New efforts!

[Taceus Jiwede]

Maybe its been mentioned but the reason I never thought lightsabers or laser pistols would work is because wouldn't they just cauterize the wounds right away?

Sure that could lead to an infection down the road but weapons geared towards war tend to be most effective at killing or deterring through physical mutilation/destruction.  Unless it is a non-lethal weapon then it is just suppose to hurt like hell.  But Lightsabers and laser pistols are not non-lethal weapons nor are they even half as effective as a regular sword or gun.  Swords cut people open and damages everything it hits and generally causes people to leak all that blood keeping them alive.  A lightsaber might be able to cut through just about anything but it would have to be a kill shot.  You couldn't just like maim your enemy and move on.  Most people killed by swords probably died slow and awful deaths because they probably bled out. Bullets rip through people. Not only putting a hole in them but damaging their organs, their bones, their muscles and everything else it comes in contact with from all the force.  Laser pistols seem like they would just burn a hole clean through you.  Not really much better then a bullet but it seems a little better.

Weapons seemed to made that way on purpose.  I don't think they would switch to laser's because, at least from how Star Wars depicts them, they are less good at killing people then our current weapons already are.  Excluding the Deathstar obviously.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Maybe its been mentioned but the reason I never thought lightsabers or laser pistols would work is because wouldn't they just cauterize the wounds right away?

Sure that could lead to an infection down the road but weapons geared towards war tend to be most effective at killing or deterring through physical mutilation/destruction.  Unless it is a non-lethal weapon then it is just suppose to hurt like hell.  But Lightsabers and laser pistols are not non-lethal weapons nor are they even half as effective as a regular sword or gun.  Swords cut people open and damages everything it hits and generally causes people to leak all that blood keeping them alive.  A lightsaber might be able to cut through just about anything but it would have to be a kill shot.  You couldn't just like maim your enemy and move on.  Most people killed by swords probably died slow and awful deaths because they probably bled out. Bullets rip through people. Not only putting a hole in them but damaging their organs, their bones, their muscles and everything else it comes in contact with from all the force.  Laser pistols seem like they would just burn a hole clean through you.  Not really much better then a bullet but it seems a little better.

Weapons seemed to made that way on purpose.  I don't think they would switch to laser's because, at least from how Star Wars depicts them, they are less good at killing people then our current weapons already are.  Excluding the Deathstar obviously.

Actually designing weapons to kill as effectively as possible is not the primary criteria in most cases. Incapacitating, yes, but in most cases it's far more effective to disable and wound an enemy than kill him. And cautery isn't as effective as you might think for things like arteries and veins. And a laser at a frequency that water absorbs would be more likely to cause steam explosions where they contact a person or other object that's mostly liquid water, which would be almost the exact opposite of cauterizing.

[Surelle]

Segs or cohemu was being developed while coh was still active and that's the only reason why it ever got a cease and desist. Any emulator made today would not face this problem so long as it was developed by volunteers and maintained by donations.

Since you are so convinced you're correct, then you can go invest all the years and effort required to make a CoH emu, and assume all the risks yourself, easy peasy.  Meanwhile, the rest of us will just sit here and wait.   

[LadyVamp]

And separate from that, when someone tells me light sabers are impossible so just shut up and chill (I'm not saying you're saying that) that's like someone who tells me 100,000 IOPS under NFS in my setup is impossible so stop trying.  I know I can't make a light saber but telling me there's no way I'm smart enough to even think about it is the surest way to compel me to prove you wrong, no different than challenging an engineering implementation of mine is the surest way of getting me to devote significant time to proving your pitiful storage skills are rubbish.  That's not just me, that's pretty much all engineers.

