Need help with Darkstar's follower!

[Master_Baerne]

Last I checked, it took running into three billion cubic kilometers of battlestation to blow it up.

I could have sworn there is a line in one of the novels that says something like 'noone in the fleet would have mourned the passing of the Death Star if it hadn't taken the Executor with it in its death throes', strongly implying that it survived even that collision.

Unfortunately I can't remember where it came from.


glass.

Sounds like The Trawn Trilogy. Pellaon(SP?) said something like that, I think.

[Lord Relvenous]

Last I checked, it took running into three billion cubic kilometers of battlestation to blow it up.

I could have sworn there is a line in one of the novels that says something like 'noone in the fleet would have mourned the passing of the Death Star if it hadn't taken the Executor with it in its death throes', strongly implying that it survived even that collision.

Unfortunately I can't remember where it came from.


glass.

Sounds like The Trawn Trilogy. Pellaon(SP?) said something like that, I think.

Actually i think it came from the X-Wing series. Too many books for me to track down the quote. As for the Executor surviving that collision, in the movie an explosion engulfs the entire ship, which demonstrates complete destruction to me.

[Batman]

*Le sigh*.
HTTE Bantam Spectra paperback, pg 3:
'There would have been few in the Fleet's upper echelons who would have genuinely mourned its passing...if it hadn't, in its death throes, taken the Super Star Destroyer Executor with it.'

[Kane Starkiller]

It was always hilarious to me how many EU writers consider Executor comparable to the Death Star.

"There would have been few in the Fleet's upper echelons who would have genuinely mourned the passing of the aircraft Enterprise...if it hadn't, in its death throes, taken that Coast Guard rubber boat with it. "

[Batman]

It was always hilarious to me how many EU writers consider Executor comparable to the Death Star.
"There would have been few in the Fleet's upper echelons who would have genuinely mourned the passing of the aircraft Enterprise...if it hadn't, in its death throes, taken that Coast Guard rubber boat with it. "

What a wonderfully accurate comparison. The Fleet would not mourn a titanic battlestation that has already FAILED at its primary job if you have to actually use it and concentrates the resources of countless warship in one resource that mostly sits around doing nothing if it hadn't in its destruction eliminated the cream of the crop of the Imperial Navy. Yes it's obviously all about the relative firepower even if that of the DS is mostly useless.
And I realize the US Navy is facing shortages but they're training their up and coming officers in rubber dinghys? It must be worse than I thought.

[Kane Starkiller]

You are completely missing the point. Yes the 900km DS2 was a completely unnecessary waste of resources but that doesn't explain why they don't give a shit about such a huge loss of resources but are bawling their eyes out over an insignificant speck of metal lodged on it's surface.
Suppose that Bush ordered construction of a new battleship, say three times more massive than Iowa and it was lost since it could do nothing against fighters? And a rubber boat was lost in the process. Would US admirals don't giving a shit about the battleship but crying over the rubber boat made any sense?

[Batman]

You are completely missing the point. Yes the 900km DS2 was a completely unnecessary waste of resources but that doesn't explain why they don't give a shit about such a huge loss of resources but are bawling their eyes out over an insignificant speck of metal lodged on it's surface.

There's one missing the point here all right but it isn't me. It isn't about the SHIP idiot, it's about the people ON it. Read the fucking book. And at least Executor was good for something.

Suppose that Bush ordered construction of a new battleship, say three times more massive than Iowa and it was lost since it could do nothing against fighters? And a rubber boat was lost in the process. Would US admirals don't giving a shit about the battleship but crying over the rubber boat made any sense?

If the rubber boat held the up and coming crowd of future navy officers, yes. Thanks for ignoring the relevant parts of the argument.
Not that that argument isn't fatally flawed anyway.
1. Executor isn't a rubber boat. It's a completely capable fighting ship in and of itself.
2. Why SHOULD US Navy admirals cry a single tear about something as inherently worthless as a battleship? Like the Death Star it's a huge waste of resources that could have much more profitably been employed to build a fleet of much more versatile vessels. If anything they should have wept when that stupid hunk of junk was first buit.

[Isolder74]

Might be better to compare it to Pearl Harbor and the Arizona.

