Actually, the Death Star I did have shields as mention of them passing through them was made. The rebel fighters even had to adjust their communications system to compensate for them.
I’ve had an extended night actually. I just watched Star Wars (Episode IV) and Return of the Jedi, played a great number of missions in XvT, and noted a good number of points along the way.
There was a refernce to some sort of magnetic barrier at Yavin, a goodly way out from the Death Star. Fair enough, I’m willing to accept this as extended shields (like I said in an earlier post, the X-Wings were under the shields).
Miller, if you have time, you might want to reference the Federation Warship thread. There were a number of arguments back and fourth between Spoofe and myself. My guess is that it did a mini-jump to get out of range from the exploding planet, and hung around for a while (for who knows why), as it was there when the Falcon showed up.
Fair enough on the ion cannon point. Conceded.
Now on the battle of Endor, I witnessed the timing there. Ackbar orders fire concentrated “on that Super Star Destroyer.” A mere second later, it cuts to a scene of rebel starfighters attacking the “domes” on the top of the tower. It’s been debated whether they are the shield generators or not (I think they are), but the dome explodes almost instantaneously from a few mere blasts… pathetic “shielding” on it.
Cut to a scene of the bridge with a subordinate saying “Sir, bridge deflectors are out!” or some such. The captain orders firepower intensified. The A-Wing rams the bridge and blows through the entire tower. The timing of the events is no more than 30 seconds from Ackbar’s order to shields collapsing and the bridge being blown out.
So I was actually quite wrong on that last point about the battle of Endor… the Executor shields collapse within 30 seconds of taking sustained fire, and the whole ship is destroyed a few minutes later when it hits the Death Star… 30 seconds of firepower from “battleships left over from the Clone War and converted pleasure cruisers,” apparently.
On shields. The Falcon, running at full-strength shields (having taken few or no hits), manages to scrape a wall when making the reactor run. The hull itself is damaged (As in ripping off a large chunk), not the shields. This lends energy (no pun intended) to my theory that actual mass is repelled a lot less efficiently than energy in shields. Also, the X-Wings went right through the Death Star shield at Yavin (if that’s what it was) without a scratch.
Returning back to the first movie… a proton torpedo hits the surface of the Death Star. Cut to an interior scene, stormtroopers being thrown off their feet, steam leaks, walls buckling, and so on. Later on, an X-Wing hits the surface traveling at “attack velocity” and causes the interior of that part of the station to shake violently, have walls violently blown out and kill stormtroopers outright. Tell me again how much more powerful those torpdeos/missiles are, kinetically?
-Psi Cop
Don’t have a whole lot to add (Want to stay out of the cross-fire 
), but I think that’s just an example of the Voyager being an incompetant crew, or something. I remember one particular TNG episode, where the Enterprise was tricked into attacking a starbase of a nearby alien race, by that race’s enemies. The base scrambled about a dozen shuttle-sized fighter craft, which the Enterprise blotted out of existance with about a second worth of snap phaser-fire. Against unshielded Tie fighters, the Enterprise could wipe out a whole squadron in a matter of seconds if it holds accuracy like that…
Psi Cop (this is fun)…
I just want to point out that the “fighters slipped through shields” theory isn’t one I ascribe to… I included it just for the sake of being thorough. However, the explanation goes like this: There are numerous “sections” of shields that are layered over one another, encompassing the whole of the Death Star. Think of a hundred umbrellas being raised up to keep a large area from getting wet. However, the designers of this system planned the whole thing around a “direct, large-scale assault” (Dodonna again), and as such left small holes in the shield system that a fighter could get through.
I just think it’s a lot more in character of Grand Moff “Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?” Tarkin to not even bother throwing the shields up.
Well, then the Death Star would need maneuvering and hyperdrive systems that can move that sucker around at hundreds of thousands of G’s, then, because it had less than ten seconds to get the hell out of dodge before the Alderaan debris hit it. There’s no reason to believe that it left… and every reason to believe that it stayed, considering that it was still there when Han and Company arrived on the scene.
The complaints about damage taken were not necessarily referring to the SSD or the smaller ISD’s… they were probably talking about the numerous scout ships - TIE fighters and bombers - sent into the asteroid field to look for the Falcon.
This is a hijack on my part, but I just want to point out that the asteroid field in TESB was INSANELY dense and active. It was probably recently formed, perhaps from the destruction of a planetoid in the system.
There’s many orders of magnitude difference between a Star Destroyer and the Death Star, remember. Furthermore… after days in that asteroid field, the hulls of the ISD’s and the SSD looked rather pristine, don’t you think?
That argument swings both ways: If the shields WEREN’T strong enough to render weapons useless, one wouldn’t bother including them on the X-Wings.
There are numerous shots in ANH, of a TIE firing into the rear of an X-wing. Most of these shots look like they’re “misses”, but several blasts appear to just disappear when they come close to the X-wing’s hull. I contend that these disappearing blasts were actually absorbed by a shield that was a meter or so above the surface of the ship… and that would have sapped the strength of the shields.
And, furthermore, I must once again point out that there’s a great deal of difference between a fighter and a capital ship.
You’re talking about 64 megatons worth of heat and radiation compared to about 15 kilotons worth of kinetic energy. That equivalent amount of damage could be done if they simply got a photon torpedo - empty - going at a few dozen kilometers per second. Why doesn’t Starfleet utilize railguns firing slugs of aluminum at their targets instead of missiles and phasers?
Now, I have admitted that kiloton-range shields is quite low-end, but c’mon… a Star Destroyer has hundred-gigaton heavy weapons. Its light weapons throw out half a dozen megatons worth of energy. It’s got about a hundred of these light weapons. The Enterprise is simply outclassed in this one.
Out of all the examples you cited, the only one that seems inconsistent is the TESB instance where you claim that ISD captains were complaining about damage to their ships… but this maintains consistency if one simply assumes that they’re talking about damage to their support vessels.
Actually, that whole incident took place immediately after the Falcon and its pursuer left the asteroid field.
'Twould be nice indeed.
I agree. Seems like such a waste to use such a powerful weapon on such an isignificant target, though, don’t you think? Like using tac-nukes to eliminate a single infantryman.
