The Effects of an SD crashing into an earth like planet

[Ghost Rider]

So you are basing your hypothesis, on two articles without demonstrating how it supports you. the first tells us vaguely how Hypermatter is used and is a tachyonic material.

Once again, answer the fucking question and for your small head

WHAT SORT OF MECHANISM DO YOU PROPOSE?

[Lord Poe]

Well, here's what would happen to Coruscant:

pg.303: "As we approach in-system, the Basilisk's small volunteer crew will begin a self-destruct countdown. The Gorgon will run interference until we reach our target, at which time we will turn aside. At full speed the Basilisk will plunge into the atmosphere of Coruscant. It will be unstoppable."

"When the Basilisk detonates..." Daala said. She paused as the planetary image flashed with a brilliant ring of fire that sent ripples igniting through the atmosphere. All the lights on the night side of the planet went dark. Cracks of fire appeared across the land masses.

"The explosion will be sufficient to level the buildings on half a continent. The shock wave traveling through the planetary core could topple cities on the other side of the world. The underground resevoirs will break open. Tidal waves will cause damage along the coasts. For the price of one Star Destroyer, we can lay waste to Coruscant."

[Scottish Ninja]

Yeah, but that was (supposed to be) an intentional kamikaze attack at full thrust; the OP specifies that the ship is unable to maintain altitude and hits the planet due to the effects of gravity alone.

[Lord Poe]

Yeah, but that was (supposed to be) an intentional kamikaze attack at full thrust; the OP specifies that the ship is unable to maintain altitude and hits the planet due to the effects of gravity alone.

Then nothing much should happen outside of the general area. Luke Skywalker crash landed a Star Destroyer on Coruscant in Dark Empire.

[Anguirus]

Ah, canon. Answering questions since, uh, ever. As long as you're willing to stomach Anderson...

Interestingly, I think that's the first reference to "coasts" with regards to Coruscant, which Kube-McDowell later expanded upon. Then TPM shot it to hell.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Big Orange doesn't even seem to have a basic High School understanding of what combustion is.

[Ender]

Big Orange doesn't even seem to have a basic High School understanding of what combustion is.

I'd say you are rating him a little high. I suspect most high schoolers would realize his posts so far could consist of "kittens bananas livejournal Washington Irving" and contain an equal amount of useful information.

[Phantasee]

Ah, canon. Answering questions since, uh, ever. As long as you're willing to stomach Anderson...

Interestingly, I think that's the first reference to "coasts" with regards to Coruscant, which Kube-McDowell later expanded upon. Then TPM shot it to hell.

Didn't Vader have a castle on the coast? That sounds cheesy and cliche, but it wasn't a particularly pleasant coast. I think Luke visited it in an E-Wing or something.

[Surlethe]

Big Orange doesn't even seem to have a basic High School understanding of what combustion is.

He appears to have changed the subject from "my mechanismless theory is combustion" to "the generally accepted hypothesis is hypermatter." I'm really not sure whether he is honestly too dumb to get it, or if he's intentionally trolling.

[Big Orange]

Big Orange doesn't even seem to have a basic High School understanding of what combustion is.

He appears to have changed the subject from "my mechanismless theory is combustion" to "the generally accepted hypothesis is hypermatter." I'm really not sure whether he is honestly too dumb to get it, or if he's intentionally trolling.

The former, not the latter, Surlethe. I've totally dropped the silly assumption of internal combustion engines and other nonsense. Here is a excerpt from Dr. Curtis Saxton's popular website, STAR WARS Technical Commentaries, on how Hypermatter reactors supposedly work:

Warship Reactors

The mighty warships of the Galactic Empire/Republic and its enemies (typically star destroyers or greater in scale) generate and deliver power at stellar rates. Reactor and power distribution systems are the most fundamental components of these vessels. The primary weapons, engines and other systems are designed to draw and expend the maximum output of the available reactor. Support and containment of the power systems is one of the most fundamental requirements guiding the ship's design.

The reactor is usually a spherical device. Such a shape provides a minimum surface area for its interior volume, and may be an easy way to bear the structural and force-field burden of containment. The deepest interior of the reactor is a realm of exotic physics, where phenomenal energy densities are maintained. Outer layers or subsidiary systems may involve nuclear fusion reactions but the scale of power generation requires that the core process is direct and total annihilation of mass. Possible fuels might include:

*hypermatter, consisting of intrinsically faster-than-light subatomic particles, which must release all of their mass-energy as they accelerate towards infinite speed;
antimatter, which annihilates in contact with an equivalent amount of ordinary matter (leaks can be dangerous);
matter, if a sufficiently exotic [presently unknown] physical mechanism could be found to catalyse direct annihilation.

The performance of 3000G accelerations and the bombardment of habitable planets to slag implies that the mass of fuel may exceed the warship's dry mass by a considerable amount. Fuels are carried in immensely dense forms within silos or tanks of relatively small volume distributed throughout the ship, but connected intimately with the reactor. Fuel feeding rates may be as highly variable as the reactor output levels, which could be raised or lowered by orders of magnitude within minutes (judging by the known feats and performance of particular observed warships).

Link> http://www.theforce.net/swtc/power.html#warships

Really, I should've not attempted to explain how something so nebulous as a Hypermatter reactor supposedly works and leave this debate to people who know what they're talking about...

[Ghost Rider]

Jesus tittyfucking christ. Next time you spew nonsense and try to make an argument...do your research before spamming a topic, moron.

[Connor MacLeod]

The question of where the energy in the reactor and shield sinks goes is an open one - I can only guess that they have really fast transfer systems and great heatsinks, so the energy is used to warm a material in the event of an emergency. THe material just isn't hot enough to glow due to a high specific heat, so we can't see it from a distance. Ad hoc as all hell, but it is a possible solution.

Insofar as the reactor goes, that REALLY depends on alot of factors. They're only going to draw power when they need it, and even then its not going to be an "instantaneous" ramp up. They weren't expecting a straight up fight remember (Palpy ordered them not to attack, remember?) so aside from swinging around Endor, they weren't really running at optimal power. And unless you HAD a use for that high output, you really have no reason to be running the reactor (where does the energy go to?) Given the paltry return fire prior to desturciton, I think there's a good reason to believe it wasn't running at full power at that particular time.

As for the shields.... well that depends again on preparation and circumstance. Were the shields active, or had they been knocked down by prior attacks earlier? In what manner were they disabled? Its quite possible, for example, that momentum damaged/destroyed a generator (or generators) somehow and they had trouble getting them back up (if the generator were physically disabled or destroyed, its possible to lose the shield even if the heat sinks are still actively intact and dissipating energy.)

Hell, a slight possibility is that the big red bolt we saw the Star Cruiser fire wasn't an energy weapon but a projectile weapon (the Rebels might very well have echoesd the separatist's tactics in ROTS.)

A third possibilty in both cases might be battle damage. It might not be "external", but its possible that continued punishment from rebel ships (and the resulting momentum transfer from the magnitude of such attacks) fucked up shields and perhaps power enough that the ship wasn't fightring at full efficiency (we only saw the top half of the ship too, after all.)
Ion cannon or Ion warhead attacks could do this.