Range of 'lasers'

[Emperor Palpatine]

I've seen in ANH that some 'lasers' fired from the stormtroopers in the beginning (when they entered the Blockade Runner.) didn't even hit the walls. Some did, yes, but most didn't, no explosions no nothing. Just disappeared.
I know this might be an effects problem, but since this site is about treating the universe as if it was real, any comments on this short range?

Some other types of 'laser' shots disappeared after a short distance as well, without hitting anything. One example would be the 'lasers' of the TIE fighters firing at the

[Emperor Palpatine]

[Sorry... I haven't finish with the previous post, and I can't edit!]

contd..

Some other types of 'laser' shots disappeared after a short distance as well, without hitting anything. One example would be the 'lasers' of the TIE fighters firing at the Millennium Falcon when it was near an asteroid (right before both of the TIE fighters exploded.). Some bits of the 'lasers' fired just disappeared without any signs of an explosion or any sound of one.

As mentioned, any comments on this short range?

EDCP

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe the camera angle changed? Maybe they were stunbolts?

[His Divine Shadow]

As mentioned, any comments on this short range?

My theory is that the beam terminated and as such the bolt, which is a side effect of the beam also dissapears.
There's also the theory that when a beam terminates it might cause a small burst or just dissapear, explaining the strange bursts we see sometimes.

[Soulman]

As mentioned, any comments on this short range?

My theory is that the beam terminated and as such the bolt, which is a side effect of the beam also dissapears.
There's also the theory that when a beam terminates it might cause a small burst or just dissapear, explaining the strange bursts we see sometimes.

I just had a thought, in ANH when the turrets on the DS are firing do we see them fire a bolt, rotate and then fire again? If so than the theory with the bolt being part of a beam cannot be correct.

[His Divine Shadow]

I just had a thought, in ANH when the turrets on the DS are firing do we see them fire a bolt, rotate and then fire again? If so than the theory with the bolt being part of a beam cannot be correct.

You'd have to assume a few things there then, such as all weapons being the same kind and that the bolt dissapears immediatly instead of lasting a frame or two whilst travelling on it's last heading before it dissapears.

[Soulman]

I just had a thought, in ANH when the turrets on the DS are firing do we see them fire a bolt, rotate and then fire again? If so than the theory with the bolt being part of a beam cannot be correct.

You'd have to assume a few things there then, such as all weapons being the same kind and that the bolt dissapears immediatly instead of lasting a frame or two whilst travelling on it's last heading before it dissapears.

Even if we assume that these light weapons are different from HTLs then the arguements against some sort of projectile (like bottled plasma) being fired from HTLs are made invalid because the observed behaviour from the light weapons and HTLs is the same. My vague memories of the shots of the DS firing at the fighters imply that the bolts continued for more than a few frames, furthermore if the bolt is a ripple along the beam why would it continue along it's path when the beam has gone?

[His Divine Shadow]

Even if we assume that these light weapons are different from HTLs then the arguements against some sort of projectile (like bottled plasma) being fired from HTLs are made invalid because the observed behaviour from the light weapons and HTLs is the same.

Wait, wait, let's go through this, we have explicit visual evidence of the weapons behaiving in ways impossible unless they where part of something invisible, but we have a few instances where this is not so, and that overrides all the evidence already presented that they are beam weapons and the bolts are directly correlated to them?
Thats including only the evidence you like instead of it all, do you see the problem with that?

And then you introduce a black or white fallacy, that is, saying all weapons have to be alike merely because you have not seen any evidence that says they aren't.

My vague memories of the shots of the DS firing at the fighters imply that the bolts continued for more than a few frames,

I got 3 frames.

furthermore if the bolt is a ripple along the beam why would it continue along it's path when the beam has gone?

Why is as irrelevant a question as how really, it just does, and it's compatible with the evidence presented instead of just the parts you are interested in.

[Soulman]

Even if we assume that these light weapons are different from HTLs then the arguements against some sort of projectile (like bottled plasma) being fired from HTLs are made invalid because the observed behaviour from the light weapons and HTLs is the same.