Indeed you can, in theory. In practice, it’s probably not that simple; TIE’s would launch before you get into range (unless you have some sort of stealth device implemented).
Now you’re making me work at these posts… ::sigh::
Rather than spend two hours digging through some episode list somewhere (I’ve done it before, and it was quite tedious), I’ll just refer to someone else who answered this claim better than I ever could: http://h4h.com/louis/trekmiss.html
It’s actually really funny, but you do need Realplayer to view it. To be fair, most of those examples of abysmal targeting come from non-Federation sources… Klingons, and the Dominion… but you’d assume that there’d be some parity 'twixt the groups, and in the case of the Dominion, their stuff is supposed to be BETTER.
Also note that the last instance is yet another example of an object with very low kinetic energy easily destroying a Federation ship.
The point is moot. Starfleet’s sensor ranges are similarly pathetic, UNLESS the object that they’re detecting happens to be at Warp (or emitting the Radiation Du Jour).
We ain’t never seen a torpedo fired either into warp from an object in realspace, or leave warp after being fired from warp.
The current theory is that torpedoes have some sort of “warp sustainer”, but I don’t know how plausible that is.
Actually, the canon status of the tech manuals is up in the air. Paramount has declared that nothing but the TV shows, two Voyager novels, and a bit from one of the animated cartoons (which showed a bit of Spock’s history) is canon.
I already pointed out how there are different yields for the same class of missile. The fact remains that the Attack of the Clones: Incredible Cross-Sections book quite clearly gives the yield for Slave I’s concussion missiles.
Think of it this way… the Rebellion was trying to liberate Coruscant in Wedge’s Gamble. D’ya think they wanted to cause as much collateral damage as possible? Obviously not. So would they load their ships with the Star Wars equivalent of WMD’s, or would they give lighter, tactical weapons to their men?
“Proton torpedoes such as the MG7-As carried by the X-wing are extremely dangerous focused nuclear explosives.” - the original Incredible Cross-Sections book (bolding mine).
Of course, other sources - such as the Star Wars Encyclopedia - describe the proton torpedo as a directed proton-scattering warhead…
Like I said, there’s more than one class of missile. Some are directed, some are omni-directional. Some have insane, anti-capship yields, others have dinky yields best served for taking out light vehicles.
Keep in mind that the Executor had already been in a very prolonged battle, at insanely close ranges, for many minutes already. And, keep in mind that the focused firepower from a dozen or so Rebel cruisers would put a dent in anyone’s day.
Furthermore, think of this: If the domes really were shield generators… why did the shields fall if only ONE of the domes was destroyed? You can see a shot of the other dome… it’s completely intact.
Point 1: We have no idea how much damage the Falcon had taken. Earlier in the battle, you can hear, when we get a view inside the Falcon’s cockpit, of an alarm going off. A “shielding low” alarm, perhaps?
Point 2: The Falcon’s shields would, obviously, be a lot weaker than a ship that’s hundreds of times larger.
We don’t know if they went through the shield at all. There’s the implied possibility that there might be holes in the shield grid, and there’s the possibility that Tarkin hadn’t ordered the shields to be raised at all.
I - nor you - have any idea where that area of the ship is in relation to the torpedo striking the Death Star’s surface. It might be hundreds of meters away from the penetration point. It might be on the other side of the battle station. That instance proves nothing.
Miller…
Keep in mind that the Death Star is capable of generating at least 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1E38) joules of energy, which is the amount of energy necessary to cause a planet’s worth of matter to go flying away at thousands of kilometers per second, as witnessed in ANH. The bare minimum it can generate is 1E32 joules, which is what is needed to overcome the gravitational binding energy of a planet the size of Earth.
I don’t think energy generation is going to be a problem. The Rebels managed to create a theatre shield on Hoth that was capable of repelling a bombardment from seven heavy Imperial ships. The planet Coruscant is COMPLETELY covered in planetary shields (two planetary shields, actually). Alderaan itself had a planetary shield. These things are quite common among the richer, more important planets of the galaxy.
I don’t think shielding the entire Death Star would be a problem.
Pheonix Dragon…
Well, there IS that…
Oh, I agree. The TIE’s are absolutely unnecessary in this debate. As I’ve already proven above, one single hit from an ISD’s heavy turbolaser battery would annihilate the Enterprise… AND the Enterprise simply lacks the firepower to deal any damage to the Star Destroyer.
To expand more on X-wings and shields…
A fighter’s primary defense would be its maneuverability. The shields, however, would be just another layer of defense, capable perhaps of easily deflecting a glancing hit, but having a more difficult time shrugging off a direct hit. Similar to the stormtrooper armor… it’s ablative armor, meaning that it works best if something hits it at an angle. A direct hit would punch right through.
Oh, I so hate you!
Star Wars ships have shields and jammers. That will almost certainly stop transporters, even assuming they can cut through the heavy armor (see several ST episodes for canon evidence they have a hell of a time trying to portal through heavy metals).
By your logic, one must be able to build an F-16 to be able to build a missile capable of bringing one down. Good thing nobody told the Russians back in the days of the good old U2.
I am most definitely for the Star Wars group, and since Psi-Cop suggested Daystrom (that ugly pack of LIES!) I direct you to
www.stardestroyer.net
The owner is an engineer, and has built a hobby over the years out of analyzing SW and ST to discern actual energy yeilds and shield parameters and technological capabilites. He is utterly convinced SW wins, hands down. He also finds ST to be vaguely frightening, due to the constant stupidity of their tactics, doctrines, and other practices.
'At’s Mike Wong’s webpage. I primarily use it for his canon database. He tends to get rough - REALLY rough - on people he debates with… but, frankly, I see him doing it with good reason, and in my opinion his arguments beyond his anti-Trek personality are rock solid.
Yeah, Mike’s a bit hard to deal with. Still, his science and math is almost above reproach, and he’s always defended his arguments logically.
If we do that, then someone like the Vorlons would make quick work of the hairless monkeys in the ugly ships. Never mind what the Shadows would to to those girly-men clones of the Empire.
