The Alderaan Planetary Shield Falsehood
[Editor's note: this page claims that the Alderaan planetary shield (which is the only way to explain why the "superlaser glow" shoots all the way around the planet at a substantial fraction of c before any material is hurled away from the impact point) cannot possibly exist because planetary shields are only mentioned in Lucasfilm-sanctioned "fanboy novels" and therefore don't count; in other words, as usual, he uses his "Canon Policy" as an excuse to accuse others of being liars]
Anderson here contends that the Special Edition of Star Wars: A New Hope disproves the existence of a planetary shield around the planet, however this is not true. An analysis of Anderson's own screen-shots, provided for this very page, clearly demonstrates that energy in the form of light moved in a curving line. This is observable. Examine the picture of Alderaan immediately after the Death Star superlaser strikes something, creating a flash of light. Light can be seen to have moved over the horizon of the planet, as shown by the now visible area beyond the previous terminator of the planet. This observed luminescence, coupled with the unaffected oceans beneath the blast, is inexplicable unless a planetary shield is added into the evaluation, because energy in the form of light cannot curve that much in a habitable planet's atmosphere.
Additionally, the Alderaan shield fully explains the characteristics of the planet’s destruction, except for the mysterious equatorial rings, when combined with DET theory. This lends credence to the theory that a shield exists, because it becomes useful in explaining other observed phenomena.
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CLASSIC EDITION [Editor's note: classic-edition Alderaan blast, showing how the seething, roiling energy has conducted around Alderaan, covering more than 10,000 km in about 1/10 second. Note that no debris is flying away from the impact point yet, hence the obvious conclusion that it is conducting around a shield rather than moving destructively through the bulk of the planet itself] |
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SPECIAL EDITION [Editor's note: Special-Edition Alderaan blast, roughly same timeframe. For some reason, RSA feels that this version "removes from canon what used to be support for the Alderaan shield". Oddly enough, the same effects (enormously fast conduction around planet, no debris being thrown away from the points of impact) are still visible, so one must wonder what has been "removed". In fact, if anything it's cleaner, and it's even more obvious that the incredibly rapid conduction of energy around the planet is not matched by any explosion of debris from the impact point] |