Resource War

[texanmarauder]

and how long does it take? and that's not even the definition of BDZ. it never was. I just posted the old definition. hell, the MF can slag a planets surface, given enough time. that gives almost no details whatsoever. that's not enough to extrapolate anything. sounds more like a broad hyperbole statement than anything. come back when you actually have some details.

One can assume that, since it is a military vessel in a primarily hostile galaxy, the designers do not want it spending weeks blasting a planet, especially given the speed of Star Wars travel. If it did take weeks to slag a world, then it would not be mentioned. It would be useless. The Falcon is never mentioned to be able to slag worlds because it effectively can't, because someone would come fuck it up before it could finish. The same holds true for the Star Destroyer mentioned.

that is literally the same type of argument I tried to make about the mars array that yall shrugged off. see the definition of hyperbole.

[KraytKing]

Fucker. Hit the wrong button. See next post.

[KraytKing]

One can assume that, since it is a military vessel in a primarily hostile galaxy, the designers do not want it spending weeks blasting a planet, especially given the speed of Star Wars travel. If it did take weeks to slag a world, then it would not be mentioned. It would be useless. The Falcon is never mentioned to be able to slag worlds because it effectively can't, because someone would come fuck it up before it could finish. The same holds true for the Star Destroyer mentioned.

that is literally the same type of argument I tried to make about the mars array that yall shrugged off. see the definition of hyperbole.

Lifted directly from Merriam Webster:

extravagant exaggeration (such as "mile-high ice-cream cones")

Do you mean hypocrisy?

And I don't see what this has to do with your Mars array. A technical document and dialogue are two very different things. A planetary weapon designed to hit planets can hit planets, but not individual spaceships. A Star Destroyer designed to slag planets can slag planets. I'm not trying to say that it can slag eighty planets at once.

[Imperial528]

So having been reading this thread since its resurrection, I realized that we can actually provide a decent estimate of the energies required for a more conventional BDZ.

Working from the widespread devastation/destruction of industry objective, I started with these assumptions:

Individual shots need to be powerful enough to cause seismic collapse of hardened underground targets, else hostile worlds would be capable of hiding matériel or defenses beneath mountains.
During the cold war, the US designed the 9MT B53 bomb for this purpose as a contact-detonation weapon. While later bombs for this purpose were in the kiloton range, this was only possible using burrowing missiles. Turbolasers release their energy on contact so we must assume the similar yield for a surface burst. For ease of calculation I chose a 10MT yield from these constraints. In terms of capability, estimates for both Wars and Trek have demonstrated the ability to field 10MT weaponry.

Devastation must range from at minimum, total collapse of the world's industrial base to at maximum total depopulation and/or complete habitat destruction. From this yield, we can use the following in our analysis, as derived from Nukemap:

• The thermal radiation radius of a 10MT bomb is 28.6km, covering a 2,580km^2 area. In this area exposed persons will receive significant 3rd degree burns.
• The 20psi/138kpa overpressure radius is 4.69km, 306km^2 area. The majority of buildings caught in this blast wave will be completely destroyed and fatalities are near total.
• The fireball radius is 3.15km, area of 31.3km^2. Basically anything inside the fireball will be destroyed. Anyone who manages to survive inside of incredibly fortified structures will find themselves in an area that is completely uninhabitable.

A nuclear weapon would include associated radiation effects as well, both from detonation, fission products, unburned fissiles, et cetera. However, we do not know if turbolasers generate similar radiation or if they can generate fallout. Additionally, due to the scale of bombardment, long term effects like radioactive contamination seem secondary.

Using these I created the following table:



Sorting max-min is for generalizing the estimates based on target area of a planet. Against completely urbanized worlds such as Coruscant, bombardment of the entire surface would be necessary. The other rows are for the bombardment of an Earth-similar world (30% land area), estimated urban area of the Earth (about 3%), and finally the minimum area to house 7.6 billion people using the greatest city population density on Earth (Manila, Philippines, about 42k/km^2). The last one was included more as a curiosity, essentially the absolute lowest yield to depopulate an Earth-population world.

