Why the "Superlaser Trick" theory fails

[Patrick Degan]

Against an economical theory based upon observing the events of the actual movie ANH that the Death Star supplied, by means of Direct Energy Transfer, the requisite energy to destroy the planet Alderaan, a feat accomplished in less than a tenth of a second with only momentary resistance from a planetary shield (this technology being perfectly feasible and implicit within Star Wars canon thanks to ANH, TESB and ROTJ), we have Mr. DarkStar advancing the proposition that the Death Star did not supply the energy but that a physics-defying Mysterious Unknown Mechanism touched off a matter/energy conversion effect not unlike the Solarmonite Theory from the movie Plan Nine From Outer Space and also has the even more physics-defying property of gaining energy as it propagates across the surface. Said MUM is also supposed to explain how Alderaan's atmosphere was not disrupted as the superlaser beam propagated to the surface, as the visuals of completely unaffected cloud-patterns at Alderaan the moment the superlaser beam strikes contradicts DS' notion that there is no planetary shield at Alderaan.

When pressed upon this matter, Mr. DarkStar at first insisted that this was a "mystery" which needed no explanation, then fell back upon raising a red-herring about the conditional states of matter existing only in quantum degenerate gasses to dismiss the contradictory observation from the movie. Mr. DarkStar then tries attributing the planar ring phenomena to the same physics-defying MUM.

When presented with a theory of planar ring formation in supernova events which for all the controversy it may have attatched to it does provide a more reasonable alternate mechanism for the Alderaan planar ring phenomena which falls within known fundamental principles instead of a physics-defying "side effect" arising from a physics-defying MUM, Mr. DarkStar then attempted to obsfucate the issue with pages and pages regarding the traditional theory of supernova rings and calling the theorist he doesn't agree with a "crack-head". In the course of the "discussion" that followed, he attempted to creatively reinterpret canon visuals and Occam's Razor, merrily confused terminologies, and erected strawman after strawman after strawman as his last line of defence.

However, none of this obscures three essential objections to a theory he either cannot or will not defend properly and those are:

1. DS' Solarmonite Theory (as good a name as any) fails to explain the mechanism by which Alderaan's own matter is being induced to fuel the reaction resulting in the planet's explosion.

2. His MUM fails to adequately address the issue of how a large energy beam can conceivably pass through atmosphere without generating a massive pressure-wave disruption, ionisiation, or exothermic effects of any kind, and simply leave cloud patterns undisturbed while also failing to trigger off any similar effect in the atmosphere he alledges is subsequently triggered on the surface.

3. The MUM has no explanation for the planar ring phenomena —other than to say that MUM explains it —and MUM itself has no explanation.

But according to Mr. DarkStar, Occam's Razor favours the Solarmonite Theory, with all its hidden variables and unexplained mechanisms, over Direct Energy Transfer, a planetary shield collapse, and planar ring phenomena arising from mechanisms explicable by fundamental principles (or at least far more so than from any MUM-based tautology).

[Cal Wright]

Correct me if I am wrong, but when the Death Star Superlaser shot the planet, didn't it just like hit the hell out of that bitch with a shitload of energy and Alderaan went up like a baby in a microwave?

[Vympel]

Yup. Unfortunately since the Death Star proves beyond a shadow of a dobut how Federation technology is in all relevant war-making fields is utterly feeble compared to the Empire, desperate people like Darkstar must make up some sort of ridiculous technobabble 'trick' by which the Death Star destroyed Alderaan and scattered its mass.

[CmdrWilkens]

Correct me if I am wrong, but when the Death Star Superlaser shot the planet, didn't it just like hit the hell out of that bitch with a shitload of energy and Alderaan went up like a baby in a microwave?

That is the understanding that 99.9999999999% {note this is not an actual number but rather one drawn to make a point) of the populace has however DarkStar advanced his theory for one reason: The planar rings from the SE. His basic premise is that DET fails to explain the planar rings and thus some other mechanism must exist to create this planar ring and it is his "MUM."

