StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Okay, I am having an all out argument in the AoL sim chatrooms about the god damned star destroyer. I've tried using the fucking search on this damn board to find our old thread about a star destroyer. could someone please give me a hand. Thanks

What's the argument? If it's the age old globe crap, does it really matter?

The shields went down due to concentrated fire from the Rebel fleet- the globes exploding were a symptom, not a cause.

"Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer!"

It's right there in the canon.

Obviously, the 'shield generator' crowd is unfamiliar with eliptical editing, as well. I wonder if they also think that saying that the Death Star approached Yavin 4 in far less then 30 real-time minutes is more reliable than the movie's time.

Not to mention that the generators would still be under the shields, so that they'd need to be knocked out by heavy capship fire anyway before they could be hit by fighters. It's such a worn-out brainbug inspired by either WEG's shoddy research or the video games' need for easy outs.

The A-wings destroyed the globes without apparent impediment by the shields. Therefore, the shields were already down when the globes were destroyed.

Right. What's driving me to hammer this one in, is it's about the chat sim. What's worse, is the guy I'm arguing with claims to know as much as you can about a Star Destroyer, and we went fucking nuts back and forth. He kept crying that it's right there in the movie. I might just give up because when I started getting the upperhand he cried I was using the Tech Coms bullshit.

I say crush him.

When in doubt, turn to Dr. Saxton:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/towers.html#globes

I can't do that. He turned his fucking nose up at the TC. If it gets bad enough I'll hammer it into his fucking brain, we're usually on really good terms, but I'm an asshole and I've never really been on the 'vets' side of things anyways.

If he's being an asshole, why can't you? He claims to be an expert on the ISD (if I read it right), so why can't you resort to knowledgable people in the field (Dr. Saxtion)? Better yet, if he were the expert he claims to be, then he should already know those weren't shield domes, and would be able to accept Saxton's TC.
He's pulling a Darkstar on you, my friend. He's raising a WoI and going LALALALALALA!

Its easy to see why people think the domes are shield generators. I'm sure about everyone here believed that until being brainwashed otherwise. The action sequences seem to imply them as generators and after believing for over a decade that those 2 a-wings blew up a shield generator its hard to believe anything else.

Are you implying that thinking them to be sensor globes instead of shield generators means that we're all "brainwashed"?

Because that's what it sounds like.

Galaxy wrote:Its easy to see why people think the domes are shield generators.

Only if you don't understand logical fallacies or why they are invalid.

I'm sure about everyone here believed that until being brainwashed otherwise.

Speak for yourself asshole.

The action sequences seem to imply them as generators and after believing for over a decade that those 2 a-wings blew up a shield generator its hard to believe anything else.

And ignoring Ackbar's order to concentrate ALL fire on the Executor, and accepting a textbook example of a false cause fallacy.

I'll say it again. Galaxy, feel free to refute this logic.

The A-wings fired on the globes and destroyed them. Therefore, the shields must have been down, else the shields would have deflected the fire. Therefore, the shields were down anyway, regardless of the A-wings. Therefore, one cannot make the claim that the globes are shield generators from ROTJ footage.

One could point out that the domes/globes would only be "Shield generators" on certain kinds of Star Destroyers - and probably multi-function (on Executor-class, they also serve communication functions - which given that the Executor Bridge tower is nearly identical to the ISD bridge tower, probably makes sense) There are also certain kinds of "globes (like in the EGV&V on the Victory-class) that affect targeting. It stands to reason that FTL communications and sensors (active, at least) require shields to be raised and lowered. Having a set of shield systems tied to that network probably makes sense (coordination, and the ability to selectively lower only *part* of the shield without exposing the entire ship. We do know canonically as well that SW shields tend to be many-sectioned segments that themselves form much larger facings. ("gaps" for example can appear in them without losing an entire facing, and entire facings can go down without losing all the shields.)

