Anyone else think they got the condition of Earth wrong?

[The Nameless]

The Torus was, from the visuals, a massive superstructure entirely encircling the Earth. Its destruction didn't make it disappear, it reduced it to individual fragments that were each thousands of miles long.

How, exactly, is Earth still habitable? It only took one ten-mile chunk of rock and ice to kill off the dinosaurs. It's true that the segments of the Torus would've been moving far more slowly than the Chicxulub meteorite, but there were also a lot more of them and each one was immensely bigger.

To put it simply, Earth should be a half-melted cinder if even ONE of those bad boys came down. In this game they talk about losing a lot of credits, Earth's defenses being weakened, and some Terran citizens being killed, when they should be talking about genocidal insanity and the complete loss of mankind's birth world.

[Pathogenic]

The Torus, when it broke apart, was orbiting earth, and the velocity of its orbit was sufficient that when it broke up, the segments drifted into higher orbit. Subsequently over the years, I assume most of the remaining large fragments were recycled to make additional ships and stations.

[eMYNOCK]

The separation of the Torus Segments, wich was a fail-safe emergency Scenario by the way, did not lead to the Fragments falling down on Earth.

In Lore those Segments were designed as Lifeboats and were sent into higher Orbits, for rescue, salvage or later reassembly... aparently most Segments were just scrapped.

Relating the casulties on Terran side... there were little to no casulties on the Planet, those who died were Stationed on the Torus when those TWO argon Terrorists activated the separation Procedure.

[Dracon]

In my headcanon, some family member of Deliah's died on the Torus, that would explain why it sounds like she takes it more personal than just "it weakened Earth's defense".

[EPIC VOID]

They just "drifted into higher orbit"? That's not how orbital mechanics work. Orbital speed is mass independent, a breakup would not change the orbit.

[eMYNOCK]

Originally posted by Dracon:

In my headcanon, some family member of Deliah's died on the Torus, that would explain why it sounds like she takes it more personal than just "it weakened Earth's defense".

this is entirely possible, though.. it would have been ~40 Years ago in the lore.
cuz, when we start X4 its the Year 825 NewTime (2995 AD), the Torus was destroyed 778 NT (2948 AD) and the Gate Shutdown started around 780 NT (2952 AD).

Originally posted by EPIC VOID:

They just "drifted into higher orbit"? That's not how orbital mechanics work. Orbital speed is mass independent, a breakup would not change the orbit.

would you be happy with single use thrusters that accelerate and move an object into a relatively safe orbit with more than enough time to clean up the mess before it starts to fall down?

[EPIC VOID]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

would you be happy with single use thrusters that accelerate and move an object into a relatively safe orbit with more than enough time to clean up the mess before it starts to fall down?

I'm so hard to please, but today I make an exception and accept this explanation blissfully.

[eMYNOCK]

Originally posted by EPIC VOID:

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

would you be happy with single use thrusters that accelerate and move an object into a relatively safe orbit with more than enough time to clean up the mess before it starts to fall down?

I'm so hard to please, but today I make an exception and accept this explanation blissfully.

thank god.. because this is indeed the only explanation that is technically possible :)

[Daddy Shark]

Not so. If the Torus's rotational speed was above a certain threshold the centrifugal force on the station would cause the chunks to fling outward.

[Dracon]

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

Not so. If the Torus's rotational speed was above a certain threshold the centrifugal force on the station would cause the chunks to fling outward.

While it was clearly due to engine limitations... the docking part was actually static, so it had no rotation at all.

Jokes aside, I hope we get a chance to rebuild the Torus...
Maybe we could hire a certain female AI to defend the generator room next time... I heard she has Neurotoxin... Deadly Neurotoxin.
Any infiltrator will think twice before that.
No seriously though, Saya only managed to get there due to plot armor, that part would be heavily guarded...

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

The separation of the Torus Segments, wich was a fail-safe emergency Scenario by the way, did not lead to the Fragments falling down on Earth.

In Lore those Segments were designed as Lifeboats and were sent into higher Orbits, for rescue, salvage or later reassembly... aparently most Segments were just scrapped.