Methodology was simple: divide given area by respective area of effect, multiply by warhead yield to determine total yield, scale to desired metric prefix for ease of presentation. An actual bombardment would have net yields higher by around 20-30%, since shots would have to overlap for total coverage of a desired effect.

Realistically I think overpressure is the best fit for the complete devastation criteria, since it allows for near total destruction of the populace and essentially absolute destruction of surface infrastructure.

I did play around with it a bit, and it does seem to get more efficient with lower per-shot yields, but stays within an order of magnitude of the 10MT calculations.

[Formless]

I'm curiuos where you got the whole "turn the atmosphere into plasma" thing? those arrays cause massive storms. not turn the atmo into plasma. and naboo survived.

"Massive storms"? Yeah, sure, they cause storms. But I don't think you appreciate what that means, or perhaps didn't notice that the characters comment on how "unnatural" the storms are. We are supposed to feel like the entire planet is threatened by this shit, and that can't just mean scaled up hurricanes. In fact, we are told that there are more than just hurricanes being caused, but I'll get to that.

While Mat Pat doesn't come out and say it directly in the video, where the Game Theorists no doubt got the idea that plasma would be created even if we aren't told so explicitely is from looking at the energy levels released by real hurricanes. We are literally talking about 200 times more energy released by a single mundane hurricane than the every power station on Earth combined. To put that into perspective, a hurricane releases three orders of magnitude more energy than the largest nuclear bomb the United States ever detonated. These facts by themselves are suggestive of the Biggaton calculations trektards like you always whine about hearing on this forum, but Matpat isn't part of the debate which is one reason I cite him. He has no dogs in this fight, so you can't call him biased. He's just extrapolating from what we know to what should logically happen when you dump that much energy into an atmosphere in a matter of hours rather than the normal buildup that real hurricanes are sustained by. You can't dump all that heat into the atmosphere in a concentrated laser beam without also causing the atmosphere to undergo a phase change into plasma, and thanks to convection everything surrounding the hurricane-laser would absolutely get baked to death just as he describes. Plus, we aren't talking about normal or naturally occurring hurricanes here, we are talking about storms that are supposed to surround the entire planetary atmosphere. Again, we can look at the energies of a normal hurricane and realize that if we are going to scale that up, we need to dump even more energy into the atmosphere, at which point we start to get into planetary destruction and baking planets alive...

Now, I acknowledge that my calculation was intended to represent the upper limit of what Operation: Cinder could potentially do. I think its important to know what the upper limit is so that we can appreciate how dangerous this could potentially be. If it wasn't powerful, it wouldn't feel urgent or threatening; narratively the problem with Operation: Cinder is that the weather is just a bit too familiar for the audience, and hurricanes aren't so destructive they would wipe out a whole planet. We don't all live in hurricane alley. So there must be something more to the plan than just making "really big storms." Those storms must be different somehow from the kind of weather we are used to seeing. And after all, the characters comment on how "unnatural" the storms seem to them, suggesting something more than just lots of rain and wind.

