Star Wars VII-IX, what do you think?

[Lorizael]

Very much not interested in getting into a shouting match about Stargate's science. But in short, the marginal increase in velocity from extra propulsion during reentry is very small due to drag and supersonic turbulence. Maybe it's worth it to overcome that, but doing so is very costly (energy-wise). And if you're in something like low earth orbit, you're already going 7 or 8 km/s.

[Buster's Uncle]

Not to mention that ship had a very good railgun, so no sense in packing MIRVs in the first place...

[bvanevery]

Well if the quality of MIRV is deemed "fundamentally" wrong in SGA, someone needs to get a life.  Find a science blooper that's more egregious than they didn't airstream it, for Pete's sake.  One of the only movies I remember watching that was science realistic, except for the parts that weren't, was 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Yep, space is quiet.  And HAL 9000 can read your lips.  Nevermind the big baby, don't talk about the big baby!

[bvanevery]

Not to mention that ship had a very good railgun, so no sense in packing MIRVs in the first place...

They were fighting Replicators and there was some kind of anti-Replicator reason for those warheads, I vaguely recall.  Remember that thematically in the Stargate franchise, old weapons are often used because they work just fine in various circumstances.  Like machine guns.

[bvanevery]

Maybe it's worth it to overcome that, but doing so is very costly (energy-wise).

You're talking about a science fiction future with warp drive and stargates.  All sorts of propulsions can be possible, although in the show's own terms, they're not going to be spending a ZPM on this.  And this is a one shot no fail planet attack weapon.  It can be big to go fast.  Less "science of today" please, more science fiction of tomorrow.

[Lorizael]

I love Stargate, Star Trek, Star Wars, and pretty much anything with star in the title, regardless of the awful science. I am more than capable of looking past the vast majority of it, and when I do nitpick, it's because I think it's fun to dive into the nitty gritty and do some math and see how things work out. It's generally not meant as a form of criticism (except in very limited cases where an SF show tries to make an argument from science or the science/tech they use could be explored thoughtfully and the show refuses to do so).

So hey, if you too think it would be fun to get your hands dirty with the math and science, we can examine the claim that the rockets used significantly increase the speed of the warheads. I've already done some rough calculations of terminal velocity for the warheads and have more than enough free time to waste brain cells on the thought experiment.

If that's not fun for you, and if the whole idea of anyone getting nitpicky about the science in SF makes you angry, we can change the subject. Totally up to you.

[bvanevery]

I've already done some rough calculations of terminal velocity for the warheads and have more than enough free time to waste brain cells on the thought experiment.

If you want to calculate what contemporary rockets would do in the atmosphere of the Replicator home world, fine, whatever.  I don't personally have the technical background to do so.

You should also calculate what contemporary rockets would do if they were provided with nearly unlimited propulsion speed.  We don't know what various engines are capable of in this particular sci-fi future.  We do know that ZPMs are needed to power flying cities, but these are flying rockets, not cities.  We also know that Naquadah generators are readily available and very powerful.  They are used for all kinds of things where a full blown ZPM would be "plot inappropriate".  Each warhead could have one if they really thought it was important to do it.  The main rocket could certainly have one.

You should also calculate what future rockets do if they invalidate your assumptions about air resistance.  Super-cavitating torpedoes already exist in water today.  Why not some hand-wavy analogue in the future for atmospheric rockets?  That said, the show never talks about such things, so it would be a bit inadequate not to touch on that in the script somewhere.  Also we could surmise from the video that at least the main rocket is pretty ordinary in this regard, as they show off a conventional atmospheric reentry cone.

The main thing that actually irritates me, is when some self-appointed "science guy" indignantly proclaims that something is "wrong", and then makes basic mistakes in harshly announcing how wrong everything is.  Unorthodox just did this on 2 counts: wrong about the number of warheads, and wrong in his own presented video about when fuel is used for reentry.  It says to me that the person isn't even vaguely interested in being fair to a show, or checking their own work, before hurling stones.  I'd almost prefer someone who just says they hate Stargate: Atlantis and can't even articulate their reasons why.  'Cuz then I'd just say ok dude, you're a Hater, moving right along now.  "Science guys", like Grognards, expect to be taken seriously and they're so basically wrong often enough, that why should an author even bother?  Especially when an author did bother.

[Lorizael]

"Science guys", like Grognards, expect to be taken seriously and they're so basically wrong often enough, that why should an author even bother?

