Starkiller Base, How Could It Work IRL?

[KAL 9000]

Could we build something like this in the distant future IRL? Because I want one (blow up those pesky Borg)

[PB666]

It would be so much simpler to go back in time and cause them not to exist in the first place.

If you want to blow up a star just go around into interstellar space, make a ball about the size of the earth, say C100T202. t = tritium. The simply move it close to a star, say 100 au, then remove all its orbital velocity. It should have substantive enough radius for the internal carbon to survive, once it reaches the center of the star there should be enough pressure to result in a supernova. 

[Mitchz95]

I'm sure there are simpler ways to blow up planets. Crashing something into them at sufficiently high speeds should do the trick.

[Scotius]

Glassing the surface and burning off the atmosphere should take even less time and energy than turning the planet into asteroid belt

[PB666]

23 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Glassing the surface and burning off the atmosphere should take even less time and energy than turning the planet into asteroid belt

I thought we were talking about snuffing stars, planet killing is easy, just recirect several asteroids.

[Mitchz95]

It didn't look like Starkiller actually destroyed suns, just the planets and moons orbiting them.

[andrewas]

5 hours ago, PB666 said:

I thought we were talking about snuffing stars, planet killing is easy, just recirect several asteroids.

Starkiller Base is from the new Star Wars, it's a planetkiller with even less basis in real science than the Death Star.

[ChrisSpace]

Dump gasoline all over the planet, then throw a match on it.

[Scotius]

9 hours ago, PB666 said:

I thought we were talking about snuffing stars, planet killing is easy, just recirect several asteroids.

But...why? Why waste time and energy destroying a star (and in effect whole system) to destroy one or two enemy planets? It's like dropping a nuke on the forest, just to kill one fox.

[kunok]

37 minutes ago, Scotius said:

But...why? Why waste time and energy destroying a star (and in effect whole system) to destroy one or two enemy planets? It's like dropping a nuke on the forest, just to kill one fox.

It's a space opera, just enjoy it, it's not like it's sci-fi or something

[Tex_NL]

Starkiller base is as fictional as it can ever be.
Looking at the images the wedge cut out of the planet is roughly a quarter of the circumference. On an earth sized planet this would mean the cut has to be over 1800 kilometres deep. Temperatures at that depth will literally melt rock. On Mars the cut would have to be close to 1000 kilometres deep and on our moon a bit over 500. And that's just the logistics of 'clearing the land'.

If you can afford to create something like Starkiller wouldn't it be easier to simply build a massive fleet and bomb a planet from orbit?

Edited December 21, 2015 by Tex_NL

[adsii1970]

Why not use the ultimate weapon that is cheaper, can create something usable afterwards, and comes in a small package that can be delivered to any planet or celestial body of your choosing?  I give you the Genesis device...

Just saying, this is one area where Star Trek is more efficient than Star Wars.  No huge budget, no trench for pesky X-wings to fly down, and no thermal exhaust ports.  Just one device...

[Kerbol Macrosystems]

My problem with Starkiller Base was that it looked like it might be big enough for gravity to round it, collapsing any and all trenches. I was really excited to see that it was just trenches upon trenches upon trenches. 

But I would like to point out we're complaining about the physics of a weapon that shoots faster-than-light projectiles/energy.

[PB666]

3 hours ago, Scotius said:

But...why? Why waste time and energy destroying a star (and in effect whole system) to destroy one or two enemy planets? It's like dropping a nuke on the forest, just to kill one fox.

Well there might be escapees living inside asteroid with surface microcrystal solar panels you could not detect. I mean if you snuffed a star they would really know who the boss was.

2 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Why not use the ultimate weapon that is cheaper, can create something usable afterwards, and comes in a small package that can be delivered to any planet or celestial body of your choosing?  I give you the Genesis device...

Just saying, this is one area where Star Trek is more efficient than Star Wars.  No huge budget, no trench for pesky X-wings to fly down, and no thermal exhaust ports.  Just one device...

