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Does Helska in Vector Prime make sense to anyone?

Posted: 2004-12-24 10:35am
by Kazuaki Shimazaki
I mean scientific sense (at least sci-fi grade scientific sense).

I find the plan and result incomprehensible. They plan to raise the energy state of the surficial ice to vaporize it. But why is that supposed to draw heat from deeper ice and water underground? Yes, vaporization does take energy, but I thought it was supposed to draw from areas of higher temperature, not lower (like the as yet unheated or less heated ice below them).

And how did all that make the Mezzicanley Wave? What is that anyway? And how did all that manage to shatter the planet? Was the whole planet shattered (if it was fully destroyed, why don't we see some of the lava that the Vong supposedly drew energy from for their volcano gun). Was it only the iced surfaces of the planet?

Has this been done before? Could anybody help? Yes, I know I'm rambling a bit, but that's because I'm so confused.

Thank you, and of course, Merry Christmas!

Posted: 2004-12-24 11:50am
by Praxis
Doesn't make any sense to me :? How do you freeze a planet by adding MORE energy???

Posted: 2004-12-24 04:00pm
by Illuminatus Primus
No, it makes no sense. Anyone who read NJO from the start could tell they were out for a bumpy ride when that guy was one of their vaunted drafted sci-fi/fantasy writers. If you don't know your science, don't fake it. If he really wrote himself in a hole and couldn't fix it, he should've just gone the Tolkein deus ex machina method and had reinforcements arrive at the last hurrah and burn the world.

This moron seems to believe that the process of sublimination is a runaway phase-transition that will suck up all available heat energy until the process has run its course. And to top it off, our moron invents an imaginary state of matter. (Betraying the fact he doesn't have a clue what states of matter are - what the hell is that supposed to be, a real-world scale Bose-Einstein condensate? It makes no sense.)

At the end of the day I don't know what to assume. Do we assume that the shield ships actually blocked off sunlight which lowered the surface temperature prodigiously? But that too is dumb. All of the Vong technology obviously has to be homeothermic and especially shit like the fucking Worldship buried in the planet. It had the energy to traverse interstellar space but could not keep itself and the yammosk warm against cold ice?

They were drawing off lava to power the "volcano cannons"?

God, I hate thinking about NJO. Its pathetic.

Posted: 2004-12-24 05:45pm
by CaptainChewbacca
Illuminatus Primus wrote:No, it makes no sense. Anyone who read NJO from the start could tell they were out for a bumpy ride when that guy was one of their vaunted drafted sci-fi/fantasy writers. If you don't know your science, don't fake it. If he really wrote himself in a hole and couldn't fix it, he should've just gone the Tolkein deus ex machina method and had reinforcements arrive at the last hurrah and burn the world.

This moron seems to believe that the process of sublimination is a runaway phase-transition that will suck up all available heat energy until the process has run its course. And to top it off, our moron invents an imaginary state of matter. (Betraying the fact he doesn't have a clue what states of matter are - what the hell is that supposed to be, a real-world scale Bose-Einstein condensate? It makes no sense.)
Actually, I think that was what he was trying to do.

Posted: 2004-12-24 06:04pm
by Praxis
Actually, NJO isn't that bad. But Vector Prime is the WORST NJO book ever. Seriously, that book makes the rest of NJO look bad :( There are a few crap books in NJO, and a few good ones, but Vector Prime takes the cake for horrid writing, lack of scientific knowledge, corny villans (they make the Vong even cornier than the other books!), and just plain boringness.

Posted: 2004-12-25 12:21am
by Illuminatus Primus
CaptainChewbacca wrote:Actually, I think that was what he was trying to do.
Well he's obviously too scientifically incompetent to pull it off.

NJO sucks

Posted: 2004-12-25 08:17am
by jawbertsc
tg he only wrote one book then returned to writing d@d books. as for NJO having good books maybe one but I stopped reading cause it was sucking all my star wars fanboyness away. NJO sucks no ands or ifs about it. Ill play star wars galaxies insead its a lot more fun with jump to light speed out. Later

Re: NJO sucks

Posted: 2004-12-25 02:12pm
by Praxis
jawbertsc wrote:tg he only wrote one book then returned to writing d@d books. as for NJO having good books maybe one but I stopped reading cause it was sucking all my star wars fanboyness away. NJO sucks no ands or ifs about it. Ill play star wars galaxies insead its a lot more fun with jump to light speed out. Later

One? How far did you get? :shock:

You really need to be more open minded ("no ands or ifs about it"). NJO got better over time, though stopped to suck on the Force Heretic books, then got better again.

Re: NJO sucks

Posted: 2005-01-01 07:18pm
by Fuzzy
jawbertsc wrote:tg he only wrote one book then returned to writing d@d books. as for NJO having good books maybe one but I stopped reading cause it was sucking all my star wars fanboyness away. NJO sucks no ands or ifs about it. Ill play star wars galaxies insead its a lot more fun with jump to light speed out. Later
*shudder* you LIKE galaxies? Im sorry. I spent so much time hoping that game would be fixed...

Posted: 2005-01-01 07:21pm
by Cal Wright
I think what he's saying is Salvadore WROTE just that one book. They did have him pen Ep II's novel, and believe it or not I was right. It sucked. EpI's novel and the OTs novels are great. Ep II's just drags, and I for one loved the movie.