Dahak vs Death Star

Hands down, Dahak.

Does it really matter?

Lucas will just re-write it and claim Dahak shot first.

jchilds wrote:Does it really matter?

Lucas will just re-write it and claim Dahak shot first.

bit of a necro, but it was only the fourth post down.... so since I'm not going back pages and pages I'm gonna reply anyways.



Even excluding any actual weapon comparisons, Dahak's got a few very noticable advantages, over and above any SW ship you care to put forward.


Speed, Dahak 1 could push over 50% of lightspeed for his standard sublight, and if he waited he could use Echanach drive deep inside a solar system, after luring the Death Star (or anything else) close enough to a sun that it's stuck inside the gravity well. Average planets, like Tatooine or Coruscant allowed hyper almost from the moment you leave atmosphere, but a sun they'd still have to travel a short distance.


Second notable advantage, and this is the big one. Ships, and Death Stars, in Star Wars have zero point defense. Incoming missiles are defeated strictly through their shields, and in the Death Stars case, it's notable armor. Dahak is liberally equipped with active anti-missile defenses in both countermissile and lasers, then his shields, and then finally his armor. And that's not even counting the Dahak II, improved model which is even better defensively than the original.


I can only really think of one Star Wars ship that might be a match for any planetoid, and that's the Suncrusher. And by match, I really mean.... it can cause a draw, rather than either side claiming victory. The size of a heavy starfighter, condensed quantum-crystalline armor which takes direct turbolaser blasts and doesn't even rock the fighter (but rocks the hell out of Princess Leia's corvette in Episode 4, or the Falcon in every movie), and has been described as capable of flying directly through the bridge of an ISD without being notably slowed down.

And the Suncrusher has also been hit by a Death Star's superlaser, which didn't even scratch it. the math nerds have already worked out exactly how much potential firepower is in the superlaser, and it kills planets... the Suncrusher took a hit, and laughed. Dahak might, or might not be capable of taking one or two blasts before destruction, Suncrusher could sit there and giggle. Suncrusher's main weapon induces stars to go supernova... which is what that latest gravitonic warhead the Third/Fourth Imperium worked on.


This means if Dahak II was packing those super gravitonic warheads, and the Suncrusher (piloted by it's rogue Jedi Kyp Durron) met... neither side could gain an advantage. Dahak is faster, with AoE gravitonic warheads that are hyper delivered. Kyp Durron in the Suncrusher has Jedi reflexes to not be where those missiles are delivered, and would withstand near-misses, but could not offensively hurt Dahak (no fusion to disrupt into Supernova).


But returning to the original point, Dahak I vs Death Star (either model), odds are in Dahak's favor. Dahak II vs Death Star is a Dahak victory because his shields stop the lasers, and his active missiles + speed defeat the Death Stars proton torpedoes and superlaser. Meanwhile he just drops a few dozen to a few hundred gravitonic missiles, delivered through hyper and opens the DS up like a tin can.

Tenshinai wrote:That´s movie reasoning. If there´s a Dahak movie made, do you really think they wouldn´t pull the same stuff there?

Ignore the visuals. They had to clear Yavin in order to use their big gun and that took plenty of time--time in which the rebel fighters could head over there and engage.

In other words, the Death Star moves at a snail's pace compared to the fighters. The time taken to move around the moon system of a single planet is mere seconds at most for Dahak--the fighters are moving at a snail's pace compared to Dahak.

Dahak will have no problem keeping the range open. The planet killer is a lightspeed weapon, if Dahak is light minutes away and moving around the hit probability is effectively zero.

Note, also, that the rebel fighters went right through it's shield. This means Dahak can take antimatter missiles, disable the warhead safeties and fire them at a point in the path of the Death Star and just in front of it's shields--but do not set them off when they get there. The Death Star will run them over, without the safeties to toss the charge into hyper this will result in their detonation as the missile is smashed. In other words, the Death Star gets ripped up if it tries to move at all.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Ignore the visuals. They had to clear Yavin in order to use their big gun and that took plenty of time--time in which the rebel fighters could head over there and engage.

