[Jetmech Jr.]

The Turbolaser Commentaries are by Brian Young. MW only added some comments, which are clearly marked as added comments and are written in a different color to further distinguish them!

Brian Who? The Football Player?

Oh, WAIT! Thats right. He's the guy who said this:

Since this estimate is conservative, an X-Wing's blaster cannons easily release more energy in 10 seconds than the entire United States produces in electrical power. This is especially impressive when one considers the number of nuclear power plants in operation in the United States.

ROFL

Like I give two ****s about "BRIAN YOUNG" and this bull****.

Tell you what, When I see an X-Wing reduce a landmass into a 300-km Crater in ten seconds, then I'll take his bull seriously. Otherwise, pass the salt.

Posted a while ago by someone named Cannikin:

quote:
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Originally posted by GrandAdmiralAbaht


Taken from cannon sources in ESB it has been deduced that turbolasers have powers in the gigaton range. I can link you to stardestroyer.net or the technical commentairies by Dr. Saxton.

If you bother TO READ THE DAMNED WEBSITES you will see the obvious evidence to what I previously stated.

And if you're a cannon purist then you can continue to live in your litte world. The EU is official and is part of Star Wars. BTW, Dr. Saxton made extensive calculations in the Technical Commentaries and then applied them in the EPII ICS, which he wrote. So its not "pulled out of his ass" as you might say. Its fact.

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Wow, you must be reading something other than me. Apparently the ESB reference you're refering to is the "asteroid vaporization" example right? Well, Dr. Saxton puts down calculations which seem seem to be within the kiloton range unless my arithmetic is wrong.

The section that refers to the "gigaton" range apparently is under the section labeled "Novel Evidence" and refers to novels who put down stuff like "turning a planet to molten slag" which I seem not to recall from the movies. Somehow I doubt that the novelists did extensive calculations to come up with that.

So, let's see, the famous "durasteel" that seems to protect Star Destroyers so easily against hundred-gigaton blasts against it. Yet Qui-gon seems to be able to stick his lightsaber in it and melt through durasteel blast doors in an instant. So I assume that means he's injecting hundreds of teratons worth of energy per second right? He must be using the patented Exponentially Greater Than 100% Mass to Energy Efficiency Reactor(tm) in his lightsaber, which, must I remind you from your precious EU, is made up of parts you can by out of a local hardware shack and a crystal made in an Easy-Bake-Oven.

Oh and the famous all-powerful lasers when used against Yuuzhan Vong ships (also from EU) seem to only make little molten pecks in the flying turds. And the big hunks of plasma rock that the Vong chuck back (which can only possibly contain a few hundred terajoules, some hundred kilotons worth of thermal energy) seem to eat through shields (which are supposed to absorb hundreds of teratons) and the vaunted armor plating with ease.

And since when has EU been canon? I seem to remember about a dozen or so novels' stories being shot down at the slightest whim of George Lucas when the last two movies came out.

And finally let me show you some things:



See those? Now, the top picture is Baker, a puny and primative 20 kiloton nuke, but was enough to raise a column of water 2000ft in diameter and 6000ft (1.13 miles) high containing over 250 million gallons of water.

The Cannikin test (5MT), which I can't get a decent image of, was detonated a mile underground and caused a shockwave that registered 6.8 on the Richter Scale.

Now the second image, that's slightly more than 10 megatons, which was more than enough to vaporize the entire island, leaving a hole 1.2 miles in diameter as well as deep fry all marine life within dozens of miles, and create a core temperature that can reach well over 100 million C, 6-7 times hotter than the CORE of the Sun, which will turn any material in the universe into disociated atoms, no matter what kind of BS "durasteel" you can make up.

A 20MT nuke can release so much energy that mere exposure to the LIGHT (which is a by-product of the fireball heating air molecules hundreds of millions of degrees and releasing some of the subsequent energy of it as visible light) for a fraction of a second will cause a 3rd degree burn 40km from the fireball itself.

