What about the ion cannon?

The ion cannon as you may know makes all the systems of the ships short circuit, wouldn't this have a similar effect on the YV, or the Dovin Basals. This can effect the nerves of their ships, better yet the Yammosk's nerves causing chaos among the YV's fleet. Concentrate several ion cannons in one area and when they start to get through, blast them to pieces with with some torpedos, and shadow bombs.

 

Would it work on a nervous system? Does anyone remember reading about it being used on an organic being?

 

If it didn't work on the ship, it would distract the Dovin Basals long enough to get some torpedos through

 

What about "set for stun"? What if they built a turbolaser version of this? We have to face it: there are a lot of things that the writers could use to combat the Yuuzhan Vong, but they just aren't gonna do them.

 

First off -- ion cannons do not affect humans, only electrical systems. Remember Mara passed through a capital ship sized ion blast in Dark Force Rising and only her ejecton pod was affected -- not her.

What about "set for stun"? What if they built a turbolaser version of this? We have to face it: there are a lot of things that the writers could use to combat the Yuuzhan Vong, but they just aren't gonna do them.

The range of a stun setting on a blaster is about 4 - 8 meters or so. Considering a blaster pistol can actually shoot (not on stun) around 200 meters, the power requirement to make a turbolaser-sized stun emplacement would be probably as close to impossible as one might get...

 

Dp...
That's not right. The ion cannon blasted the red out of Mara Jade. She was KO'ed for quite some time becuase of it.

The thing is, same "scale" ion weapons aren't effective on targets. Personal droid ionizers are useless against people.

It took a capital-ship-scale gun to really substantially affect a person.

It would most likely take a Death-Star scale weapon to affect living thing the size of a starfighter or capital ship.

 

Dp...
That's not right. The ion cannon blasted the red out of Mara Jade. She was KO'ed for quite some time becuase of it.

Read again -- I'm pretty sure she was laid up at the beginning of TLC because the ion cannon shorted her helmet electrical systems and gave her neural feedback as well as her life-support cutting out.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was.

 

As I said the ion cannon can distract the dovin basal so the torpedos can slip through with less of a chance of getting caught.

 

As I said the ion cannon can distract the dovin basal so the torpedos can slip through with less of a chance of getting caught.

But why? If ion cannons don't workon biologicals, then why would the dovin basals activate? There'd be no danger...

 

Let's see, wasn't the energy binder that jar jar went numb in said to be made up of an ion field in one or two sources? Not sure about this though.

As I recall an acidic reaction is the removal of ions. While a basic reaction is the adding of ions, both can cause burns.

Also I recall reading about something that solar flares that are full of ions from the sun can disrupt human internal electrical field to some degrees as well(it also disrupts electronic equipment), but flares of that magnitude are rare. I can't remember all the details of this though, and what it does to the body exactly.

 

"Dp...
That's not right. The ion cannon blasted the red out of Mara Jade. She was KO'ed for quite some time becuase of it.

Read again -- I'm pretty sure she was laid up at the beginning of TLC because the ion cannon shorted her helmet electrical systems and gave her neural feedback as well as her life-support cutting out.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. "

Actually you are both wrong. From DFR, p 367...
"A large piece of shrapnel glancd off the ceramic armor that wrapped partially around her shoulders, slamming her head hard against the side of the headrest. And as she fell into the blackness..."

It could be argued that she herself wasn't hit by the ion cannon. Pretty weak, but possible. And since an ion cannon disrupts the electrical systems on a ship, and human bodies are very much electrical systems (which is why if you touch a hot wire your muscles contract), it is concievable that ion cannons would work on people.
But the Vong and their ships may not be 'built' the same way...

 

A repeated Ion volley would confuse the yammosk Because it hasn't been used against them before. maybe it will cause damage but even if it doesn't they would put up singularities to stop them. when they use energy for that the reactions of the dovin basals aren't as fast so many other shots would get through. But if it did mess up Mara when she got hit. maybe they could kill the basals and criple the ships. I would use it to disable the corvette and capital ship analogs or a world ship even

 

dp4m, the dovin basals have a reason to fear the ion cannon, it has never been used on them, so they won't know what to expect

 

I thought I recalled reading in either Rebirth or SbS that they did use ion cannons against the Vong ships and the dovin basals swallowed the ion beams.

 

To quote Tarkin: "this bickering is pointless."

Whether the the dovin basals activate or not is not important.