In other words, the Death Star moves at a snail's pace compared to the fighters.

Just as most ships yes. Fighters, depending on source, are 5-20 times faster.
Regular capital ships from similar speed up to 3-4 times faster.

Loren Pechtel wrote: The time taken to move around the moon system of a single planet is mere seconds at most for Dahak--the fighters are moving at a snail's pace compared to Dahak.

Dahak will have no problem keeping the range open.

That ignores the fact that SW hyperspace drives are 100% capable of "microjumping".
Just because it wasn´t normal procedure doesn´t mean it can´t be used.

There´s also a few nasty tricks that you can do by using their drives, that Dahak cannot do, and more importantly, might not have a clue how to defend against.

Like doing a hyperspace jump right to the point where Dahak´s own field of gravity forces the SW vessel out of hyperspace, at which point it would be at a really nice place to fire instantly.

Loren Pechtel wrote:The planet killer is a lightspeed weapon, if Dahak is light minutes away and moving around the hit probability is effectively zero.

Yes? And your point being what exactly?

In case you missed what i wrote earlier, recap:
The techs used by Dahak DOES exist in the SW universe, as far as i know, ALL OF THEM.
But just about noone uses them because they´re mostly useless. There, they´re looked at the same as the weapon that will not be named is in the Honorverse, pink elephants, big, theoretically impressive but not actually useful.

Essentially, the SW shielding is such that Dahak wont be able to finesse a victory, while the Death Star will have no end of problems trying to hit Dahak with anything useful.

Which is why i give Dahak a slight win, sooner or later i expect it will be able to pour enough firepower against the DS to smack through the shields and start doing damage, and then MORE damage. Mostly i give Dahak the win because it´s MUCH bigger than the DS, but still much more maneuverable.

It has lots of missile firepower that is mostly ineffective, but eventually it should get enough into the DS to make the shields waver long enough to start making real damage.
Still, if the CO of the DS is bright enough to pull a surprise on the Dahak, there´s a LOT of firepower going that direction as well.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Note, also, that the rebel fighters went right through it's shield. This means Dahak can take antimatter missiles, disable the warhead safeties and fire them at a point in the path of the Death Star and just in front of it's shields--but do not set them off when they get there. The Death Star will run them over, without the safeties to toss the charge into hyper this will result in their detonation as the missile is smashed. In other words, the Death Star gets ripped up if it tries to move at all.

Sorry but nope. SW ships has more than one kind of shield. Particle shielding kills antimatter weaponry VERY effectively. It is in fact canon that they are so effective that antimatter is no longer used for warheads(except under special circumstances). Throwing antimatter missiles at the DS isn´t just useless, it´s just a budget deficit for the shooter. They´re not just ineffective, they´re completely ineffective, wont even scratch the paint.

Somtaaw wrote:Speed, Dahak 1 could push over 50% of lightspeed for his standard sublight, and if he waited he could use Echanach drive deep inside a solar system, after luring the Death Star (or anything else) close enough to a sun that it's stuck inside the gravity well. Average planets, like Tatooine or Coruscant allowed hyper almost from the moment you leave atmosphere, but a sun they'd still have to travel a short distance.

Dahak does indeed have a great advantage in mobility.
But pulling a stunt like assumes the DS commander is an idiot while Dahak is handled smartly, that´s Hollywood-style battle.

Somtaaw wrote:Second notable advantage, and this is the big one. Ships, and Death Stars, in Star Wars have zero point defense. Incoming missiles are defeated strictly through their shields, and in the Death Stars case, it's notable armor.

Well the thing is, SW shields are so frickin good that point defense weapons makes little sense.

And that is true against a Dahak as well, because the stuff it uses for bigass warheads, gravitonic and antimatter, in the SW-verse, those have been rejected as mostly useless. Good for special occasion weapons, but otherwise not in general use.