Think about it. I live in Colorado, the very definition of a landlocked state. Hurricanes literally CANNOT reach where I live. They cannot reach MOST places where people live. It does not matter how much water you boil off the ocean, unless you are already boiling so much water the atmosphere will ionize and boil off into orbit as a side-effect of the sheer heat you are putting into the air. And that's also something that fits into the Base Delta Zero category of shit that will wreck a planet. The whole reason Mat Pat concluded the goal of Operation: Cinder was destruction of the atmosphere is precisely that the plan makes little sense otherwise. Fortunately for the narrative, the official description of the Climate Disruption Array's effects doesn't stop at hurricanes, but also includes firestorms and electrical storms. In fact, the electrical storm is the first thing that the people on Naboo notice when the attack begins. Its apparently a big enough deal that it causes communication problems for the planetary government. Now, firestorms and electrical storms are real weather phenomena, but they are very different beasts from hurricanes. Firstly, firestorms are entirely consistent with the idea that the lasers actually bake the surrounding area. I don't feel the need to explain why, it should be obvious. But electrical storms make for an even more compelling case that Operation: Cinder causes ionization of the atmosphere. Normally the atmosphere isn't very conductive, but lightning is possible everywhere on Earth simply because of the sheer energy contained in a lightning strike. But there are parts of the Earth that get more lightning than others, sometimes to such a degree it baffles scientists. This seems to be because of ionized gas concentrations, which is both produced by lightning and encourages it. Ionized gas is more conductive. Now, here's the thing about the phase change from gas to plasma-- we literally call it ionization. In other words, all plasmas are electrically conductive by definition. If you turn a huge mass of the Earth's atmosphere into plasma by heating it with a laser, you are also releasing ionized gasses into the atmosphere, which will spread around the planet because of all the wind you are also making as you are deliberately trying to create storms here. Those gasses in turn create the perfect conditions for electrical storms. So the description of Operation: Cinder is quite consistent with lasers able to hit ionization temperatures and dump energies into an atmosphere large enough to cause global firestorms. In other words, you don't have to go so far as to boil off the planet's atmosphere in order to depopulate it using the methods seen. Again, my previous calculation was an estimate of the upper limits of this scheme, and a demonstration of how much power might theoretically be possible for these satellites. A lower estimate would still be fucking huge because of the sheer energy needed to sustain a hurricane, let alone dozens.

So yeah. Operation: Cinder isn't necessarily about stripping the atmosphere clean off a planet, but it still requires BDZ level energies to actually accomplish what it says it is supposed to accomplish, namely destroying a planet utterly. Which is the same goal as a BDZ in the first place. Which makes me wonder why you still think Star Wars can't possibly generate those kids of energies. All the evidence suggests that they can, both in the old canon and in the new canon.

[texanmarauder]

I cant argue with the effects, I only read about it today after you brought it up. but naboo still survived. that much is on wookieepedia. I was only going by what it said. I'm not familiar with all of the new material.

[Formless]

Still, the point is that Naboo only survived because of timely intervention by the Rebels. They had to destroy the CDA or else the planet and its resources would have been destroyed. That's pretty much the plot of Battlefront II's campaign mode from what I've heard. And the plot of a comic book and a novel trilogy... they really want us to believe this Operation: Cinder thing was a big deal right after Palpatine died.

[Lord Revan]

BF2 spoilers Spoiler

What Formless describes more or less happend to Vardos in Battlefront 2 and even 30 or so years after the fact there's high winds and ashfall and while you can breath unaided on the surface the planets is treated "dead" for all intents and purposes. To a point that it's considered somewhat odd that First Order allies use the planet as their base of operations

[texanmarauder]

I'm not questioning the new canon power generation capabilities. I don't know enough of the new canon yet to make that argument. so you win that one. as for the old EU, as I said before, for every feat proving those high limits, there was at least one feat proving much lower. the numbers were all over the place. which is why I am averse to debate using EU numbers. its the same for ST as far as that goes.

[Formless]

There is no inconsistency. Weapons in Star Wars have variable settings. The higher settings are used when its appropriate to use them, such as during orbital bombardment or when facing other capital ships; lower yields are used when facing smaller capital ships and freighters like the Falcon. You don't always use the highest yields your weapons can output because its sometimes wasteful or otherwise inappropriate, so just because you see some events where less energy was expended doesn't invalidate the times when higher energy was used. Real life missiles can be outfitted with a wide variety of warheads too, so this should not come as a shock. How is that so hard for you to understand?

[texanmarauder]

There is no inconsistency. Weapons in Star Wars have variable settings.

prove it.

[Formless]

@ exactly 1:00: "Target, Maximum firepower!"

@ 0:19: "Intensify forward firepower!"

Of course, the very fact that the blasts vary in firepower from scene to scene is itself evidence of variable firepower, so in fact the onus is on you to prove that they can't vary the intensity of their laser blasts. But here, just because I hate you so much I went out and found the kind of dialogue proving it that everyone already knows about except, apparently, you.