Now, 200 gigatons is 10,000 times more than that... No wait, you said that turbolasers are far more powerful than 200 gigatons, so lets say 800 gigatons. 40,000 of those.

In other words...

New Republic battling the Empire for control of Coruscant: "Oops, we shot off ONE stray turbolaser. We just utterly annihilated an area the size of Alaska (yes, I know they wouldn't know what Alaska is), and caused a very severe nuclear winter scenario that will render the planet uninhabitable for thousands of years. Sorry!"

and

quote:
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Originally posted by Bri_Dog
To those argueing the affects of a 200GT turbolaser blast:

The force of the weapon does not act like a bomb, it channels it's energy into one point. So the example of hitting Curscant with a stray shot and wiping out part of the city the size of Alaska is wrong  
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You know, I was hoping you would say that misconception.  First of all the energy of a nuke propogates from a very small area. The energy released is almost entirely thermal energy (the rest being high energy radiation like gamma rays), similar to what a laser would do.

Now if anything, a turbolaser with the power of 200GT would do MORE damage than a 200GT nuke, because ALL of the energy would be converted to thermal energy. Oh wait, 200GT is the puny transport guns right? So, 800GT.

Just to illustrate how this works:

A nuke releases an unimaginable amount of thermal energy. This heats up the air immediately surrounding the release. This obviously heats the air up to hundreds of millions of degrees, turning all of it into plasma. This effect is seen as the "fireball." This ball expands incredibly rapidly. The air outside the fireball is also heated and expands at an insane rate, producing the subsequent shockwave and blast (overpressure front), which does by far the most damage.

Now, turbolaser (providing a conveniant 800GT output of energy) hitting the ground would be a disaster beyond human imagination. First of all, while burning through the atmosphere, it would heat up the air to billions of degrees (comparable to a supernova) would cause a sudden expansion of the air so rapid that first of all, it would create a sound shock that's basically thunder (caused by the air being heated up to 10,000 degrees by lightning) x 1,000,000, shattering virtually all non-flexible material for hundreds of miles. Then the wind would be so strong that you wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Imperial Palace fly by.

Next, after it hits the ground the rock on the surface would immediately expand into a plasma fireball, like a nuke, because if the footage is to be believed in Star Wars, the energy is absorbed very rapidly, so it would end up vaporizing everything anywhere close to it.

But most of all, the worst damage would occur from where the turbolaser bores into the ground. The rock is also heated to billions of degrees and expands at insane rates. But this is a solid material, rather than a gaseous substance, so the result is FAR more catastrophic. The expanding and superheated plasma expands and utterly shatters the surrounding rock. This would create both gigantic cracks bursting through the crust of the planet shooting out ultra high-speed, billion degree plasma throughout the area. Then after that, a huge seismic shockwave such that humans have never imagined occuring would propogate under the surface. This shockwave, being relatively shallow beneath the surface would create even more shattering of the crust (think taking a sandbox, and doing a whip motion). And since the wave moves through a solid material, it is transfered very far and quickly, ripping apart all foundations and structures, as well as natural landmarks (mountains etc.) for hundreds if not thousands of miles. Oh and I almost forgot that the shockwave would also cause any tension in the rocks to be released causing even MORE earthquakes.

And that's from ONE shot.


quote:
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Originally posted by GrandAdmiralAbaht

Thats why Courssucant and almost every other planet has something called planetary shielding , it prevents such a disaster. And starships with massive 200 GT weapons have something called sensors and targeting systems. They prevent any stray shots from ever hitting planet in the first place.

And who ever said the insides of the Trader Federation freighter were made of Durasteel? Only the outer hull is made of it.