When it comes to shields and the like, I’m one of those people that always assumed the Death Star didn’t have any. I mean, why would it need them? It’s the only thing big enough to destroy something it’s size in an assault (as far as the Empire was concerned), and the Empire was the only force out there that had a fleet big enough to waste planets as well, so there really seems to be no need for it to have any. I always took the field the X-Wings flew through to be more as some sort of field set off by the fact that, as SPOOFE put it:
The thing has to be emitting enough electonic/electormagnetic energy that it builds up a damper field around it, but I’d hardly call that a shield. As for the shots of the interior being knocked about, as pointed out before, those shots could be the inside of where the torpedo/ship hit. For all we know, there’s an entire baracks of troops sleeping peacefully in their beds without a care in the world while the battle’s going on. Shit, in RofJ, the partially build Death Star hardly shakes when the SSD crashes into it. And if you look at the exterior shot, it seems the SSD’s impact barely did squat to the station. I’m sure any kind of assault that could have been waged on the DS by any opponents would be considered nothing more than a few scratches that could be pinged out later by the Empire, so I honestly feel shields weren’t a priority.
As for other ships, I also kind of see the shields in star wars as being a lot more focused towards energy weapons. Kinda like the personal shiels in the movie version of Dune. They’ll stop energy weapons and pretty much anything traveling at incredibly high speeds, but slow moving, physical objects can pass through. Fighters may feel a bit of a bump passing through a cap ships shields, but as long as they keep themselves at a specific angle/speed, and keep their own shields up as a bumper, they should be able to get through. In RotJ, we see a shot of a TIE kamakaze into a Rebel Cap Ship. I’m sure the ship had shields which were doing it’s fair share against laser blasts, but against physical objects, it seemed pretty useless. Another good reason why the Falcon was able to latch onto the SSD without having to worry about shields, and why ships can pass out of shields without taking any damage.
This can also be seen in the asteroid field. Now, I don’t know where SPOOFE got the idea that they were in the field for “days”, to me, it just seemed like they searched for a few hours until it became evident the Falcon “got away,” and then they left because they were worried for their ships. I don’t know if it’s something added to the new releases only, but there is a scene of the Executor destroying an asteroid with a single blast, but in the background, there’s also a shot of an asteroid smashing into the tower of another Star Destroyer. That guy’s hologram suddenly shields himself, screams, and then goes out as Vader is talking to his generals. Not necessarilly “pristine condition” in my opinion. Again, this to me signifies that SW shields are pretty useless against purely physical matter. It could be an added in scene, but I’ve only seen the “re-mastered” version once, and I kinda remember that scene from a long time ago, so who knows what that means.
But, that really doesn’t help much for the argument, because the Enterprise would be equally squished if the same asteroid smacked into it, better shields or no. But, I don’t think the Enterprise has the capability to take out an asteroid in one shot like the SD do, so that could be some indication of weaponry strength as well.
Just assuming for a moment though, for the sake of argument, that the weapons are pretty much equivilant in damage potential. All torpedos have the same strength, and phasers are as powerful as the SD’s laser cannons (or vice versa). Doesn’t a SD outclass the EE in weaponry? Yeah, the EE may have 200 torpedos at the ready, but how many can they fire in one volley? And how many phaser banks can they let loose at one time? Now, how much can a SD unload at once? How do these two compare? I’m under the impression that in a single “one hit” blast, the SD seriously outclasses the EE, and that’s what it all comes down to in the end, isn’t it (at least, from the way the battles seem to go in the shows and series).
If you are using the Death Star run against the shields on an X-Wing than please go rewatch the movie. Just before the run, the squadron leader orders the Rebel fighters to put their shields on full front. Leaving the rear completely defenseless for any TIE Fighters that wanted to hit them from behind, or any of the Death Star’s shots that hit the rear of the fighter.
That’s why the X-Wing’s shields look weak in that scene…the blasters are hitting the X-Wing without any shields. But if you watch from Luke’s cockpit, you will see numerous laser shots deflecting harmlessly off his frontal shields…since that’s where they are concentrated.
Also, in the openning sequence of Star Wars, you can see the blasts from the SD exploding around the cruiser. That’s the shields at work right there. I always used to wonder why all those lasers were exploding around ships throughout the movie…then I grew up and paid attention.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how far out from the ship the shields tend to be on SD and Federation ships?
Same as before, I’m going to respond to the points from everyone else first, then Spoofe (he tends to have the fullest and most complete answers.
Neurotik, you say:
If you’ll go back and look at my last post, I did just watch the movies. You’re forgetting the second part of that statement. Something along the lines of “Hey, the fire has stopped. Equal out your shields and keep a watch for fighters from the rear.” These ships making a run on the death star have pristene shields (judging from the accuracy of the cannon fire which never hits), equaled out between front and rear, and still die within a few laser shots from behind.
El Elvis Rojo… The Enterprise can launch at least six regular torpedoes in less than two seconds, and a salvo of three quantum torpeoes at the same time (reference Nemesis).
Oh, and you asked about shield bubbles… as it so happens, I was poking about on Stardestroyer.net (and griping to myself about how prejudiced it was) and ran accross a good shot. Go to this page to see the shield bubble for yourself. As an aside, by the way, the Trek shield bubble looks much cooler than any sort of shield effect (none) we’ve ever seen in Star Wars… but that’s just my opinion.
elf6c…
As much as I love to defend B5 (note my username), even the Vorlons wouldn’t stand up to the Empire or the Federation. Why? Because the B5 universe uses real physics. X-Wings fly like they’re in an atmosphere… compare that to a B5 Starfury which actually flips and maneuvers like it was in a vacuum. When you’re up against ships that, according to Spoofe, casually spit out gigatons worth of energy, anything in the real universe that we can foresee at this point would be devestated.
