Spacedocks take on the versus debate

[WATCH-MAN]

To be honest: This gets ludicrous.

Every time we see Star Wars ships moving around (STL), they are moving like slugs.

Every time we see Star Wars Starfighters moving around (STL), they aren't even achieving velocities necessary to escape a planet.

There seems to be not one single scene in whole Star Wars that shows ships or fighters moving faster.

At least nobody has referred to a scene that shows such a thing and I can not remember a scene where they were moving faster than usual.

Only by referring to dialogue and plot can be concluded that they are able to fly faster than is seen on screen all the time.

You are referring to what the Imperial Fleet was supposed to do - according to the dialogue - in ROTJ. But you can not show that the Imperial Fleet has indeed flown as fast as you claim. There is no scene showing them moving into position.

And there is no reason why they should be moving like slugs all the time we see them if they are able to move exponentially faster.

This doesn't make any sense, doesn't it?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Moving like slugs relative to what?

Remember when I said velocity needed to be compared against something? Like a planet or star or such?

The fighters and ships appear to be moving slowly relative to the camera. That's a big important distinction you've utterly overlooked.

[NecronLord]

You're operating off of gut instinct. The ships look slow, therefore you won't believe that there's any examples of them clearing their own length in fractions of a second, or accellerating to orbit rapidly.


Skip to 2m 55s

Brian Young did a whole series of examples a few years back for people who questioned that.







You should understand, though, that Star Wars ships aren't really much quicker (if at all) than Star Trek ones, no one seriously claims they are.

What is different, is that Star Trek is more scientifically based, and the writers understood that such speeds could not be accomplished with any fiesable power source. They therefore invented the phrase 'mass-lightening' which is what writers call 'hanging a lantern on it' as a cue to more technical trek fans that they understand this, but that it's solved for plot convenience. Another example of this is the 'Heisenberg Compensator' a component in a transporter which compensates for the Heisenberg Principle, which would IRL make a transporter impossible.

Star Trek and Star Wars aren't even the quickest 'TV Sci-Fi Franchises' as regards sublight ships. Stargate's goa'uld motherships can slalom around a star system at 32,000 Gs.

[WATCH-MAN]

Moving like slugs relative to what?

Remember when I said velocity needed to be compared against something? Like a planet or star or such?

The fighters and ships appear to be moving slowly relative to the camera. That's a big important distinction you've utterly overlooked.

If you had read what I have already written, you would notice that I did not overlooked this aspect.

[WATCH-MAN]

You're operating off of gut instinct. The ships look slow, therefore you won't believe that there's any examples of them clearing their own length in fractions of a second, or accellerating to orbit rapidly.

[...]

You should understand, though, that Star Wars ships aren't really much quicker (if at all) than Star Trek ones, no one seriously claims they are.

What is different, is that Star Trek is more scientifically based, and the writers understood that such speeds could not be accomplished with any fiesable power source. They therefore invented the phrase 'mass-lightening' which is what writers call 'hanging a lantern on it' as a cue to more technical trek fans that they understand this, but that it's solved for plot convenience. Another example of this is the 'Heisenberg Compensator' a component in a transporter which compensates for the Heisenberg Principle, which would IRL make a transporter impossible.

Star Trek and Star Wars aren't even the quickest 'TV Sci-Fi Franchises' as regards sublight ships. Stargate's goa'uld motherships can slalom around a star system at 32,000 Gs.

That's nice.

Give me a little bit to watch and think about all these clips.

[NecronLord]

And to reply to your initial post...

Compare how fast Earth gets smaller in the background when the Enterprise is flying away from it with impulse power or how fast it is approaching and passing Jupiter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-jWOnqAZ0 - 2:49 - 2:55 and 3:08 - 3:20

Easy. We don't need to do image scaling to derive a lower limit here.

The Enterprise passes Jupiter 1.8 hours from launch - Kirk says it. At perizene (Jupiter's closest point in orbit to the Earth; and mind you we know the real world date of TMP so we could get exact positions of the planets if we wanted to kick ourselves in the balls - I don't) Jupiter's distance from the Sun is 4.95 AU, so the Enterprise crossed 3.95 - minus 1 for Earth's initial position - in 108 minutes.

You can tap these figures in at Relativistic Starship - remembering to double distance to 7.9 AU as the calculator assumes you want to slow down, and half the time it produces (you want it to give you a time onboard ship of 0.15 days, IE 2*1.8 hours) and you'll get a ready reckoning of around 2,800 Gs and a peak speed of 0.53 C.

