Lucasfilm to fans : Fuck You!

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Personally, I think the guy is full of shit, and purposely ignores the
Bantha Tracks article and the
STAR WARS Incredible Cross-Sectionswhich place the DS1, not the DS2, at 160km. Note he carries the party line that only the official books and Databank can be trusted.

That and he's obviously in cahoots with Dipshit.

Procedurally, he's not wrong. If he can prove that canon film shows a 160km DSII (or thereabouts), he could use the same canon over-ride rules that Saxton uses to cut out any official or even low-tier canon.

[Galvatron]

No, I believe you. That's his official position on his website as well. I was hoping for something new.

Ah. I hadn't read it in a while. He probably updated it since the last time we discussed the matter (a long time ago).

I wonder if he ever addressed the fact that the ROTJ script explicitly says it's "night" during the funeral pyre scene. It was his assertion that the celebration took place during the day, shortly after the Death Star's destruction.

I see you are anti-Holocaust yourself

Not out of any love for the Ewoks or because of some SW.com-style aversion to "tech heads," I assure you.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

No, I believe you. That's his official position on his website as well. I was hoping for something new.

Ah. I hadn't read it in a while. He probably updated it since the last time we discussed the matter (a long time ago).

I wonder if he ever addressed the fact that the ROTJ script explicitly says it's "night" during the funeral pyre scene. It was his assertion that the celebration took place during the day, shortly after the Death Star's destruction.

No, that's a new one on me. On the other hand:

1) The movie is higher than the script.
2) It is possible for it to be coming on night anyway.
3) The scriptmaker made a mistake.

SODwise, this works. Remember that in SOD, the film is the real shit. So Lucas, who obviously doesn't understand things like zillions of tons of dust coming into the atmosphere after DSII blew up, saw a dark scene and called it "night"

As a side-note, I know more than one fairly reasonable debater in SD.Net that does not subscribe to the Holocaust (SPOOFE is one of them IIRC). Generally, they do not debate the physics or the scaling. If it happened anywhere else, they would have agreed under the circumstances, the planet should be destroyed. Rather, I don't understand it, but that clan always thinks SOMETHING, SOMEHOW, must have saved Endor, even though to my memory, they had been quite unable to come up with one workable mechanism (if they did, the Endor Holocaust would be dead already).

[Gil Hamilton]

Personally, I think the guy is full of shit, and purposely ignores the
Bantha Tracks article and the
STAR WARS Incredible Cross-Sectionswhich place the DS1, not the DS2, at 160km. Note he carries the party line that only the official books and Databank can be trusted.

That and he's obviously in cahoots with Dipshit.

Being is cahoots with Dipshit doesn't automatically make him wrong. What's wrong with the geometry that he uses to scale distance and size?

[Galvatron]

Does the SOD overrule Lucasfilm policy? If Lucas himself says Endor survived, did it?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Does the SOD overrule Lucasfilm policy? If Lucas himself says Endor survived, did it?

Lucasfilm gets to dictate that the film is higher than the script. We are merely following that instruction to the letter.

SOD is a method of analyzing evidence. How fans analyze evidence is outside of Lucasfilm's grasp.

If Lucas said Endor survived ... even then, a producer can clarify an ambigious part of the film. Given Endor physics, however, under SOD analysis, Lucas' obvious intent to spare the Ewoks don't count. So short of changing the film or coming up with a workable fix, Lucas' screwed.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Does the SOD overrule Lucasfilm policy? If Lucas himself says Endor survived, did it?

Lucasfilm gets to dictate canon policy; SOD determines how one analyzes the evidence through that lens (ie. you cannot use say, comic strips for precise scaling constraints--you treat it as a drawing of what really happened which may or may not be accurate).

Anyway, SOD tells us that Lucas' comments are out-of-universe, and also we know that historically, they've been unreliable and subject to change.

Therefore I don't include Lucas' out-of-official-media commentary in any serious analysis.

[Illuminatus Primus]

And here's the anti-holocaust theory:

+http://www.swrpgnetwork.com/files/endor/

I edited your links to make them a little easier on people.

-MoO

I briefly looked through that anti-holocaust theory. It is tremendously flawed in a number of analytical aspects. I wonder if Curtis is aware of this.

Think a rebuttal may be in order?

[Connor MacLeod]

Personally, I think he makes some good points. Some of which I actually brought up to Curtis years ago.

Personally, I think the guy is full of shit, and purposely ignores the
Bantha Tracks article and the
STAR WARS Incredible Cross-Sectionswhich place the DS1, not the DS2, at 160km. Note he carries the party line that only the official books and Databank can be trusted.

