Originally posted by Mister Oragahn
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Perhaps you mean this:
It is indeed an obscure reference from a card game. But this should not, in theory, be important, since there would be no reason to deny this material. However, there's just the fact that Saxton guy claimed this picture pointed to ultra gigaton or teraton yields, yet he completely missed that even the arc of the yellow thing does not even correspond to a spherical arc. Meaning this body we see would rank as a small dwarf planet at best, and we don't even know the whole shape of that thing, since it could be very irregular.
Therefore, the size of the explosion and distance of projection has to be interpreted differently. There will be neither an atmosphere nor a particular strong gravity to fight against. In a way, the slightest nuclear firecracker would expel matter that way.
Of course, it speaks volumes of the honesty and objectivity of an astrophysicist with a Ph.D who considered this to be a planet, and quite large at that.
It is indeed an obscure reference from a card game. But this should not, in theory, be important, since there would be no reason to deny this material. However, there's just the fact that Saxton guy claimed this picture pointed to ultra gigaton or teraton yields, yet he completely missed that even the arc of the yellow thing does not even correspond to a spherical arc. Meaning this body we see would rank as a small dwarf planet at best, and we don't even know the whole shape of that thing, since it could be very irregular.
Therefore, the size of the explosion and distance of projection has to be interpreted differently. There will be neither an atmosphere nor a particular strong gravity to fight against. In a way, the slightest nuclear firecracker would expel matter that way.
Of course, it speaks volumes of the honesty and objectivity of an astrophysicist with a Ph.D who considered this to be a planet, and quite large at that.
If it wasn't an outlier believing in the claims of that book shouldn't change your view of starwars as radically as it does. If they put out a book for stargate that said Mk8 nukes were rated at 1500 megatons it wouldn't really shock anyone's socks off because we already know that they had 1200 megaton mines in the show and 1000 megaton missiles as early as season 1. As such hearing about another nuclear weapon of about that power level wouldn't really come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with the show. In Star Wars though you've got ISDs blowing up asteroids, and getting damaged by them, then all of a sudden weapons literally about a million times more powerful than that out of nowhere and appearing nowhere but in this book.
Yes, B5 has canonical books added later which wank things up left and right, and has a lot to do with technomages and the Shadows. But everytime one brings these books in play, if there happens to be a member knowledgeable on B5 to argue, it goes on and on, largely because the books paint an universe and enforce facts which seem to fail to mesh with the reasons which made what we saw in the show happen.
Of course, that's also largely due to the interpretation of the fans.
I have argued with one member about this. I happened to clearly remember an episode of Crusade featuring Galen, who battled what remained of a technomage controlling machines on a planet, and this came in a direct collision course with the super wank of other books. There was no real good rationalization because by the time of Crusade, Galen had already evolved beyond many of his technomage mates.
One of the reasons the books seem to blow things out of proportions -including claimed a massive industrial capacity- is, apparently, a book showing the attack on Zahadum-something seen from the perspective of Galen. The Whitestar (I think) carried several nukes of hundreds of megatons each (600 MT iirc), and they all detonated in some kind of cavity which was the main city of the Shadows' planet, and Galen happened to be below.
He cast some shadow armour over him and someone else, and survived. It's very sketchy, sorry. However, it was never considered that Galen may have tapped into the planet's structures and find a way to boost his armour and help it spread the energy.
This also completely forgets that we've seen battlecrabs destroyed by young race weapons, and smaller Shadow warships destroyed by distant 10 megaton nukes (which means these ships took only a small fraction of that whole energy, a lot soaked up by the asteroids they were placed on).
Of course, that's also largely due to the interpretation of the fans.
I have argued with one member about this. I happened to clearly remember an episode of Crusade featuring Galen, who battled what remained of a technomage controlling machines on a planet, and this came in a direct collision course with the super wank of other books. There was no real good rationalization because by the time of Crusade, Galen had already evolved beyond many of his technomage mates.
One of the reasons the books seem to blow things out of proportions -including claimed a massive industrial capacity- is, apparently, a book showing the attack on Zahadum-something seen from the perspective of Galen. The Whitestar (I think) carried several nukes of hundreds of megatons each (600 MT iirc), and they all detonated in some kind of cavity which was the main city of the Shadows' planet, and Galen happened to be below.
He cast some shadow armour over him and someone else, and survived. It's very sketchy, sorry. However, it was never considered that Galen may have tapped into the planet's structures and find a way to boost his armour and help it spread the energy.
This also completely forgets that we've seen battlecrabs destroyed by young race weapons, and smaller Shadow warships destroyed by distant 10 megaton nukes (which means these ships took only a small fraction of that whole energy, a lot soaked up by the asteroids they were placed on).
I actually like starwars, I really do. I like it better than SGA certainly, well maybe not the prequels. Which is why I don't like to see it warped with this "mine is bigger than yours" bull****.
If starwars had the sort of yields ICS claims (it's got kiloton nuke level weapons on things as small as fighters to) it would completely break the universe with everyone flying around in ships that should be able to chainfire nuclear level energies at will in an atmosphere. One of the things I like most about the star wars setting is the idea of how anyone can theoretically own their own personal spacecraft, almost like you could a car today. That concept all goes spiraling down the drain of rank idiocy if I'm asked to believe that governments the galaxy over are all really allowing millions or billions of people to just glide around their populated cities carrying weapon magazines loaded with probably thousands of little Hiroshima's just waiting to come out and play.
Solving this problem is actually one of the serious primary challenges facing a sci-fi author who wants to create a universe where spacecraft can be privately owned, the problem being that the energies typically associated with viable spaceflight are extremely dangerous to human life if unleashed in an atmosphere. Lucas actually solved the problem with a combination of repulsorlift AG tech for taking off and just by keeping the weapons used by everyone at a lower level of power, and these "must have moar yieldzzzz" ******s are basically trying to unsolve it for him, diminishing the integrity of the entire setting in the process.
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