Fully armed and operational Death Star

[Slartibartfast]

When I think about how quickly the Death Stars were destroed (a couple of shots to the reactor), I mean the whole damn thing with millions of people in it practically destroys itself almost completely because of its own power source, in seconds (DS1) or minutes (DS2) I have the following doubt:

If during the battle of Endor, the Death Star II would have been effectively unoperational (as spy reports said) would the Rebel attack have been able to blow its reactor up? I mean if it was turned off probably it wouldn't have destroyed it, unless hypermatter is that flammable even if it's not being used...

Or maybe they were planning on attacking it from the outside with capital ships, taking possibly hours to blow it up?

[Guest]

It's a good thing that the Death Stars' reactors were not as dangerous as the Federation's warp cores.

[Dooey Jo]

When I think about how quickly the Death Stars were destroed (a couple of shots to the reactor), I mean the whole damn thing with millions of people in it practically destroys itself almost completely because of its own power source, in seconds (DS1) or minutes (DS2) I have the following doubt:

If during the battle of Endor, the Death Star II would have been effectively unoperational (as spy reports said) would the Rebel attack have been able to blow its reactor up? I mean if it was turned off probably it wouldn't have destroyed it, unless hypermatter is that flammable even if it's not being used...

Or maybe they were planning on attacking it from the outside with capital ships, taking possibly hours to blow it up?

Maybe they were going to capture it. It sure would have helped to rebellion against the empire if they had their own death star...

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I always thought by "operational" the Rebels meant its big gun was online and/or it could move around, Palpatine said "fully armed and operational battle station" when taunting Luke.

[Mr Bean]

The reactor in the final DS2 Version 2 is sealed like the DS 1 except the DS 1's Exhaust port(Probably the emergancy exhasut port at that) forgot to have the particule shielding on it.

The DS2 of coures was not sealed yet so they simply flew into the superstrucher and hit the reactor, probably they hope for that or simply hoped to drill through it and hit the reactor, somthing they simple can't do if they let it be finished

[Slartibartfast]

The reactor in the final DS2 Version 2 is sealed like the DS 1 except the DS 1's Exhaust port(Probably the emergancy exhasut port at that) forgot to have the particule shielding on it.

The DS2 of coures was not sealed yet so they simply flew into the superstrucher and hit the reactor, probably they hope for that or simply hoped to drill through it and hit the reactor, somthing they simple can't do if they let it be finished

You missed the point, I meant that if the Death Star was supposed to be offline, maybe hitting the reactor wouldn't have made it explode at all.

[Slartibartfast]

I always thought by "operational" the Rebels meant its big gun was online and/or it could move around, Palpatine said "fully armed and operational battle station" when taunting Luke.

The rebels say that it's not operational. In fact they only mention the gun not being operational, not the entire station. But if the station is under-construction, it would be natural to assume that the reactor, engines, internal shielding, whatever isn't operational either.

[greenmm]

I always thought by "operational" the Rebels meant its big gun was online and/or it could move around, Palpatine said "fully armed and operational battle station" when taunting Luke.

The rebels say that it's not operational. In fact they only mention the gun not being operational, not the entire station. But if the station is under-construction, it would be natural to assume that the reactor, engines, internal shielding, whatever isn't operational either.

But we see inside the station, before Vader and the Emperor arrive, that the lighting, environmental systems, and gravity systems are working. Otherwise, Jerjerrod and his goons would have been floating around instead of at parade rest to receive them.

It seems like how you would construct a building: work on the outside shell first, then as you start to close it off start work on the inside. The Emperor purposefully wanted to lure the Rebels to attack the DS2, so he probably had them concentrate only on the outer layer until they could start doing construction from inside, and get the reactor on-line as well. Working in a familiar, comfortable environment with full gravity makes work go a lot faster than working for a limited time in a bulky, claustrophobic suit in zero-G conditions.

[Cpt_Frank]

The Rebels assumed that it's main reactor was offline, so it wouldn't have been operational.
However the main gun obviously requires the reactor to be online, so the reactor was operational, and so was the main gun.
When building the DS you'd probably start at a point of the outer region of the structure and first build a portion of the hull, then fill it with the inner structure, build another portion of the hull, fill it with structure etc.
And since the main reactor will take some time until it's finished it will actually require at least 50% of the hull and the structure to be complete)
one could assume the sections have independent reactors that each power the basic systems (life support, lights, artificial gravity etc.) of a section.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Bean: they couldn't but particle shielding on the exhaust/heat port because then the exhaust would be more difficult/impossible to vent.