[texanmarauder]

@ exactly 1:00: "Target, Maximum firepower!"

this could also refer to the fact that he was ordering the larger blasters on his AT-AT to fire on the generators. take a closer look. he was targeting the rebel troopers and snowspeeders with the temple mounted guns. the ones that fire at the generator were the chin mounted guns. which further supports my stance on different size weapons, not variable power. as you can see at :52 he fires the chin guns and then takes down a snowspeeder with the temple guns. there is a difference in the firepower.

@ 0:19: "Intensify forward firepower!"

and supposedly a SSD has thousands of turbolasers. we don't see anywhere near that firing from the bridge. therefore he could have been ordering additional turbolasers to open fire. after all, having 200 turbolasers that might miss increase their individual power doesn't make any sense in the context of preventing fighters from getting through that are trying to kill you. you want more firing so that there is more of a chance that the fighters will be hit. presumably they were already at full power since this was a major battle and at the time the executor was under attack from the entire rebel fleet. and just to piss you off a little more, he first orders "intensify the forward batteries, I don't want anything to get through". again, see above. EDIT: because we sometimes get wires crossed, and so that I am in no way unclear, i will elaborate. what I mean is I might can run across a football field with 10 people firing arrows at me and make it. put 40 people out there with bows trying to take down that same person and the chances of him making it across are reduced drastically.

Of course, the very fact that the blasts vary in firepower from scene to scene is itself evidence of variable firepower

lets see. you yourself said

The special effects animators didn't work from a set of pre-defined calculations when they rotoscoped this shit onto the real footage.

which would explain that. it seems that you use that to justify firepower variations. hand blasters, that I believe because we see it on screen with them having a stun setting. aside from your first example, we never hear an order given to increase or decrease power to the turbolasers. it would seem that this in more an interpretation of fans than by design from the animators.

[Formless]

this could also refer to the fact that he was ordering the larger blasters on his AT-AT to fire on the generators. take a closer look. he was targeting the rebel troopers and snowspeeders with the temple mounted guns. the ones that fire at the generator were the chin mounted guns. which further supports my stance on different size weapons, not variable power. as you can see at :52 he fires the chin guns and then takes down a snowspeeder with the temple guns. there is a difference in the firepower.

We see the main guns of the AT-AT constantly shooting at troops and snowspeeders throughout the entire battle and producing explosions no bigger than an artillery piece, yet after the gunner asks for maximum firepower those same main guns are suddenly able to produce a fireball that has been estimated to be in the kiloton to megaton range by Sorchus on this forum several years ago. So no, you are reaching for excuses yet again to dismiss what should be a pretty straightforward example of what I am talking about.

Stop bullshitting. I know this film like the back of my hand.

and supposedly a SSD has thousands of turbolasers. we don't see anywhere near that firing from the bridge. therefore he could have been ordering additional turbolasers to open fire. after all, having 200 turbolasers that might miss increase their individual power doesn't make any sense in the context of preventing fighters from getting through that are trying to kill you. you want more firing so that there is more of a chance that the fighters will be hit. presumably they were already at full power since this was a major battle and at the time the executor was under attack from the entire rebel fleet. and just to piss you off a little more, he first orders "intensify the forward batteries, I don't want anything to get through". again, see above. EDIT: because we sometimes get wires crossed, and so that I am in no way unclear, i will elaborate. what I mean is I might can run across a football field with 10 people firing arrows at me and make it. put 40 people out there with bows trying to take down that same person and the chances of him making it across are reduced drastically.

Perhaps. The order does imply that they weren't using their full power output, however, or at least that the admiral didn't think they were.

It still isn't the only example, or even the best one.

lets see. you yourself said

which would explain that. it seems that you use that to justify firepower variations.

Oh no you fucking don't. You don't start quote mining me, asswipe:

You must be trolling. Laser blasts of all kinds in Star Wars vary in length, width and speed between various scenes, even when the weapon remains the same. Even the Mythbusters found this out when they did one of their Star Wars specials and wanted to see if you could really dodge a blaster bolt (they had to calculate an average because of this problem). The special effects animators didn't work from a set of pre-defined calculations when they rotoscoped this shit onto the real footage.

