Thrawn's siege of Coruscant

Enola Straight · Post by **Enola Straight** » 2004-08-25 11:49am

In the Heir to the Empire trilogy, GA Thrawn blockades Coruscant with cloaked asteroids in indeterminate orbits.

How would YOU have got rid of them?

In the story, General Iblis deployed chaff to uncover the gravitic wake of the asteroid.

Couldn't Iblis just order the planetary shields to expand?

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-08-25 12:08pm

. . . not told anyone about them. use govt monopoly on communications to not show crashes.

hell, its only 300 ships. thats barely an hr's traffic.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-08-25 12:08pm

Enola Straight wrote:Couldn't Iblis just order the planetary shields to expand?

Probably not. We're talking about planetary shielding which almost certainly isn't easy to expand.

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-08-25 01:40pm

Given the already incredible power demands that sheild generators require and the fact that the shape of the shield itself is a shpere, increasing the dimension of the sheild itself will increase the power demand rather largely and on top of that, the NR didn't even know where the asteroids were at all. That's a lot of space to cover.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2004-08-25 01:42pm

They did all they could. The chaff, and the eventual run for the CGT.

And the main concern with allowing traffic was the risk of an asteroid making it through the shield and crashing. Imagine a big rock crashing into NYCx100, and you have some idea.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2004-08-25 05:40pm

Im thinking courscant was built with crashes in mind. they know about seismic devices and the occasional cruiser meltdown, so the structues would have capability of handling it.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-08-25 07:32pm

Clear the airspace, and then use infared to or some other low frequency radiation to detect the cloak generators.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2004-08-25 08:15pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:Clear the airspace, and then use infared to or some other low frequency radiation to detect the cloak generators.

Nope. Relevent text:

"Imperial cloaking fields completely absorb all incoming sensor scans and block the hosts ships emissions and reflected energy. In short, the cloaked ship is rendered invisible to both sensors and the unaided eye." -P. 102, EGTW&T

It goes on to say the only way to actually see them is with the CGT.

Enola Straight · Post by **Enola Straight** » 2004-08-25 08:26pm

I was figuring, you don't have to keep the planetary shields at full strength as they expand to the asteroid orbits...just enough to feel out and interact with the matter. As soon as the sensors on the asteroids realized they were detected, the self-destruct mechanism Thrawn installed on the rocks would take care of thre NR examining the cloaking devices.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-08-25 08:26pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:Nope. Relevent text:

"Imperial cloaking fields completely absorb all incoming sensor scans and block the hosts ships emissions and reflected energy. In short, the cloaked ship is rendered invisible to both sensors and the unaided eye." -P. 102, EGTW&T

It goes on to say the only way to actually see them is with the CGT.

If I recall correctly from the text of those books, it was stated, probably by Ackbar, that you could track a cloaked ship by it's emmissions if you we're looking for them. In which case, the EGTW&T is wrong, and my idea stands. I of course would like to give a quote, but I don't have those books, and I don't see the passage on Saxton's page.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2004-08-25 08:30pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:If I recall correctly from the text of those books, it was stated, probably by Ackbar, that you could track a cloaked ship by it's emmissions if you we're looking for them. In which case, the EGTW&T is wrong, and my idea stands. I of course would like to give a quote, but I don't have those books, and I don't see the passage on Saxton's page.

Perhaps Poe might have the quote lying around somewhere in his database?

Either way, the emissions of a ship would be much more significant than those from a cloaking device; and since the asteroids aren't ships, they wouldn't be detectable by that method. If they were, I would imagine the NR would have done as you said, rather than waste lives and resources on a mission to capture a sensor array that could detect them.

Prozac the Robert · Post by **Prozac the Robert** » 2004-08-25 08:36pm

The emmisions talked about were the stuff ejected by a ships driveso that it can move. An asteroid has no engines and is therefore undetectable.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-08-25 08:54pm

I was talking about thermal radiation, and no where do I remember anything saying that it can't leave the cloak.

And even if it couldn't, that would mean that the cloaking device would overheat and fail on its own.

EDIT: Actually, since I can't seem to track down that quote online, I'm pretty much gonna throw in the towel here. This arguement is not worth pursueing without that damn quote.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2004-08-25 09:00pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:I was talking about thermal radiation, and no where do I remember anything saying that it can't leave the cloak.

And even if it couldn't, that would mean that the cloaking device would overheat and fail on its own.

Then there are two possibilites: One, you're wrong, somehow the cloak can disguise even thermal signatures and is completely invisible no matter what.

Or two, Thrawn had all that jazz in mind when he was drawing up the plans, but figured that, worst case scenario, the cloaks fail but the NR has been unable to do crap because their capital has been blockaded for weeks/months, giving him the edge during that timeframe.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-08-25 09:02pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:I was talking about thermal radiation, and no where do I remember anything saying that it can't leave the cloak.

And even if it couldn't, that would mean that the cloaking device would overheat and fail on its own.

Ackbar is quite explicate in this in 'Dark Force Rising', that its the reason cloaking devices never were of a major interest to the NR. SW cloaks are double blind so you can't see out, they also don't hide the rather large ion trails.

Of course then he ruefuly admits that Thrawn has shown that there are still many uses for such a system even if they are not exactly best for cloaking warships.

