this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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How did gravity worked on the Death Star? (feddit.org)
submitted 3 months ago by genfood@feddit.org to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1104168

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[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 36 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Both.

The Millenium Falcon landed in a bay that was oriented with the N/S axis of the station, but was accessed on the equator. So the interior of the station has a gravity well with "up" pointing to one of the polls.

The surface cannons, surface towers, and trench defenses were all radially oriented with "up" pointing out into space, like you'd expect on a moon.

This also suggests the station was littered with gravitational dead spots and areas where you'd have to carefully transition from one gravity well orientation to another. No wonder everyone is wearing a helmet.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

One of the reasons Star Wars gets called space fantasy is that these objectively cool scenes to shoot simply never make it into the movies because no one even thought of these details in the first place.

Imagine how cool a lightsaber duel would be in these gravity transitional areas, or zero g for that matter! Instead we just got one scene in A New Hope where they're in the gun turrets fighting off TIES and it's a pretty subtle detail.

The one thing we can really say for sure is the gravity tech is everywhere and apparently crazy reliable.

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The one thing we can really say for sure is the gravity tech is everywhere and apparently crazy reliable.

I love holding this fantasy nonsense up to scrutiny. I just falls apart in the most humorous way possible.

For instance, here's a checklist for technology mastery in a galaxy far, far away:

[x] Artificial gravity
[x] Practical FTL travel 
[x] Practical interstellar navigation
[x] Energy weapons capable of destroying things at _any_ scale
[x] Energy shielding
[x] Laser. Swords.
[x] High energy physics in general
[x] Self-aware artificial Intelligence
[x] Multicultural society spanning many worlds
[x] Psychic powers, telekinesis
[x] Pocket-sized SCUBA gear
[ ] Materials capable of resisting laser swords
[ ] Functional galactic government
[ ] Counter-intelligence for said government
[ ] Basic spycraft for said government
[ ] AI that's good at lie detection
[ ] Spaceborne capital ship battles, asymmetric warfare
[ ] Large space-stations without critical weak points
[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There are materials resistant to laser swords and the magic in general in the EU. It's an important factor in Hand of Thrawn I think.

One thing you haven't mentioned is real-time intra-galactic video calls.

The government(s) is comparably effective to modern governments here on earth, which is to say rather dysfunctional. This would be more impressive if communication was limited to FTL couriers, but it's very much better than that.

Spycraft isn't too effective against members of the government using the government to destroy the government. It's a problem we haven't solved either, at least in democracies. The government is also not a major force everywhere in the galaxy, and a lot of spycraft and intelligence went into rooting out dissenters. It's basically the whole plot of Episodes IV & V.

I think droids that are capable and/or willing to engage with subterfuge at more than face value are both expensive and controlled. This moreso exposes how relatively widespread and easily obtainable high-level computing is, yet it's mostly slept on. There might have been an AI war at some point in the past that causes people to take AI shackles very seriously, but that brings us back to having large numbers of populated worlds without significant government regulation of any kind. AGI is a real weird point in general here, I agree.

There's lots of capital ship battles, especially in the EU. The originals don't have a lot of them because the Empire took them all and keeps a tight fist on everyone capable of making them, while the prequels are about the escalation of a very peaceful government to war. I think Clone Wars stories have more of this. Asymmetric warfare is definitely a thing in the main trilogies though, unless I misunderstand what asymmetric warfare is.

Weak points? Absolutely. It's a disgrace to engineers everywhere, to the point that the Death Star's flaw has been made into an intentional sabotage in at least one story.

I'd really like to see more laser sword tech though. Like Grievous but on purpose, maybe large plasma tunnel bores or something.

[–] Venat0r@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I think the lore explanation for light saber tech not being more common is the "Kyber crystals" they require are very rare, and also maybe it requires the force to use it somehow? Grievous was a cybernetic with an organic brain, and a sith lord.

[–] Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

Now I'm wondering, do we see any force-insesitives using a lightsaber at all, even without skill? Like to cut a door or something. Do they even operate without force assistance?