Much closer in terms of resorces to THE USA

[Kane Starkiller]

There's one missing the point here all right but it isn't me. It isn't about the SHIP idiot, it's about the people ON it. Read the fucking book. And at least Executor was good for something.

Oh so it's about the people. You mean like the Emperor who held the fucking Empire together? Like the orders of magnitude more people that were undoubtedly stationed on the Death Star 2?

If the rubber boat held the up and coming crowd of future navy officers, yes. Thanks for ignoring the relevant parts of the argument.

So in a navy of million ships crew of the Executor is somehow significant? So significant in fact that it offsets the loss of the single irreplaceable member of the Empire- the fucking Emperor? Not that Zahn cared much about that. In Zahn's world 200 obsolete dreadnoughts are a war winning fleet.

1. Executor isn't a rubber boat. It's a completely capable fighting ship in and of itself.

Good for the Executor. And that makes it special enough to be considered more valuable to the Empire than a 900km long ship which can blow up planets, has millions of turbolasers and shields that can withstand at least 10^32J once finished how exactly?

2. Why SHOULD US Navy admirals cry a single tear about something as inherently worthless as a battleship? Like the Death Star it's a huge waste of resources that could have much more profitably been employed to build a fleet of much more versatile vessels. If anything they should have wept when that stupid hunk of junk was first buit.

Whether building fleets of Executors instead of Death Star 2 would've been more profitable or useful is completely besides the point.
We are discussing whether loosing a single Executor is comparable to loosing the Death Star.
You seem to think that a loss of a vessel that can engage at least tens of thousands of Executors on equal terms, has enough stormtroopers stationed to occupy several planets on it's own, has orders of magnitude greater fighter capacity and can blow up a fucking planet is somehow less noticeable than the loss of that single Executor.

By the way I like how you take my battleship analogy I provided to demonstrate the disparity in resources and firepower and then pretend that Death Star 2 would've been just as useless to the Imperial navy as battleships would be to the current US navy.

[Aquatain]

Since the Executor was considered a fast track to promotion the best and brightest in the Empire severed on board, Pellaeon was meandering the loss of the crew not the ship.

[Batman]

There's one missing the point here all right but it isn't me. It isn't about the SHIP idiot, it's about the people ON it. Read the fucking book. And at least Executor was good for something.

Oh so it's about the people. You mean like the Emperor who held the fucking Empire together?

Who was an insane scheming megalomaniac and for the demise of which the Navy probably have cheered, given that WITHOUT Palpatine's insane machinations there wouldn't BE a Rebellion,

Like the orders of magnitude more people that were undoubtedly stationed on the Death Star 2?

So? The Empire has troops coming out the wazoo. The difference, as Aquatain pointed out, was the quality of the crew and officers on Executor.

If the rubber boat held the up and coming crowd of future navy officers, yes. Thanks for ignoring the relevant parts of the argument.

So in a navy of million ships crew of the Executor is somehow significant?

It is explicitely stated to be so, asshat.

So significant in fact that it offsets the loss of the single irreplaceable member of the Empire- the fucking Emperor?

Who was irreplaceable thanks to his designing the Empire to fall without him, which at this time NOBODY KNEW, asshat. The Navy indubitably thought they'd be better off without him (which they were).

Not that Zahn cared much about that. In Zahn's world 200 obsolete dreadnoughts are a war winning fleet.

Not that there's any problem with that but this is relevant how?

1. Executor isn't a rubber boat. It's a completely capable fighting ship in and of itself.

Good for the Executor. And that makes it special enough to be considered more valuable to the Empire than a 900km long ship which can blow up planets, has millions of turbolasers and shields that can withstand at least 10^32J once finished how exactly?

Not that we haven't pointed out umpteen times that it WASN'T about the ship but the DS was TOTALLY USELESS except for blowing up planets. Who cares about all that firepower and resilience if you can't use it? Which you can't thanks to enemy fleets easily being able to avoid it with impunity.
At best you can use it as a hopelessly expensive siege/defense station. Talk about a waste of resources.

2. Why SHOULD US Navy admirals cry a single tear about something as inherently worthless as a battleship? Like the Death Star it's a huge waste of resources that could have much more profitably been employed to build a fleet of much more versatile vessels. If anything they should have wept when that stupid hunk of junk was first buit.

Whether building fleets of Executors instead of Death Star 2 would've been more profitable or useful is completely besides the point.