I was tempted to dare you to prove me wrong by telling you there's no way to get CoH back.  And tell you it has to be back, online, and fully operational with all of us playing it before I'd eat my words.  But then I thought, "nah.  I'll be nice."  lol   

I know the power of telling an engineer, "It can't be done" having worked for a large construction company.  Those guys and gals have no life but man can they come up with solutions to problems.  I'm reminded of the episode Relics from ST NG when Scottie said, "I've spent my whole life coming up with crazy ways to do things.  I'm telling you, Geordi, I can do this."  Spoken like a true engineer.

[Arcana]

Well if you're just going by the OT timeline, then yeah I could see that. But the Republic era wasn't that long ago, and any war-torn location will agree that things were better before then. But looking at the OR era also implies a kind of renaissance era, probably brought about by all of the technological marvels. Everything from that era is remarkably artistic and shiny, most likely because labor as we know it in our world is long gone thanks to droids. People still work, but the lines between work and leisure are much more blurry. What all of this means is that the Jedi aren't obsolete and our current understanding of the word is probably... well.... obsolete.  The galaxy is secure in its identity and 'open' enough to embrace ancient cultural practices instead of forcing them to assimilate into whatever their definition of normal is. In a way this could make the Republic every bit as liberal as the UFP. Wookiees have a culture likely inspired by Native Americans, and despite their preference for natural living, many have embraced technology and they are represented in the Senate. On one hand they can be viewed as very primitive and primal, but Chewy is an expert mechanic and pilot. On the Star Trek end of things, in spite of being a heavily-decorated Starfleet officer, Worf still practices ancient Klingon warrior traditions, as do most other members of his race. Even though objectively, one would expect his heritage to be a hindrance and perhaps even a conflict of interest (and yeah, it has let to a bloody mess at times), he integrates it into his duties as an officer in such a way that he becomes an even greater asset. The Klingons (and the Vulcans for that matter) have adopted a poetic fusion of ancient and modern that is very similar to the Jedi.

I was thinking less about the specifics of the Star Wars timeline and more about the narrative influences on George Lucas.  Lucas said the Jedi were inspired in part by Authurian legends and part of the legend is the notion that there was once this great time with Camelot and the Round Table and so on, and one day Arthur will come back and usher in a return of those times.  There are elements of that in Star Wars: Luke finds his father's light saber and while he doesn't have to pull it from a stone, he does have to pass a test of worthiness of a sort in learning the Force.  We hear about the Jedi as these people who protected the galaxy long ago and now they are all gone, and by the time you get to Return of the Jedi there's a sense that Luke's journey is in part about a revival of those lost ways.

I think the original trilogy is constantly reminding the audience that we're sort of at the end of one story and the beginning of another story.  The Jedi are gone, maybe they'll come back.  The senate is gone, maybe the rebellion can restore it.  The republic is now an empire, maybe freedom will return.  The story is about the heroes recovering things that were lost, maybe not in the distant past necessarily, but at some point.  In fact, even Luke's confrontation of Vader is a form of restoration story in part: Anakin Skywalker was lost, and Luke tries to bring him back.

[Arcana]

Maybe its been mentioned but the reason I never thought lightsabers or laser pistols would work is because wouldn't they just cauterize the wounds right away?

Sure that could lead to an infection down the road but weapons geared towards war tend to be most effective at killing or deterring through physical mutilation/destruction.  Unless it is a non-lethal weapon then it is just suppose to hurt like hell.  But Lightsabers and laser pistols are not non-lethal weapons nor are they even half as effective as a regular sword or gun.  Swords cut people open and damages everything it hits and generally causes people to leak all that blood keeping them alive.  A lightsaber might be able to cut through just about anything but it would have to be a kill shot.  You couldn't just like maim your enemy and move on.  Most people killed by swords probably died slow and awful deaths because they probably bled out. Bullets rip through people. Not only putting a hole in them but damaging their organs, their bones, their muscles and everything else it comes in contact with from all the force.  Laser pistols seem like they would just burn a hole clean through you.  Not really much better then a bullet but it seems a little better.