Wait, wait, let's go through this, we have explicit visual evidence of the weapons behaiving in ways impossible unless they where part of something invisible, but we have a few instances where this is not so, and that overrides all the evidence already presented that they are beam weapons and the bolts are directly correlated to them?
Thats including only the evidence you like instead of it all, do you see the problem with that?

And then you introduce a black or white fallacy, that is, saying all weapons have to be alike merely because you have not seen any evidence that says they aren't.

I don't really care either way except that we can get a nice discussion out of it. I don't think that I'm cherry picking the evidence but I'll try to be more careful anyways.

Do we have any evidence that states that the light weapons are any different to the heavy? The visuals point to them being the same and if there is nothing to state otherwise is the assumption that they are the same in nature is not out of this world.

As for saying that most evidence showing that they are beam weapons I disagree, there are very few instances that indicate that they are not some kind of moving glowy blob.

Why is as irrelevant a question as how really, it just does, and it's compatible with the evidence presented instead of just the parts you are interested in.

Saying 'it just does' destroys any debate, using that standard I could say that they are moving glowy blobs just because that's what they look like.

BTW I don't consider any evidence of things exploding before the bolt hits that incorperates a freeze frame of the explosion as valid because it wasn't meant to be seen by the viewer.

[His Divine Shadow]

Do we have any evidence that states that the light weapons are any different to the heavy? The visuals point to them being the same and if there is nothing to state otherwise is the assumption that they are the same in nature is not out of this world.

In the movies we have projectile rifles that fire bolts identical to energy weapons, so what the visuals show is hard to say.
And official evidence says turbolasers are energy weapons, thats all I need to know.

As for saying that most evidence showing that they are beam weapons I disagree, there are very few instances that indicate that they are not some kind of moving glowy blob.

Well you have not been looking then, nor very carefully, there are shitloads of incidents in the movies where the bolts move sideways, with the ships and such and where they just dissapear, and they are never affected by gravity.

Saying 'it just does' destroys any debate, using that standard I could say that they are moving glowy blobs just because that's what they look like.

No it doesn't, it's part of a theory that explains all the behaviors

BTW I don't consider any evidence of things exploding before the bolt hits that incorperates a freeze frame of the explosion as valid because it wasn't meant to be seen by the viewer

Well it is anyway.
It's being objective and rational, prefferable to subjective whims and notions.

[Marc Xavier]

*raises eyebrow at this thread*

[Soulman]

*shrugs* I know we won't agree so how about some input from others? I don't want this to just devolve into:
"Is."
"Isn't."
"Is."
"Isn't."
"Is."
"Isn't."
"Is."
"Isn't."
Which it will if it's just us two bickering.

[Soulman]

Well you have not been looking then, nor very carefully, there are shitloads of incidents in the movies where the bolts move sideways, with the ships and such and where they just dissapear, and they are never affected by gravity.

As the typical viewer of Star Wars (as well as being too lazy to do anything but chat) I admit I haven't looked too carefully which is why I want some input from other debators who have more knowledge and experience.

[Marc Xavier]

Standby.

[His Divine Shadow]

I have told the objective truth about what happens on-screen, any theory that wants to be truthfull must incorporate these incidents.

TL's are either missiles that glows for some reason, which also have path changing abilities, or they are beam weapons in which the bolt follows the path of the beam and the same bolt can linger for a while after the beam terminating, creating sometimes, the illusion of independant entities, this is somewhat complex, but either theory is better than absurd stuff like just saying it's an energy bolt, because energy travels at C without a medium, and no medium will be self-contained without technology, making it a missile.
Energy bolts also do not change heading.
Free floating plasma bolts have nothing in common with the visuals and therefore makes as much sense as saying the earth is flat when looking at satelite images of it.

[Marc Xavier]

For information, see the following threads:

HDS and IP's view(s) (and responses)

My view(s) (and responses)


Oh, and HDS... just a question.

What is this green splash?:




or this?:

[His Divine Shadow]

The "splash" as you call it, you seem to say it's not plasma then(which would be impossible anyway since it's green, since plasma is not a liquid but a hot hot gas that glows like a sun and expands with the speed of an explosion), I think it might be the bolt being reflected and splintered into possibly thousand or millions of small bolts, much like the shields on the Tantive-IV reacted to that last laser bolt.