No it's not. The resources invested into the DS were already LOST. Why worry about it? There's nothing that was to be done about that. Executor however could have been put to profitable use.

We are discussing whether loosing a single Executor is comparable to loosing the Death Star.

No, we're discussing wether losing THIS SPECIFIC Executor is a worse loss than the DS which it was thanks to the personell aboard. And again, unlike the DS Executor was actually good for something.

You seem to think that a loss of a vessel that can engage at least tens of thousands of Executors on equal terms,

Should they ever bother to go within range of it when they can happily engage targets ELSEWHERE while the DS sits there dumbfounded for lack of targets,

has enough stormtroopers stationed to occupy several planets on it's own,

one planet at a time, actually, thanks to it only being able to be in one PLACE at a time, the stormies immedialtely being prey to counterattack once it leaves for the next planet,

has orders of magnitude greater fighter capacity

Which isn't going to do dick against targets which decide to go elsewhere,

and can blow up a fucking planet

which is utterly useless as an actual tool of war instead of terror,

is somehow less noticeable than the loss of that single Executor.

Which it is to someone who thinks about the actual utility of those theoretical numbers.

By the way I like how you take my battleship analogy I provided to demonstrate the disparity in resources and firepower and then pretend that Death Star 2 would've been just as useless to the Imperial navy as battleships would be to the current US navy.

It was.

[Kane Starkiller]

Who was an insane scheming megalomaniac and for the demise of which the Navy probably have cheered, given that WITHOUT Palpatine's insane machinations there wouldn't BE a Rebellion,

And this changes the fact that his loss was immeasurably worse than loosing any number of admirals and officers on Executor how exactly?

So? The Empire has troops coming out the wazoo. The difference, as Aquatain pointed out, was the quality of the crew and officers on Executor.

What quality? Really what have the crew of Executor demonstrated that is soooo out of the ordinary? They better be 1000 times more intelligent and capable than Death Star officers and crew since this is the disparity in people lost on the DS2.

It is explicitely stated to be so, asshat.

I know it was. This is why most of EU sucks. In films it was dismissed as one of "many command ships" and not even named. But in EU it's the super-duper irreplaceable ship that is more valuable to the Empire than Death Star. Yeah right.

Who was irreplaceable thanks to his designing the Empire to fall without him, which at this time NOBODY KNEW, asshat. The Navy indubitably thought they'd be better off without him (which they were).

But they DID know since by the time of Heir to the Empire the Empire was already reduced to a fraction of the galaxy. And who gives a shit whether he was irreplaceable due to his schemings. He WAS irreplaceable. That is all that matters. And NO they weren't better without the man who held the Empire together than with a lunatic who thought that he can conquer the galaxy by studying the art of various species. Talk about bullshit wank.

Not that there's any problem with that but this is relevant how?

It further demonstrates the collective inability of EU writers to comprehend the scale of the Galactic civilization. And YES there is a problem in the statement that 200 dreadnoughts mean shit in SW galactic war. Sure we can rationalize that away like we rationalize a lot of EU crap but that doesn't mean it isn't crap.

Not that we haven't pointed out umpteen times that it WASN'T about the ship but the DS was TOTALLY USELESS except for blowing up planets. Who cares about all that firepower and resilience if you can't use it? Which you can't thanks to enemy fleets easily being able to avoid it with impunity.
At best you can use it as a hopelessly expensive siege/defense station. Talk about a waste of resources.

Bullshit. It was clearly about the Executor itself. The very quote you provide mentiones the Executor only. Not to mention the entire trilogy which revolves about a handful of Star Destroyers (what it doesn't have a single Executor class left?) trying to find 200 shitty ships and Luke and co. trying desperately to stop them thus putting a lie to your claims that Zahn understood the scale of SW universe.
As for DS being totally useless is there something wrong with it's turbolasers? They can be used to bombard planets, they can be targeted at ships etc. etc.
Suppose you offer Thrawn Executor or Death Star 2. Which do you think he would take? Be careful with your answer now.

No it's not. The resources invested into the DS were already LOST. Why worry about it? There's nothing that was to be done about that. Executor however could have been put to profitable use.

What exactly could the Executor do that Death Star can't? Are you honestly saying that finished DS2 would be less valuable to the Empire than Executor? What the fuck are you smoking?

