Volume of Xyston-class Star Destroyer?

[SAAA]

The intention was there (look at concept art were they used the death star underwater, they had concept for new destroyers as well) someone didn't execute it. I might add because they didn't have enough time or focus on this aspect.
They were a lot more interested in not making a total mess of a movie or clash too much against the fanbase with this one, even at the price of releasing an average film.
And I'm not blaming anyone in particular, really, as project of this scale isn't ruined by any single person, not even the director: they have a massive role for sure but it's all the small parts that make it work.

Anyway Allegiance class instead of the Xyston would have been even cooler than some concepts with the split tip: just make them look like smaller Eclipse with a forward beam emitter rather than some weird opening, all black or red because Siths, it could have been an instant fan favourite.
For fleet junkies at least, selling more than the Nth iteration of destroyer.

Also as bonus it would have clashed less with people thinking: how can a star destroyer mount a superlaser scale weapon now? Well it's newer, far bigger and it still takes longer to kill a planet than a Death Star.

[Anacronian]

It does make you wonder why they didn't just make them Eclipse star destroyers though.

[Galvatron]

I always thought the Eclipse was a such a fugly design.

[Batman]

That's because the Eclipse was such a fugly design.
As for why they went with the Imperator best guess they already had the mesh thanks to Rogue One and were too lazy/cheap/pressed for time to build something new.

[Galvatron]

I think it would have been far more palatable if it had taken beams from dozens of Xystons converging into one (like the DS superlaser) in order to actually destroy a planet. Kinda like Species 8472's planet-killer.

[Batman]

It would certainly have made more sense given known Wars capabilities

[Gandalf]

Maybe there was just a leap in planet killing technology?

Like the three minute mile, everyone thought it impossible until someone built the thing, then it opens proverbial floodgates.

[Galvatron]

Not much choice but to accept that now. At least they didn't show it blowing apart a planet with the same level of power that the DS used on Alderaan.

[Patroklos]

It’s the same level of power, just over a few seconds rather than instantly.

And the Eclipse could never destroy planets, just slag a continent with some crust cracking action. Small ships doing less with less of the same. Or in other words, making some sort of sense.

[Galvatron]

Maybe they're imbued with the power of the dark side. That would be in keeping with Dark Empire's wankery.

As for the comparative power levels involved, Curtis Saxton went into a lot of depth about this on his web site and made a pretty clear distinction between merely destroying a planet versus the instantaneous obliteration of Alderaan that we saw in ANH.

https://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds/index.html#power

[Patroklos]

Without doing a similar measurement of the ejection velocity I can’t say for sure, but the only real difference in energy requirements based on that summary is that the DS could destroy a planet through a planetary shield. That said, I bet the energy needed to overcome a shield is a rounding error compared to the actual planetary destruction energies.

If the Xyston can’t overcome a planetary shield it’s militarily unimpressive. Regular ISD scale warships can already effectively destroy an unshielded planet for all intents and purposes. They are just more compact versions of TLJs Dreadnaughts, with a completely useless increase in power because that class can already one shot any fleet target.

[Galvatron]

I imagine the Xystons were designed to be powered by quintessence like Starkiller Base was.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Quintessence

[Batman]

If Starkiller Base was powered by this what did they bother to drain stars for?

[Galvatron]

I don't know. The Wookieepedia entry doesn't make much sense:

The weapon was powered by a type of dark energy called "quintessence", which was ubiquitous in the universe, and offered a practically unlimited power source to the First Order. Using a star as a power source, an array of collectors on one side of the planet would gather dark energy in stages, redirecting it to the planetary core, where it was held in place by the natural magnetic field of the planet, as well as an artificial containment field maintained by the machinery the First Order had installed within the crust.

[Anacronian]

Dear Diary:"This was the day when Star Wars Technobabble superseded Star Trek Technobabble by orders of magnitude".

[Galvatron]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's like I suggested before: just call them ISDs retrofitted with superlasers via technobabble. Whether they're powered by quintessence or kyber crystals or hypermatter, it's all horseshit.

[NecronLord]

The Quintessence thing I believe comes from the Episode VII novel where (the usually very scientific) Alan Dean Foster basically has a breakdown on page trying to justify the starkiller and resorts to a lengthy screed of technobabble.

[Rogue 9]

Honestly, did anyone get the idea that Luke's X-wing had been dismantled when it was briefly glimpsed in TLJ? Pablo should have just assumed it was fine and that it may show up again at some point.

I mean, it was pretty obviously Chekov's X-wing.

[Galvatron]

Maybe Pablo was certain that Rey would never have any reason to return to Ahch-To. I wonder if he ever gets tired of being wrong.

[AniThyng]

Then what was the door? It does look fairly convincing hehe

[Rogue 9]

Then what was the door? It does look fairly convincing hehe

Was the X-wing missing a panel somewhere? Y-wings are routinely flown without all their cowlings.

[Gandalf]

Maybe the X wing flies with spare parts somewhere?

[Batman]

I don't think an X-Wing has the room for spare parts that big

[Galvatron]

Then what was the door? It does look fairly convincing hehe

Beats me. Maybe the natives painted his door with the same markings on the ship that he arrived in.

[Straha]

Look, I'm going to cross-apply something from the rank discussion that was had a while back:

There is no more internal coherence to the story, so trying to create that internal coherence is not just a fool's errand but a masochistic act.

I get that this is anathema to the core ethos of the site/board, but I think there are a couple things that make this distinct from previous iterations of analysis:

A. The lack of models. The Orig Trig, obviously, had little planned design for the universe. ANH was done seat of the pants, ESB created much of the lore from whole cloth, and ROTJ was a deflationary creative note. But, every effects shot in those movies had to be practical. Which meant that there were physical models that could be scaled and modeled up. The Prequel trilogy didn't use hard models but did use computer models in an era when computer modeling was still cutting-edge and their use, and reuse, was crucial to being able to make the product.The Sequel Trilogy has no such restrictions and no models, as such could remake everything from scene to scene, destroying regularity and making the sort of blanket statements about 'classes' of ships impossible.

B. The lack of artistic continuity between films. The aesthetic and artistic goals of the movies between Ep VII, VIII, and IX shift wildly and capriciously. Lack of coherence between films is, in the eyes of their directors and staff, a feature and not a bug. To look at these movies and try to create coherence, either thematic or material, is... ludicrous.

Like, at this point, to try and do this is to Pepe Silva ourselves. We're better off just looking at this and saying this has the consistency of '30s era DC Comics (or contemporary Flash Gordon serials) and... not.