The DS2 didn't fix this with particle shielding, a sustained attack would disabled that anyway: Bevel Lemilisk, remembering his incident with the Piranha Beetles, replaced the two meter diameter exhaust port with thousands of mirco-heat-dispertion vents only 1 mm in diameter.

[Mr Bean]

Bean: they couldn't but particle shielding on the exhaust/heat port because then the exhaust would be more difficult/impossible to vent.

One could always lower the shield to vent/raise in combat situation

[CmdrWilkens]

To go back to the main question destroying the reactor without it being online would STILL have resulted in serious consequences for the DS2. For one reactor leekage is highly radioactive and the entire station would probably have been rendered uninhabitable. Secondly once the reactor is in its hard to put another one in its place, destroying the durn thing would have rendered the DS2 a huge immobile hulk of metal that is essentially useless AND which the Rebels can pound until subsidiary source of volaitle chemicals and genreators and such destroy the station.

Basically if the strike had been an effective precision strike against an undefended target it would have rendered the station something between useless hunk of metal in space and giant debris pile from pounding on it. Rememebr Ackbar planned on the Rebel fleet surrounding the DS2 and pounding it with their heavy guns, this is actually described in the novelisaiton as rocking parts of the station due to its intensity (this is after the Executor dies of course and the Rebs have freed up ships to engage the DS2).

[omegaLancer]

Apparentily the rebel hope to destroy the control mechanism of the Hypermatter reactor..Image if Hypermatter is a Neutral charge Stranglet. then the only way to prevent a runaway convertion of the normal matter to Strange matter would be to keep it heated to high temperature.

It is stated in ICS for AOTC that a Fusion reaction is used to contain the Hypermatter reaction, destroy the fusion reactor and the Hypermatter runs lose..

A run away Strange matter to matter conversion would release massive energy as it converse Nuetron and protons to Strange charm, and at the same time the death star would implose inward...

It like destroying/ removing the control rod of nuclear reactor the reactor would heat up and cause a melt down...

[Anarchist Bunny]

I thought there original intentions were to go to unarmed and offline DS and frag it with Cap ships while the fighters took out any TIEs, but when they found out it was working they, pulled the ships back and went to plan B, which was to set off the reactor if they had it online and anti-cap ship turbolasers powered.

[Lex]

When I think about how quickly the Death Stars were destroed (a couple of shots to the reactor), I mean the whole damn thing with millions of people in it practically destroys itself almost completely because of its own power source, in seconds (DS1) or minutes (DS2) I have the following doubt:

If during the battle of Endor, the Death Star II would have been effectively unoperational (as spy reports said) would the Rebel attack have been able to blow its reactor up? I mean if it was turned off probably it wouldn't have destroyed it, unless hypermatter is that flammable even if it's not being used...

Or maybe they were planning on attacking it from the outside with capital ships, taking possibly hours to blow it up?

Maybe they were going to capture it. It sure would have helped to rebellion against the empire if they had their own death star...

the rebels never wanted to capture it, such a step would have ruined them politically

[omegaLancer]

that not was said at the briefing. At the briefing, Ackbar stated that the Cruisers were to provide a condone around the DS, while fighter went in to target the core.

It very likily the secondary job of the crusier was to handle any Imperial ships encountered, since the Solo was not upset at the Super star destroyer that they encountered, and rebel must have been expecting at least a small fleet of SD to be on watch, not the 20 or so that layed in wait..

[Slartibartfast]

I always thought by "operational" the Rebels meant its big gun was online and/or it could move around, Palpatine said "fully armed and operational battle station" when taunting Luke.

The rebels say that it's not operational. In fact they only mention the gun not being operational, not the entire station. But if the station is under-construction, it would be natural to assume that the reactor, engines, internal shielding, whatever isn't operational either.

But we see inside the station, before Vader and the Emperor arrive, that the lighting, environmental systems, and gravity systems are working. Otherwise, Jerjerrod and his goons would have been floating around instead of at parade rest to receive them.

Unfortunately, unlike Spaceballs, the Rebels don't have access to the entire footage for the movie

It seems like how you would construct a building: work on the outside shell first, then as you start to close it off start work on the inside. The Emperor purposefully wanted to lure the Rebels to attack the DS2, so he probably had them concentrate only on the outer layer until they could start doing construction from inside, and get the reactor on-line as well. Working in a familiar, comfortable environment with full gravity makes work go a lot faster than working for a limited time in a bulky, claustrophobic suit in zero-G conditions.

That could make sense... now, did the Rebels simply assumed that the Death Star construction had advanced that far?