On Stardestroyers.net… I’ve examined the page closely upon numerous occasions, and frankly, I find Mike Wong hypocritical. He criticizes “Federation Cultists” (or “Trek Cultists”) for taking only the most beneficial material and applying it, yet he does the exact same thing on his own pages. You don’t find many references to how starfighters get blown up with single laser shots and shields tend to be ineffective. The entire point of his site is to show how much better Star Wars is than Star Trek. Hardly an unbiased point of view that goes out of its way to be fair. Except, of course, he pretends to be generous and “minimize” Star Wars tech and “maximize” Star Trek tech. He ignores canon from the episodes in exchange for data inferred from his own calculations… calculations which are based on modern day materials and energies. Sheesh. That’s why I don’t believe most of his site.
The Daystrom Institute, on the other hand, deals with only Trek ships and the Trek universe. It compares and contrasts Federation with Borg, Klingon, Cardassian, etc. It isn’t based on comparing the Enterprise with an ISD. Out of deference to those like Spoofe, however, I try not to bring it up regularly, since “Warsies” regard it with such skepticism.
Now on to Spoofe!
About the Death Star shields, why don’t we just agree to leave that alone? Frankly, we can’t tell whether shields are up or not because of the vagueness of the movie. I argue that they’d be up due to comments made in the film, and my assessment of the Imperial attitude (No shields would mean the paint would be scratched). You argue that they’re down, or that the Rebels are already underneath because of comments you point out in the film, and your assessment of the Imperial attitude (Tarkin is arrogent). I really doubt either one of us is going to convince the other.
A jump into hyperspace takes place within just a couple moments; no need to move around at hundreds of thousands of Gs. And also, why the heck would it stick around in the Aldaraan system anyway? That was always a weak point of the movie… the Death Star sticks around randomly watching desbris fly around? By the time the Falcon arrived, the desbris field has really settled down comparatively, which means it took a while between the destruction and the arrival of the Falcon.
Why would they worry about the TIEs? Those things are super maneuverable, and didn’t seem to be worrying about asteroids at all. They flew over asteroids dropping bombs and charges in formations. It didn’t look like they were panicking to avoid asteroids, to me. The captain objecting didn’t want to bring his destroyer in. He said nothing about sending in small ships.
That was my point, actually. Movies tend to dramatize asteroid belts like that because who cares about flying through an asteroid belt that has microasteroids kilometers apart? Even with a super-dense one like that, there was still plenty of room for small ships to go flying around.
First of all, it wasn’t days to the best of my knowledge. Second, the SSD left so Vader could communicate with the emperor, leaving the other ships in there. I don’t remember the ISD hulls, but I don’t think we got any closeups of them after the SSD left.
I suppose, but either way you look at it the X-Wings tended to go down in flaming wreckage after just a few laser hits. So you’ve got weak shields either way.
I’m not quite sure what you’re referencing here. You didn’t respond to my point about an entire warp core going critical. And turning the point around, I still haven’t seen a convincing argument as to why Star Wars shields are so good at deflecting physical objects… considering how close in the starfighters are. You can’t have it both ways. Either the shields are extended and the fighters penetrate easily, or the shields are hull-hugging and barely protect from laser blasts at all, according to direct movie evidence. Or, the third option, the Imperial ships never raise shields for some odd reason. I fine the last unlikely.
I addressed above why they weren’t only talking about their support ships… and another good point was brought up about the captain on the bridge screaming and flinching from an asteroid hit. If he wasn’t worried about his own ship, I don’t know why he did this (maybe he suddenly saw a spectre of Darth Maul, though). I still say they are inconsistent. Even dropping all the Death Star shield stuff like I suggested earlier, you have strong shields that can repel an asteroid, and a scene later, a captain shrieking in terror as one goes in to hit his ship. This alone is enough to suggest the inconsistency. Of course, as you’ve also pointed out in smaller ships, some X-Wings (mainly the ones with heroes in them) can survive multiple laser hits, while others die when sneezed at.
I also agrees it seems like quite a waste to use such a powerful weapon on an insignificant target. So why does it happen regularly? Slave 1 fired a concussion missile in AotC (isn’t that the one you claimed was 190 megatons?) I just watched that scene over again about a minute ago. First, the missile appears to be slow as anything, given by the fact it flys behind Obi-Wan for a while without catching up. That’s just sort of incidental though. More to the point, it exploded against spare parts canisters maybe a few hundred meters behind Obi-Wan. 190 megatons would create a multi-mile radius fireball… and even if it was “focused,” it was focused in tht exact direction of Obi-Wan’s ship. Instead it created a fireball well less than a kilometer in diameter. Third, any warhead with 190 megatons would fry all unshielded ships anywhere around. This has never happened. Heck, even a “mere” one megaton weapon would fry all unshielded ships. This doesn’ happen with TIEs with any warhead.
I’m against Realplayer in general, so I’m afraid I won’t be viewing that. However, I will try and locate a computer with Realplayer on it to take a look. But from what you say, it provides some examples of bad targeting. I still cite seasons worth of episodes. from TNG especially (my favorite) with perfect pinpoint accuracy. Heck, even Reliant (WoK) hit the Enterprise regularly with a totally untrained crew at the controls. Why? Targeting Computers, a technology which the empire has apparently never worked much on devleloping.
…except for the fact they can scan for ships long distance. The first example I can think of, is from the TNG episode “Force of Nature,” where the Enterprise detects another disabled dead-in-the-water ship (the Fleming) from light years off. I also point out Star Trek VI, where the Excelsior can do a sensor focus on the Klingon mooon of Praxis, many many many light years off in the heart of the Klingon empire. Same with keeping tabs on the penal moon. Your countexample from “The Pegasus” that you had in the Federation Warships thread is only partially valid… it was a Romulan Warbird that was trying to stay undetected, with cloaking capability. The Romulans are well noted for the stealth ability. It also took place in a very crowded asteroid field where the Enterprise was devoting 95%+ of the sensor capability to locating the Pegasus before the Romulans did.
However, we have seen what happens when the warp engines are suddenly cut out (such as in Nemesis)… the ship drops back into realspace with the collapsing of the warp field. Why, exactly, wouldn’t this work with anything else?
Who decides what is canon for Star Wars? Fox Studios or George Lucas? Rodenberry is long dead, yes, but the originals like Okuda and Berman who control the show and technology make their own assertations. I sort of believe them more.