Weapons seemed to made that way on purpose.  I don't think they would switch to laser's because, at least from how Star Wars depicts them, they are less good at killing people then our current weapons already are.  Excluding the Deathstar obviously.

Actual "burning" takes time.  A hypothetical laser weapon capable of "burning" a hole through a person's body isn't going to carve out a clean hole.  I think it is going to vaporize the material that was originally taking up the volume of the hole, and most likely in an explosive manner.

The physics of this is a bit more complex than just photons hitting a target.  To get very high power, you generally have to pulse your laser at very short intervals.  So you have in effect these extremely high powered light pulses moving through the air.  They often have enough energy to ionize the air into plasma.  Although you cannot "see" a laser beam move towards the target - too collimated and too fast - you often *can* see a visible ball of plasma moving at high speed towards the target from the laser.  That's a ball of air heated to plasma that is being pushed towards the target along the beam line through radiation pressure, continuously being pumped by the laser beam behind it.  If it can actually turn air into plasma, it will do similar things to the physical target.

A laser might cauterize any blood vessels it strikes in a human target, but it is also likely to vaporize the blood in them, and in all the surrounding tissue, and everything else in the line of the beam, into either a steam cloud or a high energy plasma.  I don't think cauterization is going to be a problem under those circumstances.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Actually designing weapons to kill as effectively as possible is not the primary criteria in most cases. Incapacitating, yes, but in most cases it's far more effective to disable and wound an enemy than kill him....

Actual "burning" takes time.  A hypothetical laser weapon capable of "burning" a hole through a person's body isn't going to carve out a clean hole.  I think it is going to vaporize the material that was originally taking up the volume of the hole, and most likely in an explosive manner....

Just cutting quotes short to save space.

Alright I stand corrected lol.  Original statement redacted.  Lasers kinda sound worse now.....,

[darkgob]

Quick question: given all of the capabilities the technology has been portrayed as having in the movies exclusively, which technology is more fantastical: light sabers or Iron Man's armor?

Answer: Iron Man's armor.  ...  But the one thing they do that is straight up impossible is they somehow protect Tony Stark from being killed when the armor sustains ultra-high g-loads, like say when the armor gets knocked off its feet or smashes into a wall or the ground.  Hypothetical technology could make the armor indestructible, but no current technology can suspend the law of conservation of momentum within the armor.  When Tony Stark falls from fifty feet and hits the ground in his armor, the injuries he sustains should be about the same as if he did the same thing in his underwear.  The laws of physics permit sufficient energy in the form of a hand-held weapon to cut through almost any material substance.  They don't permit Tony Stark to not become a puddle in the shoes of his armor.

Well, let's see.  Assume Iron Man can take a full-strength punch from the Hulk, who can press something in the area of 100 tons; let's assume metric tons since I don't know if the distinction has ever been made for that number, so that's about 980k Newtons.  Assume this is the Hulk's classic savage form which weighs 1400 lbs (635 kg); with a human hand being 0.65% of a male's body mass, one of Hulk's hands should have a mass of about 4 kg.  So his fist is delivering about 245k units of acceleration, or 25k g-force units (not to be confused with 25 kg  ).  Which is kind of a lot.

We already have graphene, which has an elasticity of 1 TPa.  Under the force of 980k N, a 1m^2 graphene barrier would deform by about a centimeter, so it could very easily be used as a protective layer within Iron Man's armor.  This, on top of the other advanced tech in Iron Man's armor, and the fact that his primary weapon is a repulsor beam (the technology of which might be integrated elsewhere in his armor on a smaller scale to absorb shock), suggests that Tony Stark should have few physiological problems being punched while in his armor, with p > 0.05 (where p corresponds to plausibility units).

[Baaleos]

Even if the armor could dampen impact damage on the user using graphene, the human bodies internals would still be subjected to the rapid acceleration and deceleration.
Eg: Your brain would be subjected to the same sort of violent motions that constitutes shaken baby syndrome.