I said NOTHING about firepower in that quote. And this was a counterargument to you using bolts as a scaling mechanism. You are now a flat out lying piece of shit, and I have no qualms about reporting this to the staff. Its about time your experienced consequences for your dishonest behavior.

Besides, whatever the production reasons for varying intensities of laser blasts, let alone dimensions, it is still a canon fact and it can be used as de facto evidence for different weapon settings in its own right. For the purposes of debate, these arguments only work when the Watsonian perspective is clearly delineated from the Doylist perspective. In other words, arguments that break the fourth wall are meaningless here. The burden of proof is still on you.

[texanmarauder]

We see the main guns of the AT-AT constantly shooting at troops and snowspeeders throughout the entire battle and producing explosions no bigger than an artillery piece, yet after the gunner asks for maximum firepower those same main guns are suddenly able to produce a fireball that has been estimated to be in the kiloton to megaton range by Sorchus on this forum several years ago. So no, you are reaching for excuses yet again to dismiss what should be a pretty straightforward example of what I am talking about.

its a fucking power generator. in other words, you are shooting something that generates and contains lots and lots of energy that is primarily used to power a theater shield too strong for bombardment. of course there is gonna be a big boom. its no different than the missiles that the falcon used to blow up the generator on the ds2, or the proton torpedoes that blew up the DS1. gonna tell me that those tiny weapons alone can cause those explosions? it doesn't change the fact that he used his heavy weapon instead of his light weapon when he was ordered to. at the very least that casts reasonable doubt. it also doesn't change the fact that the heavy weapons are visibly more powerful than the smaller temple guns.

Stop bullshitting. I know this film like the back of my hand.

so do I. not my fault I looked at the video closer than you did.

Perhaps. The order does imply that they weren't using their full power output, however, or at least that the admiral didn't think they were.

intensity can mean several different things. he is referring to forward firepower, collectively. which I interpret as he wants more firepower forward. that's my two cents anyway.

It still isn't the only example, or even the best one.

feel free to post more.

I said NOTHING about firepower in that quote. And this was a counterargument to you using bolts as a scaling mechanism. You are now a flat out lying piece of shit, and I have no qualms about reporting this to the staff. Its about time your experienced consequences for your dishonest behavior.

you mean like thread hijacking? not staying on topic and avoiding issues at hand? using production inconsistencies to try and give your argument a leg to stand it is getting old. different sized bolts? production inconsistencies! never mind that one gun is bigger than the other by design.

Besides, whatever the production reasons for varying intensities of laser blasts, let alone dimensions, it is still a canon fact and it can be used as de facto evidence for different weapon settings in its own right.

which makes no sense at all. using production inconsistencies to claim variable settings is at best presumption. we do know that the ISDs carry different sizes of weapons. we don't actually see what weapon fires which bolt. all we know is that the bolt came from the forward section, or the starboard bow or such. even the blue prints for an ISD have been remade several times. so without seeing the weapon that fired them, we have no way of knowing if one weapon can fire different intensity bolts. and we haven't seen that. I even pointed that out to you with your AT-AT scenario with veers. there was a clear difference in firepower from the chin guns and the temple guns. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/All_Terr ... Civil_War)

For the purposes of debate, these arguments only work when the Watsonian perspective is clearly delineated from the Doylist perspective. In other words, arguments that break the fourth wall are meaningless here. The burden of proof is still on you.

is it? by forum rules, you made the claim and the burden of proof is on you to prove it. not me to prove it for you. this is twice now that you put the burden of proof on me to prove your claim.

[texanmarauder]

show me where the same weapon fires different sized bolts. this is not a sarcastic comment or anything. show me where it is shown in the movies where we see an actual turbolaser firing different sized bolts. not where we see the ship at a distance and cant even see the guns themselves.

[KraytKing]

you mean like thread hijacking?

Let it just be said that I fully support this use of the thread. Far more interesting than anything I could have thrown together. Also, am I correct in believing it was you who hijacked the thread in the first place?

[texanmarauder]

you mean like thread hijacking?