Whether the ion cannons themselves would even effect the Vong ships isn't all that important.


What IS important is that ion cannons are a relatively non-harmful weapon for pacifying enemy ships and equipment.

so...

If the basals don't react and ion cannons do hit the Vong ships...perhaps a ship or to would be crippled...then the NR has a choice...pound the wounded ships to ash...OR...try to fight off the rest of the Vong ships that were not hit.

If the Vong ships are hit and the Yammosk is knocked out and the fleet is in chaos or unable to function...that still leaves Vong vessels able to carry out their mad suicide crusades on their own...they don't just surrender.

Crippled ships that are unable to escape will be full of hostile enemy soldiers to the New Republic...and they haven't gotten so uncivilized as to fire on and destroy defenseless ships yet...maybe the Empire is doing that in the remnant. In any event...I wouldn't want to be on a boarding party for a vong ship adrift.

And how long do you think it would take for the Vong to recognize ion cannons as a threat? 2 or 3 battles?

It's really depressing that the Vong seem so unbeatable...I fear the authors have dug themselves a huge hole to crawl out of.

 

You're all forgetting something, the human body IS an electrical system, so even on this premise, it would work to some extent...
And there is a book, and as bad as it soudns, i can't remember which one it is (I believe one of the X-Wing books), where they talk about an x-wing being hit by an ion cannon and being partially numbed, as if part of his body was "asleep"...

 

I'd like to see a Yuuzhan Vong ship try to stop a Seisemic Charge's blast wave,a Dovin Basal would be pretty useless against that kind of shockwave. a Black Hole singularity would only swallow a small part of the shock wave.

As for Ion Cannon blasts? It would probably shock or stun the living ships or maybe just electricute them cause them to spasm or go into death throes.

 

yodafett_77 is right. Humans are basically living computers. There's electrical signals firing everywhere (or at least in the nervous system).

And Corran used an ion cannon to physically electrocute some "beasties" in I, Jedi. So why can't ion cannons be used against Vong vehicles and vessels as well? Or even against the warriors?

 

You'd have to have a massive kind of an ion cannon to do what you're talking about to a biological creature. You'd really almost have to electrify it. Trust me. I'm a Physics major.

 

Hmm.. what about the DEMP Mk2 in the game Jedi Outcast? The game lists it as being "modified to affect organic beings".

 

The problem is that an ion cannon would need an enormous sheer energy output to essensally electrocute it, power better spent on turbolasers and engines and since the coral is almost certainly a miserable conductor of electricity anyway...you make your conclusions.

 

Ion cannons would not effect Yuuzhan Vong vessels (at least to disable them). There are no nerve endings on the surface of Yuuzhan Vong vessels, therefore the ionization effect would merely impact the "hull" of the vessel and diffuse, not causing some kind of disruption in the vessel's neural system.

 

Ok

In I, Jedi Corran used his ion cannon against one of those force beasts Exar Kun sent to kill Luke.
So, technically, an Ion cannon that hits an organic being would fry all of their nervous system, just as it it did in the prior books.

So, logically, if you hit one of those YV tank beast things in the right place (Corran hit the beast in the nerve center)with the right power Ion cannon, it would fry their nerves.
But I do not believe Yorik Coral would be a good conductor.

YV biology is the same as ours, they have a heart, blood, nerves.....(to the best of my knowledge).

So, EUDFers, arm your Ion Canon's (misspelling intended)

 

I'm sure the crab armor that deflects lightsabre slashes and blaster bolts wouldn't be affected by a rifle-size ion cannon.

 

Does EMP have a large effect on the human body? because that's all an ion cannon blast is, just on a minute scale. If I recall correctly, EMP is only dangerous when it strikes you at the nanosecond your heart is reloading from the 'dub' to 'lub'. Otherwise all it would probably do is disorient you for a few seconds, just like getting shocked does.

I don't think ion blast would have a large effect on the human body.

Also ion cannons do not fire at high rates like regular lasers. The ion cannon on Y-wings takes a while to charge between each shot. Planetary ion cannons fire at faster rates, but that's really wasted effort.

Ion cannons are no better an alternative than stutter shots on X-wings. In fact, they are worse, since unlike EMP they do not totally disable ships, just only for a few minutes at most.

They would not cripple YV ships. They may disorient coralskippers & other ships for a minute or so, but the NR is better off sticking with the current tactics of the Jedi (yammosk jamming, shadow bombs, stutter fire, etc.)