No, we're discussing wether losing THIS SPECIFIC Executor is a worse loss than the DS which it was thanks to the personell aboard. And again, unlike the DS Executor was actually good for something.

And you still haven't shown that there is anything special about "this specific" Executor. Except for your insistence that it's crew were some super duper geniuses. And here you go again pretending that Death Star isn't armed to the teeth by conventional turbolasers and that it could render any place in New Republic easy pickings.

Should they ever bother to go within range of it when they can happily engage targets ELSEWHERE while the DS sits there dumbfounded for lack of targets,

Using Trekkie battle tactics are we? DS2 would be sent against major Rebel fortifications and industrial bases not aimlessly wandering thorugh space. They will have NO CHOICE but to engage just like they did in ANH.

one planet at a time, actually, thanks to it only being able to be in one PLACE at a time, the stormies immedialtely being prey to counterattack once it leaves for the next planet,

Hundreds upon hundreds of TIE fighters armed with gigaton level missiles making no difference I'm sure.

Which isn't going to do dick against targets which decide to go elsewhere,

You're a funny guy. DS2 won't be used to chase down pirates but to strike down whatever planets choose to rebel against the Empire. Why didn't the Rebels decide to go elsewhere in ANH?

which is utterly useless as an actual tool of war instead of terror,

Gotta remember to tell that to Thrawn and New Republic once the Vong come.

Which it is to someone who thinks about the actual utility of those theoretical numbers.

Hmm the ability to destroy the industrial capacity of the enemy (say New Republic), the ability to attack even the most heavily defended planets defended by massive fleets and blow them to shit. There seems to be some utility here. Certainly much more than that of a single Executor.

[OmegaGuy]

Wait a minute, that makes no sense. The Death Star was far larger, more powerful, and used more resources to build than the Executor.

[PayBack]

Who was the DS under the control of? The Navy or some other command structure?

[Isolder74]

Perhaps Penellanon is caring more about his friends on the Excutor the the millions he didn't acually know.

[Master_Baerne]

*Le sigh*.
HTTE Bantam Spectra paperback, pg 3:
'There would have been few in the Fleet's upper echelons who would have genuinely mourned its passing...if it hadn't, in its death throes, taken the Super Star Destroyer [/i]Executor[/i] with it.'

(smiles) I got something right, for once!

[Teleros]

It is explicitely stated to be so, asshat.

I know it was. This is why most of EU sucks. In films it was dismissed as one of "many command ships" and not even named. But in EU it's the super-duper irreplaceable ship that is more valuable to the Empire than Death Star. Yeah right.

Don't forget that Pellaeon was almost certainly biased when he was thinking about the loss of the Death Star. And in many ways, yes if it was chock full of the top up-and-coming officers it would be more valuable, because those officers would eventually have formed the backbone of the future imperial fleet (or as it turned out, the imperial resistance to the New Republic), whereas the Death Star was essentially a big gun.

But they DID know since by the time of Heir to the Empire the Empire was already reduced to a fraction of the galaxy. And who gives a shit whether he was irreplaceable due to his schemings. He WAS irreplaceable. That is all that matters. And NO they weren't better without the man who held the Empire together than with a lunatic who thought that he can conquer the galaxy by studying the art of various species. Talk about bullshit wank.

Frankly opinions probably varied amongst the crews, but I expect the more intelligent of the Empire's commanders would have realised how irreplaceable he was in terms of the political structure of the Empire. I'm not sure how many realised that he was improving their skills in battle (as Thrawn suggested to Pellaeon).
As for comparing Thrawn and Palpatine - I'd go with Thrawn any day. Far more sane for one thing. As for his reading a species' art, well someone with a special gift at picking up psychological ideas could do that, but remember he used it alongside whatever other information he had, and arguably didn't need to either (witness his defeat of that race he didn't understand the art of).

It further demonstrates the collective inability of EU writers to comprehend the scale of the Galactic civilization. And YES there is a problem in the statement that 200 dreadnoughts mean shit in SW galactic war. Sure we can rationalize that away like we rationalize a lot of EU crap but that doesn't mean it isn't crap.

