Metaphysics(Star Wars, Star Trek, Etc.)

[Veritas]

Plastiod Armor probably works similar to Kevlar vests. If you didn't have padding under the vest the impact of the bullet hitting you could still kill you. Rocks are bigger and so would cause a bigger impact. Plus I think the ewoks have awesome rock throwing skills. On the issue of the Force that's really why I stopped being into the whole Star Wars thing. Plot lines go something like this. "Oh no. We will all be destroyed by <insert weapon/creature name>." Luke: "No its already gone." Other person: "Humm?" Luke : " Force Powers."

[RangerAidan]

I'm just going to say, for the record, that Plasma is a unique state of matter, characterized by a charged mass of particles moving extremely fast and having an extremely large amount of energy, in the sense of a fusion reactor such as the experimenta Tokamak. There are other types of plasmas that are cooler and less obtrusive, but have the same general characteristics of being made up of masses of charged particles.

[Rhuhael]

Actually if, as was said earlier, the lightsabers are a massive short circut it would support the idea of plasma in general used in blasters. Krylo continues to support the hypothesis of a partcle beam but actually as Aidan puts it it would work upon plasma as well. This would also allow the jedi a small amount of additional time as the charged plasma approached the high density magnetic field it would slow down, imperceptably mind you but still a speed change.

Although the main problem with this hypothesis is that if the saber is a magnetic field it would have to be self-contained to an incredbile point such that the plasma would be passing through the blade before it affected it. Also then this containment field would, in all likelihood, not allow the plasma to pass through initially and in some models would actually attract the plasma which could attribute to the lack of splash.

Go ahead say it... the force.

[Krylo]

Another point... how would a stream of electrons cut someone in half? Wouldn't it simply electrocute someone instead of slicing through them? Unless there was some sort of material component of the blade, nothing would really be heated by the electricity passing through it... other than the air, but that would cause a constant convection current so that heated air would simply move away and cold air would move in...

Or maybe I misunderstand something.

[Lycanthrope]

Extreme heat. Seperates atoms by sheer force. By high electron activity, I mean pretty much an electrical free-for-all, like (and don't bring it back up) plasma. The basic equasion is magnatism=electrical activity=light=heat. It would generate the heat of a high power laser, except that most of it would be contained. I'm not saying its possible, but its disbelief-suspendable

Edit: Oh and I've also checked out the concept of blasters. They don't call it plasma. but it essentially is. its powered by a gas substance which is excided to a high degree and projected in a tight beam at the person aimed at. This is, essentially, plasma. Now, of course, this means that whoever wrote the book in which the New Republic didn't know what to do about plasma weaponry was ignorant either of the definition of "plasma" or of how weapons function in star wars, but... Reguardless, a little point. The "laser" is used to excite the particles. there is actually no laser in a blaster, (thus why they aren't called "laser pistols"). As for these plasma weapons, the books I have do not include entries on such weapons, so I cannot offer their crash rationalization (they are very good at that) for the reason why it was so difficult to fight.

[Drooling Iguana]

Originally Posted by e-man2001

Okay... Star Trek Physics just dont exist... trust me. I study physics and a whole bunch they talk about is BS. But anyways... i think they try to explain the acceleration thing with the warp bubble they make around the ship... I.E. space is warping around them... so they dont get hurt?

On another note: Apletto, Phasers own blasters... how many hand-held blasters literally vaporize a person? And are accurate?? NONE!

Phasers don't vapourize a person either. They say that they do, but there's never any vapour left behind when they cause someone to disappear when they shoot him. They work on some sort of technobabble principle that makes it impossible to quantify their power output by their "vapourization" effect alone. Also, phasers are routinely stopped by thin, metal packing crates, while Han Solo's pistol was powerful enough to blow man-sized chunks out of the concrete walls of the hangar in Mos Eisley.

Also... Star Trek will always win, as according to TNG rules... a concentrated tachyon beam can do ANYTHING... and fixes EVERY problem

Have the Feds ever stopped 200Gt Turbolaser bolts with a tachyon beam?

But with star wars I always just let any weird question that comes into my head be explained by the force... it does everything... EVERYTHING. Seriously... Luke can be sitting at home watching TV and be all like "I wish i had some hotpockets right now.." and BAM- Hot pockets.. perfectly cooked and everything.