The only way I can see that would mitigate the damage to the internal organs, which would also help to mitigate damage to the human body taking impact damage. (flying into a wall etc), would be a form of inertia dampening.
But then we get into the realms of Star-Trek.
Nasa doesn't currently have the technology to dampen inertia, which is why the astronauts have to undergo intense physical training to prepare them for the G forces they will face during take off and re-entry.
I think it is safe to say that Tony stark has been subjected to the same/similar level of force as an astronaut : Eg: Being punched / flung by the hulk would be extremely rapid acceleration, albeit at small intervals.
He probably has a level of inertial dampening going on there.
In the latest film (Civil War) - we see the impact of an iron man suit being without power, and colliding with the ground at high speeds.
I think that supports the idea that his suit, when powered, can withstand inertia related forces: take away the power systems, then its basically a large tin can with a person inside it, crashing into the ground.

It kinda suggests that his suit when powered, has some sort of shielding system as well.
Its never said explicitly, but it kinda feels like his power systems provide structural integrity.

[Beltor]

Even if the armor could dampen impact damage on the user using graphene, the human bodies internals would still be subjected to the rapid acceleration and deceleration.
Eg: Your brain would be subjected to the same sort of violent motions that constitutes shaken baby syndrome.

Or to put it another way, It's not the fall that kills you, It's the sudden stop.

[darkgob]

I think it is safe to say that Tony stark has been subjected to the same/similar level of force as an astronaut : Eg: Being punched / flung by the hulk would be extremely rapid acceleration, albeit at small intervals.
He probably has a level of inertial dampening going on there.

He would really have to since he has a version of his armor that literally takes him into space.

In the latest film (Civil War)

Whoa whoa, let's not go discussing new movies that not everyone has seen yet.

[Arcana]

I think it is safe to say that Tony stark has been subjected to the same/similar level of force as an astronaut : Eg: Being punched / flung by the hulk would be extremely rapid acceleration, albeit at small intervals.

No astronaut has been subjected to the accelerations Tony Stark has experienced while striking solid objects in his armor.  The only people that have experienced accelerations similar in nature are skydivers with malfunctioning parachutes and the people who jump off the Golden Gate bridge.

[darkgob]

No astronaut has been subjected to the accelerations Tony Stark has experienced while striking solid objects in his armor.  The only people that have experienced accelerations similar in nature are skydivers with malfunctioning parachutes and the people who jump off the Golden Gate bridge.

That wasn't my point, my point is that he surely has some sort of inertial dampener system (let's not even get into the dodgy physics of that).

[TimtheEnchanter]

That wasn't my point, my point is that he surely has some sort of inertial dampener system (let's not even get into the dodgy physics of that).

That's what someone told me when I brought it up somewhere but I figure it was too much bother to get into in a film. Though it'd be interesting if that system experienced a critical failure and he suddenly found himself having to be VERY careful.

Most of the times when someone suffers brain damage from head trauma, it is caused by the brain slamming into the skull, not the blow to the skull itself. The skull metaphorically is the iron man suit. What's inside is still very squishy.

Now, I presume if he made the suit form-fitting enough, it would provide some added protection. But given his lifestyle that's not likely. Test pilots who flew experimental aircraft at insane speeds had form-fitting flight suits that gave them a little extra resistance to inertia. If I remember correctly it actually applied extra pressure to the body so organs didn't have as much room to move around, in a way making the human body a bit more 'solid.' But those suits were tailor-made to their exact body shape and the pilots had to maintain a constant weight with an error margin of no more than a couple of pounds.  That's kinda hard to do when you're Tony Stark: Party Animal. And G's in a military aircraft is just a Tilt-a-Whirl compared to what Iron Man does.

[ivanhedgehog]

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid

[Arcana]

That's what someone told me when I brought it up somewhere but I figure it was too much bother to get into in a film. Though it'd be interesting if that system experienced a critical failure and he suddenly found himself having to be VERY careful.