That's useful against nebula (as in the fictitious Mutaran nebula http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Mutara_Nebula).

[adsii1970]

Just now, PB666 said:

That's useful against nebula (as in the fictitious Mutaran nebula http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Mutara_Nebula).

Yep, but was designed to terraform an entire planet... Khan kinda did the whole nebula test on his own. But still - one device launched where life already existed... would transform such life in favor of its new matrix... (Star Trek II, TWOK)

[justidutch]

I would suggest sending all our telephone box repairmen, accountants, hair dressers, dog walkers, middle managers. and lawyers over.  

That should destroy any planetary system in short order

Edited December 21, 2015 by justidutch

[PB666]

3 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Yep, but was designed to terraform an entire planet... Khan kinda did the whole nebula test on his own. But still - one device launched where life already existed... would transform such life in favor of its new matrix... (Star Trek II, TWOK)

Yeah but had to be a sterile world, remember Spock was revived as a young boy. I mean if you had all the memories you could bring back the entire race. This conversation is getting to nerdy for me.

[andrewas]

Spock wasn't there for the initial genesis wave, he was brought back by some lingering effect of the device. Anything on the planet at the time of detonation would be reduced to subatomic particles and rebuilt as part of the new ecosystem.

[adsii1970]

19 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Yeah but had to be a sterile world, remember Spock was revived as a young boy. I mean if you had all the memories you could bring back the entire race. This conversation is getting to nerdy for me.

Spock was torpedoed onto the Genesis planet's surface while the planet wasn't yet stabilized and still in flux, according to the conversation between David Marcus and Saavik. This explains Spock's reanimation. Spock - the body torpedoed onto the planet, didn't have any memories or any language ability. If you remember, Spock had passed his K'atra to McCoy. They had to be recombined and formed the final scenes of Star Trek III.

If you remember the conversation between Spock, McCoy and Kirk in his quarters, Spock indicated that if the device was launched on an inhabited world, theoretically it would destroy such life in favor of its new matrix. So, since there were no animal life forms programmed into Genesis, if it were launched into a heavily populated world, such intelligent (or any other animal and plant life) would be totally wiped out, broken down into its primary elements, and reconstituted into the plant life/new biosphere that had been programmed within Genesis. But then again, David Marcus did use proto-matter

 

[problemecium]

On 12/21/2015 at 7:52 PM, PB666 said:

It would be so much simpler to go back in time and cause them not to exist in the first place.

This isn't a time travel thread, but I have to say something here. That doesn't work. Your travel to the past can work in one of two ways:
1. You create or travel to a parallel universe in which the Borg don't exist - an "alternate timeline" if you like. Thus you have left our universe and gone gallivanting off into your own. I'm sure that universe is great, but all of us back here still have our Borg to deal with. Unless of course you "erased the old timeline," i.e. destroyed the universe... in which case you suck and are the biggest jerk ever ;P
2. You travel on a closed timelike curve into your own universe's past. But since the past, by its definition, happens before the present and future, whatever you're "going to do" in the past already happened, even before you set out. If the Borg exist now, no amount of traveling to the past will change the fact that they already do exist now. You can go ahead and try to kill your grandfather while you're at it, but nothing you do "will" result in anything changing the facts we've already established - that you and the Borg both exist. Yes, that does bode ill for your free will, but that's the price of time travel.
Unless of course you're trying to make the point that Starkiller base is impossible, in which case... nah. Just very impractical. Building it exactly as depicted in the film would be ridiculously hard due to several intervening laws of physics, but you could build the basic concept - a planet-sized cannon - easily enough with the necessary resources.
I do concur with your doubts as to why one would build it in that format though. Star Wars seems to have a predilection with giant balls with doomsday lasers on them, while, as mentioned by many others here, there are much more practical and equally scary ways to destroy your enemies (and their planets, if you simply must).