What's more important is he ignores the ROTJ novelization, which states flat out that the Death STar 2 is nearly twice as big as the first Death Star, and that's when its only HALF complete.

At the feathered edge of the galaxy, the Death Star floated in stationary orbit above the green moon Endor -- a moon whose mother planet had long since died of unknown cataclysm and disappeared into unknown realms. The Death Star was the Empire's armoured battle station, nearly twice as big as its predecessor, which Rebel forces had destroyed so many years before -- nearly twice as big, but more than twice as powerful. Yet it was only half complete.

(emphasis mine)

Even if we assume that the quote refers to volume instead of diameter (although the context of the quote strongly suggests a reference to diameter - which would make the DS2 noticibly larger visually, as the quote implies.), the DS2 is at LEAST 250 km in diameter, fully completed.

In fact the only bit of evidence for a 160 km Death Star 2 is concept art from the ROTJ Sketchbook, and that isn't "canon" by his definition.

That and he's obviously in cahoots with Dipshit.

Read his SW.com profile. He is a webmaster for the SWRPGNetwork, and an apparent writer/contributer to WOTC. I suspect he's just one of those conformists attempting to defend the status quo.

Don't you just love how this guy quotes himself in his own document, too? That's arrogance for you.

[Connor MacLeod]

Also, what about the Second Death STar's fuel supplies? The DS2 was to have destroyed Endor - it clearly carried enough enegy to have induced a "holocaust" on the planet, even IF the DS2 is a ssmall as he suggests.

I also like how he just glosses over the "30 sizeable pieces of debris" and impact velocity issues. He admits they would cause what Saxton suggests, but never actually REFUTES it except by saying "I'm sure the REbels could have handled it" - he never calculates the size/mass of the debris fragments, their kinetic energy or momentum, or even botheres to acknowledge the 7 km/s lower limit Saxtone stablishes for debris velocity!
And what bout the possibility there is MORE than just 30 piecese of debris (30 pieces might suggest only what we saw, or the most visible fragments) And on top of that, he never tells us HOW they stop the debris!

[Connor MacLeod]

Curtis? Among other things, he rationalized the fireworks away as exploding debris and the night sky as impact dust clouding the atmosphere. I'm not kidding.

No, I believe you. That's his official position on his website as well. I was hoping for something new.

I see you are anti-Holocaust yourself

Not neccesarily. I'm not exactly anti-Holocaust (Its an inevitable physical consequence of canon, after all) , but there are in fact some legitimate problems with how it is rationalized (its hard to believe that they'd spend hours on Endor after the DS2 exploded, after all, and thats what the script and novelization indicate.) I'm more of the opinion that it happened, but it was not totally irreversible. (Maybe they cloned ewoks ) In fact, restoring the planet might very well have been a propoganda technique on the part of the Rebels (so as not to hurt their "humanitarian" image.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh yes, and we know that when the reactor goes up on a Death Star, it does release alot of energy (witness the destruction of the first DS in the ANH novelization. It released stellar/nova scale energies.)

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

What's more important is he ignores the ROTJ novelization, which states flat out that the Death STar 2 is nearly twice as big as the first Death Star, and that's when its only HALF complete.

Procedural fault. Saxton ALSO ignores this when he says the DSII is 900km in diameter. Since he figures DSI's diameter is 160km, even if the quote meant diameter, the DSII can be no bigger than 320km in diameter in that quote.

Both of them rationalize it the same way: The film is king. So this isn't a real point against that Gary character.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Anyway, SOD tells us that Lucas' comments are out-of-universe, and also we know that historically, they've been unreliable and subject to change.

Therefore I don't include Lucas' out-of-official-media commentary in any serious analysis.

Maybe that's why Lucas hates our crowd. With everyone else, he can change SW reality merely by saying so. With us, he has to create a new film and actually think

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh yes, and we know that when the reactor goes up on a Death Star, it does release alot of energy (witness the destruction of the first DS in the ANH novelization. It released stellar/nova scale energies.)

Nitpick: You can't take anything like nova or stellar scale energies literally; that kind of energy would sterilize Yavin, as the DS did have line-of-sight with it when it blew, and unless you're suggesting that energy was all in neutrinos (which kind of makes any comparison to impressive energy sources rather moot since neutrinos drill through everything without interaction).