Some other problems:

Both the MUM and DET without supernova-esque planar rings theories require some unknown mechanims to create the rings. In other words if we don't accept the supernova planar rings then we are left with an unexplained phenomenon in BOTH theories. Both MUM and DET require some agent to create the rings but, here's where it gets tricky:
1) The MUM requires that the agent both create the rings AND set off a mysterious chain reaction to destory the planet
2) DET requires some unknown agent create the rings and you still throw enough energy at the thing to blow it apart.

Ask yourself which is simpler.

Now the whole sueprnova planar rings thing i have no knowledge of but I reiterate that DarkStar's MUM has more unknowns than DET plus an extra spice which creates the rings thus making DET plus spice more preferable as a theory.

[Patrick Degan]

Now the whole sueprnova planar rings thing i have no knowledge of but I reiterate that DarkStar's MUM has more unknowns than DET plus an extra spice which creates the rings thus making DET plus spice more preferable as a theory.

John Boatwright's theory of supernova planar ring formation, found at http://home.teleport.com/~salad/snpro/ , attempts to proffer a model by which stellar material flowing along equatorial plasma currents would, under the pressures induced by the supernova blast, experience a fission reaction in the heavier-than-iron elements being generated, thus producing ring-like ejecta which would propagate outward at high velocities imparted by the blast of the star itself.

Now, the situation at Alderaan would not be quite comparable to a supernova blast for obvious reasons. The analogy to Mr. Boatwright's theory was offered as a demonstration that planar ring phenomena accompanying highly-energetic events do not depend upon physics-defying Mysterious Unknown Mechanisms to make them work.

In the case of the Alderaan blast, the explanation I presented was that Alderaan's rotational momentum would continue even after the planet itself began to break apart, violently, and that matter along the equatorial axis of the planet would be subsequently ejected tangentially outward by means of Angular Momentum Transfer while also being driven to much greater velocities by the force of the blast shattering the planet.

The mechanism offered is based upon the observation that all astronomical planar ring phenomenae, no matter what type they might be (i.e. planetary ring systems, accretion disks, supernova ring ejecta, etc.) share two commmon properties: that they are conformed to the body's equatorial plane, and that their characteristics are goverened by Angular Momentum Transfer from the body around which they form.

Suffice to say, this does not require any physics-defying MUM as its generator.

[Cal Wright]

Yay, I'm not in the minority! I would think the rotational spin of the planet would help throw matter out into a ring as such. Wouldn't that sort of go along with say planetary rings, like Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus? If there wasn't something to do with the spin and gravitational pull of a planet, then they should just have a debris field scattered all over correct?

[His Divine Shadow]

Ofcourse the theory also falls due to simple evidence.
================
"The Death Star must feature a single weapon of mass destruction. This
weapon must emit energy of such a degree as to rock a target planet to its
very core."
================
-Death Star Technical Manual

It flat out states it's DET.

[EmperorMing]

I could buy the Rings-Are-Ejecta-Formed-Buy-Angular-Momentum theory..(or something similar... )

Makes simple sense, right?

[Darth Wong]

Darkstar is using classic sci-fi weenie debate tactics:

1. Invent meaningless theory not to solve problem (it does not explain the mystery it purports to solve), but to promote pet viewpoint
2. Ignore contradictory observations
3. When backed into a corner, use Google to find fascinating quantum physics trivia which you do not understand and then fling it at your opponent in a desperate attempt to seem knowledgeable.

I've seen this a thousand times before.

[Chris OFarrell]

Darkstar is using classic sci-fi weenie debate tactics:

1. Invent meaningless theory not to solve problem (it does not explain the mystery it purports to solve), but to promote pet viewpoint
2. Ignore contradictory observations
3. When backed into a corner, use Google to find fascinating quantum physics trivia which you do not understand and then fling it at your opponent in a desperate attempt to seem knowledgeable.

I've seen this a thousand times before.

Um I've been busy with work the last few months so I've only been seeing bits and peices of the whole DS thing over here, but whats the problem?

