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Void shields and the warp did it. The spaceship might be ok with hitting the planet. I wouldn't want to be on the planet hit... but the ship and void technology isn't sufficient explained to rule out a ship crashing on planet not be servicable. Not in the sense its ready for a fleet action; merely in the engines still work enough...
Scientists may not know the capabilities of such a starship but they do know the effects of an object that size impacting a planet at that sort of velocity. Ask the dinosaurs!

You do remember they decided to drop that theory and just go with "unknown calamity" right?

Scientists may not know the capabilities of such a starship but they do know the effects of an object that size impacting a planet at that sort of velocity. Ask the dinosaurs!

You do remember they decided to drop that theory and just go with "unknown calamity" right?

 

I'm not aware of the theory being disproved but are you suggesting that the impact of a massive object at high velocity would not have any effect on the planet?

The theory wasn't disproven. It's been left alone because of the simple fact that if we evolved from dinosaurs, and those dinosaurs were wiped out, what would we evolve from? So it's being dropped for theories like "super predators", "unknown cataclysm" and "Darwinism".

 

 

And no, I'm not denying what an object that size might do to a planet. Actually, I'd figure that it might do something worse than what most people think simply because it longer, wider and taller than any city I've ever heard of and not to mention all of the empty space that normally exists between buildings is filled.

 

No, my bit is that everyone seems to automatically not what might happen, but what will happen to the ship after it crashes when one, what technology we do know of is theoretical, and the known technology is a small percentage of the ship's actual technology.

Each to their own. For me personally I felt my suspension of disbelief head for the exits when both the Red Tear and the continent survived the impact. When it took off again I just laughed. I'm not sure if this was a pre-existing bit of fluff or if Swallow made the whole thing up but it frankly sucked.
No one had a problem with A-D-B firing a couple of missiles into the center of a moon, blowing up said missiles in said center of the moon and all the debris heading in one direction instead of outwards. But as soon as a starship that is supposed to be capable of withstanding multiple(as in hundreds) nuclear impacts and detonations, it's a problem.

 

Actually, you kind of hit the nail on the head without intentionally doing so. This is all made up, so in the end the argument can be made for or against I suppose. But like you said people didn't have a problem with A-DB's explanation of events but they do find this particular situation unbelievable. That means, in all the made up crazy stuff that is 40K novels, this was one of those instances that readers second guessed.

 

And that is all that really matters, we are the critics and we find it somewhat unbelievable (more so for some, than others). Science does not have to disprove or vindicate what happened, because it's already fake. But as readers, we decide what we like or not. We don't like it - to us it seems unbelievable. We can all agree to disagree.

I'm certainly not telling you to stop discussing theoretical sciences of the 30,000s though. Unlike others, I found a way to rationalize it, even if it is unbelievable. It definitely did not ruin the book for me - or was more of a "Really?!?!?" sorta moment and then it passed.
if we evolved from dinosaurs, and those dinosaurs were wiped out, what would we evolve from?

 

Actually we did not evolve from dinosaurs - birds did, but not humans. IIRC, we come from small crappy mammals, personally I'm pretty sure the Necrontyr have something to do with it.

 

The Red Tear taking off again at the end of the book was one of the biggest :D moments in all the HH books I've read (which is, almost all of them). But so was also the NL episode mentioned by Kol_Saresk (blowing up a cruiser by targeting the moon), no more no less. *shrug* life goes on, though

I believe it is we can from mammals that came from the ocean that came from dinosaurs who lived in the ocean who originally came from land and started out in the ocean as primordial ooze. Or something like that. I stopped paying attention when science said that pig organs can be transplanted in a human body but chimpanzee organs can't and the chimpanzee is our closest "relative" and we stop being related to pigs as soon as you hit "Mammalia".

 

Anyway, back to the story!

The Red Tear lifting off from the planet wasn't that hard to wrap my head around.

