ST The Workings of Starkiller Base

I totally agree. Star Wars is camp. It may be the best camp ever created but it is camp just the same, just like Flash Gordon which it was partially based on. We are not supposed to really question the science of a SKB, it's simply the latest evil weapon the bad guys have created and it must be destroyed.Would we question the science of a weapon devised by Ming the Merciless?

People can debate the science of Star Wars for fun, I get that. I just think they shouldn't let the scientific failings ruin the movies for them. Star Wars was never intended to make scientific sense. It's just supposed to be fun stories in a far away galaxy.

 

AFAIK Tie Panels are only "solar collectors" in Legends... that's not canon (which is good as that is completely absurd.. but anyways)

 

An amusing look at it, but that's not the way I want to play the game! My fun is not to knock things down, it's to try and find a plausible explanation using SW universe technology for what we see in the movies. So like my structural integrity field or zackm coming up with artificial gravity to explain how SKB moves.

And by plausible, I mean a technological explanation that while complex and not possible now is at least grounded in something that isn't mystical or magical (stand up Dr Who and Harry Potter). And before anyone mentions The Force, yes that is semi-mystical but very little SW technology is related to it.

For me, the beauty of the SW universe is that it is possible for someone with a lot of scientific knowledge to suspend disbelief because for all its flaws it doesn't completely flout science and isn't filled with deus-ex-machinas like other franchises.

 

I think maybe you're confusing Star Wars with Dr Who? That is completely scientific nonsensical with no basis in anything logical. Star Wars has many flaws, but it does at least attempt to be scientifically and technologically believable.

 

Are you sure about that?

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/...as_combined_flash_gordon_westerns.single.html

 

What he says is true... from a certain point of view.

No-one can claim SW is hard science fiction. In fact pretty much nothing on film or TV can claim to be this, it's only in the Novels of Asimov or Niven you get this kind of thing.

My point is that Dr Who and the like don't even pay lip service to physics. The sonic screwdriver and all the other "technology" it has might as well be magic wands. It's simply magic dressed up as science. The reason they get away with it is most people's grasp of physics is sketchy at best so it seems like magic anyway. The same goes when most people watch SW. They simply don't think about the implications of what they are looking at because it's so far out of their everyday knowledge.

But if in the middle of a Soap Opera some character suddenly took flight, it would be obviously ridiculous. To somone with knowledge of physics and engineering, a lot of what you see in Sci-Fi and Fantasyis equally as ludicrous. The way very large objects move in stuff like Transformers is a good example, such as speed skating 100ft robots! That is truly ridiculous where something like SKB is not. You really need a solid understanding to appreciate this though. And it does ruin an awful lot of modern movies for you if you do!

 

And in Incredible Cross Sections: The Force Awakens, Rebels: The Visual Guide, etc.

 

Yeah, they've been solar panels for as long as I can remember...

 

Well this explains how a TIE fighter cannot get far in deep space.

 

Correct. Standard-issue TIEs do not have hyperdrive.

 

OH COME ON get the joke don't give me that.

Of course they don't have a hyperdrive, but is that funny? NO!

 

Ahh - haven't seen the new incredible cross sections.

 

it would most likely devour the star then travel to orbit around another star and keep doing that till destroyed

 

This video claims to explain many of the things that we've been scratching our heads over. It's even bold enough to claim that the destruction of planets could be seen across the galaxy immediately because it disturbed the space-time continuum. This would be a good enough reason for me if it is the truth, and not just made up by fans such as these guys to cover up the poor, lazy astrophysics shown in the film.

 

KnightofCydonia wrote

It's even bold enough to claim that the destruction of planets could be seen across the galaxy immediately because it disturbed the space-time continuum.

They boldy go, where no rationalization attempt has gone before. I wonder what or who is really disturbing the space-time continuum.

 

Apparently much of the info comes from the novelizations of the movie:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Starkiller_Base

The weapon ran on a type of dark energy called "quintessence", which was ubiquitous in the universe, and offered a practically unlimited power source to the First Order. Using a star as a power source, an array of collectors on one side of the planet would gather dark energy in stages, redirecting it to the planetary core, where it was held in place by the natural magnetic field of the planet, as well as an artificial containment field maintained by the machinery the First Order had installed within the crust. As the planetary magnetic field would not be enough to contain the amount of energy that the weapon required, a thermal oscillator[4] was built into the planet.

It generated an oscillating containment field which allowed the installation to expend considerably less energy at containing the dark energy than would be required using a steady containment field. A colossal hollow cylinder, large enough to dominate the view of the planet from orbit, penetrated the containment field to a predetermined distance, in order to direct the blast towards its target, and also to absorb its energy, which would otherwise cause catastrophic groundquakes.

This design made the weapon vulnerable when it was fully charged, as the destruction of the containment field oscillator the moment before the weapon fired would release the accumulated energy not through the firing cylinder, but throughout the planetary core where it was being held, leading to the gradual collapse of the surface into the core.[2]


Starkiller Base was mobile.[3] In order to be used, it consumed a star before moving on to another.[7] As Starkiller Base was charged through the power of stars, it gradually blocked out sunlight until, running at full capacity, it extinguished it completely, leaving the surface in darkness. In order for the weapon to fire, its weapons engineers would induce a breach in the containment field, allowing the collected dark energy to escape the core through the hollow cylinder opening on the antipodes of the planet relative to the stellar collector.

During this process, the dark energy transformed to a state known as "phantom energy", and left the planet behind, tearing a hole through hyperspace along a perfectly linear path. The people stationed at the Base called the dimension through which the phantom energy beam traveled "sub-hyperspace", and this method of delivering the payload was near-instantaneous across vast distances. The rotation and inclination of the planet had to be taken into account for the weapon to target something, and also the lack of obstacles between it and the target, as the phantom energy beam would only be intercepted by an object of sufficient mass (like a planet).

When the phantom energy struck a planet, the interaction produced enough heat to ignite the planet's core, creating a pocket nova. The space-time disruption caused by the phantom energy's passage would make the nova instantaneously visible thousands of light years away.[2]

 

Happy to see young faces in youtube videos dropping astronomy terms.

This video is accessible I think:

 

I may have missed something so please correct me if I'm wrong. But once the First Order destroys the near by systems, then what? At least the Death Star could move around the galaxy. That was just a planet. The can't move that can they?

 

What's the point of your local army barracks? Training, base for operations, where personal live etc etc etc It may be Star Wars but the first Order soldiers still need to eat/sleep/train/repair craft

As far as I know the planet cannot move - But I have heard people claiming it can...

 

It can't move, but it could hit targets across half the galaxy according to the novelisation - through hyperspace. The restriction is the ammunition as it sucked dark energy from its star.

Personally, I think its job was to take out two or three Republic or Resistance targets to cripple said organisations. It managed the primary job in that case. Old Snokey didn't seem too fussed that it was destroyed, so I don't think there was a long term plan for it. You can't destroy too many systems - there'd be nothing left to rule.

 

Pablo said it moves?

 

Who is Pablo? I guess it's moot now - unless we get Starkiller 2 in the next one!

 

Starkiller actually acheived it's objective. It blew up the republic and whole military fleet. All that is left is the resistance.

 

Paglo Hidalgo is one of the members of the Lucasfilm story group, in charge of all film/EU continuity.

 

I see - thank you.

Thinking about it, it should move, if Newton's Third Law applies in the Star Wars universe. Special relativity doesn't seem to get a look in though.