Observing the behaviour of turbolasers and blasters

[Illuminatus Primus]

I think turbolasers are somesort of projected rotating field surface, similar to Bob Brown's theory on lightsabres, that propogates at c, but generates an inherent stasis effect that slows the practical movement of the beam to below c and proportionally degrades gravitational affects.

I believe the speed of the bolt is a function dependent on its yield that also influences bolt length. Small handweapons generate beams that are more unstable and generate proportionally greater stasis effects. Large scale capital weapons have smaller stasis affects with higher yield.

The laterally-emitting section of the beam is merely an inherent decay affect that follows a "tail" portion of the overall pulse. Eventually the speed tops off at C as stasis effects cease with very high yield.

That sounds backwards to me. I'd think a stasis field would require power to maintain, so a hand weapon would be dedicating a lot more of its overall energy content to a powerful stasis field while a large turbolaser would barely have any stasis effects. Basically, if there's an inherent stasis field, I'd expected larger weapons to have a more powerful field.

I'm not saying it is required or is generated, but the stasis effect would be an inherent characteristic of the bolt that'd vary with power increase.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'm of the opinion that the weapon Chewie fired in ROTJ was a blaster. It operated nothing like the Bowcaster described in the EGtWT. No auto-recocking system could be heard/seen and it really is undestingushable from a blaster.

[Mad]

Suggestion: the particles decay into other kinds of particles, which are much slower-moving. These other particles then emit light after a time delay (this presumes several stages of decay). The result is the the beam leaves a trail of slowly decaying particles behind it, hence the bolt even when the gun is pointed in another direction. Mind you, that presents problems of its own.

That one doesn't look workable in the context of blasters. The slower particles would fall into the gravity well before emitting light, and the particles closer to the gun would somehow have to choose to emit light before the particles further from the gun. Also, the damage can occur after the person has pointed the blaster away from the target, meaning there is no lightspeed portion. (As soon as the blaster is pointed away, nothing else is coming out of the gun... all the effects have been fired... and at lightspeed, they'd hit the target instantly at observed ranges.)

In some ways, the heretical "tiny projectile" idea (which is listed on my webpage but considered a bit of a last resort since one must first prove the other theories can't possibly work) works better.

I just had an idea... I've seen quotes from ICS2 mentioning pre-manufactured "subnuclear knots of space-time" in regards to antigravity devices. Maybe some of these are fired along with the blaster bolts to distort and slow down their pulses (though the damaging portion has been observed to be slightly ahead of the visible portion in blasters at times, like turbolasers). Of course, then we'd expect everything around the blaster bolt to be distorted, as well. Unless the control is just that good. But that'd seem to imply some kind of complicated projectile controlling the field, which is something to be avoided if at all possible.

Anyway, I've been thinking that, for blasters, the bolts come a bit more "pre-packaged" than for turbolasers. This way, the delay between pulilng the trigger to begin the starter beam and the actual damaging beam coming out can be avoided. This way, the user doesn't have to hold a steady aim for so long, especially since recoil effects appear to begin as soon as the trigger is pulled no matter how the weapon is fired. (Having to hold a beam on target with recoil would be difficult.) A side effect of this pre-packaging would be that the bolts, for some reason, travel more slowly. (I just can't think of any way to get more detailed than that at this point.)

I'm beginning to like the "tiny projectile" hypothesis, at least for hand blasters, more and more.

A workable theory for blasters needs to explain:
* delay between trigger being pulled and damage occuring
* damage occuring roughly at time of bolt impact
* damage occuring where the blaster was pointing when it was fired (why the bolts don't change direction with the gun like the turbolaser carrier-beam theories suggest)
* resistance to normal levels of gravity
* and should use the same massless particles turbolasers do, or at least follow similar principles as the turbolaser theories

And maybe a few other things I'm forgetting right now.

[D.Turtle]

One problem with that: No variable power settings.

[Mad]

One problem with that: No variable power settings.

Well, the idea could work with variable power settings... It'd just mean that stronger shots would just pump multiple "packages" of bolts together, with each package being a low powered bolt. It'd probably depend on the specifics of the form the "bolt packages" come in, though.

But what you said reminded me of stun shots, too. Stun bolts are so different from blasters... especially in shape. Explaining stuj bolts using the same ideas as blaster bolts is yet another challenge to tack on. I've seen suggestions that stun bolts are the containment field without the damaging blaster particles, but the blue flash effect when Leia was hit that we never see anywhere else suggests something quite different.