Could you not assume it was more a psychological victory for the Empire? If even Luke on Tatooine had heard of the "Dark Force", then Thrawn would have a very nice psychological weapon to use.
One final thing - remember they were Dreadnought class Heavy Cruisers - I've just reread the books and it was said 3 would struggle against an ISD and they were also several hundred metres smaller (were they as small as 600m? With a crew of 2000 compared to 16000 for ships their size?).

And you still haven't shown that there is anything special about "this specific" Executor. Except for your insistence that it's crew were some super duper geniuses. And here you go again pretending that Death Star isn't armed to the teeth by conventional turbolasers and that it could render any place in New Republic easy pickings.

As above, it's very important not to underestimate training and good leadership in any armed forces. The Death Star could fly somewhere and blow it up... the people being trained on the Executor would eventually have become the next generation of commanders, which is arguably more useful in the long run.

Hundreds upon hundreds of TIE fighters armed with gigaton level missiles making no difference I'm sure.

Firstly you have to make sure the DS leaves its TIEs behind - it might want to keep them for defence after all. Then, what's to stop a decent sized warship from nailing the TIEs with impunity and hitting the stormtroopers from space (depending on the situation of course)? At least with ISDs you've got a lot more of them, so they can stand guard over the captured world.

[Aaron]

So what's going on with the debate, are you still engaged with this guy or what?

[Darth Servo]

The MSCG apparently had a response burried in the middle of the giant off topic diversion about the legitimacy of flaming in a debate and tried to call our "failure" to find it a concession.

[Darth Servo]

The tard is also making a nusicance about the arrow that supposedly penetrated the scout trooper's armor. Would be nice if someone had a pic showing the arrow is definately in front of the white semicircle.

[Isolder74]

The tard is also making a nusicance about the arrow that supposedly penetrated the scout trooper's armor. Would be nice if someone had a pic showing the arrow is definately in front of the white semicircle.

I've tried but it happens so fast that it's only in frame fore 1 - 2 frames at mose. since the camera id not focused on it its not highly defined in any of the shots and its hard to make anything out.

But as far as I can tell it looks like it is in front of the pack rather than through it.

This is the same level as saying that the trooped didn't make a glancing hit on Leia's arm at the bunker.

[Darth Wong]

If we wish to test the theory that Ewok arrows can penetrate scout trooper armour plate, why are we looking at blurry images of one ambiguous incident rather than asking if we can find examples of Ewok arrows bouncing off the armour?

[Isolder74]

If we wish to test the theory that Ewok arrows can penetrate scout trooper armour plate, why are we looking at blurry images of one ambiguous incident rather than asking if we can find examples of Ewok arrows bouncing off the armour?

Because it somehow overrides the decriptions of the capibility of Stormtrooper armor, despite moments later arrows bouncing off trooper armor seconds later. He soimehowe think this give his side some kid of advantage over the world of Star Wars.

Of course this is SOP for Darkstar

[Darth Servo]

I do keep pointing out to him that even IF the arror penetrated the armor, no matter HOW many nitpicks trekkies can find about the armor, its still better protection than the non-existant protection worn by Federation troops. They always ignore that point for some reason and go off about phaser widebeams killing everyone before the battle even starts.

[CaptJodan]

They always ignore that point for some reason and go off about phaser widebeams killing everyone before the battle even starts.

You'd think if wide beams were the snizzle for all battles that the Seige of AR-558 would have gone a bit differently when they had a chokepoint to defend and could use a narrower, more power conservation-style "widebeam" effect and actually secure the chokepoint. It wasn't like the Jem'Hadar had cover.

Charging Bat'leth wielding morons have shown to be effective against Federation troops on several occasions. I'm not sure how someone can realistically believe that armored stormtroopers backed up by a mechanized force and heavy artillary are going to be turned back by the Federation's finest ground troops after watching "...Nor the Battle to the Strong". Even without watching such episodes, the simple fact that the Federation doesn't have mechanized weaponry or artillary and the best they have is an unarmed dune buggy with the phaser on the BACK (presumably, for those all-important retreating attacks. I suppose that was design foresight on the part of the engineers. They knew their people would be in retreat) pitted against multi-kilometer engagement ranges we saw in AOTC demonstrates these people have an IQ probably substantially less than a Down's Syndrome patient.

And why would they be so assured that they could do all this miricle crap "before the battle even starts"? What gives them the right to even be able to claim the high ground of surprise?