And by the way, you´re actually wrong as well, SW ships are fully capable of using any of their guns as point defense, they just usually don´t bother. Any missile incoming without lots of maneuvering will easily be shot down.

Somtaaw wrote:Dahak is liberally equipped with active anti-missile defenses in both countermissile and lasers, then his shields, and then finally his armor.

And against the DS, the countermissiles and point defense lasers are pretty much useless.
The DS has missile launchers yes, but those are primarily meant for use against fighters and use tiny missiles with warheads suitable for killing X-Wings and the like.

I can´t say have truly good insight on the Dahak shields, but they seem to be clearly inferior to the SW ones, if still quite strong.

However, where Dahak has a ridiculously huge advantage is the armour. Kilometers of armour, compared to a fraction of that on the DS. Combined with being triple the size of the DS, THAT is where the real advantage is(when combined with the drastically higher mobility that is, otherwise it would just be a momentary target practise for the DS supergun).

Somtaaw wrote:I can only really think of one Star Wars ship that might be a match for any planetoid, and that's the Suncrusher. And by match, I really mean.... it can cause a draw, rather than either side claiming victory. The size of a heavy starfighter, condensed quantum-crystalline armor which takes direct turbolaser blasts and doesn't even rock the fighter (but rocks the hell out of Princess Leia's corvette in Episode 4, or the Falcon in every movie), and has been described as capable of flying directly through the bridge of an ISD without being notably slowed down.

A draw? Really?

The Suncrusher is totally silly and outrageously off from all other tech and definitely should be officially removed from anything remotely canon.

Because a Suncrusher is effectively impervious to anything a Dahak planetoid can do to it, the opposite is NOT true however.
Because the ship is perfectly capable of going SMACK, THROUGH a Dahak...

*ouch*

And that´s before you even look at the offensive ability of the damn thing.
It´s resonance torpedoes are designed to make stars go supernova. Think about that, can a Dahak survive if a nearby star goes supernova?
I rather doubt it.

Also, resonance torpedoes are noted as being one-hit kill weapons against ANYTHING. Including planets. A Dahak isn´t even big enough to take time to go *poof*. Anything smaller than a sun is pretty much instant ka-booom.

Like i said, the damn thing is totally ridiculous author fiat/plot device.

Somtaaw wrote:Dahak might, or might not be capable of taking one or two blasts before destruction

Not a chance. You would need to remodel it´s armour to protect specifically against the DS weapon, because while it has LOTS of armour, it´s designed to protect against other kinds of weapons, and it´s actually going to be as much of a liability as an asset against the DS supergun. The armour is far too energy conductive, the only way to stop a DS blast is to NOT let the energy through(and spread).


The simple truth is really that BOTH the Death Star and the Dahak planetoids are extremely unsuited to fight each other.
The DS is going to have a hell of a time getting shots in, while the Dahak firepower is 99% useless because it doesn´t work against Star Wars type shields.

Somtaaw wrote:Suncrusher's main weapon induces stars to go supernova... which is what that latest gravitonic warhead the Third/Fourth Imperium worked on.

NOT the same kind of weapon. Resonance torpedoes as described(if we try to crush it into some sort of realistic physics) have nothing to do with gravitonic warheads, but are something closer to something that causes quantumparticle, multidimensional fusion.
Remember, they´re specifically stated as being one-shot kill weapons against ANYTHING, including any planet or stellar object.

Somtaaw wrote:This means if Dahak II was packing those super gravitonic warheads, and the Suncrusher (piloted by it's rogue Jedi Kyp Durron) met... neither side could gain an advantage. Dahak is faster, with AoE gravitonic warheads that are hyper delivered. Kyp Durron in the Suncrusher has Jedi reflexes to not be where those missiles are delivered, and would withstand near-misses, but could not offensively hurt Dahak (no fusion to disrupt into Supernova).

If the Suncrusher has normal shields, those gravitonic warheads are not much more than very fancy duds(of course, i was unable to check if it DOES have regular shields as well even with the idiotproof armour).

