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I always figured it'd be easier to find a small moon and retrofit it with power-plants, engines, weapons and facilities than build a complete small-moon sized s
by sageikosa 11y ago
I always figured it'd be easier to find a small moon and retrofit it with power-plants, engines, weapons and facilities than build a complete small-moon sized system made of (mostly hollow?) worked metal in orbit. Cheaper and probably more rugged.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoIt could be a problem of mass - a Death Star made of composite materials probably masses quite a bit less than an equivalent-sized moon or asteroid, (presumably) making it a lot cheaper to shuttle around. (I freely admit to being more of a Trek than Wars fan, so I don't actually know how physics has been toyed with in that particular distant galaxy, so I don't know if my hypothesis is true - maybe they use spindizzy-like motors so that larger masses are actually more economical to move?)
- kaybe 11y agoI think they never talk about it. Star wars is space opera, basically a fairy tale in space, with the ancient story patterns, and not science fiction.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoSure, but it's fun to speculate and try to pin down consistent rules! (I'm a happy reader of r/asksciencefiction, if you can't tell.)
- aaronem 11y agoPut more accurately, it's even softer sci-fi than Trek. The deuterocanonical "Expanded Universe" material[1] goes to a lot of effort to explain and justify stuff like moon-sized space stations and jet-fighter-sized ships that can destroy stars, but if you don't just sort of turn your critical faculties off and go along for the ride, it gets too much to bear pretty quick. [1] Now more properly called the "apocryphal pre-Disney Expanded Universe material", or so I gather.
- dcole2929 11y agoFor the record that's not what it's called. The official terms are legends. It's been re-branded as Star Wars Legends. Honestly the EU was a bit of a mess but by far the best parts of Star Wars were in there. Unfortunately books make less money than movies and no one was interested in doing direct translations of already told stories no matter how much they made sense.
- TillE 11y agoThe key problem with most of the best EU stuff is that, by the mid/late 90s, the original actors were far too old for it. Although, I'd love to see a (live action) TV series based very loosely on the early Han Solo stories, obviously with someone else cast in the part of a 20-something Han.
- philh 11y ago(Sorry, pet peeve.) It's space opera, which is a subgenre of science fiction. Some people invent definitions of "science fiction" that exclude some works of science fiction, but that's silly. There's no definition of "science fiction". It's a concept that we feel out by pointing to things that are "clearly science fiction" and then sort of deriving a fuzzy decision boundary from that. If you ask people whether Star Wars is science fiction, most people will say yes. Robots! Lasers! Space ships! Aliens! It's clearly science fiction. There are useful definitions, which talk about subsets of science fiction that don't include Star Wars. But those aren't definitions of science fiction, even if they use the same words.
- danharaj 11y ago"Science fiction" is also an artificial ghetto that historically was used to segregate "science fiction" from "literary fiction". It's funny to see the same process being repeated.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoLarry Niven examined the "ghetto" argument, and concluded that it's more of a country club.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoI don't have a lot of trust in Larry Niven's arguments.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoI suspect I might know at least a partial answer, but how come?
- dragonwriter 11y ago> It's space opera, which is a subgenre of science fiction. That's an interesting view, but one which is nullified by: > There's no definition of "science fiction". Then the phrase has no meaning or use, and the statements "Star Wars is science fiction" or "space opera is a subgenre of science fiction" are semantically null, neither true nor false, just sequences of words that form grammatically valid sentences that communicate no meaning. If "space opera is a subgenre of science fiction" is to be true, then "space opera" and "science fiction" both need to have definitions, and the definition of the latter must include at least everything included in the definition of the former. If either or both has no definition, then the statement has no meaning, and cannot be said to be true or false. For
- sandworm101 11y agoStar Trek = Science fiction. Star Wars = Fantasy. Science fiction answers the question "What if science?". It explores how the human condition may react to the new circumstances presented by advanced science. That's why it is almost universally set in the future, even where quazi-magical (Dune). But Star Wars separates itself from frame one. What is the first thing lucas says in star wars? "A long time ago..." so this isn't anything that might happen in the future. And "in a galaxy far far away" ... it isn't anything to do with us. Lucas couldn't be more blatant. Star Wars is not science fiction. It's basically LOTR+lasers.
- talmand 11y agoScience fiction doesn't have to revolve around the human condition. It can be set in any location, at any point in time, with any species. The only criteria is that science has to be involved as part of the plot in some way. I think Star Wars qualifies as science fiction or any of its sub-genres. Fantasy is the same, except that instead of science you have some form of magic as part of the plot. Then you can mix to create a hybrid of sorts. Of which, because of the Force one could make an argument that Star Wars is a hybrid. Except that it is part of canon that there is scientific reasoning for it all.