 

Let's pause and reflect on what we know of M31-32 Imperial technology:

 

1) They synthesize gravity within the bounds of a starship. This is likely done with repulsor tech of some sort, like that used by the Land Speeders. It is also likely that these vessels employ repulsor technology in other ways throughout the ship.

2) They appear to have some sort of inertial dampening fields, akin to Star Trek, in order to keep the unmodified humans from pulping during maneuvers.

3) Despite losing shields, there are still fields maintained in critical areas. Again, these are likely structural integrity fields, akin to those which allow Star Trek ships to look all elegant and such, and still take as much of a beating as a more "burly" ship.

4) On top of all this, these ships have hull armor for days, particularly the one-off designs, like the Red Tear. They're not just works of art, they're also technological marvels which cannot be repeated.

 

Taking these four things into account, you dial up structural integrity, maybe bleed extra power from the auxiliaries and inertial dampeners into them, bring the main engines and all thrusters online, and overtax the repulsors (whether they're built-into the ship or were strapped on to reduce the weight of the vessel through anti-grav) to diminish weight/mass of the Tear, and maybe, maybe the thing gets off planet.

 

By the same token, cranking structural integrity to the max and mucking with the configurations on the void shields and inertial dampeners might have somehow aided in the ship surviving de-orbit and touchdown on the planet. The mountain-strike mid-descent is external armor and possible hull damage (again, mitigated by voids (if present) and structural integrity (which if I were in the command chair, I'd have shunted every volt and amp toward the moment I knew we'd hit atmo)), but probably wouldn't have destroyed the vessel itself. The crash itself might have been more controlled than was described. I mean, if this thing did have repulsors built-in, then those could come online as an emergency measure and at least partially reduce mass and or rate of approach to the surface, possibly allowing for a dramatic but comparatively "soft" landing, instead of the "meteoric impact" idea put forth from the real (and correct) physics folks previous to my post.

 

What I've not delved into (because there's so little info on it) is what the frame of the ship is constructed of, what the external hull armor is composed of, and the like, which (again) could have had a lot to do with whether the ship could potentially survive or had no chance of surviving, and could regain gravitic freedom from the planet or not, simply due to mass, flexibility of material, etc.

 

As for the planet itself...well, I'd imagine it was pretty inhospitable after the crash, let alone after they got the Tear back into orbit. That much mass going back into space is a shedload of exhaust from engines that were never supposed to spew exhaust gasses into an atmosphere...

That's all very well but you have to remember that the crew was almost entirely dead or insane and that the Captain (Admiral) had destroyed the controls of the ship. So unless all this was done on automatic (in which case, why did the ship even bother with a crew?) then I think we're left with an effectively uncontrolled descent through the atmosphere (and a mountain range) at a fairly significant fraction of lightspeed with no real options to manage the intertial dampers, void shields, structural integrity fields or even the windscreen wipers!

 

When you add all that lot up is spells KABOOM! for both ship and continent.

Wouldn't be the first time we saw a Priamrch do something impossible. Like Angron being buried under a pile of rocks and throwing it off like it was a teddy bear. Magnus wrestling with Tzeentch(On the eldar planet), the Lion creating a psychic forcefield, Curze and Corax turning invisible and a few other things. Why not have a twelve foot tall who not only has wings, but is actually able to deny physics and fly and can also see the future, hold a futuristic ship built with unknown materials and technology together with his sheer will? Besides, don't warships usually have some sort of auxiliary command center?
Having just reread the relevant section I can cofirm that no mention is made of any auxiliary bridge or control room, that void shields were not working, thrusters were dead and that gravity control was not sufficient to halt or significantly slow the decent. The only reason it survived the crash was that the Angel told it to. So that's okay then...
Having just reread the relevant section I can cofirm that no mention is made of any auxiliary bridge or control room, that void shields were not working, thrusters were dead and that gravity control was not sufficient to halt or significantly slow the decent. The only reason it survived the crash was that the Angel told it to. So that's okay then...

