79 replies to this topic

[Kaleb Graff]

That makes much more sense. Still, it would have been better to use Vic-2s, or something of that nature. Even dreadnaughts would have been smarter, as you don't have a giant hangar bay that can be shot at.

[Phoenix Rising]

He can then declare almost everything since 2005 uncannon, and we can start again.

I was re-reading what GL said about the EU being conceptually distinct from "his" universe, and that post-RotJ events are not at all how he would've done things, and I couldn't wholly disagree. The GCW is the prime era to work in, but a good portion of that history has been squandered on early, sub-par stories: The New Rebellion, The Crystal Star, Planet of Twilight, even much of the Zsinj and Isard stuff is hard to fathom. I wouldn't go as far to say they're non-canon at this point, but couldn't someone more capable rewrite them, I, Jedi style?

[Kaleb Graff]

What would Legacy look like if turned over to Zahn and Stackpol? That would be amazing. The New Rebellion and The Crystal Star were a joke. I literally couldn't finish them when I tried recently. A rewrite would be good, but I think the later stuff needs it more. Actually, that stuff (the later NR books, except BFC and possibly Corellia) should also be stricken and replaced. The idea that one planet could seriously challenge the New Republic, and an obscure planet at that, is a joke.

[Tropical Bob]

The problem with Star Wars is that in 1999 it was removed from the geeks and put in the hands of artists and marketers. It bothers me that the only major reference to ships introduced before 1999 that I have found in the prequels is Outbound Flight, and that people keep making up stuff instead of using what's there. What happened to all the Victorys? They would have been better then the Venators for that sort of work, but they weren't original to Episode III, so they had to go.
I'm going to go and plot revolt now. It's almost winter break and I need something to do.

My problem regarding the EU is that I never got involved until 2001. That's when my brother introduced Vector Prime to me. (I fell in love with reading, especially Star Wars, from that point.) So my knowledge previous to that was only what I had seen in the movies.

Yeah.
Taking on Grievous with carriers at point blank range in ROTS was not very smart. I'd have Vics there instead. The torpedo barrage alone would have done the trick in seconds.

My retcon: Recall that the on screen portion of the Battle of Coruscant was a tiny part of a huge battle that probably spanned tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The part that we saw on screen featured the Republican force trying very very hard to rescue (not vaporize) Chancellor Palpatine from the Invisible Hand. Turbolasers (with selectable power settings - see ICS for Episode 3) are much much better than massed volleys of concussion missiles for that purpose.

Besides, wer'nt the Vic designed to kill the CIS Bulwark-I's??
If so where were they in the fight?

My retcon: They were offscreen battling for control of the higher altitudes. The Vic's missile batteries were unlikely to see much use. I don't think that the Republic was keen on bombarding Coruscant. The part of the battle we see is the part fought very close to the surface (in space terms) to support landing or repelling ground troops. My guess is that the big fleet units were at much higher altitudes trying to prevent the other side's heavy ships from getting into position to use long ranged fire from winning the fight for the lower skies where the invasion was being decided by smaller ships.
v/r
feld

I like that retcon. Also, if I remember Labyrinth correctly, Obi-wan and Anakin arrived late to the battle, when a good portion of the fighting near the planet may have already been done, and they probably arrived as close to the planet as they could. The Victory-class elements of the Coruscant fleet could have started at a greater distance from the planet than where Grievous's arrived, and tied up by other parts of the CIS fleet.

[Kaleb Graff]

I didn't even really start until 2004-ish, but I had the fortune to stumble on the New Republic stuff. Honestly, I've read every book from ANH through Betrayal.

[Tropical Bob]

I didn't even really start until 2004-ish, but I had the fortune to stumble on the New Republic stuff. Honestly, I've read every book from ANH through Betrayal.

