I'm curious about this. I've been doing a Clone Wars RPG, and the Seperatist Captain ordered an orbital bombardment on a debris field to eliminate survivors of the prior space battle on Ryloth. I was typing up something and was going to mention that the surrounding sand glassed over from the bombardment. This then triggered the question posed.
Could the CIS or even the Galactic Empire be capable of actually "glassing", in some respect? I recognize that in the Halo Universe, they have plasma weapons instead of lasers like Star Wars. So glassing using plasma makes sense, but could a laser be equally hot enough to "glass" even partial areas, say the sands of Ryloth or Tatooine? And what about a Base Delta Zero? Would that essentially be an accurate conversion of "glassing" since it eliminates any and all resources and advantages a planet has?
In Halo - we know that Slipspace travel is performed by ripping holes in subspace
In Star Trek - We know that warp cores generate warp bubbles to jump to light speed factors.
In Star Wars - The engines...do something...to move.
The point is...nobody knows. If I were to make a guess...it would be no. The reason is because if the lasers were hot enough to "glass" (the term glassing coming from melting sand into glass at extreme temperatures), then people would melt when shot with a blaster, as a blaster and Turbolaser all come from the same technology.
So, even a 0 delay in firing from a laser cannon could not glass as we know it, as the lasers are not hot enough. It would be called bombardment, not glassing.
well i suppose if you heat up sand hot enough and if theres alkali and some lime from limestone around your making glass, so i guess hes glassing Ryloth
Ok. thanks. I was simply curious about it. And you make a painfully valid point, Jon. Star Wars doesn't truly explain how hyperspacing works. I should look into it, but I have large doubts of there being any answers.
Actually...if you think about it, they really didn't explain how Anakin became Darth Vader.
If you watch A New Hope, it is said that Anakin Skywalker, a brave and nobel Jedi Knight, was seduced by the Dark Side. In The prequel trilogy, all we saw was some ass hole who started as a badguy, become MORE of a bad guy. There wads a Character named Anakin Skywalker, but...it must of been a different guy because Anakin was a good and nobel Jedi, not some dickshit who hated everyone.
In Halo - we know that Slipspace travel is performed by ripping holes in subspace
In Star Trek - We know that warp cores generate warp bubbles to jump to light speed factors.
In Star Wars - The engines...do something...to move.
The point is...nobody knows. If I were to make a guess...it would be no. The reason is because if the lasers were hot enough to "glass" (the term glassing coming from melting sand into glass at extreme temperatures), then people would melt when shot with a blaster, as a blaster and Turbolaser all come from the same technology.
So, even a 0 delay in firing from a laser cannon could not glass as we know it, as the lasers are not hot enough. It would be called bombardment, not glassing.
Actually that would be incorrect, the "Laser" weapons in Star Wars have far more in common with Plasma weapons in most sci-fi franchises, though It's easier to say what they aren't rather than what they are. Blasters in Star Wars are shown to vapourize chunks of whatever they hit, walls, grates, and yes, people. It doesn't just melt, it flat out sublimates (going from a solid to a gas, without becoming a liquid first) the immediate area of impact and the sudden pressure causes the explosions and smoke that were prevalent in OT blaster fights. (The PT Blasters cause molten, glowing, steaming holes in whatever they hit. Though the only time this was really shown on a person was during General Greivous' unusually gruesome death (gruesome for Star Wars at least.))
Carnor Jax, a former Royal Guard, said this regarding Base Delta Zeroes "Have you ever seen what a Star Destroyer can do to the surface of an unshielded planet? Stones run like water and sand turns to glass."
It's also not unheard of for the entire atmosphere to be blown off the planet. Such as with Dankayo. A shielded planet however can hold off a fleet of Star Destroyers for months, one of the reasons the Death Star was built.
Glassing vs Base Delta Zero
01-07-2012
Linear Mode