Bel'Ilbs also in 'The Last Command' as Thrawn launches the asteriods instaly guesses whats happening and orders sensor focuses along the Chimerias hanger bay to try and pick up a drive trail.

nightmare · Post by **nightmare** » 2004-08-25 10:11pm

Here's the relevant quote:

"It's starting to look that way," Leia agreed soberly. "I suppose the only good news is that they must still have some bugs left in the system. Otherwise, they could have simply cloaked the whole Sluis Van task force and torn the place to ribbons."

"No," Ackbar said, shaking his massive head. "That's something we won't have to worry about, at least. By its very nature a cloaking shield would be more danger to the user than it was worth. A cloaked warship's own sensor beams would be as useless as those of its enemies, leaving it to flail about totally blind. Worse, if it were under power, the enemy could locate it by simply tracking its drive emissions.""

"Ah," Leia said. "I hadn't thought of that."

"There have been rumors for years that the Emperor was developing a cloaking shield," Ackbar said. "I've put a good deal of thought into the contingency." He harrumphed. "But the weaknesses are of small comfort. A cloaking shield in the hands of a Grand Admiral would still be a dangerous weapon indeed. He would find ways to use it against us.

"He already has," Han muttered.

Side note - there has at no instance been as much as hinted that simple thermal sighting would in any way be useful against cloaks.

The Cleric · Post by **The Cleric** » 2004-08-25 10:13pm

The asteroids wouldn't leave ion trails. They're just floating in space.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2004-08-25 11:05pm

I don't get it. With simple 18th century technology, a scientist could use lead spheres to detect their mutual gravity. Don't you think a planet full of trillions of people could at least build a detector like that, or think one up and have it built?

And wouldn't it just be easier to monitor small shifts in Coruscant's orbit relating to asteroids?

nightmare · Post by **nightmare** » 2004-08-26 01:24am

Xenophobe3691 wrote:I don't get it. With simple 18th century technology, a scientist could use lead spheres to detect their mutual gravity. Don't you think a planet full of trillions of people could at least build a detector like that, or think one up and have it built?

And wouldn't it just be easier to monitor small shifts in Coruscant's orbit relating to asteroids?

You are talking about detecting helllishly small gravity shifts in a system with thousands of ships entering and leaving constantly. Methinks thou overrates 18th century technology somewhat.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-08-26 01:38am

Xenophobe3691 wrote:I don't get it. With simple 18th century technology, a scientist could use lead spheres to detect their mutual gravity. Don't you think a planet full of trillions of people could at least build a detector like that, or think one up and have it built?

And wouldn't it just be easier to monitor small shifts in Coruscant's orbit relating to asteroids?

That's what a CGT does. It measures those small grav shifts, for something like those launched from the Chimera the feild would be utterly miniscule. A 20th century astronomer probably couldn't find, let alone a 18th century one.

And the thing you have to remember is that a star wars world is ringed by ships, stations, and what not; most of which are going to outmass the asteroids in question by a hefty amount. That's going to blot out most of the already small signature. Finding them is not a trivial task.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-08-30 07:33pm

Enforcer Talen wrote:. . . not told anyone about them. use govt monopoly on communications to not show crashes.

hell, its only 300 ships. thats barely an hr's traffic.

Sure, it's fine if it hits SHIPS. But if they drop the shield to let a ship through, and the asteroid makes it through the shields...BAM. Major catastrophy.
The destruction of even one kilometer worth of buildings on Coruscant would be hundreds of thousands of lives.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-08-30 07:37pm

I got one. Scatter large amounts of dust or gas all over Coruscant.

Yes, I know this would take a whole LOT of dust or gas. However, with the industrial capability of Star Wars- the ability to move the entire OCEAN of a planet- it shouldn't be too hard. A few thousand freighters later and there will be a thick dust cloud around Coruscant. Look for spots in the cloud that have gaps in the dust...there ya go.

Once you get all the asteroids, let the gravity of the planet pull the dust into the atmosphere...and shields.
Should be quite a light show.

Prozac the Robert · Post by **Prozac the Robert** » 2004-08-30 08:22pm

Given the firepower of SW ships, couldn't whatever the new republic use as a reserve force be called in to bombard the entire volume that might contain asteroids? It would be pretty time consuming, but it ought to be pretty easy to make sure you don't miss anything and be much less costly than an attack on an imperial shipyard.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-08-30 08:59pm

Praxis wrote:Yes, I know this would take a whole LOT of dust or gas. However, with the industrial capability of Star Wars- the ability to move the entire OCEAN of a planet- it shouldn't be too hard. A few thousand freighters later and there will be a thick dust cloud around Coruscant. Look for spots in the cloud that have gaps in the dust...there ya go.

Once you get all the asteroids, let the gravity of the planet pull the dust into the atmosphere...and shields.
Should be quite a light show.

This is idiotic; the amount of dust you're talking about would exceed the mass of the threatening asteroids anyway.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2004-08-30 09:33pm

What about using a ring of robotic fighters at high speed around the planet.

Fighter crashes, the fleet opens fire on the crash area.

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Thrawn's siege of Coruscant

Thrawn's siege of Coruscant

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