Let it just be said that I fully support this use of the thread. Far more interesting than anything I could have thrown together. Also, am I correct in believing it was you who hijacked the thread in the first place?

nope. I made an observation by pointing out that they had the ability to build a weapon that could reach, presumably from the dialogue, any ship in the system. it was also capable of doing extreme damage to earth all the way from mars. and all it requires is a sufficient power source. this was in response to several people questioning the need for tibanna over a power source. the weapons in st don't require a special gas. only a power source. it spiraled out from there. I was only responding to what others asked.

[KraytKing]

My mistake. I assumed that the one who first challenged the calcs would be responsible for the argument about the calcs. How could I.

[Zanfib]

...to say nothing, of course, of the Empire asteroid vaping scene, in which we see firepower millions of times in excess of "Zero Hour" from guns which are absolutely tiny compared to the heaviest guns on a Star Destroyer.

Maybe it's discordant with a strict interpretation of the current canon policy, but I don't treat cartoon visuals with the same weight I do live-action footage. The former is a recreation of actual events; the latter, real footage of things as they actually happened, just like a proper documentary. I liken the distinction between a cartoon I saw about the Hiroshima nuke vs. actual pictures and videography... while the anime recaptured the who, where, how and why, the "what" was too incongruous with reality to analyze the bomb's yield (e.g., the way the civvies in the anime were lit afire, then stumbled about like zombies, only to violently explode into clouds of ash many seconds later).

Regarding cartoon visuals, it is worth mentioning that the very first episode of the clone wars cartoon has light turbolasers hitting the surface of a planet and causing explosions large enough to be seen from orbit.

[Elheru Aran]

...to say nothing, of course, of the Empire asteroid vaping scene, in which we see firepower millions of times in excess of "Zero Hour" from guns which are absolutely tiny compared to the heaviest guns on a Star Destroyer.

Maybe it's discordant with a strict interpretation of the current canon policy, but I don't treat cartoon visuals with the same weight I do live-action footage. The former is a recreation of actual events; the latter, real footage of things as they actually happened, just like a proper documentary. I liken the distinction between a cartoon I saw about the Hiroshima nuke vs. actual pictures and videography... while the anime recaptured the who, where, how and why, the "what" was too incongruous with reality to analyze the bomb's yield (e.g., the way the civvies in the anime were lit afire, then stumbled about like zombies, only to violently explode into clouds of ash many seconds later).

Regarding cartoon visuals, it is worth mentioning that the very first episode of the clone wars cartoon has light turbolasers hitting the surface of a planet and causing explosions large enough to be seen from orbit.

For clarity, which cartoon? The Tartovsky one or the CG one? Tartovksky is unfortunately non-canon.

[Khaat]

Regarding cartoon visuals, it is worth mentioning that the very first episode of the clone wars cartoon has light turbolasers hitting the surface of a planet and causing explosions large enough to be seen from orbit.

For clarity, which cartoon? The Tartovsky one or the CG one? Tartovksky is unfortunately non-canon.

Actually the CG one: E1S1, Ambush. The "planet" is actually a moon (Rugosa), where Yoda is to meet the Toydarian king, but it has an atmosphere and (apparently) full gravity. As all the (all but one empty) escape pods are heading toward the moon, they are getting blasted (from behind) by the ambushing Separatist ships, and the 'droids miss a lot. Over-shots hit the moon, throwing up plumes seen from space.

[Khaat]

Ghetto Edit:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SATwG_dt ... cUkyut5F8B[/youtube]
At or around the 0:15 mark.

Ok, now youtube links don't work even edited to remove the s?

[KraytKing]

That there's just lazy. It looks like the ship is firing onto a flat surface that's actually really close. More evidence that Clone Wars actually just sucked.

[texanmarauder]

the funny thing is, not a single one of those plumes was on the planet. that was just the turbolasers doing their flak burst thing again. you can see it around the 6-7 second mark. those plumes aren't occurring on the planet. just in space. EDIT: plus they were barely able to break apart a tiny escape pod. they wouldn't be strong enough to be seen from orbit when hitting the planet.