Already addressed. Someone didn’t do their physics homework on calculating the yield for that missile. Oh, sure, it shatters a small asteroid that’s already mostly hollow, but it can’t even destroy the small ship a few hundred meters ahead of it. 190 megatons? I think not.
As a side note, their is always a danger of casually dismising power when discussing these future technologies. Bear in mind that standard nuclear weapons today range from the kiloton to single-digit megaton range, and are quite capable of destroying entire cities and bases with a single explosion.
Okay, apparently the Concussion Missile ranges from not even powerful enough to crack a statue to “190 megatons.” You claim the SW universe is consistent? <grin>.
Sure, but sustained firepower for less than a few seconds is sort of… weak, comparatively. And actually, the Executor hadn’t been in a prolonged firefight. It was there to keep the rebel fleet from escaping. The time from when Ackbar ordered the fleets to close to when it was destroyed was a few minutes at most. I find it hard to believe that capital ships are only designed to last a few moments in prolonged firefights of capital ships. Not to mention, why didn’t more rebel ships explode from the combined power of dozens of ISDs and an SSD?
“Bridge Deflector Shiels are out.” Not all shields, not even all forward shields. Star Wars shields are sectionalized according to all the books. Certain sections can be taken down (of course the ship can roll and present fresh shields to attack) without all sections being taken down. This is one such time.
The other side of the battle station is physically shaking? Wow, it’s weaker than I thought. But in all seriousness, that’s really just an evasion. It’s clear (At least to me) that it was showing damage near the surface, not at random points inside the station that scale the weapons according to what has been calculated by “Warsies” after the fact. Lucas is just as guilty of abusing the “ram” as Trek is, if not more.
Not to me, you haven’t <grin>. See, according to me, I’ve proven that the E would take out an ISD with no problems. We’re still debating though, aren’t we?
The Empire tends to look at ships as weapons platforms, really. The ISD is just a big platform for bringing the heavy weapons into battle. The Federation relies on actual maneuverability as well. An ISD landing a concentrated heavy punch would certainly take out the Enterprise, I’ve never debated that. I merely maintain that the E wouldn’t be there to take the hit (not that Imperials can aim). Besides, the Enterprise wouldn’t even have to take down all the shields before beaming abord a boarding party or a quantity of antimatter, since shields go down in sections.
-Fleet Admiral Psi Cop, wondering how many people will actually read the entire post.
By the way… my monitor is set to a resolution of 1152x864, and that post is seven screens in length. I’m thinking that maybe I was a little bit verbose there. Also, I apologize for any typos I may have made… I couldn’t bear to proofread it more than once <grin>. Your turn, Spoofe!
-Psi Cop
However, the X-wings’ and Y-wings’ shields also look weak against the TIE fighters’ blaster machine-guns when they’re getting shot at in the trench.
And that was after the command to “stabilize your rear deflectors.”
El Elvis Rojo…
It’s either mentioned in the novelisation, or it’s an estimate based on the amount of time it’d take Han to do the repairs. After years of this sort of debate, I forgot where I picked it up…
They certainly hung around while the Millenium Falcon was inside the asteroid. They only left when the Falcon disappeared from their scopes after they left the asteroid field.
There are numerous shots of ISD’s vaporizing asteroids… those shots are the basis for what are known as the “asteroid calcs”, and help provide a lower-limit estimation for the strength of a Star Destroyer’s light guns.
It’s not like the command tower was destroyed. You said it yourself: The guy shields himself, screams, and then goes out. If the tower had been destroyed, we would have, instead, seen the guy blasted out of the holocam’s view from the force of decompression (or the explosion).
Furthermore, that’s one instance out of many. If that case truly were the norm, we’d have seen huge blast marks and craters on the surfaces of all the Star Destroyers in the asteroid field. But we didn’t.
Actually, the shields weren’t up. Holographic transmissions can’t be sent through shields.
Psi Cop…
Fine by me. We’re talking about Star Destroyers, anyway…
If you can’t think of a reason why it would stick around, then there’s CERTAINLY no reason why it would return. Again, there’s no reason to believe that there was no emergency jump to hyperspace, and every reason to believe that there wasn’t. We know that the Imperials certainly had the technology to generate massive shields around a huge object, and we know that the Death Star had no shortage of power with which to generate such a shield.
Did you not notice the four TIE fighters that were quickly decimated in the asteroid field, after chasing the Falcon in? Remember, TIE’s are unshielded… a foot-wide boulder moving fast enough could damage one. After a while, the attrition would start to build up, and they really needed the support ships to adequately comb the asteroid field.
He said “They have entered an asteroid field and we cannot risk…” and then Vader cuts him off. We don’t know exactly what he was objecting to. However, what we do know is that the captain just saw four of his fighters get absolutely pulverized in the field… leading credence to the theory that his concern was over his smaller ships.
Again, not really. Those four poor TIE fighters got pounded to pieces mighty quick.
It was long enough for Han to think that he repaired the Falcon’s systems… a task that he wasn’t able to finish on Hoth, despite having been there for quite a while.
We got some pretty close-up shots of the Avenger, the vessel that chased the Falcon out of the asteroid field. Its hull was utterly undamaged. Furthermore, any impact damage significant enough to threaten the ship would have left a mark clearly visible from some distance away.
Again, on a starfighter. And again, the guns on a TIE are capable of dishing out terajoules of energy. Sure, they may be “weak” shields, but “weak” compared to what?
Oh, THAT’S what you’re asking. All righty:
A Super Star Destroyer’s shields withstanding the impact of three ISD’s moving at rather high velocities. Granted, it’s from one of the older comic books, but those are on the canonicity ladder, just like books and video games ('course, they’re typically a bit lower on the ladder, but there’s nothing that contradicts 'em).
Uh… no, that’s a false dilemma fallacy right there. I CAN have it both ways, because the shields are explicitly described as having a variable extension capability. And the shields protect from laser blasts just fine… the opening of ANH, in fact, shows a Star Destroyer getting hit with numerous laser blasts with absolutely NO effect on the hull. Why? The shields absorbed the energy. We see similar effects in the Battle of Endor.