Hey man, the Ringworld is unstable.

[BU Admin]

This is my srs bidness account.  I don't feel like dealing with an argument getting too heated today, but we're going to see a major improvement in manners here -not you, Lori- or I'm going to do something about it and resent having to.

[bvanevery]

I'll "improve" it by unsubscribing from this thread.  Go pick on someone else's TV show unfairly, or back to Star Wars.

[BU Admin]

That was no improvement, and I wasn't typing for fun.

[Unorthodox]

Your preferred simulation has 8 warheads accelerating using fuel on the final approach.  So I think you should check yourself before making pronouncements of "bad science".  The science fiction here is fine.  I think the only real critique is too much air drag on the launch rocket.  It's not streamlined, it's made to look spaceship kewl.

Well, I'll link to my PREFERRED animation here shortly, that was the only one I could find quickly of one of the multiple MIRV ICBM's developed. 

The peacekeeper had up to 12 warheads, and was deployed in the 80s   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-118_Peacekeeper

Best animation I know of on how the things work (only 1 warhead on this animation, but the idea)  The warhead fuel is to spin stabilize, not accelerate. 

! No longer available

I know that 'it looks cool' to a degree, but deploying a satellite or two that started dropping warheads would have been just as cool.  Arguably the way the horizon worked actually made it more susceptible to interception. 

How do you know it didn't need to be armored to protect the warheads?  Nothing did shoot at the incoming MIRV launcher, but something could have.  AFAIAC it's reasonable to hand wave that this thing was ruggedized for one time, "must not fail" use.

Frankly, all the more reason for redundancy of more warheads. 

That's false.  The missile needs to go as fast as possible to minimize the chance of enemies shooting it down.  The ship just dropped out of warp and wasn't going fast.  It might be a good idea to release the missile before coming out of warp, but I bet the accuracy of ending warp is not guaranteed.  Also, that missile may have need to have been launched under any possible contingency.  If you were expecting your ship to "throw" it and something got in the way of that, you'd have a problem.  So again, "must not fail".

Powered flight in this manner actually makes you less accurate thanks to wind resistance and density changes as you plunge further.  Some amount of acceleration from a dive-bomb type maneuver would have been more than enough acceleration for the warheads if you needed them absolutely positively there ASAP. 

Ten.  Freeze the frame, there's a full frontal view that shows it quite clearly.

I saw 6 explosions.  I'll give them the benefit and suggest 4 were decoy warheads much like the peacekeeper design, which is kinda neat. 

[Rusty Edge]

Saw this on Twitter-
 
"The Packman
‏
All of the Star Wars movies come down to one simple fact: Yoda was right.  They should not have trained Anakin Skywalker, nor Luke Skywalker.  They ignored the guy with 900 years of experience. 
Death of experience in a galaxy far, far away."

[Unorthodox]

Saw this on Twitter-
 
"The Packman
‏
All of the Star Wars movies come down to one simple fact: Yoda was right.  They should not have trained Anakin Skywalker, nor Luke Skywalker.  They ignored the guy with 900 years of experience. 
Death of experience in a galaxy far, far away."

Meh.  The Emperor already had his eyes on Anakin prior to training or not being decided.  Probably just would have hastened his fall to the dark side. 

Same trouble with Luke.  Don't train him, he was already learning and had gained the attention of Vader by the time Yoda got involved.   

In fact, you can make the argument Yoda is most the problem.  Hard ass wouldn't let Anakin be trained, so he ends up with a rookie.  Too blinded to riddle out the sith are right under his nose.  Fails to stop Dooku OR the Emperor in straight up fights.  Then hides away like a coward. 

[Mart]

There is one video on YT, that a parent made a review of the first movie(?) in the new trilogy, that he was with his kid in the movies, who enjoyed the movie a lot. And this gave him understanding, that Star Wars is presently made for the new generation.

So I understand that too. We live in new times, they make movies for people of "new times" and we, the older ones, who were there when the original trilogy premiered, may not like it. When watching SW7 and SW8, I say "WTF is this" several times more often during SW8. Sometimes every few minutes

Still, I hope to see some day an acceptable SW7, SW8 and, almost certainly needed for SW9, fan-edit versions. As much as it is possible with the flaws in the scenario. So there is no material to make edits in many cases.

Saying all of this, I think Kylo is very interesting character. And even after SW8, I find Kylo/Ben - Rey relationship very captivating. This makes the new trilogy watchable. (A few other things too).