Somtaaw wrote:But returning to the original point, Dahak I vs Death Star (either model), odds are in Dahak's favor. Dahak II vs Death Star is a Dahak victory because his shields stop the lasers, and his active missiles + speed defeat the Death Stars proton torpedoes and superlaser. Meanwhile he just drops a few dozen to a few hundred gravitonic missiles, delivered through hyper and opens the DS up like a tin can.

Eh, no. SW tech shields makes those missiles go smack. Gravitonic and antimatter warheads go splat, if Dahak is lucky a few thousand of those missiles might start scratching the paint on the DS.

Remember, SW-verse has totally rejected those kind of warheads because they are INEFFECTIVE against SW-verse shielding. And not just "half effect" or something, but so badly that a missile that would utterly obliterate a ship without the shield, once you add the shield, even a weak one, the ship might not even notice the hit.

Meanwhile, the way Dahak´s shields have been portrayed, they´re very different and clearly does not protect the same way against anything.
Not that THAT matters a whole lot with the insane amount of armour on the Dahak vessels.
OTOH, turbolasers and ion weapons on the DS are insanely powerful as well, but they still have to hit.

In a "sitting duck" scenario shootout, Death star wins every time, with or without supergun. Simply because it´s weapons are still fully effective against a Dahak, while the opposite is not true.

Tenshinai wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:I can only really think of one Star Wars ship that might be a match for any planetoid, and that's the Suncrusher. And by match, I really mean.... it can cause a draw, rather than either side claiming victory. The size of a heavy starfighter, condensed quantum-crystalline armor which takes direct turbolaser blasts and doesn't even rock the fighter (but rocks the hell out of Princess Leia's corvette in Episode 4, or the Falcon in every movie), and has been described as capable of flying directly through the bridge of an ISD without being notably slowed down.

A draw? Really?

The Suncrusher is totally silly and outrageously off from all other tech and definitely should be officially removed from anything remotely canon.

Because a Suncrusher is effectively impervious to anything a Dahak planetoid can do to it, the opposite is NOT true however.
Because the ship is perfectly capable of going SMACK, THROUGH a Dahak...

*ouch*

And that´s before you even look at the offensive ability of the damn thing.
It´s resonance torpedoes are designed to make stars go supernova. Think about that, can a Dahak survive if a nearby star goes supernova?
I rather doubt it.

Yes, I do consider that a draw, because Suncrusher (solo) cannot inflict enough damage on Dahak (original, let alone the Dahak II), to slow him down enough to pull a ram off. It could only ram the ISD inside the Maw, because of a few fluke reasons: a) it was the same ISD it was held on (I think, been a while since I read that book) and b) the ISD in question was more or less at station-keeping, as in motionless.

Dahak would be dancing rings around the Suncrusher, and 1-vs-1, is not going to be slowed down for decades which out-lasts any life support even a Jedi could pack into the SC.

Tenshinai wrote:Also, resonance torpedoes are noted as being one-hit kill weapons against ANYTHING. Including planets. A Dahak isn´t even big enough to take time to go *poof*. Anything smaller than a sun is pretty much instant ka-booom.

Like i said, the damn thing is totally ridiculous author fiat/plot device.

A bit incorrect actually. Look how Kyp Durron actually used them, he only ever fired them into planets, because it does something that messes with the solar fission, and induces supernova.... which is more or less what a properly aimed gravitonic missile can induce (the super gravitonic that was the main plot of the third plot). And the gravitonics can also be fired elsewhere, while the Suncrusher's resonance torpedoes seemingly cannot. I don't recall if it's mentioned in the books themselves, but from every fight, it never once fired a resonance torpedo anywhere except into a Sun. Not once.

Tenshinai wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Dahak might, or might not be capable of taking one or two blasts before destruction

Not a chance. You would need to remodel it´s armour to protect specifically against the DS weapon, because while it has LOTS of armour, it´s designed to protect against other kinds of weapons, and it´s actually going to be as much of a liability as an asset against the DS supergun. The armour is far too energy conductive, the only way to stop a DS blast is to NOT let the energy through(and spread).