Relating the casulties on Terran side... there were little to no casulties on the Planet, those who died were Stationed on the Torus when those TWO argon Terrorists activated the separation Procedure.

Oh. Thanks for the explanation, that's been bothering the dickens out of me.

(I bought X3 but couldn't stand to play it for even five minutes because of the lack of cockpit visuals.)

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

Not so. If the Torus's rotational speed was above a certain threshold the centrifugal force on the station would cause the chunks to fling outward.

As the Torus would have to have been built at a stable orbit any breakup would most likely generate chunks travelling at various speeds. Some slower and therefore Earth bound decaying orbits... and some faster therefore escaping that balanced orbit for a higher orbit. It would be plausible for any Torus designers to build in safety factors to ensure most of any broken Torus heads for higher orbit allowing more time to repair or travel further afield, avoiding an Earth collision.

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

Originally posted by EPIC VOID:

I'm so hard to please, but today I make an exception and accept this explanation blissfully.

thank god.. because this is indeed the only explanation that is technically possible :)

Technically possible, but not an improvement. Thrusters would, by definition, have to be pointing DOWN... and as powerful as they'd have to be, you might as well detonate multi-teraton nuclear weapons all over the Earth. Or just let the Torus fall. Shattered crust or melted wasteland, there really isn't a good choice here.

What I had in mind was a massive gravitational system built into the Torus and a matching one on the surface. Also single use; the power surge would pretty much melt it down into scrap and burn out the power grids on Earth and the Torus alike, but by having a matching surge in both places, you could fling the Torus outwards without breaking Earth like an egg.

As to "technically possible", well, not with today's technology, but game lore has us a) walking instead of floating and b) not wearing magnetic boots, ergo game lore already contains gravity manipulation. This is just a mega-scale version of it.

[EPIC VOID]

Originally posted by The Nameless:

Technically possible, but not an improvement. Thrusters would, by definition, have to be pointing DOWN...

Huh? To reach an higher orbit you need to increase the orbital velocity. That means you need to have the thruster directed tangential to the orbit, or if you will "horizontally" and not "down". See Hohmann-Transfer.

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by EPIC VOID:

Originally posted by The Nameless:

Technically possible, but not an improvement. Thrusters would, by definition, have to be pointing DOWN...

Huh? To reach an higher orbit you need to increase the orbital velocity. That means you need to have the thruster directed tangential to the orbit, or if you will "horizontally" and not "down". See Hohmann-Transfer.

To reach a higher STABLE orbit yeah. Which would be nice, except that you're now pointing your thrusters into another Torus segment. This has two effects leading to one devastation conclusion:

1, and probably the most annoying, is obviously the damage that these incredibly high-power thrusters are now doing to relatively delicate things like hull plates and those annoying little humans that get in their way.

2, because each segment is also absorbing the momentum of the thrust from the next segment down the line, and thanks to the curvature of the Torus NOT just canceling out the thrust but rather applying it in an angular fashion, when we get to our...

Conclusion: Instead of a nice clean acceleration into a higher orbit, your Torus segments fire high power thrusters into each other in a bizarre dance of self-destruction that results in massive internal damage beyond anything you could conceivably armor them against, as well as a chaotic end-over-end tumble for each segment, blasting debris in all directions in the process and probably vaporizing most of the hapless inhabitants and crushing the rest under lethal G-forces.

Meaning that, whether you're using thrusters or my gravity idea, simply shoving the segments away from Earth on an unstable but distant eccentric orbit is, although sloppy and essentially short-term, still adequate to keep impending doom at bay long enough for you to do something more organized about it.

[EPIC VOID]

Originally posted by The Nameless:

(...)

Meaning that, whether you're using thrusters or my gravity idea, simply shoving the segments away from Earth on an unstable but distant eccentric orbit is, although sloppy and essentially short-term, still adequate to keep impending doom at bay long enough for you to do something more organized about it.

Ah I see. This is why you need thrusters with the destructive potential of "multi-teraton nuclear weapon", because you do want to burn energy in a most pointless and inefficient maneuver. I also understand now that you can't push them a little apart to clear the trajectory before acceleration, because the X universe is more or less flat. :-) My bad.