I've read most of the books as well, excepting a lot of the Old Republic, Sith, and some of the new stuff. The only comic I've read is Dark Empire. So I really don't know what came first (Other than the stuff I know came out after I started.) and a ton of the details from comics and other additions, like the 'Essential's.

Edited by Tropical Bob, 17 December 2009 - 05:35 PM.

[Pellean]

My biggest beefs with the Battle of Coruscant are toward the end:

First, who in their right mind would have the bridge viewport of their flagship be made of actual glass that is thin enough to be shattered by a thrown projectile?! Here I thought we used transparasteel...

Second, Coruscant is under siege; there will probably be troop landers and definitely falling debris- who fell asleep at the planetary shield controls? I would certainly not leave my heavily populated capital world open to bombardment and invasion.

Third, the fall of the Invisible Hand was ludicrous. A ship that size having air brakes when it was clearly too large to ever contemplate entering the lower atmosphere is laughable- well, no, actually I cried. Then the emergency vehicles trying to put out the fires on the hull; why? What's the point? Also, I was under the impression that steering required dozens of crewers and expert coordination between engineering, engines, and the helm, yet Obi-Wan can do it on his own. This might be forgivable as dramatic license but for the fact that all of the thrusters and presumably the repulsorlift generators had fallen off. What did he steer with? Finally, a heavily armored capital warship probably weighing tens of thousands of tons crashes into a city from freefall from ortbit! Does it cause the building it lands on to collapse? Does it even make a dent? Nope. Remarkably, it seems to find a couple kilometer long empty space that seems to be made of molecularly-bonded armor and is completely devoid of buildings but for one unfortunate air control tower.

As you can probably tell, I really did not enjoy the last prequel. The only good thing about it was John Williams' new music.

[Kaleb Graff]

I was under the impression that the Providence-class was indeed intended to land. On water. The republic steered Anakin to a huge landing pad, according to the novel, and most CIS ships are heavily automated. Also, the battle was mostly fought on repulsors, so he wasn't going that fast. Still, I think it was poorly written. See http://www.projectrh...t/rocket3a.html for a discussion of how common this problem is. The same applies to Star Wars, only instead of disregarding physics and logic, they disregard canon and logic.

[DaC]

First, who in their right mind would have the bridge viewport of their flagship be made of actual glass that is thin enough to be shattered by a thrown projectile?! Here I thought we used transparasteel...

Difficult to say. Maybe the electrostaff had some other unique features than simply blocking lightsabers.

Second, Coruscant is under siege; there will probably be troop landers and definitely falling debris- who fell asleep at the planetary shield controls? I would certainly not leave my heavily populated capital world open to bombardment and invasion.

Have you read Labyrinth of Evil? Because if you read it, you would know that every building on Coruscant had it´s own shields activated when the battle started, and on Coruscant, as you know, there are buildings everywhere, so the shields were everywhere. Shields which could withstand the bombardment. And even that couldn´t prevent CIS to get their forces onto ground and capture the Chancelor.

Third, the fall of the Invisible Hand was ludicrous. A ship that size having air brakes when it was clearly too large to ever contemplate entering the lower atmosphere is laughable- well, no, actually I cried. Then the emergency vehicles trying to put out the fires on the hull; why? What's the point? Also, I was under the impression that steering required dozens of crewers and expert coordination between engineering, engines, and the helm, yet Obi-Wan can do it on his own. This might be forgivable as dramatic license but for the fact that all of the thrusters and presumably the repulsorlift generators had fallen off. What did he steer with? Finally, a heavily armored capital warship probably weighing tens of thousands of tons crashes into a city from freefall from ortbit! Does it cause the building it lands on to collapse? Does it even make a dent? Nope. Remarkably, it seems to find a couple kilometer long empty space that seems to be made of molecularly-bonded armor and is completely devoid of buildings but for one unfortunate air control tower.

For this I must agree with Kaleb Graff.

