Explaining Tech issues to 'Younglings'

[NecronLord]

And I am bemused by why you think you'd never 'hear this' from me. I've said it before and I'll say it again. "The VFX and writing of Star Wars are not constructed with a consistant technological base in mind. Extreme outliers on all ends of the spectrum exist for this reason."

Hell, there's a perfect example of this in RotS. Back in the day, Ray Shields only affected turbolaser weapons. Now they affect physical objects.

[Darth Wong]

Do you realize that even if 100% of Darkstar's bullshit is true, then we should still see unreal amounts of energy when beams using this technology hit unshielded targets?

And why exactly should the technology not scale? I keep hearing that it's unreasonable to use scaling; why?

One can easily explain most discrepancies with charge time or power settings; Darkstar's MCR doesn't actually explain a damned thing.

[Winston Blake]

DET-only no longer accounts for all the evidence from the Alderann explosion. It is that simple.

I feel i'm getting in the way here, but i want to say that since post-SE DET-only no longer accounts for all the evidence then we revise our theories by accepting that which it does account for, we don't throw it out in favour of 'inexplicable somethingness'. When Newtonian-only physics was found to no longer account for all the evidence, it was extended to 'Newtonian + Relativistic', not 'Everything is now a big unknown'.

The hottest known supergiant is 1e6 times as luminous as the sun, giving an output of 3.827E32W One hundred times this is of course 3.827E34W. However, we can also lowball this number down to...

3.827E30 (Betelgeuse) * 100. Which is consistant with a daily output insufficient to account for the observed effects.

Since that's a lower limit (3.3E37J), why shouldn't the DS be capable of more?

SW.com databank: hypermatter reactor provides the power to destroy the planets

Errr... Right... Where else is it going to get the power to operate from? Solar panels perhaps?

If i understand right you're saying it gets it from the target's material (chain reaction).

[Darth Wong]

And I am bemused by why you think you'd never 'hear this' from me. I've said it before and I'll say it again. "The VFX and writing of Star Wars are not constructed with a consistant technological base in mind. Extreme outliers on all ends of the spectrum exist for this reason."

Hell, there's a perfect example of this in RotS. Back in the day, Ray Shields only affected turbolaser weapons. Now they affect physical objects.

And how does this translate to "logic should not apply", fucktard?

[Darth Wong]

DET-only no longer accounts for all the evidence from the Alderann explosion. It is that simple.

Do you realize you are using precisely the same fallacy as the "evolution cannot explain this" creationists? There are gaps in our understanding of the entire fossil record, what predecessors of certain species looked like, etc. That doesn't mean the theory is wrong until you can produce a better theory.

[Vympel]

[Though I've never read this (in at least one place now contradicted) book, this can be painted many ways.

Who cares if it's contradicted in at least once place, wherever that is? What relevance does that have? What, we'll just dismiss the whole thing now shall we?

The hottest known supergiant is 1e6 times as luminous as the sun, giving an output of 3.827E32W One hundred times this is of course 3.827E34W. However, we can also lowball this number down to...

3.827E30 (Betelgeuse) * 100. Which is consistant with a daily output insufficient to account for the observed effects.

The quote is hundreds. Not a hundred. Moving right along.

Errr... Right... Where else is it going to get the power to operate from? Solar panels perhaps?

If I have to produce exact quotes, this is going to get very tedious very quickly.

Barring the absurd ring that flies out of planets the Death Star destroys.

That is not evidence. You are using creationist style bullshit now.

Hell, there's a perfect example of this in RotS. Back in the day, Ray Shields only affected turbolaser weapons. Now they affect physical objects.

Just because ray shields don't stop physical obejcts from passing through something (like a proton torpedo) does not mean in RotS they now do block physical objects. Did it occur to you that walking through a ray shield may simply be harmful to a human being?

[Ghost Rider]

And Necron...in reference to this?

The hottest known supergiant is 1e6 times as luminous as the sun, giving an output of 3.827E32W One hundred times this is of course 3.827E34W. However, we can also lowball this number down to...