I mean there are at least three or four offical soures which preaty clearly states either directly or implicitly that the DS works on simple DET. So why is this still going on? The Rings are simply an anomoly that are unexplained and irrelevent to the whole question of DET......

Anyone wana fill me in?

[Mr Bean]

Darkstar looks for absoulty anything that could possible vaugly weaken SW and trys to work it over to favor his side

It all runs back to the classic Treky aurgment that the DS used a Magic Trick not Raw power(1E38) to blast the planet to bits and this is just another attempt

[adam warlock]

in short:

his theory: superlaser turns planetary matter into some fuel for its own explosive destruction, through some unknown process.

evidence: the rings..

[EmperorMing]

I think it's already been at least hinted at if not outright stated that it does blow up a planet through pure firepower.

[DarkStar]

Inflamiatory Post Deleted
~Mr Bean

[SirNitram]

Darkstar is using classic sci-fi weenie debate tactics:

1. Invent meaningless theory not to solve problem (it does not explain the mystery it purports to solve), but to promote pet viewpoint
2. Ignore contradictory observations
3. When backed into a corner, use Google to find fascinating quantum physics trivia which you do not understand and then fling it at your opponent in a desperate attempt to seem knowledgeable.

I've seen this a thousand times before.

Um I've been busy with work the last few months so I've only been seeing bits and peices of the whole DS thing over here, but whats the problem?

I mean there are at least three or four offical soures which preaty clearly states either directly or implicitly that the DS works on simple DET. So why is this still going on? The Rings are simply an anomoly that are unexplained and irrelevent to the whole question of DET......

Anyone wana fill me in?

Nothing much, Chris. Guardian 2000 has come back as Dark Star, and has apparantly reached the conclusion of his flash-learning as a Timothy Jones(THUNDERCRASH) clone. He refuses to accept Lucasfilm's canon policy, refuses to concede the most minor points(He once spun out three pages on how Vader's neck might be NORMAL for humans in SW!), and generally being a stupid, stupid troll.

[TheDarkling]

Yoiu missed the past tense there Sirnitram.

[SirNitram]

Yoiu missed the past tense there Sirnitram.

Hey, I thought he'd grow some balls.

[CmdrWilkens]

Um I've been busy with work the last few months so I've only been seeing bits and peices of the whole DS thing over here, but whats the problem?

I mean there are at least three or four offical soures which preaty clearly states either directly or implicitly that the DS works on simple DET. So why is this still going on? The Rings are simply an anomoly that are unexplained and irrelevent to the whole question of DET......

Anyone wana fill me in?

The basic gist of DarkStar/G2K's arguemnt is that DET will not produce rings and since we see rings it obviously can't be DET. In his world this immediately leads to the physics defying MUM but neh.

[SPOOFE]

RE: DS's MUM theory...

Another of his points is that since there were two rings, this proves that some matter-eating mechanism was at play. His theory goes that the first ring was created when the MEM started, and the second was created when it finished... since it was a faster ring, it had more power behind it, and thus was caused when the majority of the planet was "eaten".

However, this phenomenon is simply addressed to stay in line with DET to say that the initial blast was the destruction of the outer crust, and the shockwave that propagated through the planet to the far side, and the second ring was caused by the destruction of the heavier/denser materials, i.e.- the core.

Simple.

Chris...

I mean there are at least three or four offical soures which preaty clearly states either directly or implicitly that the DS works on simple DET.

Darkstar doesn't accept anything that wasn't in a movie, script, novelisation, or radio drama. He bases this on the Lucas quote that describes the EU as a "parallel univerese", but ignores the part (in the same quote, mind you), where Lucas says that this parallel universe "intrudes in between the movies"... i.e.- that the EU takes standing as long as they don't contradict the movies, which remains consistent with every single other Lucas quote (like at the beginning of [i}Splinter of the Mind's Eye[/i]) and Lucasfilm declaration on the subject.

[Kahlis]

Gosh, I'm almost regretful I wasn't here to witness the Darkstar Incident..

Once again, utterly hilarious.