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How did gravity worked on the Death Star? (feddit.org)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
141 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1104168

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (12 children)

I know we'd all like some scientific actualisation of Star Wars but I mean:

  • They made noise in space 'cause that's fun.
  • There was always gravity on pretty much any ship.
  • I don't really recall any spacewalks so we don't see any instance of 'no gravity'
  • There's hyperspace since lightyears is a bit of a long time.
  • Stormtroopers seem very scientifically and inefficiently accurate

At this point I think the Star Wars movies (the oldies) pretty much ignored a fair bit of the science.

But if it was a death star literally put there in our universe, I think there would be a bit of structural considerations for gravity, but not huge due to it being quite hollow. Gravity is pretty strong when the sphere is entirely comprised of dense rock and no air. A mostly hollow sphere of air where air is something close to 1/1000 that of rock (yes, used the density of water lol) is not going to get much of a rollicking from gravity.

Edit: an interesting 'expose' on the moon landings claim one thing: why were the photos so relatively boring? Because they were real and that's all they could get for all the limited resources they had at the time.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (9 children)

I don’t really recall any spacewalks so we don’t see any instance of ‘no gravity’

in The Last Jedi, Leia gets blasted into hard space and experiences weightlessness.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And then it really gets accurate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Wasn't there a space fight with horses on the wing of a star destroyer in the rise of Skywalker?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Lol yes but that was within a planetary gravity well

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Don't make excuses for the sequels.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yes, I'm pretty sure either a hobbyist equestrian or a full on equestrian's parent was on the sequel trilogy's rollover staff, for two separate sequences to feature space horses coming to the rescue.

Also, low-key bummed that we didn't get Finding Your Roots with Lando Calrissian and totally not just gender flipped Finn but aged slightly and in charge of a bunch of other horse girl deserter storm troopers.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Lightyears measure distance, not time.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago

Quantum Physics joined the chat

When time is measured in meters you know you're in for one hell of a ride.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And parsecs measure distance, not time, and yet here we are.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's been explained.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Shortcuts, baby!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Dimensional rotation, pal

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

okay guy-on-the-way-to-Brock

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (3 children)

One of my gripes with star wars is a pilot can fly any ship from any faction without prior flight experience on that ship. They just go in flip some switches, push some buttons then jumps into the pilot seat and off they go.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

That's one of the many things Andor gets right, at least with that shuttle they steal near the start of the series. Cassian basically chews his crew out for planning to just jump into an unfamiliar ship and wing it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

That's why it really bugged me that the resistance just gave Luke an X-Wing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I fucking love Andor

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

My headcannon for this is that spaceships in that universe are to those people what cars are to us. If you know the basics of driving a car, you can drive most cars, though the bigger ships might get more complicated (I've never seen one of our heroes try to back up a star destroyer into a starbase to help with their buddy's move.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah but that’s no problem. We used to fly all sorts of ships with xbox controllers back in the day.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

There's plenty of spacewalks in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. They don't have gravity there and instead have to use thrusters or magnetized boots.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Good call on it being hollow and mostly air.

FYI for soil, air is ~1/2000 the density.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Thanks, I believe I was being lazy to not want to deal with averaging the density of various rocks, but your suggestion about the density of soil is a good one.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There was always gravity on pretty much any ship

And if the ship got damaged where the nose started falling (downward?) the gravity would shift towards the nose so that everyone went sliding across the floor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

That only happened near planets.

Star Wars ships don't orbit. They simply hang in the sky, in much the same way that bricks don't. In Star Trek ships orbit to save on fuel costs while parked near a planet. But in Star Wars antigravity is so cheap that it's more efficient to be stationary relative to the planet's surface. Which means no microgravity.

[–] Scubus 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is just my head canon, but the noise actually comes from speakers on board the ship /in the cockpit, to help give the pilot an audio cue as to where hazards are around them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

This is just my head canon, but the noise actually comes from speakers on board the ship /in the cockpit

I'm pretty sure this was explicitly addressed in at least one of the pre-Disney novels, and was somewhat entrenched with a part of the fanbase afterward.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Spoilsport! But like you say this is fiction, and entertainment, it is a fantasy world! :)

But yeah, the last one bugs me in soo many films and tv shows. They have super advanced AI robots tech, they can regrow a hand in a day, no more disease and live 257, transport living moving organisations across great distances, have developed telepaths and telekinetics, and can fold space-time, but are fucked if they can shoot straighter than a drunk badger with one 'arm', balancing on a log going down a rapids!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, the fact that we already have the technology to make a gun that handles the aiming for you... and we aren't even shooting light, which would be even easier to auto aim. Fights should be super short and boring, one shot, one kill... 20 shots, 20 kills. There would be no action heroes because very few people would ever live through more than a handful of fights. The heroes would be the beurocrats, so we'd have to spend alot more time watching them.

Sounding like they made the right choice.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They shoot plasma, not lasers. Think Halo alien weapons.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Ah fair, not quite as easy as re-aiming light accurately then, but probably still easier than solid metal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Guns shouid make fights super boring. Literally just kill anyone you’ve got line of sight to.

But instead, they make fights more interesting, because now cover is a thing and it’s all angles.

I’m sure there will be something interesting about laser vs laser wars that we can’t even imagine now (unless we quit being pussies and start putting realistic robot capabilities into video games).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

These guys are supposedly in a vacuum outside the first DS:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zero-G_assault_stormtrooper?file=A_New_Hope-_Joe_Johnston_as_Spacetrooper.jpg

There's a whole Legends thing for Spacetroopers. New canon is pretty much just the guys above.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

they made noise in space cause it’s fun

Like the famous Bass Wars

https://youtu.be/utFRqsT61-k

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I think the animated shows had a few more space realistic moments like space walk repairs and such.

Best battle scene in the whole series from clever tactics PoV IMO was Anakin deploying his artillery into a planetary ring system and then using his capital ship to bait Greivous into a pin between the ring mounted tanks and the capital ship.

Best battle overall is obviously the siege of Mandalore just for the absolute knockdown drag out chaos in the middle of a domed city megastructure that's probably meant to be a seed for an eventual ecumenopolis.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

the sphere entirely comprises* dense rock

or

the sphere is entirely composed* of dense rock

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I thought you might be correcting me so I checked up the definition. Both are okay?

'Composed of' is a better sounding phrasing though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

itsnotits said “X or Y” because both X and Y are correct.

You mixed the two by writing “is comprised of”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Oh got it, thank you!