And we clearly see an example of SW capship acceleration when the Imperial Fleet comes out of hiding from behind the far side of Endor and cuts off the rebel fleet. This flet, made entirely of Star Destroyers, came so fast that rebel ships only detected them once they had already been cut off. And don't say that the fleet hyperspaced there cause the DS had gravity wells online and the mass shadow of Endor would prevent the fleet from jumping from once side of the moon to the other and the Emperor clearly states that the fleet went to the far side of the Endor. It takes a hell of of acceleration to wrap around a huge moon in less than ten seconds!
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Next, as I was saying, no matter WHAT durasteel is, it WILL be vaporized. Not only would all materials in the universe be disociated into plasma, but even the EU would verify that as well. Take the book Dark Apprentice for proof (a book that incidentally refers to the Star Destroyer "planet slagging"). In the end, Admiral Daala's SD's got vaporized in a fraction of a second by the supernova. However, at the distance they are from the star, the temperature of the expanding shockwave has cooled to a mere few million, or even down to the hundreds of thousands of degrees. The surface area of the back of a fleeing SD is quite small so the total energy absorbed is most likely FAR less than the energy in ONE turbolaser shot (remember, a "primitive" 10MT nuke could form a fireball 3 miles in diameter, 3 times larger than a SD on its long side, inside which everything was vaporized). But of course turbolasers act on an exceeding small area (1-2 meters in diameter) yet the amazing shields and "durasteel" shrug them off like stinging flies.

So, in otherwords, if durasteel and shields were so amazingly powerful, the Imperials inside should've just sat on the bridge with sunglasses and a cool glass of lemonade during the supernova laughing at Kyp Durron's pitiful attempts to blow them up.

As for the whole 3500G's thing, see my above comments about inertia. Besides, even if there WAS such a mysterious material as to render inertia a moot point, the people INSIDE still have inertia and so are you gonna make them swallow that special material as a daily part of their diet? Otherwise SPLAT! Oh and whenever the people are punched in a fist fight, they also splatter into a gooey mass on the walls (as well as the puncher himself because of Newton's laws... oh wait, I forget, Newtonian laws don't apply). And of course as I pointed out above, if inertia is virtually 0, then the slightest touch should've blown the ships away (space dust, solar wind, a frustrated stormtrooper beating on the walls because he was just demoted, etc.)

Oh and if they can accelerate to that high, why don't they "fly around in circles singing Can't Touch This." Obviously the enemy turrets can't possibly track you going at 16,000kph (which only takes half a second to reach accelerating at 3500G's) which would let you circle around the width of a SD about 2-3 times a second. See how slow turrets turn in ANH? Some of them are even human manned. That'll be quite a whiplash trying to keep up with em. But the people in the spinning ship could circle it so that one side's turrets always face the SD blasting away. But you see in RotJ, the Neb. B. Frigate going at a lazy pace along side the SD going at no more than 10kph...

[Starshiptroopers]

Would you like to know more?

[/Starshiptroopers]

Because I feel he sums up why much of these SW figures are a load of crap.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by karajorma


I'm not arguing which is better because basically I reckon the argument is retarded. I'm questioning your basic knowledge of the Babylon 5 universe for claiming that nothing in it has ever destroyed a planet when you then go on to mention the Vorlon Planet Killer which quite famously destroyed an entire planet.  (Not glassed. Gone!)

Then why, pray tell, did Ivanova have shuttles rescue "survivors' on the "ground". "Gone" is a very subjective and vague term and could refer to the civilization and cities on the planet.  On the other hand, a green beam of death blowing up a planet before your very eyes is NOT vague at all.

Especially as you're now backtracking and admitting the Shadows can do it

Are you blind? I NEVER said that the Shadows could destroy a planet. The Shadows can kill all life on a planet, but they cannot destroy it.

This is what happens when an SPK strikes a planet:

[karajorma]

Woolly. You're only managing to make yourself look like an idiot. In The Summoning Ivanova clearly states that a planet with a shadow base on it is gone. Not glassed, Not wiped clean of most of the life. Gone.

I did tell you exactly where to look to avoid making a fool of yourself. Next time maybe you'll listen.  

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Then why, pray tell, did Ivanova have shuttles rescue "survivors' on the "ground". "Gone" is a very subjective and vague term and could refer to the civilization and cities on the planet.  On the other hand, a green beam of death blowing up a planet before your very eyes is NOT vague at all.

