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If a 200GT TL hit New York (for example) what kind of effect would it have? Would thrown up debris blot out the sun? Would earthquakes tear the surface apart? And so on and so forth.....

We don't entirely know how TLs transfer their energy to such a diffuse target. Suffice to say though that not a soul in 15 miles would be alive. Beyond that I would guess that everyone would be dead, but I'm not entirely sure.

Certainly a 200GT nuke would wipe the island off the face of the earth.

Acutal thats somthing fun we should figure out

Do it twice
First as if it where an Atomic Bomb(Blast Radius, Crater Size ect.)
Second hmm maybe if it was a Lightning Bolt? I can't think of anything realy RL that could do that much(200GT) of whatever damage

And heck maybe a third way a reaaaly big Kinitec Hit(agian 200 GTs worth)

Anyone want to take a stab at this?

Quoted from Mike Wong's Planet Killers essay, under the relevent bits of asteroid impacts.

Both land and ocean impacts produce enough atmospheric dust to affect global climate, freezing crops. Impact ejecta are globally distributed, causing widespread fires. Land impact destroys a large nation (Mexico, India).


Slightly higher than my 'Bake Rhode Island'. Oops.

Of course, plasma rocketing through that much atmosphere is gonna produce immense storms as well.

At 200 GT, expect any city to be totally vaporized. The main issue though is how spread out a city is. To vaporize say the SF bay area, a single 200 GT shot may not be enough since the bay area is spread out over a couple hundred square miles depending on how you look at it. It's technically more efficient to have 100 2 GT shots, but when you're the empire, it doesn't really matter.

The question ends up being the effect of each bolt. If you think of it like a thermo nuke, well, there isn't a 200 GT nuke anywhere in existance, I believe the largest detonated nuke is 58 MT. (correct me if I'm wrong here)At 200 GT, I'm guessing there will be a huge crater carved out. Probably similar to a kinetic impact from say a large enough asteroid.

Based on that estimate, you could conceivably wipe out every major city on this planet with something on the order of 1000 TL shots (we'll need two or three shots for larger areas like SF bay). Given the number of TLs on a SD, and assuming that the ship has to be in position around the planet. It's likely that the planet will have upwards of 70% of its population wiped out in about an hour or so.

Well were it a nuclear airburst at optimal height the balst radius would be 405 Km / 243 mi, pretty much eliminating the mid-atlantic through north-eastern states. The thermal radius (3rd degree burns or worse) would be 1738 Km/1043 mi, enough to engulf about half the US along with a fair portion of Canada.

I also found an interesting site whose equations I grabbed to prducea KE impact result as if the TL beam were a meteroite/asteroid
http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/meteor.htm

Anywhere from about 5% to 65% of total energy is used for such things as cratering. The researchers in question used 15% as a rounding point for cratering (the rest being heat and shockwave) si I'll use it as well. Additionally the use 2,500 Kgm^-3 as the target density so let me define things out:

E(cratering)=.15*E(meteorite)
E(cratering)= K * R(crater)^4
K= 2/3*pi*d*g where d= density of target and g= gravitational acceleration.

.15*200 GT = (2/3*pi*2500 Kgm^-3*9.8 ms^-2) * R^4

Translated out slightly we come to this:
1.255e20 J = 2/3*pi*2500 Kgm^-3*9.8ms^-2 *R^4
2.446e15 = R^4
7032m = R

Thus a 200GT blast, assuming meteroite like propeties, will blast a 14 Km wide crater. Now obviously this is inexact, and they point out that melt thickness and initial shockwave pressure are better option for determining cratering but to do that we'd need object velocity and if there is one thing I'm sure we dont have even a rough figure for its TL bolt velocity.

Anyway suffice to say a 200GT blast will devour completely anything inside about a 5-10 Km radius and eliminate a good deal else.

The 200 Gigaton TL blast is probably concentrated in an area of less than 200 square miles, and it would probably boil most of the river, slag Manhattan and surrounding areas, vaporize (or at least crush) the buildings, and kill everyone. It's just my guess, but I know it won't "destroy a planet" like User099 said (according to GAT's sig).

Well Im not familiar with New Yorks size but I'd say it'd be pretty vaporized.

Well, I haven't got a lot to contribute apart from saying that the impact of a 1 km wide asteroid is apparently equivalent to the yield of 300 gigaton...so imagine if an asteroid of a similar size smash into New York...

Actually, check this out instead

http://www.sandia.gov/media/comethit.htm

It's old but possibly relevant to this discussion.

Oh, and for the record, since a 1 km wide body smashing into Earth has an energy yield of 300 gigaton, the one that crashed into Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 MYA was a whole lot bigger therefore the impact a hell of a lot more powerful. But hey it apperars that Earth is still around...therefore, User099 claiming that a 200 gigaton blast is enough to 'destroy a planet' is well...silly

...unless his definition of a 'planet' also happens to include bodies like Phobos and Eros (I know they're not planets, but that's exactly my point)...