3.827E30 (Betelgeuse) * 100. Which is consistant with a daily output insufficient to account for the observed effects.

It's hundreds

Like the passage says

In order to deliver a spectacular, planet-destroying burst, the station's hypermatter reactor would have to been able power equvalent to hundreds of super giant stars.

thus why are you using the ABSOLUTE low end again?

[NecronLord]

And how does this translate to "logic should not apply", fucktard?

It's not meant to. It's meant to translate into "Here's why the layman looks at the ICS numbers and laughs"

[Darth Wong]

And how does this translate to "logic should not apply", fucktard?

It's not meant to. It's meant to translate into "Here's why the layman looks at the ICS numbers and laughs"

So? Laymen should be capable of understanding simple concepts like charge time or power settings. Laymen should also be capable of grasping that the Death Star is ridiculously powerful. And laymen are not going to spin up some bullshit about mysterious chain reactions or use an idiot acronym like DET, which nobody uses in this discussion unless he's a complete fucktard because transfer of energy is a natural requirement of thermodynamics in every case except for an exothermal reaction, and science/engineering terms are not created for "everything except A".

[Darth Wong]

Is it really that hard to say "well, if you charge up the beam for a while, you get a bigger blast" for those LAAT turrets? Hell, even the goddamned computer games actually act like this.

[NecronLord]

So? Laymen should be capable of understanding simple concepts like charge time or power settings.

They should. But usually they just laugh at the numbers and toss the book aside. This is the obvious route cause of the "Saxton is a liar" trolls. I would have thought my support for said ICS figures (I tell a lie, I did try scaling the Acclamator reactor once. The numbers in the AotC ICS are low) makes it obvious that I'm playing devil's advocate here.

[Darth Wong]

So? Laymen should be capable of understanding simple concepts like charge time or power settings.

They should. But usually they just laugh at the numbers and toss the book aside.

So? 44% of Americans laugh at "billions of years" for the age of the Earth and toss those kinds of books aside too. We have a problem in this country with people who make judgements about technical issues based on gut feeling, and that problem is hardly restricted to Star Wars.

[NecronLord]

Yes. However, it is also why it comes as no surprise to me that any kid would give you funny looks if you tried explaining teraton turbolasers to them.

[Winston Blake]

And how does this translate to "logic should not apply", fucktard?

It's not meant to. It's meant to translate into "Here's why the layman looks at the ICS numbers and laughs"

I'm playing devil's advocate here.

OK i think i get it now, this is all from the pov of someone not versed in scifi analysis stuff (including real science). No worries.

use an idiot acronym like DET, which nobody uses in this discussion unless he's a complete fucktard

*looks over previous posts

Aw, dammit.

[NecronLord]

OK i think i get it now, this is all from the pov of someone not versed in scifi analysis stuff (including real science). No worries.

It's the same with the "Vorlon Planet Killer can blow up a planet" types. Cinematic depiction often produces inpressions that don't hold up to analysis, in this case, the VPK seems to blow up a planet, given that it can be seen flying through asteroid fields afterward. Hell, even the producer of B5 seems to think it blows them up! Despite this, it cleary doesn't, because it must have rough parity with the Shadow Planet Killer.

[AdmiralKanos]

Yes. However, it is also why it comes as no surprise to me that any kid would give you funny looks if you tried explaining teraton turbolasers to them.

Yes, but you can bet it's not because he's spinning Darkstar-style self-contradictory bullshit in his head. It's because he's going on gut feeling, which is why you have to tell him that gut feeling is an unacceptable way to judge a technical issue.

The country is filled with 13 year olds who shake their heads at the conclusions of highly qualified experts on real-life issues such as evolution and stem cell research and whether a woman is in a permanent vegetative state, not just something like this. It is not at all excessive to say that when a kid exhibits that mentality, he needs a smack upside the head for his arrogance.

[NecronLord]

When an adult exibits that mentality, they need a smack upside the head. It's not as if kids are substantially different.