[Kaleb Graff]

Second, Coruscant is under siege; there will probably be troop landers and definitely falling debris- who fell asleep at the planetary shield controls? I would certainly not leave my heavily populated capital world open to bombardment and invasion.

Have you read Labyrinth of Evil? Because if you read it, you would know that every building on Coruscant had it´s own shields activated when the battle started, and on Coruscant, as you know, there are buildings everywhere, so the shields were everywhere. Shields which could withstand the bombardment. And even that couldn´t prevent CIS to get their forces onto ground and capture the Chancelor.


For this I must agree with Kaleb Graff.

He means the planetary shield. Haven't you read Rogue Squadron? I assume that it was the ignorance gremlin that disabled the shield.

[Tropical Bob]

Did Coruscant have a planetary shield under the Old Republic? I don't remember.

Also, the idea of every building having shielding is absurd. Especially since it seems to have been invented just for that battle. The Empire never used building shielding, and neither did the New Republic. The power drain for that would be terrible...Imagine how much surface area the shields would have to cover.

[Kaleb Graff]

Did Coruscant have a planetary shield under the Old Republic? I don't remember.

Also, the idea of every building having shielding is absurd. Especially since it seems to have been invented just for that battle. The Empire never used building shielding, and neither did the New Republic. The power drain for that would be terrible...Imagine how much surface area the shields would have to cover.

Caamas had a planetary shield right after the clone wars, so it seems reasonable to assume Coruscant had one. Also, Coruscant didn't have building shields. Otherwise, they could have lowered the planetary shield in The Last Command.

[Pellean]

Caamas had a planetary shield right after the clone wars, so it seems reasonable to assume Coruscant had one.

No planet has more to lose in the event of a major collision or bombardment, so I would assume that Coruscant built a planetary shield network as soon as they were developed. If the Rebel Alliance had access to impregnable shielding on Hoth V (albeit of limited area) when nearly all of their equipment was decades old, it seems logical to assume that the technology had been around for a while.

I'm sorry if I ruffled any feathers in my rantings, but the prequels were an acute disappointment to me.

Still, I think it was poorly written. See http://www.projectrh...t/rocket3a.html for a discussion of how common this problem is. The same applies to Star Wars, only instead of disregarding physics and logic, they disregard canon and logic.

I enjoyed reading these conundrums. As a physics enthusiast myself, I have had some of these issues already (the book Star Wars on Trial has many, and all are quite humorous in their presentation). However, the way we perceive some of these rules of physics are changing. We are discovering that Non-Newtonian thrust may be possible. Take a look at asymmetrical capacitors sometime- they are very interesting, and while technically Newtonian, they open up a whole new field; I know that NASA has already developed prototype closed-system thrusters based on them. But I digress...

Back to the original topic of the thread, has anyone heard more about this new game, or is it dead?

Edited by Pellean, 19 December 2009 - 05:18 PM.

[Kaleb Graff]

No planet has more to lose in the event of a major collision or bombardment, so I would assume that Coruscant built a planetary shield network as soon as they were developed. If the Rebel Alliance had access to impregnable shielding on Hoth V (albeit of limited area) when nearly all of their equipment was decades old, it seems logical to assume that the technology had been around for a while.

I'm sorry if I ruffled any feathers in my rantings, but the prequels were an acute disappointment to me.

I was less then stunned by the prequels as well. Episode III was much better written then the previous two, but technically disappointing.
I'm not sure how strong the Hoth shield was, considering the Lusankya managed to get through Coruscant's shields. I think it was that they couldn't get close enough to get through without the rebels pounding them with the ion cannon.

