Borg vs. ISD

[Batman]

What explosion? Why would there even be one? We're not talking an omnidirectional high-yield detonation in atmosphere but a DEW impact (against pixie magic shields no less) in the vacuum of space (mostly). Why would there be a fireball to engulf the ship to begin with?

[Imperial528]

The radiation would cover a large area (relative to the ship) with even low yield blasts. Even if the radiation itself is not visible, a nice shock-wave like ripple across the shields on the side affected by the explosion would make it seem much more believable. However, I mentioned explosions because most sci-fi effects are an explosive fireball or something similar, so at the very least, they could try to get the scale right.

I'm not familiar with what a nuclear weapon detonation would even look like in a vacuum, so I'm not entirely sure of what it should look like, other than that the effects seen now are much too small for a supposedly city-leveling armament.

[Purple]

Well for one there should be a flash of light and a huge one at that. (if you are using a nuclear blast)
But I am not sure how long it would last.

[Ritterin Sophia]

The radiation would cover a large area (relative to the ship) with even low yield blasts. Even if the radiation itself is not visible, a nice shock-wave like ripple across the shields on the side affected by the explosion would make it seem much more believable. However, I mentioned explosions because most sci-fi effects are an explosive fireball or something similar, so at the very least, they could try to get the scale right.

Why would you have a large blast of radiation? One of the benefits of DEW is they impart almost all of their effect where you direct it, rather than half the energy being wasted in an omnidirectional blast. The only explosion you should get would be the blast reflecting off something it hits, but Star Wars shields dissipate blasts rather than deflect them.

I'm not familiar with what a nuclear weapon detonation would even look like in a vacuum, so I'm not entirely sure of what it should look like, other than that the effects seen now are much too small for a supposedly city-leveling armament.

If you are not familiar how can you make such an observation?

[Imperial528]

I'm not talking about directed energy weapons, I'm talking about nukes, specifically missiles. Lasers and such are another matter entirely. I'm sorry if I caused any confusion, but to be honest, I completely missed that anyone mentioned DEW at all up until now.

Anyway, what I mean is that I am not familiar with the visual effects of nuclear detonations in space, seeing as I am in no position to have easy access to any visual recordings of any upper-atmospheric tests. My beef with the special effects is that in the instances in which a powerful explosive detonates against a starship, be it shields or hull, the visual effect given to the explosion is too small, so much that it seems shrunken.

[Imperial528]

EDIT: Sorry for duplicate post, meant to edit the above one to fix a typo, and I accidentally hit quote without realizing it.

[Junghalli]

Why would you have a large blast of radiation?

Well, I imagine if a ship got hit with some super-powerful beam of energy and then got protected by some magic shield that energy would still have to go somewhere, and the option that would involve the least additional magic would probably be if it just gets reflected/deflected away from the ship.

Obviously Star Wars shields either don't work that way though or the energy gets mostly reflected away in some form other than visible light (because otherwise given the power those beams supposedly pack I imagine you'd get quite a flash).

[Purple]

Imperial528, have you considered nuclear shaped charges?
I mean, with one of those most of the energy would be pushed inward into the target so that there would be almost no visible blast on the outside of the hull apart from the debris being stirred up by the explosive.

[Imperial528]

I haven't, actually, since most sci-fi missile weapons seem to be omnidirectional. In the case of reflective shields, there would still be a large blast though, but not in the case of absorption shields.

[Connor MacLeod]

Why would you have a large blast of radiation? One of the benefits of DEW is they impart almost all of their effect where you direct it, rather than half the energy being wasted in an omnidirectional blast. The only explosion you should get would be the blast reflecting off something it hits, but Star Wars shields dissipate blasts rather than deflect them.

Depends on whether you're in the atmosphere or in space.