[KAL 9000]

Ok, if you MUST destroy a planetary system (and you have 400 quintillion dollars to spare), here's how to do it: Turn an entire planet into a particle accelerator, make a bunch of antimatter, and when it's ready, fire the antimatter in a particle beam towards the system of choice. Assuming that the antimatter is traveling at near lightspeed, it should arrive in at least a couple of years.

[stargazer1235]

I saw the movie, when I saw the star being stretched a pulled into the core of the planet it reminded of artiest representations of what happens when a black hole or neutron star got too close to a star. So here is my theory/idea about the star-killer, the first order have some kind of technology or device that turns on and becomes extremely dense, for some good reason, the planet itself doesn't implode. The gases of the star are pulled apart and compresses within the planet, following that the plasma is injected into space at its target. I am going on the limb that since it was possible to move the death star, the first order also has technology to move this base to other stars as well. 

I can see the practicality in such device, if for instance a whole system was rebelling against you and say that system had 10 planets/stations then instead of having to charge up 10 times, you could just do it once and fire it at an asteroid for kicks and sit back and watch the planets lose their sun, fling off into space and start to freeze. You have literally just committed cultural genocide and plus it looks much more imposing if you can claim to have power over entire stars.  

[GreeningGalaxy]

Could Starkiller Base work?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer, more relaxed on realism: Sure. Clearly what Starkiller Base was doing in TFA was taking in all the hydrogen and helium from that star, fusing it into iron all at once, and using the vast amount of energy to accelerate the resulting iron to high speed (exactly how high should be easy enough to calculate if you're familiar with all the stages of fusion between hydrogen and iron, but I'm too sleepy to bother now). That would certainly be powerful enough to destroy planets, considering the amount of mass involved. The gun would probably have to be much bigger than a measly planet to hold that much iron inside it, but hey, whatever. Handwave that away with your favorite nonsensical jargon.

Interesting answer: According to the Boom Table, destroying planets outright is very pointless. It would take the energy equivalent about 359 exatons (359,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons) of TNT to overcome Earth's gravitational binding energy and destroy it completely, but only 77 petatons (0.077 exatons) to blow off the atmosphere into space, which would have most of the tactical/shock and awe effects of complete destruction at a fraction of the cost. If the Empire/First Order were keen to make the most of their resources, they might consider building the Death Star's mass in the form of a droid army of BB-8 or R2D2-like droids with weapons, fighters, support ships, etc., which would have the following notable advantages:

1. Overwhelming firepower: Nobody can fight off a droid army when it's big enough to literally blanket the planet.
2. Great individual durability and mobility.
3. Unmatched loyalty and resourcefulness.
4. Day-and-night endurance.
5. Complete invulnerability to the kind of one-shot blow-it-all-up attacks that took out all the previous superweapons: the Republic/Resistance/Rebellion would have to take out each one individually. ("droid control ships" don't count, boo prequels)
6. Improved manufacture rate: It's easier to crank out small droids and fighters, rather than try to piece together a moon-sized space station. 
7. Selective precision: Destroy only the enemy, leave everything else, and you get to keep the planet afterwards. Outright geocide is wasteful.

The only real disadvantage would be speed of destruction, which would be notably slower than *ZAP* *BOOM*. It still wouldn't be stoppable, though, so that's not really an issue.

[NuclearNut]

On 12/21/2015 at 2:20 AM, andrewas said:

Starkiller Base is from the new Star Wars, it's a planetkiller with even less basis in real science than the Death Star.

But it is much cooler. (read in Dr. Evil voice) I mean, really, it is a friggin planet that shoots friggin "laser" beams at friggin planets and blows them to friggin smithereens and consumes friggin stars to power it.

On 12/21/2015 at 10:06 PM, Mitchz95 said:

It didn't look like Starkiller actually destroyed suns, just the planets and moons orbiting them.

it destroyed the suns it orbited to kill the planets orbiting other suns.

[Rakaydos]

According to the Disney Canon peope, Starkiller Base was a wormhole weapon.

As in, they tore a hyperspace rip in front of a deathstar cannon so they could shoot at interstellar ranges.