HYPER MATTER!!!

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

Would the liquid metals be fuel for the reactor, or would they be propellant? The latter makes more sense to me.

Like Spankysaid the OT:ICS says that it's fuel. Doesn't say what type of fuel or for what system it's used. It seemed though based on the illustration that it is the propellant for the sub-lights.

An atmosphereic Star-ship would need repulsars on all the time while 'docked' to compensate for the weight/mass of the fuel hypermatter or it would probably snap the keel of the ship.

The AOTC:ICS states that an Acclamator's anti-grav repulsor system supports most of the weight while the landing gear only provides stable ground contact, and that's it. So it would seem that any large ship uses repulsors all the time while in atmosphere. I see no reason to assume that a smaller ship can't do the same. We know they have very high level of gravity manipulation technology.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I believe most fightercraft just use deuterium fusion, and IIRC some larger reactors use hypermatter fusion, whatever that means. Hypermatter annhialation is what you get for the big ships, Star Frigate on up.

No. All major SW craft use fusion-confined hypermatter annhiliation. They need it for their power ratios.

Someone needs to get Ender on this; he'd be able to answer more precisely.

[Anguirus]

The OT ICS states that the Falcon uses "highly unstable dangerous liquid metal fuel."

Sounds just like the Invisible Hand. What's strange is that the substance apears to be highly explosive, but non-toxic and with the consistency of water...

[Adrian Laguna]

Non-toxic is kind of dubious. Two Jedi fought for quite a while in conditions that would be almost instantly lethal to a normal human and neither of them seemed to suffer adverse effects from it (aside from being exahusted from all the fighting). Anakin finally burst into flames only after he was grieviously injured both mentally and phisically.

[Anguirus]

Very good point. Hadn't thought of that. Plus, they neutralize poison in TPM, though it seemed to require at last a second's concentration.

[m.castaldo]

So basically... all this means is that they run on a technobabble handwavium fuel source.

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

So basically... all this means is that they run on a technobabble handwavium fuel source.

No. Technobabble handwavium is where they create some "funny" new particle or type of radiation (i.e. chronoton particles, thalaron radiation, etc.), in order to create a Deus Ex Machina. With Wars fuels we know what it is in a general way, we know what it can do to some extent, we just don't know the exact chemical or molecular make up. Therefore we know what it can do we just don't know why.

[Anomie]

Out of curiosity, does it say somewhere that all ships use hypermatter. To my knowledge, only the Death Stars used hypermatter reactors and ISDs and other ships used solar ionization reactors.

[apocolypse]

Out of curiosity, does it say somewhere that all ships use hypermatter. To my knowledge, only the Death Stars used hypermatter reactors and ISDs and other ships used solar ionization reactors.

I can remember at least the VenStar entry in the RotS:ICS showing a reactor and the statement that it annihilated matter. It wasn't labeled explicitly as a "hypermatter reactor", but it's a logical conclusion based on the data. I believe it showed a similar reactor for the Acclamator in the AotC:ICS, but I'd have to double check when I get back home.

[Noble Ire]

Out of curiosity, does it say somewhere that all ships use hypermatter. To my knowledge, only the Death Stars used hypermatter reactors and ISDs and other ships used solar ionization reactors.

I can remember at least the VenStar entry in the RotS:ICS showing a reactor and the statement that it annihilated matter. It wasn't labeled explicitly as a "hypermatter reactor", but it's a logical conclusion based on the data. I believe it showed a similar reactor for the Acclamator in the AotC:ICS, but I'd have to double check when I get back home.

IIRC, the Solar Ionization reactor comes from the old Vessels Essential Guide, and has been overridden by numerous later sources, including the ICSs.

[Hedgehog's Roommate]

Out of curiosity, does it say somewhere that all ships use hypermatter. To my knowledge, only the Death Stars used hypermatter reactors and ISDs and other ships used solar ionization reactors.

If you have the AOTC:ICS look at the entry it has for the Trade feds sphere. It has a reactor that looks like a miniature version of the on we see in the DS2.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Also, the big comms dish looks a hell of alot like the firing dish from the Deathstar.

