Darths and Droids III: Search Your DNA Report

[BannedInSchool]

Eet ist ein TRAP!

[Welf]

How to type and talk with a German accent

Zos sound like useful rules zat schoult be inkorporatet in zee Oxfort diktionary. Zis greatly improvt zee Englisch languitsch for me.

[Cikomyr]

Ah.. you funny and whimsical Jim!

[Kato]

How to type and talk with a German accent

Oh gosh, I'm not sure if I should be honored or insulted. I hope I to not talk like zat.


Giant planets are excellent concoealment but it takes forever to circumvent them... I guess Vader (or someone else) did the math on that. Then again, I wonder if he can't just shoot them through the planet.

[Radar]

I am positively surprised, that in this iteration of the story the rebels are supposedly better organised and the reveal of their base was intentional. Apart from that, today's punchline was right on the spot.

[Feytalist]

Oh gosh, I'm not sure if I should be honored or insulted. I hope I to not talk like zat.

I've got a German friend. He talks exactly like zat


And that's a punny punchline. I like the last beat panel, it's like Vader is trying to work out what he just said. Heh.

[Traab]

Oh gosh, I'm not sure if I should be honored or insulted. I hope I to not talk like zat.


Giant planets are excellent concoealment but it takes forever to circumvent them... I guess Vader (or someone else) did the math on that. Then again, I wonder if he can't just shoot them through the planet.

That could work, but it would require precise timing and aim to shoot a moon they cant see with a beam of energy being intercepted by a planet. Thats assuming the lase blast even COULD go through a planet with enough power left to destroy the moon. On the other hand, it probably wouldnt have to. I would imagine having the planet you orbit explode violently would cause quite a lot of damage from shockwave, shrapnel, etc etc etc.

[The Glyphstone]

That could work, but it would require precise timing and aim to shoot a moon they cant see with a beam of energy being intercepted by a planet. Thats assuming the lase blast even COULD go through a planet with enough power left to destroy the moon. On the other hand, it probably wouldnt have to. I would imagine having the planet you orbit explode violently would cause quite a lot of damage from shockwave, shrapnel, etc etc etc.

Why didn't they just do that in the original movie? Were gas giants immune to the superlaser?

[Traab]

Why didn't they just do that in the original movie? Were gas giants immune to the superlaser?

Its possible the planet was too big to blow up. I mean, jupiter would take way more energy to explode than mercury (presumably) So while it likely would be a world wide extinction event, leaving a massive crater several continents wide, it might not have had enough to make the entire planet shatter into moon killing debris.

[Binks]

Yeah, that's the official reason from what I know. The DS1 had the energy output to blow up a rocky roughly earth sized planet but nothing too much larger. There's a site out there that calculates the energy output based on the velocity of Alderaan's fragments and concluded that the DS1 wouldn't have been able to do much to Yavin had it fired in there.

[hamishspence]

Irregular Webcomic has some interesting things to say on this subject:

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/153.html
http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/160.html

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/507.html
http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/512.html
http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/519.html

In the Death Star novel it mentions that, at full power, much of the mass of the target is "shunted into hyperspace" and it's the remaining bit that explodes.

[Binks]

Here's the calculation site: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/...DeathStar.html. Based on those numbers the energy to destroy Yavin would have been roughly a thousand times the energy to destroy Alderaan, so it's entirely likely the DS simply didn't have enough power to do that.

[hamishspence]

While SD.net can be a little dubious, the basic idea that it takes a lot of energy to make Alderaan shatter like that, is sound.

It got its figures from Star Wars Technical Commentaries:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/index.html

Thing is- it takes on the order million times the break energy, to make the material move apart as fast as it does.

Suggesting that breaking Yavin, if it has a thousand times the break energy of Yavin IV, is still possible- it's just that the bits will move apart very slowly.

It's worth noting that low density:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-11e

and high density:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI-55.01

planets, do exist, regardless of what that SD.net page says.

[ThePhantom]

Actually, http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/519.html was partly referred to in the prior strip, or at least Kyros was.

[The Glyphstone]

Isn't SD.net dubious because it relies so heavily on the SWTC, aka Dunning-Kreuger: Curtis Saxton Edition?

[hamishspence]

Isn't SD.net dubious because it relies so heavily on the SWTC, aka Dunning-Kreuger: Curtis Saxton Edition?

That's part of it- though they take it and run with it in some cases.

SWTC itself makes references to things that SD.Net came up with, like the Turbolaser Commentaries.

The two are somewhat interlinked.

[Gnoman]

Saxton's numbers on the Death Star's superlaser have been thoroughly debunked canonically. The canon reason that planets explode so violently is because much of their mass is sent into hyperspace, not because so much energy is used, and an Earth-sized planet requires full power to destroy.

[hamishspence]

That said, in the novel Death Star, Despayre, the prison planet where it was constructed, breaks apart after 3 shots at 1/3 power, each nearly an hour apart.

[Traab]

Saxton's numbers on the Death Star's superlaser have been thoroughly debunked canonically. The canon reason that planets explode so violently is because much of their mass is sent into hyperspace, not because so much energy is used, and an Earth-sized planet requires full power to destroy.

Ah, so because they cant come up with a way to destroy the planet through physics they throw "hyperspace, now stfu" at us as the explanation?

[The Glyphstone]

It joins the list of physics-defying magic powers, physics-defying energy weapons, physics-defying spaceships, and physicsgeology/biology-defying planets, so I'm neither surprised nor bothered that they also have physics-defying superlasers.

