Is a Death Star physically possible?

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, A35K said:

One thing I didn't get about Starkiller base, is that according to 'Wookiepedia' it is on a planet in the unexplored regions or whatever they're called (the outer part of the galaxy). Yet they destroy the seat of the New Republic, Hosnian Prime, which is apparently towards the Centre of the Galaxy (sort of near Coruscant), so in the movie they show them firing and a few second later hitting the planets. So either this is a REALLY small galaxy, or that's one fast light beam. Also, this is unrelated but why move the Republic to some other random planet and not keep it on Coruscant where it has been for 25,000 YEARS??? Plus, the destruction of Coruscant would have made us care a lot more, since we were shown a lot of it in the Prequels, rather than some random planet we never heard of before. 

It should have been Coruscant, I agree. And StarKiller Base is implied to be able to move.

[KSK]

Agree about the Coruscant thing - that would've had far more emotional impact. I'm fairly sure that there was something in-film about the Starkiller beam (or whatever it was) being transmitted through hyperspace. So yeah - one fast beam.

[StarStreak2109]

I think it was submitted through hyperspace. On Wookiepedia, they also mention that they have to work out the trajectory not to cause any collateral damage...

[Stargate525]

On 1/18/2016 at 9:34 AM, StarStreak2109 said:

I think it was submitted through hyperspace. On Wookiepedia, they also mention that they have to work out the trajectory not to cause any collateral damage...

^ This. It's also how they explain a bunch of other planets being able to see the destruction (when it is really just that Abrams has 0 sense of interstellar scale)

[nobodyhasthis2]

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[StarStreak2109]

On 24.1.2016 at 7:38 AM, Stargate525 said:

^ This. It's also how they explain a bunch of other planets being able to see the destruction (when it is really just that Abrams has 0 sense of interstellar scale)

Heh, I'd call that the difference between Star Wars and "hard" science fiction.... I guess it is just one of those concessions you gotta make in the franchise to pull the story along. I'd say Joe Sixpack won't know the difference...

Edited January 25, 2016 by StarStreak2109
Eliminated word repetition

[Stargate525]

6 hours ago, StarStreak2109 said:

Heh, I'd call that the difference between Star Wars and "hard" science fiction.... I guess it is just one of those concessions you gotta make in the franchise to pull the story along. I'd say Joe Sixpack won't know the difference...

Perhaps, but that doesn't explain why Abrams did the same thing in Star TREK.

[fredinno]

5 hours ago, llanthas said:

That man never should have been allowed anywhere near Trek.  It's gone from a unique thing about exploration, to Die Hard in Spaceships.  Burning my Abrams effigy again. 

 

/rant

I don't like him in Star Wars either. At least George Lucas was original. I'm really interested what his original storyline was....

[fredinno]

38 minutes ago, llanthas said:

As I've told everyone with this viewpoint - I highly encourage  you to check out the Star Wars novels that take place after Return of the Jedi.  Some of the best writing you could hope for, utterly wasted now. 

ok. I'll see if I can get a hold of them

They probably didn't, so they could actually have freedom to make their own universe. But if they were just planning to copy old Star Wars movies, I would much rather see a book-movie. At least not everyone and their mother likely read them.

[Arugela]

On 12/29/2015 at 10:23 AM, KerbMav said:

Someone care to calculate the terminal velocity of a Star Destroyer making a Space Shuttle like reentry and landing?

In the prequel trilogy we see really big ships (Star Destroyer predecessors?) taking of from a planet and going into orbit. The Star Wars universe uses repulsorlift technology to levitate just about anything, so a somewhat controlled crash landing using the rest of available power seems to be possible. (Ignoring the questions about the circumstances why the ship should go down on the planet in the first place.)

Faster loading and unloading?! Secrecy?!<--8p maybe they needed to load something that could not be loaded on an accompanying transport ship. Or repair large parts they didn't have a ship to bring up in part or some odd situation. Or some odd protocol?

[KerbMav]

6 hours ago, Arugela said:

.

... why the ship crashed on Jakku in the first place.

Clearer?

[Arugela]

I was trying to think of reasons a star destroyer may land on a planet in general. So, logically, maybe a look at its exact transport abilities or something similar would answer that. But of course being fiction it probably doesn't have that. So... They could have always made design decisions for weight by not being able to be self sufficient in space without space stations or similar from an outside source and use the planet to land and possibly do some of those things. Wether repair or transport of goods etc. Maybe they have to land to tractor beam things up where a transport ship couldn't do it. Think tractor beam reach vs transport ship weight capacity or cargo size. There could be endless reasons to land. All things have limitations. Especially in engineering.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Arugela

[A35K]

I think that the reason that ships in Star Wars fly like there is no gravity, is because there is none for them. It is obvious that they have gravity manipulation technology, as their ships have gravity while in space, and land vehicles float around the surface, so they just ignore gravity and fire their engines where they want to go.