Which I allowed for, it's possible that due to the metals used in producing Dahak, in combination with his kilometers of armor (also of a generally higher grade than that found on ISD's, Mon Cal cruisers, or the Death Star itself), while a planet has none of the above. And planetoids are remarkably durable, with their internal blastdoors sealing kilometer deep holes. There's more chance of an Imperium planetoid surviving a direct blast from the DS, and a planet has 0% chance. Even if it's only one percent, one percent being higher than zero percent, planetoid has higher potential survivability against the superlaser.

Tenshinai wrote:The simple truth is really that BOTH the Death Star and the Dahak planetoids are extremely unsuited to fight each other.
The DS is going to have a hell of a time getting shots in, while the Dahak firepower is 99% useless because it doesn´t work against Star Wars type shields.

Somtaaw wrote:Suncrusher's main weapon induces stars to go supernova... which is what that latest gravitonic warhead the Third/Fourth Imperium worked on.

NOT the same kind of weapon. Resonance torpedoes as described(if we try to crush it into some sort of realistic physics) have nothing to do with gravitonic warheads, but are something closer to something that causes quantumparticle, multidimensional fusion.
Remember, they´re specifically stated as being one-shot kill weapons against ANYTHING, including any planet or stellar object.

Must differ here, as I said above. The Resonance torpedo was exclusively targeted on suns, and actually only on stars of a certain size to trigger a proper supernova.

Resonance Torpedo no where on the weapon page itself, or in the books, ever suggested it could be fired against planetary targets. After being fired, it's literally nothing more than superheated plasma

The Sun Crusher's primary weapon was a payload of 11 energy resonance torpedoes. Each torpedo resembled an oval-shaped plasma discharge and was activated when it passed through the Sun Crusher's resonance torpedo launcher. The resonance torpedo then traveled to the system's sun at near-lightspeed velocity.

Upon impact, the torpedo burrowed into the star's core, releasing dense packets of energy that rendered the star's core unstable, initiating a chain-reaction that forced even low-mass stars to go supernova. The star would be ripped apart in the explosion, sending waves of energy and radiation out across the system that destroyed every planet and all life in its path. The Sun Crusher could obliterate an entire system in mere hours. Once launched into the star, it was impossible to stop the impending supernova.

Tenshinai wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:This means if Dahak II was packing those super gravitonic warheads, and the Suncrusher (piloted by it's rogue Jedi Kyp Durron) met... neither side could gain an advantage. Dahak is faster, with AoE gravitonic warheads that are hyper delivered. Kyp Durron in the Suncrusher has Jedi reflexes to not be where those missiles are delivered, and would withstand near-misses, but could not offensively hurt Dahak (no fusion to disrupt into Supernova).

If the Suncrusher has normal shields, those gravitonic warheads are not much more than very fancy duds(of course, i was unable to check if it DOES have regular shields as well even with the idiotproof armour).

If the books hold, then it did have standard starfighter level shields. Call it slightly more powerful than an X-wing's shields, perhaps somewhere closer to those of the later TIE Defender's or K-wings, both of which were larger than most other fighters, although still smaller than the Suncrusher. With all the ships that were firing at it, during the Maw Installation escape, it's shields dropped fairly quickly, and it's minor turrets were quickly destroyed. But the idiot-proof armor allowed it to keep flying, and ram right through the (unarmored) ISD bridge.

Tenshinai wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:But returning to the original point, Dahak I vs Death Star (either model), odds are in Dahak's favor. Dahak II vs Death Star is a Dahak victory because his shields stop the lasers, and his active missiles + speed defeat the Death Stars proton torpedoes and superlaser. Meanwhile he just drops a few dozen to a few hundred gravitonic missiles, delivered through hyper and opens the DS up like a tin can.