The second thing seems more like gas to me, I think it's the ship itself getting hit because in that scene we had partial bleedthrough and Artoo was hurt, possibly the same thing here, partial deflection and the bolts being splintered into many very very small bolts, passing through the gas illuminates it with a green color.

[His Divine Shadow]

I think those threads might be a bit old also.

[Marc Xavier]

Old? Well, feel free to post your updated theory for Soulman to look over.

The "splash" as you call it, you seem to say

I seem to say? I asked what you thought it was.

I think it might be the bolt being reflected and splintered into possibly thousand or millions of small bolts, much like the shields on the Tantive-IV reacted to that last laser bolt.

According to what we see on the Tantive-IV incident,


wouldn't you expect the bolt to "splinter" along the shield perimeter in a series of (mostly) well-defined straight lines? In the Tantive-IV shot, we see the bolt "splinter" out toward the ship (this is interpreted as the energy sub-bolts "spreading" out over the shield plane). This is not what is observed in the X-Wing shot.

In the X-Wing shot we have a bolt which impacts one of the fighter's engines, causes it to glow, knocks it slightly off-course, and then appears to "spew" out along a generally complimentary set of vectors:


(general illustration, not to scale).

This illustration does not take into account that the "splash" that occurs has a defined shape, with a sort of "nucleus" (which is nowhere near the point of impact) at the north end and bulbous broken tendrils scattering outward from it toward the bottom of the screen.

By contrast, the Tantive-IV incident has several well-defined straight-line tendrils scattering in different directions, with the nucleus centered at the point where the turbolaser met the shield.


vs



(by the way, since you brought up the Tantive-IV, might I ask how your theory explains the cloudy green "blob" beside the straight-line bolts?

So, if a turbolaser is a "glowing missile" as you mentioned above, it would have to be able to cut into pieces like lime jell-o. If it's a beam weapon, then it has to be able to create such a pattern with a nucleus some distance from the point of impact (reminescent of liquid), not to mention the minor other bits of bolt which fly off in the other directions.

In the TOT's explanation, those are explained as small self-contained tibanna packets which hit the X-Wing's engine and "splashed" out in the observed directions.

As a side-note, your short interlude about how plasma is impossible tells me that:

1. You have not read the Turbolaser Operational Theory (because what you said has nil to do with it)
or
2. You read it some time ago and forgot the entire section which talks about the liquid surface tension.

In either case I suggest you review it so that your objections can take more appropriately take issue with it. Also, please point me in the direction of the essay which describes the theory you and Illuminatus Primus put together since our last discussion.

The second thing seems more like gas to me, I think it's the ship itself getting hit because in that scene we had partial bleedthrough and Artoo was hurt, possibly the same thing here, partial deflection and the bolts being splintered into many very very small bolts, passing through the gas illuminates it with a green color.

I'm sorry, could you please cite evidence of the Tantive-IV-like splinters you're talking about? I do not see them.

[Darth Wong]

Marc Xavier: while I commend you on the effort and care you put into that page, you have disregarded the natural expansive properties of heated substances. If the turbolaser bolt is indeed a plasma contained in a "liquid" shell as you postulate, then we have the obvious problem that it should blow apart almost immediately.

Of course, you propose to deal with that through your cylindrical containment beam, generated from the mouth of the gun. While that is an unusual and certainly clever enough approach to deal with the situation, it can no more explain the "splash" effect than any other theory. The theoretical construct of a liquid-shelled hot-plasma projectile held together with a cylindrical containment beam would be no more likely to produce splash fragments than any other theory, unless you postulate that the cylindrical containment beam (a very long containment field, I imagine) splinters in the forcefield, like a beam would (thus begging the question of why it's necessary, since the beam explanation gets the job done without splintering autonomous mini-containment fields).

If anything, the various "splintering" and "splashing" incidents only harm "containment"-based interpretations while aiding coherent-beam interpretations.

[Illuminatus Primus]

*snip*.

And there, my friends, goes a big heap of pseudoscientific technobabble.

[YT300000]

*snip*.

