Turbolaser Theory

[nightmare]

I have no idea why I did this, but I wrote it down when I started thinking about the topic, so. Turbolaser theory gives me headaches, I don't believe it's possible to connect all data with them. At best one can achieve some sort of approximation. Anyway, the following is my current TL theory. I consider it a work in currently near-stasis progress due to my schedule, and by no means complete. For instance, I'm totally leaving out what TLs may consist of. You don't need to tell me you can poke holes in it, I know you can. Question is if I can scrap my model entirely, discard parts of it, or improve upon it?

Notice also how I found that other people have come to similar ideas in the past when I started researching on the topic, perhaps I'm really just remaking it into a new format, but at least I'm presenting my own idea and not someone else's. Credit is given to the sources I list, but I was going by my own memory of movie events and books when first formulating my theory, not drawing directly from the listed sources.

I'm also not experienced in strictly formulating theories, so I'm probably going to lack on that account as well. Since it's a WIP, text has been deleted, copied, moved, altered, etc, to the point where I may very well have screwed up the context somewhere too. Finally I haven't got to the point where I'm trying out maths on it, either.

So, after all the tons of excuses:


This is Mike Wong's list of observed turbolaser characteristics:

1. Turbolaser bolts glow visibly even in vacuum. Since lasers don't radiate energy away from their direction of travel, the bolts can't be lasers.
2. Turbolaser cannons have physical holes at the ends of their barrels. Since a laser should have a lens at its end, this indicates that some physical object is exiting the barrel.
3. Damage effects occasionally precede the impact of the visible portion of the bolt, which means that the bolts have an invisible portion. The visible portion may represent a second stage of the weapon, or it may represent a form of "tracer".
4. The visible portion of a turbolaser bolt travels at distinctly subluminal speed even in vacuum. Since light travels at c in vacuum, the bolts can't be lasers.
5. The invisible portion of the bolt outraces the visible portion by a miniscule margin if at all, so it also cannot be a laser.
6. Turbolaser bolts do not appear to be affected by gravity, as demonstrated when multiple shots were fired in low orbit over Tatooine (so low that Luke Skywalker was able to see the battle through his binoculars). Given the relatively low propagation velocity, we should have been able to detect gravitational effects. The same is true of ground and airspeeder blasters.
7. Some of the visible portion of a turbolaser bolt can be affected by gravity, as demonstrated by the green discharge falling toward the Death Star in the picture above. This indicates that the characteristics of the luminous green material vary depending on its proximity to the bolt; if it's in the bolt, then it is unaffected by gravity, but if it is too far from the bolt, then it behaves like normal gas.
8. Turbolaser bolts are capable of detonating with a "flak effect" at a predetermined range, as demonstrated by ISD fire in TESB (against the Falcon) and AT-AT anti-aircraft fire.
9. Turbolaser bolts have a distinct shape and contour, with internal variations in luminosity. Each bolt contains a bright "pulse" in its head that is similar to the pulses that were seen moving down the Death Star superlaser tributary beams, as well as the main beam.
10. Turbolaser propagation speed is not fixed. Heavy turbolaser blasts in ROTJ travelled much more quickly than light turbolaser shots in ANH and TESB, and the Death Star superlaser propagated at an even higher rate.
11. Turbolaser colour does not change with time and distance, ie- the bolt does not fade or change its colour spectrum as it moves through space.
12. Turbolaser bolts can have significant momentum, as demonstrated by a turbolaser impact on the Millenium Falcon's aft quarter in TESB as well as the cannon recoil observed whenever we see close-ups of the guns in operation.
13. There is very little variation in turbolaser colour. The colour of a TIE fighter blast is not noticeably different than the colour of the Death Star superlaser. If variation does occur, it does not occur in a continuous fashion, ie- there is no smooth spectrum. All bolts appear to be either red or green, with no points in between. This suggests that the colour of the bolt has nothing to do with its power level and may in fact be an arbitrary, deliberate choice, which would be in keeping with the "tracer" idea.


Turbolaser characteristics orginally observed by His Divine Shadow:

Observed fact #1 - The bolts change direction as the guns of the TIE changes direction, the bolts must be a pulse or something travelling in an unknown medium and are not independant entities(like say how a bullet would act after being fired from a weapon).

Observed fact #2 - From the clip showing the Tantive-IV being chased we see the bolts are not affected by gravity.

Theory: There might be an invisible beam that acts as a medium that the destrucive energies travel across.

Observed fact #1 - We clearly see that there are bolt shield interactions without the presence of a visual bolt in this clip, this means that the bolt is not the destructive part, but merely something that closely correlates with the destructive part.