[Slartibartfast]

The Rebels assumed that it's main reactor was offline, so it wouldn't have been operational.
<snip all the part that the Rebels didn't know>

Yes, but if they assumed the main reactor was online, they couldn't have assumed that a hit to the reactor would blow the thing up, so how were they hoping to destroy it?

[Slartibartfast]

I thought there original intentions were to go to unarmed and offline DS and frag it with Cap ships while the fighters took out any TIEs, but when they found out it was working they, pulled the ships back and went to plan B, which was to set off the reactor if they had it online and anti-cap ship turbolasers powered.

ACKBAR
You can see here the Death Star orbiting the
forest Moon of Endor. Although the weapon
systems on this Death Star are not yet
operational, the Death Star does have a
strong defense mechanism. It is protected by
an energy shield, which is generated from the
nearby forest Moon of Endor. The shield must
be deactivated if any attack is to be
attempted. Once the shield is down, our
cruisers will create a perimeter, while the
fighters fly into the superstructure and
attempt to knock out the main reactor.

They were planning on hitting the reactor from the beginning.

[Slartibartfast]

Apparentily the rebel hope to destroy the control mechanism of the Hypermatter reactor..Image if Hypermatter is a Neutral charge Stranglet. then the only way to prevent a runaway convertion of the normal matter to Strange matter would be to keep it heated to high temperature.

It is stated in ICS for AOTC that a Fusion reaction is used to contain the Hypermatter reaction, destroy the fusion reactor and the Hypermatter runs lose..

A run away Strange matter to matter conversion would release massive energy as it converse Nuetron and protons to Strange charm, and at the same time the death star would implose inward...

It like destroying/ removing the control rod of nuclear reactor the reactor would heat up and cause a melt down...

I suppose it's possible that the main reactor would be as dangerous offline or online... but I doubt that anything but a full destructive explosion would have had much effect in the construction efforts. The reactor itself isn't THAT big, and you could simply make a hole and put it again (much easier than building the *whole* thing again around it)

I'm not so sure about how radioactive hypermatter is. It doesn't exactly have to be an isotope, more like a higher form of anti-matter (maybe the equivalent of matter found in hyperspace, or whatever) it might even not release dangerous radiation other than heat.

OTOH, maybe there's no such thing as an offline reactor (like a fission reactor, once it starts you can't really shut it down), and like Cpt_Frank said it could be standard procedure to use the power of the station itself to continue the building, (it would definitely be a plus to have hangars operational to be able to service the building ships or whatever it is they use to build it).

[Enlightenment]

(like a fission reactor, once it starts you can't really shut it down)

FWIW: real-world fission reactors can be shut down quite easily by dropping all the control rods into the core. Indeed, most reactors are routinely (and in the case of electric power plants, regularly) shut down for refueling.

[omegaLancer]

Hypermatter is describe in ICS for AOTC as being very compact. In physics there is a also a form of matter called Hypermatter. It is matter where strange quarks are found..

Strange quarks while be more massive than up and down quarks found in normal matter, make more compact nucleon, cause they add a new quantum number to the nucleon make up, the nucleon actually requires less energy to stay together. A spect of dust made of this form of hypermatter ( called a Stranglet) weights thousands of tons, it heavier than Nuetronium and stable to boot..

If the created hypermatter Nucleon is positive charge it repel protons, making it hard to react with normal matter, if it has a negative or neutral charge, it can easily come in contact with the Nucleus of a normal atom. if this happpen it act as a catalysis, converting proton and neutron ( by strong force interaction) by transforming either a Up and down quark to a strange quark... This is would be a runaway reaction consuming all normal matter in come in contact.. The only saving grace is that high temperatures ( Like found in a Quark plasma or the big bang) it evaporate forming UP and down quarks...


Sooo this is why even a shut down the Hypermatter reactor is dangerous and no wonder the ICS state that the reaction is contain by a fusion reaction..

[Slartibartfast]

(like a fission reactor, once it starts you can't really shut it down)

FWIW: real-world fission reactors can be shut down quite easily by dropping all the control rods into the core. Indeed, most reactors are routinely (and in the case of electric power plants, regularly) shut down for refueling.

It's not a real real shutdown, you just kind of put it in a real real slow fission mode... or at least that's what I know.

[Enlightenment]

It's not a real real shutdown, you just kind of put it in a real real slow fission mode... or at least that's what I know.

There's still quite a bit of heat generated by radioactive decay--and lingering radioactivity due to neutron activation of everything near the reactor--but fission activity will grind to a halt