Steel in Star Wars

It appears I never posted much about this.  Here's a little quickie, quoting myself from the now-broken ASVS.org forum regarding vessel densities in Star Wars:

And that really fits in with the more authentic Star Wars realism perspective that was prevalent before fusion and steel became re-imagined as hypermatter and neutronium in recent years. 

The TPM novelization refers to Coruscant as steel alloys and glass. The ascension cables were steel-clawed. The ANH script refers to the door sealing the chasm that Luke and Leia swing over as steel. The ANH novelization refers to the Death Star exterior as steel and references its "steely horizon". The RotJ novelization refers to Boba as "steel-masked" and Luke's hand as being made of steel. The floor of the Emperor's room in the Death Star is made of steel. The Imperial shuttle has a "steely hull", and its landing ramp is described as chilly steel. The bunker corridors are made of steel. Melted steel floats amongst the debris of the final battle. 

And, of course, there's the hydrofoamed permacrete and other weight-saving measures of that nature as I've mentioned before and will no doubt mention repeatedly. 

These bits don't support super-dense ships, but instead point toward more readily-comprehensible densities and masses.            

I'll have more on this at some point.

 

Baakonite Bat'leths

Here we have a Trek materials post, with thanks to Chakoteya, coming from "Blood Oath"[DSN2]:

DAX: Computer. I want a Klingon bat'leth, tip to tip one hundred and sixteen centimetres, weight five point three kilos with an exterior handgripping diameter of five centimetres. Blades composite baakonite.

KOLOTH: Ah, a warrior's configuration. Now what are you going to do with it? 

Note the weight given there.  Unless Koloth was practicing in a high-g environment and Dax was doing the math in her head (not obviously the case), we can assume that is the mass.  So the traditional Klingon sword of honor masses 5.3 kilograms, or over 11.5 pounds.

That's pretty crazy.  Crazier still is how far I'm about to take that.

QotD 2015-0407 - Proper Use of a Lamppost

"To this subculture science is either the enemy, or it is used (as Andrew Lang famously quipped) like a drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination." 

 - https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/microwaves-and-nutrition/

I am, naturally, reminded of certain opponents of mine, even some who ought to know better..  Some people try to brain about science but sciencing and braining are just so hard.

It is easier to just listen to Dr. Oz, medicine's enemy within, and swish oil around in your mouth to remove toxins (conveniently making mayo at the same time until your mouth dries out, though the mayo is just evidence of toxin removal, or something).

Speaking of scientific illiteracy ...

Bloggerus Modificatus Sanctus Dominus Cheesy-Poofs

I finally got fed up enough with my antique Blogger template to do something about it.   I may make a few more tweaks but I think I like it.   It's unusually serif-y of me, but the titles look awesome (hence the ridiculousness of the one above) and the mobile version, though lacking the serif-y fonts, looks great to me.

Included is the new "Reaction" feature at the bottom of posts, which I am using as a place to have a "Like" button and more.

This is just for amusement, mind you…  the idea is for the blog to get converted away from Blogger as soon as I get back to the nuts and bolts of the new site.  But until then, I thought it'd be fun.

Tarkula Rasa

"A wildly inconsistent universe is neither deeply enjoyable nor intellectually stimulating nor subject to (or worthy of) analysis."  - Me, just now

Several months ago, I said:

As far as I'm concerned, the default position ought to be that what's contrary to the inviolable Lucas canon is invalid.  But really, that's not likely to remain an enjoyable position simply because, as more and more self-referential EU new canon stuff is made, such a thing would be a point of divergence. 

Nevertheless, the facts are what the facts are, and if the facts are that the new canon is contradictory, fans are either stuck with (1) accepting it without question, (2) making their own choices, or (3) going with the retcon reports from Chee and other folks about what's considered authoritative just like back in the EU days.  That's messy. 

My hope would be that what I've seen are just some EU holdovers and eventually things will shake out, but the problem there is that the precedents are being set now.

Watch this space.

And here we are.

I am working on a much larger post, but suffice it to say for now that, much as I do not view any aspect of the Star Trek reboot as having anything to do with the prime Trek universe (as detailed in the as-yet-unpublished "Not Our Spock" page wherein I detail why Nimoy wasn't playing the TOS character in 2009) , the recent Star Wars reboot, initially supposed by many to primarily affect the EU only, in reality has taken both pre-existing universes and made a new one, one rapidly contradicting the Disney position that the Lucas canon was to be held as immovable objects to which new stories would have to align.  Rather than be stuck doing line-item vetoes and arguing retcons forever, I think it best to simply close the door on the new canon.

As such, I am putting a hold on any analysis of the new universe and not including its separate facts into my analyses of the canon Star Wars universe of Lucas.

Off By Three

So we're talking at StarfleetJedi.net about the Death Star exhaust port and who could hit it with the proper intel.   I noted that "Given the accuracy concerns of Malcolm Reed in "Fight or Flight"[ENT1], when a 0.02% (three meter) inaccuracy on a target was grounds for him to have a panic attack, I'd wager Enterprise NX-01 could take care of it, if they had all the intel.  And it'd be fun to see them try to get in range."

I decided to have a further look at the spatial torpedo test.

QotD 2015-0401 - Writes Vague Title

Makes vaguely humorous and unusually brief introductory remarks about today's QotD, which is this entire thread:  http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/badly-thought-out-inconsistent-scifi-franchise-vs-other-badly-thought-out-inconsistent-scifi-franc.12391/