- lordnacho 11y agoThat's just how I'd word it. Trek is about how science affects society. Quite often there's some dilemma thrown up by by technology, and the characters have to deal with it. The characters are ordinary people who happen to have some training and some intelligence, working in groups. Star Wars is an opera. You have heroes, with heroic skills, fighting epic battles of historical significance. It's very much about individuals, and not terribly much about groups. Technology is purely incidental in Star Wars. We have light sabres, so let's have a duel where we can investigate some emotions. If Lucas hadn't thought of light sabres, but just given them samurai swords, not much would change in your assessment of the world. You'd think the same of the characters, and it would be just as entertaining. If Trek didn't have FTL travel, it would be a very different show.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Science fiction answers the question "What if science?". I prefer this definition, too, but by it, quite a lot of Trek stories (even just the canon, on-screen stuff) are space fantasy of the same type as Star Wars; there's lots of SF-by-that-definition in Trek, too, which Star Wars pretty much completely avoids, but its not a black-or-white, all-or-nothing distinction with ST purely on the SF side of the fence.
- bduerst 11y agoWhy does it need to be mutually exclusive? Why not both? Science fantasy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy
- talmand 11y agoFor ships it's similar between the two; sub-light speeds are handled by engines that shoves stuff out the back to propel the ship forward and light speeds handled by magical technology that plays with space/time. From conversations in the movies I'm led to believe the Death Stars followed the same premise. For that amount of mass it has to be impressive technology though.
- ctdonath 11y agoThere is a tremendous amount of empty space within the Death Star II, per the combat sequence flying multiple fighter spaceships thru it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPZigWFyK2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPZigWFyK2o As noted, that's a lot lighter and easier to move than a rock the same size.
- sageikosa 11y agoI suppose it comes down to construction versus operation costs. Most likely be cheaper to retrofit a rock, and (I assert) it'd likely be sturdier; but fuel costs for moving it around would be better with a fully built station. The outlay in finding, extracting, shaping and moving metal to construct the station must be enormous, (especially considering it's inertial gravity means it needs to be buttressed against its own weight). Given that the first Death Star only made a limited number of journeys and the second one never went anywhere. The fuel cost savings never got to be found.
- SCAQTony 11y agoHey, you gotta breaks some eggs to make a Soufleé. Maybe the moon was in the wrong spot or maybe the Deathstar was a moon that was slowly converted. ;-)
- talmand 11y agoThe second Death Star was clearly a somewhat hollow sphere though.
- nmc 11y agoIf you want to figure that out, here is an estimate for the cost of building a Death Star: http://www.centives.net/S/2012/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/ http://www.centives.net/S/2012/how-much-would-it-cost-to-bui... TL;DR At 2012 prices, about $852,000,000,000,000,000
- cowardlydragon 11y agoSpace mining with robots is probably more efficient. Hypermatter production however...
- TheGRS 11y agoThis is kind of just a long "how many toothpicks can you fit in the moon" kind of article...
- logfromblammo 11y ago16 Psyche is the most massive M-class asteroid in the Sol system. It has mass ~2e19 kg, which could be reworked into a spherical iron shell 100m thick with outer radius ~1400km. Rather than fill up the whole interior with incomprehensible machinery and bottomless pits, I'd just put everything interesting near the surface shell, rotate the whole thing at 40 minutes per revolution to get some decent artificial gravity in the equatorial region, put the spaceports at the poles, and use the big empty space in the middle for the boron-11 plasma containment and proton beams. Panels on the inside surface of the shell could convert charged particles from the center reactor into electricity. Skip the big weapon. The propulsion system is your weapon. It's a good thing Earthican engineers can use stories received from distant galaxies as cautionary tales on how not to build non-planetary habitats.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago> Skip the big weapon. The propulsion system is your weapon. Ah, the Kzinti Lesson. But I think that a hollow asteroid that big would be difficult to aim, and to move - you're a very slow sitting duck that may not be able to swing its guns around on the enemy in time - and that's assuming there's only one target at a time.
- Shivetya 11y agobetter yet, EE Doc Smith and using planets moving at light speed (including an anti-planet) and using them as weapons. Lensmen series had some seriously over powered weapons but throwing planets was one of the better one. I think one example was taking a planet from an alternate universe which itself was moving at light speed and dropping those puppies into ours
- arethuza 11y agoStephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence has even the puny humans using kamikaze neutrons stars while the main players the Xeelee (in the Baryonic corner) and the Photino Birds (in the Dark Matter corner) slug it out with cosmic strings and weaponized galaxies.
- zardo 11y agoAs a planet destroyer, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to just crash any hyperspace drive ship into a planet at high speed.