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Ooh, whadda big bang for an ISD

Posted: 2002-07-15 05:17am
by His Divine Shadow
Anyone seen this?
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Pg. 303: "As we approach in-system, the Basilisk's small volunteer crew will begin a self-destruct countdown. The Gorgon will run interference until we reach our target, at which time we will turn aside. At full speed the Basilisk will plunge into the atmosphere of Coruscant. It will be unstoppable."

"When the Basilisk detonates..." Daala said. She paused as the planetary image flashed with a brilliant ring of fire that sent ripples igniting through the atmosphere. All the lights on the night side of the planet went dark. Cracks of fire appeared across the land masses.

"The explosion will be sufficient to level the buildings on half a continent. The shock wave traveling through the planetary core could topple cities on the other side of the world. The underground resevoirs will break open. Tidal waves will cause damage along the coasts. For the price of one Star Destroyer, we can lay waste to Coruscant."
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-Dark Apprentice

Is there any way to make any calcs on this?
It sure as hell sounds impressive.

Posted: 2002-07-15 09:06am
by Mr Bean
Yes I have, I was asumming she was talking about Kinitec energy plus loading the ship with spare explose type things

Who knows?
Its sounds Intresting though

Posted: 2002-07-15 10:30am
by His Divine Shadow
Mr Bean wrote:Yes I have, I was asumming she was talking about Kinitec energy plus loading the ship with spare explose type things

Who knows?
Its sounds Intresting though
Nah, the kinetic energy of such magnitude would required the ISD to go helluva fast, faster than any acceleration figures we have now, I always took it as an ordinary self destruct sequence, overloading the reactor IOW.

Posted: 2002-07-15 12:14pm
by Mr Bean
Well I was guessing smashing into the planet then Overloading the core, thus giving you BOTH kinetics AND the core-overload

Besides ISD have a decent top-speed they just accelrate slowyl

Posted: 2002-07-15 12:54pm
by Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi
The KE probably allowed it to ram into the ground, and the self-destruct sequence, (I'm assuming it to be in the hundreds of teratons range) would do all the damage. But, why would you do such a thing, it would kill trillions!

Posted: 2002-07-15 12:56pm
by Mr Bean
Because you Can?

This was Daala's last ditch attempt at making a Mark for Herself before going over the the Empire

Posted: 2002-07-15 04:28pm
by Eleas
"Because you Can?

This was Daala's last ditch attempt at making a Mark for Herself before going over the the Empire"


She would probably have become reviled as a mass murderer. How many of the ranking officers / warlords do you think are from the Core Systems? =)

Posted: 2002-07-15 04:58pm
by RadiO
So Daala's going to slam a perfectly good (if a little shop-soiled) ISD into a world that's the former Imperial captial (and thus probably THE Holy Grail of all the Imperial remnants)... and all because she's EEEEEVIL! Fuck strategy, intelligence and basic common sense; she's an Imperial commander, so she's automatically Goering with tits. Subtle characterisation right there.

Posted: 2002-07-15 05:13pm
by Darth Yoshi
Eleas wrote:She would probably have become reviled as a mass murderer. How many of the ranking officers / warlords do you think are from the Core Systems? =)
Remember that these were the same warlords that devastated much of Coruscant after Thrawn died.

Posted: 2002-07-15 05:42pm
by Mr Bean
Acutal I see the Warlords as welcoming her is she managed to pull this off
Beisdes why should they care they are too busy trying to kill each other off to care is someone nukes Courscant
Oh and did we mention the NR would have to pay for the Clean up?

I would be all good with this if I was a Warlord they seemed quite a petty lot when she later went and killed them all

Posted: 2002-07-15 06:11pm
by SPOOFE
I have some issues with what she says, namely: There appears to be some question on whether or not Coruscant has any oceans. Aside from what HDS quoted above, and the few mentionings in The Black Fleet Crisis, most sources described Coruscant as lacking any large bodies of water.

Furthermore, Daala's plan seems to ignore the planetary shields on Coruscant (which should, in theory, be able to withstand the attack).

Posted: 2002-07-15 06:29pm
by StarshipTitanic
The underground reseviors will MAKE the oceans. :D

Perhaps an ISD exploding would overwhelm the shield?

Posted: 2002-07-15 07:47pm
by Mr Bean
No if you read the enitre quote he did not include Daala mentions both ships firing full broadsides to break a whole in the shielding long enough Similar to what the Lusahaka did to escape Courscant

Posted: 2002-07-15 10:26pm
by David
What about the second inner sheild?

Posted: 2002-07-15 10:54pm
by Mr Bean
Thats up to the Sucide ship to breach on its own,
Or maybe after all you breahed one shield those shots that go through help the other ship because its flying through where the shield used to be
Or maybe KJA forgot about it

Posted: 2002-07-15 11:22pm
by David
Or maybe KJA forgot about it


I think I'll go with that one.

Posted: 2002-07-16 01:01am
by Eleas
"Remember that these were the same warlords that devastated much of Coruscant after Thrawn died."

Yeah, but there's a difference between causing collateral damage in order to capture a target and annihilating the entire population of a planet.

Posted: 2002-07-16 01:03am
by Eleas
"What about the second inner sheild?"

It may not exist at this point of time. Remember that Coruscant was devastated. The shield generators would have been the first to go.

Posted: 2002-07-16 01:12am
by IRG CommandoJoe
Is the ISD hyperspacing into Coruscant or just going at full sublight speed? I think it would cause the most damage by having all of its systems and weapons and armor gutted out, being filled up with high-yield explosives, and then hyperspacing into the planet by disabling the automatic hyperspace cutoff when it enters the planets' gravity well. Assuming the planetary shields are down... That might take out the shields, but then it might not do as much damage to the planet, so another ISD would have to do the same thing after the first one.

Posted: 2002-07-16 07:36am
by His Divine Shadow
SPOOFE wrote:I have some issues with what she says, namely: There appears to be some question on whether or not Coruscant has any oceans. Aside from what HDS quoted above, and the few mentionings in The Black Fleet Crisis, most sources described Coruscant as lacking any large bodies of water.

Furthermore, Daala's plan seems to ignore the planetary shields on Coruscant (which should, in theory, be able to withstand the attack).
One theory is that they had no shields on Coruscant when Daala was there, but planetary shielding is much older than that.

Posted: 2002-07-16 07:40am
by His Divine Shadow
Eleas wrote:Yeah, but there's a difference between causing collateral damage in order to capture a target and annihilating the entire population of a planet.
Really?
*Enters this in HDS' new book, "Strategy, Tactics & War"*

Posted: 2002-07-16 11:52am
by Eleas
"Really?
*Enters this in HDS' new book, "Strategy, Tactics & War"*"


Yep. A very, very fine difference, of course. ;)