Dealing with B5

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-01-04 06:40am

Actually, you know, Isil'Zha is right.. that IS rather a goodly amount of energy... at least in our terms.

Nothing compared to the Empire of course...

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-01-04 08:50am

Connor MacLeod wrote:Actually, you know, Isil'Zha is right.. that IS rather a goodly amount of energy... at least in our terms.

Nothing compared to the Empire of course...

It kicks the UFP's ass.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2003-01-04 09:09am

Are you sure that the Soviets would have had to have used all those missiles to destroy the East-coast?

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-01-04 09:15am

Sir Sirius wrote:Are you sure that the Soviets would have had to have used all those missiles to destroy the East-coast?

Nope. Mike Wong made the offhand comment that it was said during the Cold War that the Soviet SSBN fleet could wipe out the eastern seaboard. So to derive an absolute upper limit I took the entire SSBN inventroy of the Northern Fleet (Pacific Fleet boomers wouldn't have any east coast targets) in 1989-90 (right before end of the Cold War- inventories pretty much at their peak in absolute numbers terms), added up the subs, their missiles, and each missiles warhead payload and yield, and there you go.

It would actually take much less I reckon, though that's just a hunch. Mike should be able to tell us.

Brian Young · Post by **Brian Young** » 2003-01-04 12:00pm

We must not allow ourselves to assume that the effects of bombs and the effects of beams are the same.
*We aren't talking about delivering a certain amount of energy to one target (ie, a Shadow spider).
*This is in an atmosphere, where the effect of a bomb is greater than in space, as we now have violent wind and pressure to deal with. See videos of trees falling over during nuke tests.
*A coherent beam can only hit one target at a time. A nuke can essentially level a city, as the energy spreads in all directions.

Maybe the beam isn't coherent? Other B5 beams aren't.

There is no time estimate given on this event. We don't know if she meant that private homes would be destroyed, people outside would be killed, or if even bunkers would be destroyed. Thus, it is impossible to quantify this event.

However, a good way to get an upper limit is from the size of the satelites. At best they are powered by fusion, and can only represent so much energy.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-01-04 12:10pm

Hrm, well, keep in mind there would be lots of ways to 'wipe out' the Eastern Seaboard. There's the trick an ISD used, boil the oceans. There's using a non-coherent beam throughout the atmosphere.. The energy bleeding off could cook cities, if not vap them. There's the wankfest 'vaporize' definition. There's also the fact they could be targetting Moodus, CT, and setting off a Magnitude 8 earthquake(The ground around the Northeast would react badly to one of those.. Why Moodus? Microquakes happen all the time.). Or it could be even more wierd technobabble.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-04 12:23pm

The US Eastern Seaboard is not a circle. In order for the platform to destroy the Eastern Seaboard rather than the entire, say, Northeastern United Stated, multiple smaller shots would be used, not a single huge shot.

They probably expected it to hit the major cities in succession. This description is much too vague to generate a firm energy estimate, even to within an order of magnitude.

The Fivers seem to love vague semantic "evidence" ...

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-01-04 12:25pm

Darth Wong wrote:
The Fivers seem to love vague semantic "evidence" ...

LOL.

Started thinking about the wormhole aliens-

"The Fivers are of Earth"

"No, the Fivers are off the planet"

Isil`Zha · Post by **Isil`Zha** » 2003-01-04 01:32pm

Darth Wong wrote:The US Eastern Seaboard is not a circle. In order for the platform to destroy the Eastern Seaboard rather than the entire, say, Northeastern United Stated, multiple smaller shots would be used, not a single huge shot.

They probably expected it to hit the major cities in succession. This description is much too vague to generate a firm energy estimate, even to within an order of magnitude.

The Fivers seem to love vague semantic "evidence" ...

That's the other part about this people mistake.. they said the entire eastern seaboard of North America, not just the US. I figured when they said that that the beam would do a sweeping motion down the eastern seaboard.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-01-04 03:00pm

Isil`Zha wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The US Eastern Seaboard is not a circle. In order for the platform to destroy the Eastern Seaboard rather than the entire, say, Northeastern United Stated, multiple smaller shots would be used, not a single huge shot.

They probably expected it to hit the major cities in succession. This description is much too vague to generate a firm energy estimate, even to within an order of magnitude.

The Fivers seem to love vague semantic "evidence" ...
That's the other part about this people mistake.. they said the entire eastern seaboard of North America, not just the US. I figured when they said that that the beam would do a sweeping motion down the eastern seaboard.

I can't believe I missed that detail, but it makes no overall difference in the meat of the argument: "Wipe out" doesn't "scream 'vaporize'," like outofstep claims. Furthermore, as I stated before, the weapon must be surgical in nature, since the effects of teraton-level energy releases would not magically stop once they got past the Eastern seaboard. The most obvious explanation is that the weapon was intended to hit major cities with a large energy blast (a few megatons or so) each in rapid succession.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-04 03:03pm

Isil`Zha wrote:I figured when they said that that the beam would do a sweeping motion down the eastern seaboard.

