Karen Traviss' Bloodlines

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-08-31 10:42pm

exact quote is

page 246 wrote: Rogue Squadron maintained formation behind Jacen's XJ7 as the fighters partolled an exclusion zone around Corellia. It took five standard hours to circle the planet at maximum speed.

Given the later description, I was a bit hasty, its a little higher, but still 2 km/s

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-08-31 10:47pm

Ender wrote:
Given the later description, I was a bit hasty, its a little higher, but still 2 km/s

How large is the exclusion zone? Do we know? "Maximum speed", what a ...

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-08-31 11:06pm

Holy crap. As I mentioned earlier, her description of hyperdrive is distinctly sub C. It could have just been put down to realyl bad writing. Nope.

Bloodlines, page 253 wrote: He hit the hyperspace jump control once and hit it again almost a heartbeat later.
In a second Slave 1 accelerated from a few thousnad kilometers per hour to half the speed of light, and then decellerated again. Fett's stomach felt as if it had detached from his body.
It was the equivlent of slamming the ship into a rock face, but it punched Slave 1 past the blockade fast enough to show up on a scanner as nothing more then a burst of energy.

Hyperdrives only go to .5 C. And its clear that is hyperdrive, not just the acceleration up to it, it appeared only as a burst of energy whereas if it were in real space they would have tracked it.

Chirst, this is worse then the 3 million clones deal.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2006-08-31 11:33pm

Ender wrote:Tops speed of the XJ7 is apparently a super fast 2,234 m/s.

In ANH the X-wings had to hit about .1 C.

She evidently didn't bother to consider with her co-writers, since Troy Denning regularly had X-wings treavling at near-c velocities in Star by Star.

Its also a wonder ships can escape planets if their top speed were merely 2 km/s.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2006-08-31 11:36pm

Ender wrote:Holy crap. As I mentioned earlier, her description of hyperdrive is distinctly sub C. It could have just been put down to realyl bad writing. Nope.

Bloodlines, page 253 wrote: He hit the hyperspace jump control once and hit it again almost a heartbeat later.
In a second Slave 1 accelerated from a few thousnad kilometers per hour to half the speed of light, and then decellerated again. Fett's stomach felt as if it had detached from his body.
It was the equivlent of slamming the ship into a rock face, but it punched Slave 1 past the blockade fast enough to show up on a scanner as nothing more then a burst of energy.
Hyperdrives only go to .5 C. And its clear that is hyperdrive, not just the acceleration up to it, it appeared only as a burst of energy whereas if it were in real space they would have tracked it.

Chirst, this is worse then the 3 million clones deal.

That actually might be explainable. A few other novels (early ones) like Hutt Gambit and Assault on Corellia had similar cases (sublight accecleration.) Rather amusingly, it implies an acceleration of some 30-60 million gees, if I'm not mistaken (half the speed of light in half a second, then deceleration in a similar timeframe.)

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2006-08-31 11:53pm

Vympel wrote:Huh? 2.2km/s in space is its top speed? It says that? That's stupid, there's no speed limit in space. Or did it mean in atmosphere? Which is still stupidly low (8,000km/h or thereabouts, far less than that of an ARC-170).

Interestingly enough, that's about the same speed as the real life X-15. Perhaps she simply based it off what she thought the realistic performance of a space fighter would be? After all, we all know her attitude toward in-universe source material is lackadaisal at best. One might almost say it was in-character for her, although this would be more a Kube-McDowell type inconsistency.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2006-09-01 02:57am

Ender wrote:exact quote is

page 246 wrote: Rogue Squadron maintained formation behind Jacen's XJ7 as the fighters partolled an exclusion zone around Corellia. It took five standard hours to circle the planet at maximum speed.
Given the later description, I was a bit hasty, its a little higher, but still 2 km/s

If that would be atmospheric speed it would be an improvement over the 1,050 kilometers/hour of the X-Wing (number is from Wookiepedia, so forgive me it it is wrong).

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-09-01 03:09am

If that would be atmospheric speed it would be an improvement over the 1,050 kilometers/hour of the X-Wing

That's atmospheric speed. It's also far too low- the ARC-170 can do 52,000kph.

In a second Slave 1 accelerated from a few thousnad kilometers per hour to half the speed of light, and then decellerated again. Fett's stomach felt as if it had detached from his body.
It was the equivlent of slamming the ship into a rock face, but it punched Slave 1 past the blockade fast enough to show up on a scanner as nothing more then a burst of energy.

Looks like a tactical microjump to me.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2006-09-01 04:58am

Vympel wrote:
If that would be atmospheric speed it would be an improvement over the 1,050 kilometers/hour of the X-Wing

That's atmospheric speed. It's also far too low- the ARC-170 can do 52,000kph.