[hvb]

Nope, you are just seeing the stun bolt head on, as it hits the camera viewpoint.
(same thing happens in the detention block if you have the right version of the movie):
see third from last image here

[Mad]

Nope, you are just seeing the stun bolt head on, as it hits the camera viewpoint.
(same thing happens in the detention block if you have the right version of the movie):
see third from last image here

Erm, I'm talking about more than just the supposed expansion. (Actually, I didn't even address expansion.) We see a hollow blue circle instead of a filled red circle, and take a look at the pic showing Leia getting hit on this Turbolaser Commentaries page, showing an effect surrounding her we never see anywhere else when blasters are used.

[hvb]

Hmm ...right you are Mad,

yes a "blue field" appears to flow over or envelope the target on impact, and somehow cause the stun effect.
The problem is obviously that all this talk of quasi-realistic particles, "waveshapes" and fields leaves us with no way of guesstimating the effect of them on a biological organism. (in most cases anyway)

So any answer to the how it works is liable to be pure technobable, all we can do is observe and quantify the effects.
(e.i. in this instance the princess is nocked to the floor, and that she is up again, and self-locomotive shortly thereafter with no apparent ill effect; before the remaining captives are all led off the ship if I recall correctly.)

[Mad]

Hmm ...right you are Mad,

Not much on originality, eh?

(Edit: re-reading that, I'm not sure if that was supposed to be one of those "you're mad" I see thrown my way every now and then, or a "you are right" worded in a different order... the rest of my message was written assuming the former. My apologies if the latter was your intention, in which case you can ignore some of the wording that follows.)

yes a "blue field" appears to flow over or envelope the target on impact, and somehow cause the stun effect.
The problem is obviously that all this talk of quasi-realistic particles, "waveshapes" and fields leaves us with no way of guesstimating the effect of them on a biological organism. (in most cases anyway)

Except for the fact that blaster bolts hit people all the time. If the same "stuff" was being fired, we'd expect to see similar effects. We don't. It doesn't completely discount the possibility that they're the same, but it certainly suggests that more than just the energy level of the bolt has changed.

Oh, and by the way... stun bolts do expand. Watch the movie. When the bolt hits Leia, it's about the size of her head. That's certainly bigger than it was when it left the barrel. Why you even brought the expansion up I can't even figure out, though, as I didn't even mention it. It was just a strange red herring, having nothing to do with the effect I mentioned.

So any answer to the how it works is liable to be pure technobable, all we can do is observe and quantify the effects.
(e.i. in this instance the princess is nocked to the floor, and that she is up again, and self-locomotive shortly thereafter with no apparent ill effect; before the remaining captives are all led off the ship if I recall correctly.)

In this thread, we're trying to get more specific into the behavior of the weapons. That should've been obvious way back on the first page. Specifically, we're trying to merge the ICS2 description with observed effects, since the two do not appear to agree at first glance. Some pretty workable explanations have been offered, showing that ICS2's explanation does work. (Obviously, a big motivation is the desire to quiet anti-ICS2 people. Answering questions like "does the damaging portion always travel at c, or is it sublight in the case of blasters?" are also motivations, and the answers can have consequences elsewhere.)

Feel free to contribute if you want, but please, actually contribute instead of implying how useless this thread is.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'm still partial to the idea of an inherent stasis effect within which to bolt still travels at c. It does explain blaster bolts even.

Stun is too much of a pain in the ass to assume that it is a blaster weapon. I prefer to think stun blasts are a seperate weapon that discharges into the blaster muzzle.

[SirNitram]

The only problem I find with massless particles, really, is it contradicts what we see as far as recoil. The observed recoil could, indeed, be Tibanna Gas being ejected(How much did Mike calculate need to be ejected to acheive as much recoil as a KT of energy?), but that doesn't remove the fact there should be two peices of recoil, because in order for the invisible, massless beam to work, it must be fired after the visible one(Otherwise, we get massless particles going slower than light... Blaaaargh).

But I probably shouldn't be lighting this flamewar right here.

[Illuminatus Primus]

You're misunderstanding, Nitram.

The pulse is an inherent part of the beam, not a seperate entity.

Think of the beam as always constant, and moving at c, but the pulse is an area of decay of lightspeed quanta which moves down the c beam, appearing to move slower than light, but it is not an actual physical thing, just a phenomenon traveling down the beam, which always has the speed of c.

Think if you tied a fuse to the end of a car, and lit it, and drove the car, the flame would travel over the fuse at a rate independent to the speed of the fuse (speed of the car). The whole fuse, burned-out, and yet-to-be-burned section would be traveling at constant speed, but the effect of the burning would be traveling over the fuse at an independent rate.

Thus there's only recoil for the beam being fired. Many weapons don't manifest the beam's recoil, such as the SPHA-T, which only recoils at the beginning of the beam's firing, and is probably some Tibanna ejection, that is afterwards regulated by other ejection systems, as seen in ICS beakhead section.

[Mad]

I'm not saying it is required or is generated, but the stasis effect would be an inherent characteristic of the bolt that'd vary with power increase.