In the atmosphere? Beyond a certain point, you'll start getting omnidirectional effects whether you want to or not - at least with some kinds of energy weapons. That happens because you get the energy weapon vaporizing large quantities of material and that vapour/plasma (if its energetic enough it will be plasma) has to expand. That's why even large asteroid impacts can simulate nuclear weapons effects in certain respects (look at Mike's Planet Killer's page for an example.)

Also, unless the hypotheticla energy weapon is highly transparent to air, you'll probably have the beam (rapidly) heating up the air it passes through (and the surrounding air) which will have noticable (quite possibly dangerous) side effects.

That said, its hard to predict precise effects simply because it can vary depending on lots of factors: The area the energy is focused on, the speed with which it is delivered, whether it is pulsed or sustained, etc. You could get VERY nuke like effects (thermal and blast effects) or you could just have alot of thermal energy but not as much blast/explosive effect (speed and focus of the beam matter here especially.) But regardless of whether or not it is very "explosive" you still will have a given quantity of energy injected into the enviroment, which can have long and short term effects (potential for burning or heating up surrounding material, affecting weather/climate patterns, etc.) - again depending on the variables (especially how much energy is involved.)

You might be able to fudge the variables if you start handwaving (some sort of highly penetrative magic particles that won't impart their energy until they pass deep inside matter, or something like that) but again there's only so much that can help.
Beyond certain points (double digit GT or so range at least) you cannot even really rely on a focused/sustained/piericng type beam to "muffle" efffects because you will basically blast huge craters in the ground and trigger massive quakes (EG think Shadow Planet Killer effects.)

Space is entirely up in the air, and with magic energy weapons liek turbolasers it can be hard to predict HOW they look (especialyl against magic forcefields and magic materials), mainly because you can handwave any potential explanation. Nukes usually aren't depicted very realisticalyl in space (in literature or in visuals.) though.

[Connor MacLeod]

Why would you have a large blast of radiation?

Well, I imagine if a ship got hit with some super-powerful beam of energy and then got protected by some magic shield that energy would still have to go somewhere, and the option that would involve the least additional magic would probably be if it just gets reflected/deflected away from the ship.

Obviously Star Wars shields either don't work that way though or the energy gets mostly reflected away in some form other than visible light (because otherwise given the power those beams supposedly pack I imagine you'd get quite a flash).

Depends on how the shields work I suppose. That's the problem, you could handwave it in any number of ways: How do the shields interact with the particles? How do they reradiate it? Do the shields have a matter component and thus temperature, and does this have any relation to their defensive properties? Shields "material" could be some exotic magic stuff that absorbs energy then gets funneled back into the shield in some pseudo-cooling mechanism (which might also explain why shields require an input of energy, since you have to be circulating the magic pseudo-coolant shield stuff.) Of course, if its a magic forcefield it may be different.

From what I recall, shields seem to be assumed to be pretty efficinet (near perfectly so at least) in absorbing the energy, but were not supposed to have much "deflecting" despite being deflectors (despite that being more efficient.) Of course, nothing says all shields are the same, and Curtis' "splintering/daughter bolts" mechanism does allow for "deflection" to occur (if it does, its mostly invisible)

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh yeah, the thing with higher yield (GT+) energy beams is that momentum starts becoming a bigger issue for you than with lower energy yields (although this also depends on the size and mass of your ships relative to firepower, so it's not an absolute) which can lead to practicality and consistency issues both on the ground and in space.

[Ritterin Sophia]

In the atmosphere? Beyond a certain point, you'll start getting omnidirectional effects whether you want to or not - at least with some kinds of energy weapons.

I'm just going to stop you right there. You might want to pay attention, because the context is quite clear that we're talking hard vacuum.

[Purple]

Newer the less, the comparison between atmosphere vs space explosion is quite interesting. Since presumably those space guns can and probably will be turned against planets as well.

[Norade]

Newer the less, the comparison between atmosphere vs space explosion is quite interesting. Since presumably those space guns can and probably will be turned against planets as well.

Ignoring the fact that everybody else here already knew what Connor just said...