This is how you would figure it out (I'm not going to try because I'm too lazy to try to find the proper constants or values). Figure out how much heat would be in that 200 gigaton blast, then find how much heat would be needed to vaporize, say, a cubic meter of soil and/or concrete, and then use that to figure out just how MUCH mass gets vaporized. From there, you should be able to figure out the radius of the shockwave created from the explosive expansion of such a large amount of solids into gas.

For a 750m diameter asteroid impacting the earth
(from James A. Green's asteroid destruction calculator)

1.653667e+04 < Asteroid Impact Energy < 2.109269e+05 in MegaTons
1.012490e+01 < Impact Richter Magnitude < 1.089174e+01
1.452193e+01 < Asteroid Crater Radius < 3.393013e+01 in Km.
4.350442e-01 < Asteroid Crater Depth < 8.023372e-01 in Km.
3.746923e+14 < Ejected Crater Mass < 3.772427e+15 in Kg.
5.384238e-02 < Earth Dust Carpet < 5.420887e-01 meters.


For a 200GT nuclear explosion near the surface
(from THE EFFECTS OF THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS, 5th edition, update 2001. Program: nuclear.exe, October 3, 2001 release.)

Overpressure > 1 lb/sq.inch for r < 712.99 km.
Overpressure > 5 lb/sq.inch for r < 249.55 km, winds > 160 mph.
Blast area = 75622.464900 mi**2 = 195786.561627 km**2 at 5 psi.
Richter Scale Magnitude underground: 10.6658 < M < 10.8746.
Near-surface burst crater diameter = 76024.46 ft, depth = 17544.11 ft.
CraterVol= 4.0e+13 ft**3, outer diam= 152048.92 ft, lip ht= 4386.03 ft

Of course, a TL won't be a 200GT KE impact, and it won't be a 200GT nuclear explosion on the surface, so these figures are probably the most you could expect.

Lord Edam?

Everyone's Favroite Pro-Creationist, Former Wong Debate Particpaint?
Or some pathic fan-boy who stole his name to increase his own standing

Or somone who has no idea who Lord Edam is and if so shame on your for not read the Web-site the Forum is attached to

Which is it?

There is only one Lord Edam.

Any other is quickly eaten.

"There is only one Lord Edam.

Any other is quickly eaten."

That's right, never forget: Edam is a lump. Speak softly, and carry MACE.

Yeah it wouldn't destroy a planet(User099=TROLL) but it would vaporize a small part of it.

Mr. B wrote:Yeah it wouldn't destroy a planet(User099=TROLL) but it would vaporize a small part of it.

A very, very, very small part. Like India.

Lord Edam and Mike Wong debated about a BDZ, and Lord Edam's "BDZ could be some with 250,000 1 megaton explosions, for a total energy release of 250 gigatons.

Of course, Edam's BDZ would only "slag" a small part of a planet, while the rest is accomplished with "bioweapons", "large land fires", and "dust that blocks out the sun". After the 250 gigaton ardment, only 1 out of 6 people on he planet would be , and even after nuclear winter, the majority of the population would be alive, and large parts of the planet would be intact.

LOL! Edam's BDZ would be a single Turbolaser

Who was the guy who couldn't keep Mike Wong and Lord Edam separated in his brain? LOL! Anyway, Edam's BDZ would be accomplished by a large earthquake!

Master of Ossus wrote:Who was the guy who couldn't keep Mike Wong and Lord Edam separated in his brain?

TOWNMNBS

There is only one Lord Edam.

Any other is quickly eaten.

You talk as if you speak from experience. Did they taste like chicken?

Edam was a fool to go against the All-Powerful Wong. The 200 GT explosion would be nothing like a nuclear explosion it would be more like a asteroid impact. It would cause quite a lot of earthquakes.

Edam was pretty bold and foolish to debate with Wong. In the end, Edam unleashed his "nitpick storm", and he actually said that SW buildings are no stronger than modern buildings, just so they would actually be harmed in his "BDZ".

It's more like a "Base Delta Five".

The 200 GT explosion would be nothing like a nuclear explosion it would be more like a asteroid impact.

I disagree. Such a blast would include a crapload of heat, and as such would flash-vaporize large chunks of its target. This thermal expansion of matter would be enough to create a shockwave that expanded up and out, but wouldn't create a whole lot of earthquakes.

SPOOFE wrote:

The 200 GT explosion would be nothing like a nuclear explosion it would be more like a asteroid impact.

I disagree. Such a blast would include a crapload of heat, and as such would flash-vaporize large chunks of its target. This thermal expansion of matter would be enough to create a shockwave that expanded up and out, but wouldn't create a whole lot of earthquakes.

However asteroid impacts tranfer as much as 90% of their energy from impact effects to a bshockwave and extreme heating of the area of impact. Go see the little bit I drew up from that site, they do an awesome job of explaining the basics of asteroid imapct and in many ways I think its the best analogy for a 200 GT medium TL shot hitting Earth.