Largest man-made structure in the GFFA?

[ArcturusMengsk]

From this thread:

As far as Kuat goes, if my eyes do not deceive me, the artificial ring surrounding the planet looks like it's orbiting r/2 away from the planet, where r is the radius of Kuat. If the width of the ring is r/20 and height a corresponding r/40, then given an Earthlike r = 6e3 km it has a volume of 3e9 km^3. The DSII has a volume of 3e9 km^3, so the two are comparable.

What's far more impressive is the ring around the entire goddamned system. If we're conservative and take that to mean simply equivalent to Mars' orbit (instead of on the edge of the Oort cloud), and assuming an equal cross-sectional area, we get a volume of 6e13 km^3 -- twenty thousand times the volume of the planetary ring or the DSII. If the cross-sectional area is a hundred times greater and the ring is orbiting at Pluto's mean orbital radius, we get 2e17 km^3. That is absolutely ridiculously huge.

Even better, if instead of Pluto we take the Oort cloud, that will increase our estimates by at least three orders of magnitude (this assumes the cross-sectional area does not change) to 2e20 km^3. By comparison, the Sun's volume is 1.4e18 km^3.

One note: I don't trust the picture upon which the above analysis is based because the ring is not casting a shadow.

Surlethe's post made me curious: what, exactly, is the largest construct in the GFFA for which we have canonical evidence indicating its size?

[Starglider]

Surlethe's post made me curious: what, exactly, is the largest construct in the GFFA for which we have canonical evidence indicating its size?

AFAIK, Centrepoint station, 350km by 100km (compared to a canon size of the DSII as 160km). Yuuzhan Vong worldships are discs about 100km across, so they're not in the running, unless there's an unusually huge one I don't know about.

[Chris OFarrell]

Uh I don't think there is a ring around the entire Kuat system. There is a ring of STATIONS, but there isn't a single megastructure or anything. Probably just hundreds of mega slipways for building big ships or something spaced evenly around the place.

And I'm not sure about the ring around Kuat itself, what source is that from? Most sources I've seen indicate that Kuat orbit is filled with stations, but not a single mega-ring...

[Darth Ruinus]

Wookie says "The primary shipyards made up a nearly solid ring, called the Orbital Array, that surrounded the planet Kuat itself. "

and

"A massive belt of stations, docks, and repair facilities orbited at the fringe of the Kuat system itself, making up the bulk of KDY's construction capabilities. "

Although I agree, they didnt say the second one was solid, while they did for the first. Someone here probably has better evidence than Wookie though...

[Chris OFarrell]

Yeah wookie also has a picture that looks like it was from a WEG publication, showing the ring about Kuat, I guess we can accept that, even if I very much doubt its anything LIKE the scale shown in terms of size.

But the ring of stations around the system has been said in at least one source I know of, but again I would say its more or less impossible to judge how many stations that actually MEANS or the radius that means (anyone know how many planets the Kuat system has??)

[ArcturusMengsk]

Six, according to Wookiepedia.

[Stark]

Wow, so the EU doesn't have anything bigger than the 900km figure for DS2? That's kinda amusing.

[Connor MacLeod]

Wow, so the EU doesn't have anything bigger than the 900km figure for DS2? That's kinda amusing.

Er, why? The Death Star and DS2 were supposed to be massive feats of engineering, ,and required a massive amount of R&D invested in them to create and build. Given teh sorts of advancecs they therefore represent, its not unsurprising if nothing else before them was even close to that big.

Though as I recall there were the "worldcrafts" like the one Hethrir had in "Children of the Jedi", but I'm not sure how big that was.

I also vaguely recall in "Rogue Planet" that the Hyperdrive and engine components that Zonoma Sekot used were purchased from elsewhere in the galaxy./

[Starglider]

Wow, so the EU doesn't have anything bigger than the 900km figure for DS2? That's kinda amusing.

The EU went the other way and created the Sun Crusher and the Galaxy Gun.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Wow, so the EU doesn't have anything bigger than the 900km figure for DS2? That's kinda amusing.