Obviosuly they are trying to show that the tecnology, AND the engineering for the Deathstar already existed. it wasnt just 'Invented'

[Connor MacLeod]

I believe most fightercraft just use deuterium fusion, and IIRC some larger reactors use hypermatter fusion, whatever that means. Hypermatter annhialation is what you get for the big ships, Star Frigate on up.

No. All major SW craft use fusion-confined hypermatter annhiliation. They need it for their power ratios.

Someone needs to get Ender on this; he'd be able to answer more precisely.

While there is no "hypermatter fusion" (which I presume was one thing you meant to point out to Alan - IE that "all hypermatter reactions are annihilation reactions".) Its not strictly true that all starships need to use *only* hypermatter reactions. The actual requirement is that it must be an "annihilation" reaction for efficiency purposes. The "type" of annihilation reaction is u p for debate (it could be antimatter, or or "black holes" like World Devastators, or somethign more exotic like hte "nucleonic" reactions of the Galaxy Gun warhead..)

Presumably hypermatter reactos are considered the most efficient type of reaction possible (I'm purely guessing at that, ,though.) and hence major warships (and possibly corporate freighters and the like) generally use hypermatter. It may also be possible that hypermatter is considered a military technology and its use is highly restricted in the Empire.

[LaCroix]

One quick info.

For a propellant, the most important value is the Isp, the specific impulse. This value determines how much pounds thrust you get out of 1 pound of this Propellant(usually the fuel and the oxidizer, since different combinations result in different reaction values) per second. Also, multiply by g, and you get the aproximate exhaust velocity.

(Isp = F / ( dm/dt * g) = vexhaust / g , g=9.81 m/s2)

Most solid propellants for model rocketry are in range of 200-300 Isp, liquid Hydrogen+ Oxigen is in the range of about 500(nearly the upper limits of chemical drives), and electric ion drives ar able to produce an Isp between 1000 and 20000 "Seconds".

The present problem with electric drive is you need low tens of kilowatts to produce ~1N of thrust. (=Big, heavy reactors or long burntimes on solar power neded)

In general, for maximum thrust, you need a very light and fastmoving endproduct. Therefore, a liquid metal COULD make sense if its endproducts have these qualities. Usually metals are very dense, but since the group "metal" is only classified as having a "metallic" binding, there could be an metallic element with the properties of water.

But since chemical propulsion is very inefficient, it would probably only be a reactant for the reactor, generating energy für the ion drive. There is no way to generate the amount of thrust seen on screen with ANY chemical reaction. But when using one pound of electrons in an actual present ion drive, you get up to 20.000 pounds of thrust.

Image of a running ion drive in the MIT lab. Looks familiar, doesn't it?

[m.castaldo]

So basically... all this means is that they run on a technobabble handwavium fuel source.

No. Technobabble handwavium is where they create some "funny" new particle or type of radiation (i.e. chronoton particles, thalaron radiation, etc.), in order to create a Deus Ex Machina. With Wars fuels we know what it is in a general way, we know what it can do to some extent, we just don't know the exact chemical or molecular make up. Therefore we know what it can do we just don't know why.

So basically when something new is created in order to create a DEM, it's technobabbles handwavium. Well.... hypermatter was created as a DEM so hyperspeed could go, ergo.... it's technobabble handwavium.

[Noble Ire]

So basically when something new is created in order to create a DEM, it's technobabbles handwavium. Well.... hypermatter was created as a DEM so hyperspeed could go, ergo.... it's technobabble handwavium.

Since hypermatter does not exist in our world, then I suppose, by your definition, yes. Of course, to use it in a derogatory fashion in this case would essentially be attacking 95% of scifi franchises and everything about them.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Wasn't there some old FanFic that had a strandid ISD extracting Hypermatter from a Black Hole?

[Anomie]

Wasn't there some old FanFic that had a strandid ISD extracting Hypermatter from a Black Hole?

It was Michael January's ISD Eliminator: Part I: Mercenary archived over on the ASVS Fanfic Archive

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Which of course doesn't matter.

For a time there was a bit of a brainbug misconception going around with the more dull-witted members of the board that hypermatter coming from blackholes being stated in the AotC ICS, but in reality it was concerning the gravity knots used in repulsorlifts.