Okay just joking with that... But, yeah, the lightsaber deflection is all in the force and how you can use it... the saber portion is just used as an extension of the Jedi.

Then how was Han able to use it to slice open the Tauntaun? And Luke wasn't exactly particularily strong with the Force when he was deflecting shots from the hover-ball thingy. The Force lets a Jedi know where the blaster bolt is going to be and lets him move his sabre into the right place to deflect it, but the actual deflection process is simply a function of how lightsabre technology works. And, by the way, lightsabres are not beams of pure light. They just get their name from the fact that they glow.

And the force is all powerful... so a jedi can do just about anything with one.

They can do quite a bit, yes. Mostly because telekenesis and precognition are incredibly useful abilities to have, especially when you know how to take full advantage of them.

Originally Posted by Mr. Wind-Up Bird

Warp 10 has been reached. It was in voyager. Tom Paris started to turn into a monkey. Just wanted to add that.

Salamander, not monkey.

Originally Posted by krylo

Also: Here's a question, if Stormie armor supposedly stops bullets (and that's why people use blasters), why can't it stop sticks and stones thrown by ewoks?

They did. The only times that an arrow fired by an Ewok brought down a stormtrooper was when the arrow hit the trooper in one of the areas between his armour plates.

[Neverwhere]

Warp 10 has been reached. It was in voyager. Tom Paris started to turn into a monkey. Just wanted to add that.

Anything after TNG sucked, and should be destroyed.

Alright for those of you who believe star trek is superior two words: Death Star. None of those Fed capital ships could get to the core of that thing and I have never Repeat and reiterate NEVER seen a single Fighter in star trek.

[Mental-Rectangle]

<Anything after TNG sucked, and should be destroyed.>

TNG itself sucked, and the middle two seasons of Voyager were good, but nobody watched that, so nobody would know.

As for Star Wars, the Tie Fighter and the Death Star are the Ford Pintos of ship design.

[Apletto]

Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

Extreme heat. Seperates atoms by sheer force. By high electron activity, I mean pretty much an electrical free-for-all, like (and don't bring it back up) plasma. The basic equasion is magnatism=electrical activity=light=heat. It would generate the heat of a high power laser, except that most of it would be contained. I'm not saying its possible, but its disbelief-suspendable

I think you mean light=heat, cause neither light nor heat generates the other, thye are just often generated by the same ractions together. Magnetism is energy, which tears electrons off of other things in your scenario, and this link breaking gives off the energy once used to maintain it as heat and light. Magnetism=>Elecron Activity=>Light and Heat. But that's clearly not how it works, that's closer to how beam sabers work in Mobile Suit Gundam. With an I-Field providing the form and magnetism and very low density gas and heavy particles with non-paired electrons to be spit to ignite the gas into plasma which stays in and around the I-Field fdue to the magnetism.

Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

Edit: Oh and I've also checked out the concept of blasters. They don't call it plasma. but it essentially is. its powered by a gas substance which is excided to a high degree and projected in a tight beam at the person aimed at. This is, essentially, plasma. Now, of course, this means that whoever wrote the book in which the New Republic didn't know what to do about plasma weaponry was ignorant either of the definition of "plasma" or of how weapons function in star wars, but... Reguardless, a little point. The "laser" is used to excite the particles. there is actually no laser in a blaster, (thus why they aren't called "laser pistols"). As for these plasma weapons, the books I have do not include entries on such weapons, so I cannot offer their crash rationalization (they are very good at that) for the reason why it was so difficult to fight.

Yes, blasters fire small focused plasma. Yhuuzun Vong fire large globs of plasma, which are more powerful simply for the quantity being fired and the splatter effect. How they make it and project it is something the Republic can't do. But what makes them so damned deadly isn't their weapons. It's their propulsion systems.

Or rather their propulsion/manuevering/shield/some other stuff system. They have things that make gravitic anamolies to pull/toss them along, to guide them, and to absorb attacks. If one of these anamolies touches a normal energy shield then the shield is abosrbed in that point and the projector/generator system often overload trying to fix that spot and the whole sheild fails, especially if a big ship aims all its gravity balls(they are said to look something like big slightly shriveled grapes, which sounds a lot like they look like large human male genetalia parts) at a ship. The shields are also very hard to break at first, until they do the stutter trick or get a fighter close enough that the anomoly would hurt their own ship if it tried to block an attack.