Already refuted that second point. As for the first, the novelization for TESB describes a much larger number of smaller support craft than there were Star Destroyers. In fact, one of the production storyboard images (seen about a third of the way down on this page) shows a TIE-ish ship getting destroyed during a hunt through the field. And, again, there’s the glaring, obvious scene in the movie that shows the Falcon’s pursuit craft getting decimated in the field.
So far, the vast bulk of the evidence supports the notion that the captain’s concern was for his smaller ships.
Well, obviously the impact from the asteroid on the conning tower did SOME damage… that’s why the holo transmission went out. But the fact that the officer remained standing, with no external force throwing his body about like a rag doll, indicates that the tower remained more or less intact under the impact.
His unshielded ship, remember. Holographic transmissions can’t be sent through shields.
Obviously, because he had his ship outfitted with extremely heavy weaponry, on the possibility that he encounter some nasty enemies. Second, because it was imperative that he dispatch Obi-wan, and the Jedi had proven to be most resilient (notice that Jango didn’t immediately use his missiles… as the chase went on, he used progressively heavier and heavier weapons).
Yeah. So? Some missiles are faster - or slower- than others.
Ah, no. The shockwave from such a large explosion would be many miles in diameter. The fireball itself would be much smaller (well, technically, it would continue expanding until it ultimately cooled to nothing, since in a vacuum there’d be no air to limit its expansion). A better way to describe it would be that the fireball would be less apparent, since the energy would be there, but it’d be in the form of X-rays and gamma rays, which are invisible.
That’s too bad… it is really funny. Set to the Benny Hill Theme… 
No computers? What are those things that Imperial officers are sitting at, then, on the bridge of a Star Destroyer? Perhaps they’re all playing Pong?
In the episode Haven, a ship comes to within a few hours away from the Enterprise, at sub-light speeds, before being detected. In the episode The Battle, the Federation starship Stargazer comes within a few minutes of the Enterprise, at sublight speeds, before being detected… by boosted sensors, no less!
In the same episode, famous for inventing The Picard Maneuver, it’s stated that there is no known defense against the Maneuver (though Data comes up with one). This indicates that while Federation ships can see for long distances, their accuracy is poor.
More: In the episode 11001001, they can’t track the Enterprise when it is less than two light months away. In the episode Peak Performance, it’s stated that Starfleet sensors can’t detect a ship that’s hiding above the pole of a planet. A similar limitation is described in Survivors, where Riker expected an object at the Lagrange point (the point of equal gravitational attraction between two bodies) would be hidden from sensors. And those latter two episodes also mention that powering down a ship’s systems would render it similarly invisible to sensors.
Clearly, Star Trek sensors aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Unless the target is at warp and broadcasting actively, it can easily sneak up on a Federation ship.
From the episode…
PICARD: How long will it take to complete a level-one search?
DATA: At least two days, sir. The Corridor is over twelve light years long, and the surrounding tetryon interference will limit our sensor range.
Not very impressive, is it?
Unknown. But, if it were that simple, why has it never been done before, especially when fighting realspace targets? Why has nobody done that when fighting the space station Deep Space 9? Why has such a potentially useful tactic gone unused?
I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either. But that’s how it is.
Lucas, technically, but usually it’s Lucasfilms that makes the announcements.
Then feel free to dig up any of their declarations of canonicity.
A few hundred meters? Someone has his scaling off… and it ain’t the author of the ICS. 190 megatons stands.
I understand that. You have to keep in mind that a Star Destroyer is described as being capable of utterly melting the ENTIRE surface of a planet, it no more than a couple hours at most. Not just destroying it… MELTING the sucker. Rendering the whole damn thing into a puddle of melted slag. Sure, planetary shields negate this capability (hence their usefulness), but for undefended planets, a Star Destroyer is triangular death.
What’s the problem with that? I see no inconsistancy… just a wide variety of weapons to choose from.
There were a lot of time-lapsed cuts in that battle. The novelisation describes far more intense energies being focused on the Executor that they couldn’t show in the movie, due either to FX limitations or time.
“Get as close as you can and engage those Star Destroyers at point-blank range!” - Land Calrissian
The Imperial ships were dragged into the fight, despite orders to avoid it.
Right. So why couldn’t the loss of the bridge deflector shields simply have coincided with the destruction of the dome? Which came first… the chicken or the egg?
Even if the domes were shield generators - and more than one source describes them otherwise - shield generators do have the ability to protect themselves from damage.
On the same note, there’s no reason to think that the scene was showing damage to a part of the station that was directly underneath the impact point, which was what your contention claimed.
It’s all in the numbers, buckaroo. The strongest weapon the E-E has is its Quantum Torpedoes, and those, at the most generous (using the tech manuals) have a strength of 128 megatons. A Star Destroyer can withstand, at a bare minimum, 16 teratons of equivalent energy against its shields. The E-E would need over 125,000 quantum torps in order to even have a chance of taking down the shields on a Star Destroyer.
That’s just the way it works out, buckaroo.
And I contend otherwise. Go check out Insurrection sometime if you want an example of rapid speeds or amazing maneuverability. The E-E moved like a lame pig wallowing in mud.
It is canon that the DS does have shields, very powerful ones in fact. As big as it is, the thing could be reduced to slag by a fleet mounting standard multi-gigaton weaponry.
Yes, because they had shields.
Shields in SW do not extend out from the hull. And they cannot absolutely stop physical force, it isn’t magic. This has several advantages, such that one can manuver in tighter spaces (a necessity in some worlds of SW) and also that unlike ST, there is magic key “Frequency” to bring down your shields.
Check Mike’s site. The ship’s outer hull was wholly intact after the impact. Moreover, the Captain’s scream goes off some seconds after the impact. In any event, they were taking huge asteroid impact for hours or even days. So if one of them manages to do some damage (and believe me, its a hell of a lot of damage when a rock the size of central manhattan hits you), who’s to say the shields are weak?
And all over! Even a small thermal exhaust port just below the main port was ray-shielded.
Ummm…I was under the impression that the second DS in RotJ did NOT have shields. That was the whole point of the shield generator being on Endor. And the SSD DID damage the hull, there’s a huge pluming explosion that comes out of the surfice of the DS.
