Hypothetical Situation with Super-Laser

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2003-07-30 12:51pm

Suppose the Death Star Super Laser is fired at a reflective (meaning the beam bounces back) surface on planet, which also incidentilly coats the Deathstar. When the beam begins bouncing back and forth between the Death Star and the planet what happens?

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2003-07-30 12:58pm

Angle of incidence=angle of reflection. Unless the beam hit straight-on, it would fly off into space. IF the beam was a normal laser. Which its not. So the planet is obliterated anyway.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-30 01:25pm

Mirrors don't work quite like that the Superlaser is not mere photons.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2003-07-30 02:12pm

::Waves wand of such and such:: It works, and it reflects driectly between the two "mirrors" what happens?

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-07-30 02:33pm

A mirror would have to absorb and then retransmit photons, if I'm not mistaken. Hitting it with a beam that powerful (assuming the superlaser is made up of photons for purposes of this thread, even though it isn't) should melt the mirror no matter how perfect it is. Any imperfections in it would cause some photons to be absorbed and not retransmitted, heating it up. Even a 100% reflective mirror would be forced to handle an enormous amount of energy for a brief period of time before retransmission, and I doubt it'd be able to handle that.

Even if the material were somehow resistant enough to handle that amount of power (aside from the fact that every starship in the fleet should then be armored with such a material), the beam should superheat the atmopshere and still cause widespread destruction. And if the beam can be bounced back to the planet perfectly by the Death Mirror indefinitely, the planet's mirror would sink into the melted land and then the land would absorb the superlaser beam, finally allowing the planet to be destroyed. Leaving behind an indestructable magical mirror....

That, of course, is assuming the material can resist the superlaser's momentum... A material can have high thermal resistance but still be brittle and break under a relatively small amount of momentum. And the superlaser's momentum would hardly be insignificant!

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-07-30 06:57pm

Straha wrote:::Waves wand of such and such:: It works, and it reflects driectly between the two "mirrors" what happens?

No mirror is 100% reflective.

KhyronTheBackstabber · Post by **KhyronTheBackstabber** » 2003-07-30 07:12pm

Going by what your trying to say, the beam bounces back and forth like a super ball, until the reflective surface on the planet moves out of alignment, then it will shoot off into space, or the DS can move to stay in alignment, and have a large scale game of pong.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-07-30 07:23pm

Actually, since the beam has a non-zero width and the surfaces are not completely flat, the beam will spead an arbitrarily small amount each bounce, and will eventually grow wide enough that it will pass around the Death Star on all edges, so you get this Death Star-sized hole in a big fucking powerful green death-ray.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-07-30 09:59pm

The shock of impact would shatter the mirror and seriously deform the planet, even if part of the beam is reflected away. Remember that the DS beam is so powerful that its momentum would be similar to that of the entire planet Earth moving at 50 km/s. In theory, DS1 should have had to fire its engines just to maintain station when shooting, although this may explain why it builds up its beam at the junction point for a while before actually launching it forward; it reduces the reaction forces by spreading them out over time.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-07-30 10:03pm

Darth Wong wrote:In theory, DS1 should have had to fire its engines just to maintain station when shooting, although this may explain why it builds up its beam at the junction point for a while before actually launching it forward; it reduces the reaction forces by spreading them out over time.

I thought the DS used repulsors to anchor itself when it used the superlaser. I could swear there was some mention of it in the ANH novelization.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-07-30 10:06pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:I thought the DS used repulsors to anchor itself when it used the superlaser. I could swear there was some mention of it in the ANH novelization.

Oh yes, good point. I forgot that the ANH novelization says they waited until they were in repulsorlift range of Alderaan before firing, although it didn't specify whether this was strictly necessary.