And there, my friends, goes a big heap of pseudoscientific technobabble.

The only vaguely technobabbleic (sp?) terms in that were plasma, containment and postulate.

[Marc Xavier]

Marc Xavier: while I commend you on the effort and care you put into that page

Thanks, Mike.

you have disregarded the natural expansive properties of heated substances. If the turbolaser bolt is indeed a plasma contained in a "liquid" shell as you postulate, then we have the obvious problem that it should blow apart almost immediately.

Yes, I agree. In fact, this was one of my main challenges when putting together the TOT. You have a bolt with a hot plasma core and a cooler liquid outside, that's not exactly a stable configuration.

(for folks who might not have read the TOT)

The surface tension of the liquid wall can keep the tibanna bolt intact for several seconds without the need of a containment beam. Exactly how long the bolt retains cohesion depends on the temperature of the core plasma, the temperature of the edge plasma, the density and the size of the bolt (which also affects the gas' convection rates); dense and hot masses of tibanna will tend to lose their cohesion and come apart, sometimes explosively. Bolts with different attributes may be more likely to simply dwindle out.

I suppose it might be better if the TOT read something like "a few microseconds," or whatever corresponds to how long we see a bolt remain on screen without the barrel lined up with it before it poofs out of existence like at Yavin in ANH.

Of course, you propose to deal with that through your cylindrical containment beam, generated from the mouth of the gun. While that is an unusual and certainly clever enough approach to deal with the situation, it can no more explain the "splash" effect than any other theory. The theoretical construct of a liquid-shelled hot-plasma projectile held together with a cylindrical containment beam would be no more likely to produce splash fragments than any other theory, unless you postulate that the cylindrical containment beam (a very long containment field, I imagine) splinters in the forcefield, like a beam would (thus begging the question of why it's necessary, since the beam explanation gets the job done without splintering autonomous mini-containment fields).

If by this you mean the TOT retains an extra level of complexity over beam theory, I suppose my reasoning for it is that I'm trying to make sure the theory conforms to as many sources as possible (both canon and official). And since some sources do make mention of plasma (like the Star Wars Visual Dictionary and the AOTC Visual Dictionary) and others indicate some form of "laser pulse" or "energy bolt," I'm trying to form a harmony.

If anything, the various "splintering" and "splashing" incidents only harm "containment"-based interpretations while aiding coherent-beam interpretations.

Well, given that the X-wing impact cited above only lasted for 3 frames (.12 seconds), I would forward that the TOT's "surface tension" explanation could account for the "splash." :

Turbolaser has been fired and is en route to target:


At the moment of impact,

the (lightspeed) containment beams are shut off (notice that the bolt is a tiny bit thicker. Now that there's no containment tube, the turbolaser plasma expands like any other heated substance)

At this time, the jacketing beam has completed it's task, making sure that the turbolaser bolt retains cohesion over it's long journey toward it's target (so, there's really no reason to keep it on).

Impact

Note a small bit of "splash" tossed off to the side of the ship's engine.

After impact

The major "splash" is ejected from the engine. After impact with the X-wing, some of the energy contained in the bolt was transferred to the unfortunate starfighter (and perhaps some of it was lost in another form, but this is only tangentially relevant to my point).

What remained behind with the "splatter" that bounced off of the ship (above) was cool enough to allow the containment field-less "sub-globs" to retain cohesion (via surface tension) for at least the single frame that we see it on screen.

"Late splash"

Whatever splash wasnt ejected immediately is now making it's way away.


All clear.


The lack of the containment field (after impact) would help explain why the liquid-contained plasma splattered.


The Tantive-IV incident is 1 frame long (.04 seconds?) and in that incident, I would argue that it's the Tantive-IV's shields themselves that "splinter" the containment tube in that instance. More on that in the theory that preceded the Turbolaser Operational Theory some months ago, the Imperial Deflector Shield Operational Theory.

[Marc Xavier]

*snip*

Please, show me the essay or document which outlines your and HDS's current theory on the operation of turbolasers. I would like to read it.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Mushing everything together and making up stuff is not the best way to result in a compromise.

That's why there's a damn Canon hierarchy in the first place...