Originally Posted by Drooling Iguana

Then how was Han able to use it to slice open the Tauntaun? And Luke wasn't exactly particularily strong with the Force when he was deflecting shots from the hover-ball thingy. The Force lets a Jedi know where the blaster bolt is going to be and lets him move his sabre into the right place to deflect it, but the actual deflection process is simply a function of how lightsabre technology works. And, by the way, lightsabres are not beams of pure light. They just get their name from the fact that they glow.

Because the Force is not an internal thing for Jedi. The Force maintains lightsabers even when wielded by others, but they have to be made by Jedi who focus the Force into them. Also, the cracking sound that often comes when two lightsabers hit each other and especially when they stay together, not to mention their ambient noise, the look of them up close(the 'flow' you see), and the wuum wumm nose they make when you swing them would suggest they are just like blasters as far as energy supply goes.

It's just gas superheated to plasma with light focused through special crystals kept in shape by the arrangement of the crystals(so the light isn't focused enough beyond the tip to keep the gas as plasma and it quickly cools back to gas once out of the blade area). The highly active plasma moving up away would produce the 'flow' seen on a close view of a lightsaber blade. The wuum wumm sound is the plasma burning the air around it and the ambient noise is the plasma leaking out and becoming gas. The crackle when they hit is from the magnetic and electric energy created by the plamsa-creation, and caputred within the plamsa, jumping between each other, and it's why they sometime slock together for a second(longer if you leave them together longer before trying to pull away).

Originally Posted by Drooling Iguana

They can do quite a bit, yes. Mostly because telekenesis and precognition are incredibly useful abilities to have, especially when you know how to take full advantage of them.

Jedi can do anything. They can do anything the Force wants them to do, and the Force does some of what they want the Force to do for them. Like Ben said on the Millenium Falcon, it obeys your comands but it gives them to you in the first place. The Force shows people what they need to see to do what it wants to happen, and then gives them the power to do it. It has been benevolent so far, so I think it can be trusted to continue as such. I mean it got rid of the ineffective Old Republic, got rid of the stagnant and self-righteous Jedi Counsel and their ways of teaching, unified the galaxy under the Empire, and then turned it over to the New Republic. All from using both Jedi and Dark Jedi or Sith(not necessarily the same thing, but usually used interchangably nonetheless).

The Yhuuzun Vong seem to be the only big problem, but I haven't read all of those books yet(need to find Recovery, can't skip) so I don't know how it all comes out.(don't tell me please) Of course, the Yhuuzun Vong seem to be outside the force and it's control though, so that problem isn't the Force's fault if it isn't for the best in the end.

Originally Posted by Drooling Iguana

Alright for those of you who believe star trek is superior two words: Death Star. None of those Fed capital ships could get to the core of that thing and I have never Repeat and reiterate NEVER seen a single Fighter in star trek.

Well, I'm sure the dumbest idea ever in fiction could absorb a Death Star shot after it cot a few of their cubes. But yeah, the Feds have nothing on it, but you don't need a Death Star to fight their ships. All you need is a decent fighter. All of the Fed weaponry is essentially stationary, designed to fight capital ships alone. A fighter could just sit where the guns couldn't shoot and tear it apart with lasers anywere, or drop a few Proton Torpedos into the engines where the shields are weakened, and then maybe tear open a hole near the generator and put the rest of its Torps in there.

An X-Wing or upgrade Tie-Interceptor could kill anything ever put in space in Star Trek.

Originally Posted by Veritas

On the issue of the Force that's really why I stopped being into the whole Star Wars thing. Plot lines go something like this. "Oh no. We will all be destroyed by <insert weapon/creature name>." Luke: "No its already gone." Other person: "Humm?" Luke : " Force Powers."

I'd guess you're a Trekkie or just not the Sci-Fi or Fantasy type. Or maybe just a fan of melodramas and Spanish photonovellas where there is a new suprise species born from surpires adulterous relationships every day that have to be defeated with new and creative backstabbing and bad acting.

That's like saying you hate Final Fantasy becuase whatever bad comes along you always kill with Magic, kewl weapons, and powerful heros. Which maybe you do, I don't know.