Most of the times when someone suffers brain damage from head trauma, it is caused by the brain slamming into the skull, not the blow to the skull itself. The skull metaphorically is the iron man suit. What's inside is still very squishy.

Now, I presume if he made the suit form-fitting enough, it would provide some added protection. But given his lifestyle that's not likely. Test pilots who flew experimental aircraft at insane speeds had form-fitting flight suits that gave them a little extra resistance to inertia. If I remember correctly it actually applied extra pressure to the body so organs didn't have as much room to move around, in a way making the human body a bit more 'solid.' But those suits were tailor-made to their exact body shape and the pilots had to maintain a constant weight with an error margin of no more than a couple of pounds.  That's kinda hard to do when you're Tony Stark: Party Animal. And G's in a military aircraft is just a Tilt-a-Whirl compared to what Iron Man does.

Flight g-suits are form fitting because they are designed to be inflated and squeeze the body in strategic areas.  The problem they are designed to mitigate is high-g grey out.  Under high positive g (accelerations that in effect push the pilot downward into their seats:  the kind commonly induced when pilots pull tight turns) the acceleration forces can in effect pull the blood out of the head causing blackouts.  By applying pressure to the extremities and the lower body the g-suits artificially increase blood pressure in those areas making it easier for blood to remain in the upper body and the head.

It is entirely possible that Tony Stark has some mechanism in the Iron Man armor to accomplish similar things.  But those g-loads are entirely irrelevant to the accelerations involved in high speed impacts.

Incidentally, the most dangerous g-loads a pilot can face are not positive g loads but negative g loads.  In other words, the kind that push upward relative to the pilot's seated position, which are the kinds of forces you might encounter if the pilot pushed forward on the control stick and tried to force his aircraft downward while still oriented normally (sky upward).  The problem is that you can squeeze the legs to force blood into the head.  You can't squeeze the head to force blood out of it.  The feeling of blood rushing into your head like when you stand on your head or even just bend over with your head downward is uncomfortable for most people.  Amplify that by several gs and you can actually cause damage to the brain.

[Noyjitat]

Since you are so convinced you're correct, then you can go invest all the years and effort required to make a CoH emu, and assume all the risks yourself, easy peasy.  Meanwhile, the rest of us will just sit here and wait.   

And you know what can do, Fill in the blank.

[Battlechimp]

   

Anyway, the main reason I ended up giving lightsaber tech a lot of thought is I was very close to making my own SW fanfilm at one point. We tried to learn as much as we could about sabers by analyzing the films and reading EU info from theForce.net. I don't like using something in a story without understanding exactly what it is and isn't capable of doing. We took note of how the blades reacted when contacting different alloys of differing thickness. We came up with an explanation for why the blades sometimes appear to fuse together, which also led to the conclusion that cross-guards were completely unnecessary because the blades NEVER slide against one another (and now you know which side of the Kylo saber debate I stand on). I like everything to have rules so there are no potential plot issues, and to prevent any kind of uncanny valley incidents, so we tried our darnedest to reverse-engineer all of it. It seems like most people just base their understanding of saber combat on personal experiences with the plastic toys.

While i do agree that building a crossguard on a lightsaber is a silly thing, There are a bunch of theories why he has that cross guard.  The best explanation I've seen is that it isn't actually a cross guard.  They're used as venting ports, or ways to bleed off excess energy, because its not constructed properly..  he hasn't been fully trained, and he's probably never seen a real working light saber, he's still refining it.

 If you look at the blade of Ren's saber, its edges are distorted .  This stands out a lot when you see him in the sword clinches when compared to Luke's old blue light saber.  It also has a different whooshing sound when he swings it than any other other lightsaber portrayed in previous movies, or again compared to Luke's in the same movie.  It also crackles when he's holding it still compared to the usual hum of other sabers.  All of this points to it not working as it should, and the extra "cross guard" is a way to keep the main blade from losing cohesion, or just to prevent the whole thing from blowing up in his hand.