You can "figure" whatever you like from vague semantic evidence. Doesn't mean it can be used to inflate firepower figures, since that would mean your preferred interpretation is being treated as the only possible one.

Isil`Zha · Post by **Isil`Zha** » 2003-01-04 04:58pm

Durandal wrote:
I can't believe I missed that detail, but it makes no overall difference in the meat of the argument: "Wipe out" doesn't "scream 'vaporize'," like outofstep claims. Furthermore, as I stated before, the weapon must be surgical in nature, since the effects of teraton-level energy releases would not magically stop once they got past the Eastern seaboard. The most obvious explanation is that the weapon was intended to hit major cities with a large energy blast (a few megatons or so) each in rapid succession.

Which is why I said that I was thinking that it meant it would probably sweep either up or down the eastern seaboard, hitting any/all major cities it could - wiping them out. And where did I say I agreed that it means "vaporize"

Isil`Zha · Post by **Isil`Zha** » 2003-01-04 05:00pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Isil`Zha wrote:I figured when they said that that the beam would do a sweeping motion down the eastern seaboard.
You can "figure" whatever you like from vague semantic evidence. Doesn't mean it can be used to inflate firepower figures, since that would mean your preferred interpretation is being treated as the only possible one.

I was "figuring" how they meant it was going to do it. (sweeping motion as explained in my above post), I haven't derived figures from it, as was said before, it's a vauge statement, and could give a very wide range of differing levels of power.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-01-04 07:06pm

Isil`Zha wrote:
Durandal wrote:
I can't believe I missed that detail, but it makes no overall difference in the meat of the argument: "Wipe out" doesn't "scream 'vaporize'," like outofstep claims. Furthermore, as I stated before, the weapon must be surgical in nature, since the effects of teraton-level energy releases would not magically stop once they got past the Eastern seaboard. The most obvious explanation is that the weapon was intended to hit major cities with a large energy blast (a few megatons or so) each in rapid succession.
Which is why I said that I was thinking that it meant it would probably sweep either up or down the eastern seaboard, hitting any/all major cities it could - wiping them out. And where did I say I agreed that it means "vaporize"

When did I accuse you of saying you agreed with "wipe out" meaning "vaporize"? I said that your point about the North American Eastern seaboard being specified did not affect the fact that wiping something out doesn't imply vaporizing. Regardless, the quote is far too vague to get any useful information from.

Isil`Zha · Post by **Isil`Zha** » 2003-01-04 10:28pm

Durandal wrote: When did I accuse you of saying you agreed with "wipe out" meaning "vaporize"? I said that your point about the North American Eastern seaboard being specified did not affect the fact that wiping something out doesn't imply vaporizing. Regardless, the quote is far too vague to get any useful information from.

ah, I thought you were implying that I was agreeing with it when you said that. My appologies. And yes, it is too vauge.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-05 12:35am

http://kier.3dfrontier.com/forums/showt ... d=42387&s=

Run you little yellow bastard, run!

Yeah, I could have started another thread, but I wanted to jump start this one.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-05 10:25pm

I haven't been following the whole thing from start to finish, but someone seems to be a very gifted contorsionist to avoid all those direct challenges. I am off?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-06 12:17am

Crown wrote:I haven't been following the whole thing from start to finish, but someone seems to be a very gifted contorsionist to avoid all those direct challenges. I am off?

Given the placement of his head during most debates, I would say the fact that he is a contortionist is well established.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-06 12:57am

Okay that was just damned funny!

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-06 01:52am

God dammit, this is pissing me off. I can't post on SB for some reason, theough I can read it, which means I can't respond to his latest bullshit about me and the other posters here. When I started debating him in that thread, he ran away like a fucking pussy. Yet he claims he was right about all his claims. FUCK!

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-01-06 02:04am

Well at least Adrax has set up a hotmail addy. So is it on now? Oh and Adrax, if you do lurk here, I usually wait to pass judgement on people by their actions towards me.

Isil`Zha · Post by **Isil`Zha** » 2003-01-06 02:25am

Ender wrote:God dammit, this is pissing me off. I can't post on SB for some reason, theough I can read it, which means I can't respond to his latest bullshit about me and the other posters here. When I started debating him in that thread, he ran away like a fucking pussy. Yet he claims he was right about all his claims. FUCK!

You can thank Shakkara for that one - the first troll to ever make it on my ignore list.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2003-01-06 02:49am

Isil`Zha wrote:You can thank Shakkara for that one - the first troll to ever make it on my ignore list.

The Shakkara problem has caused SB to go into lockdown mode but AFIAK Ender is already a member. If he can't post then there's something else wrong.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-06 06:17am

I was a member, but now whenever I hit reply I get "Cannot connect to server".
I cleaned out my cookies and TIF files, but still no go. This shit is pissing me off.

Isil`Zha · Post by **Isil`Zha** » 2003-01-06 02:54pm

Ender wrote:I was a member, but now whenever I hit reply I get "Cannot connect to server".
I cleaned out my cookies and TIF files, but still no go. This shit is pissing me off.

Is your name on there Ender? I'll ask Kier... it might have something to do with your location.