Theory:
It might be a trail, an analogy would be that of a rocket and it's exhaust

Reprecussions:
This disproves theories like plasma bolts and such because in those, the visible bolt has to be the damaging factor, but it's clearly not, it's just a commonly correlated independant phenomenon that has no bearing on the bolt's destructiveness.

Observed fact #1 - Blaster bolts are sometimes translucent, this would not be possible if they where consisting of hot pressurized matter, nor do they arc the slightest.
They must consist of massless particles of some kind.

Reprecussions:
Blaster bolts cannot consist of plasma or any type of matter.

Observed fact #3 - Bolts are green, this means they do not consist of matter at high temperatures, since there is no temperature at which a surface glows green.

Reprecussions:
Clearly they cannot be plasma weapons due to this since plasma weapons glow white, and the nature of plasma will cause energy to be released from it in the form of white hot light at such rates that the bolt would look like a miniature sun, this is assuming ofcourse that there is some magic contaniment field that would hold it together even when it's left the barrel, in reality without pressure it would expand in size many many times and it would just look like a white hot explosion at the muzzle.


Quote extracts orginally by His Divine Shadow:

Addendum to original topic, quotes and evidence:
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Pg. 3: Energy weapons fire invisible energy beams at lightspeed. The visible "bolt" is a glowing pulse that travels along the beam at less than lightspeed...The light given off by visible bolts depletes the overall energy content of a beam, limiting its range. Turbolasers gain a longer range by spinning the energy beam, which reduces waste glow.
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-Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections

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"Ten seconds," Han told Leia and Dorja, and reached for the triggers to the concussion-missile tubers.

Anticipation drew a metallic streak down his tongue. He felt a prickle of sweat on his scalp.

"Five." he triggered the first pair of concussion missiles, knowing that unlike the laser cannon, they did not strike at the speed of light."

"Two." Han triggered another pair of missiles. The Millenium Falcon's engines howled as they fought the pull of the dovin basal's gravity.

"Fire." the dovin basal swept past, and suddenly the display lit up with the six approaching coralskippers. The combined power of the eight turbolasers ifired straight at them.

The six coralskippers had also split into two Vs of three craft each, the formations on slightly diverging courses, but both formations were running into the Falcon and her armament at a combined velocity of over ninety percent of the speed of light. None of them had shifted their dovin basals to warp space defensively ahead of them, and the pilots had only an instant to perceive the doom staring them in the face, and no time to react. The first vic ran right into the first pair of missiles and the turbolaser fire, and all three erupted in fire as their coral hulls shattered into fragments.
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-Destiny's Way






Turbolaser theory

1.

Postulate: A turbolaser or related weapon first fires a containment field shaped like a very long tube at a target. This field is invisible and can to some extent be directed from the weapon.

Extrapolation: This field is magnetically charged, massless, and extends at a velocity of c.

Evidence: TESB Destroyer which alters visible trajectory of its turbolaser bolt mid-flight. Death Star superlaser tributary beam fired in a tunnel within short distance of otherwise unprotected navy enlisted. Several instances of turbolasers and fighter laser cannons fired "off-axis". SPHA-Ts firing on Geonosis without dumping appreciable amounts of heat into the environment.

From the list of observed characteristics: "7. Some of the visible portion of a turbolaser bolt can be affected by gravity, as demonstrated by the green discharge falling toward the Death Star in the picture above. This indicates that the characteristics of the luminous green material vary depending on its proximity to the bolt; if it's in the bolt, then it is unaffected by gravity, but if it is too far from the bolt, then it behaves like normal gas."

Theory prediction: A bolt would not be affected by gravity since it is guided by the massless containment field, which should not arc noticeably in gravity. Bolt gas which is ejected outside the containment field by leakage would behave like gas, possibly non-ionized. See point 3.

Theory prediction: When the containment tube is turned off or lost (passed out of), the cold bolt will tend to expand / dissipate rapidly, even during mid-flight, aka the "flak effect" at predetermined range in point 5 AND when striking the shields of a target before impact. Velocity may also keep the bolt relatively well together for a miniscule of time and distance.

Theory prediction: A turbolaser can hit a target at extreme distance, far beyond what is practically limited by bolt velocity by first locking on the containment tube to it. Ref, ROTS:ICS : "over ten light-minutes", Rebel Stand, a little modified turbolaser fires at a target from outside the system.

Speculation: Jamming or high angular velocity may prevent a positive lock-on and necessitate that gunners fire on manual targeting with greatly reduced precision. In such a case, gunner competence and movement speed of the weapon is key for better accuracy than the enemy.


2.

Postulate: A turbolaser then releases the damaging component. This component, the "bolt" is visible.

Postulate: Velocity of the bolt varies depending on distance.

Evidence: Numerous instances of visible turbolaser bolts throughout the movies striking their targets in around three frames regardless of distance.