Did you ever think that the VPK might have a power setting? You know. Like setting 1 lightly toasts a planet, setting two kills everyone and setting 3 destroys the entire planet?

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Are you blind? I NEVER said that the Shadows could destroy a planet. The Shadows can kill all life on a planet, but they cannot destroy it.

This is what happens when an SPK strikes a planet:

Okay. That's my bad. You're right. We've never seen the Shadows destroy a planet (although that doesn't mean that they can't. The planet killer in The Long Night might not have used all of it's missiles).

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by karajorma
Woolly. You're only managing to make yourself look like an idiot. In The Summoning Ivanova clearly states that a planet with a shadow base on it is gone. Not glassed, Not wiped clean of most of the life. Gone.

As I said, "gone" is a subjective term. Watching a planet being blown up by a moon-sized beam cannon is not a subjective experience.

Did you ever think that the VPK might have a power setting? You know. Like setting 1 lightly toasts a planet, setting two kills everyone and setting 3 destroys the entire planet?

Unlikely. The Vorlons and Shadows so hated each other that they would go to any lengths--ANY lengths to erase one another from the galaxy. Anyone under Shadow influence were considered the Bad Guys.

Okay. That's my bad. You're right. We've never seen the Shadows destroy a planet (although that doesn't mean that they can't. The planet killer in The Long Night might not have used all of it's missiles).

Baseless assumption. Unless we actually see a planet destroyed, we cannot assume the planet killers can actually destroy planets as well as devastate/sterilize them. On the other hand, a Base Delta Zero or Eclipse attack is clearly described as a zero-survivor event. A BDZ attack is described as sufficient to melt a planet's surface so that only a "deep planet shelter" would have even a chance of survival (note the word "chance"--there are no guarantees that the DPS will survive, especially if a TL hits directly overhead). The Eclipse is said to actually "crack the crust" of a planet and "sear continents" off the planet's surface.

Note that in the EU, there are five instances of a Base Delta Zero occurring.

[StratComm]

I just have to laugh because of the retardedness of this entire argument keeps making itself apparent.  I quite frankly don't give a damn what Lucas or his cronies consider 'canon' for the Star Wars universe, because as has clearly been illustrated many times over, his grasp on what's reasonable is about as firm as that of your average mentally retarded worm.  So if he sanctions some random figure that's 8 orders of magnitude beyond what's possible then so be it, the point is moot for inter-universe discussions (why you'd need one in the first place is still a bit of a mystery, I'll admit).

Oh, and to generate enough energy for one 200 gigaton blast, assuming pure matter-to-harnessable-energy conversion, you'd need to convert a whopping 9.3 metric tons of matter.  Now account for the fact that nuclear fusion only is 0.7% efficient in that regard, and you get that you'd need to fuse 1300+ metric tons of hydrogen just to accumulate that amount of energy with fusion.  Now I'm not taking into account the fact that a single star destroyer has 200 or more of these things, nor their fire rate; that is for 1 shot.  So it's quite simply not possible, no matter how much your canon wants to insist that it is.

[TrashMan]

Oh boy...some common ground has to be found by which to compare these universes. I can think of nothing else but laws of physics. But if cannon ca novveride them, then you're in trouble.

I can just make up a SF with a hand-helm minigun weapon and each shot has the power of a supernova. And since it's cannon you can't contradict it no matter how redicolous it is? The same with bio ships, teleportation, telephaty, universal communicators, god, races with uber-powers and other crap like that.
See the problem here?

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Oh boy...some common ground has to be found by which to compare these universes. I can think of nothing else but laws of physics. But if cannon ca novveride them, then you're in trouble.

I can just make up a SF with a hand-helm minigun weapon and each shot has the power of a supernova. And since it's cannon you can't contradict it no matter how redicolous it is? The same with bio ships, teleportation, telephaty, universal communicators, god, races with uber-powers and other crap like that.
See the problem here?