 

Sorry for giving some explanations, even under current military technology, every military ship (and very under the size of the Red Tear) has an auxiliary bridge and every systems onboard is doubled (only for economic reasons sometimes there is no tertiary system). With automatic systems every subsection can override bridge controls in case of emergency (when the communication link is broken, you don't have to wait for additional orders).

Remember the Red Tear is made as a battle ship, so the Mars Priest (or other engineers) made it with the idea to receive a lot of damage. So it would be unbelievable to be built without backup or even tertiary systems. An author doesn't give every detail in a story.

 

It's science fiction not real stories...

I believe it is we can from mammals that came from the ocean that came from dinosaurs who lived in the ocean who originally came from land and started out in the ocean as primordial ooze. Or something like that. I stopped paying attention when science said that pig organs can be transplanted in a human body but chimpanzee organs can't and the chimpanzee is our closest "relative" and we stop being related to pigs as soon as you hit "Mammalia".

 

Had to come out of lurking to correct the confusion you seem to be in, there.

 

Mammals arose from Synapsids, or 'Mammal-like reptiles', who by 65,000,000BC had been largely extinct for millionms of years (the echidna and platypus come close). The synapsids were never dinosaurs, though they shared a common ancestor. Mammalian life can be traced through the fossil record, blossoming after the end of the Meozoic era to fill the evolutionary gap left by dinosaurs. Dinosaurs in turn are merely a clade of reptiles that can be mainly distinguished by the structure of their leg-joints (i.e: They had legs that went under their bodies, as opposed to the side as seen in modern reptiles). Generally speaking the meteor impact theory is the best theory we have, and there are few better explanations. The meteor theory is also backed by geological evidence, and most studies conducted hold it to be the most reasonable one. By the sounds of it, you never actually paid attention in the first place. :angry:

 

But on topic, I think the best thing to do when reading any piece of Black Library stories is to remember that the one universal law uniting all 40k fiction is the Rule of Cool. Does the idea of a massive space ship crash landing onto a planet seem cool? Yes. Does the idea of that space ship taking off again, engines burning, seem totally awesome? Yes.

 

Therefore these things are possible.

I believe it is we can from mammals that came from the ocean that came from dinosaurs who lived in the ocean who originally came from land and started out in the ocean as primordial ooze. Or something like that. I stopped paying attention when science said that pig organs can be transplanted in a human body but chimpanzee organs can't and the chimpanzee is our closest "relative" and we stop being related to pigs as soon as you hit "Mammalia".

Seems like I wasn't the only one not paying attention. ;)

 

 

On topic, there is a massive amount of explanations as to why this could(n't) work from futuristic, unknown technology to physics to redundancy systems to "the Rule of Cool" to oh so many more.

 

The only thing we can accept is that 40k(and by extension, 30k) is based on the (as of yet)impossible happening. It's a place of miracles, both good and bad, where dreams come true and nightmares stalk the streets at night. Where the thing that go bump in the night aren't the scariest things out there: it's what makes them go "bump" that you should be worried about. It can be rule of cool, it can be theorizing, or it can be factual evidence(although if you have recorded evidence of a spaceship crashing into a planet, I want the next ship).

Every time I encounter something that in a Horus Heresy novel that makes no sense I just put the book down and repeat:

 

"Warp Sorcery. An Alpha Legion conspiracy. Roboute Guilliman's LOGISTICAL GENIUS!" until the urge to bang my head against the wall goes away. The only one this didn't help with was Deliverance Lost.

Every time I encounter something that in a Horus Heresy novel that makes no sense I just put the book down and repeat:

 

"Warp Sorcery. An Alpha Legion conspiracy. Roboute Guilliman's LOGISTICAL GENIUS!" until the urge to bang my head against the wall goes away. The only one this didn't help with was Deliverance Lost.

Ironically.

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