2,800 Gs is an lower limit and it could easily be over 3,000 because:

• Kirk says they're 1.8 hours out after a cut, they may have passed jupiter by then.
• It doesn't account for the time they spent on thrusters in Earth orbit after launch.
• They could have shut the impulse drive down for a period and coasted, meaning the engine burn would have been higher.
• If Jupiter and Earth are on opposite sides of the sun, it would add half again to the distance.

So this figure is quite conservative.

3,000 Gs is the speed of an Acclamator in the much-hated ICS.

And the Enterprise-Nil is an older generation ship.

or how fast the Starbase Yorktown gets smaller in the background when the Enterprise is leaving it - probably only using impulse power

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beWyG8U4Lew

I'm not able to derive any velocities only from watching these scenes.

But I have the feeling that this is quite a little bit faster than what we see, when in Star Wars the fighters are flying in orbit of Yavin.

The Reboot Star Trek is a very different animal, and much more impressive in some key areas, though possibly not this one. I've actually done some analysis of it, and it has things like phasers being able to track and fire anti-missile shots within 50 milliseconds (the guns fire one frame after the ship drops out of warp in one sequence, and we are told in the film, as a key plot point, that the ship is blind in warp) of detection, and other such thing. But vs debates generally aren't about the new films.

[Rhadamantus]

THE REBELS DIDN'T NOTICE THEM BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T SEE THEM BECAUSE THEY WERE BEHIND THE PLANET.

[NecronLord]

That's honestly quite a complex example, Rhadamanthus, and not especially easy to use, because ultimately it's from the novel, not on the screen, the videos above cleanly establish multi-thousand Gs of acceleration without needing to think about off-screen maneuvering.

[Rhadamantus]

Yeah, your examples were better.

[NecronLord]

I think sometimes the resistance to ideas like this comes from the idea that the "Star Wars debaters" want to make Star Wars out as some sort of ultrapower that can't be beaten - far from it. Even in popular TV franchises, there's many that would have stomp all over Palpatine's little Empire without even calling it a war. The Human Imperium from Doctor Who's Nightmare in Silver has a weapon that would destroy the Galactic Empire in one, single, attack ("Look up there, what do you see?" "Just blackness. No stars." "It used to be the Tiberian spiral galaxy, a million star systems, a hundred million worlds, a billion trillion people, it's not there any more.").

Rational analysis cuts both ways. The Galactic Empire would get the shit stomped out of it in that fight without the other side even finding it difficult.

[Batman]

There may be many in 'Doctor Who', but other than that, as TV franchises go Wars is pretty much top dog. Yes, print SciFi is lousy with powers that could waltz through Wars without noticing they're there but other than Who I can't think of a TV one that could take them. I will gladly be corrected.

[Eternal_Freedom]

At it's height, the Systems Commonwealth from Andromeda could probably take on and destroy the Empire, though it would require extensive use of Nova Bombs - yes, those do what they sound like, they make stars go boom and destroy whole systems. Each High Guard ship was apparently armed with them, the titular ship, a heavy cruiser, carried 40.

From the same series, the Magog may stand a chance as well. They consumed an entire large elliptical galaxy- every being, every star.

In addition, the Wraith, Ancients, Asgard or Ori from Stargate could, at their respective heights, probably give the Empire a solid fight.

[Rhadamantus]

Orion's arm seems somewhat comparable. Slower FTL, but what seems like roughly comparable tech levels.

[Rhadamantus]

They seem like mid 2s on the Kardashev scale, which Star Wars is too. Not a winning match, but they could put up a fight.

[NecronLord]

There may be many in 'Doctor Who', but other than that, as TV franchises go Wars is pretty much top dog. Yes, print SciFi is lousy with powers that could waltz through Wars without noticing they're there but other than Who I can't think of a TV one that could take them. I will gladly be corrected.

Really a whole bunch of things in Star Trek too; the Q, the Organians, the Metrons (perhaps) and more.

For somewhat obscure stuff, Jupiter Ascending likely has a solid shot from a logistics point of view, (the FTL at least is comparably fast, they clip around the galaxy effortlessly and their civilization is said to be galactic with a capital even more urbanized than Coruscant), and I almost suspect Valerian, when that hits will be another.

I'd also not be betting on the Galactic Empire vs some of the comic book films' space powers either.