You do remember Obi-wan and Han shitting a brick when they realize that the Deathstar is a space station, right? You'd think that they'd be impressed but not as awed as they were if there was stuff even bigger.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Wow, so the EU doesn't have anything bigger than the 900km figure for DS2? That's kinda amusing.

You do remember Obi-wan and Han shitting a brick when they realize that the Deathstar is a space station, right? You'd think that they'd be impressed but not as awed as they were if there was stuff even bigger.

Not necessarily. I was quite impressed with the Empire State Building during my first trip to New York City (hailing from a provincial Illinois town as I do), all the while knowing that there are skyscrapers which dwarf it.

The Death Star is probably the largest mobile vessel constructed in the GFFA, but there may well be stationary constructs that are larger yet.

[Stark]

You do remember Obi-wan and Han shitting a brick when they realize that the Deathstar is a space station, right? You'd think that they'd be impressed but not as awed as they were if there was stuff even bigger.

This *is* the EU. I guess I forgot they went the minimalist direction for their wank (as Starglider says). I wasn't aware that the DS2 was supposed to be the largest spacecraft in SW history.

On the OP, if Kuat has a linked series of platforms, would that count as a single structure?

[VT-16]

On the OP, if Kuat has a linked series of platforms, would that count as a single structure?

I assume that's how they got their orbital ring in the first place.

It's also not unique, as there's at least one other planet that's also got an artificial ring around it, as depicted in Ryan Church's paintings in Celestia Galactica Photografica:

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images ... ecutes.jpg

[Surlethe]

Wow, so the EU doesn't have anything bigger than the 900km figure for DS2? That's kinda amusing.

Er, why? The Death Star and DS2 were supposed to be massive feats of engineering, ,and required a massive amount of R&D invested in them to create and build. Given teh sorts of advancecs they therefore represent, its not unsurprising if nothing else before them was even close to that big.

However, the DS and DS2 were constructed entirely in secret. They were indeed amazing feats of engineering and research, but it should follow that the civilian economy is capable of much more impressive feats, shouldn't it?

[Vehrec]

I seem to recall stories that included Moons that had been completely paved over and mined out to a level where they might have been considered space stations instead of natural features.(Droids?) And in Crystal Star, we got a decent look at an artificial world built for one of the emperors lackies. Absolute sizes for both were never established however.

[Starglider]

However, the DS and DS2 were constructed entirely in secret. They were indeed amazing feats of engineering and research, but it should follow that the civilian economy is capable of much more impressive feats, shouldn't it?

No civillian organisation is going to have the kind of resources the GE has. They have a million planet tax base; if DS construction soaked up 10% of the military budget and military spending was at 20% of GDP, that would be the economic output of 20,000 worlds. If it takes three years to build a death star, that implies that an organisation that could harness the total GDP of a mere hundred worlds (still very impressive - only a few large corporations could possibly manage this) would take 600 years to build a death star equivalent. Maybe less since you're not operating in secrecy and shipping costs will be lower - but OTOH the GE made massive use of slave labour and got massive bulk discounts, a civillian organisation probably won't have the former and won't get the later if they buy in many small deliveries spread over centuries. The SW universe has been around for a long time, so the main problem with this is finding people who are prepared to plan far enough ahead, and stay prosperous and comitted to that plan for long enough. Really it works best for structures that can grow incrementally, like the Kuat rings and the Coruscant world-city.

[Surlethe]

No civillian organisation is going to have the kind of resources the GE has. They have a million planet tax base; if DS construction soaked up 10% of the military budget and military spending was at 20% of GDP, that would be the economic output of 20,000 worlds. If it takes three years to build a death star, that implies that an organisation that could harness the total GDP of a mere hundred worlds (still very impressive - only a few large corporations could possibly manage this)

I'm not entirely sure of this -- aren't there large corporations controlling entire sectors? That would imply they control on the order of a thousand worlds. That's still several to several dozen decades of work to equal a DSII, though.

would take 600 years to build a death star equivalent. Maybe less since you're not operating in secrecy and shipping costs will be lower - but OTOH the GE made massive use of slave labour and got massive bulk discounts, a civillian organisation probably won't have the former and won't get the later if they buy in many small deliveries spread over centuries. The SW universe has been around for a long time, so the main problem with this is finding people who are prepared to plan far enough ahead, and stay prosperous and comitted to that plan for long enough. Really it works best for structures that can grow incrementally, like the Kuat rings and the Coruscant world-city.

