StarDestroyer.Net BBS

hi,

I'm new to this site (although i have been reading trough for quite a while)
my compliments to the site, it looks very cool and I had a good laugh at some parts, especially the hate mail from Steward at SDI.

I have been reading trough the DS part and I wondered why the DS laser didn't go straight through the planet of alderaan and leave a big hole from side to side.

I am not sure if there has already been a topic about this, i've been searching for it in the "pure star wars" part, but searching 99 pages with 50 topics each was a little to much
so if there is a topic would you please give me the link?

excuse me if my english isn't that well, I'm dutch

It might have, if the beam had lasted long enough, but imparting that much energy to a planetary body would just blow it apart.

Basically what Chewie said. Think about it like putting a pinhole in a balloon, then putting the balloon under a faucet and filling it-- water will run out the hole, but it'll explode anyway.

If you were firing at some sort of super-dense material with enormous gravitional binding energy, quite possible-- however, the DS would probably be sucked into the object's gravity well by then...

freker wrote:hi,

I'm new to this site (although i have been reading trough for quite a while)
my compliments to the site, it looks very cool and I had a good laugh at some parts, especially the hate mail from Steward at SDI.

I have been reading trough the DS part and I wondered why the DS laser didn't go straight through the planet of alderaan and leave a big hole from side to side.

I am not sure if there has already been a topic about this, i've been searching for it in the "pure star wars" part, but searching 99 pages with 50 topics each was a little to much
so if there is a topic would you please give me the link?

excuse me if my english isn't that well, I'm dutch

Because the beam imparted much more energy to the planet than was required to blow it apart. You'd only get a hole in a planet if you only delivered enough energy to vaporize and displace the material which directly obstructs the beam. The required energy is (many) orders of magnitude less than the energy of the Death Star superlaser.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:

Because the beam imparted much more energy to the planet than was required to blow it apart. You'd only get a hole in a planet if you only delivered enough energy to vaporize and displace the material which directly obstructs the beam. The required energy is (many) orders of magnitude less than the energy of the Death Star superlaser.

that is my point, the laser would easily go through the planet and the remaining energy then went straight on into space, and there would get that much energy into the rest of the planet because a laser doesn't radiate energy to the sides (although the DS laser does that at least a bit since the laser is visible) so the planet couldn't fill up with energy like a balloon as Elheru Aran quotes

Its not a laser. None of the Star Wars weapons are true lasers. Its a plasma weapon, called a superlaser. Not the same thing.

Also theres no reason to assume a constant power beam. It might just bore its way to the centre on power level 1, then fire a pulse of energy at power level 4500 into the exposed core. A pulse would impart all its energy to the matter it struck at that instant... = explosion. The visual effect seen does not need to be considered wholly indicative of actual system behaviour.

that makes sense, thanks

freker wrote:that is my point, the laser would easily go through the planet and the remaining energy then went straight on into space, and there would get that much energy into the rest of the planet because a laser doesn't radiate energy to the sides (although the DS laser does that at least a bit since the laser is visible) so the planet couldn't fill up with energy like a balloon as Elheru Aran quotes

No a laser would blow up Alderaan just like Death Star's superlaser. The planet's material in front of a laser would be turned into superheated plasma which would remain opaque to the laser and kept absorbing the energy and then expanding in all directions taking the planet with it.

frogcurry wrote:Its not a laser. None of the Star Wars weapons are true lasers. Its a plasma weapon, called a superlaser. Not the same thing.

*SLAP*

Star Wars weapons aren't based on plasma, because that whole line of thinking is complete garbage. Star Wars lasers are massless, lightspeed, invisible energy beam weapons with a seperate, slower, visible "tracer" element.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Star Wars weapons aren't based on plasma, because that whole line of thinking is complete garbage. Star Wars lasers are massless, lightspeed, invisible energy beam weapons with a seperate, slower, visible "tracer" element.

Well, blasters might well be funky plasma weapons - but "lasers" and "turbolasers" are generally those exotic weapons you mentioned.

To drill a hole through the planet, the weapon would have had to be much lower power and the beam more sustained. Of course, drilling a hole through a MOVING, ROTATING PLANET with OCEANS and DUDES ON THERE is never going to work - the planet would spin to bits anyway.