Vesuvius and Star Destroyer Size?

Well, its a military warship. A great deal of sci-fi series like Star Trek tend to have less of an emphasis on military might unless its by some Deus Ex alien power ala Independence Day.

Not necessarily true. Yes, Star Trek is a Jacques Cousteau in Space scenario, but various other series/books provide us with warships.

Babylon 5, Space AAB, Battlestar Galactica, etc....

I just get so tired of hearing, "....the turbolasers on my Imperial Star Destroyer shoot 650 gigaton beams that can kill any Galaxy class Starship or Omega class Destroyer with one hit....", thankfully the community here is much more mature!
 
Dragon1 said:
I just get so tired of hearing, "....the turbolasers on my Imperial Star Destroyer shoot 650 gigaton beams that can kill any Galaxy class Starship or Omega class Destroyer with one hit....", thankfully the community here is much more mature!

They actually argue about stuff like that?!:eek:
 
Well, considering how 99% of the existing SW material is NOT canon, then we can safelly ignore most data besides the 1mile length of the SDs.

And well, All the sizes for these ships are know, just make a line with a ruler in scale or something.
 
Dragon1 said:
Not necessarily true. Yes, Star Trek is a Jacques Cousteau in Space scenario, but various other series/books provide us with warships.

Babylon 5, Space AAB, Battlestar Galactica, etc....

I had avoided mentioning those series because (B5 is awful and also because) they're all television.

Dragon1 said:
I just get so tired of hearing, "....the turbolasers on my Imperial Star Destroyer shoot 650 gigaton beams that can kill any Galaxy class Starship or Omega class Destroyer with one hit...."

Then its a wise idea to leave the internet forever. That'll never, ever go away.
 
I had avoided mentioning those series because (B5 is awful and also because) they're all television

A matter of opinion.

Then its a wise idea to leave the internet forever. That'll never, ever go away.

Well, its not accepted here. So here I shall stay!
 
Dragon1 said:
A matter of opinion.

I'll give you that - but I think its majority opinion that JMS is one hell of an overrated writer/hack artist.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
There's an existential problem with going on about Star Destroyers being able to wipe out entire planets -- if it were true, there'd be absolutely no point to anything that happens in the Star Wars movies.

Oh, no, we need to risk it all to stop their planet destroying Death Star... which is different than the average enemy destroyer... in that... it's slightly faster!

Well there's two problems with the basic approaches.

First is that the SWTC people take what's said about Star Destroyers too literally. (As in when it says "a civilization to slag" they calculated based on the literal interpretation of slag.)

While the second argument of "it makes no sense" is when it ignores the context of what the statements written in universe materials is.

Consistently it's been said that they could essentially bombard a planet's civilization back to the stone age, but always with the caveat that it wouldn't outright destroy the world, just sort of you know, level the buildings. And it seems only if the world's not shielded by one of those planetery defense shields.

So I mean there's nothing inherently wrong with a Star Destroyer being able to burn/scour the surface of a planet, there's enough caveats that something that can outright destroy a planet like the Death Star (and most likely do it through a planetary shield) is useful.

Bear in mind also, Kirk had a few lines about destroying the entire surface of planets in TOS, which given the yield of antimatter explosives and the like is probably possible in theory, just never backed up by the vfx. (Which are in any case always understated.)
 
The one that gets me is the fleet sizes these guys come up with. Usually most of exposition and visual evidence in the particular universe is thrown out the window and fans speculate on the existance of a fleet of 25 million Star Destroyers or some other ludicrous number.

P.S. I don't mean to keep attacking SW, I happen to like it alot. Its just that I think its fans (and Star Trek's) are most vocal about stuff like this.
 
Dragon1 said:
P.S. I don't mean to keep attacking SW, I happen to like it alot. Its just that I think its fans (and Star Trek's) are most vocal about stuff like this.

I think you're only seeing that because they're two of the biggest (if not THE biggest) sci-fi series ever made. That isn't to say such silliness doesn't carry over to other smaller series in much worse ways (Buffy The Vampire Slayer sex fiction anyone? I'll gladly pass on that count)
 
I still think that a single star destroyer scorching a planet's surface completely in 3 hrs is kinda ludicrous.
 
not if you:

- terraform the damn thing with whatever those torpedoes are called
- ignite or poison the atmospheric gasses
- lots of other morally wrong stuff
 
I think the Star Destroyer's ability to level such a large target has the whole wing of TIE fighters thrown into the equasion as well
 
Edfilho said:
I still think that a single star destroyer scorching a planet's surface completely in 3 hrs is kinda ludicrous.

Don't you pay attention to the hip kids? Moar liek 3 minutes amirite?????
 
Well, we are talking about leveling, as in bringing down all buildings. not as in just killing all people. So I assume that would involve the SD orbiting the planet and actually shooting ALL buildings with the turbolasers. BEcause AFAIK the turbolasers are all they have. and a few TIE Bombers. Which wouldn't speed up the leveling of the entire planet much.

Maybe the leveling itself is possible, I'm just doubting the 3 hour figure.
 
My understanding of the SD are this...they are pretty much useless if the planet has a planetary shield....the Death Star doesn't even blink at a planetary shield. Thus that's why the Death star was so scary. Sure a Star destroyer could level an undefended planet but that's nothing special.
 
....the entire starfleet couldn't destroy a planet. It would take a thousand ships, with more firepower than....

A Han Solo line (perhaps slightly paraphrased) from "A New Hope" that most SW fans seem to like to forget.
 
There's a difference between destroying a planet and level it's cities, bases, and forests you know.:)
 
Maj.Striker said:
My understanding of the SD are this...they are pretty much useless if the planet has a planetary shield...

If you're refering to the shield protecting Hoth, that was an unusually large facility.
 
There's a difference between destroying a planet and level it's cities, bases, and forests you know.

Of course.

I was commenting on the fact that some would argue that a single SD could destroy a planet. According to the Solo line (and in the SW canon, he was in the Imperial Navy), a large fleet of SD's couldn't destroy a planet.
 
Dragon1 said:
According to the Solo line (and in the SW canon, he was in the Imperial Navy), a large fleet of SD's couldn't destroy a planet.

Solo's career in the Empire has never been stated in a movie or a movie novelization, so it remains noncanon.

Also, his line is "1000 starships", not Star Destroyers specificly, thusly leaving the line open for a wider interprettion.
 
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