That's been the best explination for why its there that I've seen.  And it does have back up in canon (in the clone War cartoon, whichhas been stated is considered canon) if improperly built, a light saber can explode when turned on.  And that the Force guides the Jedi in the construction of their saber.  So its easy to infer from that, that since Kylo isn't fully trained, he's had to add a way to stabilize his blade  by adding that to his design because he hasn't learned to fully connect with the Force

[LadyVamp]

Actually, guys.  I seem to remember an episode of junk yard wars where they had to build machines that would take the force that 2 rams put on each other when they headbutt.  Part of the show covered why 2 rams can headbutt hard and yet walk away without any apparent head trauma.   If I remember right, the upper skull and horns are honey combed in some fashion so that the pockets could absorb the impact and provide a way for the brain not to experience a hard stop.  Could have been bighorn sheep.

Human heels are like that as well I believe.  I do remember a guy at a construction site who fell off of a 2nd story and landed on his heels.  1 on dirt.  the other on concrete.  He was taken to the hospital where they find his heel was shattered on the inside.  They had to rake out what looked like match twigs from the inside of the heel.  I know they placed a screw in his heel to keep it together after they cleaned out the hollow space.  Of course this was the jobsite nurse telling me this.  Couldn't name the guy in question but explained the accident and what had to be done to give him relief.

Possible Iron Man's armor incorporates something like that.  In all honesty, I seriously doubt a single device, item, etc is responsible for allowing him to take such punishment.  Probably a combination of systems.

[slickriptide]

And you know what can do, Fill in the blank.

It's always easy to gamble with somebody else's time, money, and responsibility.

On a fairly tangentially related note: You know what makes me feel old? Today I received this in my email:

Hello slickriptide,

We at Free Realms Insider Forum would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

Free Realms has been gone for at least two years now. At this point, my gaming career is marked as much or more by the games I've lost than by the games I play.

City of Heroes - Gone.
Free Realms - Gone.
Matrix Online - Gone.
Tabula Rasa - Gone.
Earth and Beyond - Gone.
Sims Online - Gone.
Everquest Next - Canceled. Landmark may or may not make it to status of "published game".
Everquest Online Adventures - Gone.
Star Wars Galaxies - Gone
Auto Assault - Gone
Dungeon Runners - Gone
Fable Legends - Canceled
Warhammer Age of Reckoning - Gone

Meanwhile Age of Conan inexplicably continues to survive...

One thing that most of these games have in common is player base that still fondly remembers them. A handful have working emulators created by a few dedicated fans but most are simply gone and their remaining communities are not too different from this community. The organization of Titan and the dangling hope that NCSoft has unintentionally held out all these years is what makes the difference compared to the communities that simply reminisce about walking uphill both ways in the snow. Those that have some sort of community forum have their own visitors who drop by looking for an emu or offer to applaud someone else to do the work of making one but few involve someone with skill and drive offering to take the risk and the burden of responsibility.

I'm not going to categorically say we'll never have City of Heroes again, but I don't have any personal expectations of that ever happening.

You know what my birthday wish would be? Not that people attached to City of Heroes would give up that attachment, but that they pick one of the games out there that IS alive and that needs some life and some support and give it a try. You can't bring back CoH and you can't affect the process, if it ever happens, of NCSoft releasing the IP. What you can do is help a Pirates of the Burning Sea or a LOTRO or a Secret World or even a Dark Age of Camelot or an Age of Conan to stay alive for another day.

The death of the MMORPG is on the horizon, at least in the form that we've all known it. There are a lot of reasons for that, and while there will probably always be some coelacanth of a game out there somewhere, we are approaching the day when you may look back and say, "I wish I'd tried some of those games while there were still some games to try."