That doesn't explain the visible portion riding at sublight along the invisible c-velocity beam, though. The visible bolt has to move relative to an invisible beam, and yet the visible and invisible portions should intersect on impact in the vast majority of cases.

[hvb]

ups
what I intended to say was: ...right you are, Mad, (pardon my punctuation)
the red herring is mostly me not being awake enough to understand what I am reading, let along writing, sorry.
I blame starvation, it has been only 13 hours, but...

[SirNitram]

You're misunderstanding, Nitram.

The pulse is an inherent part of the beam, not a seperate entity.

That sentence has the ring of 'Get some hard cider, this will hurt'.

Think of the beam as always constant, and moving at c, but the pulse is an area of decay of lightspeed quanta which moves down the c beam, appearing to move slower than light, but it is not an actual physical thing, just a phenomenon traveling down the beam, which always has the speed of c.

So you embrace the idea that the visible beam is trailing behind the 'actual' beam? Huge, massive problem there: For this to be true, the visible beam is travelling backwards in time, because Time To Target for a lightspeed beam is much, much smaller than the TTT we see for the visible beam(With the possible exception of Alderaan and the DS SL).

Think if you tied a fuse to the end of a car, and lit it, and drove the car, the flame would travel over the fuse at a rate independent to the speed of the fuse (speed of the car). The whole fuse, burned-out, and yet-to-be-burned section would be traveling at constant speed, but the effect of the burning would be traveling over the fuse at an independent rate.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you are attempting to convey here. Or is this an alternate way of trying to describe the idea of the beam being somehow folded space the lightspeed section races around in?(Probably butchered the theory, but that's what it sounded like..)

Thus there's only recoil for the beam being fired. Many weapons don't manifest the beam's recoil, such as the SPHA-T, which only recoils at the beginning of the beam's firing, and is probably some Tibanna ejection, that is afterwards regulated by other ejection systems, as seen in ICS beakhead section.

If it's only recoil from the beam being fired, and the beam moves at C, it's not appearing at the right time. I don't know how else I can try and explain this, but I'll try.

Alright. At some point in the asteroid chase, if I'm recalling correctly, there's a section where it takes about a second(Probably a bit shorter, but close enough) for the visible bolt to hit the Falcon. For the beam to be moving at lightspeed, the actual shot must be fired a second after the visible bolt. If this isn't done, there will be the damage, and the visible bolt meandering over over the course of a second. This is not what happens, as the majority of the time the damage is dealt as the visible portion hits.

I suppose one could throw out all known scaling for the asteroid chase and every other time we track TL's with our eyes(With, I think, the exception of Alderaan..) and proclaim the beam really is moving at lightspeed, but then we get ships measured in lightseconds...

[Illuminatus Primus]

To Mad: Sure it does. The stasis affect is over the entire beam (which is invisible and relative to its perspective, traveling a c), but the decaying region of massless quanta (the visible pulse) begins at the "bottom" of the beam and moves forward through it.

This pulse moves over the beam and intersects with the end of the beam roughly at the intended range of the weapon, which is usually determined by its yield.

Weapons with higher yield have longer beams and thus longer pulses, thus it takes longer for the pulse to travel over the beam to the end. Instances of the beam impacting before the pulse is usually because the decided weapon is used at close range in proportion to it yield, such as the Naboo speeder's blaster in TPM and examples from ROTJ.

Normally, higher yield weapons are meant to be used at higher ranges, thus the ranges they are used at generally have the effect of having near simultaneous beam/pulse arrival.

Laser/turbolaser weaponry "spin" the propogating stasis field (inherent to the beam), stretching out the beam (and thus pulse) and degrading the stasis affects, giving it a longer range and more efficiency, as well as increasing the speed to acceptable levels.

I base this part of the theory on the fact that blasters seem to mostly have identical propogation rates, while the larger cannon and TLs are vastly different. But the "spin," particularly emphasized by Saxton, helps give an explanation.

[Illuminatus Primus]

*snip*

I just think that the light lateral emission is some affect that trails behind the c beam but is also tied to it somehow.

To tell you the truth I'm pulling straws. The ICS2 explanation was a good throw, but it still bugs me greatly.

Plasma and everything else works worse, though, so we're stuck with this.

[SirNitram]

Sure it does. The stasis affect is over the entire beam (which is invisible and relative to its perspective, traveling a c), but the decaying region of massless quanta (the visible pulse) begins at the "bottom" of the beam and moves forward through it.

Occam just threw up in his grave.

I can't.. I'm having trouble deciding which part of this I should start with. So the beam tags a ship and obediently doesn't cause damage until the decay of it's particles is finished? Only it doesn't always? One might as well say the invisible part is simply a targetting laser, with this insanity...