Canonity doesn't override the Laws of Physics. That's just some BS Woolie shot out in place of a decent argument. (no offense)

[karajorma]

Woolly.

1) I couldn't give a flying f**k what Star Wars ships can do. I think the whole B5 vs Star Wars thing is retarded (The campaign isn't BTW since it sets its own baseline. Just the arguing on the thread).  I got into this thread because you claimed that nothing in B5 could destroy a planet. So desist in your attempts to pursuade me that SW ships are better because all comments along those lines are going straight to null.

2) For f**ks sake. Watch the episode before you make foolish comments. So far despite my warning you proceeded to put both your feet in your mouth and then wiggle your legs up to the knees in there. I'm starting to worry that you're going to completely disappear up yourself if you continue getting things wrong.

Here's the dialog from that episode

Ivanova : The shadow base was located on a planet called Larcotta seven. It's not there any more
Lenier : The base?
Lyta : No. The planet.  They destroyed...an entire planet.

I suppose you're going to argue with me that that's also subjective.  

Originally posted by TrashMan
Oh boy...some common ground has to be found by which to compare these universes. I can think of nothing else but laws of physics.

Quite frankly I think the only consideration in this mod is to make sure it's fun to play.

Balance all the ships so that each universe is roughly equal and tell anyone who argues about canon to f**k off because the universes ever meeting isn't canon either.,

Screw physics.
Screw canon.

This mod is all about fun not pleasing fanbois!

[StratComm]

We need a timewarp smily.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by StratComm
I just have to laugh because of the retardedness of this entire argument keeps making itself apparent.  I quite frankly don't give a damn what Lucas or his cronies consider 'canon' for the Star Wars universe, because as has clearly been illustrated many times over, his grasp on what's reasonable is about as firm as your average mentally retarded worm.  So if he sanctions some random figure that's 8 orders of magnitude beyond what's possible then so be it, the point is moot for inter-universe discussions (why you'd need one in the first place is still a bit of a mystery, I'll admit).

If Kiki the Chimpanzee wrote a science fiction story called "Space Apes", he would have complete control over what is canon in the Space Apes universe, no matter how stupid his policies are. The words of Lucas, Roddenberry, JMS, DaveB and their subordinates are pretty much the Word of God for Star Wars, Star Trek, B5, and FreeSpace. Besides, Star Wars is not the only universe that does insane stuff like 200GT turbolasers. A few examples:

-In Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man carries out Exterminatus (planetary sterilization) by releasing "virus bombs" that kill every living being on the planet and set the entire atmosphere on fire.

-In the Culture novels, the Gridfire projector weapon has virtually infinite firepower. One Gridfire attack was calced at 1E+55 joules (1 followed by 55 zeroes).

-In FreeSpace, the Lucifer partially sterilizes Vasuda Prime (although there are a few survivors), and bombers and capital ships sling around gigaton-level firepower. Then there's Capella, which not only was made to go supernova during main sequence by the Sathanas fleet (an impossibility since the core has not become iron), but was about 10 times too small to go supernova (assuming that it was the same size as the sun).

-In Andromeda, fighters cause supernovas of Sol-like main-sequence stars with so-called "nova bombs".

-In Star Trek, the Doomsday Machine, a ship made of "solid neutronium" (an oxymoron, since neutronium is liquid), is armed with a planet-destroying death-ray weapon.

-The missiles of the B5 Shadow planet killer are estimated at at least 50 gigatons each due to the total sterilization of the target world.

Except for Exterminatus, none of these situations draw many complaints, even though many are far more outlandish than Base Delta Zero and 200-gigaton turbolasers (*cough* gridfire *cough).