And the shields in SW do seem to extend from the hull. Why else do all those laser blasts stop several feet from the ships (opening sequence of SW and the speeder run battle in Empire are two perfect examples). A laser flies at a ship, then turns into a small explosion and the ship rocks. Why? Because the blast just hit the shields. If the shields don’t extend, why does this happen? Faulty lasers?
I watched Empire last night to see this scene again. The asteroid that hits it is as big as the tower. There’s a HUGE explosion, but the scene cuts away before it dissipates. In the hologram conference, the guy screams and fades out (don’t get technical about “if it happened, he would have been sucked out or vaporised or something.” Remember those old Star Treck Episodes where someone’s talking and their ship blows up? They cover their eyes, scream, roll off camera, and then the video goes out. They did it for cinematic reasons, get over it). Three SDs followed the Falcon in, two were with the Executor when it went to meet them, four flew off with it afterwards. One was missing. Admit it, the ship was toast!
And what would watching four TIES get smashed up in an asteroid field give any concern for the Empire? To them, TIES and their pilots are a dime a dozen. You lose contact with one search team, send out another, no worries. They hold garrissons of these things, why would they be concerned with them? Fancy shields or no, and asteroid WILL SERIOUSLY DAMAGE A STAR DESTROYER! Just because Lucas didn’t take the time to paint in every little scratch on the paint doesn’t mean they got out completely okay.
As for the time frame of being in the field, again, I don’t see how it could be days. The second Han figured out the cave they were in was really alive, they split, and the minoch attack happened fast! If it happens differently in the novelization, well then, I don’t know what to say about that, but judging from the movie, it couldn’t have been more than a few hours. Plus, Vader wanted to leave as soon as the Emperor wanted to talk with him. I’d imagine they were in fairly frequent comunique, so that also makes it seem more like a matter of hours than days.
Dispite my disbelief at their invincibility to asteroids, I still say an SSD would kick the E-E’s ass anyday.
Smiling Bandit…
As already said, the Death Star Mark II did not (yet) have shields. That was the purpose of the shield generator based on Endor. Once it was destroyed by Han Solo & Company, the Death Star was unprotected (besides that Star Destroyer fleet, hoards of TIEs, that superlaser, and the like). When the Executor hit the Death Star, there was a gigantic explosion, the surface got smashed to hell in that area, and a massive plume of gas and particles shot off into space.
He doesn’t know that unless he got a call from George Lucas, I’m afraid. Since the movies are the first and primary source of “canon” material, nothing else can contradict it. Show me a screen shot of the “pristine” destroyer and I’ll admit it didn’t do damage.
From Tracer…
Indeed! It’s lucky that it was so well protected to keep the Death Star from all harm! …oh, wait a minute… <grin>. As a random note, why did it have a vent going all the way from the surface to the core? Besides the fact that they needed some sort of plot device, that is. After all, this thing is supposedly the size of a small moon. They could just use all that waste heat for heating the place. And even if all the heating needs were taken care of, you don’t use a shaft of vacuum to vent heat. Even hear of vacuum being used as an insulator in a thermos? It would just scorch the shaft walls all the way up. Instead, you use a metal rod of a highly conductive material sticking out into space. Not only does it not leave an inconvenient hole to the center of your station, it works far more efficiently. Or, heck, you could even use a closed cooling system like a sub. Sheesh.
Now to Spoofe… <grin>.
As already mentioned by El Elvis Rojo, the Falcon took off in quite a hurry. They noticed the mynocks sucking their power, went outside the brush them off, noticed something “unusual” about the cave, and got out of there. Why exactly does he have to spend days doing his repairs in the asteroid, anyway? He can do it while piggybacked on the destroyer as well. Also, look at it logically. If Han knew it would take more days to repair the Falcon, why would he stick around til the last? He could just park himself on one of the transport ships and ride with them out into hyperspace… it’s been shown several times in books that a larger ship can tow along another through hyperspace (In the Heir to the Empire series, the Perigrine connected with Han and Lando’s ship and towed them along).
How do you know what the asteroids were made out of, by the way? In the Federation Warships thread, you were talking all about the asteroid from “The Pegasus” and making any number of assumptions about what it was composed of. What exactly are the asteroids from the asteroid belt composed of? Ice, like most comets? Nickle-iron? Titanium? Diamond? Tissue paper? You get vastly different power estimates if you work under the asumption they were made out of mostly hollow dirty-ice asteroids than if you work under the assumption they were highly dense nickle-iron.
How do you know it wasn’t? And for that matter, how do you know it hit the command tower? Many captains regard their ships as extentions of themselves. Where do you think the “Captain goes down with the ship” legend comes from? Heck, it could have hit half a kilometer up along the hull, and he still might scream at vast damage. But, at least to me, Imperial captains don’t sound that noble, so maybe it was concern about his own safety.
Oh, right. I forgot about that. Not that it’s really relating to any point that we’ve made so far, but it’s just an example of imperial technology limitation. Apparently they can communicate with text messages through shields, but image is out of the question. I didn’t realize they had such a bandwidth problem (even an image is just a stream of data). What do they have to do, open a hole in the shield the size of a fiberoptic cable and stick one out, or something?
A screw moving fast enough could rip the fighter from bow to stern, let alone a foot wide boulder. My solution is simple… send in better pilots at slower speeds.
Since when do ISD captains care about their TIE fighters? I’ve read quite a few SW books where the captain has the attitude of “Screw em, there’s always more.” (How do they get so many pilot volunteers, anyway)? On the other hand, I’ve never seen a captain really concerned about his support ships. I suppose this captain could be the exception, but they’d he’d also be an absolute idiot. Vader just ordered a search conducted, and he says “No?” It’s one thing if he was concerned over his own ship and skin, another if he was risking his neck over expendable pilots.
The Falcon made it through fairly easily, and it’s quite a bit larger. Han is a better pilot, sure, but Imperial pilots have to have some small degree of competence, right? Especially pilots from the Executor, which suppoedly has the best people of the fleet (statement from Captain Pellaeon, Chimera, “Heir to the Empire” series).