On the matter of the globes atop the bridge tower affecting targeting, has anyone ever used the spacing between the globes as a possible measure of the effective weapons range of an ISD?

If one were to assume that the globes are part of a jamming-resistant targeting and rangefinding system, then the paired globes would almost certainly determine range based on parallax. The Executor did not mount substantially heavier weapons that the common ISDs, just many, many more of them. That means that the Executor's guns would reach about as far as those of an ISD, and thus should have the same rangefinding requirements, which would then explain at least a small part of why the Executor's bridge tower was so small relative to its size.

But, to get back to the topic, even if the globes atop the bridge tower were supposed to be deflector field projectors, that does not necessarily defy simple logic.

Here's my proposed sequence of events:

The A-Wings are made aware the fact that the Executor's bridge deflector shields (and possibly others) have gone down.

Since Star Wars capital ships can potentially restore shielding in a matter of seconds, the A-Wings decide to make hay while the sun shines and do an attack run on the projectors. With the projectors destroyed, the techs swapping out the burned out boards of the deflector shield generator and restarting the system will do exactly nothing.

With the projector system gone, the shields become impossible to restore. What had started as a momentary loss of shielding becomes a permanent loss.

Thus, the A-Wings would not have taken the shields down. They would have instead kept the shields down permanently.

Patrick Ogaard wrote:On the matter of the globes atop the bridge tower affecting targeting, has anyone ever used the spacing between the globes as a possible measure of the effective weapons range of an ISD?

If one were to assume that the globes are part of a jamming-resistant targeting and rangefinding system, then the paired globes would almost certainly determine range based on parallax. The Executor did not mount substantially heavier weapons that the common ISDs, just many, many more of them. That means that the Executor's guns would reach about as far as those of an ISD, and thus should have the same rangefinding requirements, which would then explain at least a small part of why the Executor's bridge tower was so small relative to its size.

That's an interesting ideia, but with one problem, a gun on the bow of the Executor, will have a greater range than allowed for the globes, if they are the primary targetin system. On an ISD, that might not be a problem, a mile is irrelevant for the ranges involved, but 8 miles might be... Specially, if the globes are separated by the same distance.
The ideia is good, mind you, but still needs a little tinkering.

Galaxy wrote:Its easy to see why people think the domes are shield generators. I'm sure about everyone here believed that until being brainwashed otherwise. The action sequences seem to imply them as generators and after believing for over a decade that those 2 a-wings blew up a shield generator its hard to believe anything else.

What a fine example in false cause. The shields went down after Ackbar ordered to "concentrate all fire on the Super Star Destroyer", and I'm sure 2 A-wings don't qualify as "all firepower".

Also, the sensor dome theory is consistent with hte Falcon avoiding detection by landing on the back of the bridge. And they also bear a resemblance to the scanner globes on many modern warships.

oh shit oh shit oh shit. Needa cries for the sheilds when the Falcon begins it's attack run. If they were generators, the sheilds would have been over the bridge quicker than any area of the ship, and thus the falcon could not have landed. Dont give me the ray shit, why raise ray shielding to block a particle object. Point one. Point two, I did put it in his face. He tried a misquote, luckily I have RotJ on Kazaa (I have it on widescreen, panscan, vhs all types of shit, dont' get your feathers ruffled.) "Sir we've lost our bridge defelctor sheilds', were he said the rest of the sentence mentioned generators. I called him on that one, plus the officer checks the monitor screen after the bridge rocks then reports it. I pointed out that all we know is that he checked the monitor to know the sheilds were down. maybe nothing more than a big 0% sheilds readin.

This domes thing is bullshit. How come NO OTHER SHIP APART FROM STAR DESTROYERS have globes for shield generators? Are we to assume that the millions of other ships in SW are unshielded? Or do we assume that the globes are perhaps something that a Star Destroyer needs that other ships don't mount like perhaps sensor blockers? I seem to remember Skywalker mentioning them when he went head to head with the Chimera in the Heir to the Empire.