[hamishspence]

I wouldn't entirely rule out small, yet life-supporting planets- given sufficient terraforming resources.

Even in real life, planets can get very dense- nothing stopping somebody taking such a dense planet and using it as a starting point.

Would explain Mustafar, Iego, and the Forest Moon having close to Earth-norm atmospheres and (apparent) gravities despite the small sizes given for them in the EU.

[Traab]

It joins the list of physics-defying magic powers, physics-defying energy weapons, physics-defying spaceships, and physicsgeology/biology-defying planets, so I'm neither surprised nor bothered that they also have physics-defying superlasers.

Eh true enough, but I am just more thinking about how often you have these big star wars versus star trek type arguments where everyone breaks out "real" numbers on ship sizes, armor, weapon strength, etc. So its always interesting when you see them give up on justifying something by saying, "Meh, its magic"

[hamishspence]

The usual comment I've seen on the hyperspace shunt, from maximalists, is

"It takes vastly more energy to shunt a planet into hyperspace, than to just make it explode conventionally"

"Hyperspace is a source of near-limitless energy" was the reason for changing from fusion reactors to hypermatter reactors, as described power sources for starships.

[Radar]

I wouldn't entirely rule out small, yet life-supporting planets- given sufficient terraforming resources.

Even in real life, planets can get very dense- nothing stopping somebody taking such a dense planet and using it as a starting point.

Would explain Mustafar, Iego, and the Forest Moon having close to Earth-norm atmospheres and (apparent) gravities despite the small sizes given for them in the EU.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that well. If you change the planet radius, you can either keep the same atmosphere pressure or the gravity pull at the surface - at least, if you want to avoid always-on terraforming (concerning the atmosphere leaking).

What is quite surprising, is that the gravity pull at the surface drop very slowly with mass even if we keep the same density, since the radius drops as well. With a given density, the pull would be linearily proportional to the radius or mass^(1/3).

[Cikomyr]

Guys. Catgirls.

Please, think of them.

[turbo164]

It's also possible the Empire wanted to keep the gas giant/other moons intact for harvesting helium/plutonium/madeupium/etc. Though I assume the rebels would be hiding in a place with less value. *shrug*

[The Glyphstone]

Eh true enough, but I am just more thinking about how often you have these big star wars versus star trek type arguments where everyone breaks out "real" numbers on ship sizes, armor, weapon strength, etc. So its always interesting when you see them give up on justifying something by saying, "Meh, its magic"

It's the fans who are breaking out the 'real' numbers, as they usually do. The canon says 'meh, it's magic'. This is not stymieing the fans one bit, since they just ignore it/excuse it away in favor of their calculations.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Also, SD.net was created for the sole purposes of "winning" vs. threads against Star Trek fans, and they'll bias their numbers however they want to do that. It's not exactly a scientific resource.

[hamishspence]

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that well. If you change the planet radius, you can either keep the same atmosphere pressure or the gravity pull at the surface - at least, if you want to avoid always-on terraforming (concerning the atmosphere leaking).

What is quite surprising, is that the gravity pull at the surface drop very slowly with mass even if we keep the same density, since the radius drops as well. With a given density, the pull would be linearily proportional to the radius or mass^(1/3).

The densest planet in the real world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI-55.01

is on the order of 64 tonnes per cubic m- over 10 times that of Earth- and with a radius only 3/4 of Earth's.

Such a planet would have a surface gravity of over 7 times that of Earth.

Suggesting that, if you scaled it down further, you could still have something as small as Iego with an Earth-normal gravity or higher.

It would be tricky to actually obtain such a planet (maybe break up a larger one?), move it to a habitable orbit, and add atmosphere- possibly via crashing comets into it- but high end groups in the Star Wars EU prehistory, like the Celestials, were known to create black holes and move planets- such a thing would be trivial for them.

What is quite surprising, is that the gravity pull at the surface drop very slowly with mass even if we keep the same density, since the radius drops as well. With a given density, the pull would be linearily proportional to the radius or mass^(1/3).

Yup- gravity is inversely proportional to radius squared (for planets of a given mass) - hence, a planet the same mass as Earth but half the radius, will have four times the surface gravity.

And mass is proportional to radius cubed- hence, if you halve the planets radius, you'll reduce its mass to 1/8 normal, if you don't change the density.

Since surface gravity is directly proportional to mass- then you can conclude (by canceling out terms on both sides of the equation) that for a given density, gravity is directly proportional to radius.

An earth-density planet 3x Earth's radius, will have 3x Earth's surface gravity.

An earth-density planet 1/3 Earth's radius, will have 1/3 Earth's surface gravity.

And so forth.

[Traab]

It's the fans who are breaking out the 'real' numbers, as they usually do. The canon says 'meh, it's magic'. This is not stymieing the fans one bit, since they just ignore it/excuse it away in favor of their calculations.

Thats true, and I know that in canon they may not SAY its magic, they also dont bother to explain how it works, leaving the rabid fan base to try and do the math to prove how powerful the star wars universe is. Then the rabid haters also use math to prove things like why coruscant couldnt possible exist as a functional world due to raw heat production etc etc etc. And all i can think of is that one snl sketch with shatner where he goes to a convention and basically tees off on the entire crowd about how much they need to get a life and stop obsessing over unimportant details and wonder if lucas ever got the urge to stand up in front of a mic and say, "Guys, knock it off. This is a movie, not real life. Stop trying to prove or debunk it by showing how the math doesnt add up. Of course the math doesnt work, thats why its called science FICTION, not science fact."