Extrapolation 1: The bolt is magnetically accelerated and fired inside the containment "tube".

Extrapolation 2: The velocity of the bolt depends on how much it is accelerated. Bolts are accelerated less against targets at shorter distance in order to conserve energy. Maximum attainable velocity is near-c.

Theory prediction: Visible turbolaser bolts can vary greatly in velocity and may even be accelerated after firing.

Theory prediction: A turbolaser bolt may be elongated in corrolation with its velocity.

Theory prediction: Turbolaser bolts have mass and cannot reach c, but get very close to it.

Speculation: A turbolaser bolt may be further elongated by having a larger mass of bolt component to draw from - which may also be connected to the total energy of the bolt.


3.

Postulate: The turbolaser "bolt" component is relatively "cold", but superheats a target when striking it by excitation.

Evidence: Turbolasers and related mechanisms as blasters do not appear to dump appreciable amounts of heat unless it strikes a target. Examples: SPHA-T turbolasers on Geonosis, TESB asteroids.

Theory prediction: When the SPHA-Ts fired on Geonosis, it seems that no appreciable amounts of heat are dumped into the environment. Yet the magnitude of the event onscreen indicates that this should have happened. C-canon also goes further to state that SPHA-Ts match ISD heavy turbolasers in power, which only further stresses the issue. This theory suggests that the SPHA-T beams were contained while fired and released only when striking the target.

Furthermore, turbolaser bolts are not particularly luminous. This suggests that they are "cold", even though they evidently superheat what they strike. Containing a superhot bolt would require a large amount of energy, so much that it may be better to avoid the bolt and just fire the containment beam. If the bolt is "cold", this may not be a problem.

Theory prediction: A ship may not receive much heat when hit by a turbolaser bolt if the shields can keep it from exciting the ship's molecules.


4.

Postulate: The invisible laser component described in AOTC:ICS is used to excite the turbolaser main component. It is then released along the same path as the following bolt.

Evidence: There is only a few observed instances of "damage before impact of visible bolt", and when they do occurr, only relatively little damage is observed to happen just before impact.

Extrapolation: The laser causes little to no damage. From the list point 5: "The invisible portion of the bolt outraces the visible portion by a miniscule margin if at all, so it also cannot be a laser."

Speculation: A target may be partially excited immediately before impact of the main bolt due to forward leakage as the bolt expands in the containment tube. This leakage is minor and may not be visible. This behaviour should be more prominent at low bolt velocities.


5.

Postulate: Turbolaser bolts damage primarily by heat and secondarily by impact shock.

Evidence: TESB asteroids vapourize and vanishes in seconds. Turbolaser cannons have "multi-gigaton recoil", ref "Slave Ship". From point 12: "Turbolaser bolts can have significant momentum, as demonstrated by a turbolaser impact on the Millenium Falcon's aft quarter in TESB as well as the cannon recoil observed whenever we see close-ups of the guns in operation."

Extrapolation: While turbolaser bolt matter is cold, it excites target molecules when released.

Theory projcection: If a turbolaser bolt is released in the vacuum of space, it remains relatively cold and quickly dissipates without dumping large thermal radiation.

[Darth Wong]

In other words, you think turbolasers are massless self-sustaining magnetic containment fields with near-perfect thermal insulation at the boundary until impact and a magical heating effect which you do not even attempt to explain. Congratulations; you might as well just say that turbolasers are "glowy blobs with magic boomboom juice inside"; it would have just as much scientific validity.

[nightmare]

I like Dr. Saxton's laser theory, but it doesn't match observed data, either. I can't formulate a scientific theory that matches all observations; I don't think it's possible.

I don't think turbolasers are either this or that; I've tried different variants, plasma, particle beam, etc, but while those theories can match some of the obseravations, they all fail at some crucial point.

So yeah; I make no claims to scientific accuracy. I'm trying to formulate a basic theory based on observations only. I don't assume perfect insulation, or perfect anything. If that was unlcear because I didn't specify it, I apologize.

I left such big holes because I can't find anything to fill them. I don't mean for this to stand on itself, I'm rather trying to add to existing theories. For example, Mad's ramp-up theory, and Dr.Saxton's laser fails to explain a ten lightminute range against moving capital ships. I'm just trying to add to the discussion, really.

[Connor MacLeod]

Simple. Don't try to explain every glowy beam bolt or pulse onscreen as being from the same weapon . We already know there are different "kinds" of Turbolasers. Some exhibit a beamlike behaviour and others don't.

[nightmare]

Yes, I know about blasters referred to as projectile weapons, for one thing. Mad was wise to not include blasters in his theory. I discuss correlation between blasters and turbolasers above, but even if I single out a given type of turbolaser I end up with stange stuff, even if the number of problems drop. For example I can ignore the whole bit about arcing.