Eh, no. SW tech shields makes those missiles go smack. Gravitonic and antimatter warheads go splat, if Dahak is lucky a few thousand of those missiles might start scratching the paint on the DS.

Remember, SW-verse has totally rejected those kind of warheads because they are INEFFECTIVE against SW-verse shielding. And not just "half effect" or something, but so badly that a missile that would utterly obliterate a ship without the shield, once you add the shield, even a weak one, the ship might not even notice the hit.

Meanwhile, the way Dahak´s shields have been portrayed, they´re very different and clearly does not protect the same way against anything.
Not that THAT matters a whole lot with the insane amount of armour on the Dahak vessels.
OTOH, turbolasers and ion weapons on the DS are insanely powerful as well, but they still have to hit.

In a "sitting duck" scenario shootout, Death star wins every time, with or without supergun. Simply because it´s weapons are still fully effective against a Dahak, while the opposite is not true.

Gravitonics are going to be effective, because they're hyper missiles. And SW ships (and Death Stars) are just so damned slow (even the snubfighters) Dahak could pick them off with missiles that flick into hyper and come back down inside the shields that should be protecting them. Which is more or less how the original Achuultani were slowly chewing up Earth ships, before Colin & Dahak returned with The Emperor's Guard. Flick enough salvo's into hyper, and salvo them across all the hyper bands until one pops through.

SW ships don't defend at all against anything from hyper, and a gravitonic being what amounts to a micro-blackhole, would crumple just about any ship smaller than capital ships with just one missile. And large capital ships, like the ISD's, IS-Deuce's, and such would have to be present in large fleet formations for some to last long enough to figure out why they were dying. Except for that minor fact that Dahak can spot enough missiles inside his shields, he could drop a single missile inside the shields of every capital ship at Battle of Endor with a single salvo.


And he could do the same to snubfighters, because he was picking off Imperial fighters during the Siege of Anu's Base, from orbit, and killed all of them before they could send a transmission.

Somtaaw wrote:
snip

Gravitonics are going to be effective, because they're hyper missiles. And SW ships (and Death Stars) are just so damned slow (even the snubfighters) Dahak could pick them off with missiles that flick into hyper and come back down inside the shields that should be protecting them.

snip

IIRC in "The Apocalypse Troll" (I think the right title) the pilot had a pistol sized hyper weapon that killed the troll with a very fast shot which went around the troll's shields.

DDHvi wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:
snip

Gravitonics are going to be effective, because they're hyper missiles. And SW ships (and Death Stars) are just so damned slow (even the snubfighters) Dahak could pick them off with missiles that flick into hyper and come back down inside the shields that should be protecting them.

snip

IIRC in "The Apocalypse Troll" (I think the right title) the pilot had a pistol sized hyper weapon that killed the troll with a very fast shot which went around the troll's shields.

Indeed. That's something we were discussing on that universe sub-forum, but it also sort of died off. Of course, it also wasn't really the Troll's combat units shields that was the issue but it's armor. They could drop the troll's shields with coordinated AT missiles, but the armor was going to be nigh-invulnerable except to Mila's handgun.

That was pointed out when they tested her energy gun against a modern tank, and it blew a whole right through the whole tank taking a big chunk out of the wall behind it.


Shields are only good, as long as there isn't a weapon that bypasses them. Now to be fair, we don't know 100% that Star Wars shields DON'T cover a tiny bit into hyper. But against a planetoid that can salvo literally hundreds of gravitonic missiles through hyper, duplicating the Achuultani in Siege of Earth, they can't stop (m)any. There is no way a SW ship (or battle fortress) can withstand short-lived blackholes opening by the hundreds within the superstructure.

And due to the hyper mechanic, even if, like Tenshinai pointed out that they can use turbolasers as counter-missiles, they couldn't try to shoot down incoming missiles because the Imperium doesn't really use sublight missiles. If they're close enough to use sublight, they're using atomic-shattering energy weapons (and still firing missiles through hyper), only the parasite warships (and civilian bases) use sublight missiles at all.