments have been this:

The DS was jamming sensors, Lando confirmed it...
The DS was jamming the state of this powerful shield which protected the DS from any attack, generated from the surface of the moon...

Or

Sensors were being jammed, which is a great way to have a fully operational Battlestation seem non-operational...
After all, how dumb would the Rebels have to be to think:
"Gee, I'm getting huge power readings from that DS, but it can't be operational because I know the Shield Generator is also pushing on it and keeping it in orbit"...

There was already sensor jamming hiding the fact the station was shielded...

And the DS was operational, because it destroyed two ships in short order once the Imperial fleet was there...
If the jammers were powerful enough to hide the hyper powerful shields capable of withstanding the entire Rebel fleet's firepower and the fully charged and operational Superlaser, then why do we have to believe that all the systems on the DS were operational, except for the godamn anti-grav system?

Because I don't agree with your far fetched hypothesis, I'm a Troll?
By the way all these points have been brought by sonofccn as well, but you bullshit your way into ignoring them, because you like your hypothesis and will do anything for it to be true...


Let's recap what we know:
-The DS was Jamming sensors with powerful enough equipment that an impregnable shield was not detected...
-The DS's Superlaser was fully charged when the Imperial fleet arrived...
-The DS had all standard atmospheric forcefields, Artificial Gravity and life support fro thousands upon thousands of construction workers running...
-The Emperor states: "Now witness the power of THIS FULLY OPERATIONAL BATTLESTATION...

And you would have us believe that for some reason, the anti-grav wasn't activated?
That the shield generator, which has never even once been referred to as the "Shield and Anti-grav Generator", was also supporting the DS?

I don't buy it, and niether does Occam's Razor...

[mojo]

ouch.

[2046]

Let's recap what we know:
-The DS was Jamming sensors with powerful enough equipment that an impregnable shield was not detected...
-The DS's Superlaser was fully charged when the Imperial fleet arrived...
-The DS had all standard atmospheric forcefields, Artificial Gravity and life support fro thousands upon thousands of construction workers running...
-The Emperor states: "Now witness the power of THIS FULLY OPERATIONAL BATTLESTATION...

And you would have us believe that for some reason, the anti-grav wasn't activated?
That the shield generator, which has never even once been referred to as the "Shield and Anti-grav Generator", was also supporting the DS?

I don't buy it, and niether does Occam's Razor...

Pardon me for wading in here, and I admit to not having read the particulars of this apocalyptic battle, but it seems to me that the thesis that the Death Star had to have its own functioning antigravs because it was "fully operational" is flawed. Possible, yes. Required, no.

While it may have, the fact that the station was shielded from the planet means two things:

1. That the Death Star did not, itself, have the capacity to generate shielding (or jamming), as made apparent when the surface installation was destroyed and no Imperial said "ho hum, raise our shields". Therefore systems were missing, "fully operational" or not.

... and more importantly ...

2. The ruse of a station under construction necessitated certain things, like the shield from the planet. If self-generated antigrav technology were indicative of a fully functional reactor, then it would be foolish to have it working.

That having been said, I do think the station had antigravs functioning. For one thing, we have no evidence of thrust-based drive systems for the Death Stars. Further, I maintain that antigrav tech is not that energy intensive (i.e. it's cheaper in both energy and material than having a bunch of rockets or thrusters going), despite suggestions of perpetual motion machines and whatnot.

(Antigrav is never seen to be energy-intensive, and conservation of energy is generally maintained, ergo there is some reason why both facts co-exist whether or not we can explain it from our point of view. To argue otherwise is to fall into the Wongian trap of rejecting canon fact which one's own narrow vision cannot explain. The term "radiation innoculation" comes to mind.)

That said, however, it is also possible that the whole thing was done with tractor beams of some previously unseen type (albeit previously observed technology) from the surface or from small facilities nearby that had antigravs, with their power beamed from the surface. Or there was a really kickass orbital tether maneuver involved . . . any number of possibilities exist. But while Occam points us toward just one or two, the notion that only one of those is logical at all fails.