This pulse moves over the beam and intersects with the end of the beam roughly at the intended range of the weapon, which is usually determined by its yield.

Weapons with higher yield have longer beams and thus longer pulses, thus it takes longer for the pulse to travel over the beam to the end. Instances of the beam impacting before the pulse is usually because the decided weapon is used at close range in proportion to it yield, such as the Naboo speeder's blaster in TPM and examples from ROTJ.

Normally, higher yield weapons are meant to be used at higher ranges, thus the ranges they are used at generally have the effect of having near simultaneous beam/pulse arrival.

Laser/turbolaser weaponry "spin" the propogating stasis field (inherent to the beam), stretching out the pulse and degrading the stasis affects, giving it a longer range and more efficiency, as well as increasing the speed to acceptable levels.

Spinning... stasis.. fields....

Seriously, dude, this is flying farther and farther from what's observed every sentence. It'd be easier to use atmospheric heating to describe the premature destruction than this overcomplex mess.

I base this part of the theory on the fact that blasters seem to mostly have identical propogation rates, while the larger cannon and TLs are vastly different. But the "spin," particularly emphasized by Saxton, helps give an explanation.

I really... I have no words. The post made no sense at all.

[SirNitram]

*snip*

I just think that the light lateral emission is some affect that trails behind the c beam but is also tied to it somehow.

Re-read the last section. How can something trail behind something that hasn't been fired yet? Or does the Empire use time-travel technology in their weapons?

To tell you the truth I'm pulling straws. The ICS2 explanation was a good throw, but it still bugs me greatly.

Plasma and everything else works worse, though, so we're stuck with this.

By your logic, we should have concluded the sun was a chemical reaction before we discovered nuclear fusion and fission. This is over-complex nonsense that does not fit the observed material.

[Illuminatus Primus]

*snip*

You're right, its stupid. I should not have said anything.

I have no idea what we're going to rely on though. Something has to fit all the given explanations into one coherent thing that explains everything while not assuming too much or violating basic ideas of physics.

[SirNitram]

*snip*

You're right, its stupid. I should not have said anything.

I have no idea what we're going to rely on though. Something has to fit all the given explanations into one coherent thing that explains everything while not assuming too much or violating basic ideas of physics.

We are allowed to say 'We don't know', you know. That's what we say when we see that the Death Star 1's powercore is ten million times as dense as a Black Hole, yet people don't fall inwards towards it. It's better to simply list what a Turbolaser does, than to invent meaningless technobabble to try and explain it. The official explanations are all contradictory or simply fly in the face of Canon on some level, so stop trying to make them fit and just observe what happens. Once we have that down, then you can postulate.

[Illuminatus Primus]

You're right.

Conceeded.

[SirNitram]

You're right.

Conceeded.

Your concession is accepted. You debated honourably.

We'll start work on what TL's do.. Later tonight. I gotta fly.

[Mad]

To Mad: Sure it does. The stasis affect is over the entire beam (which is invisible and relative to its perspective, traveling a c), but the decaying region of massless quanta (the visible pulse) begins at the "bottom" of the beam and moves forward through it.

This pulse moves over the beam and intersects with the end of the beam roughly at the intended range of the weapon, which is usually determined by its yield.

Okay, let me get this straight:

You're suggesting that the beam is fired, but a stasis field surrounding the beam slows it down to an apparent sublight velocity. That way, once the beam is fired, the gun can point somewhere else and fire at another target while the first beam is still on its way.

That sound about right?

Here's the problem: you have the bolt going FTL inside the stasis field. In order for the bolt to start at the back of the beam and work its way forward, it'd have to actually travel faster inside the stasis field than the massless, c-velocity particles are. However, the ICS2 description specifically says that the beam is lightspeed, while the pulse is less than the speed of light.

This is why my theory has the visible pulse starting at the front of the beam, and working its way backwards, relative to the beam.

[Mad]

Occam just threw up in his grave.

I can't.. I'm having trouble deciding which part of this I should start with. So the beam tags a ship and obediently doesn't cause damage until the decay of it's particles is finished? Only it doesn't always? One might as well say the invisible part is simply a targetting laser, with this insanity...

My explanation here works pretty well: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 504#426504

The pulse starts when the beam is fired, but the beam starts off too weak to cause any damage. The beam powers up while the pulse is traveling along it. The bolt's velocity is pre-determined by the targetting computers based on the distance of the intended target, so that it reaches the target after a set amount of time -- the same amount of time it takes the beam to gain enough power to hit full-strength.

This also explains why the delay is usually pretty consistent (longer delays for more powerful shots, shorter delays for weaker shots), why an A-wing could fly through a visible bolt with no damage (beam was still too weak to cause damage), why SotE describes the invisible damaging portion as coming after the visible portion, and a few other things as well.