Already addressed above… they knew an attack was iminent after the sighting of the probe droid. If Han was “days” from completing repairs, he would have piggybacked his ship to another to get out.
…which wasn’t necessarily the ship that took the asteroid hit from before. As I said, ESB was the one I didn’t watch the other day. I’ll watch it in the next few days to better be able to judge.
Where exactly are you getting your starfighter calculations? I don’t recall seeing any shots of them blowing up asteroids… you judge your shield calculations from the weapons, but you judge your weapons from the shields. A nicely closed loop there. Unfortunately, there isn’t a basis for either in the films.
Correct me if I’m wrong, I believe this is the order of “canonicity:” Movies, tech manuals, books, games, comics. The only thing I’m not sure about are any animated TV series stuff. I can come up with a contradiction or two, however. First, the Executor crashing into the Death Star, with bow shields still active to the best of our knowledge. It’s moving at a relatively slow speed, so shouldn’t the shields be able to “support” it?
“But the Executor may have lost bow shields too,” you might claim. Well, fine, it might have. Example number two: Going back to the X-Wing series, this time “Solo Command.” The interdictor cruiser “Stellar Web” and the “Serpent’s Smile” (A Victory class Star Destroyer) were locked on in an intercept course, which Zsinj felt sure would destroy both ships. It was avoided by an unorthodox use of the gravity generators, but the fully shielded Stellar Web would have been destroyed by a collision with a relatively small Victory class SD.
“That’s hardly the same thing, and besides, they didn’t actually collide.” Okay, third example: The Star Destroyer Manticore (Imperial Class), from Admiral Daala’s offensive, attacked the Mon Calimari Shipyeards. An uncompleted Mon Cal cruiser remotely piloted by Ackbar rammed the once-again fully shielded ship. Boom.
Need any more examples of Star Destroyers being rammed? As an aside, this also proves a different point… the kinetic energy of these ramming ships is “far less” than a turbolaser salvo, yet it can destroy a Star Destroyer instantly? I think you have to do some rethinking on the physical objects/ramming kinetic energy argument.
Okay, fine. I’ll accept that Imperials were stupid enough to do exactly what was the most beneficial for the Rebel Fleet throughout the movies. But I never seriously maintained that they didn’t stop radiated energy; that was more of a point stating that physical objects penetrate shields a lot more than radiation. But even so… I hardly think a few laser blasts from a small corvette that’s been chased accross the galaxy is going to do serious damage to Vader’s (at the time) flagship.
Again, already addressed. But I’ll summarize why the evidence doesn’t say that:
-TIE fighters and pilots are regarded as expendable throughout the Empire.
-Vader has already ordered a search, and it’s practically suicide to object to something that Lord Vader commands you to do. Unless you think you’re in serious danger by taking yourself into the field and stand a chance of also getting killed.
-We saw numerous shots of smaller support craft having plenty of fun strafing asteroids and darting about without being visibly concerned about hitting asteroids. When you’re staying in a perfect formation, it sort of indicates you aren’t woried about dodging asteroids.
-The Falcon went into the field just fine, and their support ships are smaller than the Falcon.
Who says it hit the tower? (Note, if there was a shot of it hitting the tower that I don’t remember, disregard this point). Besides, why would communications be cut off unless something drastic happened? Ships over a kilometer long have more than one transmitter, right? And perhaps even redundant circuits?
Well, the definition of an effective missile includes “Can catch up with target.” Heck, I don’t know why Obi-Wan bothered using a ploy to detonate it. He could have just ripped the throttle wide open and outran it, judging from the speed it was traveling at.
I wasn’t using fireball as a literal expression – after all, you can’t even have fire without oxygen, which is rather absent in a vacuum. But the point stands. The multi-mile radius “shockwave” should have lifted Obi-Wan’s ship like a gnat and tossed it into the asteroid wall, if it didn’t destroy his ship outright. His shields weren’t exactly at full strength, after all, considering that a laser shot had actually hit the physical ship.
Knowing Imperial officers, I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, wasn’t one of Warlord Zsinj’s officers constantly playing a TIE fighter simulator at his station on the bridge? <grin>. But seriously, I didn’t say they had no computers. I just said that they apparently hadn’t invested much effort into making them effective. Vader’s Star Destroyer can’t even hit the Tantive IV, ships at Endor have abysmally low accuracy rates for great honkin’ big kilometer long ships in relatively stationary positions to them. The Enterprise can hit small fighter craft consistently.
I dunno, but it doesn’t indicate that to me. It sort of indicates something along the lines of “If the ship I’m fighting suddenly warps to within three inches of my hull and opens up point blank, there’s really nothing I can do to stop it other than predict it happening. If it starts before I guess it’s going to happen, well… crap.”
You’ve cited a few counterexamples to refute my examples. Okay, fine, there are examples and counterexamples for searching for something. However, go back to Star Trek VI… the Excelsior does a sensor focus on Praxis, a few hundred light years off, the Enterprise does the same for Rura Pente (sp?) which is also light years off… with enough detail to detect life forms moving outside the beaming shield. Maybe the sensors aren’t so hot at searching for ships trying to remain quiet, but if they have an area to focus sensors, light years away, they can get incredible detail. In either case, they are far more powerful than Star Wars sensors.
The Enterprise wouldn’t have lost the Falcon in an asteroid belt.
Okay, so a region of space known to be highly instable with a large amout of “interference” and 12 light years long will take two days time to conduct the most exhaustive “Standard” search possible. I dunno, it sounds pretty good to me. When exactly does a Star Destroyer do better?
How many times, exactly, has DS9 come under attack? The Klingon attack, the Dominion takeover, and the Federation efforts to take it back. In each case, it was an effort to capture the station, not destroy it. You have to come out of warp eventually, and if you do it from the outset, you can add phaser power as well, and launch boarding parties. As for other realspace targets… they’re constantly moving. An ISD, on the other hand, basically stays stationary until it decides to retreat.
Certainly. Please feel free to reference the following:
Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future
Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual
…continued in the next post (damned 20,000 character limit)…