Oh, and to generate enough energy for one 200 gigaton blast, assuming pure matter-to-harnessable-energy conversion, you'd need to convert a whopping 9.3 metric tons of matter.  Now account for the fact that nuclear fusion only is 0.7% efficient in that regard, and you get that you'd need to fuse 1300+ metric tons of hydrogen just to accumulate that amount of energy with fusion.  Now I'm not taking into account the fact that a single star destroyer has 200 or more of these things, nor their fire rate; that is for 1 shot.  So it's quite simply not possible, no matter how much your canon wants to insist that it is. [/B]

Star Wars is not real. It doesn't have to be possible in real life. If it happens, it happens. The Shadow PK pounded Daltron 7 with gigaton-level firepower, the Imperials pounded Dankayo with gigaton-level firepower, and the Death Star blew up Alderaan with enough energy to power the sun for several thousand years. Nothing you say can change that. By your logic, neither B5 nor SW has FTL travel because FTL travel cannot exist by the laws of physics, even though SW and B5 ships perform FTL travel many, many times.

Concession accepted.

[Jetmech Jr.]

I've never even heard of Culture, but is sounds like just as much BS as what we're on about.

I have problems with all those (except those I don't understand).

And the excuse "They did it, why can't I?" doesn't work. It's NEVER an acceptable excuse.

[Woolie Wool]

It is an acceptable excuse in fiction because it's goddamn FICTION. How many times do I have to ****ing tell you that Star Wars and B5 are NOT REAL?!?! They don't HAVE to be 100% realistic (FTL travel in and of itself is impossible in real life), because they're NOT REAL. Why don't you just stop watching and reading science fiction bcause ALL SF plays fast and loose with physics. Every time a sound is heard in space, a ship banks while turning in space, a raygun is fired, or a ship explodes in a brilliant fireball, laws of physics are broken.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Great, now if you could just find the description of Science, you'd almost have a complete reply...

[Woolie Wool]

By your standards, there have been almost no science fiction stories or games ever made. B5 in many ways is just as bad as Star Wars (planet killers, organic technology, planet killers, telepaths, etc.) and neither are anything approaching hard SF. If we are to accept your draconian guidelines, than there is no FTL, bioarmor, telepathy, grav-anything, inertial dampers, hyperspace, subspace, whateverspace, planet killers, beam cannons, blob cannons, or any of the other hallmarks of soft SF like B5 and SW.

By obsessing over realism, you have completely given up on anything approaching a debate.

[size=666]CONCESSION ACCEPTED![/size]

[karajorma]

This isn't spacebattles Woolly. No matter how much you think you're on the vs forum.

Oh. While we're at it be a man and admit you were wrong about the VPK.

[StratComm]

My argument isn't about star wars as star wars, it's about star wars = something in real science which is exactly what you're arguing (and is what is inherently being argued when real units are thrown around).  

So no concession for you

Originally posted by Woolie Wool

-In Warhammer 40,000...

-In the Culture novels...

-In FreeSpace...

-In Andromeda...

-In Star Trek...

-The missiles of the B5 Shadow planet killer are estimated at at least 50 gigatons each due to the total sterilization of the target world.

Except for Exterminatus, none of these situations draw many complaints, even though many are far more outlandish than Base Delta Zero and 200-gigaton turbolasers (*cough* gridfire *cough).

First, none of the other serious contenders here try to actually canonically put actual units to their weapons.  Nevermind that they don't claim fusion as the power source.  But I'll humor you:

Warhammer40k: yeah, that one's crap.  Virus setting the atmosphere on fire and all that.  Then again, no one's ever claimed WH40k has tried to set itself against anything resembling reality.

Gridfire: haven't read that series, so I have no idea what the context is.  It's not near as mainstream as SW, but I can't really contest how preposterous that one is.  If your numbers are accurate, then I agree that it's a preposterous amount of energy.  No argument.  Of course, you didn't mention a power source so I can only assume it's something equally fantastic.

Freespace: I'm glad you brought this one up, actually.  Both of the things you're using as extreme rely on extra physics that are defined by canon, not real technology like fusion.  The Sathani did something to Capella through subspace, where normal laws of physics don't apply.  We don't know what, but that's not the point.  As for the lucifer, there's actually a good thread going about that right now in General Freespace, which I won't bring out here.  But let's just say that Vasuda is still there and the damage wasn't even all that extreme on the planetary scale.  Cities leveled, habitable landmass (on a desert planet, so not that much) destroyed, but that can be done easily with 13 hours of 20-megaton-level shots at a rate of 1-2 per minute.  And any weapon using more than the megaton range uses a non-conventional warhead which could have a much higher yield than a fusion explosion, which is actually less efficient than a contained reaction.