I know that official stats make the ARC-170 more than fifty times faster than the X-Wing. I meant it would be an improvement on the official number we have until now.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2006-09-01 12:57pm

Vympel wrote:
Ender wrote:
Given the later description, I was a bit hasty, its a little higher, but still 2 km/s
How large is the exclusion zone? Do we know? "Maximum speed", what a ...

That's what I'm wondering. Are they a few hundred km above the planet surface? A few thousand? Hopefully, it's the latter (or more), because if it's the former, then that means that Sputnik 1 could outrun the fighters in orbit.

lance · Post by **lance** » 2006-09-01 01:42pm

Could their be a speed limit over cities or somesuch?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-09-01 02:02pm

Vympel wrote:Looks like a tactical microjump to me.

Except micro jumps STILL GO FASTER THEN LIGHT.

And peopel the Xwings are in space flying in a cube pattern around the planet between it and its shipyards.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2006-09-01 05:16pm

Ender wrote:
Vympel wrote:Looks like a tactical microjump to me.
Except micro jumps STILL GO FASTER THEN LIGHT.

And peopel the Xwings are in space flying in a cube pattern around the planet between it and its shipyards.

It could be a jump to lightspeed with zero FTL acceleration, then dropping to realspace, using purely the sublight acceleration/deceleration to actually cross the distance. The total distance covered would be what.. a full light second?

Edit: actually the quote as presnted doesn't really actually describe a "crossing" into lightspeed.. just a massive sublight acceleration and deceleration (which can occur pre-jump) The "Half-the speed of light" nonsense could be explained in the process being cut off before the total "ramp-up" accel to light-speed is achieved (that is, they got partway up to the neccesary velocity, killed the jump, and then the ship decelerated itself.)

Its still kinda dumb, but as I mentioned there are a few precedents, and i know a few people like Wayne have suggested the idea (maybe Traviss stole it from him?

)

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-09-01 05:54pm

Ender wrote:Holy crap. As I mentioned earlier, her description of hyperdrive is distinctly sub C. It could have just been put down to realyl bad writing. Nope.

Bloodlines, page 253 wrote: He hit the hyperspace jump control once and hit it again almost a heartbeat later.
In a second Slave 1 accelerated from a few thousnad kilometers per hour to half the speed of light, and then decellerated again. Fett's stomach felt as if it had detached from his body.
It was the equivlent of slamming the ship into a rock face, but it punched Slave 1 past the blockade fast enough to show up on a scanner as nothing more then a burst of energy.
Hyperdrives only go to .5 C. And its clear that is hyperdrive, not just the acceleration up to it, it appeared only as a burst of energy whereas if it were in real space they would have tracked it.

Chirst, this is worse then the 3 million clones deal.

No, it looks like she's saying that he only punched it long enough for part of the ramp-up to hyperspace. She even gives rough duration: one heartbeat, and we know that typical human heartrate is somewhere between 60 and 80, depending on how fit he is. The problem is that I don't think it actually takes anywhere near a second for a ship to accelerate to beyond c.

Another rather obvious problem is that their sensors supposedly couldn't tell the difference between a ship passing by and a burst of energy, which doesn't make any sense. Even at 0.5c, a physical object will still create radar reflections and it will emit various forms of radiation, whereas a directed burst of energy (ie- a light pulse) would not.

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2006-09-01 07:42pm

Oh, thank the Force that you were able to explain it away like that... I was starting to contemplate swearing off the Star Wars franchise (I still thing with her as a writer it's headed in a crappy direction).

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-09-01 08:04pm

Of course we don't need to be literal about the word "heartbeat". It could easily mean 'instant', 'moment' or other such technically undefined short length of time.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-09-01 10:35pm

Darth Servo wrote:Of course we don't need to be literal about the word "heartbeat". It could easily mean 'instant', 'moment' or other such technically undefined short length of time.

There is, however, the logical problem inherent in this idea, where the acceleration curve of a ship entering hyperspace is totally inappropriate for the task, and the nonsensical claim that the ship would become radar-invisible as a result of moving at 0.5c (thus ignoring the entire necessity for an acceleration curve) is just hand-waving bullshit.

LordShaithis · Post by **LordShaithis** » 2006-09-01 11:15pm

I'm starting to turn into a movies-only purist. The EU ratio of quality content to headache-inducing bullshit is way too miniscule.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-09-02 02:04am

Mike and Connor:

I considered the "thay are just accelerating" answerm but the problem is the "burst of energy" line. We know from the Black Fleet Crisis series that enetering or emerging from hyperspace is accompinied by a flash of radiation (termed Cronau radiation). The ship did go into hyperspace then.