[feld]

@Pellean - I love physics enthiusiasts in science fiction! For myself, my naval career and every degree I've gotten were largely inspired by stories like Star Wars. You and I appear to differ in our approach to technical enjoyement. For myself, I long ago decided to get different enjoyment from the technology of different universes. For Star Wars, I content myself with assuming that a society which has had hyperdrive longer than we have had writing has discovered a great deal of physics that we do not know. I get my enjoyment from observing the films and thinking to myself, "now what about my physical understanding needs to be different to explain how the hell could they do that and what are the other consequences if you could?". Hence, retcon is my game. So:

I've pointed out here before that the Battle of Coruscant almost certainly takes place with all of the ships involved on repulsor. The full explanation is lengthy but the essence is that they're too close to the planet to maintain a stationary orbit above a point on the surface as they do in the film and the novelizaton. Couple that with the fact that their rocket nozzles are all pointing different ways and orbital dynamics tells you that they are not using rocket thrust to hold themselves above the surface. My conclusion is that each of those ships was probably operating on repulsor . Invisible Hand's airbrakes and retro-thrust baffles were a secondary measure at best and were needed because the lateral forces that ship was under (to remain stationary relative to the surface) largely went away with the majority of the ship's power plant and repulsor lifts when her stern fell off. But, repulsorlifts (and, if you're a smart designer, redundant power systems) are likely distributed all over the ship. Thus, when Invisible Hand lost her after section, it seems that she lost hyperdrive and main reactor, and much of her repulsor capability , but kept her forward repulsor complexes. That's what Anakin landed her with. Only they weren't able to do much more than provide enough "lift" to keep the crash barely controlable and survivable.

The "kilometer long empty space" she landed on was a spaceport. We see several others during the course of the series. Probably largely held up (and together) by similar force fields. That's why there was a control tower there. Though the presence of big dramatic high windows in the SW universe seems sorta silly...And yes, the field is probably made of some fairly exotic materials.

BTW- if you really want to get mad, try thinking about what happened to the back of the ship...you know, the part that presumably contained the hypermatter reactor. I'll leave what happened to that as an exercise for the reader (b/c I don't have a good retcon yet).

@Kaleb - Lusankya was inside of the shield. We already know that at least some SW sheilding is one way. I do not see that the data point has any valid comparison to the performance of Executor against the Hoth shield. We know that the Hoth shield was powered by a Star-Battlecruiser's reactor. Given that all it had to power was a shield and one ion cannon...and that it had the entire body of an ice planet to conductively reject waste heat to (unlike a spaceborne ship whose systems need to reject heat via radiation) , it seems to make sense that the Hoth base could have held out against Executor and Death Squadron for long enough to give the Rebels time to escape. Even that is not necessary to explain Executor's failure to destroy Echo Base from orbit. Vader wanted his son alive. Base Delta Zeroing Hoth was unlikely to accomplish that. What's the problem here?

[Tropical Bob]

BTW- if you really want to get mad, try thinking about what happened to the back of the ship...you know, the part that presumably contained the hypermatter reactor. I'll leave what happened to that as an exercise for the reader (b/c I don't have a good retcon yet).

Well, hypermatter's energy is apparently harvested as the particles or whatever accelerate to hyperspace. I imagine it would either: A) happen in a relatively short time since there's never really any collateral damage from said hypermatter, or B) the particles act like dark matter and other such particles, where there is an infinitesimal amount of interference with normal matter. So all the hypermatter would accelerate to hyperspace either shortly after whatever keeps the particles in normal space dissipates, or it would all accelerate to hyperspace with no effect on its surroundings once the force keeping them in normal space dissipates.

So I think that you'd have a pretty much empty shell hitting the surface.

Unless the increased acceleration of hypermatter to hyperspace overloads the reactor, causing it to explode. In which case, lots of people would die and there'd be an enormous mushroom cloud on the Coruscant horizon, along with a probably massive EMP burning out who knows what all across the planet's surface. But then again, lots of ships' debris and weaponry would be falling down from orbit. And since all turbolasers in Star Wars each have head-shot power against planets, ship debris would be the last of everyone's problem.

Anyway, Coruscant seems to be ravaged by one battle or another every 25 years or so, so I assume it's commonplace for billions to die in a day anymore. (Half a hemisphere wiped out, just another day on Coruscant! Lucky we'll have so many weak-minded immigrants arriving every day to fill our newly reconstructed world in a week.)