Andromeda: again, we're not depending on power-generation as much as we are the ability to alter the internal dynamics of a star.  Sci-fi, so I'll take it.

ST Doomsday machine: I'm going to ignore the armor bit, since what science knows as Neutronium can only exist within the gravetic compress of a neutron star.  But the internal power source can again be whatever it wants (it sure isn't ever stated) so let it have a planet-vaporizing death ray for all I care.  I'm not going to argue against scifi that has no context simply because there's no yardstick to compare it to.

B5 planet killer: with an anti-matter warhead of a metric ton or so, a 50 gigaton yeild is actually quite possible for a missile.  Those missiles were huge too if memory serves.  And we're still talking about one-shot deals here, not a repeating issue.

However, Star Wars occupies a unique position in that its creators have sanctioned preposterous levels of power without also providing a boundless energy source of some kind.  Star Trek has its dylithium crystals and warp fields to explain where its power comes from, while B5 tries to limit its weapons to what it can reasonably get out of a power source.  Star Wars, instead of using just a tad of restraint, gives weapons far more power than they are obviously using and then puts them under the power of a device that is well-understood (if not exploitable - we still know how much power we could get out, just not how to get it to work without putting more in) where it cannot possibly sustain that level of energy consumption.  I don't care if star wars isn't real life, if you're going to tell me their ships use fusion, then make sure the systems running off of that reactor don't consume exponentially more power than a fusion reactor is ever going to put out.

Oh, and in every sci-fi involving FTL, it is done either via an alternate plane of existance (subspace/hyperspace) or by space-time manipulation (warp).  Even star wars.

[Woolie Wool]

However, Star Wars occupies a unique position in that its creators have sanctioned preposterous levels of power without also providing a boundless energy source of some kind. Star Trek has its dylithium crystals and warp fields to explain where its power comes from, while B5 tries to limit its weapons to what it can reasonably get out of a power source. Star Wars, instead of using just a tad of restraint, gives weapons far more power than they are obviously using and then puts them under the power of a device that is well-understood (if not exploitable - we still know how much power we could get out, just not how to get it to work without putting more in) where it cannot possibly sustain that level of energy consumption. I don't care if star wars isn't real life, if you're going to tell me their ships use fusion, then make sure the systems running off of that reactor don't consume exponentially more power than a fusion reactor is ever going to put out.

SW ships use "hypermatter" reactors. The operation and nature of these devicees are not discussed, but their capabilities (powering ISDs and Death Stars) is obvious.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Power/Power2.html

Oh, and in every sci-fi involving FTL, it is done either via an alternate plane of existance (subspace/hyperspace) or by space-time manipulation (warp). Even star wars.

The space-time manipulation reminds me of Futurama, where you go FTL by moving the universe around your ship instead of vice versa.

[StratComm]

~TimeWarp!

|
V

Ah, now that's the Sci-fi BS that I'd expect.  This is another reason why Star Wars presents a serious problem; it's canon keeps changing.  The last time I checked, and as far as common knowledge goes, Star Wars uses fusion.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Very well said, Stratcom.

[StratComm]

Since the first half of my post got eaten by the forum's state of non-synch, I'll finish my response by adding a response to what was edited in.

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
The space-time manipulation reminds me of Futurama, where you go FTL by moving the universe around your ship instead of vice versa.

Actually space-time manipulation, such as that used by the Spacing Guild in Dune and is implied in Star Trek, is considered a viable possibility for FTL travel given non-existant technology and infinite power and resources.  Collapsing the space in front while simultaneously expanding that behind has the same effect as moving through it, in theory without the constraints of c.  And that's actual science.

We've got an actual link to StarDestroyer.net.  Get him Jetmech