Deconstructing the Seismic Charge--how exactly does it work?

[Connor MacLeod]

New essential guide to weapons and technology for the seismic charge. The second edition encylopedia for the second one, although that one is so full of stupid shit that I try not to think about it if I can. I swear half the shit was ripped off the wiki.

[Shroom Man 777]

Anyway. SpessMareen#. Listen to me.

You keep on asking us details on this and that. Details on 40k and SW whatevers because you want to write something. Details on OWS because you wanna know more. Etc.

Anyway, in this particular thread, you are asking technical explanations for the seismic charge and definitions of what the hell "rarefied" means.

Presumably because you're interested in sci-fis and maybe you want to write stuff of your own.

Let me tell you that these technical explanations of seismic charges in these SW wikis and Inedible Colon Sections and whatnot are horrible.

If you write a story and describe something like a seismic charge with more than one paragraph, or with multiple boring paragraphs, getting too detailed on these kinds of description can also be horrible.

And if you fill it with useless technical jargon like "rarefied" because you want it to sound cool, and you yourself don't know what the hell these terms actually mean, and you're doing this seriously, then it might also end up being horrible.

It's hard to pull off a detailed technical-sounding description of sci-fi doohickeys without being horrible.

In fact, a "show not tell" approach is better.

See, how you are en-awesomed by watching the seismic charge's effects in that awesome action sequence in AOTC. It was holy shit woah cool radical groooovy maaaan. Right?

But notice when Connor MacLeod and other guys here in this thread actually post the SW EU ICS encyclopedia explanations of the seismic charge's mechanics, it's not holy shit woah cool radical groooovy maaaan.

It's actually pretty shit. The technical craps of the seismic charges were actually pretty lame. I dunno about you, but I think I could've gone on living without hearing shit like "rarefied collapsion ionized planar gasses". The seismic charge exploderization special effect awesomes would've still been awesome without that kind of lame.

Anyway. Not once in the original Star Wars movies did they even bother to explain how their crap works. They just did it, without anyone ever saying rarefied ionized inverse plane nonsense. We just had Nah Olso and Bluke Blarwalker and Brewbacca and Leela Organoid and Darth Dader do all sorts of awesome stuffs, and we were sucked into this great adventure and nobody cared how the proton torpedoes worked at all.

[Dooey Jo]

Well I don't know about you, but my life was greatly enriched by reading "it creates a vacuum in space that sucks victims in".

A vacuum

in spaaaaace!

Apart from outright stating it contains a powerful vacuum cleaner, I don't know how you could come up with a more retarded explanation of something that's not even seen in the film.

[Shroom Man 777]

Isn't that Space Balls?

[Boeing 757]

WTF , are they truly meant to be "sonic" mines in space? What a crock of shit.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's totally the music of the spheres man. The sound of the cosmic symphony in harmony with the revolution of the planes, man.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

It's totally the music of the spheres man. The sound of the cosmic symphony in harmony with the revolution of the planes, man.

What do you see when you dream? Is it the surface of the Sun? Every time I shut my eyes... it's always the same.

[Ryag Han]

maybe its time we stop taking every name literary and just assume the Seismic Charge is more of a name than a description. or maybe it gets its name from actually being used mostly as a Seismic weapon on the surface of a planet, for whatever reason...much more reasonable that "a space bomb that uses seismic shock waves!"

its just a weapon that channels most of its blast as a disk in order to be used as a, you know, ground weapon! Jango just wanted to win some distance between him and Obi Wan.

[Shroom Man 777]

Since the weapon yields at several gigatons and is called 'seismic charge', we can assume that it is used for terraforming to induce rapid continental drift on subjected planets. Its 2D attack vector could be used by Corellian mega-architects to sculpt continents into aesthetically pleasing shapes, sizes and forms. Now in the EU interesting backstories, Jango got the seismic charges as a gift after he did a job for a famous Corellian mega-architect who wanted a notable Coruscanti pundit - who gave his continental sculptures bad reviews, labeling it "post-galactic far far away futurist art" - dead.

[Connor MacLeod]

No no no. you're supposed to bury the charge, and then surf across the resulting underground shockwave that ripples the ground around you. It was clearly designed for EXTREME SPORTS in mind, and screw the ecologicla devastation!

[Shroom Man 777]

This debate resulted in the doctrinal schisms between the Worldscaping Monks of Corellia 51 and the Worldskating Nuns of Corellia 99, resulting in a long ass bloody interstellar war wherein the worlds between both planets were torn to pieces by barrage after barrage of seismic charges, resulting in a great asteroid field of marvelously sculpted shattered continents and hemispheres that are now sacred pilgrimage sites of both intergalactic faiths and verse-renowned tourist spots still replete with unexploded warheads.

I guess the war ended when the Arch Monk of Corell and the Mother Superior of the Galacto-Convent both had an epiphany and fucked each other's brains out in the middle of a warzone filled with exploding planets.