Further, even if we try to write that off as "the burst of energy just means the engine flare", we have the fact that earlier, the Millenium Flacon took long enough for a couple to have a page long conversation to cover 250,000 km while in hyperspace. I've tried timing myself speaking the lines outloud, and the conversation takes several seconds (2-5 seconds). That puts hyperspace in the same ballpark.

We have two seperate instances in this book showing that hyperspace has you move at less then C. And there is not a great deal one can do to try and work around that.

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2006-09-02 03:57am

LordShaithis wrote:I'm starting to turn into a movies-only purist. The EU ratio of quality content to headache-inducing bullshit is way too miniscule.

I've started to have some doubts as well. Although I'm very well aware of the LFL canon policy, I don't think that the continuity people are doing a very good job. I understand that they don't want to put too much restrictions on authors, but... As it is now, I have no plans whatsoever of buying any novels etc. The only thing I plan to buy is the "Complete Incredible Cross-Sections of Vehicles" next year.

Anyway, a few highlights from the OS KT thread as a response to a question about the negative reviews on Bloodlines (+http://forums.starwars.com/post!reply.j ... D=13153603):

I don't read reviews and - this is going to sound odd - I don't take any notice of praise, let alone slagfests. I used to be a film critic. That should tell you everything you need to know about my stance on opinion.

Oh yes, she doesn't care about praise and doesn't read reviews. Why? She has been a film critic!

The usual Talifan rant:

However, I suspect you're referring to certain forums where it's criticism of me as a person that's going on - and I don't tolerate that. It's no secret that there's a group of about a dozen trolls running a hate campaign - stalking, violent hate videos, abuse, obscenities, libel, posting garbage on wikis/ Wookieepedia, trashing my colleagues' blogs if I'm mentioned on them - whose public pledge is, and I quote, to end my career. Dream on, kiddies.

Oh yes, people are "trashing" blogs...

When is making a comment on a blog where people are attacked "trashing" a blog?

Bottom line is this: I'm a journalist by background, and that's a very hard school. If I'm not intimidated by cabinet ministers, a few trolls hiding in their mums' basements aren't even going to interrupt my tea break.

Speaks well for itself (this was the second time in the post that she mentioned her journalist background).

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2006-09-02 04:11am

What exactly is intimidating about a cabinet minister? Try telling a person who you KNOW murdered someone last week you can't get his bike in for service. Now THAT is intimidating.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-09-02 05:07am

Much like Bill O'Reilly, she needs to constantly exaggerate her knowledge and create enemies in order to exaggerate her own sense of self-importance.

Karen, let me explain something to you since you're obviously too fucking stupid to understand. This is not about YOU. It's about Star Wars, and the way that you're fucking it up with your shitty writing. If somebody else came in and did the same things, we'd say the same things about them. It's about the material, but you would rather pretend it's some kind of horrible persecution campaign than what it really is: a natural fan reaction to a hack writer who's fucking up a beloved sci-fi franchise by writing with a cavalier disregard for continuity.

And stop saying "I'm a journalist"; it doesn't impress anyone with a brain. Bill O'Reilly is a journalist too, and he's an idiot. The fact that you think it's unreasonable to be upset over factual accuracy tells me that if you were a journalist, you must have been a shitty one.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2006-09-02 05:09am

Mange wrote:
LordShaithis wrote:I'm starting to turn into a movies-only purist. The EU ratio of quality content to headache-inducing bullshit is way too miniscule.
I've started to have some doubts as well. Although I'm very well aware of the LFL canon policy, I don't think that the continuity people are doing a very good job. I understand that they don't want to put too much restrictions on authors, but... As it is now, I have no plans whatsoever of buying any novels etc. The only thing I plan to buy is the "Complete Incredible Cross-Sections of Vehicles" next year.

For the continuity-people to be able to do a better job it would be necessary for them to have the technical expertise AND care about those issues instead of just making sure, that Luke has a green lightsaber and not a blue one.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2006-09-02 05:34am

whose public pledge is, and I quote, to end my career.

Yes, it's not enough with SW, I never want to see another... uhm... uh... "Wess'Har Series" book from her ever again!

Conspiracies!

It's no secret that there's a group of about a dozen trolls running a hate campaign

But Traviss, I thought there were only six and they didn't matter? Dear oh dear.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2006-09-02 05:40am

VT-16 wrote:
whose public pledge is, and I quote, to end my career.
Yes, it's not enough with SW, I never want to see another... uhm... uh... "Wess'Har Series" book from her ever again! Conspiracies!

It's no secret that there's a group of about a dozen trolls running a hate campaign
But Traviss, I thought there were only six and they didn't matter? Dear oh dear.

KT: "Six trolls or a dozen, who cares? I certainly don't."