[Lord Poe]

Nitpick: You can't take anything like nova or stellar scale energies literally; that kind of energy would sterilize Yavin, as the DS did have line-of-sight with it when it blew, and unless you're suggesting that energy was all in neutrinos (which kind of makes any comparison to impressive energy sources rather moot since neutrinos drill through everything without interaction).

You're forgetting IP, that the DS was even closer to the gas giant Yavin.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Nitpick: You can't take anything like nova or stellar scale energies literally; that kind of energy would sterilize Yavin, as the DS did have line-of-sight with it when it blew, and unless you're suggesting that energy was all in neutrinos (which kind of makes any comparison to impressive energy sources rather moot since neutrinos drill through everything without interaction).

You're forgetting IP, that the DS was even closer to the gas giant Yavin.

What are you talking about? He said energies. Stellar- or nova-level energy, whether it be infrared, x-ray, or gamma ray will cook Yavin IV. Yeah much of the radiation will simply be absorbed into the Yavin gas giant, but what difference will that make?

[Lord Poe]

What are you talking about? He said energies. Stellar- or nova-level energy, whether it be infrared, x-ray, or gamma ray will cook Yavin IV. Yeah much of the radiation will simply be absorbed into the Yavin gas giant, but what difference will that make?

What difference? If "much" of the radiation is absorbed into the gas giant, why will the rest fly to Yavin 4 and bombard the planet? There's (IIRC) 10 moons and countless moonlets orbiting Yavin, and the DS wasn't on top of Y4 when it blew.

[Lord Poe]

BTW, Saxton puts the DS1 at the time it had a clear shot at Y4 "on the order of one or two hundred thousand kilometres" away.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Radiation disperses very quickly in space, if I recall correctly.

[Lord Poe]

BTW, our new pal "Gary" on the sw.com message boards started a thread earlier here:

"Pablo (suck suck suck slurp) is right about Endor (proof inside)"

http://forums.starwars.com/thread.jsp?f ... ead=175666

I think a lot of people took Pablo's comments on the "Endor Holocaust" theory the wrong way, and I think a big part of the problem is that everyone assumed that Saxton was thorough and accurate in his analysis.

Unfortunately, there are several critical oversights in his analysis. For complete details, click here:

http://swrpgnetwork.com/entry.php?s=&id=1846

There are still some additional details I plan on adding to this article (e.g., I've found other evidence from the films that verifies my initial findings and further undermines Saxton's thesis), so if you're interested you might check back in a few days or a week for an update.

If you have comments or critiques, I'd love to hear it -- but please do *not* resort to an "Appeal to Authority" argument. It doesn't matter if Saxton has a PhD (i.e., his thesis should stand on its own merits, not his title). I'm only a few hours short of my PhD, anyway, so I'm not easily impressed.

[SirNitram]

I am Pro-Apocalypse Endor, as it seems to be part of Canon, and is a fun little story to boot.

(Apocalypse Endor is a comic which has a retired Stormtrooper talking about the horrors the Ewoks inflicted on his battalion, leaving just the heads, etc, etc. In the end, the Stormtrooper says 'I think I can live with it, knowing that when ten trillion tons of space station explodes over a planet, it's got one place to go. It shows a scene of debris raining on Endor.)

(Then some guy points out the Rebellion dealt with the debris with little damage to the planet.)

So there's the real story, insofar as canon is concerned. Yea, the DS2 would have fucked Endor over.. But the Rebellion is full of bleeding hearts.

[Lord Poe]

That's a SW Tales story, right? Infinities.

[Illuminatus Primus]

It is. Besides, it said they shot it down, and well, last I checked the Rebellion didn't own a "Get out of Conservation of Mass-Energy Free" Card.

[Illuminatus Primus]

What difference? If "much" of the radiation is absorbed into the gas giant, why will the rest fly to Yavin 4 and bombard the planet? There's (IIRC) 10 moons and countless moonlets orbiting Yavin, and the DS wasn't on top of Y4 when it blew.

You're talking about radiation emmission from a basically homogenous explosion in Outer Space. It will go in all directions 360 degrees about it. The only way radiation that would hit the Yavin Moon is prevented is if there is an object obstructing line-of-sight between Yavin IV and the explosion; the targeting scene from canon refutes this.

What, are all the moons and the planet now Black Hole-level gravity wells with Event Horizons expanding in all directions obscuring the moon such that all gamma rays will just magically swirl away even though there's nothing blocking line-of-sight?

You're talking about nova level energy release less than a single AU from the moon with zero LOS-obstruction. What do you think that would do to a biosphere, really?