Ah, this makes sense. Speaking of Coruscant, one might defend the claim that it is the most impressive canonical construction. After all, it's a dense planet-city of hundreds of trillions of beings living in multi-kilometer tall buildings.

[FTeik]

Well, the raw materials for DS2 were transported by a single corporation (XixorTransportSystems) and in "Isard's Revenge" we have the NR shitting its collective pants at the prospect of the 22 worlds controlled by the IWOTM building a 40-kilometer wide mini-DeathStar.

[phongn]

The DS2 programme was also small enough to be totally hidden in the budget as well - Imperial military spending may be only a very small fraction of GDP and the Ministry of Energy budget similarly small. Don't forget that the DS2's construction was also highly automated as well.

[Isolder74]

Even if the facilities at Kuat are bigger total as the DS II the Kuat rings could have build a bit at a time and expanded into each other til they had formed a quasi-solid ring. The Death Stars were built from the ground up as a single structure.

[Napoleon the Clown]

You do remember Obi-wan and Han shitting a brick when they realize that the Deathstar is a space station, right? You'd think that they'd be impressed but not as awed as they were if there was stuff even bigger.

Not necessarily. I was quite impressed with the Empire State Building during my first trip to New York City (hailing from a provincial Illinois town as I do), all the while knowing that there are skyscrapers which dwarf it.

I'd imagine many of the capital ships (such as the Executor) would be impressive to the characters as well. From what I draw from the dialogue, a moon sized space station in unheard of. It'd likely be seen to be on par with a building that someone could mistake for part of the Andes or Rocky Mountains. There's a difference between impressed and the reaction seen from Obi-Wan and Han.

[VT-16]

The only character who dismisses a structure that size is Han Solo, who's little more than a small-time smuggler.

Even Obi-Wan remains relatively calm when he reasons that Alderaan's been destroyed by the Empire. He might not have seen a structure that big in his life, but the devastation it was capable of doesn't seem to be beyond his grasp. Since he's a veteran of the CW, he's had plenty of time to feel or hear about large-scale devastation.

[Chris OFarrell]

The DS2 programme was also small enough to be totally hidden in the budget as well - Imperial military spending may be only a very small fraction of GDP and the Ministry of Energy budget similarly small. Don't forget that the DS2's construction was also highly automated as well.

Actually from what I remember in 'Shadows of the Empire', the economic effects were quite significant, if very very well hidden, the Bothans were going apeshit over trying to figure out what was going on.

Of course probably not that significant as a whole to the Empire itself, but probably very much so to military production and so on (I personally think a lot of the WEG theoretical fleet size is a level that was PLANNED to be reached, but wasn't because so much of the resources were diverted to Palpitines pet projects)

[phongn]

Actually from what I remember in 'Shadows of the Empire', the economic effects were quite significant, if very very well hidden, the Bothans were going apeshit over trying to figure out what was going on.

Well, to be fair, Palpatine was leaking out all sorts of data to the Bothans, but do you have a cite?

[Chris OFarrell]

Its slightly different from what I did recall, far less detailed, so I'll withdraw the claims, but here is the quote at any rate:

"The Empire has embarked on a new military project", Melan began. "We do not yet know what or where the project is, but we do know it is vast, the Emperor has diverted huge amounts of money, material and men for this secret enterprise".

I mean at this point the Empire is in the throes of a gigantic military buildup post Yavin, but this is a significant enough change to warrant sending Leia an urgent summons to meet a high level officer in the Bothan spynet.