The Asgardians in the Marvel Films do have what's basically a Starkiller Base in the form of the Bifrost, and provided that reaching them is difficult and the thing is long ranged (and the setting has universe-range FTL) they could just pop Imperial Planets starting with Coruscant until surrender was delivered. I remember we had the 'invasion' thread but really, as they operate on a multi-galactic level there's no reason to think that the Empire should be able to get there, and all the ground forces in the world are worthless if they're not getting there.

Likewise, the villain from Guardians of the Galaxy II, could pretty much roll out his evil plan on the Empire, and win.

Star Wars plays in one small galaxy and can't hit back against a lot of potential targets. We usually ignore this with the benefit of wormholes etc, but there's no reason to give them that if they're fighting an enemy who could normally hit a target in another galaxy aside from being sporting to the Empire.

Also...


Though that one's intended as comedy, of course.

[Batman]

I think one of issues is Trek HAS to break out the quasiomnipotentials to stand against Wars, and many Trek fans don't like that.

[NecronLord]

Not really. The infamous 31st Century Feds could certainly unmake the Galactic Empire and roll it back into the Republic, with ease. Their starships could cross their galaxy in seconds, after all.

[texanmarauder]

I think one of issues is Trek HAS to break out the quasiomnipotentials to stand against Wars, and many Trek fans don't like that.

if we compare firepower seen on screen (conventional weapons, not superweapons from the franchises), ranges, shields, sublight speeds, sensors, and targeting, one galaxy class cruiser could devastate even a fleet of ISDs. the only sources that ever gave biggaton yields and ranges for SW ships was the non canon ICS books and wongs website. one is non canon, and the other is useless. ST on the other hand, has multiple examples of high yields. the only advantages that SW might have in combat is hyperdrive and sheer numbers.

[Rhadamantus]

You're really going to try to pull this again?

[texanmarauder]

You're really going to try to pull this again?

and what exactly am I pulling again?

[Rhadamantus]

Insisting on low speeds, acclerations, and firepower despite evidence on this very thread. Arguing via a combination of willful ignorance and ad hominem attacks.

[texanmarauder]

Insisting on low speeds, acclerations, and firepower despite evidence on this very thread. Arguing via a combination of willful ignorance and ad hominem attacks.

ok. give me an example of turbolasers doing at least 50,000Tj on screen? or a ship crossing 90,000,000km + in minutes with sublight engines? (just FYI the impulse engines were only at 60%) ? I can give canon examples of those. can you?

[texanmarauder]

Insisting on low speeds, acclerations, and firepower despite evidence on this very thread. Arguing via a combination of willful ignorance and ad hominem attacks.

I never said SW had low speeds or acceleration. I just questioned the sources used to give them 3000g. and I have never questioned firepower yet. that is not willful ignorance or ad hominem. telling you to go to hell because your sources suck or don't exist is simply calling you out on your bullshit.

[Rhadamantus]

Insisting on low speeds, acclerations, and firepower despite evidence on this very thread. Arguing via a combination of willful ignorance and ad hominem attacks.

ok. give me an example of turbolasers doing at least 50,000Tj on screen? or a ship crossing 90,000,000km + in minutes with sublight engines? (just FYI the impulse engines were only at 60%) ? I can give canon examples of those. can you?

We have already had this argument. Yavin and Endor demonstrated accelerations at 1000+g. We know that they can keep their engines on for hours. Therefore, they can travel that fast. For firepower numbers, we have a. the TFA ics, which states that resurgents can conduct a base delta zero

Powerful turbolaser batteries allowed for overloading enemy shields and punching through thick armor, along with orbital bombardments capable of reducing planetary surfaces to molten slag

. and b. the fact that a 100 teraton plus explosion could be easily passed off as a mining accident.

[Rhadamantus]

Insisting on low speeds, acclerations, and firepower despite evidence on this very thread. Arguing via a combination of willful ignorance and ad hominem attacks.

I never said SW had low speeds or acceleration. I just questioned the sources used to give them 3000g. and I have never questioned firepower yet. that is not willful ignorance or ad hominem. telling you to go to hell because your sources suck or don't exist is simply calling you out on your bullshit.

A. Read the thread. People have provided evidence literally on this page.
B. Whenever I use Mike Wong's site, instead of disputing his numbers, you attack him personally. That's an ad hominem.

Also,

if we compare firepower seen on screen (conventional weapons, not superweapons from the franchises), ranges, shields, sublight speeds, sensors, and targeting, one galaxy class cruiser could devastate even a fleet of ISDs.

I have never questioned firepower yet.

Really?