[Kaleb Graff]

Even then, the reactor off a Praetor vs. the reactor off of an Executor would be an uneven contest. It really depends on how the shield works. Does it counter or absorb energy? And Coruscant should have stronger shields than Hoth had, and those were two-way.

[Pellean]

I've pointed out here before that the Battle of Coruscant almost certainly takes place with all of the ships involved on repulsor.

I really enjoyed that thread- I actually emailed a link to it to my physics professor.

As to the strength of the Coruscant shields, I think that Zahn indicates that it could pretty well annihilate any unshielded matter to come into contact with it (Project Stardust transtport). Admiral Ackbar's comments of the Ukio shield (the Empire could develop a method to penetrate a shield by stressing it with projected energy) seem to indicate that, if a vessel had shielding strong enough to compete with it, it would be possible to get through unscathed. As the Executor-class was the only vessel as of Endor that had engines strong enough to initiate a full planetary grav-shock, it seems reasonable that their own shielding could sufficiently negate a planetary shield to slip through. I can only assume that this is not taken advantage of because their repulsors are not normally strong enough to sustain flight at that altitude.

[feld]

Even then, the reactor off a Praetor vs. the reactor off of an Executor would be an uneven contest. It really depends on how the shield works. Does it counter or absorb energy? And Coruscant should have stronger shields than Hoth had, and those were two-way.

Absolutely a great point - and a logical question requiring retcon. That's why I pointed out the reactor in space versus on ground and the sheer number of systems that each was powering as possible parts of the explanation. Sure, the REAL explanation is Lucasfilm's oft quoted "it's only a movie!" (which, every time I hear it I translate as "we didn't have time to think of that when we made this or it sounded cooler our way") and that'sj ust the reality of show biz. But, since I like to help George and Leeland Chee out wherever I can:
1. Number of systems: The Executor reactor's putting all of it's power into a wide variety of systems, guessing primarily shields and a whole bunch of guns for the Hoth operation. The Praetor reactor is just powering the planetary shield and the one starship grade ion cannon. So , while the Hoth reactor is undoubtedly smaller, it can put a larger fraction of its power into the shield.
2. Space vs. ground. Kaleb, you've got Attack Vector so you know all about radiators. If you want way too much detail you can read more in the first few chapters of my master's thesis. But the skinny is that radiation is the only way to get rid of heat from a spacecraft. But conduction is a much easier way to get rid of heat. So space reactors are at a disadvantage vs ground based reactor since the ground based unit can use the planet they're on as a heat sink. That implies that the Preator reactor might be able to operate at higher power in a ground based installation than it could in a Star-Battlecruiser. Note that this argument would appear to work regardless of the radiation type employed (SW ships appear to use neutrino radiators-no idea how).

So here you have a retcon where the Rebels are basically running a star-battlecruiser's reactor at a higher power level than designed for space installation and putting all that power just two places. They know that they'll have to deflect the firepower of the entire starfleet and that they will never have enough firepower to actually seriously threaten that starfleet. So they design the whole base around a delaying strategy. They get an ion cannon powerful enough to immobilize an ISD, put it over the base, and make sure that they can power the shield long enough to protect the cannon and reactor from the starfleet.

So, I think that this might explain why a star-BC reactor can power a shield that holds off a star-DN.

v/r
feld

[Phoenix Rising]

Not to mention, the Hoth shield didn't cover the entire planet - Veers was able to land with it still in place. If it was a larger shield that the Rebels modified to concentrate on Echo Base, presumably it would've been relatively tougher to crack.

I should also point out that many planetary shields are, in fact, comprised of a network of shield generators. Ukio had something like 30 individual generators. I'm not sure there is such a thing as a singular planetary shield generator, but I'll leave that for someone else to debate.